‘Top News & Liberty Alerts’ Archives
Senator Johnson: Obamacare Greatest Assault on Freedom in Our Lifetimes
MATTHEW CLARK, ACLJ Senator Ron Johnson (WI) says that ObamaCare is the “greatest assault on freedom in our lifetimes.” In fact, it is the reason he got involved in politics in the first place. I spoke with Senator Johnson at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, regarding ObamaCare. He is thankful [...]
TV Network Started by Cloistered Nun Sues Sebelius
TERRENCE P. JEFFREY, CNSNEWS.COM Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)--founded in 1981 by Mother M. Angelica, a cloistered Roman Catholic nun belonging to the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration--has filed suit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other senior officials in the Obama administration arguing that a [...]
Stop the ObamaCare Abortion Drug Mandate!
U.S. CONGRESS, EAGLE FORUM The dirty details of ObamaCare are still being worked out by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and they are being announced little by little, hoping the American public will not notice. Last month, Secretary Sebelius finalized part of ObamaCare’s “Preventive Services” rule, which will [...]
More Reasons to Oppose National Popular Vote
U.S. CONSTITUTION, PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT The National Popular Vote campaign lets people believe that their plan will elect Presidents who win the majority of popular votes, but that is false. Because of third parties, we've had many elections (including three of the last five) when no presidential candidate received a popular-vote majority. [...]
Towson University Should Not ‘Absolutely Want’ to be a ‘Yellow Light’ School
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG The Towerlight, a student newspaper at Maryland's Towson University, ran an article earlier this week on Towson's "yellow light" rating in FIRE's recent speech code report, Spotlight on Speech Codes 2012: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation's Campuses. The article does a good job of explaining [...]
Obama and Ginsburg on America’s “Rather Old Constitution”
PAUL G. KENGOR, CENTER FOR VISION AND VALUES I’ve gotten some very interesting emails regarding President Obama’s mandate commanding Roman Catholics (and many evangelical Protestants) to violate their consciences by providing mandatory contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing pharmaceuticals. The emailers noted that Obama’s [...]
Socialism, Class Warfare Addressed At CPAC
Liberty Alerts, Corruption Chronicles Florida Senator Marco Rubio kicked off the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C. with a fiery speech that covered everything from Medicare to taxes and President Barack Obama’s engagement in class warfare. “Unlike any leader in modern American history, we are led today [...]
Greg in ‘Huffington Post’ on Eleventh Circuit’s Important Message to University Administrators
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG FIRE President Greg Lukianoff weighs in today at The Huffington Post on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's important ruling in Barnes v. Zaccari. As we highlighted in on our press release yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit's unanimous decision affirms a lower court's denial of qualified [...]
Does the Supreme Court’s ‘Hosanna-Tabor’ Decision Apply to Religious Student Organizations?
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG Here at FIRE, we review a wide variety of legal material that never makes it onto The Torch. Court decisions come down all the time that are relevant but not directly related to our core mission (decisions about civil procedure or election law, for example). One such case that we have followed closely is the [...]
Catholic Group to Sue Obama Administration over Obamcare
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, PRIESTS FOR LIFE Staten Island, NY - Priests for Life, a New York based international pro-life organization of Catholic clergy and laity, today announced that it will be filing a lawsuit against the Obama Administration in an effort to seek injunctive relief from impending regulations that would require the organization to [...]
Sen. Paul to Introduce Amendment Cutting Foreign Aid to Egypt
FOREIGN AID, PAUL.SENATE.GOV WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sen. Rand Paul today took to the Senate floor to announce his intention an introduce an amendment to the upcoming surface transportation bill that would cut off the $1.3 billion given to Egypt annually in foreign aid until illegally detained American citizens are released. The Transcript of the [...]
General Advises Use of Drones to ‘Kill’ Taliban Leaders in Pakistan
MILITARY, NEWSROOM AMERICA A longtime adviser to U.S. military commanders says it is essential the Obama administration change tactics and order wider use of spy drones to target and kill Taliban leaders hiding out in Pakistan. Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, who just returned from a two-week fact-finding tour of battlefields in Afghanistan, [...]
