Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

Joy Behar’s hatred of all things Trump is disgusting. The Left is constantly lecturing conservatives that ‘this isn’t who we are as Americans’. Behar’s supposedly glib statement in this video truly isn’t who we are as Americans:

That’s America at its worst. That woman isn’t anyone I want to associate with. I wouldn’t want her as a co-worker. I definitely wouldn’t want her as a neighbor. Adriana Cohen’s article summarizes things quite nicely:

Some teenagers at the March for Life Rally, who dared to use their constitutionally protected right to free speech by wearing “MAGA” hats, quickly became targets of a rabid mob of anti-Trump forces eager to perpetuate the false political narrative that white conservative men who support the president are racists and bullies who harass minorities.

A deceptively edited video of a kerfuffle between a few of the teens and a Native American man quickly went viral, to which the New York Times and scores of other Trump-hating media outlets depicted a gross mischaracterization of what happened fueling a hate filled frenzy on social media and beyond, subjecting the students to an onslaught of verbal assaults and even death threats, in addition to the possibility of expulsion from their high school.

Here’s the kicker: it was all a lie, enthusiastically disseminated by the media, Democrat lawmakers and other Trump-haters who didn’t bother to research the facts, watch the full video or hear all sides before condemning these poor kids. Now after a massive smear campaign putting the students in harm’s way, it turns out the teens were the ones harassed, not the other way around.

Rep. John Yarmuth might’ve been the worst-reacting politician in this sordid event:

I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats until we can figure out what is going on. They seem to be poisoning young minds. [1/2] https://t.co/yq5bLd4kE2

— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) January 20, 2019

The conduct we saw in this video is beyond appalling, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. This is a direct result of the racist hatred displayed daily by the President of the United States who, sadly, some mistake for a role model. [2/2]

— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) January 20, 2019

I don’t know what’s worse — Rep. Yarmuth wanting to gut the First Amendment or his jumping to the wrong conclusion without any fact-checking. In the end, they’re both terrible.

If this article teaches us anything, it’s that the media near the Lincoln Memorial should learn from Nick Sandmann, the student in the crowd.

Unfortunately, the media highlighted “the initial short clip of the incident” in which Sandmann, “who identified himself on Sunday,” can be seen standing in front of Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as the Native American elder, Nathan Phillips, sings and beats on a drum. Other young people standing close by can be seen encircling Phillips and the student. In response to the widespread media coverage, lawmakers, Native-American leaders, and the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School were quick to condemn Sandmann’s behavior. The school announced it was investigating the situation and said he could be expelled.”

The adults were quick to judge Sandmann, which is shameful. They should learn from his statement:

Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group.

I was not intentionally making faces at the protester. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation. I harbor no ill will for this person. I respect this person’s right to protest and engage in free speech activities, and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week. I believe he should re-think his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make.

What’s worse is Rep. John Yarmuth’s reaction on Twitter:

I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats until we can figure out what is going on. They seem to be poisoning young minds. [1/2] https://t.co/yq5bLd4kE2

— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) January 20, 2019

The conduct we saw in this video is beyond appalling, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. This is a direct result of the racist hatred displayed daily by the President of the United States who, sadly, some mistake for a role model. [2/2]

— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) January 20, 2019

Congressman Yarmuth should be thrown out of the House for those asinine statements. It’s bad enough that he didn’t wait to find out what happened. (PS- It’s understatement to say this wasn’t a good week for the media either.) Yarmuth then decided to throw out the First Amendment because he hates President Trump. That’s the personification of a bigot.

Just when you thought people couldn’t get more illiterate about the Constitution, this gets reported. The article reports that “Assistant Dean LiDell Evans informed Joseph Cortese, a fourth-year student, that he was required to attend a meeting on Friday concerning an investigation about a photo he posted on Instagram of himself dressed as a Border Patrol agent for Halloween.”

