The American Founders: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor

Read More

(The following article was written by radio icon Rush Limbaugh’s father and was often read around the Independence Day holiday on the air by the talk show host.)

By Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr,

It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the Southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them.” All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.
Continue reading “The American Founders: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor”


The Free Press Act: A Proposal to Reinvigorate Our Freedom of Speech

-By Warner Todd Huston

In this day of mounting threats to our freedoms it is time to reinvigorate our Bill of Rights and so Senator John Kyl (R, AZ) has introduced S. 3493, The Free Press Act. This bill aims to prevent nuisance lawsuits meant only to quash freedom of speech, to stop the intimidation of journalists, bloggers, and those testifying before government.

One would have hoped that such a bill would be unnecessary, but in our day of increasing attacks on freedom of speech perhaps the time has come to reaffirm and remind us all of the legacy our founders left to us.

The biggest development overseas in the campaign to eliminate free speech and freedom of the press has been the constant use of defamation lawsuits to silence the sort of speech certain parties are not fond of. These barrage attacks are often called “lawfare” and, sadly, they have come to our shores, as well.

In our system these attacks on free speech are called “SLAPP lawsuits.” These lawsuits come in two varieties, one against people who testify before government committees or in hearings and, two, increasingly against people who write opinion editorials or news reports. This could also apply easily to bloggers.
Continue reading


The Free Press Act: A Proposal to Reinvigorate Our Freedom of Speech”


Media Falsely Reports Man Used 3-D Printer to ‘Print’ His own ‘Assault Rifle’?

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few days ago the Interwebs went all a twitter over a guy that reporters claimed “printed” his own “fully functional assault rifle” using a 3-D printer that “prints” in plastic. But few of these reports came anywhere near getting the facts straight on this story. The fact is he “printed” only a small part of the gun. He did not “print” a “fully functional rifle” as many reports suggested.

There was “printing” going on, certainly. But the only part of the gun — an AR-15 — that was fabricated using the 3-D printer was a part that did not have to withstand the explosions of the cartridge going off, nor was it a part that hasn’t been made of plastic in other guns already. The chamber was not fabricated, the barrel was not fabricated, the bolt wasn’t, and the firing pin wasn’t. In fact, none of the most important working parts were created using the 3-D printer.

So, what was “printed” by the machine? Only the lower receiver. If you don’t know what that is, think of it as the seat or skeleton upon which all the working parts of the gun sit. It is also the part to which the stock and handle are attached. So the only part this guy created was the lower receiver to which he affixed the rest of a real AR-15’s parts.
Continue reading


Media Falsely Reports Man Used 3-D Printer to ‘Print’ His own ‘Assault Rifle’?”


NY City Council Speaker Stands Up Against Freedom of Speech

-By Warner Todd Huston

Judging by this whole Chick-Fil-A oppression program liberals are engaging in, it’s no wonder Jonah Goldberg had a hit with his recent book, Liberal Fascism.

This time it is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who is proud to stand against our Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, not to mention the right to do legal business anywhere without fearing the iron boot heel of government coming down upon us for having upset some haughty government official somewhere.

Quinn has condemned Chick-Fil-A for having dared to break no laws in the exercise of its daily business and is sponsoring one of those wondrous Internet petitions saying so.

If a petition were to be where her ire ended, well, that would be her right as a private citizen, as far as that goes. But she’s taken that step farther which makes her actions illegal. Quinn’s invoked her powers as an elected official and sent a letter to New York University’s president demanding that the Chick-Fil-A outlet on his campus be shut down.
Continue reading


NY City Council Speaker Stands Up Against Freedom of Speech”


Even TIME Says Mayors Emanuel and Menino Wronging Chick-Fil-A

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s a “First Amendment buzzsaw,” that the mayors of Chicago and Boston have walked into over misuse of their powers in denying Chick-Fil-A the right to open and operate their fast food stores in the two cities. This is from TIME, yet. And if even TIME realizes that the Democrats are misusing their powers, well, let’s just say it’s a major violation of Chick-Fil-A’s free speech plain and simple.