Physical Activity Yields Feelings Of Excitement, Enthusiasm
HEALTH, NEWSROOM AMERICA People who are more physically active report greater levels of excitement and enthusiasm than people who are less physically active, according to Penn State researchers. People also are more likely to report feelings of excitement and enthusiasm on days when they are more physically active than usual. "You don't have [...]
National Popular Vote is Bad Idea
U.S. CONSTITUTION, PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY Moving quietly without any publicity is a plan to change how U.S. Presidents are elected. It would bypass the procedure spelled out in the U.S. Constitution which has been used successfully for over two centuries. The Constitution prescribes how we elect our Presidents. It is a mirror image of the Great [...]
The Individual Mandate: There’s More To It Than Just Health Care
EDWARD WHITE, ACLJ At the end of March, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the constitutionality of the health care law, otherwise known as ObamaCare. The main legal challenge is to the individual mandate, the provision requiring millions of Americans to buy and indefinitely maintain health insurance or face annual penalties, [...]
Unprecedented $25 Billion Agreement With Mortgage Servicers
ECONOMIC INTERVENTIONISM, PETER FOWLER (Newsroom America) -- The federal government and 49 state attorneys general have reached a landmark $25 billion agreement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers to address mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses. The agreement, announced by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, [...]
Pentagon Considering Military Options in Syria
MILITARY, JON E. DOUGHERTY (Newsroom America) -- The Pentagon is weighing potential military options for Syria, as violence spreads throughout the country, though the Obama administration made clear it is leaning first towards diplomacy to resolve the widening humanitarian crisis there. The options are being prepared for President Obama, [...]
Pentagon to Lift Some Rules Banning Women in Combat
MILITARY, NEWSROOM AMERICA The Pentagon is preparing rule changes that would allow more women into front line combat roles, ABC News reported Wednesday. Defense officials said as many as 14,000 positions could be opened to women under the changes. But, defense officials added, the Pentagon would not be recommending lifting the ban on women [...]
I Guess “Virtually All Super PAC Money Traceable” Didn’t Have the Same Ring to It
BY PAUL SHERMAN, CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW Roll Call columnist Eliza Newlin Carney, who coined the term "Super PAC," has written a column titled “Some Super PAC Money Untraceable.” The column discusses the findings of a report titled “Auctioning Democracy,” released by Demos and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. As Carney reports, [...]
Stop Presidential Line-item Veto Proposal
Liberty Alerts, JBS.org Freedom Campaign There was general debate on the floor of the House on a new line-item veto bill sponsored by Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Wednesday, Feb. 8, immediately preceding a vote. The Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011 would give the president the authority to [...]
Minnesota Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in ‘Tatro,’ with Student Speech Rights at Stake
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Tatro v. University of Minnesota. As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Tatro concerns the University of Minnesota's punishment of mortuary sciences student Amanda Tatro for off-campus comments she posted on Facebook that her [...]
High-Paid NJ Union Chief Under Fire for ‘Fair’ Comments Regarding Poor
EDUCATION, NEWSROOM AMERICA (Newsroom America) -- The head of a New Jersey teacher's union whose annual salary tops $300,000 is under fire for saying in a recent interview that "life's not always fair" when arguing against voucher programs aimed at sending poor students to private schools. New Jersey Education Association Executive Director [...]
ACLJ to SCOTUS: Reject ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate
JAY SEKULOW, ACLJ The argument we are making to the Supreme Court is clear and concise: ObamaCare's individual mandate, which forces Americans to purchase health insurance under penalty of law, violates the Constitution and usurps the rights given to states. Today, we filed a very significant amicus brief, posted here, on behalf of 119 [...]
E.J. Dionne Gets It Wrong on Citizens United, Again
Liberty Alerts, Paul Sherman, Institute for Justice Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne has been complaining about Citizens United v. FEC since before Citizens United was decided. In his latest attack on that ruling, Dionne argues that the decision doesn’t work “if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy.” As famed First [...]
