Free Republic

The youth pastor once charged with sex abuse is sharing his story. It’s the first time he’s said anything publically since the charge was dismissed in court. Clayton Pruett says he’s been fighting to get his name and reputation back. He says he knows it won’t be the same, but he is out to prove that he did nothing wrong. His family is behind him and he wants people to know how serious it is when allegations of sex abuse are brought to police. Pruett says he believes the teen and her mother brought the charge against him to get...

Our Constitution is one of our greatest assets in the fight against terrorism. A free-flowing marketplace of ideas, protected by the First Amendment, enables the ideals of democracy to defeat the totalitarian vision of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. That free marketplace faces a threat. Individuals with alleged connections to terrorist activity are filing libel suits and winning judgments in foreign courts against American researchers who publish on these matters. These suits intimidate and even silence writers and publishers. Under American law, a libel plaintiff must prove that defamatory material is false. In England, the burden is reversed. Disputed...

Democrats also falsely accused of crimes at Obama’s official Web site We are not attorneys, and we are not qualified to give legal advice. We know, however, that a false accusation of a crime is automatically libel under U.S. law. ...Furthermore, while it is harder to libel a public figure than a private citizen or corporation, it is not impossible. A member of Congress could probably, for example, sue someone who falsely and maliciously accused him of taking a bribe or committing some other crime. We are not going to re-post the specific libelous material that pervades Barack Obama’s official...

It has now been two days since we filed an explicit report of libelous content at My.BarackObama.com, which is under the editorial control of the official Obama campaign. There is no question as to whether the entry is libelous, because it levies a false accusation of a crime against an identifiable person (corporate or individual). We are not attorneys but we know that a false accusation of a crime is automatically libel; that is, the plaintiff does not even have to prove that he or it was damaged.As of today (July 10, 12:25 EST) the libelous material is still present....

We previously reported that Barack Obama’s user site, my.barackobama.com (aka MyBO) is under the editorial control of Obama’s staff. Moderators and administrators can and do decide what content is acceptable. They can and do delete content and terminate accounts for “objectionable” and “disrespectful” content. They have, however, failed to act on at least one report of libelous content–a false accusation of criminal activity that is directed at an individual or corporate “person.” As of today (July 9), the libelous material is still present despite being reported to the administrators yesterday morning (July 8).(Screen shot of objectionable material report) In other...

Judge Richard J. McAdams of the California Court of Appeal wrote yesterday, in Tendler v. www.jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com (unpublished), so I thought I'd pass it along: Attention anonymous Internet posters and bloggers: this court has good news and bad news for those of you who engage in nontortious discourse [i.e., in this context, speech that isn't libelous -EV]. The good news, announced earlier this year: your message will be protected by the First Amendment and your identity will be protected by the court quashing a third-party subpoena, unless the requesting party can make a prima facie showing of defamation. (Krinsky v. Doe...

Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate. He has a PhD in mathematics and worked as a climate modeller, but those accomplishments don't explain his influence ...~~snip~~ But Connolley is a big shot on Wikipedia ... William Connolley's opinions ... count for a great deal at Wikipedia, even though some might not think them particularly worthy of note. "It is his view that there is a consensus in the scientific community about climate change topics such as global warming, and that the various reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on...

... When talking about the creationists to people who don’t follow these controversies closely, I have found that the hardest thing to get across is the shifty, low-cunning aspect of the whole modern creationist enterprise. Individual creationists can be very nice people, though they get nicer the further away they are from the full-time core enterprise of modern creationism at the Discovery Institute. The enterprise as a whole, however, really doesn’t smell good. You notice this when you’re around it a lot. I shall give some more examples in a minute; but what accounts for all this dishonesty and misrepresentation?...

The classic blood libel accuses a religious group of using human blood for its rituals. The most infamous is the accusation that Jews used the blood of Christian babies to make matzoh (unleavened bread), although early Christians also were falsely accused of drinking human blood. It is quite likely that Roman emperors like Nero and Diocletian picked up on the Mass, in which wine stands in for the blood of Jesus, as a premise for this blood libel. In general, however, a blood libel is a vicious false accusation whose purpose is to incite ferocious hatred of a religion, ethnic...

Obama Blogger says McCain should “pay a deserved visit to the undertaker.” Obama blogs blood libel U.S. and Israel. Every voter over sixty or so needs to see this, and we encourage our readers to copy and circulate this piece. We have also added a list of anti-American and/or anti-Israel blood libels from Obama’s campaign site and his hate-spewing pastor. Key talking points are as follows: (1) my.barackobama.com is under the editorial control of the Obama campaign. (2) The page in question has a link for reporting objectionable material. Either no one in the Obama community felt that a suggestion...

