Free Republic

If Europe’s elites want war, they should pick up a rifle and fight. After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda. He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.” Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages...

The question is not whether the EU collapses but whenIf I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off. I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent...

A Minnesota high school has threatneed to suspend students who talk positively about Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents. Paul Paetzel, the principal at Edina High School in Minnesota, has warned that making reference to the work of ICE agents and President Trump’s policy of mass deportations goes against the “culture” that his school is trying to foster. He wrote in a letter parents: I want to speak directly and proactively about the culture we are committed to creating at Edina High School. As we continue to grow as a community, it is essential that we are clear about the...

The prosecutor argued that the slogan “White lives matter” constitutes an insult to people with dark skin. Both suspects, identified as John A. and Daniel S. (25 and 35 years old at the time), lost their appeal and now face six months in prison, which Dutch mainstream media describes as a “light sentence”. They faced charges such as insulting a group, inciting discrimination, disseminating discriminatory messages and possessing discriminatory stickers.

Left-wing Canadian lawmakers are working to introduce a new bill that would end existing protections for people of faith against prosecution under national “hate speech” laws. Canada’s Criminal Code, which bans what the government deems “hatred against any identifiable group,” contains a so-called religious exemption that protects Canadians who “in good faith” cite religious texts or beliefs. But the left-wing Liberal and Bloc Québécois parties are currently negotiating new legislation, Bill C-9, with an amendment that would remove this exemption.

A Columbia professor was quickly shut down after warning her colleagues that the Morningside Heights campus had been infiltrated by outsiders with “known ties to terrorist organizations.” Professor Carol Ewing Garber immediately had her mic muted after speaking out about campus security at the May 3 Zoom meeting of the university’s faculty senate — which was held hours after the school’s Hamilton Hall was overrun by a mob of Hamas-supporting students. “There really is a need for good security on campus and it was very clear . . . that the university was unable to do that given the number...

VIDEOIt's on! The European Union vs Elon Musk. The battle began when the EU demanded that X (forever to be known as Twitter) bow down to its censorship regime by paying a 120 million Euro fine. However, the EU may have bit off more than it can chew because it is also trying to extend its censorship to TikTok and Apple and they are also refusing to comply. How will this war end? Will the EU be able to impose its censorship on the rest of the world? Stay tuned!

The phrase “Woke Right” arrived almost overnight... James Lindsay traces the history of “woke” as a mindset rather than a policy list. For him, “woke” is a way of seeing the world through a single lens of power and grievance. It falsely elevates politics to a pseudo-theology—that of a cosmic struggle between oppressors and oppressed. It is inspired by resentment, which inevitably fosters online mobs, practices cancel culture, and treats ideological opponents as heretics who must be hunted down rather than debated. Lindsay argues that a similar pattern has emerged on parts of the Right. He points to Groypers and...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released a report saying that the nine largest lenders in the U.S. made “inappropriate distinctions” that it used to restrict services among certain customers. Following the signing of an executive order by President Donald Trump in August of this year, the OCC began reviewing all banks for any current or past practices that effectively barred customers on the basis of political or religious belief. Wednesday, the OCC released its report, saying that it had found conclusive proof that nine large banks had policies that either refused services to some industries...

The City Club of Cleveland is defying LGBTQ+ activist pressure to cancel or substantially alter an event featuring a conservative Christian leader next month, and Ohio’s attorney general is standing with the venue. “We’re not canceling, and we have never had any intention of canceling this,” Dan Moulthrop, the City Club’s CEO, told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “We’re gonna continue to do what we always do, and have done for 113 years, which is convene conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive and do that with the leadership of relevant organizations who are shaping our communities.” Moulthrop...

A primary school teacher was reportedly banned from working with children after telling a Muslim child that “Britain is still a Christian state.” Police were called to investigate an alleged hate crime, after the teacher reprimanded students for washing their feet in the sinks of the boys’ toilets, according to The Telegraph. The teacher, who did not want to be named, reportedly pointed to the fact that the King was the head of the Church of England and that Islam was a minority religion in the UK. The school sacked the teacher in February, after suspending him in March 2024....