Middle East Crumbles Around Obama’s Foreign Policy
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation Thousands are dead in Syria, with more blood spilled each day. Iran is within arm’s reach of a nuclear weapon, threatening Israel’s very existence. And in Egypt, 19 Americans are banned from leaving the country, making them veritable hostages in an unfriendly land. All indications are that the Middle [...]
Greg Takes On Proposed Arizona Law in ‘The Huffington Post’
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG In his latest piece for The Huffington Post, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff criticizes a newly proposed Arizona law dictating that all educational institutions follow FCC regulations concerning "indecent speech." Greg argues that the law is not only "hilariously" unconstitutional, but also [...]
Widener Settles Lawsuit Filed by Law Professor who was Punished for Protected Speech
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG For a year now, FIRE has been reporting on the case of wronged law professor Lawrence Connell, who was the target of a campaign spearheaded by Widener Law Dean Linda Ammons. Ammons sought Connell's termination and banishment from Widener mainly on the basis of Connell's use of hypothetical legal scenarios that [...]
Judge To Decide If Whales Get Constitutional Protection
Liberty Alerts, Corruption Chronicles Should animals get the same constitutional protection against slavery as humans? That’s what a federal judge in California will decide after hearing arguments this week from a leftwing animal rights group that claims an amusement park treats captured killer whales like slaves. It marks the first time in [...]
Day of Reckoning for Violence Against Women Act
BY PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 2 on a straight party-line vote. That proves again that the feminists control the Democratic Party, and also is a refreshing indication that Republicans are no longer intimidated by feminist demands. VAWA [...]
Bad Effects of Internet Gambling
UNDERMINING CIVIC VIRTUE, PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT Since Barack Obama opened the door to internet gambling on Christmas Eve by having his Justice Department re-interpret the law to allow gambling online, we can expect the gambling industry to become an even bigger player in politics. It is already a major contributor to political candidates and [...]
Bill Before President Authorizes Spy Drones over U.S.
BIG BROTHER, NEWSROOM AMERICA The use of drones in skies over the United States would increase dramatically if a bill passed by Congress last week is signed into law by President Obama, as expected, giving pause to privacy advocates who say they could be used to spy on Americans. Besides paving the way for more use of unmmaned drones, the [...]
Stocks Fall, Oil Prices Rise, as Fear of Iran Mounts
ENERGY, NEWSROOM AMERICA Oil prices topped $99 a barrel Wednesday on news that U.S. stocks declined unexpectedly on heightened demand and fears Iran could cut supplies. By mid-afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for March delivery was up 90 cents at $99.31 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That extended [...]
9th District Court Strikes Down Calif. Gay Marriage Ban
CULTURE/MARRIAGE, NEWSROOM AMERICA (Newsroom America) -- A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a lower court's decision overturning California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages. The appeals court upheld a previous ruling by now-retired U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who revealed he was [...]
Santorum Surges in First Multi-State Primaries
CAMPAIGN TRAIL, JON E. DOUGHERTY JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Newsroom America) -- Just when it looked like Republicans were coalescing around Mitt Romney to be the party's nominee in the fall against President Obama, Super Tuesday happened. Rick Santorum happened. Without question the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania was the big winner in [...]
Eleventh Circuit Affirms Ruling against Former Valdosta State President in Victory for Student Rights
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG Here is today's press release: ATLANTA, February 8, 2012—In a victory for student rights, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a unanimous decision late yesterday in the case of Barnes v. Zaccari, holding that former Valdosta State University (VSU) President Ronald M. Zaccari [...]
FIRE at Two Student Conferences This Month
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG Each year, FIRE staff attend national conferences hosted by groups from across the political and ideological spectrum in order to network and spread our nonpartisan message of liberty on campus. In February, FIRE will be attending two major student conferences in Washington, DC. This week, FIRE staff members will [...]
