First Amendment : Parody of "The Most Interesting Man in the World".
This is a video created by Paxton Scott and Lucas Robins for a school project. The idea behind the video is to raise awareness of the Bill of Rights - specif...
By: Paxton S
Continue reading here:
First Amendment : Parody of "The Most Interesting Man in the World". - Video
The First Amendment- LV
This video is about The First Amendment- LV.
By: Tracey Kling
Read more:
After one week, a tough question already is being asked: Just how "JeSuisCharlie" (I am Charlie) should we be?
At the outset, First Amendment advocates need to recognize the many layers of such a question -- which originates not in reconsideration of recognition of those killed Jan. 7, but in the subsequent worldwide examination of the content of Charlie Hebdo magazine and other publications like it.
Does being critical of the magazine's biting satire, or suggesting it went beyond free speech into bigotry and deliberate provocation, offer any moral ground or comfort to the criminals who killed 12 people on at the Paris-based weekly magazine?
In many ways, the answer in the U.S. is easier -- at least at the start. The 45 words of the First Amendment says the government "shall make no law" restraining our freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. No mention of political correctness, politeness or subjects or styles that legally are out of bounds.
Of course, in the U.S., we daily debate the application of our First Amendment freedoms, in a myriad of detailed ways -- from Christmas carols in public schools, to words we can use on the Web, to how much and what we can donate to political candidates, and more. But we're so sanguine about our core rights that almost none of us can even name them. Since 1997, no more than 6 percent could name all five in the annual State of the First Amendment survey done by the Newseum Institute's First Amendment Center.
Only in the extremes, such as North Korea's objections to the silly movie "The Interview," do we seem to recognize how basic, how important and even how fragile those freedoms are. And with the gut-punch of the terror killings in France, we're suddenly viewing free expression through a worldwide looking glass -- examining its values, deep impact and perhaps its limits.
Should publications show those controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad? Nothing in U.S. law prevents news outlets from doing so. So here, the issue is not "can" but "should." Most news outlets have chosen not to do so, by reports. In the last week, the controversy reached even to the pages (and offices) of The New York Times, which chose not to publish the images.
Times editor Dean Baquet was so angered by what he considered a particularly "nasty and arrogant" comment by a California university professor (Baquet's words) that he included an earthy obscenity in a Facebook post that also said mockingly: "Appreciate the self-righteous second guessing without even considering there might be another point of view. Hope your students are more open minded."
Let's ask the "JeSuisCharlie" question in terms closer to home: Would we have the stomach for a "I am Uncle Sam" style campaign if the catalyst were deaths at a U.S. magazine with a cover story of the week showing a racial caricature of African Americans with the N-word in large type overhead? Or at a Neo-Nazi publication mocking the Holocaust with a cartoon based on the death camps?
Some would say the response has to be "yes." In for a free speech penny, in for a dollar. Others may counter that there is nothing in the First Amendment that mandates -- and at times, even shields -- language that is deliberately intended simply to provoke and insult in a manner more akin to unprotected "fighting words" than the First Amendment ideal of dueling ideas.
Read this article:
ANCHORAGE Alaskas freshman senator has filed his first amendment, and it is aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of Environmental Protection Agency agents.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said Friday he filed the amendment to follow through with a promise he made while campaigning in Fairbanks last fall. The idea to disarm the EPA came after agents swept into the mining town of Chicken wearing body armor and carrying rifles in August 2013 while investigating possible violations of the Clean Water Act, Sullivan said.
The amendment is attached to a larger bill that would authorize the Keystone XL pipeline.
In fall 2013, miners in the Chicken area told the Daily News-Miner they felt intimidated by the agents, who, in some cases, did not identify themselves when arriving at mines in all-terrain vehicles. An EPA spokesperson described the discussions as consensual and cordial.
The investigation was based on reports of mines with a history of not complying with state and federal clean water laws and ongoing significant discharges, the EPA said in a written statement in September 2013.
There have been no federal charges or arrests, at least so far, as a result of the investigation.
Asked about the raid and Sullivans amendment Friday, an EPA spokeswoman referred questions to agency officials in Washington, D.C., who did not respond to a request for comment by late Friday.
Sullivan said in a phone interview the issue, while important to Alaska and its miners, goes beyond the incident in Chicken.
