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Posts by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)
"The Obama Administration’s prosecution of John Stagliano is a travesty. As Reason magazine’s Richard Abowitz wrote, ‘The case against Stagliano concerns the selling of movies performed by consenting adults to entertain adult DVD viewers who have chosen to watch these films. In a free and open society this is exactly the kind of prosecution that should not happen.’”
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"A federal judge in Denver has ruled the Stolen Valor Act is "facially unconstitutional" because it violates free speech and dismissed the criminal case against Rick Strandlof, a man who lied about being an Iraq war veteran.
U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn issued his decision this morning. "The Stolen Valor Act is declared to be facially unconstitutional as a content-based restriction on speech that does not serve a compelling government interest, and consequently that the Act is invalid as violative of the First Amendment," Blackburn wrote in his opinion.
Where do we start? Dressing up in a uniform you did not earn and wearing medals you did not earn is not speech. It is theft.
This judge is a Bush 43 so there isn't a "Democrat judges" angle on this. Also, the legal team for these a55hats comes from The Rutherford Institute.
They won with logic like this: John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, said the law is poorly written and should not be used to prosecute people for simply telling lies.
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"Facebook has sensationally banned the official Alex Jones Facebook page after a customer services representative admitted that all material containing images of the famous Gadsden flag was being deleted by the social networking giant.
While some fan pages remain up, the official Alex Jones Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/realalexjones has been terminated. Other Alex Jones pages run by Infowars readers have also been deleted, such as the page that was formerly at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Real-Alex-Jones/.
If Facebook has embarked on a policy of banning political expression and images it deems offensive then the company should be more open about the fact. While Facebook didn’t consider it necessary to delete a fan page dedicated to the British murderer Raoul Moat, it is now purging all material related to the Tea Party movement, states’ rights and the Gadsden flag, which is a symbol of resistance against tyranny and was originally used by the United States Marine Corps.
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"Pamela Anderson's racy new vegetarian advertisement for pressure group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was banned today in Canada for being "too sexist".
The New York Daily News said the animal rights ad features the 43-year-old Baywatch star posing in a blue string bikini with her body parts marked with labels including "rump", "breast" and "ribs" - accompanied by the slogan "All Animals Have the Same Parts".
Canadian officials rejected the campaign in Montreal at the 11th hour today claiming the ad went against the equal rights of men and women. "It is not so much controversial, as it goes against all principles public organisations are fighting for in the everlasting battle of equality between men and women," an official wrote in an email to PETA.
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"The United States Government shut down about 73,000 WordPress blogs on a single Web site in a move that some fear signals an increasing disregard for individual free speech rights. The action follows the high profile government seizure of seven online movie sites weeks ago. The U.S. move dwarfs current Chinese government activity that shut down only “dozens” of blogs in China.
Recently targeted by federal action, the free WordPress blogging site Blogetery abruptly came offline after hosting provider BurstNet complied with undisclosed demands from authorities. A message viewable upon visiting the Blogetery site gives this message from its owner: "After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation.”
A link on the site leads to a forum called Web Hosting Talk, where the site operator has posted correspondence with BurstNet, that suggests federal involvement in the incident.
Those first to learn about the Blogetery shutdown seemed to think that the move was due to intellectual property concerns. The online discussion supposedly with the Blogetery owner suggests that users of his site prompted frequent cease and desist demands from copyright holders to which he responded with appropriate action against users of his site.
Original speculation seemed to be misguided upon the release of comments from BurstNet that disclosed that the action against Blogetery was not “typical” and required instant compliance with federal demands to close the entire Web site. Some reports seem to suggest that intellectual property rights actions typically target specific users of a service rather than the entire operation.
Now, some fear that the suffering of the innocent together with the guilty as the free speech of many appears to have been infringed by government action. Such fear supposes, of course, that not all 73,000 blogs on Blogetery were lawbreakers.
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"Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown slammed comedian Kathy Griffin for making a crude joke about his two daughters.
Griffin, star of “My Life on the D List” made the comments on the Bravo network Tuesday night. The segment features Griffin being shown a photograph of Brown by two CNN reporters, John King and Dana Bash. Griffin identifies Brown in the picture, saying, “Scott Brown, who is a senator from Massachusetts and has two daughters that are prostitutes.” Bash erupts in laughter at Griffin’s comment.
But Brown wasn’t laughing, blasting Griffin and Bravo for the segment.
“People can call me any name they want, but families are off limits," he said in the statement made through spokeswoman Gail Gitcho. "I love my daughters Ayla and Arianna very much, and any parent would be proud to have them as children. Kathy Griffin and Bravo ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
At the end of the clip, Griffin runs a disclaimer “from Bravo’s legal team,” saying the girls are not, in fact, “prostitutes.”
Ayla Brown is a former NCAA basketball player and recording artist. She is now a contributor for CBS’ “The Early Show.” Arianna Brown is currently a pre-med student at Syracuse University.
