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Drug Marketing and Free Speech: U. S. Supreme Court Says Data Mining Trumps...
Pharmaceutical companies, which spend billions of dollars a year promoting their products to doctors, have found that it is very useful to know what drugs a doctor has prescribed in the past. Many use...
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Religion, Patriotism And Freedom: Ayn Rand Vs. America
Ayn Rand has a large and growing influence on American politics. Speaking at an event in her honor, Congressman Paul Ryan said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to...
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Hank Williams Jr. Doesn’t Quite Get The First Amendment
ESPN will no longer air Hank Williams Jr.’s song at the beginning of Monday Night Football, it was announced today. Will MNF survive? Ha, of course it will. Nobody cares about that song. ESPN could...
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“Wide Latitude To Jackassery”: Imagine If The Government Started Policing...
Today, Philip Bump at Grist passed along this interesting story about a shock jock in Australia who, after spewing some false nonsense about climate change on the air, “has been ordered to undergo...
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“But Not For Statutory Rights”: Gun Nuts Ignore The First Amendment To...
Protect the Second Amendment, screw the First! Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the United States over his gun control...
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“An Imaginary Dark Vision Of The Future”: Ted Cruz And His Manufactured...
Texas Senator Ted Cruz has found a new and improved angle with which to push his war against marriage equality in America. In an interview with Christian Broadcast Network’s David Brody, Cruz raised a...
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“Religious Zealotry”: In God’s Name Or Baby Messiah, Competing Claims Of...
Last week, when a Tennessee judge forcibly changed an infant’s name from Messiah to Martin, it was hard to decide which was more noteworthy, the parents’ grandiosity in naming their child for the one...
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“A Wall That Protects Us All”: Sarah Palin Can’t Tear Down The Wall Between...
“We have just enough religion to make us hate,” wrote Jonathan Swift, “but not enough to make us love one another.” A lifelong religious controversialist, the 18th-century Irish satirist definitely...
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“Platinum-Level Citizenship”: Highly-Religious Christians’ Battle To Change...
Ask a conservative Christian about the President of the United States, and you’re likely to hear that Barack Obama has been waging a “war on religion” since pretty much the moment he took office in...
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“We’re All Journalists Now”: No, Glenn Greenwald Cannot Be The One Who...
This Sunday, The New York Times Book Review will finally print Michael Kinsley’s review of Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide, two and a half weeks after the review was published online and provoked a...
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“Target The Corporate Sponsors”: So Redskins Sponsor FedEx Is OK With That...
So Chainsaw Danny Snyder is digging in his heels again. This time, after the federal government determined this week that his football team’s name disparages Native Americans, he trotted out his...
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“Snyder’s Insulting Redskins Logic”: Irrational Insistance That Native...
Fear not for the future of free speech after the Washington Redskins’ trademark fight. The legal dividend could be more free speech, not less. A lot of my fellow First Amendment advocates sound nervous...
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“Do What We Tell You To Do, Or We Will Kill You”: The Right To Be Able To...
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Massachusetts buffer zone law violates the First Amendment; the justices were unanimous in the ruling. In case you weren’t up to speed on the case, here are the...
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“A Revival Of 20th Century Lochner”: The Roberts Court Thinks Corporations...
The Supreme Court of the mid-twentieth century led a First Amendment revolution, turning a rarely enforced constitutional provision into the crown jewel of our Bill of Rights. While these rulings...
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“The Right To Peaceably Assemble”: Antonio French Said It Best, ‘Our Civil...
When Antonio French, the St. Louis Alderman who has given us an incredible first-hand account of what is happening in Ferguson through his twitter feed, was released from jail this morning, he told the...
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“Is Corruption A Constitutional Right?”: Public Pension Contracts Would Be...
Wall Street is one of the biggest sources of funding for presidential campaigns, and many of the Republican Party’s potential 2016 contenders are governors, from Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick...
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“Paying Back Campaign Donors”: Whose Presidential Campaign Will Your Pension...
Wall Street is one of the biggest sources of funding for presidential campaigns, and many of the Republican Party’s potential 2016 contenders are governors, from Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick...
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“Donors Before Constituents”: The First Amendment, According To Mitch McConnell
Have you heard that Senate Democrats are working this week to repeal free speech? I did, yesterday morning, from Mitch McConnell. Have you heard that Democrats are going to go out and “muzzle” pastors...
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“If Money Is Speech And Speech Is Freedom…”: Those With Less Money Get Less...
If money is speech and speech is freedom, then it follows that those who have more money will have more freedom. This includes the freedom to determine who gets to vote, the freedom to dictate how much...
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“The Poorly Financed Causes Of Little People”: In Black Lives Matter Protest,...
Minnesotans protesting police violence and institutional racism could face “staggering” fees and criminal charges for a protest at Mall of America, with the City of Bloomington announcing plans to...
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