I had lunch today in Manhattan with an obviously nervous Rachel Ehrenfeld in Manhattan. It was getting down to the wire on the NYS legislature passing the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” or “Rachel’s Law” as we have come to call it. And so they did following resolution of the annual budget. Watch this YouTube video of Queens Democratic Assemblyman and bill co-sponsor, Rory Lancman casting his affirmative vote for the important measure. This is a victory for all Americans because as Rachel said ‘this is about the First Amendment that all Americans should support’. We discussed next steps should the...

Billionaire leverages harsher libel rules to suppress unflattering book NEW YORK - Rachel Ehrenfeld writes about terrorism for a living. But now she is the one who feels targeted. Her modest midtown Manhattan apartment is filled to the ceiling with books, most having to do with global terror networks and Mideast conflict. Sitting at her desk, she gazes out at the Hudson River. She says she has a hard time placing her work. She says she has been blacklisted. If she travels to England, she fears she will be arrested. "I feel like a leper," she said. Ehrenfeld faces a...

<p>WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.</p> <p>A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.</p>

New York's highest court has passed up an opportunity to protect American authors from the libel judgments of foreign courts. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Court of Appeals in Albany told a New York-based researcher that she could not use the courts here to challenge a British judgment ordering her to pay 30,000 British pounds — more than $60,000 — for defaming a Saudi billionaire. The case was a test of how New York's courts will respond to concerns that the First Amendment rights of American authors are undermined by libel judgments imposed abroad, especially in Britain. Libel...

By Tamara Gibbs DURHAM -- In a filing Tuesday in Federal Court, unindicted Duke Lacrosse players are suing Duke University, the City of Durham, Duke University professors, Mike Nifong and the DNA lab involved in the case. The suit also names doctors and nurses who treated the alleged victim the night she claimed she'd been raped at a party. The players are also suing City Manager Patrick Baker and former Durham Police Chief Stephen Chalmers. As part of the investigation, the unindicted players had to give up DNA samples and were named in the school paper. In the 404-page lawsuit,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― A former girls' basketball coach wrongly accused of sexual assault has settled with the city of San Marino for $2.1 million. Patrick Gillan sued the city of San Marino and several of its police offers nearly six years ago for defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotion distress and malicious prosecution, court documents say. In 2001 a police officer suggested at a news conference that Gillan might have molested several girls. Gillan was arrested but released an hour later and never charged. He was reinstated in 2002 but eventually resigned. In 2005, the jury awarded...

From an email sent from Hillyer to CNN Senior Producer Melissa Dunst Lipman, obtained by FishbowlDC: Dear Ms. Lipman: I write to register strenuous objections to your highly unprofessional hit piece last night (Broken Government -- "Campaign Killers," hosted by Campbell Brown ) against David Bossie and Citizens United, and to demand an on-air retraction of part of it, along with corrections made in any future showings. In particular, if a retraction of the defamatory words "fringe militia" is not offered publicly by CNN, and soon, I will advise Mr. Bossie to consider legal action. All of us here at...

Media Bloggers Unite by: Bethany Stotts, November 15, 2007 Blogging has increased dramatically over the last few years, marked by proportionate increases in lawsuits. The alleged dangers of internet anonymity prompted Forbes writer, Victoria Murphy Barret, to write in her October article “Anonymity & the Internet” that “Today the Net still protects the abused and the disenfranchised...But it also shields creeps, criminals and pedophiles. It emboldens the mean-spirited and offers them a huge audience for spewing hatred and libel.” Libel remains the largest reason for all reported blog-related lawsuits, followed by privacy, copyright disputes, and harassment, noted Robert Cox, President...

October 7, 2007 Op-Ed Columnist I Did Do It By MAUREEN DOWD Washington O.K., folks, you want the truth? The whole truth and nothing but? After all this time, you’re still dying to see the mystery solved? Fine. I did it. Everything A. said — let’s just use the initial because it’s still hard for me to speak the name of my victim and tormentor — was true. I did what I had to do and I didn’t care if it ruined A.’s life. I didn’t even care if people thought it was obscene. I knew I was misusing my...

Planned Parenthood Sued Today for Libelous Statements Against Pro-Life Advocates Maximum damages sought on behalf of protesters in Aurora accused of advocating violence AURORA, IL, October 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In Kane County District Court this morning, a libel lawsuit was filed against Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area (PP/CA), its CEO and Director Steve Trombley, and Gemini Office Development LLC, based on a letter sent to Aurora's Mayor and Aldermen and released to the press and one or more advertisements that PP/CA placed in the Aurora Beacon News accusing those who oppose their facility as having "a well-documented history of violence and...

