Tag: First Amendment

US Supreme Court Denies Nevada Church’s Appeal of Virus Rule

The Associated Press

A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court denied a rural Nevada church’s request late Friday to strike down as unconstitutional a 50-person cap on worship services as part of the state’s ongoing response to the coronavirus.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court refused to grant the request from the Christian church east of Reno to be subjected to the same COVID-19 restrictions in Nevada that allow casinos, restaurants and other businesses to operate at 50% of capacity with proper social distancing.

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‘Walking on Eggshells’: 62 Percent of Americans Are Afraid to Express Political Views, Survey Finds

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Self-censorship is on the rise according to a new Cato Institute survey that reports nearly two-thirds of Americans are afraid to share their political views.

A new CATO Institute/YouGov national survey found 62% of Americans say the political climate today prevents them from saying what they believe. This is up several points from 2017 when 58% of Americans said they were afraid to share their political beliefs.

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Columbus City Council to Consider Police Hate-Group Screening Legislation

Patrick McCloskey

The Columbus City Council is working on legislation to screen the police for affiliations with hate groups or for harboring beliefs consistent with these groups. Last Monday, Shayla Favor, a councilmember and chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, held a meeting at which she presented the outlines of her legislative initiative. There will be another hearing at Wednesday, July 20, at 3 p.m. Favor will then finish drafting police-screening legislation and include it in a larger piece of public safety legislation that will be presented to the city council on July 27, the last meeting before the August recess.

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Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe Weighs in on the Navy’s Demand that Personnel Cease Attendance of Religious Services

Julie Carr

Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line.

During the third hour, McCabe talked about the Navy’s recent call for military personnel to sign a waiver acknowledging that they will not attend indoor religious services. He later discussed whether this was an infringement on the First Amendment rights and how COVID-19 is being used as a tool by those that oppose the Catholic religion.

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Conservatives Praise Supreme Court for Ruling States Can’t Discriminate Against Religious Schools

Anthony Gockowski

The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday that states can’t cut religious schools out of programs that send public money to private education in a 5-4 ruling. 

Hailed as a victory for religious freedom, the justices upheld a Montana scholarship program that allows state tax credits for private schooling in which almost all the recipients attend religious schools.

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DeWine Signs Student Religious Liberties Act Into Law

Anthony Gockowski

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the Student Religious Liberties Act into law Friday, a bill that protects prayer and religious expression in public schools.

“No student should have to hide their faith just because they enter a public school. The Student Religious Liberties Act is carefully crafted to ensure school administrators can’t unfairly penalize students of all faiths, or no faith,” said Aaron Baer, president of Citizens for Community Values, one of twelve groups that testified in support of the bill.

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Cleveland Agrees to $225,000 Settlement With Communist Who Believes ‘America Was Never Great’

Anthony Gockowski

  Cleveland has agreed to pay $225,000 in a settlement with a second protester who was arrested outside of the 2016 Republican National Convention for burning the American flag. As The Ohio Star reported in April, the city agreed to a $50,000 settlement with Steven Fridley, who was also arrested for partaking in the protest. This time the money is going to Gregory “Joey” Johnson, the same Gregory Johnson who was the defendant in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1989 Texas v. Johnson decision. That case found that burning the American flag was protected by the First Amendment. Johnson and Fridley both had their criminal charges dismissed by the Cleveland Municipal Court, and sued the City of Cleveland for violating their First Amendment rights. “Instead of protecting RNC protesters’ constitutional rights, Cleveland police stalked them, literally extinguished their speech rights, and then arrested and prosecuted them—violating 30-year-old Supreme Court precedent taught to schoolchildren,” said Subodh Chandra of Chandra Law Firm, which represented both Johnson and Fridley. Chandra criticized city leaders for failing to “hold officers accountable for lying” about Johnson, whom police officers claimed was on fire and setting others on fire during the protest. Video of the incident, however, contradicts…

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Tennessee Republicans Fight To Protect Faith-Based Adoption Agencies From Discrimination