According to the article, Evans told Cortese “This letter serves to put you on notice that pursuant to section 9.2 of the Student Conduct Code and Discipline Procedure for the Main Campus of West Virginia University, you are the subject of an investigation regarding alleged prohibited conduct.” Here’s hoping FIRE gets involved in this case. Let’s hope that a lawsuit gets filed against WVU seeking damages for violating Mr. Cortese’s First Amendment rights. If that lawsuit were to get filed, WVU would be well-advised to quickly settle before it gets to trial because they’ll lose. Here’s the picture that WVU is complaining about:

The email also informed Cortese that if he did not contact the office or attend the meeting, his student account would have a “hold” placed on it. “I received this email Wednesday and have had awful anxiety since,” Cortese told The Daily Wire in an interview. “While I was trying to study for finals, this was looming on the back of my mind. I know I didn’t do as well on my finals as I should have due to this,” Cortese added.

I admit that I hadn’t read the whole article when I started writing this post. As I read the article, I read this:

Cortese, who is also the Communications Director for Students for Trump, said that during the meeting, Assistant Dean Evans told him the costume could be “misinterpreted the wrong way” but acknowledged that it was Cortese’s “constitutional right” to wear the costume.

In other words, WVU sought to harass a student whose political views it likely disagreed with. That’s breathtaking. Then there’s this:

Pro-civil liberties non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) told The Daily Wire in a statement that they are “aware of this case and looking into it. Public universities enter treacherous terrain when they investigate expression protected by the First Amendment,” said FIRE.

Finally:

“The West Virginia University Office of Student Conduct received a complaint claiming the student was posting ‘vulgar hateful Instagrams’ but did not single out what was ‘vulgar’ or ‘hateful’ about them,” WVU said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “The Office followed standard procedure, including the timing, to follow up on the complaint and talk with the student. The Office tries to wrap up any matters before students leave campus at the end of each semester. No charges or disciplinary action was taken and the matter is now closed.”

Did this investigation get wrapped up because Mr. Cortese contacted FIRE and other civil liberties organizations? Would Mr. Cortese have been investigated if he was the Communications Director for ‘Students for Elizabeth Warren’ or ‘Students for Kamala Harris’? I’m betting he wouldn’t have been.

At a time when there’s major distrust of institutions of government, you’d think that government closest to the people would hold themselves to a higher level of listening to their constituents. That certainly isn’t what’s happening at the ISD742 monthly meetings.

A loyal reader of LFR sent me an email highlighting the fact that the school board welcomes people to their meetings but doesn’t want the public’s input. Contained in the email is a sentence that says “This is a public meeting and any residents are welcome to attend and listen, but there is not a public input session scheduled at this meeting.”

BTW, here’s the email:

I’m not a constitutional law professor but I can’t see how this isn’t a violation of the First Amendment. This judge’s ruling seems to strengthen that belief:

A section of a Virginia school board’s bylaws violates the First Amendment and results in stifled speech, according to a ruling by a federal district judge on April 27. U.S. District Court Judge Henry C. Morgan Jr. held that the Virginia Beach School Board’s rule banning personal “attacks or accusations” during public comment periods at board meetings was a form of prior restraint.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed last July by David and Nicole Bach, who are parents in the school district. The Bachs claimed that school district officials enacted the provision in retaliation for the Bachs’ criticism of the district’s gifted education program. After the school board imposed the restriction, the Bachs argued that the bylaw stifled their free speech rights. The judge ordered the school board to strike the contested provision from the bylaw, but also allowed the other rules for the public comment portion of meetings to remain.

This is directly on point. Most importantly, it’s an attempt to stifle speech that the school board doesn’t want to hear.

That’s tough. If these politicians don’t want to hear from their constituents, they should resign. If they can’t stand the heat, they shouldn’t be in the kitchen.

The next time that the St. Cloud School Board meets, citizens should insist on giving input. If the board doesn’t permit it, the citizens should notify the school board that they’re filing a lawsuit in federal court claiming that their practices violate their First Amendment rights.

Citizens shouldn’t be stifled by the ruling class. It’s clear that they don’t see themselves as public servants. How sad is that?

