First Amendment expert Charles Haynes offers a compromise to the far left as it launches its annual assault on Christmas:

Let Christian groups set up Nativity displays in public spaces unanswered in December – and save the atheist messages for another time of year. 

 Charles Haynes: In Christmas wars, it's all or nothing

A guest column by Gene Policinski of the First Amendment Center:

Give the First Amendment – and the nation – a unique gift this holiday season: On Dec. 15, "tweet" your support for this 220-year old guarantor of our basic freedoms.

And don't stop there … round out the holidays by making that 140-character pledge the first step in a New Year's commitment to better understand and defend year-round those precious 45 words that define our core freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.

What's the reason to make the First Amendment part of the season?

For one thing, Dec. 15 is the 220th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, beginning with the First Amendment's protection of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. That's an event deserving in its own right of glitter and tinsel.

More urgently, it's a chance to challenge and maybe change a sad result of national surveys the First Amendment Center has conducted since 1997. In all that time, never more than six percent in any year could name all five freedoms unaided.

We live in times in which the First Amendment never has been more on display – or more contested.

There are the yearly Yule concerns over religious-themed songs and carols at public school holiday pageants, but also the miraculous example to the world of multiple faiths in one nation peaceably observing holy days and holidays alongside one another.

There are Occupy Wall Street demonstrators exercising their rights to speak freely, to assemble and to petition the government for change – in the manner of generations of Americans who have taken to the streets to make their voices heard.

The U.S. Supreme Court soon will decide a dispute over what we can see and hear on broadcast TV. Meanwhile, we’re all "a-Twitter" over how private are our personal facts and messages. And the fight goes on over how public are our public records.

The Internet, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter have brought new concerns about smut, identity theft and hate speech, all while also giving us an unparalleled opportunity to talk with our fellow citizens – provided that government does not get in the way.

Has there ever been a time when all five of our First Amendment freedoms were more in play?

The "Free to Tweet" initiative is an unprecedented, day-long online call to the American public to stand up on Dec. 15 for these fundamental freedoms. High school and college students nationwide, ages 14 to 22, get a bonus for participating: Expressing themselves freely with the hash tag #freetotweet on Twitter will mean an opportunity to win one of 22 scholarships each worth $5,000. (Find more details on the initiative and the competition at www.freetotweet.org).

For more than two centuries, the First Amendment has been protecting our right to speak out. Let's do just that on Dec. 15!

Gene Policinski is senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, 1207 18th Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn., 37212. Web: www.firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail: gpolicinski@fac.org

A federal judge has ruled that bloggers are not afforded the same protections from defamation and libel lawsuits as professional journalists.

The ruling could have a chilling effect on so-called "citizen journalists" who have launched hundreds of millions of blogs.

The case involved Crystal L. Cox, a Montana blogger who made critical remarks about a local attorney. Hint to bloggers: Accusing a lawyer in public of criminal conduct may not be the smartest thing to do.

From The Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez found last week that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.

Although media experts said Wednesday that the ruling would have little effect on the definition of journalism, it casts a shadow on those who work in nontraditional media since it highlights the lack of case law that could protect them and the fact that current state shield laws for journalists are not covering recent developments in online media.

"My advice to bloggers operating in the state of Oregon is lobby to get your shield law improved so bloggers are covered," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "But do not expect the shield law to provide you a defense in a libel case where you want to rely on an anonymous source for that information."

Read the full story at the link below:

Federal judge: Montana blogger is not journalist

Jonathan Turley: Obama may prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties.

Obama: A disaster for civil liberties

Liberal columnist Nat Hentoff recounts the many ways the Obama Administration is invading the privacy of U.S. citizens in his latest column.

Under Obama's unblinking eyes - pottsmerc.com

Legion Laments Supreme Court Ruling on Westboro Protests

Ahead: Speech Codes, Gun Bans And Obstructionism - HUMAN EVENTS

The Censorship Continues: Last Week, Juan Williams; This Week, Andrew Breitbart - Who's Next?

We're learning more about Elena Kagan and it's not pretty. And I'm not referring to the fact that she looks like Kevin James in drag.

Barack Obama has tapped another far-left radical who has never read the U.S. Constitution for the Supreme Court.

Freedom of speech doesn't really mean freedom of speech in Ms. Kagan's world.

To quote Ms. Kagan: "Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs."

Read more at the Washington Examiner:

Kagan: Speech is free if government decides it has more value than 'societal costs' | Washington Examiner

The recent controversy involving the cancellation of a speech by conservative columnist Ann Coulter shows once again that liberals support freedom of speech only when they agree with the person doing the speaking.a

From a column by Nathalie Des Rosiers:

We are left with a bad taste in our mouths when offensive speech is silenced, no matter how distasteful or ridiculous it may be. Universities, as institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth, the creation of knowledge and the exchange of ideas, must confront this question head-on.

In earlier days, less security-sensitive universities would likely have just held the event and dealt with the consequences. They would have been willing to gamble that neither the speaker nor students would be harmed in the process. They would have assumed that, although at times unpleasant, public events rarely turned into blood baths.

Nowadays, however, experts in risk-management would quiver at the suggestion that heading off trouble before it happens may not be the only option.

It is important to remember that not everything can be managed by security experts, who are trained to fear the worst and inevitably suggest cancellation or additional resources to deal with potential trouble. They alone should not make decisions that relate to speech because they may not be sufficiently sensitive to the loss to our democracy and to the university's mission when speech is silenced.

