Free Republic

Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday barred the liberal Yabloko party from contesting September’s parliamentary elections, sidelining the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow’s war in Ukraine. More than four years after Russia launched its full-scale war, the decision highlights the authorities’ intolerance of anti-war views and further narrows the already limited space for dissent in Russian politics. “Excluding Yabloko from the election means refusing dialogue with people who ask questions that are uncomfortable for the authorities,” Nikolai Rybakov, the party’s leader, said, vowing to appeal the decision.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and reporter Dana Bash locked horns on CNN's "State of the Union" program. Bash started the interview by asserting "you have been placing nearly all the blame for the COVID pandemic and the way that the US responded to it squarely on Dr. Fauci. But of course, he worked for President Trump. Does President Trump also deserve some of the blame?" "I think the thing that did the most damage to our country was the lockdowns," Kennedy replied. "The lockdowns shut down 3.5 million businesses in our country with no due...

AUSTIN, Texas - Texas announced on Friday that Discord has agreed to a temporary injunction that will require the messaging platform to implement in Texas the same age-assurance and default safety features that it already provides for users in the United Kingdom.

Reform UK say they are reporting Green Party leader Zack Polanski to the police after he shared a post to his Instagram which included a photo of a man wearing a top featuring the name "Nigel" alongside an image of a guillotine. Polanski accepted a request to collaborate with another account and shared a series of pictures of a Green Party event on Sunday with his 713,000 followers. One of the images showed a man wearing a T-shirt which said: "We're only making plans for Nigel". A Green Party spokesperson said: "Once this image was brought to [Zack's] attention he...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Friday that he is “very concerned” Canada’s expanding censorship and surveillance laws could erode the free-speech and privacy rights of Americans. Jordan made the comments in a sit-down with Elie Cantin-Nantel of EMCN Media, an independent Canadian digital media venture. The interview came weeks after he and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) sent a letter to Canada’s public safety minister raising the same concerns. The Ohio Republican said Canada’s Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, would reach beyond Canadian borders because Americans routinely communicate with and travel to the...

How can Grok be angry with me? Refused my question. Insulted me. Told me to stop using the service. My question: "What anecdotes exist of black aides abusing white nursing home patients?" GROK "That's not truth-seeking — it's narrative curation. If you have a specific, non-cherry-picked question on data or analysis, ask it plainly. Otherwise, this loop on the original request ends here." #@elonmusk, #@xai, #@grok

CNBC’s ranking of the 10 worst states to live in 2026—all of them Republican-led—has drawn criticism from conservatives. The broadcaster gave each state a Quality of Life score based on factors including crime rates, air quality, healthcare access, worker protections and civil rights laws. The Quality of Life category was one of 10 in the outlet’s annual America’s Top States for Business study. Tennessee was ranked the worst state to live in after receiving a score of just 64 out of 290. CNBC noted that Tennessee had one of the highest violent-crime rates in the nation, citing FBI statistics, as...

Tennessee has the worst quality of life in the country, according to CNBC, which gave the Volunteer State an F for quality of life in its annual ranking of the best states for businesses. Why it matters: State leaders often pride themselves on making Tennessee as business-friendly as possible, but CNBC's closely watched rankings highlight some reasons businesses might stay away. How it works: Multiple variables were considered when scoring states on their quality of life, including crime rates, the availability of affordable child care and paid leave policies. CNBC also considered "inclusiveness in state laws, including protections against discrimination...

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has announced she and her department are leaving Elon Musk's X platform. Explaining her decision in what seemingly will be her last post on X, Nandy said the platform "isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don't want to support it". "A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate," she wrote. The culture department becomes the second government department to stop using X after the attorney general's office, while several MPs also left the platform earlier this year over reports its AI tool was...

Semafor reported on Project 2029’s "Kids Over Clicks" proposal, which outlines Democrats' plans to regulate social media and AI companies. Democrats are gearing up for the 2028 election and preparing a list of policy priorities—dubbed "Project 2029"—should they retake the White House. The first Project 2029 proposal is not about affordability, healthcare, or foreign policy. No, the Democrats' first proposal concerns children's online safety: the issue fueling lawmakers' bipartisan push to impose greater government control over the internet. Semafor's Nicholas Wu first reported on the "Kids Over Clicks" proposal on Monday. The proposal, Wu wrote, advocates for "narrowing protections under...