For TIME, Michael Scherer goes over the whole series of events that led up to the two mayors — Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Thomas Menino of Boston — imagining they have the power to deny Chick-Fil-A a right to operate merely because committed Christians run the company. Scherer’s analysis is that this mistaken belief in their powers puts the mayors in “tricky legal waters.”
Continue reading


Even TIME Says Mayors Emanuel and Menino Wronging Chick-Fil-A”


Obama’s DOJ Refuses to Affirm America’s Religious Freedoms

-By Warner Todd Huston

This video is a perfect example of the essential lawlessness of the Obama administration.

There are some things that are essentially a basic truth. Murder is always wrong. Rights must be safeguarded. And violations of rights must be prosecuted. Also, the U.S. Department of Justice should always, always be zealous in the scheme of protecting those rights.

But not to Obama. No, to Obama the DOJ is only a political office, one that operates on no essential truths.

In this case, Congressman Trent Franks (R, Ariz.) asked an official of Obama’s DOJ if his office would vow to protect our Constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom.

This DOJ stooge refused to do so.

Continue reading


Obama’s DOJ Refuses to Affirm America’s Religious Freedoms”


Ice-T: Guns the ‘Last Form of Defense Against Tyranny’

-By Warner Todd Huston

I’ve always wondered how the African American community could possibly support strict gun control considering its past history with government authorities both in our past and modern times. Well, at least one prominent African American, rapper and actor Ice-T, is speaking out in favor of American’s Second Amendment rights.

In a visit to sell his latest film project, Ice-T appeared on Channel 4 TV in London, England with host Krishnan Guru-Murthy. The appearance just happened to be only hours after the mass murder in Aurora, Colorado and host
Guru-Murthy thought he’d query the rapper on his thoughts on guns in America.

As it happens, Ice-T, the self-described “Godfather of Gangsta Rap,” was not in the least apologetic for American’s rights to self defense.

Continue reading


Ice-T: Guns the ‘Last Form of Defense Against Tyranny’”


Calif. AG Pushes to Award Law License to Illegal Immigrant

-By Warner Todd Huston

California’s Attorney General, Democrat Kamala Harris, has weighed in on the side of an immigrant who is asking the State Supreme Court to award him a California law license after his graduation from law school despite that he’s neither a legal resident nor a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.

In her brief, Democrat Harris pleaded with the court to award this license. “Admitting Garcia to the bar would be consistent with state and federal policy that encourages immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to contribute to society,” Harris said.

This is nonsense. Our laws do not encourage undocumented immigrants to “contribute to society.” Only when our laws are ignored, set aside, or broken by recalcitrant government officials do they somehow encourage illegals to “contribute to society.”

In truth, our laws encourage illegal immigrants to become legal or go back home.
Continue reading


Calif. AG Pushes to Award Law License to Illegal Immigrant”


Gun Control Argument Stopped Cold by Susan Gratia

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the aftermath of the crime in Colorado, the Old Media and left-wingers everywhere rush to claim that we need more gun control. In this climate it is instructive to remember what happened to Doctor Susan Gratia.

She was a legal concealed weapons carrier in Texas, but because she became fearful of being arrested for carrying because Democrat legislators at the time (1991) began to prosecute people for carrying their firearms, Dr. Gratia left her gun in her car instead of carrying it in her purse as she usually did. Then a gunman burst into a restaurant in which she and her parents were eating. She made it out. Her parents did not.

This cautionary tale MUST be remembered.
Continue reading


Gun Control Argument Stopped Cold by Susan Gratia”


236 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today America enjoys the celebration of 236 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.

So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator have given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.

Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.

The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.

Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.

And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.

And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.

Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
Continue reading


236 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”


Does ‘Separation of Church and State’ Really Exist?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Note: I wrote this in 2008, but it is so far back in the archives that it isn’t properly showing in searches, so I am updating it.

Secularists today have a catch phrase that they use like a club against religion in America. That club is named “the separation of church and state.”

So many Americans have heard the phrase that they think it is one actually written right into the Constitution of the United States itself. Those who are more learned on the subject realize it is not. Those who are learned on the subject also know that it wasn’t mentioned in any law, or even in the halls of Congress, until long after the Constitution was written. In fact, there was not much attention paid to the phrase at all until after Thomas Jefferson, the originator of the phrase, was long dead.

Not even the Supreme Court paid it much attention until the 1940s. So this “wall of separation” issue is not one that hails from the early Republic with the same meaning as it does today. Our Founders had very different ideas about religion and government, ideas that were not nearly as simple as the stark black or white assumptions of the activists of today.