I think theres this conventional wisdom that the federal government is always growing, always into new areas, always gaining new responsibilities, Sullivan said. Part of what I ran on is that is not some kind of law of nature. We can roll back some of the responsibilities and authorities of the federal government.
Looking at the history of the EPA, which was formed in the early 1970s, it was not until the late 1980s that the agents were authorized to carry firearms, said Sullivan, who had researched the congressional hearings from that time. Originally, the authorization was to protect agents investigating hazardous waste dumps connected to the mafia, he said.
Read this article:
Judicial Elections and the First Amendment: Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar
On January 20, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in Lanell Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar. At issue is whether a ban on solicitation of campaign donations by judicial...
By: The Heritage Foundation
See the original post here:
Judicial Elections and the First Amendment: Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar - Video
HARTFORD The state Supreme Court will not weigh in on a dispute over whether the Connecticut Law Tribune should have been barred from publishing a story about a child protection case.
The state's highest court was asked for its opinion after Judge Stephen Frazzini on Nov. 24 granted a motion filed in New Britain Superior Court by the mother of the three children involved in the child protection case that sought to stop the Law Tribune from running the story. Frazzini later lifted the ruling in December, saying the order no longer made sense because information about the case had already been published by other media outlets. Thursday, the court dismissed an appeal of the ruling, saying the case has become moot.
Daniel J. Klau, the lawyer representing the Law Tribune, objected to the mother's motion, saying a prior restraint on the publication was a violation of the First Amendment. The information for the story, he said, was lawfully obtained by the Law Tribune. Klau appealed the ruling, asking the state's appellate court to stay the lower court's injunction. The state Supreme Court then transferred the appeal to itself.
Free-speech advocates slammed Frazzini's initial ruling as unconstitutional and said they were not surprised when he reversed it. They still wanted the issue, however, to go before the state Supreme Court so it could clarify the state and federal rules on prior restraint. Those who argue that privacy issues in child protection cases trump First Amendment rights, however, praised Frazzini's initial ruling.
Klau said Thursday that while he was disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision not to hear his appeal, he said it was "important to recognize why" the court reached its decision.
"The trial court vacated its own injunction after the Law Tribune and over 100 amici [including legal experts, individuals and organizations] filed appellate briefs that explained why the trial court's prior restraint order was blatantly unconstitutional," Klau said. The Law Tribune's appeal was supported by a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, two open-government organizations, three media organizations and more than a dozen media outlets, including the Hartford Courant.
"Moreover, the Supreme Court acknowledged in its decision that the First Amendment issue presented was one of 'significant public importance,' and it described the trial court's original decision as 'devoid of precedential value.'"
See the rest here:
Justices Dismiss Law Tribune's Appeal Of Ruling That Barred News Story
By ZOE FERGUSON
The New York Times columnist Adam Liptak, who covers the SupremeCourt in his biweekly column Sidebar, spoke on controversies surrounding the First Amendment in a lecture Thursday.
Liptak who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in exploratory journalism in 2009 framed his discussion on the 1905 court case Joseph Lochner v. New York, which struck down labor laws and allowed greater First Amendment freedoms to companies.
Liptak called the case an anti-canon Supreme Court decision, one that most judges do not refer to as precedent or even give credit. In its landmark ruling, Liptak said the Supreme Court decided that liberty of contract was implicit in the Constitutions promise of due process and allowed companies greater freedom over their employees. It also implied that free speech of commercial entities is equal to that of individuals, he added.
According to Liptak, commercial speech has only been recognized as a protected form of speech under the First Amendment since the 1970s.
Liptak said there are two primary preconditions for Lochnerism: the regulation being opposed must be an ordinary regulatory rule and the speech being violated must be commercial speech.
Liptak said in recent years, some believe that the Roberts Supreme Court has proven itself the most First Amendment court in American history.
He cited recent cases in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church could protest at veterans funerals and abortion opponents may protest outside abortion clinics.
We have to tolerate quite a lot of ugly speech, he said.
According to Liptak, the American position on free speech is an example of what he calls American exceptionalism.
Read more from the original source:
Published: Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 11:08 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 11:08 p.m.
Hoggard junior wins oratorical contest
WILMINGTON | American Legion Post 543 recently hosted the 9th District Constitutional Speech Oratorical Contest, and Caroline Bunting a junior at Hoggard High School was honored at St. James Community Center as winner.