Perhaps the more accurate title of this post should be ‘When will Leftists protest these civil rights’? FIRE’s Susan Kruth’s article on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s revised regulations outlines changes to Obama administration’s anti-due process regulations.

Let’s be clear. The Obama administration’s Education Department was anti-civil rights. When it came to dealing with alleged sexual assault on campus, the Obama administration’s Education Department “encouraged schools to have a single investigator adjudicate sexual misconduct cases through a series of separate meetings with the parties and witnesses.” By contrast, the DeVos-proposed regulations pertaining to alleged sexual assault “requires that schools ‘must provide for a live hearing’ when adjudicating a case.”

In other words, universities must allow a cross-examination of the accuser. Nameless, faceless accusers won’t have their ‘day in court’. Kruth continues with this:

Having a live hearing ensures that all parties can see exactly the same evidence and testimony that the fact-finder is seeing, so that he or she can rebut that evidence and testimony as fully as he or she is able.

The department’s new rules go on to require a typical and critically important feature of live hearings: cross-examination of all witnesses, including the parties. The Supreme Court has called cross-examination the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth,” and it can be especially paramount in cases that hinge on witness testimony, as the Sixth Circuit emphasized just two months ago.

How an administration that swore an oath to uphold the Constitution can deprive people of this basic civil right is startling. Further, it’s time to admit that leftist Democrats are now fascists and/or anarchists. IF you think I’m kidding, check out Eric Swalwell’s proposal:

In a USA Today op-ed entitled “Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., argued Thursday that prior proposals to ban assault weapons “would leave millions of assault weapons in our communities for decades to come.”

Look at the mental gymnastics Rep. Swalwell employs to justify this confiscation:

You’re probably wondering what gun confiscation has to do with due process rights. That’s a fair question. They’re both part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms is a sacred right. I prefer referring to it as the right to protect myself and my family. It’s a natural right. The Supreme Court has called the right to due process and to confront your accuser the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

It isn’t supposition to say that Democrats have opposed the right to protect yourself and your family from burglars and criminals as vigorously as they’ve opposed the right of people to cross-examine their accusers. What other constitutional rights do Democrats want to sacrifice on the altar of political correctness?

According to this article, House Democrats unveiled their agenda for the first 100 days of the 116th Congress. According to the article, the “Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, promises that the first bill voted on by the new Congress will focus on campaign finance and ethics reforms. According to news accounts, H.R. 1 would, among other things, establish automatic voter registration and “reinvigorate” the Voting Rights Act.”

Further, House Democrats want to overwhelm Republicans by pushing “public financing of congressional campaigns, with a 6-to-1 government match on small dollar donations.” Democrats will certainly define small dollar donations to their advantage.

The reason they’ll do that is because, according to Tucker Carlson’s op-ed, when “a Republican wins an election, it’s fine to question the legitimacy of the process. Democrats have been doing since the days Trump was elected two years ago. That’s patriotic. It’s your duty. But when the Democratic Party’s power is at stake, raising questions about the process is wrong. Indeed it’s nothing less than the road to dictatorship.”

It’s worse than that. Here’s Howard Dean talking about this topic:

In other words, in 2018, Dean vehemently insisted that the nation was in a fight of “good vs. evil” while being convinced that “we’re the good” and that Republicans were the evil. That’s literally what he said a couple weeks ago. That isn’t the first time he’s made that statement. When he was DNC Chair in 2005, he said this:

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

Think about that a second. In 2005, Howard Dean thought that George W. Bush was a hardcore conservative who was a religious extremist. Now, he’s insisting that President Trump is an extremist who thinks that the US-Mexican border should be protected.

What’s funny is that Democrats think that’s immoral. That puts the Democrats on the opposite side of the Founding Fathers. In Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress is authorized to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” It doesn’t say that Mexicans and Central Americans will “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” in consultation with Congress.

BTW, Democrats insist that the mobile mob making its way through Mexico isn’t an invasion. Here’s the official definition of invasion:

entrance as if to take possession or overrun:
infringement by intrusion.

