Free Republic

A federal judge held veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge in civil contempt on Thursday for refusing to divulge her source for a series of Fox News stories about a Chinese American scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington imposed a fine of $800 per day until Herridge complies, but the fine will not go into effect immediately to give her time to appeal. ... “Herridge and many of her colleagues in the journalism community may disagree with that decision and prefer that a different balance be struck, but she is...

MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade argued Monday that the United States’ “deep commitment to free speech” makes Americans uniquely susceptible to disinformation campaigns. McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, went on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to promote her new book, “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.” She said her “goal” with the book was to spark a “national conversation about truth and our commitment to it.” She added, “I hope that by dissecting it, explaining it, and educating the public, we can all see disinformation for what it is so that we can begin to push back...

The CBS News boss who signed off on the controversial ouster of Catherine Herridge — a respected Washington correspondent who has been embroiled in a high-profile First Amendment case — is nevertheless being honored with a free speech award next month. CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews was selected by Radio Television Digital News Association to be among 13 honorees at the 33rd annual First Amendment Awards at The Watergate Hotel in Washington DC on March 9. The irony was not lost ... “The RTDNA must be tone deaf to give Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and CBS News an award for the First...

CBS News has returned the notes it seized from a high-profile reporter the network fired for 'investigating Hunter Biden' .. ... SAG-AFTRA, the CBS workers' union, called the seizure of her notes 'completely inappropriate' and 'very unusual'. ... CBS News has returned the notes it seized from a high-profile reporter the network fired for 'investigating Hunter Biden.' Catherine Herridge, a veteran reporter covering national security and intelligence, was among the hundreds of CBS employees who were laid off by parent company Paramount last week. Herridge covered investigations into the Biden family, and the network seized her personal notes after her...

Below is my column in The Hill on the trouble brewing at CBS over the seizure of the files of acclaimed investigative reporter Catherine Herridge. The column broke the story on the uproar over not just her being laid off but her being locked out from her files. I am now hearing from CBS sources that the network is moving toward a resolution to turn over the files after the outcry. However, the concerns over Herridge’s firing and the network’s handling of her confidential notes continues to draw fire from journalists and commentators. The union issued a statement (below) after...

The acclaimed CBS reporter who was investigating the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before she was fired last week had her personal files seized by the network in an “unprecedented” move, sources told The Post on Thursday. Catherine Herridge — who is the middle of a First Amendment case being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among 20 CBS News staffers let go as part of a larger purge of hundreds of employees at parent company Paramount Global. Her firing had stunned co-workers, but the network’s decision to hold on to her personal materials, along with her work laptop where...

Volokh: The order came down today; it noted that no judge called for a vote on the en banc rehearing petition. Here's my post on the panel decision, from September. From Junior Sports Magazines, Inc. v. Bonta, decided today [Sept, 13, 2023] by Ninth Circuit Judge Kenneth Lee, joined by Judges Randy Smith and Lawrence VanDyke: "This case is not about whether children can buy firearms. (They cannot under California law.) Nor is this case about whether minors can legally use firearms. (California allows minors under adult supervision to possess and use firearms for hunting, target practice, and other activities.)...

A year after its censorship programs were exposed, the Global Engagement Center still insists the public has no right to know how it's spending taxpayer money. “You can look, but don’t touch!”The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it’s been spending your taxes, it’s threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a “better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information.” Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he’s sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the...

The most important thing you will see this week is this interview of Mike Benz by Tucker Carlson: Benz is with the Foundation for Freedom, which tracks government censorship. In this interview he explains how our government rigged elections abroad and has now, through DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), censored online communications, noting that its most substantial censorship involved blocking and limiting any critiques online respecting the government’s responses to COVID-19 and the security of the 2020 election. It's a well-detailed account that I urge you in the strongest terms to view. In...

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda. Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate...