Jason M. Reynolds

Republicans continue to shepherd legislation through the Tennessee General Assembly to protect faith-based child placement agencies against discrimination for exercising their religious liberties provided by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. State Rep. Tim Rudd (R-TN-34) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-TN-17) are the sponsors. The bills are HB 836 and SB 1304. The tracking information is here. The legislation passed recently in the State House by a 67-22 vote. It has been placed on the final calendar of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is expected to be heard either this week or the week of April 23. “The legislation simply states that a private child placement agency that provides a written statement of their religious beliefs and policies that are within that allowed by federal law shall not be sued or (discriminated) against by the state or local government when applying for a license, grants or contracts,” Rudd said in a press release. Co-sponsor State Rep. John Ragan (R-TN-33) said, “This legislation does not change how public or private child placement agencies currently operate or place children. It simply gives protections for agencies exercising their First Amendment liberties.” Rudd said, “This legislation does not prevent or enable adoptions against any group. It…

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House Democrats Derail Rep. Green’s Attempt to Protect Free Speech By Voting Down His Amendment to Bill That Would Give Feds Control of Elections

Jason M. Reynolds

House Democrats on Thursday voted down an amendment by U.S. Rep. Dr. Mark Green (R-TN-07) to protect free speech in House Resolution 1, which seeks to change campaign finance, election and lobbying laws. Tracking information on H.R.1 is here. “Free speech should be protected,” Green said in a hearing at the Committee on Oversight and Reform. “House Resolution One is a misguided bill with many problems. One problem in particular has united everyone from the Heritage Foundation to the ACLU. It’s the bill’s assault on free speech.” Video of Green’s speech is available here from C-SPAN. Green pointed out a statement by the ACLU that the bill will “chill speech essential to our public discourse.” “When the ACLU admonishes a Democrat bill … everyone should take notice,” he said. Green said his amendment reaffirms the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” The congressman tweeted, “I offered an amendment on the House Floor today to H.R. 1 expressing the sense of Congress that free speech should be protected. Why are Democrats opposing an amendment simply reaffirming free speech? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c478503″ I offered an amendment on the House Floor today to H.R. 1 expressing the sense of…

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Union Power, Email Privacy in the Balance at New Supreme Court Sitting

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by Kevin Daley   The Supreme Court will convene Tuesday for its February sitting, in which the justices will consider major cases involving the First Amendment, union power, and email privacy. The cases raise the prospect of serious political and diplomatic repercussions, placing the justices at the center of a bitter partisan brawl and a sensitive question of foreign affairs. The signature case of this month’s arguments is Janus v. AFSCME, which the justices will hear on Feb. 26. Though officially a First Amendment question, Janus is the apex of a decades-long dispute about the power of public sector unions and their Democratic patrons. As such, it has decidedly partisan implications. Some observers fear a ruling against the union would deal the deathblow to the political and financial influence of organized labor, prompting charges that the lawsuit is a poorly concealed, Republican attack on a powerful liberal constituency. The case was brought by an Illinois state employee named Mark Janus, who pays compulsory fees to the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), despite the fact that he is not a member of the union. He argues these fees subsidize political speech and association with which he disagrees,…

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Iowa Employee Fired for Signing Emails ‘In Christ’ Loses Court Battle

Anthony Gockowski

An Iowa state employee who sued his former employer after being fired for signing his emails “In Christ” lost his court battle Wednesday. According to the Sioux City Journal, a federal jury found Wednesday that Michael Mial, a former employee of the Cherokee Mental Health Institute’s Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders, failed to demonstrate that his employer didn’t accommodate his religious practices. The ruling puts an end to Mial’s two-year court battle, which started in January 2017 when he filed a religious discrimination suit against his former supervisors. Mial claims that he was told his “deeply held religious beliefs are great for helping” patients, but was then asked to keep his beliefs out of his work, and was later fired. The lawsuit argued that his use of “In Christ” in the signature line of his emails was protected by the First Amendment, and did not violate a state endorsement of religion, but was rather a “minuscule accommodation on behalf of the Plaintiff and his protected beliefs.” “By firing Mial and by limiting their employment to persons whom agree with the organization’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, and the stifling of the expression of religious viewpoints, Defendants have violated and…

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Trump Administration Urges Supreme Court To Protect Cross-Shaped War Memorial

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by Kevin Daley   The Trump administration filed an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief Wednesday urging the Supreme Court to protect a 93-year-old war memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland, that is shaped like a Latin cross. The court will soon decide whether the cross-shaped World War I memorial violates the First Amendment’s ban on religious favoritism. The justices agreed to take the case on Nov. 3. [ Read the Trump administration’s brief to the Supreme Court ] The Trump administration’s brief emphasizes the need for the high court to clarify its jurisprudence concerning religious displays in the public square. Since 2005 the justices applied two different tests for assessing the constitutionality of sectarian symbols in public settings. Confusion has followed in lower federal courts as to which test should govern the so-called public display cases. That uncertainty, the government says, “encourages challenges to longstanding displays like the Memorial Cross, which in turn fosters the very religion-based divisiveness that the establishment clause seeks to avoid.” “Cases like these cannot help but divide those with sincerely held beliefs on both sides,” the brief reads. “This case presents an opportunity for the Court to adopt a standard for establishment clause challenges to…