CNN and Jim Acosta need better dictionaries. More importantly, Democrats need to start telling the whole truth more often:

Gun control was not a big issue in the midterm campaign, despite promises by gun control advocates to make it a centerpiece of the elections in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. The issue “evaporated during the final weeks of the election in all but very safe liberal districts,” noted Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner. “But now that the Democrats have won the House,” Bedard notes, “leaders feel emboldened to raise calls for expanded background checks and an assault weapon ban.”

Gun control advocates tout the fact that 15 House Republicans with “A” ratings from the NRA lost their elections. But gun control advocates lost seats in the Senate. That includes Joseph Donnelly, who lost his bid in Indiana. Pro-gun rights Josh Hawley unseated Claire McCaskill in Missouri. According to the NRA, candidates backed by gun rights group won 106 races, and lost 33 despite being outspent by gun control supporters. This was not the groundswell of support for gun control laws that advocates promised.

These items might gather majority support in polls but they don’t excite people. If Democrats pass tax increases in the House and the economy falters after that, they’ll rightly get blamed. If the Democrats focus on investigations, gun control and campaign finance reform instead of focusing on keeping the economy going strong, they’ll deserve the blame they’ll get.

Kevin Lindsey, the current commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights, is on a collision course with the US Supreme Court. According to this article, Carl and Angel Larsen, the owners of Telescope Media Group, want to “use their wedding cinematography [business] to reanimate the hearts and minds of people about the goodness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Standing in their way is the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which “mandates that if the Larsens make films celebrating marriage between one man and one woman, then they must make films celebrating same-sex marriages as well.”

The Minnesota Human Rights Act is likely unconstitutional, thanks in large part to a Supreme Court ruling from this past summer that said that a baker didn’t have to bake cakes for same-sex marriages.

There’s likely a First Amendment argument to be made, too. Government shouldn’t have the authority to tell businesses what they have to write.

State officials have repeatedly threatened to prosecute expressive business owners who decline to create speech promoting same-sex marriages. And there are steep penalties for violating the law, including payment of a civil penalty to the state, triple compensatory damages, punitive damages up to $25,000, and even up to 90 days in jail.

The Larsens can’t comply with Minnesota’s speech-compelling law. Telling stories that celebrate a same-sex marriage would violate their religious beliefs and directly contradict the very message about marriage they desire to express. But they also don’t want to be investigated, prosecuted, and possibly jailed simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Whether you’re for or against same-sex marriage, the heart of the matter is that government shouldn’t have the authority to tell individuals or companies what they have to write.

According to the WCCO video, the Larsens won their appeal in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. If Lindsey appeals the Eighth Circuit’s ruling, which is likely, he’ll likely lose in the Supreme Court. Simply put, the DFL should stop passing laws that aren’t constitutional.

Written by Rambling Rose

Even on the Left Coast of the USA, justice wins occasionally. On Tuesday, July 24, 2018, Addison Barnes prevailed in his lawsuit against Liberty High School, where his liberty or expression was not tolerated in January because he wore a T-shirt that supported the construction of the wall along the southern border of this country and also included a quote from President Donald J. Trump.

The topic in class that morning was immigration. So much for tolerance when he was forced to cover his shirt, which he did for a short time, and then removed the jacket to exercise his First Amendment Right of freedom of expression. He was then escorted from the school grounds and suspended, even though the year before he had attended a class where a pro-sanctuary city poster hung all year long.

This valiant young man was awarded $25,000.00 and an apology from the school. Actually, the apology is lame—it expresses regret but does not admit culpability for nullifying his rights when he, and probably others, have been offended by the liberal stance of the school.

For the full story, please read this article posted on May 28, 2018.

Editor’s note: This is beyond insulting:

“I had a teacher who had a pro-sanctuary city poster in her room which was up all year,” Barnes told NBC News-affiliate KGW. “Yet as I wear a pro-border wall shirt I get silenced and suspended for wearing that.”

The term double standard isn’t strong enough for this situation. The school should apologize to the community for holding such obvious double standards. I’ve read the First Amendment many times. I’ve never recalled it suggesting that it protects liberal speech but not conservative speech.

