Free Republic

The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld far-right politician Geert Wilders’ conviction for collectively insulting Moroccans at a campaign rally in 2014. Wilders had been convicted in 2016, and demanded a retrial, arguing the case had been politically motivated and that the finding restricted his freedom of speech. The court ruled Tuesday that the rally speech was not covered by freedom of expression. […] At the 2014 campaign rally in question, Wilders asked supporters if they wanted “fewer” Moroccans in the Netherlands. “Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!” his supporters chanted back. “We’re going to take care of that,” Wilders told the crowd....

When you run down the list of issues the Oath Keepers are worried about, it reads a lot like a bill of particulars from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Oath Keepers don't like warrantless searches. They're upset that the executive branch has claimed the power to classify American citizens as enemy combatants, detain them indefinitely, and try them before military tribunals. They worry that a large-scale terrorist attack similar to 9/11 could lead to the mass detention of Arabs or Muslims, just as Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. They worry about crackdowns on political speech, protest,...

Too few people these days seem able to imagine what life would be like without freedom of expression. To put it plainly, without the First Amendment we’d have no recognized right to a private life or personal relationships. Period. Are you okay with that?Below I’ll try to explain the connection. But first, we need to understand that the war on free speech started decades ago in America. Prince Harry’s recent comments calling the First Amendment “bonkers” is merely the latest in a long line of public beatings. Such talk should mystify any freedom-loving person, American or not. Yet the ground...

More than 120 retired flag officers are calling on Americans to rally and reject the nation’s excessive embrace of a radical leftist agenda, particularly the “antiracism” efforts the left weaponizes to suppress dissent. “Our nation is in deep peril. We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776,” wrote the prominent group of 124 retired generals and admirals. “The conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty.” The signatories, which include President Ronald Reagan’s former National Security Adviser John Poindexter, President...

When Cowboys for Trump leader Couy Griffin was arrested for his alleged role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, a federal judge revoked his right to have a firearm. However, on Wednesday a judge restored that right for Griffin with some limitations in place. Griffin, who is also a commissioner in Otero County, faces federal trespassing and disorderly conduct charges in connection to the breach of the U.S. Capitol. He was arrested back in January and held for weeks until a judge released him under the condition that he was not allowed to have any firearms. On Wednesday, Griffin...

Police have placed roadblocks and fencing around GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta in an effort to prevent worshippers from accessing the building. According to The Post Millennial, law enforcement officers descended upon the property early Wednesday morning. The exact reason for the blockade is unknown at this time. GraceLife made headlines earlier this year after the church's pastor, James Coates was jailed for holding in-person worship services amid ongoing pandemic restrictions. As CBN News has reported, after spending a month behind bars for violating the government's capacity mandates, Coates was released from jail on March 29. Pastor Coates's wife, Erin...

The experience of Venezuelans under the late President Hugo Chavez offers a cautionary tale to the United States about where packing the Supreme Court can lead. Last fall, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden refused to answer whether he would support adding justices to the Supreme Court and now has established a commission to review the proposal and other issues concerning judicial reform. One need look no further than Venezuela’s recent history for the devastating impact on liberty such a move could have. “In 2004, Chavez’s allies held a majority in Venezuela’s National Assembly (congress), passing a law that increased the number...

Attorneys for Grace Community Church in Los Angeles filed documents in court Friday, the latest move in their continuing fight to defend their right to gather for indoor worship services. The church, which has repeatedly made headlines since its leadership decided to resume services last July in defiance of state and local health mandates, was issued an injunction last September by L.A. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff that ordered them against holding indoor services. The injunction also required that congregants wear masks and socially distance even during outdoor services. Grace Community Church and its legal representation will be in court...

One of Jesus’s last acts before his crucifixion was the incident we know as “the cleansing of the temple,” when he thew the money changers out of the Temple in Jerusalem for defiling God’s house. That image came inexorably to my mind when I saw the video of a Canadian pastor, through sheer force of will, sending eight COVID cops, many of them armed, out of the church. Visually, the video is simple but compelling. The church is on the second story of a building with a stairway leading directly from the front door up to the place where the...