Indeed, it could be that universities must accept that part of their educational function is to create the space for controversial speech to occur and that unpleasantness is part of that process. A measure of discomfort and risk is inevitable in living with free speech.

Read the full column at the link below:

Freedom of speech costly but not a luxury - thestar.com

American Legion National Commander Praises 9th Circuit Pledge Ruling

This is a battle fought every year between the secular left and the majority of Americans, but the sad part here is that Luzerne County officials chose to surrender to the anti-Christian hate groups, including the ACLU, instead of standing up for the majority of county residents.

From The Associated Press:

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Officials in northeastern Pennsylvania have removed a pair of religious holiday symbols from a public space after being threatened with legal action.

Luzerne County commissioners took down the creche and menorah from the courthouse lawn on Wednesday after receiving an objection from two civil liberties groups.

The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State told the county in a Dec. 11 letter that the displays are an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.

County Solicitor Vito DeLuca says officials chose to forgo a legal fight because of a local budget crisis and other pressing matters.

The nativity scene is county-owned and has been placed on the lawn in Wilkes-Barre for decades. The county added a menorah about 20 years ago.

For more on how to fight the liberal fascists, check out the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Web site.

Talk radio host and author Doug Giles offers encouragement in the form of an open letter to the so-called "mob" of Americans expressing their First Amendment right to free speech during recent town hall meetings with members of Congress.

From his letter:

Isn't it funny that the liberals, who have historically encouraged the contrarian, are now crying foul since conservatives, libertarians and non-Obama addled Democrats have decided, en masse, to become the contrarians and shout Obama, his policies, and his step-n-fetch gofers down?

As you know by now, the Obamanoid's town hall sale of Obamacare ain't going that well for Dems because thinking, unbeholden people aren't buying Barack's crack. So, what did the White House do in light of the GP's legitimate concerns over Barack's proposed legislation? Did they go back and flush it down the crapper? No. Did Obama bend one of his big ears to our bigger concerns? Yeah, right.

No, the White House, in the spirit of tolerance, hope and change officially dispatched some pursed-lip chick to video warn the serfs of Obamaland that if we disagree with His Highness' health scare bill in a "fishy" e-mail or casual conversation then the White House wants to know about it — and we could very well be deep weeds.

What is this, Russia? Did I wake up in Venezuela? Is this an Austin Powers flick, or a joke? If it isn't, I'm screwed; all I have been doing for the past umpteen weeks is ... uh ... disagreeing with B-HO on my show.

Read the full column, "My Fishy Letter of Encouragement for the Town Hall Rebels," at Townhall.com

Nat Hentoff is a leading authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. He also happens to be one of the most liberal syndicated columnist in the country. So when Hentoff wants to discuss how the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has clearly violated the Constitution by passing a law to target "thought crime," everyone needs to pay attention.

From a recent Hentoff column:

Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called "hate crimes law" that passed in the House on April 29? The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in a 249-175 vote (17 Republicans joined with 231 Democrats).

These Democrats should have been tested on their knowledge of the First Amendment, equal protection of the laws (14th Amendment), and the prohibition of double jeopardy (no American can be prosecuted twice for the same crime or offense). If they had been, they would have known that this proposal, now headed for a Senate vote, violates all these constitutional provisions.

This bill would make it a federal crime to willfully cause bodily injury (or try to) because of the victim's actual or PERCEIVED "race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability" — as explained on the White House Web site, signaling the president's approval. A defendant convicted on these grounds would be charged with a "hate crime" in addition to the original crime, and would get EXTRA prison time.

Liberal fascism is upon us. And if Obama stacks the Supreme Court with far-left idealogues, who will be left to protect our Constitutional rights? This could help explain the rise in gun ownership in this country.

Read Hentoff's full column here.

Everyone knows the newspaper industry is struggling, but there seems to be a growing number of people who are enjoying watching the demise of some of the nation's great newspapers.

Randy Siegel, co-founder of the Newspaper Project, argues that many of the people who are sounding the death knell have ulterior motives.

From Siegel's column in The Providence Journal:

As newspaper companies fight for survival and try to rectify many of the mistakes they have made in the last decade, they don’t deserve a break from anyone — their readers, their advertisers, or their competitors. What they do deserve, however, is a little more objective coverage of their problems and more detailed disclosure about the possible motives of those "critics" and "analysts" who are hardly unbiased observers.

Read the full column at the newspaper's Web site.

You can find out more about the Newspaper Project at www.newspaperproject.org

There's also an interesting column by Leonard Pitts Jr. that says politicians and government bureaucrats would love to see fewer newspapers because there would be no one left to hold them accountable.

From Pitts' column:

Too many of us fail to understand what that death would mean, believe newspapers provide no service they can't get elsewhere ... Local TV news specializes in crime, weather and sports. CNN has a national purview. Even the Internet primarily synthesizes reporting done in other media.

No, only the local paper performs the critical function of holding accountable the mayor, the governor, the local magnates and potentates for how they spend your money, run your institutions, validate or violate your trust. If newspapers go, no other entity will have the wherewithal to do that. Which means the next Blagojevich gets away with it.

Read "Don't expect sympathy cards from crooks, corrupt politicians," at The Miami Herald's Web site.

A reminder to everyone who holds public office or is paid by taxpayers:

"The First Amendment doesn't exist so we can freely praise our public officials. It exists so we can freely criticize our public officials."

-- Chris Lamb,
Educator, College of Charleston, S.C.