Free Republic

Democrats are more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting its citizens If we are to believe the news, the district attorneys in Fulton County, Georgia and Manhattan will soon announce indictments of Donald Trump. The New York indictment looks especially imminent. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is hellbent on charging Mr. Trump. In fact, the New York City District Attorney’s office has been searching for any way to charge the former president since 2017. The investigation has poured over President Trump’s personal and business life. They’ve reportedly settled on charging Donald Trump for the non-crime of his attorney Michael...

While the official Party Line from the federal government is that the covid vaccines are safe and effective, recent studies have cast doubt on that assertion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called these studies misinformation or, at best, "anecdotal." However, an examination of Medicare's enormous database for its elderly patients shows that (1) the "warp speed" vaccines are making it more likely that the elderly will die prematurely, not less likely; (2) the risk of death remains elevated for an unknown period of time after you get the shot; and (3) the CDC lied to the...

The Twitter Files show how the FBI deputized Twitter to conduct illegal censorship of American citizens and undermine the First Amendment. ... Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last October and the subsequent reporting on the “Twitter Files” by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and a handful of others beginning in early December is one of the most important news stories of our time. The “Twitter Files” story encompasses, and to a large extent connects, every major political scandal of the Trump-Biden era. Put simply, the “Twitter Files” reveal an unholy alliance between Big Tech and the deep state designed to...

l Riot BY NIK POPLI AND JULIA ZORTHIAN UPDATED: JUNE 15, 2022 1:17 PM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JANUARY 6, 2022 6:00 AM EST More than 840 people have been arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, with charges ranging from obstruction of an official proceeding to assault. But 17 months after the attempted insurrection, a significant number of rioters are still awaiting their sentencing. Only around a quarter of those arrested—185 individuals—have received criminal sentences, while the rest are waiting for their trials or haven’t yet reached plea agreements. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office...

Chicago Dad Placed on Watchlist After Opposing Pornography in Schools A Chicago father has learned that he has been placed on a flight watchlist after opposing pornographic materials in his kids’ schools. Over the summer of 2021, Terry Newsome—who described himself in comments to the Epoch Times as a “lifelong Democrat” until recently—was one of several parents in the 99th school district of Downer’s Grove, Chicago, who expressed opposition to books in his children’s library that had sexually explicit and pornographic content. In December, Newsome discovered he had been placed on a watchlist. On Dec. 16, 2022, he and his...

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) blasted the IRS on Monday for allegedly conducting "government surveillance" on Americans following a Just the News report on the agency's invasive questioning of an election education nonprofit, as the House Oversight Committee requested to see the underlying documents.In action reminiscent of the Lois Lerner targeting scandal under the Obama administration when the IRS singled out conservative groups for audits, the Biden IRS last year subjected an election education nonprofit applying for tax-empt status to intrusive formal questioning the group believes infringed on its speech rights under the First Amendment.Just the News reported the story on...

Given the recent events at GBNews, I was very interested to see and hear the Neil Oliver monologue this week, to see if the issues of censorship, control and weaponized cultural Marxism would be part of his focus. In his unique way, Oliver does approach the subject, by targeting the larger social Marxist effort to control speech and language. Oliver talks about how accurate words are diminished by those who overplay them in order to achieve political gains. Additionally, how the politically correct (culturally Marxist) intents of the progressive movement, intentionally downplay very real and dangerous outcomes by ignoring events...

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government convened this week and is scheduled to hold its first hearing. The FBI stands accused of a vast swath of abuses, such as labeling parents at school board meetings with terrorist threat tags, collusion with social media to monitor and censor Americans’ free speech, and identifying (with a high level of confidence) Catholics with a preference for Latin Mass as potential recruits for Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist organizations. These assaults by the nation’s top law enforcement agency on American’s civil rights are legion (pun...

A recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst told Congress in a whistleblower disclosure that agents in Boston were improperly pressured by Washington to open criminal cases on 140 people who had simply taken a bus ride to the Jan. 6 rally in Washington. The agents refused because there was no evidence the attendees engaged in any criminality, the whistleblower said. George Hill's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee also raised new civil liberty concerns about the FBI's Jan. 6 probe, including whether the Bureau mined Americans' bank records without court authority and whether the agency possesses video footage it is...

WASHINGTON — House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) delivered opening remarks at a hearing titled “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story.” In his opening statement, Chairman Comer pointed out that many social media platforms are under the control of people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles of free speech and expression protected in the U.S. Constitution. Prior to Elon Musk’s takeover of the Twitter, Chairman Comer highlighted how the federal government used Twitter to suppress free speech and pointed out how...

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept. The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link). However, when...

The House Judiciary Committee under chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) issued a subpoena on Friday for FBI Director Christopher Wray, requiring that the chief hand over documents and correspondence involving the bureau’s “misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources” to politically persecute conservative parents at school board meetings across the country.

The House Judiciary Committee fired off its first subpoenas under the leadership of Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), targeting a trio of Biden administration officials including Attorney General Merrick Garland over a short-lived memo dealing with threats against school board members. The subpoenas, sent also to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, follow a series of more than 100 letters on the 2021 memo from Judiciary Republicans. Garland signed the memo in October of last year, noting a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff” amid broader discussion...

The court’s decision represents a victory against authoritarianism, but censorship by Covid scaremongers should still trouble Americans. ... Afederal judge halted California’s attempt to censor doctors when, last Wednesday, the court enjoined the state statute that banned medical professionals from spreading purported “misinformation” or “disinformation” to their patients about Covid-19. The decision represents the latest victory against the authoritarian edicts that quickly followed the outbreak of the pandemic three years ago but continue to this day. In August of 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), adding a new provision to California’s extensive regulations...

Military operatives were part of an operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic responseREAD MORE: Critics slam £14.9bn of 'extraordinary waste' on overpriced, faulty or unused pandemic-era equipment A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised the Government's Covid lockdown policies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.Military operatives in the UK's 'information warfare' brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response.They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming...

Des Plaines Councilwoman Alderman Carla Brookman slammed censor-happy leftists and hecklers during a recent city council meeting, proclaiming, “If you don’t allow discussion, that is a real problem in our society.”

New Zealand's incoming prime minister has vowed to protect his family from what he called the "abhorrent" abuse that his predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, received while in office. Chris Hipkins, who was speaking on Sunday after MPs from his ruling Labour Party voted unanimously to endorse him, said a "small minority" of Kiwis were responsible for abusing Ms Ardern. He said that "it does not represent who we are as a country". Men had a responsibility to call out misogyny, he added. He said he realised that putting himself forward as leader meant that he was "public property" - but that...

The Opponents of Free Speech Are Gaining Ground. Here’s How We Can Fight BackWhen we break down the core institution of free speech, we lose a lot of what made America so successful in the first place.Free speech used to be held up as one of the core American institutions. It was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights for a reason: while other countries have also adopted free speech, it is a fundamentally American tradition.More than that, free speech is essential on its own terms. It is the single best way for humans to make progress....

Throughout the pandemic, the CDC was in constant contact with Facebook, vetting what users were allowed to say on the social media site. ... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) played a direct role in policing permissible speech on social media throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Confidential emails obtained by Reason show that Facebook moderators were in constant contact with the CDC, and routinely asked government health officials to vet claims relating to the virus, mitigation efforts such as masks, and vaccines. For a broader analysis of the federal government's pandemic-era efforts to suppress free speech—and whether they violated...

It took $44 billion of Elon Musk’s money to uncover how national-security agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security — as well as Adam Schiff — conducted censorship on Twitter. Those revelations are still continuing, even while not much else seems to be changing on that platform. But what about Facebook? Who’s got $100 billion or so to buy out Mark Zuckerberg and get a peek under Meta’s hood? Reason Magazine certainly doesn’t, but it turns out that all Robby Soave needed was a lawsuit and a court order or two. Internal documents show that Facebook essentially allowed the CDC...