A Canadian pastor stood up to police who disrupted his service and shamed them into leaving. Nazis are not welcome here! Do not come back you Nazi psychopaths. Unbelievable sick, evil people. Intimidating people in a church during the Passover! You Gestapo, Nazi, communist fascists! Don’t you dare come back here!” “Can you imagine those psychopaths? Passover. The holiest Christian festival of the year and they’re coming to intimidate Christians during the holiest festival? Unbelievable. What is wrong with those sick psychopaths. It’s beyond me. How dare they,” he continued. The police appear completely cowed by the force of his...

Video of this smug jerk leftist-spalin' about why stealing this election is legitimate

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JPCA) is a bait-and-switch attempt that claims to help conservative news sources but would instead purge them from the marketplace of ideas, and Congress should reject it for the freedom-killer it is. JCPA would give media companies—broadcast and print—an exemption from federal antitrust laws, so they can operate in a coordinated fashion to negotiate prices that social media companies like Facebook would have to pay them to carry their content. It would ensure that these tech billionaires would have to direct some of their riches into content providers. But that’s a Big Boys’ game...

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation has declined donations from Google and Facebook because of the companies’ censoring of persons and groups with conservative points of view. Outgoing foundation president Kay C. James sent letters to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai explaining that the Heritage Foundation could “not in good conscience accept money” from companies that suppress conservative speech and content. Heritage turned down a $225,000 donation from Google and returned a $150,000 donation from Facebook in October 2020. James made it clear to the Big Tech companies that her organization is assisting Congress to revise...

A slide used in a Department of Defense (DOD) training manual identifies Catholics and evangelical Christians as “religious extremists,” along with members of the Ku Klux Klan, al Qaeda and Hamas, according to a Marine Corps officer. “First Liberty also obtained a screenshot of an unclassified slide from a U.S. Army training manual. The slide is entitled ‘Religious Extremism’ and it purports to identify religious extremists,” Michael Berry told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing Wednesday entitled “Extremism in the Military.” Berry is General Counsel to the First Liberty Institute (FLI), a Plano, Texas-based public interest law firm...

Offended by a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad etched in marble inside the U.S. Supreme Court chamber, a coalition of Muslim organizations is quietly pushing to have the artwork sandblasted into propriety. A petition signed by 16 groups across the country has asked that the larger-than-life frieze of great lawgivers be altered "in the spirit of religious tolerance and pluralism" because Islamic tradition discourages artistic renderings of people, and showing the face of Muhammad is considered particularly offensive. The Supreme Court refused to comment publicly on the controversy, but coalition spokesman Nihad Awad said there already has been one "fruitful"...

An atheist group has filed a brief in support of a lawsuit against a Georgia college that punished a Christian student for preaching outside of a limited free speech zone on campus. The American Humanist Association filed an amicus brief on Tuesday in the case of Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, which will be argued before the United States Supreme Court. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm, filed suit against George Gwinnett College for its treatment of Christian student Chike Uzuegbunam. Although the school has changed their policy on free speech and expression since stopping Uzuegbunam from preaching, they have...

Washington D.C., Mar 8, 2021 / 05:00 pm MT (CNA).- The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a former college student to pursue a remedy against school officials who restricted when and where he could evangelize on campus. In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, the court ruled 8-1 that Chike Uzuegbunam, who was restricted from evangelizing on a public college campus, could sue school officials for nominal damages due to an alleged violation of his free speech. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the majority opinion, while Chief Justice John Roberts was the lone dissenter. “To demonstrate standing, the plaintiff must not only establish an...

Every month 30 million people use Gab’s services to get access to the free flow of information online. Gab is the home of free speech in a world where Big Tech oligarchs have censored, deplatformed, and demonized tens of millions of good, honest, and decent people with whom they disagree politically. Tonight Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a “Republican,” issued a despicable and false statement smearing Gab as an “anti-semitic platform that quote “has no place in Texas.” This is the same Gov. Abbott who just five days ago said he was “taking a stand against Big Tech censorship.” Gov. Abbott’s...

A 13-year-old schoolgirl confessed that she lied about a French teacher who was beheaded after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, according to the girl's lawyer. Samuel Paty, a secondary school teacher in a town near Paris, was killed last October by a radical Chechen teenager after showing the cartoons to students during a civics class about free speech. The unidentified girl told police that she lied about being in the class and falsely accused Paty of asking Muslim children to leave the class while he showed the pictures. Her father, who has been charged in connection with...