Poll: Soldiers Questioning The War Is Rush Limbaugh right to question Soldiers who don't support the war in Iraq? Yes, troops should not ask questions - 23% No, it's O.K. to question the war - 77%

Good evening, gentlemen and ladies of America. I speak to you tonight as a patriot, and believe me, I do love our country and honor the servicemen fighting in foreign theatres of war. The plan we are currently pursuing in the theatres of Europe and the Pacific are clearly not working. The President, the generals and soldiers serving in the field may believe the mission is being accomplished, but the results show otherwise.Our President's foolish behavior in provoking our European enemies started by his signing of the "Lend Lease" bill back in 1941. Instead of trying to negotiate with...

Democratic congressional leaders and the party's presidential candidates yesterday refused to repudiate a liberal group's ad questioning Gen. David H. Petraeus' character. Capitol Hill Democrats rejected a call for votes in both chambers to condemn the attack newspaper ad, run by MoveOn.org, saying Republicans are trying to take attention off what they call the president's failed Iraq policy. Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the California Democrat "wished [MoveOn.org] wouldn't have done that ad," but declined to comment further. A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, also declined to comment on the...

NEW YORK A couple who wrote a letter to the editor of a small community paper in Colorado were surprised to receive a threatening phone call at home complaining about it -- from a U.S. congressman. Rep. Doug Lamborn left two voice mails after they questioned his acceptance of campaign contributions from the gambling industry. In one he said there would be "consequences" if the couple did not respond. In his messages, reprinted by the Denver Post today, Lamborn appeal to them as "brothers and sisters in Christ" and asked them to call him to discuss their "blatantly false" letter....

In a frontpage article in the Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post entitled "Drinking. Brawling. Hurting.", a leftist anti-Bush Yale anthropologist graduate, Sarah Stillman, paints a picture of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center abusing alcohol at Washington, D.C. area nightclubs to indict the Bush administration and the war on terror.Readers would not know Stillman is a Bush-hating leftist by reading The Post's description of her: Sarah Stillman, a 2006 Yale graduate, is a Marshall Scholar writing a doctoral thesis on gender, violence and the media.However, her 2005 Huffington Post profile describers her thusly: Sarah Stillman is a...

Washington Post columnist, Sarah Stillman, has penned the sort of pretentious column that is blind for its self-indulgence and foolishly extrapolates the author's singular experience as one ubiquitous or as a universal representation of our soldier's lives once back in the states. In this case, Stillman seems to imagine that the Iraq war has made all our returning soldiers drug addicts, drunks, and social outcasts. Worse, she naively seems to imagine that no returning soldiers in history have ever experienced such difficulties returning to "normal life" once back from war's jarring experience, or at the very least today's soldiers have...

Richard A. Jewell (December 17, 1962–August 29, 2007) Matt Drudge describes Richard Jewell as the man the media murdered. The hyperbolic headline overstates what happened; Jewell actually died of severe diabetes. But Drudge could fairly report that Jewell got victimized by malicious, condescending hatred on the part of a patronizing, elitist media. Jewell became a part of the nation’s conscience during the tragedy-marred 1996 Summer Olympics. He worked the event as a security guard and was on duty at Centennial Olympic Park at 1:21 A.M. on 27 July 1996. Jewell had just done everything in his power to prevent the...

Asterisk Free Libertarianism (The Solution Ron Paul Missed) http://www.libertyreborn.com/2007/08/24/asterisk-free-libertarianism-the-solution-ron-paul-missed/ Well, it was predictable.   The talking points used by supporters of Ron Paul (i.e. Paulbots, Paulites, etc.) have now changed.You can always tell when the marching orders are given to a group by the sudden shift in the common language they use to refer to a certain situation.  It’s like when Rush Limbaugh compiles montages of several media types from different organizations all using the exact same (and often obscure) term or description for an event.  You know there was a memo sent out somewhere.Well the same thing has happened...

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA STEVEN J. HATFILL, M.D., : : Plaintiff, : : Civil Action No. 03-1793 (RBW) v. : : ALBERTO GONZALES, et al., : : Defendants. : ________________________________ MEMORANDUM OPINION Currently before the Court is the plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Further Testimony from Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Allan Lengel, Toni Locy, and James Stewart [D.E. # 157]. Also before the Court are several motions to quash subpoenas by1 various media companies: American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post, and Newsweek, Inc.’s Motion to Quash [D.E. # 152]; Motion by...