A conservative California preacher invited to deliver the invocation as a guest chaplain in the U.S. House last month has drawn the ire of self-identified atheist Rep. Jared Huffman and 25 other House Democrats. Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, who spoke of “a coming day of judgment,” in his Jan. 30 invocation, is described in the Democrats’ letter of protest as a “radical Christian Nationalist who helped fuel the January 6th insurrection and [who] has a long record of hateful vitriol toward non-Christians, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ community.” In their letter to House Speaker...

Multiple major charities throughout the country are using blacklists compiled by far-left groups to prevent conservative, Christian, and other right-wing organizations from receiving donations, according to a new report. As reported by the Daily Caller, various public records and other documents show that some charities rely on donor-advised funds (DAFs), and thus turn to left-wing groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for lists of groups that should not receive donations. The SPLC has a reputation for simply labeling every remotely conservative, right-wing, or Christian group as a “hate group” and recommending them for blacklisting. “‘Hate group’ is...

A leftist legal group heavily funded by leftist billionaire George Soros is trying to convince a federal appellate court that the First Amendment right to free speech doesn’t necessarily protect … free speech. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) actually argued that if the speech in question could be considered to constitute the murky concept of “harmful election disinformation,” First Amendment protections should be tossed to the curb. The group broke down its dystopian stance in a press release summarizing the sentiment of an amicus brief it filed with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals for...

Several CBS News reporters were caught up in layoffs at Paramount Global that claimed 800 jobs, including one who is embroiled in a high-stakes First Amendment fight — and another who has reportedly weathered HR probes over his workplace behavior, The Post has learned.Catherine Herridge — an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post.

Under a policy being likened to something out of George Orwell’s iconic novel “1984,” a town in Arizona is paying out more than a million dollars in salaries to employ spies to monitor private social media posts of town employees for anything that aligns with conservative views. Although the Gilbert Office of Digital Government (ODG) has urged town workers to support LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter (BLM) causes, it reprimanded a local firefighter for posting a picture of himself on Facebook posing with a life-sized cutout of former President Donald Trump. The department even sent a warning notice to the...

Senior Biden administration aides summoned Amazon officials to the White House during the height of the pandemic to discuss “propaganda and misinformation” in books for sale on the retail giant’s website that questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. White House officials “spent a week berating Amazon” in March 2021 over books related to “vaccine misinformation” and asked what steps company officials could take “to reduce the visibility of these titles,” according to Amazon emails released Monday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican. The Amazon pressure campaign overseen by Andy Slavitt, who was Mr. Biden’s senior...

(Reclaim The Net)—More reports are emerging about the various forms in which the Big Tech/government collusion is taking place in the US. It’s not just directly pressuring, or “communicating with” – as current White House officials like to put it, social sites; reports are now emerging about companies getting hired to make massive databases of supposedly unlawful speech that are compiled thanks to users effectively spying and reporting on each other on messaging platforms like WhatsApp. Former State Department official, now executive director of Foundation For Freedom Online, Mike Benz, calls this “a snitch network of citizen informants.” Information thus...

The federal trial of six defendants – Chet Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Cal Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, Paul Vaughn, and Dennis Green – began on Wednesday, January 24, in Nashville. All are facing felony conspiracy charges as well as felony FACE Act charges for their participation in a reportedly peaceful protest at an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in March of 2021. This is the fourth recent high-profile federal trial of pro-lifers charged with conspiracy and FACE Act violations for their peaceful activism at abortion facilities. The first group of five defendants, one of whom (Heather Idoni) is currently being tried...

Six pro-life activists were found guilty on Tuesday for “conspiracy against rights” and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) in relation to a peaceful protest outside of a Tennessee abortion facility in 2021.President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion administration announced in October 2022 that it had charged 11 activists involved in the March 5, 2021, “blockade” of the Carafem Health Center Clinic in Mount Juliet. Attorneys for the activists said they were conducting a “rescue” and had gathered on the second floor of the office building where the clinic is located to pray, sing hymns, and urge women not...

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...