Free Republic

BRISTOL, England, March 2, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – A British magistrate has convicted two Christian street preachers of disorderly conduct and using “threatening and abusive words … likely to cause alarm.” Their crime: speaking about Christianity in a sometimes-hostile crowd that includes Muslims, and LGBT supporters. At the time of the preachers' arrest, the arresting officer chided one of the men, saying, "People were getting angry. You were challenging homophobia. You were challenging Muslims." The officer accused them of "anti-social behavior." While the judge dismissed charges against a third man, he convicted Michael Overd and Michael Stockwell on Tuesday. They face...

A faculty member at California State University, Fullerton has been suspended after striking a College Republicans member during a campus protest earlier this month. The altercation occurred Feb. 8 as pro-Palestine students and counter-protesters marched peacefully through campus. Anthropology part-time lecturer Eric Canin reportedly approached the group of counter-protesters — many of them being CSUF College Republicans members — and tried to rip a sign out of a student’s hand. Mr. Canin was accused of then striking another student who tried to step between them. The group’s president, Chris Boyle, said he witnessed the hit and proceeded to restrain Mr....

This is a story which would never take place in the United States, at least not yet and not with the official permission of the government. The European Union has obviously become increasingly alarmed over trends in popular sentiment rippling through their member countries. This started with Brexit, but has more recently cropped up with the candidacies of Marie Le Pen and Geert Wilders. Clearly such rabble rousing is not to be tolerated in the largely socialist paradise so something had to be done. The solution? The EU has passed new rules which will allow them to cut the broadcast...

FREE SPEECH Senate Democrats blunt free speech By Janet Nguyen When I spoke on the floor of the California state Senate on Thursday, little did I know that my efforts to provide my colleagues with a different historical perspective regarding former Sen. Tom Hayden would become a national news story. Two days earlier, the Senate honored Tom Hayden, who served in the Legislature but who also had a long history as an outspoken supporter of the communist North Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War. Some might ask why, over four decades after the war ended, there remains so much emotion...

Students at the prestigious University of Chicago say that free speech should not apply equally to everyone. The students objected to the school’s Institute of Politics’ invitation to former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. They claim that allowing him to speak “normalizes bigotry” and provides a platform for fascism. Lewandowski did not join the White House staff but by many accounts remains an influential advisor to the president. The coalition of students from U of C Resists, Graduate Students United, Students Working Against Prisons, and UChicago Socialists claim that the school’s “commitment to free expression” doesn’t require the institution...

Student demands for censorship get a lot of coverage. Spiked Online’s Free Speech University Rankings, now in its third annual edition, argues that there is a “crisis of free speech on campus”. By analysing the censorious policies and actions that have taken place on British campuses, Spiked concluded that 63.5 per cent of universities actively censor speech and 30.5 per cent stifle speech through excessive regulation. You can barely go a few days without encountering a new op-ed covering censorship on campus. Maajid Nawaz describes the students demanding censorship as members of the “regressive left”. Milo Yiannopoulos calls them “snowflakes”....

There is no way M-103 does not reflect the views of Trudeau, his caucus and other members of the House that Muslims deserve special treatment Motion M-103 is scheduled to come up for a vote on Feb. 16. While it is a non-binding motion that does not have the force of law, it could very well mark the beginning of the end of freedom of speech in Canada as we know it.

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Local community members are reacting to a video circulating social media depicting possible Saint John's University students chanting, "Build that wall" on a bus. It's only a six-second video, but with more than 30,000 views it's caught the attention of nearly everyone on the campuses of St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict Rallies held Tuesday afternoon turned the discussion toward diversity, asking others to build bridges, rather than walls. Organizer Gladys Gutierrez said the rally was already being put together when the video surfaced. "The situation we are in, the political climate that we are in right...

From time to time over the years, the eminent historian Daniel Pipes has lamented that treason, not just as a crime but as a concept, appears defunct in the West. The question of bringing treason charges against jihadists has been raised from time to time. Often its very asking proves Dr. Pipes’s point: Most radical Islamic terrorists are not American citizens; as to them, treason is not a cognizable offense because traitorous conduct is central to the crime. Even against American jihadists, a treason charge is of dubious usefulness. The 1996 overhaul of federal counterterrorism law codified crimes tailored to...

Much as administrators and faculty may dislike it, the fact is that public colleges are subject to both the First Amendment and the state legislatures that fund them. Legislators shouldn’t micromanage the campuses, but they must set some basic rules. One of those rules should be that free speech and open inquiry will be protected. You might find it surprising that academics need to be told to protect free speech and inquiry, but American campuses have become increasingly intolerant of speech that conflicts with “progressive” orthodoxy. I have often written about the rules imposed by campus officials that run afoul...

One of the far-left “anti-fascist” groups behind last week’s riot in Berkeley, Refuse Fascism, received $50,000 from a group backed by socialist billionaire George Soros, according to the Daily Caller. The Alliance for Global Justice, which is funded by the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation, reportedly donated $50,000 to fund Refuse Fascism, which openly brags about using violence to shut down conservative and libertarian speech. {..snip..}

As Kathy Lipscomb watched TV newscasts of “black bloc” anarchists smashing windows at a UC Berkeley protest, the former organizer of Occupy demonstrations was obsessed by two thoughts. The first, she said, was: “Oh no, not again.” The second: “We can’t let them help ruin things this time.”

Sacramento, California (CNN)It's a recent Friday night in downtown Sacramento, and there's a man in a hotel lobby wearing a fur vest and sunglasses. He has a British accent. A line of college-age fans stretches out the door. They're waiting for autographs and selfies. Some are wearing "Make America Great Again" caps. "Milo I love you! Oh my god, thank you -- I love what you do," says one woman to the man in the fur vest. "Thank you for what you're doing," says another college student wearing a Donald Trump hat. The subject of their adulation is not a...

<p>File this under the “Things I’m Not Shocked to See” category. As it turns out, one of the “antifa” attackers from the Milo Yiannpoulos event in California the other night has been identified. Not only that, he draws a paycheck from the UC Berkeley administration. Shocking, I know. Well, at least one thing is surprising: that he’s this fucking stupid.</p>

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The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

President Trump will reportedly make good on one of his major critiques of the Obama administration by refocusing the program “Countering Violent Extremism” to concentrate on radical Islam. Citing “five people briefed on the matter,” Reuters news agency reported Wednesday that the “CVE” program would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” The program would no longer have as a priority target groups such as white supremacists, Reuters reported. Mr. Trump, and many other Republicans, frequently attacked the program as a politically-correct whitewash growing out of the Obama administration’s refusal to use any form of the...

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The Left’s latest target for shutting down what they consider “hate” speech - U C Berkeley, the infamous home of the 1960’s “free speech” movement. "Amid violence, destruction of property and out of concern for public safety, the University of California Police Department determined that it was necessary to remove Milo Yiannopoulos from the campus and to cancel tonight’s scheduled 8 p.m. performance. – Business Insider A shame, really: Starbucks windows smashed, Bank of America trashed, firebombs detonated in buildings, pyres ignited in the middle of streetsBut don’t worry, even though the administration shut down Milo’s event, the Protest Dance...