Tag: 1st amendment

The Israeli flag just became the only national flag illegal to burn in the United States. Yeah. I’m dead serious.

The Flag America Protects

This week in Washington, D.C., a federal judge made a ruling so shocking, so unprecedented, that it flips the First Amendment on its head. Judge Trevor N. McFadden declared that the Israeli flag — with the Star of David at its center — is not a political symbol at all, but a racial one.

He ruled that tearing it, grabbing it, desecrating it, even in the heat of protest, is not free expression but racial discrimination.

Think about that. In the United States, you can burn the American flag — the Supreme Court has said so for decades. But now, according to this ruling, burning or tearing the Israeli flag could make you guilty of racial hatred. The one national flag protected in American law today isn’t our own. It’s Israel’s.

You can burn the flags of all 50 states. You can torch the American flag all you want. You can burn the flags of the UK or France or Brazil or China.

But not Israel.

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President Trump’s War on “Woke AI” Is a Civil Liberties Nightmare

The White House’s recently-unveiled “AI Action Plan” wages war on so-called “woke AI”—including large language models (LLMs) that provide information inconsistent with the administration’s views on climate change, gender, and other issues. It also targets measures designed to mitigate the generation of racial and gender biased content and even hate speech. The reproduction of this bias is a pernicious problem that AI developers have struggled to solve for over a decade.

A new executive order called “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,” released alongside the AI Action Plan, seeks to strong-arm AI companies into modifying their models to conform with the Trump Administration’s ideological agenda.

The executive order requires AI companies that receive federal contracts to prove that their LLMs are free from purported “ideological biases” like “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This heavy-handed censorship will not make models more accurate or “trustworthy,” as the Trump Administration claims, but is a blatant attempt to censor the development of LLMs and restrict them as a tool of expression and information access. While the First Amendment permits the government to choose to purchase only services that reflect government viewpoints, the government may not use that power to influence what services and information are available to the public. Lucrative government contracts can push commercial companies to implement features (or biases) that they wouldn’t otherwise, and those often roll down to the user. Doing so would impact the 60 percent of Americans who get information from LLMs, and it would force developers to roll back efforts to reduce biases—making the models much less accurate, and far more likely to cause harm, especially in the hands of the government. 

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Mocking Elected Officials Is a Sign of a Healthy Democracy

There’s little question that President Donald Trump and his MAGA devotees can dish it out. Few things epitomize this populist movement more than its irreverence toward established institutions and its willingness to obliterate traditional standards of civility as it targets political enemies (and erstwhile friends during some internecine squabble). Trump’s social-media posts and statements are filled with invective and merciless mocking.

Trump’s schoolyard taunts rarely are sophisticated, as they frequently zero in on personal appearance. “He’s got the smallest neck I’ve ever seen. And the biggest head. We call him watermelon head. How can that big fat face stand on a neck that looked like this finger?” Trump said about Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.). OK, I laughed when he called him “Adam Schifty Schiff,” but that’s only because it was so childishly stupid. That’s its appeal, I suppose.

One of Trump’s ugliest insults—dating to his first election—was when he mocked a disabled reporter by imitating his hand motions. The Wall Street Journal published a piece called, “The Art of the Insult.” We know this is how Trump operates. You can find hundreds of examples with a Google search or on his Truth Social account. Even the official White House account does this—when it’s not portraying Trump as a Kim Jong Un-style superhero.

It’s so very funny. Whenever anyone calls them out on this, Trump defenders act as if they are just so above it all. “Don’t you know the president is just trolling?” “Get a sense of humor.” “You must be suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).” Yadda, yadda. In full disclosure, I greatly value humor and have mocked my share of politicians over the years. But I find bullying taunts to be crass and the sign of those displaying low human capital.

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Rutherford Institute Warns of Growing Threats to Religious Freedom, Challenges Ruling Denying Equal Treatment to Faith-Based Study Center

The Rutherford Institute is once again warning that if the government is allowed to deny freedom to one segment of the citizenry, it will eventually extend that tyranny to all citizens.

The Institute’s warning comes in response to a trial court’s decision in Christian Scholars Network, Inc. v. Montgomery County and Town of Blacksburg to deny equal treatment to a faith-based campus study center—despite providing tax-exempt status to other religious and charitable organizations offering similar services. At issue is whether the Christian Scholars Network (CSN)—a nonprofit religious organization that holds Bible studies, worship services, prayer meetings, and faith-based community events at its Bradley Study Center—is entitled to the same tax-exempt treatment granted to other religious groups. The case raises critical constitutional questions about religious liberty, government neutrality, and equal protection for nontraditional faith practices under the First Amendment and the Virginia Constitution.

“The First Amendment forbids the government from picking and choosing which religious groups are ‘worthy’ of constitutional protection,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Whether it’s a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a campus study center, the principle is the same: all faiths must be treated equally under the law. When the government starts elevating one form of religious practice over another, it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens freedom of belief for everyone.”

The Rutherford Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of Christian Scholars Network (CSN) comes amid growing concerns about governmental attempts to define religion narrowly, often to the detriment of minority or nontraditional faith communities. In 2019, CSN, a nonprofit ministry exempt from federal income tax by the IRS under section 501(c)(3), opened the Bradley Study Center near the Virginia Tech campus to cultivate a thoughtful exploration of the Christian faith and how one’s faith connects to their studies, work, and life. CSN uses the Study Center property for worship services, prayer meetings, Bible and theological book studies, and a Fellows Program for Virginia Tech students to meet weekly for religious discussions and fellowship. Despite fulfilling a comparable mission as other religious organizations, CSN was denied a property tax exemption on the grounds that its activities allegedly did not constitute “worship” and that it is not a “religious association” under Virginia law.

In coming to CSN’s defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute argue that the government’s refusal to recognize CSN’s religious character violates the Establishment Clause, fosters religious discrimination, and imposes a narrow, outdated definition of worship that excludes faith communities outside traditional, hierarchical structures. Institute attorneys also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin, which affirms the right of faith-based organizations to operate free from government discrimination based on the structure or style of their worship and ministry. After the trial court refused to grant CSN an exemption, ruling that CSN must be like a traditional church to receive the tax exemption, attorneys with The Rutherford Institute appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals.

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Judge Strikes Down California Deepfake Censorship Law

California’s attempt to regulate political speech on major social media platforms has been blocked in federal court, with a judge ruling the state’s latest “deepfake” law clashes with protections already established by Congress.

Assembly Bill 2655 attempted to compel certain large platforms to track down and delete “materially deceptive content” about candidates, election officials, and officeholders.

Supporters described it as a safeguard against manipulated media. The companies targeted, including X and Rumble, argued it was an attempt to turn them into agents of government censorship.

Senior US District Judge John Mendez sided with the platforms and did not even need to reach the argument of constitutional free speech questions to strike down the measure.

He found the federal Communications Decency Act [CDA] already shields online services from punishment over third-party content.

“No parts of this statute are severable because the whole statute is preempted,” Mendez said in court. “No parts of A.B. 2655 can be salvaged.”

The ruling applies to the companies in the lawsuit, and his earlier order freezing enforcement of the law remains in effect statewide until he issues a formal opinion.

For Mendez, the law punished companies for doing something they are “clearly protected by [the CDA] from doing.”

The court also cast doubt on another state law, Assembly Bill 2839, which prohibits false or misleading digital communications aimed at election workers, officials, voting equipment, or candidates in the months leading up to an election. That measure is also on hold, and Mendez signaled he doubts it will survive judicial review.

“Anybody can sue,” he said. “I can sue. If I see the video, under this law, I can sue.” He warned that such a rule chills protected speech and noted the state had not shown it was using the least speech-restrictive approach possible.

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Trump admin drops Israel boycott conditions from disaster aid guidance after intense backlash

The Trump Administration on Monday dropped language from the Department of Homeland Security that would have denied disaster aid funding to cities and states that boycotted Israeli companies, following intense backlash from both sides of the aisle.

The DHS Standard Terms and Conditions on Monday morning, included the following statement:

“Discriminatory prohibited boycott means refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.”

That language has since been removed from the DHS’s most up to date version. The original post with the Israel-related language may be found here.

The removal followed intense online backlash from right-wing and left-wing advocates online, many of whom deemed it evidence of Israeli capture of the American government.

“Denying American victims of natural disasters aid if they are insufficiently supportive of Israel. Absolute insanity,” wrote podcast Krystal Ball.

“I’ve never seen someone tank their legacy so fast. This is not America first and anyone advising him on this should be fired,” musician Alexandra Lains wrote.

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New Guidelines Will Allow Federal Workers To Express Religious Beliefs At Workplace

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo on July 28 aimed at protecting religious expression among federal workers, allowing them to display religious items and discuss religion in the workplace.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in the memo that federal agencies must ensure that employees have the right to express their religious beliefs “to the greatest extent possible,” in accordance with the Constitution, unless such expression would cause “an undue hardship on business operations.”

“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” Kupor said in a statement announcing the latest guidance for federal agencies.

The memo outlines forms of permissible religious expression by federal workers in the workplace, such as displaying Bibles, crosses, crucifixes, and mezuzahs on desks and within designated workspaces.

Federal agencies must also allow their workers to engage in “individual or communal religious expressions,” provided that such conduct does not take place during on-duty time, according to the memo.

It states that federal employees should be able to engage in conversations about religious topics, including encouraging co-workers to participate in religious expression of faith, such as prayer, and “attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” so long as such efforts are not harassing in nature.

According to the memo, federal workers may engage co-workers in polite discussion, while not on duty, about why they believe their faith is correct and why a “non-adherent should re-think” their religious beliefs.

However, it stated that if the nonadherent requests that such attempts stop, the employee is expected to honor that request.

Federal workers are permitted to invite co-workers to church services, even if they belong to “a different faith.” Supervisors may also post on bulletin boards invitations to Easter service at their church.

The memo also states that park rangers leading tours in national parks may join their tour groups in prayer and that Veterans Affairs doctors may pray over their patients for recovery. Security guards stationed at the front desks of federal office buildings may also display religious items on their desks.

Kupor said the guidance is intended to ensure that the federal workplace is compliant with the law while also fostering an environment that is “welcoming to Americans of all faiths.”

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined,” Kupor said.

In February, Trump signed an executive order to establish a task force within the Department of Justice that is aimed at “eradicating anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.

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9th Circuit Rules Oregon Law Forcing Adoptive Parents Into Gender Ideology Violates First Amendment

Oregon passed a law forcing any parents interested in adopting a child to “respect, accept, and support” the child’s claims of “transgender” or other LGBT identities as a prerequisite to becoming an adoptive parent.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, however, that such a requirement violates the First Amendment, allowing prospective adoptive mother Jessica Bates, who sued the state with an Alliance Defending Freedom legal team, to proceed to adopting siblings from foster care.

Bates sued Oregon in 2023 after she was categorically denied the ability to adopt children in the state because she refused to “lie to children and tell them that girls can be boys and vice versa” and “could not agree to use inaccurate pronouns to refer to a child or to take children to pride parades,” ADF stated.

“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from the adoption and foster system. Jessica is a caring mom of five who is now free to adopt after Oregon officials excluded her because of her common-sense belief that a girl cannot become a boy or vice versa,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs, who represented Bates in court, said in a statement.

“Because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon’s dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state’s ideological crusade.”

The 2-1 decision was written by Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, and joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, a Clinton appointee. The sole dissenter was Judge Richard Clifton, an appointee of George W. Bush.

The court ruled that both Bates’ free speech and free exercise of religion claims were burdened by Oregon’s law, because “Oregon’s policy both restricts and compels speech based on content and viewpoint in the areas of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” and “burdens Bates’s religious exercise and is neither neutral nor generally applicable.”

“Fundamental as basic freedoms, these rights spring from a common constitutional principle: that the government may not insist upon our adherence to state-favored orthodoxies, whether of a religious or political variety,” Bress wrote.

The law directed parents to indoctrination courses, where the state’s expectations were laid out, including the condition that parents must “support through your words” the claimed gender identity or sexual orientation of a child. It laid out several different made-up potential pronoun types like “Ze” and “Hir/Zir,” but noted that those are not the only ones and that there are an “infinite number” of potential pronouns.

The guidance from the state also asks parents to essentially groom their children into assuming some kind of “transgender” identity or sexual orientation, stating that “whether or not a youth in your care openly identifies as LGBTQ+,” parents should nonetheless peddle propaganda in their homes, “[d]isplay[ing] ‘hate-free zone’ signs or other symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment (e.g., pink triangle, rainbow, or ally flag)” (bold in original). The guidance also mandates “‘[p]rovid[ing] access to a variety of books, movies, and materials, including those that positively represent same-gender relationships,’ while ‘[p]oint[ing] out LGBTQ+ celebrities, role models who stand up for the LGBTQ+ community, and people who demonstrate bravery in the face of social stigma.’”

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The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group’s Claim That News Orgs Can’t Boycott Misinformation

The Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end “childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” submitted an antitrust complaint against The Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters in January 2023. On Friday, the Justice Department published a statement of interest in favor of the CHD, which implores the federal court hearing the case to recognize that harm to viewpoint competition is grounds for antitrust prosecution. 

In the case, Children’s Health Defense v. Washington Post, the CHD alleges that the defendants violated federal antitrust law through their establishment of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The complaint claims that the TNI formed a “group boycott” to exclude publishers of “misinformation” partially or entirely from popular internet platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The complaint cites a March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, senior news controller at BBC, who said “the real rivalry now is…between all trusted news providers and a tidal wave of unchecked [reporting] that’s being piped out mainly through digital platforms,” as evidence of “the economic self-interest behind the TNI’s group boycott [and] the anti-competitive purpose and effect of that boycott.” CHD misconstrues the meaning of Angus’ words in an attempt to persuade the court that the TNI is a “horizontal agreement among competitor firms to cut off from the market upstart rivals threatening their business model.”

CHD alleges that TNI’s restrictions are unreasonable not only because they “collusively reduce output” and “lower product quality”—conventional indicators of illegal collusive behavior—but because “they suppress competition in the marketplace of ideas.” Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is running with CHD’s argument.

Slater said that the “Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas,” in a press release. In the department’s statement of interest, Slater references the majority opinion from U.S. v. Associated Press (1945) to argue that “right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection.”

Joseph Coniglio, director of antitrust and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, agrees with Slater that “collusive viewpoint restrictions can be antitrust violations.” However, he emphasizes that, “if the platforms allegedly taking down content are not defendants and don’t have vertical agreements with…TNI to do so, it’s hard to see how the latter could be illegal.” (CHD alleges that censorship “by Facebook, Google and Twitter, [caused] damages to date of over $1,000,000,” but does not name these platforms as defendants in its suit.)

Slater’s statement was submitted amid ongoing litigation between Media Matters and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the other federal antitrust enforcement agency. The FTC opened an investigation into Media Matters in May for facilitating an alleged advertising boycott against the social media platform X. Advertising holding companies Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Companies agreed not to enter into “any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints” as a condition of their merger settlement with the FTC in June. Media Matters has challenged the FTC’s probe into its operations on First Amendment grounds.

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The Biden Admin Stole Your Data to Rig Elections and Censor Speech

Jason Chaffetz has delivered a devastating exposé that should terrify every American who values his or her constitutional rights. Writing in the New York Post, the former House Oversight Committee chairman pulls back the curtain on what may be the most comprehensive assault on American democracy we’ve witnessed in our lifetime—and it’s happening with our own tax dollars.

Chaffetz revealed that the Biden administration didn’t just weaponize federal agencies against political opponents; it orchestrated an elaborate data-theft operation that would make authoritarian regimes jealous. As Chaffetz explains, “Federal entities outsourced unlawful data collection to politically sympathetic partners. Rather than directly amassing data, they procured or exchanged it from or with nonprofits and technology firms.”

This isn’t some conspiracy theory cooked up by partisan critics. This is documented reality, backed by Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional testimony that the mainstream media has conveniently ignored.

The scope of this operation is breathtaking. Chaffetz exposes how the Small Business Administration—an agency supposedly focused on helping entrepreneurs—was transformed into a partisan voter registration machine. The SBA “proactively reached out to states, especially battleground states like Arizona and Georgia, to seek recognition as voter-registration organizations, despite federal law stipulating that states must initiate this process under the National Voter Registration Act.”

When SBA Associate Administrator Jennifer Kim was pressed during a 2024 hearing about whether the agency conducted events in non-Democrat-leaning regions, she couldn’t provide a straight answer. The evidence speaks for itself: “documented evidence of partisan bias in these efforts” reveals an administration that viewed federal resources as tools for electoral manipulation.

But voter manipulation was just the beginning. The Biden administration’s data dragnet extended into financial surveillance that targeted Americans based on their political beliefs. Christian nonprofits, gun manufacturers, conservative protesters—even members of the Trump family—found their accounts terminated without justification. As Chaffetz notes, “This initiative ultimately targeted Christian nonprofits, gun manufacturers, conservative demonstrators — even Melania and Barron Trump — shutting down their accounts without justification.”

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