It’s ironic that Addison was suspended from Liberty HS.

This article is proof that Keith Ellison hates the Constitution, especially the First Amendment. It’s also proof that he’s unfit to be Minnesota’s chief law enforcement officer, aka state Attorney General.

The article notes that Ellison is “demanding that Amazon censor books and other materials produced by organizations listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.” That’s a frightening insight into Ellison’s thinking on multiple levels. First, it’s disturbing that the man who wants to be Minnesota’s attorney general thinks that censorship is a foundational constitutional principle. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment except if it incites violence. It doesn’t make much sense to have an attorney general who hates constitutionally protected civil rights.

Next. it’s disturbing, though not surprising, that Ellison thinks that the SPLC is a reputable arbiter of right and wrong. Here’s a couple snippets from Ellison’s censorship letter:

Click to enlarge.

Later in the letter is something that’s definitely chilling:

As stated earlier, Amazon has a strict policy against hateful and racist products on its platform. The availability of all the material listed in the aforementioned report indicates to me that either Amazon is willfully refusing to enforce its own policies against the sale of racist products or its sheer size make it impossible for the company to police itself. In either event, Amazon must immediately cease doing business with groups that promote racist violence.

It’s apparent that Ellison hasn’t hesitated in using his official capabilities to intimidate companies into outright censorship.

Any legal eagle that’s anti-civil rights is disqualified to be Minnesota’s attorney general.

Mayor Kleis and the City Council are putting together the 2019 City budget so they want to hear from its citizens. Of course, that doesn’t mean they want to hear from everyone. They definitely don’t want to hear from the citizens who are collecting signatures to put a petition on the ballot.

A “group of St. Cloud residents is gathering signatures for a petition that would put a refugee resettlement resolution on the November ballot.” According to Matt Staehling, the city administrator, the “initiative petition does not meet the legal criteria of an initiative pursuant to our city charter, state statute and long established case law in the state of Minnesota.” That’s too bad for Mr. Staehling because the Minnesota State Supreme Court disagrees with him.

A citizen watchdog group just handed the city of Bloomington an embarrassing loss at the Minnesota Supreme Court. The case started over the rights of residents of the Twin Cities suburb to choose their own garbage hauler. But more broadly the unanimous 6-0 ruling upholds the standing of citizens in home rule charter cities to bring petitions and place legislation on the ballot apart from and in opposition to the city council.

Staehling’s argument is that resolutions aren’t legislation, therefore, they can’t be put on the ballot.

Greg Joseph, the citizens’ attorney, said “What the ruling today says is that cities can adopt a home rule charter and that governs what happens in that city, period. And voters can go around the city, they’re not subservient to it.”

The taxpayers are getting hurt financially by the federal government not picking up the full tab for the Refugee Resettlement Program as required by the Refugee Act of 1980. The City Council acted irrationally last November by passing Jeff Goerger’s ‘Welcoming Community’ resolution. A significant number of St. Cloud residents were prevented from speaking against Goerger’s resolution that night. Why shouldn’t they have the right to put their petition on the ballot? (Notice that the ruling didn’t limit the petition to just legislation.)

Further, it’s rather hypocritical for Mayor Kleis to sit silent on this. In my past conversations, Kleis identified himself as welcoming hearing from the citizens, whether it’s in the form of ballot referenda or whether it’s in the form of town hall meetings. Kleis loves townhall meetings so much, in fact, that he’s got his own bus so he can get around and talk to people in their neighborhoods:

Mayor Kleis, since you love hearing from the people, it’s time to exhibit some leadership and get the petition on the ballot if they collect the required number of signatures. The citizens are tired of being ignored by this City Council. They’re tired, too, that jackasses like Dave Masters object to hearing from his constituents and that Carol Lewis makes rulings that violate prior Minnesota State Supreme Court rulings.

If people like Masters and Lewis think that they don’t have to listen to their constituents and that they’re above the Constitution, it’s time to fire them so they don’t have constituents.

Finally, it’s important to show up Monday night and tell Mayor Kleis and the 5 ostriches how you want your money spent.