The Danbury Letter

The man who initially conjured the “wall of separation” phrase, President Thomas Jefferson (1800-1808), wrote it in an 1802 letter to a congregation of Baptist churchmen from Danbury, Connecticut. Only elected president of the United States but two years previously, Jefferson was responding to a letter sent him by the Danbury church members who were attempting to get his support for their struggle against the state’s somewhat oppressive religious requirements for certain rights — not an unusual practice in the states at that time. While Jefferson’s letter only obliquely addressed the Baptist’s concerns, more importantly it addressed the Federal position on establishing a national religion. Jefferson’s reply, in reality, was focused on the Federal issue, not that of the states.

Continue reading


Does ‘Separation of Church and State’ Really Exist?”


Differences Between Bush’s ‘Wide Receiver’ Program and Obama’s ‘Fast & Furious’

Gary Krasner

It’s the difference between a marshmallow and a Mellow Marsh.

The main Democrat talking point to defend Obama’s debacle — Fast & Furious — is to claim that had begun under Pres. Bush. But in fact, the program they’re referring to that was run during Bush’s administration was called “Wide Receiver”, and it had been discontinued over a year before Obama took office. But more egregious than that is that it’s a facile sound-bite that ignores the stark differences between “Wide Receiver” and “Fast & Furious”, and worse, supposed serious journalists and correspondents do not call Democrats to task for it.

Here are the differences in simplest terms:

  • Wide Receiver (WR) was active from 2005 to 2007 (Oct.). Number of guns involved: 400
  • Fast & Furious (F&F) was active from Fall 2009 – 2011. Number of guns involved: 2,000

GUN TRACKING METHODS:

Electronic tracking
WR — RFID trackers installed in guns.
F&F — No electronic tracking.

Surveillance
WR — Actively tracked by airborn surveillance.
F&F — No active surveillance of any kind.

Purchases
WR — Straw purchases recorded & surveilled.
F&F — No recording or surveillance of straw purchasers

Further Explanation: The local ATF field agents were ordered not to follow the straw purchasers. Federal agents were not allowed to interdict the guns and they even ran interference for the smugglers with local law enforcement on multiple occasions to make sure those guns made it across the border.
Continue reading


Differences Between Bush’s ‘Wide Receiver’ Program and Obama’s ‘Fast & Furious’”


Democrat’s Newest Attack on Free Political Speech With Willing Assistance by Media

-By Warner Todd Huston

What would you say if a Koch Brothers, right-wing effort was pushed on Americans with the knowing assistance of National Public Radio — and big money was paid to NPR for the effort? Would you say that this is an outrage, that NPR’s use of public airwaves to push a right-wing policy idea is a misuse of the journalist’s charge as well as our national airwaves? Well, that is exactly what happened but with a left-wing idea, the policy of so-called campaign-finance reform.

A whistleblower whose career was built on pushing left-wing, anti-free speech campaign donation limitation laws recently blew the lid off the subterfuge that backers of legislation like the disastrous McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law perpetrated to get their way in Washington.

The whistleblower, Sean Treglia, reports that players in this tale of smoke and mirrors were such left-wing foundations as the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Carnegie Corporation, as well as magazines like the liberal The American Prospect, and “news” organizations like National Public Radio.

Of course, it would be one thing if these liberal organizations, magazines and news groups were pushing a left-wing ideal because they truly believed such policies were the best medicine for our troubled political atmosphere, but apparently mere altruistic advocacy is not what went on here. Big, big money was given by these liberal groups to media outlets to help affect these political goals.
Continue reading


Democrat’s Newest Attack on Free Political Speech With Willing Assistance by Media”


No, We DON’T Need More Gun Laws Over Maryland Teen Suicide

-By Warner Todd Huston

A young Maryland boy named Joshua Eisner, 14, committed suicide early in June. He used a reproduction civil war era black powder rifle to do it. Now his father is launching an ill-advised and unnecessary drive to force more gun laws on Marylanders, pushing an idea he wants called “Joshua’s law.”