Cargo Vulnerable To Terrorist Threats Still Not Screened
Liberty Alerts, Corruption Chronicles It’s been more than a decade since Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. yet the agency created to protect the nation from another strike is asleep at the wheel, failing to adequately screen the monstrous amounts of cargo that enter the country each day. This may seem unbelievable to most Americans, that [...]
Help Restore Religious Freedom in America
Liberty Alerts, JBS.org Freedom Campaign The contraception mandate recently dictated by the Obama administration has met with a firestorm of opposition. It requires all employers, regardless of the tenets of their faith to purchase health insurance plans that cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients. Aside from the attempts by [...]
Obama Amnesty: Deportations At Record Low
Liberty Alerts, Corruption Chronicles The Obama backdoor amnesty plan is in full force, with a record amount of illegal immigrants spared from deportation and a huge increase in the number of those allowed to remain the United States. The shift is striking, according to the nonprofit university group that obtained government records outlining [...]
Romney’s “Slip”?
BY CHRIS CLANCY When I was a kid I remember a teacher telling us that whilst democracy was far from perfect it usually produced the “right” result. How did this happen? He explained as follows: For a two-party system, the democratic process only needed an “informed” minority of electors in order to get the “right” result. [...]
Medical Debt Rising, Says New Report
HEALTH/ECONOMY, NEWSROOM AMERICA Hard hit by one of the worst recessions in nearly a century, hundreds of thousands of Californians lost insurance coverage across the state as employers shed jobs and the health plans that came with those jobs, according to a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Among the most alarming [...]
Obama Reverses Course, Backs Super PACs
CAMPAIGN TRAIL, NEWSROOM AMERICA In a reversal of position, President Obama's reelection campaign will begin sending administration and fundraising aides to raise funds for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC (political action committee) that backs the president. The president's critics said his decision is the epitome of hypocrisy, given his [...]
Catholic Leaders Vow Fight With Obama
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, NEWSROOM AMERICA U.S. Catholic leaders on Monday vowed to fight the Obama administration over a new provision of the health care law that requires all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control "Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the [...]
Bernanke: ‘A Long Way to Go’ Before Full Jobs Recovery
MATT COVER, CNSNEWS.COM Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee that the country still had “a long way to go” before the jobs market fully recovers. Bernanke, in prepared remarks delivered at a Senate Budget Committee hearing Tuesday, said that the results of massive long-term unemployment and a sluggish [...]
A Beating and Racial Slurs – But No Hate-crime Charges
BY SELWYN DUKE Ah, the left-wing capacity for rationalization knows no bounds. While we’re told that even substantive criticism of Barack Obama is driven by the hatefulness the left has dubbed “racism,” a racial attack by three black teenagers on two white men in Philadelphia this past Monday is, somehow, not. Consider the scenario, [...]
Obamacare Awakens a Sleeping Giant
Mike Brownfield, Heritage Foundation It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target. But when that law eviscerates the very foundation of religious liberty in America as protected [...]
U.S. Releases Climate Change Gender Fact Sheet
Liberty Alerts, Corruption Chronicles The U.S. government has determined that poor/minority women are the biggest victims of global warming because they have lower incomes, less access to credit and decision-making authority and limited control over resources. This increases their “vulnerability to many climate impacts,” according to a [...]
Speech Code of the Month: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
FIRST AMENDMENT, THEFIRE.ORG FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for February 2012: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). For a number of years, UNC earned FIRE's poorest, "red light" rating for maintaining restrictive speech codes. This rating was due in large part to a list of sexual harassment examples [...]
I’m Outta Here
BY ALAN CARUBA Those who follow politics more intently than I will no doubt be able to identify why, specifically, various incumbent Senators and Representatives have decided not to run for office in the 2012 elections, but as of this writing 43 incumbents have made it known they will not seek reelection. Among the one hundred members of the [...]
Eyewash Battle for the Constitution: A Letter to “Eric Holder”?
CONSTITUTION, LEE.SENATE.GOV Today, Senator Mike Lee joined Senators Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Jon Kyle, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Tom Coburn in signing a letter addressed to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the recent appointment of four officials to various positions in the Obama administration. Excerpts of [...]