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"The North Iowa Tea Party has removed a billboard comparing President Obama's socialism to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin after holocaust survivor groups and many on the organized Left objected, according to an Associated Press story for July 14.
The billboard claimed that "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive," and had Obama's "Democrat Socialism" between Hitler's "National Socialism" and Lenin's "Marxist Socialism."
“The message they intended was to point out the similarities between Obama’s policies and the socialist policies of Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin,” communications specialist Michael Fiala of Mason City, Iowa, explained in his blog, “like nationalized health care, the collusion of government and business to interfere with free markets, and government collaboration with labor unions aimed at control to name a few.”
Indeed, Hitler's National Socialism bailed out the automobile industry in the depths of the depression, creating Volkswagen as a state socialist enterprise, similar to how the Bush-Obama policy utilized bailout funds to rescue General Motors and Chrysler.
But the image of Obama sandwiched on the billboard by Hitler and Lenin overshadowed the project. "The purpose of the billboard was to draw attention to the socialism. It seems to have been lost in the visuals," North Iowa Tea Party leader Bob Johnson told the Associated Press for July 13. "The pictures overwhelmed the message.”
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"Social networking site Facebook has refused to take down a memorial page for British killer Raoul Moat. More than 35,000 people have joined a group called "RIP Raoul Moat You Legend", leaving sympathy messages for the killer. Many of the messages are anti-police.
Prime Minister David Cameron earlier expressed his bewilderment that Moat, 37, should attract any sympathy. He described him as a "callous murderer".
Suggesting that any sympathy should be reserved for the victims, the Prime Minister told MPs: "It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community. There should be no sympathy for him."
Moat shot and seriously wounded his ex-partner and killed her boyfriend. He then shot a traffic police officer, a 42-year-old father of two, in the face, blinding him.
Facebook management rebuffed Downing Street, however, suggesting users who had posted supportive messages of the murderer were entitled to their views.
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"The 2nd Circuit has once again struck down the Federal Communication Commission’s indecency policy, calling it ‘unconstitutionally vague’ because it creates ‘a chilling effect that goes far beyond … fleeting expletives.’
The dispute between the FCC and several major TV networks appeared before the Manhattan-based federal appeals court for a second time after it was sent back by the Supreme Court.
In April 2009, the justices voted 5-4 that the FCC’s ban on brief, one-time utterances of profanities — or so-called ‘fleeting expletives’ — was not ‘arbitrary and capricious,’ as the 2nd Circuit had ruled in a 2-1 decision.”
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"The ubiquitous European hate-speech laws represent a clear and present danger to freedom of expression in the Western world. Not only do they interfere with the basic right of the individual to speak his or her mind even if it causes offense, they are inherently arbitrary and prone to abuse.
The determination of which expressions are ‘hateful’ or ‘derogatory’ is highly subjective; the atheist and the fervent believer are unlikely to agree on where the limits of religious satire should be drawn.
And in an era of identity politics, when people are encouraged to think of themselves primarily as members of racial, religious, or ethnic groups with special rights rather than as individual citizens with equal rights before the law, ‘racism’ and ‘hatred’ have become very broad concepts indeed.”
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"A Central Florida atheist organization has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lakeland over opening city commission meetings with prayer.
The lawsuit comes after the Atheists of Florida voiced specific outrage over the use of the name "Jesus Christ." An April 5 meeting became heated after a citizen got into a yelling match with the atheists, prompting commissioners to recess the meeting.
Courts have ruled invocations at meetings of government bodies are constitutional under some conditions. Lakeland’s policy has been ruled constitutional by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which stipulated that governments must make a reasonable effort to incorporate all religious faiths.
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"After an uproar from conservative bloggers and free-speech activists, the Transportation Security Administration late Tuesday rescinded a new policy that would have prevented employees from accessing websites with "controversial opinions" on TSA computers at work.
The ban on "controversial opinion" sites, issued late last week, was included as part of a more general TSA Internet-usage policy blocking employee access to gambling and chat sites, as well as sites that dealt with extreme violence or criminal activity.
But the policy itself became controversial as the Drudge Report and a number of conservative bloggers highlighted the possibility that the policy could be used to censor websites critical of the agency or of the Obama administration in general. The American Civil Liberties Union also questioned the language.
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"Today we witness the blatant desperation in our culture and media for a “moderate Islam” — an Islam that many non-Muslims vehemently insist exists, but that mysteriously eludes them. This moderate Islam will make everything better, we are told, once the “extremists,” who are the “minority” in Islam, will be sedated. This sedation will be most easily achieved, the argument continues, when the Islamophobes stop blaming Islam after Islamic terrorists point to Islamic scriptures in explaining what inspired them to perpetrate their terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, in terms of the planet that we happen to be occupying, a “moderate Islam” is nowhere to be found; no school of Islamic jurisprudence exists that counsels Muslims to renounce the Qur’an’s teachings on Islamic supremacism and the obligation of violent jihad. And yet, to suggest the truth of this reality in our culture gets one only the accusation of being a racist and an “Islamophobe.”
