I am delighted to report that one of my civil liberties columns was selected as one of the top ten articles in the Washington Post’s Outlook Section for 2012. The article entitled the “Ten Reasons the U.S. Is No Longer The Land of the Free,” continues to generate commentary, which is gratifying. Indeed, the success of the column gives hope that there are enough of us out there who care about the decline of civil liberties in this country.
Continue reading ““Top Ten Reasons” Column Makes The Top Ten Articles of 2012″
Category: Constitutional Law
John Cusack and I had a dialogue last year about civil liberties and other issues. John has now run a second interview (actually half of a second interview) on Huffington Post. This interview focuses on the case of Julian Assange.
Continue reading “What Is An Assange? My Interview With John Cusack”
We have been following cases where sperm donors have been held for child support or alternatively sought parental rights. The latest such case is out of Kansas where the state is pursuing a sperm donor for child support. William Marotta responded to an advertisement by a lesbian couple to donate sperm, but, after the couple split up, the state insisted on being given his name as the father and pursued him for monthly support payments.
Continue reading “Kansas Demands Child Support Payments From Sperm Donor”
The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has filed a lawsuit with the Internal Revenue Service that raises an interesting question. The group challenges the government’s different treatment of religious and non-religious non-for-profit organizations. While tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations must file a detailed application form, fee and annual information to obtain and maintain their tax-exempt status, churches and other religious organizations are exempted from the requirement to file the reports and fees. The lawsuit alleges that the added expensive and detailed paperwork is a form of discrimination against non-religious groups.
Continue reading “Group Challenges Different Treatment By IRS of Religious and Non-Religious Groups”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
If you are like me, you remember the violent response by the FBI, DHS and local police forces to the many “Occupy” movement protests last Fall. In those protests, the police used incredible force and firepower to break up peaceful protests and make a mockery of the First Amendment. The police responses always seemed to be coordinated from city to city and there were allegations that the FBI and other governmental agencies were aiding the local authorities in stamping down the First Amendment rights of the Occupy protestors. Now, a treasure trove of documents was released pursuant to a Freedom of Information request by a group called The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Those documents expose a level of governmental intrusion into the privacy of protestors and governmental and private bank partnerships designed to crack down on legal protestors. Continue reading “Who Occupied the Occupy Movement?”
For months, I have criticized the tax policies of France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande, particularly the confiscatory 75 percent tax rate for the wealthiest French. In addition to being in my view unfair, it is extremely bad economic policy. France’s Constitutional Council now appears to agree — at least on the equitable side. On Saturday, the Council rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate on annual income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) as an unfair treatment of different households. Popular figures like French actor Gerard Depardieu have opposed the tax and even left the country. The French experience should get some in the United States to dial down on our own over-heated rhetoric on economic policy. (Yes, I will now vent a bit on economic policy).
Continue reading “Liberté,Egalité, Fraternité: French Court Strikes Down 75 Percent Tax on Rich”
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. Continue reading “Merry Christmas!!!”
A Saudi court has ordered the editor of a Saudi Arabian website to be tried for apostasy, and possibly executed, due to his criticism of the role of religion in the Saudi Kingdom. Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, was arrested in June and originally charged with insulting Islam. The court has now upgraded the charge to apostasy.