Buntings topic was Utilizing Our First Amendment Rights. Her speech outlined the lives of famous Americans as they exercised what they saw as their duty to seek constitutional changes, and the civil rights changes that resulted. A central focus of her oratory was the right to vote.
The contest was open to American Legion Post contest winners from Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, and Pender counties. Bunting represented Post 10 in Wilmington.
WILMINGTON | The second annual First 2,000 Days Summit is 10 a.m.-noon, Monday, Feb. 16, at First Baptist Activity Center, 1939 Independence Blvd.
The free event organized by local faith leaders highlights the effects that toxic stress has on the developing brain especially during the first 2,000 days of life. The Cape Fear Memorial Foundation provides support for this event, which includes a light breakfast for attendees.
Pediatrician Dr. David Tayloe is the keynote speaker. Following his address, he is joined in a panel discussion by a therapist who works with young children who have experienced toxic stress, a pastor of a church that has made significant investments in early childhood, child-care providers, District Attorney Ben David and others.
There are only 2,000 days between the time a baby is born and when that child shows up for the first day of kindergarten. Experiences during these 2,000 days have a lasting impact on later learning, health and success.
The public is welcome to attend.
Read more from the original source:
Fifty years ago, the civil rights movement in all its glory and brutality was brought to American living rooms through television. Read More
Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Virginia successfully enacted legal protections for religious minorities, establishing the precursor to the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Read More
This is a case for the Supreme Court. Read More
Something more than fires and rage has been sparked in the streets of Ferguson. The First Amendment, like the city, is now a rallying cry and a hashtag for protesters exercising their rights to peaceably assemble and to petition the government. Read More
On Dec. 6, 1884, after 36 years of delays and interruptions caused by politics, a lack of funds and the Civil War, the Washington Monument in the nations capital was finally completed. Read More
A bipartisan list of politicians, media stars and special guests gathered at the Newseum Nov. 17 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of CBS Newss long-running Sunday news program, Face the Nation. Read More
On Nov. 17, 1734, before there was a First Amendment, newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger became a free-press hero when he was jailed for printing truthful articles in his New-York Weekly Journal accusing British Colonial governor William Cosby of being corrupt. Read More
On Nov. 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, one of the worlds first female reporters and the New York Worlds intrepid stunt girl, embarked on an ambitious mission to circle the globe in less time than Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Vernes novel Around the World in Eighty Days. It was her latest attempt to dazzle readers and keep Joseph Pulitzers No. 1 daily on top of the newspaper world. Read More
On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. East German authorities opened the border between East and West Berlin and the door to the fall of tyranny. The wall went up in the early morning darkness of Aug. 13, 1961, to keep millions of people from fleeing communist East Germany after World War II. It fell as suddenly as it had been built. Read More
Going viral might seem like a modern, Internet-era concept, but Orson Welles and CBS Radio mastered it 76 years ago this week. Read More
The rest is here:
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 5
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
The rest is here:
Martin Luther King Teaching First Amendment
Cardinal Business Academy - Great American Icons.
By: Nathaniel Omar
See the article here:
Jeanine Pirro Fear Mongers Obama Will Try To Institute Sharia Law Into Our First Amendment
http://www.newshounds.us - Jeanine Pirro #39;s exploitation of the terrorist attacks in Paris may be the craziest on Fox yet.
By: newshounds
More:
Jeanine Pirro Fear Mongers Obama Will Try To Institute Sharia Law Into Our First Amendment - Video
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 8
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
Go here to see the original:
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 3
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
Read more from the original source:
Posted Tue, January 20th, 2015 7:46 am by Amy Howe
In 2009, Lanell Williams-Yulee sent out a letter announcing that she was running for county court judge in Hillsborough County, Florida. The letter from the Tampa lawyer, which was also posted on her campaign website, asked for contributions of as much as five hundred dollars to fund her campaign.
As fundraising appeals go, the mass mailing was a flop: it did not result in any campaign contributions. But it did draw the attention of the Florida Bar, the organization responsible for (among other things) disciplining lawyers in the state. The bar filed a complaint charging that Williams-Yulee had violated a rule that prohibits candidates for judgeships from personally soliciting campaign funds including through mass mailings like the one that Williams-Yulee had sent to would-be donors.