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DOJ Says University of Iowa Violated First Amendment By De-Registering a Christian Group

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by Neetu Chandak   The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday the University of Iowa violated First Amendment rights after deregistering a student Christian group. Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC) stopped receiving recognition from the public university in November 2017 due to the organization’s statement of faith, which the university found “unwelcoming,” according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen Friday. BLinC was created by the students in the university’s Tippie College of Business. The purpose of the group was to provide a space for Christian students to network, hold group discussions and “keep Christ first in the fast-paced business world,” the DOJ’s statement of interest said. Leaders in the Christian group were required to sign and follow the statement of faith, which included a belief that sexual relations should only occur “between a man and a wife in the lifelong covenant of marriage,” and “every person should embrace, not reject, their God-given sex.” The university deregistered the group over the faith statement and it claimed it made LGBT people unwelcome and therefore was exclusive, a DOJ news release reported. BLinC filed a lawsuit against the university in December 2017. “The University of Iowa in this case de-registered Business Leaders in Christ because university…

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Federal Employees Ordered Not to Discuss the ‘Resistance’ on Work Time

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by Tristan Justice   Federal employees received warning on Wednesday not to discuss the “resistance” or the impeachment of President Donald Trump while on the job under new guidance issued by the Office of Special Counsel, the independent agency that enforces the Hatch Act. The guidance, according to The New York Times, informed the federal workforce that engaging in discussions of the impeachment of the sitting president or “resistance” to the Trump administration on work time could constitute as political activity banned under the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting federal employees from participating in such activity in an official capacity or on government time. “Advocating for a candidate to be impeached, and thus potentially disqualified from holding federal office, is clearly directed at the failure of that candidate’s campaign for federal office,” the guidance states. “Similarly, advocating against a candidate’s impeachment is activity directed at maintaining that candidate’s eligibility for federal office and therefore also considered political activity.” The Times reports that the reasoning behind the guidance stems from the fact that Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign is already under way, and that arguments in favor or opposition to Trump’s policies or possible impeachment are political statements that either promote or oppose…

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Commentary: A Profile in Absurdity as Jim Acosta the First Amendment Hero

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by Mark Pulliam   The latest theatrics involving Jim Acosta, the left-wing political activist posing as a CNN reporter, perfectly illustrate the reasons why ordinary Americans despise the Beltway swamp: anti-Trump propaganda masquerading as journalism, rude and arrogant “reporters” engaged in 24/7 “resistance,” a federal judiciary so thoroughly dominated by liberal opinion that even Republican-appointed judges parrot the views of their ideological captors, and vain lawyers so eager for praise by the Acela Corridor establishment that they are willing to betray principle and common sense to receive accolades from fashionable elites. The underlying facts are by now well-known: The insufferable Acosta, surely the most obnoxious “correspondent” ever to hold a White House press pass—a dubious distinction in a competition that includes Sam Donaldson (ABC) and the late Helen Thomas (UPI), among others—had his credentials suspended after a particularly abrasive encounter with President Trump at a November 7 presser. In a widely publicized incident, Acosta harangued at length, refused to relinquish the microphone when directed to do so, and pushed away a young female intern who was trying to pass the mic to another reporter. White House press passes have always been viewed as discretionary and subject to regulation, in order…

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Tennessee Star Report-Knoxville Edition: According to CNN, ‘Everyone Get’s a Pass’ as MSM Bands Together Claiming First Amendment Rights to White House Press Corp

Julie Carr

On Wednesday’s Tennessee Star Report: Knoxville Edition – broadcast on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville – Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill talked about Megyn Kelly’s inability to create a base and keep it, CNN’s lawsuit against the White House, and how the usual ‘liberal’ suspects are joining the MSM band wagon in support of CNN’s ‘friend of the court brief’ claiming it’s a First Amendment right. A couple of quick items for you.  The Today Show has apparently seen a ratings increase after they fired Megyn Kelly.  That’s right, ratings for the 9am hour of the Today Show increased after they let Megyn Kelly go.  Now this was after they let her go because she had apologized for comments where she was accused of defending ‘black face’ for purposes of Halloween costumes. The problem that Megyn Kelly has had, and she’s beautiful, she’s bright, she’s articulate, she’s an excellent news caster it’s just she doesn’t understand how to create a base and keep it. I mean when she was at Fox, she seemed to go out of her way to make it clear that she wasn’t a Conservative.  And then when she went to NBC she couldn’t overcome the fact that…