According to his obituary, young Joshua was interested in music and history, the latter being why he owned the old-style firearm. News reports say that he left no note explaining his actions, but that authorities classified his death as a suicide.
Continue reading


No, We DON’T Need More Gun Laws Over Maryland Teen Suicide”


New Jersey Police Say Blind People Don’t Deserve Constitutional Rights

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you a blind person living in New Jersey? Well, according to your police there, they think because you are blind you shouldn’t be allowed to have your Constitutional right to bear arms. This is exactly what they told a Rockaway man over four years ago. But he’s had the last laugh.

Steven Hopler, 49, lost his sight in an accident but that never stopped him from his hobby of collecting and shooting firearms. Four years ago, however, he had an accident and shot himself in the leg. When police responded they decided he was “a danger” and confiscated his firearms without a court order or any legal standing.

It has taken him four years of legal battles, but he’s finally won. This month a court ordered the Rockaway police to return Mr. Hopler’s gun collection saying that his disability did not eliminate his Constitutional rights as prescribed in the Second Amendment.

Hopler celebrated his victory saying it wasn’t about “power,” it was about “freedom.”
Continue reading


New Jersey Police Say Blind People Don’t Deserve Constitutional Rights”


Georgia Gov. Signs Bill Allowing 10 Commandments Posted at all Public Bldgs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Georgia Governor, Republican Nathan Deal has signed an amended “historical display” law that will allow America’s founding documents as well as the Ten Commandments and the Magna Carta to be posted at schools and other government buildings in addition to the courthouses as the original bill allowed.

The amended law introduced by State Rep. Tommy Benton (R, Jefferson, Dist. 31) allows the “Foundations of American Law & Government Display” to be publicly displayed in “all public buildings.”

The display includes the following documents:
Continue reading


Georgia Gov. Signs Bill Allowing 10 Commandments Posted at all Public Bldgs”


Bankrupting America Launches Online Advocacy Campaign Urging Senate to Vote on a Budget

From Bankrupting America…

ARLINGTON, VA – Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, today announced a multipronged online educational advocacy campaign leading up to the three-year anniversary since the last time Congress passed a budget. The campaign includes a web video, online advertising, a Twitter hashtag campaign and a grassroots call to action urging the Senate to pass a budget.

Congress last passed a budget on April 29, 2009, almost three years ago. Since then, Members of Congress from both parties have failed to work together to perform one of the federal government’s most basic functions.

Gretchen Hamel, executive director of Public Notice, issued the following statement announcing the campaign:
Continue reading


Bankrupting America Launches Online Advocacy Campaign Urging Senate to Vote on a Budget”


Salon: Why Worry About Obama and Guns, America?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Barack Obama first won the White House, gun sales soared because supporters of the Constitution rightfully understood that Barack Obama is a gun-banner at heart. They feared he’d attack their Constitutional rights and begin a long trail of legislation or regulatory efforts to ban guns.

Everyone has been surprised — including Obama’s own supporters — that he has not done anything to advance the anti-gun issue. Even going so far as to line up in favor of some gun issues (such as allowing guns in national parks).

In fact, looking back through recent political history shows that Democrats have practically given up pushing their gun-banning ideas on the electorate. Proof of this is the fact that every state but one (Illinois) now has some sort of shall issue law on the books, Democrats having given up fighting to stop it all.
Continue reading


Salon: Why Worry About Obama and Guns, America?”


Berkeley Storm Troopers: Don’t Write What The Police Don’t Like or Else

-By Warner Todd Huston

If police chiefs send armed officers to a journalist’s door because he didn’t like what was written abut him, would you feel just a tad uncomfortable as an American at the audacity? This is no academic discussion because it really happened. Not in what liberals may claim is the dangerous, intolerant south but instead in the heart of liberal land itself, Berkeley, California.

Worse, one of the reasons this whole situation arose is because police were too distracted by an Occupy Berkeley protest to respond to an incident that ended up in the murder of a 67-year-old resident.

But first, on Friday, Feb. 9, Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan sent an armed officer to the door of Bay Area News Group reporter Doug Oakley at nearly one in the morning to demand that he publish a correction about something the reporter had written about the Berkeley police department.
Continue reading


Berkeley Storm Troopers: Don’t Write What The Police Don’t Like or Else”


This is What Guns Were Made For

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the main purposes for guns in the American philosophy is certainly a controversial idea. It is an aspect of the Second Amendment that few people today are comfortable talking about, but, uncomfortable or no, it is a major factor in the necessity and usefulness of the Second Amendment in our founding father’s experience. That purpose, that guns in the hands of the people are a breaker on the power of the state, is an issue raised again in last week’s story out of Canada.

