Free Republic

Figures obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 3,395 people across 29 forces were arrested last under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it illegal to intentionally “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, in 2016. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher, as thirteen police forces refused to provide the requested information and two did not provide usable data. Around half of the investigations were abandoned before being brought to prosecution, which critics say is an indication that the authorities are being excessively strict in their interpretation of...

London’s Metropolitan Police Force has said it will give up on investigating many instances of “low-level” crime such as shoplifting and vandalism, saying it is “not practical” to fight them in a time of cutbacks.Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons claimed that giving up on investigating many offences was necessary so police constables’ efforts could be “focused on serious crime and cases where there is a realistic chance that we will be able to solve it.” The move has raised eyebrows among members of the public, considering recent reports that the Met detained 867 out of the 3,395 people known to...

Football players kneel. Owners support them. President threatens owners with tax consequences. What does the First Amendment say about all this? This is not an easy question, though some of President Trump’s critics seem to think it is. The ACLU has said it is ready to defend the First Amendment rights of players and to challenge the president’s “unconstitutional efforts to bully the NFL into complying with his view of what is politically correct.” But are President Trump’s efforts “unconstitutional,” or are they constitutionally protected expression? Some Trump critics allege that the presidential threats constitute state action and chill the...

A Boise State University professor recently learned what happens when you challenge left-wing social narratives on college campuses. Scott Yenor, a tenured professor, has been under siege on campus after publishing articles with The Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal about feminism and the transgender movement. In those articles, Yenor explained the similarity in philosophy between the early feminists and modern transgender movement and how they aim at undermining traditional family values. He wrote in a Daily Signal article on Aug. 2:

There is little doubt that civic’s education in the United States is at an all time low, in a recent poll, a full third of folks surveyed could not name a single branch of the federal government, and just over a 1/4 (26%) could name all three. It is not surprising, given this sad reality, that so few seem to understand the first amendment’s recognition of the freedom of speech, and what it pertains to.

The First Casualty of Culture War is Free Speech Standing for the anthem is the new counterculture. September 29, 2017 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. Don’t like millionaire black nationalists in the NFL refusing to stand for the anthem? Too bad! It’s freedom of speech. The same left that decided James Damore didn’t have freedom of speech at Google now insists that football players have it at the NFL. Never mind that the Google engineer was unknown until his...

New York’s Guggenheim Museum said it will not include three works in an upcoming exhibition after they sparked the ire of animal rights groups. The exhibition, “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World,” included three works that critics said promoted cruelty to animals–including one called “Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other,” which reportedly included footage of pit bulls on treadmills. The museum initially defended showing the works, saying it valued freedom of expression, but it said in a statement yesterday that threats of violence have forced it to reconsider out of concern for the safety of its visitors....

How is this any different than Islamic law in, say, Turkey (Obama's favorite and most trusted ally)? In October, 43-year-old Fazil Say went on trial in Turkey for "denigrating" Islam for a series of tweets earlier that year. In one of his messages he had retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám, in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy. This is the same thing. If the DoJ pursued the vicious, offensive, racist, antisemitic tweets directed at me (and others) by Muslims and leftists, they would be pursuing little else. But they wouldn't and they shouldn't. Note...

Gatorade has been banned from insulting its main competitor — water — and fined $300,000 after it slandered nature’s sports drink in a video game, California’s Attorney General announced Thursday. AG Xavier Becerra sued the neon-colored beverage company over its cellphone game “Bolt!” in which players guide track star Usain Bolt around to collect coins and bottles of Gatorade but must avoid water — which slows the Olympian down.

We have been fed a dangerous lie that will cut to the very heart of freedom in America (and elsewhere soon enough). When the politicians and the media talk about “hackers,” they are telling a flat out narrative that barely exists above a whisper in the real world. They have made these “hackers” into “demons working for dangerous nations” to make us fear what is an almost non-existent threat. The real reason they are spinning this tale is far more nefarious. This whole effort is to shut down conservative voices and be lauded as heroes for it. Internet controls, censorship,...

A radical group linked to rogue billionaire George Soros has been providing scripts containing anti-Trump talking points for constituents to read aloud during congressional town hall meetings. One of the scripts distributed by the Revolutionary Love Project encourages town hall participants meeting with their member of Congress to accuse the Trump administration of – wait for it – “xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia.” Constituents are urged to use those precise words to “forcefully condemn” President Trump’s immigration and border security initiatives, Aaron Klein reports at Breitbart News. Information about the scripts came as leaked audio from anti-Trump activists associated with the...

