Free Republic

FIRST ON FOX – Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far." "We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S." Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, joined Fox...

Victims of grooming gangs have been ignored because of political correctness, Rishi Sunak said as he set out plans for a police taskforce. Specialist officers supported by the National Crime Agency will be sent to help forces with their investigations, the government said. And better ethnicity data will help ensure abusers do not evade justice due to "cultural sensitivities", it added. Labour said the proposals were "far too inadequate". Under the new plans, more data on the make-up of grooming gangs, including ethnicity, would help ensure suspects "cannot hide behind cultural sensitivities as a way to evade justice", the government...

Democratic strategist James Carville criticized his party on Thursday for suppressing dissent on issues like sex changes and border policy. Carville’s remarks follow Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts calling out his party on Nov. 10 for attempting to “cancel people rather than having debates about issues that Americans care about” following backlash to his comments regarding transgender athletes competing in female sports. Carville, on “Politics War Room,” accused Democrats of enforcing a tyrannical adherence to their “philosophy” that undermines the party’s electability. “Anybody that questions the absolute, unquestionable benefits of transition surgery is going to be called this equivalent...

The Democratic governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, says he agrees with one part of border czar appointee Tom Homan's historic mass deportation campaign under the incoming Trump administration. Pritzker was responding to comments made by Homan at the Northwest Side GOP gathering that happened Monday evening, according to FOX 32 Chicago, where he threatened to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The move would impact tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants in Chicago and Illinois. "Violent criminals who are undocumented and convicted of violent crime should be deported," Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference, the local station reported. "I do...

The Hamas terror group has sent Israel a list of the hostages to be freed in a proposed ceasefire-prisoner swap deal, as well as their medical conditions, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported Monday morning. A source involved in the negotiations told the newspaper that the negotiations are being held with teams from Egypt, Israel, and Hamas. "Both sides are serious about reaching an unprecedented deal, with Egypt, Qatar, and the US participating in the negotiations as mediators," the source said. According to the report, it is likely that the agreement will include four hostages who hold US citizenship, even though they do...

Donald Trump’s one-time fixer turned fierce critic Michael Cohen is calling for the hush money case against the president-elect to be thrown out following the November election. Cohen served as a star witness for the prosecution in the trial against Trump earlier this year in the Manhattan criminal court.

The Iranian regime has given the government of Lebanon the go-ahead to reach a ceasefire with Israel on behalf of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group that began the war in October 2023 but has since been beaten badly. The Jerusalem Post reported Friday: Iran will support any decision taken by the Lebanese government and Lebanon’s “resistance” in current talks on a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said on Friday. “We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems,” Larijani said after meeting Lebanese caretaker Prime...

Campaign seasons rarely provide opportunities to discuss issues, but the last week of the 2024 election has yielded a surprisingly enlightened discussion — on the left — about who is to blame for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first comments came from Van Jones, the veteran left-wing community organizer who is a strident partisan on cable news panels but also one of the few people who will speak honestly about the Democrats’ weaknesses as well. Jones appeared on Jonah Platt’s new podcast, Being Jewish, to discuss the relationships between blacks and Jews. At one point, he made the rare but...

Mayor Adams defended Donald Trump Saturday, slamming claims from Democrats that the Republican nominee is a “fascist” who could be compared to Adolf Hitler. “I have had those comments hurled at me by some political leaders in the city; my answer is ‘No,’ ” said an embattled Adams, when asked about the criticism of Trump. “I know what Hitler has done, and I know what a fascist regime looks like. I think, as I have called for over and over again, that the level of conversation, I think we can all dial down the temperature,” added Adams, a moderate Dem...

I’m a major donor to the Democratic Party. Only one strategy can rescue the Dems: an open convention. Being a large donor to the Democratic Party is like having elective surgery. You know it’s the right thing to do, but you also know it will be painful. You are often going to be thrown under the bus by the very candidates you support. I would know. I maxed out my giving in the last four presidential elections to the Democratic candidate: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Biden again, this cycle. Perhaps that makes me sound partisan, but I...

FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence reacted on Friday to the criminal conviction of former President Donald Trump in a New York City courtroom and said a "terrible message" has been sent. "The conviction of former President Trump on politically motivated charges is an outrage and disservice to the nation," Pence told Fox News Digital. "No one is above the law, but our courts must not become a tool to be used against political opponents," Pence continued. "To millions of Americans, this was nothing more than a political prosecution driven by a Manhattan DA who ran for office...