In Ontario, Canada Jessie Sansone, a young father of four, was grabbed up by the local storm troopers and charged with a gun crime. He was thrown in jail for most of the day, not allowed to see his wife and children, was repeatedly interrogated, and it seems threatened with having his children taken away from him and his wife. His crime?

You won’t believe this…
Continue reading


This is What Guns Were Made For”


DC Deputy Mayor: Dear Victims of Crime, Better You Are Beaten, Raped, Stolen From Than You Protect Yourself

-By Warner Todd Huston

Washington D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice wants you all to just stop whining about the rising crime in his fair city. He wants you to continue being a victim and like it. Not only that, but he thinks it’s a good thing that you should become a victim. Better that than protecting yourself, don’t you know?

That is what Dept. Mayor Paul Quander told victims of crime in Washington D.C. last week during a Third Ward public safety meeting. You don’t have any right to protect yourself, Washingtonians. You have only one response available to you: allow evil to prevail.

Unlike other big American cities, crime in D.C. is up 40% in the first two months of 2012. But Quander thinks it’s no big deal. Cowering is his motto.

A young citizen attending the meeting came to the open microphone to ask Dep. Mayor Quander what crime victims are supposed to do when confronted with violent criminals bent on mayhem.

“The choice that you have to make,” Quander rambled, “is to give them what they want. You walk away and you live and you survive.”

But the young man was incredulous and for good reason. “But how do you know that you are going to live and survive, you are completely at their mercy,” the young man asked.
Continue reading


DC Deputy Mayor: Dear Victims of Crime, Better You Are Beaten, Raped, Stolen From Than You Protect Yourself”


Sluts Without Shame!

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

Since the Fall of man, the earth has been cursed with women (and men) who used their bodies in illicit ways. They have been called loose women, prostitutes, whores, fallen women, and sluts; however, in earlier days, there was a sense of shame and disgrace in their activities. Even Hollywood lowlifes tried to be discrete. While “slut” is considered offensive, so is the lifestyle.

When I was young, if an unmarried woman got pregnant, she was sent to “visit her grandmother” for a few months. The family still loved her, wanted the best for her, forgave her, but there was a lasting sense of shame. But those days are long gone. Society calls it “reproductive freedom” but God calls it whoredom; and status, beauty, money, and education don’t change anything.

Yes, any of our unmarried daughters can get pregnant and it is a heartbreaking situation, but when it happens again and again, the young woman is a slut, whether she is my daughter or yours. Of course, getting pregnant doesn’t make her a slut, being sexually immoral does. Sex outside of marriage is always wrong.
Continue reading


Sluts Without Shame!”


Restoring American Exceptionalism – Chicago Townhall

-By Warner Todd Huston

I just got back from a wonderful evening taking school choice at the Restoring American Exceptionalism, Chicago Townhall. In attendance were radio talk show host Michael Medved, Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and Dr. Paul Worfel, Director of Education of Trinity International University. The discussion was moderated by John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.

The event was sponsored by National School Choice Week, an effort by Americans for Prosperity, and is one of many events being held across the country to encourage parents, legislators, and activists to work toward allowing parents a choice in their children’s education. Co-sponsors were Townhall.com, Salem Radio Networks, and Chicago’s WIND Radio, AM 560

Arriving at the sprawling campus of Trinity International University of Deerfield, Illinois, the biting cold outside was quickly forgotten by the warm reception all received by the event staff. The program started promptly with an introduction by local radio host Big John Howell of AM 560, WIND radio who turned the program over to John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute.

The night’s debate was nicely balanced from right, center and left with a panel featuring the conservative side of the debate on education represented by talk show host Michael Medved, the center represented by Fox News contributor Juan Williams, and the more traditional educrat’s position taken by Dr. Worfel.

I won’t repeat the whole discussion, but here are some of the more interesting (and some might say provocative) highlights.
Continue reading


Restoring American Exceptionalism – Chicago Townhall”


From a TV Show to a Fight for Campus Free Speech

-By Warner Todd Huston

This video, which features an interview with legendary author Neil Gaiman (famed science fiction, fantasy and comic book writer), is a lighthearted look at how the University of Wisconsin-Stout ended up being forced to back down from its oppression of the free speech of one of its professors.

