Free Republic

A New Hampshire town's attempt to force a bakery to remove or alter its painting that shows sunbeams shining down on a mountain range of doughnuts, a muffin, a cinnamon roll and other pastries is unconstitutional, a judge ruled in a First Amendment dispute. The town of Conway infringed on the free speech rights of bakery owner Sean Young, U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante ruled Monday, following a one-day trial in February. He ordered the town to stop any efforts at enforcing its sign code regarding the mural painted by high school students atop Leavitt's Country Bakery, mentioning a "complete...

On Wednesday, the same day Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released on bail pending a Habeas hearing after a judge determined that he did not pose a risk to the public, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky blasted the Congress for pushing new speech restrictions, particularly antisemitism measures that would restrict criticism of Israel on school campuses. “We’re either a free society governed by the Constitution, or we’re not. We need to challenge hate with reason, not censorship.” Paul was specifically addressing the Antisemitism Awareness Act which would codify a Trump-era executive order declaring that antisemitism is a...

Dear Mr. Musk, As a self-proclaimed champion of free speech and a transformative figure in technology and culture, you have reshaped platforms like X to prioritize open discourse and challenge censorship. Your actions—from acquiring X to amplify diverse voices to defending the First Amendment through initiatives like America PAC—demonstrate a commitment to preserving the “digital town square” as a space for unfettered expression. Today, I urge you to consider a significant donation to FreeRepublic.com, a pioneering website that has stood as a bastion of free speech since 1996, longer than any other platform in history. Here’s why your support could...

From the outset of forming our country, our Founders were determined to keep religion as a foundational element, given that many people had left their homes in Britain to be able to practice their religions as they chose. The goal was not for the government to reject faith, but for it to be prevented from dictating doctrine. But over the years, the Left has distorted the meaning of “separation of church and state” (a phrase that’s not written into the Constitution) and now the country feels obligated to ban religion from every nook and cranny. How did a country founded...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced the closure of the Global Engagement Center as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the “censorship-industrial complex.”“Today, it is my pleasure to announce the State Department is taking a crucial step toward keeping the president’s promise to liberate American speech by abolishing forever the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC),” Rubio wrote in an op-ed for the Federalist, titled, “Rubio: To Protect Free Speech, The Censorship Industrial Complex Must Be Dismantled.”Rubio wrote that, in 2016, the Obama administration changed the GEC’s focus on combatting international terrorism cover...

A marathon deportation case against two Palestinian immigrants, pursued by the administrations of four U.S. Presidents over 20 years, has been dismissed. The ruling closes a Byzantine legal saga that wound its way through federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and federal immigration boards, breaking new legal ground along the way. It ended at the Department of Homeland Security, where the dismissal order was entered Tuesday. One of the defendants, Khader Musa Hamide, said in an interview that he will never get over the experience of being under suspicion for 20 years but now "I can breathe better." A...

Soros: The Chinese Model Of Suppressing Individuals Could Become The Envy Of The World Courtney Comstock Apparently, Soros is considering the possibility that people might some day want to be censored and live in a socialist society like China's. He said yesterday at the Traveller’s Club in Paris, according to Dealbook: “The world does need order, and that order needs maintenance. The idea that markets can correct their excesses turned out to be false. “Perfect order and global governance are not realistic expectations. However, it is a sad fact that Western democracies provide less successful leadership than China.”

Joe Biden’s final act of shamelessness was pardoning his entire crime family in the final hours of his presidency. There’s a mountain of corruption that’s yet to be fully revealed. On the weaponization of government front, you’d think the sustained lawfare launched against President Donald Trump from the Department of Justice was evidence enough. Pro-life activists and the January 6 defendants also being ensnared by the Biden DOJ’s extralegal crusade on political dissidents. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The Media Research Center found not one, not ten, but 57 anti-free speech and censorship initiatives aimed at chipping away...

arguing that his most recent censorship orders require a global ban, thus violating US sovereignty and US law:

The Maine House of Representatives voted to censure Rep. Laurel Libby Tuesday night for a recent social media post pointing out that a transgender high school athlete won a girls' competition. The Maine House's Democratic majority, led by Speaker Ryan Fecteau, passed the censure resolution Tuesday night in a 75-70 vote. Libby is now no longer allowed to speak on the house floor or vote until she issues an apology.