The Florida Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of attorney discipline in that state, rejected Williams-Yulees argument that the Florida rule prohibiting her from soliciting campaign contributions violated the First Amendment. Instead, it publicly reprimanded her for violating the rule and ordered her to pay for the costs of the disciplinary proceeding approximately $1800.Williams-Yulee may find a more receptive audience for her First Amendment argument at the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear her case today. She contends that the rule cannot pass the very difficult legal test known as strict scrutiny that courts apply to laws or policies that prohibit speech based on its content. She acknowledges that one of the purposes of the rule preventing favoritism and corruption could provide the kind of compelling government interest that might allow the rule to pass constitutional muster. However, she challenges the Florida Bars contention that the rule is also necessary because the government has a strong interest in preventing the appearance of bias and corruption, suggesting that such a standard is too vague.
But in any event, she adds, the Supreme Court doesnt need to decide whether preventing the appearance of corruption and bias is a compelling interest because the rule cant pass the second part of the strict scrutiny test. That prong of the test looks at whether a restriction on speech is narrowly tailored, which means that it carefully targets only the speech that needs to be restricted to accomplish its purpose no more, no less. In some ways, Williams-Yulee argues, the rule doesnt target enough speech. For example, it still allows a prospective judge to know who has contributed to her campaign, and therefore still creates the opportunity for bias, and it allows candidates to ask individuals to support their campaigns in other ways, such as by donating volunteer services instead of money. At the same time, she continues, the rule prohibits too much speech: it even applies to impersonal communications like mass mailings, website postings, and speeches to large groups, none of which are likely to create the impression that a recipient, reader, or listener must choose between making a campaign contribution or receiving less favorable treatment in future court proceedings. And, she concludes, the government has other options such as requiring a judge to recuse herself from proceedings involving a contributor or limiting campaign contributions that can combat judicial bias and corruption without restricting speech.
For its part, the Florida Bar paints a very different picture of the rule as an unremarkable and narrow restriction necessary to prevent both corruption and the appearance of corruption. The bar emphasizes not only that there is abundant evidence that the public perceives campaign contributions to judicial candidates as having an undue influence on judges decisions, but also that many state judges themselves have indicated that campaign contributions may affect their rulings. And in particular, the bar suggests, the possibility for corruption or the appearance thereof arises from the direct link between the contributor and the candidate for a judgeship; it is that link, the bar maintains, that the rule prohibiting personal solicitation of campaign contributions targets. And therefore, the bar continues, it doesnt matter that a candidate for a judgeship can eventually learn who has contributed to her campaign. It also doesnt matter, the bar contends, that a would-be judge can personally ask someone to contribute his time to the campaign: giving money, the bar suggests, speaks louder than holding signs and licking envelopes. All that the rule does, the bar concludes, is prevent a candidate for a judgeship from personally soliciting contributions. It does not otherwise restrict what she can say, and she can still raise campaign funds through a committee.
Those who believe that judges should not be elected at all (a group that includes retired Justice Sandra Day OConnor) will be watching this case closely. In their view, its bad enough that judges have to raise money for their campaigns, but allowing judges and candidates for judgeships to personally solicit campaign contributions will increase the possibility of favoritism in decision making.
The case could be even more significant, though, as the latest chapter in the Roberts Courts campaign-finance jurisprudence. Last year, in a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that Congress cannot put overall caps known as aggregate limits on the amount that someone can contribute to candidates for federal offices, political parties, and political action committees. Although a ruling for Williams-Yulee might be an incremental step toward the further deregulation of the campaign-finance system, it would be a step nonetheless. Well know more about where the Court might be headed in this case after todays arguments.
Posted in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, Featured, Merits Cases
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, The First Amendment and campaign solicitations: In Plain English, SCOTUSblog (Jan. 20, 2015, 7:46 AM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/01/the-first-amendment-and-campaign-solicitations-in-plain-english/
View original post here:
The First Amendment and campaign solicitations: In Plain English
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 10
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
See the rest here:
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 9
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
Continued here:
The Making Of The Twenty First Amendment Part 7
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
Read the original here:
The Twenty First Amendment
Think. Create. Inspire. Relax. Become.
By: LPTrax
Link: