17 results for tag: First Amendment Rights

Social Media Checks: The New Gun Control?

New York State Senator Kevin Parker has proposed a law that would require police to check a handgun license applicant’s social media for “biased language” – potentially denying the applicant based on findings. The proposed law would require applicants who are looking to apply or renew their handgun licenses to turned over login and password information to the authorities. CNS News reports: Police would be able to investigate any posts or searches related to threats, terrorism, slurs or “biased language” describing a person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual ...

The NFL has become a mouthpiece for leftist disrespect for our country

For nearly a year, the country has watched the NFL act as a megaphone for the left’s “take a knee” protests. Now they have taken their liberal advocacy a step further by refusing to run a veterans’ Super Bowl advertisement asking the country to stand for our national anthem. The hypocrisy of this is astounding and the NFL has made a big mistake for its teams and for the country. The Washington Examiner has the details: For nearly a year, the country has watched the NFL act as a megaphone for the left’s "Take a Knee" protests. They have given airtime and a massive public platform to their athletes who’ve chosen to kneel during the ...

Why we continue to fight for our freedoms

Today is Bill of Rights Day — the day our Bill of Rights was ratified! It’s a day that reminds us of what we almost lost, what we gained and what we continue to fight to protect. Once America fought and won independence from England in 1776, the states began working on their state constitutions. Modeled by John Locke’s philosophies on classical republicanism and liberal theory, the states created their constitutions which reflected on how the federal Bill of Rights would be constructed. In 1789, James Madison began drafting the amendments from proposals made in the state ratifying conventions. By 1791, the ten amendments were ratified and ...

Jenny Beth’s Journal: NFL shows its true colors and they aren’t red, white and blue

NFL players this past weekend chose to make a political statement by kneeling instead of standing with their hand on their heart for the Star-Spangled Banner – a move that left many Americans feeling betrayed by a league they have cheered on for decades, writes Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder Jenny Beth Martin in her latest column for The Washington Times. The Washington Times has the inside scoop: It is hardly a coincidence that the national anthem was first played at a baseball game during the Civil War, that the song captured the sporting world’s attention during the first World War, or that it went on to become a permanent fixture at sporting ...

Tea Party Patriots: When we work together for a principled cause, we can make a difference

Atlanta, GA - Tea Party Patriots President and co-founder Jenny Beth Martin released the following statement today reacting to reports that USAA will reinstate advertising on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News. “Last week, Tea Party Patriots’ grassroots activists came to the defense of Sean Hannity in the face of an intimidation campaign driven by far-Left ideologues who want to silence conservatives. So many patriots called and wrote USAA to express their profound disappointment in the decision to side with left-wing agitators and stop advertising with Sean’s show on Fox News, that today USAA reversed their decision and resumed their ads on the ...

UC-Irvine tries to ban the American flag

The student government at the University of California-Irvine recently tried to ban the American flag from common areas on campus. No, it was not a joke. The measure passed by a vote of 6-4 before being ultimately vetoed by the student body president. Still, it remained a blow to both common sense and freedom of speech everywhere. Among the many reasons listed for banning the stars and stripes at UC-Irvine was that sometimes, “freedom of speech…can be interpreted as hate speech.” It would take years and years to try and unpack that logic, but we’d start with a simple question: in what instance could the simple hanging of an American flag be ...

Tea Party Patriots Board Member Ernest Istook Testifies About FEC Attempts to Regulate Speech

TPP Board Member Ernest Istook testified before the Federal Elections Commission about the dangers of expanding regulation of speech in our country. Here is the transcript of his testimony:   Thank you for this hearing. I am Ernest Istook, former 14-year US Congressman from Oklahoma. I am here for myself and on behalf of Tea Party Patriots, a 501c4 organization on whose board of directors I serve. Tea Party Patriots is a nationwide grassroots organization with which hundreds of local groups have chosen to affiliate. Its funding comes from hundreds of thousands of small donors and very little from large contributors. I and we oppose any ...

Join the fight against the FEC!

In today’s op-ed for the Washington Times, [1] Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin partnered with FreedomWorks CEO and President Matt Kibbe to address unprecedented new efforts, led by FEC chair Ann Ravel, to regulate online speech. They write, in part: Under the current FEC regulations, political advertising and commentary posted for free on one’s own website or on sites such as YouTube are exempt from regulation by the FEC. Now, however, many FEC watchers, including some of Ms. Ravel’s FEC colleagues, fear she is intent upon changing the current “hands off the internet” approach the FEC adopted more than a decade ago. Ms. ...

ACT NOW to save online free speech!

Liberal allies of Barack Obama on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) are attempting to regulate political speech on and off the Internet, and to restrict our constitutionally protected freedoms.  We have a short window of time to stop it! Under current FEC guidelines (from a unanimous, 6-0 decision in 2006), political advertising or commentary posted on YouTube is exempt from campaign reporting requirements. Democrat FEC Vice Chair Ann Ravel apparently finds this unacceptable, and speaks unfavorably [1] of “this effort to protect individual bloggers and online commentators.” As if free speech is unworthy of protection! If Ms. Ravel has her ...

Stop the FEC from going after free speech on the internet!

Liberals in Washington are once again, launching an all-out assault on the First Amendment protection to free speech. Apparently, free speech is allowed as long as it’s not about politics. Ann Ravel, Democrat Vice Chair at the Federal Election Commission (FEC), is spearheading an effort to make political commentary on sites like YouTube, subject to regulatory oversight. The proposal was quietly introduced in October, but now is the time to publicly fight back. We’re calling on ALL Patriots to file an official comment with the FEC on the proposed rule, and let the Feds know they need to keep their hands off our internet! You can click here to ...