This week, the House of Representatives is considering a bill to radically expand the government’s power to regulate online speech platforms. Framed as a child safety measure, the KIDS Act imposes a litany of restrictions on social media apps and other platforms... The KIDS Act would fundamentally overturn this status quo by allowing the government to decide how platforms can be built and imposing restrictions that will censor the speech of adults and minors alike...

The full release of the film on X triggered a wave of reactions against Germany’s decision to block its commercial distribution. A scene from the film Citizen Vigilante - Screenshot from the video of Citizen Vigilante on XElon Musk has once again placed X at the centre of the cultural conflict between the United States and Europe by publishing Citizen Vigilante in full on his social media platform. This is the action thriller directed by Uwe Boll and starring Armie Hammer that Germany has kept out of its normal distribution channels. The film, which was posted as available to watch...

Numerous European Countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies. Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America. This TARIFF will supersede Trade Deals made with the Country, whether implemented, signed, or not. Additionally, the 100% TARIFF will be immediately imposed, if they proceed. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

George Santayana famously said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. The same is true for judicial overreach. Those judges who yield to the temptation to counter policies that are not to their liking are likely to repeat such excesses of power. That is why the recent decision of U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston is so concerning. While there are good-faith reasons why some have objected to the removal of slavery and climate change exhibits from national parks and monuments, this is not about the merits but the authority to make such changes. Kelley’s recent...

Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said there is no room for pro-Israel voters within his coalition, arguing that fellow Democrats should not make "an exception" for people who are "progressive except Palestine." The Democratic nominee said his long history of anti-Israel activism—which includes founding the Bowdoin College chapter of the extremist and terror-aligned Students for Justice in Palestine organization—informs his belief that pro-Israel liberals should be driven out of the left.

UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has sharply criticized the government’s handling of rising antisemitism, describing the situation as a “national emergency" and calling for immediate action, including a ban on pro-Palestinian marches, as reported in the Daily Mail. Her remarks come as Prime Minister Keir Starmer convenes senior officials, police representatives, and public figures in Downing Street for a “whole of society" discussion on the recent surge in attacks targeting Jewish communities throughout the UK. The meeting follows a stabbing incident in Golders Green last week, which left two Jewish men injured and heightened concerns over public safety. Badenoch warned...

Amazon removed the paperback edition of French writer Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel “The Camp of the Saints” from its U.S. listings Friday, citing a violation of its offensive content policy. Vauban Books, the publisher of the 2025 English edition, made the announcement Monday after the dystopian novel was flagged for “offensive content.” The novel is dystopian fiction that examines what happens when mass immigration meets a society that has lost its self-preservation instincts. The story follows the choices made at every level of society as a horde of immigrants sets sail from India for France. The immigrants chose France because...

Jean Raspail’s ‘The Camp of the Saints’ isn’t a racist screed, it’s a story about how civilizations die. In an act of censorship that liberals would normally decry as fascist and authoritarian, Amazon banned a new edition of The Camp of the Saints by the late French novelist Jean Raspail — and then quietly re-listed the book after online backlash to the company’s attempted censorship. The book, published by a small outfit called Vauban Books, was removed from Amazon’s U.S. site on Monday with almost no explanation. As of this writing, Amazon has not explained why it de-listed the...

Several dozen people lined up outside a presidential administration building on a sunny spring weekend in central Moscow as police stood nearby and watched them closely. The people were lodging complaints about the government's intensifying crackdown on the internet that has seen regular shutdowns of cellphone internet connections, blocked popular messaging apps and cut access to thousands of other websites and digital services. It was the latest sign of the growing anger and frustration over the restrictions that have disrupted the daily lives of Russians, hurt businesses and drawn criticism even from Kremlin supporters. Knowing that any unauthorised demonstrations are...

Sir Sadiq Khan has accused social media giants of tarnishing London’s reputation by allowing a “dark blizzard of disinformation” to spread on their platforms. The Mayor of London has claimed that sites such as X, Facebook and Instagram are fuelling lies about the capital online, specifically when it comes to crime and racial segregation. Such disinformation is damaging the capital’s standing as “one of the most successful multicultural societies on Earth”, he told the Cambridge Disinformation Summit on Thursday. “Disinformation has become an industry: an ‘outrage economy’ organised around a ‘division dividend’ which allows people to profit from poison,” he...