US Attorney General Loretta Lynch
at Senate Judiciary Committee
admitted she asked FBI to examine if
federal govt should take legal action 'climate change deniers'
RON PAUL INSTITUTE
Loretta Lynch Wants to Censor Climate Skeptics
By Ron Paul | Tuesday, 15 Mar 2016 03:47 PM
During her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted that she asked the FBI to examine whether the federal government should take legal action against so-called climate change deniers.
Lynch is not responding to any criminal acts committed by climate change skeptics. Instead, she is responding to requests from those frustrated that dissenters from the alleged climate change consensuses have successfully blocked attempts to create new government programs to fight climate change.
These climate change censors claim that the argument over climate change is settled and the deniers' success in blocking congressional action is harming the public. Therefore, the government must disregard the First Amendment and silence anyone who dares question the reigning climate change dogma.
This argument ignores the many reputable scientists who have questioned the magnitude, effects, and role of human action in causing climate change.
If successful, the climate change censors could set a precedent that could silence numerous other views. For example, many people believe the argument over whether we should audit, and then end, the Federal Reserve is settled. Therefore, the deniers of Austrian economics are harming the public by making it more difficult for Congress to restore a free-market monetary policy. So why shouldn't the government silence Paul Krugman?
The climate change censorship movement is part of a larger effort to silence political speech. Other recent examples include the IRS' harassment of tea party groups as well as that agency's (fortunately thwarted) attempt to impose new rules on advocacy organizations that would have limited their ability to criticize a politician's record in the months before an election.
The IRS and many state legislators and officials are also trying to force public policy groups to hand over the names of their donors. This type of disclosure can make individuals fearful that, if they support a pro-liberty group, they will face retaliation from the government.
Efforts to silence government critics may have increased in recent years; however, the sad fact is the U.S. government has a long and shameful history of censoring speech. It is not surprising that war and national security have served as convenient excuses to limit political speech. So-called liberal presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt both supported wartime crackdowns on free speech.
Today, many neoconservatives are using the war on terror to justify crackdowns on free speech, increased surveillance of unpopular religious groups like Muslims, and increased government control of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Some critics of U.S. foreign policy have even been forbidden to enter the country.
Many opponents of government restrictions on the First Amendment and other rights of Muslims support government actions targeting so-called "right-wing extremists." These fair-weather civil liberties defenders are the mirror image of conservatives who support restricting the free speech rights of Muslims in the name of national security, yet claim to oppose authoritarian government. Defending speech we do not agree with is necessary to effectively protect the speech we support.
A government that believes it can run our lives, run the economy, and run the world will inevitably come to believe it can, and should, have the power to silence its critics.
Eliminating the welfare-warfare state is the key to protecting our free speech, and other liberties, from an authoritarian government.
This article first appeared on the Ron Paul Institute website.
Ron Paul is a physician, author, and former Republican congressman. Paul also is a two-time Republican presidential candidate, and the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1988 U.S. presidential election. His latest book is “Swords into Plowshares." For more of Ron Paul's reports, Go Here Now.
© 2016 by Ron Paul Institute
http://www.newsmax.com/RonPaul/Loretta-Lynch-Climate-Global-Warming/2016/03/15/id/719204/
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Freedom of speech restrictions an issue at universities
March 7, 2016
EXTRACTS
The 501(c)(3) is a section of the Internal Revenue Code that defines nonprofit institutions, including most public and private colleges and universities, as tax-exempt. Taxpayers essentially give financial benefits to schools based on the educational value they offer.
“Institutions often cite their tax-exempt status to justify banning political activity by students on campus or forbidding them to use university resources, broadly defined, for political purposes,” Catherine Sevcenko, director of litigation for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said.
The IRS has concluded that the restriction on political activity does not apply to individual academic community members, Sevcenko said. Since FIRE’s founding in 1999, the organization has won 385 cases for students and faculty at 250 colleges and universities, advancing freedom of expression for over 3.5 million students.
Private universities are not the only higher educational institutions that have attempted to impose limits on speech. Private universities have no legal requirements for freedoms, but public universities have a legal obligation to allow students to speak freely. That’s because the First Amendment refers only to government suppression of speech.
The University of Oklahoma sent an email to its community during the 2008 election cycle stating that personal university email accounts “may not be used to endorse or oppose a candidate, including the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” OU President David Boren revoked the email after extensive criticism.
...
[Princeton Open Campus Coalition]
Zuckerman founded the coalition to maintain Princeton’s vibrant culture after Princeton students led by the Black Justice League occupied President Christopher Eisgruber’s office in November and issued demands, including creation of cultural spaces on campus and cultural training.
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EXTRACTS ONLY - FULL HERE
http://flyernews.com/freedom-of-speech-restrictions-an-issue-at-universities/
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COMMENT
And why would the US tax office be policing the political freedom of expression?
That's an abuse of powers: it's not their role to limit criticism of politicians pending election, so they're exceeding their function.
It looks like they've since ruled that they cannot limit the expression of 'individuals' on campus, but I take it that means politically based groups on campus remain subject to on-campus censorship?
If they have altered their position on political censorship on campus, look what it has taken: 385 winning legal cases. That's enormous.
Too bad if you cannot find legal backers to protect rights.
Two hundred and fifty educational institutions tried to censor and deprive students of their rights. That's also massive.
The US Attorney General sending the FBI on a mission to find a pretext to censor global warming 'deniers' is scary.
What a totalitarian state.
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EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 