As masked leftists use clubs to shut down free speech at Berkeley and elsewhere, Democrats have unfortunately been reticent to condemn the activity. But Antifa violence is not the only kind of condemnable disruptive activity. Democrats should also disavow the organized campaign to harass Republican congressmen and stop Republican town halls. One group in the thick of this battle is “Indivisible.” The group was founded by a former staffer for Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, and its COO, Matt Traidi, is the research coordinator for the Service Employees International Union. Indivisible provides these instructions on how to prevent other town hall...

As colleges across the country struggle with questions related to free speech on campuses, some schools have implemented policies that appear to give administrators significant latitude to discipline students for speaking in unpopular ways. Most recently, the dean’s office of Utah Valley University, a public institution located in the north-central part of Utah, distributed a guidance letter to all faculty encouraging them to report to the school’s Behavior Assessment Team any students who use “inappropriate language,” are “argumentative,” or who speak “loudly.”

Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law has poked a stick into a beehive. Tenure is liberating that way. In an op-ed for Philly.com, she argued, with Larry Alexander, a law professor at the University of San Diego, that the decline of "bourgeois values" since the 1950s has contributed to a host of social ills. Male labor-force participation rates are down to Depression-era levels. Opioid abuse is epidemic. Half of all children are born to single mothers, and many college students lack basic skills. This is right out of the Charen hymnbook. Behavioral standards that were...

As reported by kath.net and others, G. Schneeweiß-Arnoldstein, who runs the Austrian traditionalist blog kreuz-net.info, has been found guilty of inciting hatred against homosexuals and conditionally sentenced to four months in prison. The blogger’s crime was an article describing syphilis as “God’s punishment” for “homo-fornicators”. Schneeweiß-Arnoldstein pleaded not guilty to inciting hatred. His lawyer explained that “fornication” is a technical, theological term referring to sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and that “God’s punishment” refers to the consequences of mortal sin. The judge, Gerald Wagner, replied that the language was vilifying, and that the state has to protect the group in...

A Berkeley middle school teacher who was accused of instigating a violent clash with neo-Nazis in Sacramento this summer is back at it, recorded in a deranged rant at a Berkeley protest against Milo Yiannopoulos shortly before violence erupted Wednesday. Yvette Felarca, a social studies teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, attended a protest against Yiannopoulos’ scheduled speech at the University of California Berkeley Wednesday, when she spoke out against the Breitbart senior editor’s controversial views and called on protesters to prevent him from speaking “by any means necessary.” In a video posted to YouTube on Thursday, Felarca...

Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin has called for authorities to tackle left-wing violence by classifying members of AntiFa, the loosely organized group of “anti-fascists” who believe that violence is acceptable in countering right-wing extremism, as a gang. Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin has called for authorities to tackle left-wing violence by classifying members of AntiFa, the loosely organized group of “anti-fascists” who believe that violence is acceptable in countering right-wing extremism, as a gang. Berkeley police made ten arrests on Sunday, using tear gas to disperse black clad counter-protesters on several occasions, Newsweek reported from the protests Sunday. Organizers had called off the “No Marxism...

In Venezuela, publishing this report would be a crime carrying a 40-month prison sentence. Autocrats and Activists Warning! Do not discuss, debate, or distribute this report in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This report contains statements critical of President Hugo Chávez, a criminal offense punishable by fine and imprisonment there. The Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television went into effect in Venezuela in November 2004, followed by amendments to Venezuela’s Criminal Code that went into force in March 2005. These measures make it a criminal offense to insult or show disrespect for the president and other government...

A bill that passed the California state senate and is now moving through the Assembly could threaten jail time for anyone who refuses to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun. The law is currently limited in its effects to nursing homes and intermediate-care facilities, but if passed, those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” could be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code. The state senate passed the bill 26-12 at the end of May. Since then, the Assembly...

... “All the media is Democrat and they love [Hillary],” Nakoula says matter-of-factly. “In November she will be the future president. I am telling you.” He’s no big fan of Clinton’s, though—he thinks she falsely framed him as having “blood” on his hands after Benghazi. In fact, Nakoula feels his chef-d’oeuvre was pretty underappreciated by America as a whole. “I made the movie because I was stupid. Because I thought we are live in a free country. I was stupid and I did a mistake,” Nakoula tells me during our first meeting at the church. “I should have go to...