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The Origins of ‘Hate Speech’

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by Kim Holmes   Intolerance and illiberalism, nakedly defined as abstractions or principles, are seldom if ever outwardly embraced by progressives. None but the most extreme will argue that intolerance and censorship are good things in themselves. Normally the preferred course is more subtle. Instead of openly arresting people who say the wrong things, the new purveyors of intolerance try to sublimate their prohibitions on speech, expression, and thought into more popularly accepted channels. Something must be done to make these prohibitions more palatable, because there is still a great deal of respect in America for freedom of thought, speech, and expression. How to do that? The answer is quite simple: Change the subject. Shift the gaze away from the sanctity of speech to something more wholesome—to the feelings of minorities, for example, or to the supposed desire to live in more diverse communities. One of the most popular strategies is to carve out a special category of speech that, in theory at least, leaves the rest of free speech alone. If this can be done, speech can be regulated and criminalized without involving a direct assault on the First Amendment. A prime example of parsing good speech from bad…

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Analysis: California’s Bill Establishing the ‘Internet Social Media Advisory Group’ Could Run Afoul of the First Amendment

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California is one step away from going down the unconstitutional road of government-mandated censorship of Internet speech. The California Senate and State Assembly recently passed S.B. 1424, the “Internet: social media: advisory group” act. This fake news advisory act is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. According to Section 3085 of the legislation: The Attorney General shall, subject to the limitations of subdivision (d), establish an advisory group consisting of at least one member of the Department of Justice, Internet-based social media providers, civil liberties advocates, and First Amendment scholars, to do both of the following: (a) Study the problem of the spread of false information through Internet-based social media platforms. (b) Draft a model strategic plan for Internet-based social media platforms to use to mitigate the spread of false information through their platforms. It’s hard to imagine those voting for the bill were motivated by good intentions. In any case, good intentions are not enough. Is it hard to imagine the results of the law will be censorship of views that politicians disagree with and views critical of politicians? Most likely, Californians are not concerned about “fact-checking” content like “a mile is 5290 feet” or an appeal to…

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A New Campus Invention for Policing Speech

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by Dan E. Way   Colleges are using a new tool with the frightening potential to shut down open dialogue. They go by the benign-sounding name of “bias response teams.”  Bias response teams monitor what students and faculty say. They encourage students to report, often anonymously, comments or behavior that make them feel uncomfortable or threatened, even if the speech or conduct is constitutionally protected. Those who are reported can face referral to student conduct administrators or law enforcement, but records on whether or how often punitive action is meted out are elusive. Indeed, colleges are reluctant to share much of the data collected by them. Campuses have created bias response teams as early as the 1980s, according to an article in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice authored in part by UNC-Charlotte professor Ryan Miller. Arizona State University was among the pioneers, said Adam Steinbaugh, director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) Individual Rights Defense Program. By 1996, Ohio State University and others increasingly got on board. And their expansion has been a national issue. Bias response teams operate on at least 231 college campuses in 43 states and the District of Columbia, and the number is growing.…

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Commentary: Political Correctness, Just One Tool In The Arsenal Of ‘Sustainability’

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by Kathleen Marquardt, Vice President, American Policy Center   “At its worst, political correctness is nothing different from Orwell’s Newspeak – an attempt to change the way people think by forcibly changing the way they speak.” ~ Urban Dictionary “Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future.” Chester M. Pierce, Harvard psychiatrist, speaking as an expert in public education at the 1973 International Education Seminar. The “Dear Hillary” letter, written on Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), lays out a plan “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing…

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Generation Z: The Intolerant Ones