Continue reading “Saudi Editor Faces Death Penalty For Apostasy Due To Writings About Religion”
Life under Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to return to the old Soviet standards this month after a Chechen newspaper was closed following an embarrassing comment by the editor-in-chief in the presence of the Russia strongman. Worse yet, people actually laughed when Belkis Dudayeva, the editor-in-chief of Kadyrov’s Path, asked a question that began with “Thank God that Chechnya has now become a region of peace and prosperity…”
Continue reading “Newspaper Closed After Editor Asks Putin An Embarrassing Question”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
Lost in the headlines about the Fiscal Cliff and the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, was the gubernatorial appointment to the United States Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jim DeMint. Sen. DeMint was arguably the Tea Party’s Senator and his impending departure from the Senate to accept the position to head up the Heritage Foundation would have left a gaping hole in the Tea Party’s influence in the Senate. There is nothing to worry about because South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley named Tea Party Congressman Tim Scott to replace DeMint in the Senate. Rep. Scott was just elected to the House of Representatives in 2010 and has already made a big name for himself in the Tea Party world by suggesting that President Obama should be impeached if Obama attempted to go around the House of Representatives during the last debt ceiling fiasco! Continue reading “The Latest Tea Party Darling”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I don’t know about you but I was certainly happy that I woke up this morning. For a few years now there has been great speculation that the world was going to end yesterday. As I fell asleep about 1:00pm last night it was with knowing that in Mexico it was three hours earlier and so that the dread prediction of the world’s end by the Mayan Calendar still may have been possible. The whole idea was a blatant misrepresentation of Mayan belief and hoax-like, yet that didn’t prevent many from making this non-story into yet another way to frighten people. Frightening people with made-up nonsense seems to be a human trait and certainly has been exploited throughout history for one sort of gain or another.
Fear not though, because just as the collective We has just bitten one bullet, another comes along to frighten us once again with disaster and that “disaster” will occur on December 31, 2012, as we come to the end of another turmoil ridden year in societal intercourse. I’m writing, of course, about the “Looming Fiscal Cliff” that has been so very prominent in what our mainstream media calls “news and commentary” and our leaders of both parties call governance. My opinion and that of many others with far more economic expertise than myself, is that the “Fiscal Cliff” is a mere “bogeyman”, used by those politicians on the Right and the Left as leverage to accomplish their particular political agendas.
Since one of the interests of this blog is the Constitution and the consequent Rule of Law that should be its’ result, this comes within our purview because serious issues of national interest are being driven by false mythology grown to myth like proportion. Let’s look at what is behind this mythology and its propaganda. Continue reading ““The Fiscal Cliff” an Example of Myth and Propaganda”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The 5-4 Supreme Court case of Rosenberger v. University of Virginia has been cited by those arguing that the government may not impose viewpoint-based restrictions by revoking the tax-exempt status of the Westboro Baptist Church. The case involved the University’s refusal to use the Student Activities Fund (SAF) to pay for a Christian student newspaper, Wide Awake. The University argued that an SAF Guideline prohibited funds going to an activity that “primarily promotes or manifests a particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.” The District Court ruled for the University, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit disagreed saying that there is a “presumptive violation of the Speech Clause when viewpoint discrimination was invoked to deny third party payment otherwise available.”
There is a new disturbing video (below) showing police abuse this week. The video shows a Texas state trooper performing what was claimed to be a cavity search on the roadside on suspicion of possession of marijuana. It appears that while states like Colorado are legalizing marijuana, Texas is allegedly doing cavity searches to find someone in possession of weed. I guess it should be no surprise when you are driving on the George Bush Turnpike. The two women — Angel Dobbs, 38, and her niece, Ashley Dobbs, 24 — subject to the humiliating search are now suing the police.
We have previously discussed the curious definition of prostitution in this country. Many libertarians and others believe that consenting adults should be able to consent to such arrangements. My long-standing interest is the legal definition (and fairness) of the criminal code in defining prostitution. If someone agrees to have sex for money, they are arrested as a prostitute. However, if you accept money to have sex with multiple people in a porn movie, you are an actress. Now, Cheryl Cohen Greene, a 68-year-old grandmother and cancer survivor, adds another possible exception. She is a “sexual surrogate” who works with men who are sick or disabled in ‘sexual therapy.’
It takes a lot to get most of us to give a Tinker’s damn for the homophobic extremists at the Westboro Baptist Church. However, the people may be close of doing just that. Citizens are passing around petitions to have the church declared a hate group and strip it of its tax exempt status. This type of political movement targeting an unpopular vote raises all types of alarms for civil libertarians. Declaring certain groups as “hate groups” by popular demand smacks of majoritarian dominance. It also reaffirms the concerns, which I have written about previously, that hate laws are increasingly being used to stifle free speech. It is equally troubling to find the petition on the White House website.
Continue reading “National Petition Drive Seeks To Strip Westboro Church Of Tax Exempt Status”