Irvine - Closing arguments will resume today in the trial of 11 students accused of disrupting a speech at UC Irvine by the Israeli ambassador to the United States. The students who interrupted the speech last year "meticulously" planned the disruption and one of the activists afterward boasted, "We pretty much shut them down," a prosecutor said Monday in arguing they should be found guilty of violating laws governing conduct at public meetings. But defense attorneys countered in their closing arguments that just because the students planned to protest the meeting doesn't mean they are guilty of the misdemeanor charges...

But former colleagues of the terminated “G-men” say this narrative is backward. FBI officials, past and present, have marshaled significant evidence via whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that several terminated leaders routinely used their offices for partisan purposes.

Hey Facebook, Google, TikTok, listen up, Ayanna Pressley has an important message for you: VIDEO AT LINK............ Ayanna Pressley just said the quiet part out loud: Democrats are willing to work with anyone who is serious about censoring Americans.What a bunch of commies. pic.twitter.com/xfci7X76kJ— Free Speech America (@FreeSpeechAmer) February 12, 2025"We are all willing to work with anyone who is serious about doing the work of censoring the American people and advancing progress." Talk about saying the quiet part out loud!

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Tuesday that some Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) employees who worked on "mis-, dis-, and malinformation" were put on administrative leave. In a statement to Scripps News, DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote CISA needs to "refocus on its mission," starting with election security. "The agency is undertaking an evaluation of how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis-, dis-, and malinformation," according to the statement. As first reported by Fox News Digital, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified in April 2022...

The pro-life activists who suffered partisan prosecution over the last four years by President Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice could have a chance at clemency if incoming President Donald Trump honors their request for “full and unconditional pardons.” The Thomas More Society, which has represented several of the peaceful protestors targeted by the Biden administration for their opposition to baby-killing, submitted nearly two dozen petitions asking Trump to give those who were “unjustly imprisoned” and “unjustly convicted” for advocating to protect life in the womb presidential reprieve. “These individuals participated in mere peaceable civil disobedience, in the heralded tradition...

The Political Prisoners are being liberated.

Journalist Matt Taibbi spoke to Brian Kilmeade about Mark Zuckerberg coming out against government censorship of social media and revealing the pressure he faced from the Biden administration to censor content on Facebook and Instagram. "On the whole, it is a net positive," Taibbi said. "Zuckerberg coming out and saying all this confirms a lot of what I reported and a lot of the information that came out from Jim Jordan's committee investigation into the Facebook Files. Even if it is not 100% sincere, it confirms some things and suggests that maybe these tech companies are afraid to continue doing...

Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder. As fire crews scrambled in vain to contain the resulting firestorm, the fact-checking partners, still working for Meta, took on their own fight: trying to slow viral misinformation rapidly spreading around the wildfires. Rumor and speculation about the disaster began to swirl online like glowing embers, before eventually becoming a wild blaze of vast conspiracy theories. “Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke,...

Every Legal Scholar and Pundit, including the highly respected, and sadly recently passed, David Rivkin, as well as Jonathan Turley, Elie Honig, Andy McCarthy, Alan Dershowitz, Gregg Jarrett, Elizabeth Price Foley, Katie and Andy Cherkasky, Paul Ingrassia, and many others, have unequivocally stated that the Manhattan D.A.’s Witch Hunt is a nonexistent case, which is not only barred by the Statute of Limitations but, on the merits, should never have been brought. This illegitimate political attack is nothing but a Rigged Charade. “Acting” Justice Merchan, who is a radical partisan, just issued another order that is knowingly unlawful, goes against...

Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes Bankrupt COMMENTARY By Gabe KaminskyDecember 30, 2024 Obama’s ‘Censorship’ Office Goes BankruptAP The Global Engagement Center, an office housed within the State Department and aiming to thwart disinformation and misinformation, has been forced by Congress to close up shop. It’s no mystery why; the taxpayer-backed GEC violated its mandate to work only overseas and devolved into a partisan enabler of speech suppression in the United States. Here’s how. Founded in 2016 and technically the product of an Obama-era executive order on counterterrorism, the GEC lapsed in December and lost congressional funding. Over the last two years,...