Professor James Miller’s poster, one featuring a quote from the science fiction show Firefly, was considered by campus police and the school administration to be a “threat” to students because it had the word “kill” in it.

After the school torn the Firefly poster off the professor’s wall he replaced that one with a poster condemning fascism. The school tore that one down, as well, an Orwellian move if there eve was one.

Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen and other administrators stood by their actions until FIRE’s advocacy campaign on Miller’s behalf inspired Gaiman, along with Firefly actors Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, to take to Twitter to encourage their millions of followers to contact the university with their support of free speech.

FIRE has started a contest that will award $500 to the best tweet to advertise their new video.
Continue reading


From a TV Show to a Fight for Campus Free Speech”


What Is Constitutional Conservatism?

-By Yuval Levin, National Review

(ED: I don’t usually repost an entire article from another site but this article is too important to just excerpt. I apologize to Mr. Levin in advance, but his essay is one of the best definitions of what American conservatism truly is that I’ve seen for a long time. It is also a good explanation on why modern liberalism is as wrong as can be and anti-American to boot. It is a must read for anyone that wants a hint of the character of American conservatism and a good guide on how to think about what conservatives advocate. I just had to post it in it’s entirety, just had to have this chronicled on my site.)

This fall, liberals from the president on down have begun to grasp the scope of the political and intellectual disaster that the past three years have been for the Left. Their various responses to the calamity have tended to have one thing in common: immense frustration. But the different expressions of that frustration have been deeply revealing. They should help Americans better understand this complicated moment in our politics, and, in particular, help conservatives frame their responses.

Liberal frustration has fallen into two general categories that seem at first to flatly contradict each other: denunciations of democracy and appeals to populism. In September, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former budget director, wrote an essay in The New Republic arguing that “we need less democracy.” To address our country’s daunting problems, Orszag suggested, we need to take some power away from Congress and give it to “automatic policies and depoliticized commissions” that will be shielded from public pressure. “Radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” Two weeks later, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, made a less sophisticated stab at the same general point, proposing to suspend congressional elections for a few years so members of Congress could make the difficult decisions necessary to get our country out of its deep problems.

Orszag and Perdue both seemed to channel a long and deeply held view of the Left — that the complexity of modern life and the intensity of modern politics should lead us to put more power in the hands of technical experts who have the knowledge to make objective, rational choices on our behalf. Leaving things to the political process will result only in delay and disorder. President Obama has frequently expressed this view himself — wistfully complaining to his aides earlier this year, for instance, that things would sure be easier if he were president of China.
Continue reading


What Is Constitutional Conservatism?”


Politico Misstates Concealed Carry Law Claims it Violates State’s Laws

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently Politico does not like the new concealed-carry reciprocity law recently passed in Congress. They must not like it. After all, aside from covering it in a negative light, the newser so badly misstated the law that it could easily turn its readers against the whole idea. But perhaps that’s the idea?

The law, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, would allow gun owners that have a concealed-carry license in their home state to carry their firearm in another state if that state also has a carry law in place. The law, however, does not allow someone to carry a firearm in a state that does not currently allow its own citizens to enjoy concealed-carry rights.

All this law does is standardize the lawful status of interstate gun carriers so that law-abiding citizens are not confused by and in fear of violating the many different state statutes concerning their firearms when traveling.
Continue reading


Politico Misstates Concealed Carry Law Claims it Violates State’s Laws”


Village of Palatine Attempts to Hide Millions in Accrued Village Sick and Vacation Time Balances‏

From the Palatine Tea Party…

Village of Palatine Attempts to Hide Millions in Accrued Village Sick and Vacation Time Balances
(Palatine, Illinois) – The Village of Palatine went out of its way to hide employee sick time and vacation time balances when we attempted to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain employee balances.

Government agencies expect taxpayers to pay their expenses, but when asked to view the data the answer is met with clear opposition. The Village tried to hide behind HIPPA law as their excuse. We then appealed the Village’s decision with the Illinois’ State Attorney and won. (click here for pdf document). Based on the 2009 W2’s, the sick time balance is approximately 9 million dollars and the vacation time balance totals approximately $687,000.
Continue reading


Village of Palatine Attempts to Hide Millions in Accrued Village Sick and Vacation Time Balances‏”