NYDIA TISDALE'S STORY

The saga of Nydia Tisdale keeps reverberating in Georgia, as she posted her entire video(nearly 20 min long) this weekend from the Aug 23 event, of what seemed to be a regular Republican event of speeches by U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue, Governor Nathan Deal, and others. But things got ugly when one local politician made a nasty joke at Michelle Nunn's expense, and noticed Tisdale recording. After being forcibly removed, Tisdale was later arrested for obstruction of an officer and trespassing.





WXIA video.Full video by Tisdale below.




Where are all those First Amendment champions now? Have you forgotten readers? Their Constitution starts with the Second Amendment.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West 

WHAT SEPERATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE

SCOTUS RULES IN FAVOR OF PRAYER AT PUBLIC MEETINGS

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today ruled that a town in upstate New York may begin its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, said “ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”

Town officials said that members of all faiths, and atheists, were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, the federal appeals court in New York said, almost all of the chaplains were Christian.

Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.

Okay, so next we'll sacrifice a goat and two chickens to ensure a good harvest.

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

What You First Amendment Right Gets You

Under a new policy unveiled late this week by the Walker administration, protesters who apply for permits to protest outside government buildings in Wisconsin may be charged for clean-up costs and the presence of police officers. “Gov. Scott Walker now wants to charge protesters for the time that the police that will monitor them and presumably pepper spray them,” Current TV’s Keith Olbermann observed the other night.



Marquette University Law School prof. Edward Fallone told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he’s “skeptical about charging people to express their First Amendment opinion. … You can’t really put a price tag on the First Amendment.”

Recently, the city of Nashville billed Occupy Nashville $1,045 for security the day before it decided to evict the entire encampment. The Republican governor of that state, Bill Haslam, is also in the process of formulating a new policy to restrict the ability of protesters to occupy state grounds.


NFTOS

Hey (R-KS) Governor Sam Brownback.....YOU SUCK!

High School student fights back against Gov. Sam Brownback’s intimidation and will not write apology.

Last Monday, Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan attended a speech by radical tea bag Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), during which she published a tweet critical of the governor. In response, Brownback’s office reported Sullivan’s critical tweet to her high school’s administration, and the high school principal ordered her to write a letter of apology — despite the fact that this punishment is unconstitutional because Sullivan’s tweet is protected by the First Amendment.

Last night, Sullivan sent out another tweet — announcing that she will not obey her principal’s unconstitutional command to apologize to the thin-skinned governor:

Among other things, this incident highlights the incompetence of Brownback’s communications team. At the time of her first tweet, Sullivan had only a few dozen followers. Had the governor’s office simply ignored the tweet, it’s doubtful that more than a few people would have read it. Instead, they decided to intimidate the dissenting teenager by reporting her — and the incident blew up into a major national news story. As of this writing, Sullivan has more than 4,000 Twitter followers.


Team Brownback justifies its heavy-handed response by claiming that Sullivan’s original tweet — which said that Brownback “sucked” and ended with the hashtag “#heblowsalot” — wasn’t respectful.” Perhaps it wasn’t, but the First Amendment cares very little whether a persons’ speech is respectful or not. One of the Supreme Court’s seminal First Amendment cases held that the words “Fuck the Draft” are protected speech. And, while a public school student’s First Amendment rights are somewhat reduced, schools typically cannot discipline students for speaking out unless their speech is likely to disrupt the school’s learning environment.

Now that Sullivan has chosen to assert her First Amendment rights, the ball is in the school’s court. If they are smart, they will recognize that their attempt to punish Sullivan unambiguously violates the Constitution and save themselves from expensive potential litigation that they are exceedingly unlikely to win.


NFTOS