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Millienals

by Ben Cohen   The post-millennials have arrived. As the oldest millennials turn 37, demographers have designated a new generation for those born after 1996, Generation Z. The oldest members of this cohort just graduated from college and had their first (legal) alcoholic beverages. As they wind their way through college, post-millennials will change higher education, just as previous generations did. Generation Z is racially diverse, increasingly secular, and very much online. Non-Hispanic whites make up just over half of this cohort, compared with 72 percent of Baby Boomers. In religious terms, 13 percent of Generation Z identifies as atheist, compared with only 7 percent of millennials. And according to a 2015 Pew report, 92 percent of teens access the internet daily and 73 percent have access to a smartphone. Born in 1997 or later, Generation Z was too young to form a coherent memory of the September 11th terror attacks. They have no memory of a pre-9/11 world or a time when the U.S. didn’t have a military presence in Afghanistan. Many are too young to remember a time before smartphones. Apple released the iPhone in 2007, and by 2012, more than half of all Americans owned a smartphone. The members of this generation have different problems: they’re…

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Republican Rep. Gaetz Threatens Twitter with FEC Complaint Over Twitter Suppression, Claims Twitter May Be Giving Opponent Illegal Advantage

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Matt Gaetz

by Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson    – Twitter’s recent algorithm change suppressed, or “shadow-banned,” prominent conservatives, including Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a new report found.  – Gaetz is considering filing a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against Twitter, he told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  – Gaetz said his Twitter account’s growth slowed immediately after Twitter’s recent algorithm change. Twitter acknowledged the “inaccurate” search results but said it was unrelated to politics. Rep. Matt Gaetz is considering filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Twitter’s alleged suppression of his account, the Florida Republican told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday. Gaetz was one of several prominent conservatives, including members of Congress and the chair of the Republican National Committee, whose accounts Twitter suppressed by making it harder to find in the site’s search function, a Vice News investigation published Wednesday found. “Democrats are not being ‘shadow banned’ in the same way,” the report concluded, noting: “Not a single member of the 78-person Progressive Caucus faces the same situation in Twitter’s search.” Twitter announced in May that the company would rely on “behavior-based signals” to boost the visibility of some accounts and to suppress the visibility of others, as…

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JC Bowman Commentary: SCOTUS Janus Decision Will Make Unions More Accountable to Their Members

JC Bowman
Mark Janus

The Janus Decision will not create drastic structural changes to unions.  It will simply make them more accountable to their own members.  And in the case of teacher unions, this greater accountability should focus on making the quality of education front and center, help public education rebuild support from the public for issues like raising teacher pay and school funding, and work for the common good of all students and educators.

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Commentary: Janus Decision Likely to Be Good for Government Workers

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Mark Janus

By Richard McCarty   For over a decade, Mark Janus has had to pay fees to a union to keep his job as a child support specialist at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Believing that he should not be forced to pay these fees to a union whose views he opposes, Janus filed a lawsuit against the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 31. In February, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, and the Court could issue its ruling any day now. The Janus decision is likely to upend the status quo in much of the country where public unions have been able to coast along forcing workers to pay agency fees without having to sell workers on the benefits of union membership. What are agency fees? Agency fees are fees that non-union members are required to pay to unions to keep their jobs in some states. Agency fees are set by the union, and the cost of agency fees is typically between 80 percent and 90 percent of the cost of union dues. The purported reason for these agency fees is to prevent workers from benefitting from unions without contributing to them. Of…

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Oregon Forced Us to Close Our Cake Shop – Here’s What the ‘Masterpiece Decision’ Means for Us

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Aaron and Melissa Klein

by Aaron and Melissa Klein   We are thrilled for our friend, Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop who recently won his case at the Supreme Court. Like Jack, we know what it is like to be treated unfairly by a state agency and mocked, threatened, and abused by critics. We can only imagine the relief Jack is experiencing. At the same time, we wonder what the future holds for our case, our lost business, and our family. Ours may be, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, the case that allows “further elaboration in the courts.” And we are encouraged to know that seven justices of the Supreme Court agree that a state’s hostility to the religious beliefs of its citizens will not be tolerated under the First Amendment. In one sense, Jack’s case is very similar to ours. We too declined to create a custom cake that would have required us to express a message our faith teaches against. And, like Jack, we faced a commissioner—Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry at the time—who was hostile to our religion and biased in his consideration of our case. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values.…

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Senate Republicans Aim to Block the Confirmation of an Obama-Era Holdover Hostile to Religious Freedom