A service offering a complete "revenge package" in which people can destroy the financial status and relationships of their enemies at the click of a mouse is being offered over the Internet. For as little as $20 a month, customers of the confidentialaccess.com Web site can make the credit ratings of people they dislike plummet, and even have them suspected of fraud...

Wikipedia: Israel Maintains Illegal Occupation, Brutal Apartheid By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ---- August 3 ..... Wikipedia, the so-called free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is again attacking Israel with libel and slander equal only to racist comments made by Iran, Syria, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and Hamas. Wikipedia, which has been thrown out of almost every university and every major news organization as a credible source, states that the residents of city of Tayibe (Taibeh or Tayiba) live under "illegal Israel occupation and brutal apartheid control." What Wikipedia does not state is that the residents of Tayibe frequent...

Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a U.S. Army private serving in Iraq. He came to THE NEW REPUBLIC's attention through Elspeth Reeve, a TNR reporter-researcher, whom he later married. Over the course of the war, we have tried to provide our readers with a sense of Iraq as it is seen by the troops. Usually, these stories have been written by journalists who have traveled to Iraq and interviewed soldiers there, but last January Beauchamp sent us a first-person vignette that seemed a powerful contribution to the genre. It told the story of a young Iraqi boy who befriended American troops...

<p>I received an e-mail today from the Fox News producer who booked me for the O'Reilly Factor last night. The links have been forwarded to Jim Robinson for review.</p> <p>Jim asked me to start a thread with the links so that Freepers, and everyone else, could see for themselves what the fuss is about.</p>

Plaintiff Was Called 'Person of Interest' Lawyers for former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill urged a judge yesterday to order several journalists to disclose the names of law enforcement sources who leaked details of the investigation of Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged in the attacks, in which five people were killed and 17 were sickened by anthrax bacteria mailed in envelopes. In a lawsuit, he accuses the Justice Department of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the news media information about the FBI's investigation of him. To help...

Eugenic Darwinism by: Wendy Cook, June 04, 2007 Charles Darwin is partly to blame for eugenics, according to Discovery Institute senior fellow John West. Merriam-Webster’s defines eugenics as “a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.” Darwin said that because of our sense of compassion we couldn’t simply follow the dictates of reason and get rid of the unfit, “but he certainly provided the logical basis for why we should do so and later the eugenicists quoted this passage and they weren’t quoting it out of context,...

Send your picture to The New York Times and show them that you are not unwashed rednecks! Or simply tell them “I’m against amnesty and I have my teeth!” 229 West 43rd Street. New York, NY 10036 public@nytimes.com, nytnews@nytimes.com, managing-editor@nytimes.com or call: 1-888-698-6397, 212-556-7652

Pursuing a libel or slander suit has long been a dangerous enterprise. Oscar Wilde sued the father of his young lover Alfred Douglas for having referred to him as a "posing Somdomite" and wound up not only dropping his case but being tried, convicted and jailed for violating England's repressive laws banning homosexual conduct. Alger Hiss sued Whittaker Chambers for slander for accusing Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party with Chambers, and of illegally passing secret government documents to him for transmission to the Soviet Union. In the end, Hiss was jailed for perjury for having denied...

The problems started in December 2005, when several students from Pennsylvania's Hickory High School posted fake MySpace profiles about their principal, Eric Trosch. All of the posts were mean-spirited; they accused Trosch of using steroids, marijuana, and alcohol; suggested that he had sex with students; and said that his interests included "Transgender, Appreciators of Alcoholic Beverages." In the year and a half since the four separate profiles were posted, the community has experienced the upheaval of multiple lawsuits, the most recent coming this week as Trosch sued the students involved. The entire story is sordid and a bit ridiculous....

A judge threw out a libel suit this week against one of Minnesota's most popular conservative bloggers, issuing a ruling that put the political Web site on the same legal ground as newspapers and broadcast news outlets. Michael Brodkorb, a political operative behind the site minnesotademocratsexposed .com, expressed relief at the dismissal. "I think this goes back to what I said from the beginning, that this was a frivolous lawsuit, and the court agreed with me," he said. "I'm glad that it's over." St. Paul-based public relations executive Blois Olson sued Brodkorb in January 2006. The suit centered on a...

The Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit has been dismissed in a Summary Judgment. Here's the Docket entry which appeared today (January 12, 2007): ORDER It appearing to the Court that Dft's Motion for Summary Judgment should be granted, it is hereby ORDERED that this matter be STRICKEN from this Court's trial docket. An appropriate Memorandum Opinion and Order shall issue. Signed by Judge Claude M. Hilton on 1/12/07. Copies sent. (tarm, ) (Entered: 01/12/2007) Conspiracy theorists should line up in three lines and restrict themselves to no more than 5 theories per person. Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Lawyers for a former Army scientist suing The New York Times for libel said Friday that an editor at the paper warned columnist Nicholas Kristof to remove incriminating passages from a column that raised suspicions that Steven Hatfill was involved in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Kristof left the passages in the May 2002 column despite the warning, said lawyers for Hatfill, who claims that a series of Kristof columns that year falsely implicated him as the culprit in the anthrax mailings that left five people dead. The editor's warning to Kristof was voiced in an e-mail uncovered...

Court Allows Suit Against Air America Tuesday January 2, 5:24 pm ET Bankruptcy Court Allows Lawsuit Against Air America to Proceed WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government contractor CACI International Inc. has won bankruptcy court approval to proceed with its defamation lawsuit against liberal talk radio network Air America and one of its hosts, Randi Rhodes. A federal bankruptcy court in New York ruled Thursday that the case could proceed despite the fact that Air America has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Under federal law, legal proceedings against a company are frozen when the company declares bankruptcy. CACI International asked the...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Websites that publish inflammatory information written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The ruling in favour of free online expression was a victory for a San Diego woman who was sued by two doctors for posting an allegedly libelous e-mail on two websites. Some of the Internet's biggest names, including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., EBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., took the defendant's side out of concern a ruling against her would expose them to liability. In reversing an appellate court's decision, the state...

In a victory for bloggers, newsgroup participants and other Web publishers, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that individual Internet users cannot be held liable for republishing defamatory statements written by others. The unanimous ruling appears to be the first to make clear that a 1996 law called the Communications Decency Act protects not only providers, but also users of online services who redistribute content. Earlier court rulings had established that Section 230 of that statute shields companies such as AOL and eBay from such liability, provided that they make good faith efforts to restrict access to material that could...

SAN JOSE Web sites that publish inflammatory information written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. The ruling in favor of free online expression was a victory for a San Diego woman who was sued by two doctors for posting an allegedly libelous e-mail on two Web sites. Some of the Internet's biggest names, including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., eBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., took the defendant's side out of concern a ruling against her would expose them to liability. In reversing an appellate court's decision, the state Supreme...

Every year an anonymous settler would damage olive trees in Kfar Salem grove. Since they did not know his name, village called him Gideon. But this year, IDF is keeping the settlers away and harvest is underway In recent years the main concern of the farmers from the village of Salem near Nablus was a settler they christened as Gideon. They didn't know who he was, but every year he would come to the olive groves, wreak havoc on them and assault Palestinian farmers. Most of the harvesting on Tuesday was done inside the village as access to the grounds...

PARIS (Reuters) - Broadcaster France 2 won a libel case on Thursday over accusations it faked a report into the killing of a Palestinian boy whose death in 2000 became a symbol of the uprising known as the second intifada. The Court of First Instance in Paris ordered Philippe Karsenty, director of Media Ratings, a website that comments on the media, to pay France 2 and its Israel correspondent Charles Enderlin symbolic damages of one euro ($1.25) each. "Hopefully this decision will end a campaign of defamation that is particularly dangerous because it affects those with a duty to inform...

President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, has cunningly used homophobia to score victories for the Republican Party. But Rove is said to have been far from fearful of the gay man he called "Dad." According to a new bio, Rove "loved and adored" his stepfather, Louis Rove, even though the Getty Oil geologist abandoned Karl's mother, Reba, to live as a homosexual. In their new book, "The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power," James Moore and Wayne Slater say some believe Louis' running off contributed to Reba's suicide. Nevertheless, Karl visited his stepfather in Palm...

The California Supreme Court is taking a dim view of libel lawsuits against Web site operators who post inflammatory information from other sources. The justices said during a 60-minute court hearing Tuesday testing the 1996 Communications Decency Act that Congress and other courts have already spoken on the issue. The justices were leaning toward tossing out a lawsuit against a San Diego woman who posted an allegedly libelous e-mail she received on her site's message board. The widely watched case included briefs from some of the Internet's biggest names, including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., eBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp....

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Hadassah Ben-Itto, a former Israeli judge, honorary president and past president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. She is the author of the book The Lie That Wouldn't Die: The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, now published in nine languages. Hadassah Ben-Itto FP: Hadassah Ben-Itto, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Ben-Itto: Thank you for inviting me. FP: What inspired you to write this book? Ben-Itto: During my years on the bench I was occasionally invited to represent Israel in various international bodies (UN, UNESCO), and like many Israeli delegates and representatives, I...