Migration and free trade impose huge unrecognized costs on ordinary people, says a Nobel-awarded Princeton economist who previously supported the unpopular, elite-backed policies. “I used to subscribe to the near consensus among economists that immigration to the US was a good thing,” Professor Angus Deaton wrote in a post for the International Monetary Fund. He continued: Longer-term analysis over the past century and a half tells a different story. Inequality was high when America was open [to migration], was much lower when the borders were closed [to migrants], and rose again post Hart-Celler (the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965)...

Yale University will once again require standardized testing for students applying for admission in the fall of 2025. The decision, announced today, ends the test-optional undergraduate admissions process that had been in place at Yale since the pandemic. According to the announcement, the past four years of test-optional admissions had given Yale what it described as “an invaluable opportunity to think deeply about testing policy and to generate new data and analyses. With testing availability now fully restored for prospective applicants around the world, we have reevaluated our policy with the benefit of fresh insights.” Yale is describing its new...

MK Iman Khatib-Yasin (United Arab List) apologized on Sunday evening after she denied, earlier in the day, the horrors of the October 7th massacre in southern Israel. "I was mistaken, I am sorry for it and apologize. I had no intention to belittle or deny the shocking massacre on October 7th and the terrible acts against women, babies, and the elderly who were murdered in the South. From the first day, I expressed a clear position regarding the condemnation and denunciation of these terrible acts against Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel on that black Saturday, and I should emphasize...

Molson Coors, best known for brewing Coors Light and Miller Lite, is acquiring Blue Run Spirits, a cult favorite high-end bourbon and rye whiskey brand, for an undisclosed price, exclusively told to CNN. It’s part of the company’s pivot to becoming a broader beverage company focusing on drinks beyond beer, especially since US spirit sales surpassed beer sales last year for the first time ever. Blue Run is a Kentucky-based startup that makes premium bourbon whiskeys with prices ranging from $100 to $250 for a bottle. Five people came together that have a “common love” for bourbon and created the...

Naomi Wolf stands out as a walkaway; a dyed-in-the-wool liberal feminist who woke up to the lies of her government. Intriguingly, Naomi Wolf has been alternately praised and scorned by both the Right and the Left. She was a darling of the Left as a third-wave feminist, and now that same cadre condemns her roundly for her questioning of the mRNA narrative; she was criticized sharply by conservatives for her feminism, but now is welcomed with open arms for her open-eyed revolt against globalist initiatives to enslave us all. The Left dismissed conservative complaints against Wolf, once upon a time....

FIRST ON FOX: California Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to endorse the cash payments – which could reach as high as $1.2 million for a single recipient – recommended by his reparations task force, telling Fox News Digital that dealing with the legacy of slavery "is about much more than cash payments." "The Reparations Task Force’s independent findings and recommendations are a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing. This has been an important process, and we should continue to work as a nation to reconcile our original sin of slavery and understand how that history has...

One of the iron rules of wokeism that corporations and CEOs have absorbed is this: You never turn your back on the LGBTQ. No matter the backlash, no matter the criticism, if you embrace a transgender influencer or gay advocate or someone similar, you have to stick with them no matter what they throw at you. It's just part of the game now. So this is really quite incredible, and underscores the success of the Bud Light boycott: Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris addressed the Bud Light controversy on an earnings call with investors Thursday, downplaying the brand's partnership with transgender...

A jury found four former Commonwealth Edison executives and lobbyists guilty of bribery-related charges Tuesday as part of an eight-year conspiracy scheme centered around former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. In the highest-profile corruption case in Illinois in more than a decade, the jury convicted the defendants on all counts. "We're tired of political corruption," juror Amanda Schnitker Sayers said after the verdict. "We're hoping this is a first step." The Chicago veterinarian put the blame on Madigan. "He really did cause this all to happen," she said. Although Madigan wasn't on trial, the longest-serving state legislative leader in...

An Indiana bar is begging customers to come back after telling them they weren't welcome for speaking out against Dylan Mulvaney's Bud Light partnership. The Fairfax Bar & Grill in Bloomington issued three statements to their patrons since weighing in on the controversial partnership that launched April 1. Initially, the bar backed the partnership and claimed on April 11 that, 'any patrons wanting to voice their concerns about the issue will be immediately asked to pay their bill in leave.' The bar's April 11 post in length read: 'We are tired of all of the hate. 'We are very open...