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Chai Fledblum

by Kevin Daley   A budding coalition of Republican lawmakers is opposing the renomination of Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) after President Donald Trump renominated the Obama-era commissioner to another term on the anti-discrimination panel. Much of the institutional religious right has mobilized in opposition to her reappointment, given the intensely progressive positions she has taken on a variety of issues, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. “Commissioner Feldblum has a range of policy views that strike the general public as out of the mainstream,” a former senior career official at the EEOC told TheDCNF. Bloomberg Law reported that GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Steve Daines of Montana have joined with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to block the Feldblum nomination. The four lawmakers are withholding support from a unanimous consent agreement necessary for her confirmation. The agreement would package Feldblum’s nomination with two other Republican appointees to the EEOC, allowing the Senate to process all three nominees on a single up-or-down vote. Absent unanimous consent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would have to schedule separate confirmation votes for each appointee. As the backlog of Senate business builds, there is little…

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Appeals Court Upholds ‘In God We Trust’ On US Currency

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In God We Trust

by Kevin Daley   A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the federal government can lawfully print “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency. Though the result is a victory for those eager to preserve vestiges of religion in public life, conservative litigators warn the substance of the opinion could redound to the benefit of progressives. The plaintiffs are a coalition of atheists, humanists, and a Jew who claim the motto’s appearance on U.S. currency burdens their deeply-held beliefs, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment. The non-believing plaintiffs say the inscription forces them to carry and spread a message with which they disagree, while endorsing a religious position they hold to be false. The Jewish plaintiff says the epigraph compromises his religious practice to the extent that it implicates him in the unnecessary printing and destruction of God’s name, which is sinful under Mosaic law. They further claim the explicitly Christian history of the inscription denies equal dignity to their religious views, a breach of the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. The coalition is represented by Michael Newdow, a fixture of church-state controversies. He sued Chief Justice…

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Facebook’s Political Ad Rules Seem To Be Already Causing Problems

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Facebook privacy concerns

by Eric Lieberman   A professor was recently unable to promote a podcast on Facebook that delved into Russians’ perspective of President Donald Trump because it was deemed to fall under the tech company’s new rules against political advertising. Sean Guillory, a scholar with a doctoral degree from UCLA, is the digital scholarship curator at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and East European Studies. In his podcast episode published Saturday called “Russians on Trump,” Guillory interviewed another expert Laurence Bogoslaw, who has established a collective resource for translated Russian news coverage of Trump. Knowing very well how hot of a topic the president, the foreign adversary and alleged connections between the two are, Guillory wanted to promote the dialogue. Facebook denied his request to purchase an ad slot for the podcast. Eventually, after an appeal, the tech giant explained that it regards Guillory’s interview as political content, meaning there would be greater scrutiny and a potentially higher cost for sponsorship. “This is the crux of the problem: What is ‘political’?” Guillory told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “I see my podcast as educational in that its mission is to interview people who have some expert knowledge about Eurasia’s politics, culture and…

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President Trump Puts an End to Taxpayer Subsidies for Unions

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President Trump

by Richard Manning   Government employee unions have enjoyed an absolute boondoggle in recent years, receiving hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds. But the boon could soon be over thanks to a new executive order from President Donald Trump. Last Friday, the president signed an executive order requiring that federal government employees who work full-time for the public employee unions at taxpayer expense spend at least 75 percent of their paid time on the government’s business. The administration estimates this will save taxpayers $100 million. This measure is one of three executive orders the president signed on Friday. Those orders do not eliminate taxpayer subsidies for public employee unions altogether—that is Congress’ job—but they do end the taxpayer subsidy of travel for union business; mandate that unions be charged fair market value for rents of government office space; streamline the public employee appeals process so that bad apples can be fired more rapidly; and force taxpayer-funded union workers to spend at least three-quarters of their time doing the people’s business. Most people are shocked to learn that taxpayers have been footing the bill for public employee union salaries, but they become incensed when they learn that in 2016, union employees were paid $177 million by the…

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Trump Initiative Protects Religious Rights, Faith Groups’ Equal Access to Federal Dollars

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by Fred Lucas   President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday focusing on protecting freedom of religion and exploring new ways faith-based agencies can partner with government to effectively provide services. “We condemn all crimes against people of faith, and today we are launching another historic action to promote religious freedom,” Trump said at a National Day of Prayer ceremony in the Rose Garden before signing the executive order to create a White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. “The faith initiative will help design new policies that recognize the vital role of faith in our families, our communities, and our great country,” the president said. “This office will also help ensure that faith-based organizations have equal access to government funding and the equal right to exercise their deeply held beliefs. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] “We take this step because we know that, in solving the many, many problems and our great challenges, faith is more powerful than government, and nothing is more powerful than God,” Trump continued. The White House initiative will be made up of faith leaders and experts…