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"So earlier this week, a mosque was set on fire in Georgia – yet more evidence of the anti-Muslim backlash that’s sweeping the country.
At least, if you listened to The Council on American-Islamic Relations. Upon hearing the news of the crime, they reacted the way you’d expect. Says, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper…"Given the recent wave of incidents targeting American mosques, a possible bias motive for this apparent arson attack must be considered… Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority in our society promoting anti-Muslim bigotry, and that minority is experiencing little or no pushback from mainstream religious and political leaders.”
Uh yeah, I wish he’d expand on all these incidents, but maybe he’ll be too busy removing egg from his face. That’s because fire investigators have pretty much figured out who set fire to the mosque, and it’s a dude named Tamsir Lucien Mendy [pic below]. Investigators said Mendy belongs to the congregation.
Now, if you were to ask me, I’d say it’s really hard to be an anti-Muslim bigot, when you’re a Muslim. But knowing CAIR, I doubt they’ll let that silly detail clog up their angry ideology: its only goal is not to bridge differences, but to foment conflict through tthe idea of backlash – especially since no such phenomenon exists.
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"A huge poster of a Nazi swastika behind a 1940s-style naked pin-up model clad only in a Mickey Mouse-mask and stretched across a building has stirred controversy in Poznan, western Poland.
A new art gallery is using the work titled "NaziSexyMouse" by Italian artist Max Papeschi to advertise an exhibition, but a city councillor has tried to take legal action, saying it violates a law banning the display of Nazi symbols.
"For Poles, the swastika symbolises the suffering and death of more than six million Poles," said councillor Norbert Napieraj.
But the public prosecutor's spokeswoman Malgorzata Mikos-Fita told AFP on Friday that no legal action would be taken against the gallery for publicly displaying the poster as "it did not break the law."
Gallery curator Maria Czarnecka said that "we don't have to remove it as it's a work of art. If it were just a swastika, it would be propagating Nazi symbols. The law allows such symbols to be used in academic and artistic contexts."
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"A Muslim immigrant who called for "the slaughter of Jews" in online postings has become the first person to be charged with promoting genocide in Canada, police said on Friday.
Salman Hossain, a 25-year-old from Bangladesh who apparently left Canada in May, was charged with five counts of promoting hatred and advocating or promoting genocide over postings on his website and blog, as well as on a third-party website, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said.
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""U.S. District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett has ordered Osceola County Sheriff Douglas L. Weber to issue a gun permit to a resident and to complete a college-level course involving the First Amendment.
Bennett’s written decision on Wednesday involves the case of Paul Dorr, of Ocheyedan, who was denied a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Dorr and his son, Alexander, were denied gun permits after being engaged in extensive First Amendment activity -- protesting, passing out leaflets and writing letters to the editor -- the opinion notes.
“The court finds a tsunami, a maelstrom, an avalanche, of direct, uncontroverted evidence in Sheriff Weber’s own testimony to conclude beyond all doubt that he unquestionably violated the First Amendment rights of at least Paul Dorr,” Bennett wrote in his ruling."
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"A North Carolina pastor was relieved of his duties as an honorary chaplain of the state house of representatives after he closed a prayer by invoking the name of Jesus.
“I got fired,” said Ron Baity, pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. He had been invited to lead prayer for an entire week but his tenure was cut short when he refused to remove the name Jesus from his invocation.
Baity’s troubles began during the week of May 31. He said a House clerk asked to see his prayer. The invocation including prayers for our military, state lawmakers and a petition to God asking him to bless North Carolina.”
“When I handed it to the lady, I watched her eyes and they immediately went right to the bottom of the page and the word Jesus,” he told FOX News Radio. “She said ‘We would prefer that you not use the name Jesus. We have some people here that can be offended.’”
When Baity protested, she brought the matter to the attention of House Speaker Joe Hackney.
“I told her I was highly offended when she asked me not to pray in the name of Jesus because that does constitute my faith,” Baity said. “My faith requires that I pray in His name. The Bible is very clear.”
When the clerk returned, Baity said he was told that he would be allowed to deliver the day’s prayer – but after that – his services would no longer be needed.
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"The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.
The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, said his firing violates his academic freedom. He also lost his job at an on-campus Catholic center.
Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought, says he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining some Catholic beliefs to his students preparing for an exam.
"Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY," he wrote in the e-mail. "In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same."
An unidentified student sent an e-mail to religion department head Robert McKim on May 13, calling Howell's e-mail "hate speech." The student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The writer said in the e-mail that his friend wanted to remain anonymous.
"Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing," the student wrote. "Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another."
Howell said he was teaching his students about the Catholic understanding of natural moral law.
"My responsibility on teaching a class on Catholicism is to teach what the Catholic Church teaches," Howell said in an interview with The News-Gazette in Champaign. "I have always made it very, very clear to my students they are never required to believe what I'm teaching and they'll never be judged on that."
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