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Pennsylvania’s Atty Gen Josh Shapiro Sues Little Sisters of the Poor to Remove the HHS Exemption from Paying for Abortion Meds

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by Joe Carter   Once again, the Little Sisters of the Poor are having to go to court to defend their religious freedoms against government intrusion. The Little Sisters is an international Roman Catholic Congregation of Religious Sisters that serves more than 13,000 elderly poor in 31 countries around the world. The first home opened in America in 1868, and now there are nearly 30 homes in the United States where the elderly and dying are cared for. A few years ago, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) attempted to force the Little Sisters and other groups groups into providing insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients. The Little Sisters objected on the ground that the requirement violates their religious liberty as protected by the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In early October, HHS issued a new rule that protects religious non-profits like the Little Sisters, ending their four-year legal ordeal. But shortly after, according to Becket Law, the state of Pennsylvania sued to take away the Little Sisters’ religious exemption. Represented by Becket, the Little Sisters went back to court to ensure that they can continue their vital ministry of caring for the elderly poor without violating their…

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Kanye West’s Shoutout to Conservative Commentator Underscores Need for Civility, Respect

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by Paris Dennard   Everyone is making a big deal about rapper Kanye West’s admiring tweet about conservative Candace Owens after another one of her provocative comments went viral. “I love the way Candace Owens thinks,” West tweeted Saturday morning in the first of a string about paying attention and thinking for yourself: https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/987696355341553665 [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] Maybe it is because the Republican Party is nearly void of mainstream celebrities that we conservatives get overly excited when we hear even the smallest bit of news of a Hollywood endorsement of something conservative. Owens, 28, is director of urban engagement for Turning Point USA, an organization dedicated to teaching conservative principles to young Americans. And of course West, 40, is the hugely successful, Grammy-winning hip-hop star. Owens replied to West on Twitter: I’m freaking out. @kanyewest ….please take a meeting with me. I tell every single person that everything that I have been inspired to do, was written in your music. I am my own biggest fan, because you made it okay. I need you to help wake up the black community.…

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Professor Talks of Heckling – at Free Speech Lecture

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A law school professor recounted the heckling Friday he received last month during an appearance at a New York City college campus — ironically as he was lecturing about free speech. Josh Blackman, who teaches at South Texas College of Law, Houston, said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that his March 29 appearance at City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law was the first time he has been publicly heckled.

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Commentary: Corporatists Like Google, Reddit, and Citibank Use Their Commercial Might to Cancel The Bill of Rights

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by George Rasley, CHQ Editor   This past week major corporations made several announcements that should be profoundly troubling to liberty-loving Americans. The first was that Google’s YouTube would takedown and begin censoring gun-related content. They were not talking about content advocating violence or illegal acts, such as the Antifa and jihadi content that has often been reported on the platform. Instead, the search giant announced it was censoring perfectly legal demonstration and entertainment content they decided they didn’t like – even if it was legal. According to anti-gun news outlet Bloomberg, which first reported the news: YouTube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, including bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire faster. Additionally, YouTube said it will prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms. The video site, owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, has faced intense criticism for hosting videos about guns, bombs and other deadly weapons. For many gun-rights supporters, YouTube has been a haven. A current search on the site for “how to build a gun” yields 25 million results, though that includes items such as toys. At least one producer of gun videos saw its page…

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Justice Alito Exposes the Hypocrisy of Liberal Double-Standards for All to See

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by Joe Carter   You probably haven’t even heard about it, but  there was an exchange in the Supreme Court that future generations will regard as one of the most significant revelations of our political era. The case of Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky concerns a Minnesota statute that broadly bans all political apparel at the polling place. When Andrew Cilek went to vote in 2010, he wore a shirt bearing the image of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a button that read “Please I.D. Me.” The poll worker asked him to remove the shirt and button because it supposedly violated the state law. Cilek filed a lawsuit opposing the regulation as an infringement on his First Amendment right to political expression. He also noted that the standard for what is acceptable is arbitrary and the enforcement itself could be politicized since the polling workers are chosen by local political parties. In the oral arguments, Justice Alito agreed that the law does seem arbitrary and observed that “so many things have political connotations, and the connotations are in the eye of the beholder.” How could any poll worker, he asked, be even-handed in enforcing the regulation? Daniel Rogan,…

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