Most Americans have never heard the name Enoch Burke, but they should—because his story is quietly becoming one of the most important religious liberty cases in the Western world. Burke is an Irish schoolteacher, a Christian, and the kind of man whose convictions are not negotiable, even when the entire cultural machine demands otherwise. In 2022, he was ordered by the administration of Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath to use transgender pronouns for a student. Burke refused, not out of spite, but because his faith does not allow him to affirm what he believes is false. That refusal set...

A Swiss wind instrument repairman is serving a ten-day jail sentence after refusing to pay a fine imposed for a comment he made on Facebook about biological sex. Emanuel Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, responded to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Councillor Andreas Glarner, writing: “If you excavate LGBTQI people after 200 years, you will only find men and women among the skeletons; everything else is a mental illness that was fostered by the curriculum!” As we reported, the comment, which stressed the immutability of biological sex, triggered complaints from activists who accused him of...

A Swiss man, Emanuel Brünisholz, is serving 10 days in prison in Switzerland for saying on Facebook that skeletons are either male or female. For that remark I was fined 500 Swiss francs. I refused to pay, and so, on the 2nd of December 2025, I will serve ten days in prison. It is worth noting that, legally speaking, this prison sentence is not a punishment for refusing to pay the fine. Instead, the prison sentence is an alternative way to be punished for the Facebook post itself. I have chosen to trade a monetary fine for time behind bars....

Donald Trump voiced concern about the current political track taken by EU countriesWASHINGTON, December 9. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump criticized the fine imposed by the European Commission on X and warned that Europe is "moving in some bad directions." Asked about the fine at a meeting with representatives of the agricultural industry at the White House, Trump called Brussels' decision "nasty" and added: "I don't think it's right. Europe has to be very careful." He voiced concern about the current political track taken by EU countries. "We want to keep Europe Europe. Europe is going in some bad directions....

X has surged in popularity after the European Union announced last week that it had fined the social media platform for violating transparency rules and other regulations. Elon Musk, who purchased X in 2022, has celebrated X’s surging popularity and mocked the European Union’s attempts to punish the free speech platform. Musk has touted rankings that show X has become the most downloaded app across Europe since the EU announced its action against Musk’s platform. Now number 1 in every EU country! https://t.co/tQOpiPVRkw— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2025“X is seeing record-breaking downloads in many countries in Europe,” Musk posted...

The EU has slapped Elon Musk with a $140 million fine for refusing to censor content on his social-media platform X, in contravention of the bloc’s controversial Digital Services Act Vice President JD Vance took to X to slam the EU for its actions, which he described as “garbage” The EU has slapped Elon Musk with a $140 million fine for refusing to censor content on his social-media platform X, in contravention of the bloc’s controversial Digital Services Act (DSA).The hefty fine, announced by Bloomberg, is the first to be issued under the 2023 law, with EU lawmakers promising...

SummaryA new book by Paul Holden, building on reporting by Matt Taibbi, Paul Thacker and others, documents that the “Stop Funding Fake News” (SFFN) campaign — which led to widespread advertiser boycotts and deplatforming of outlets including ZeroHedge, The Federalist, Breitbart, The Canary and others during 2019–2021 — was not a grassroots activist effort as publicly claimed, but a centrally directed political operation run out of the same South London office as Labour Together, the think tank that backed Keir Starmer’s leadership bid.Key findings:SFFN was conceived and resourced by Morgan McSweeney (now Starmer’s chief of staff and formerly sole director...

The EU is working at full speed to complete its online surveillance-and-informant network. By the end of the year, all EU member states are required to present so-called “Trusted Flaggers” -- institutions tasked with identifying “problematic” content -- to Brussels for accreditation. Politicians from Germany’s Christian Democratic Union appear especially eager. Hendrik Wüst, CDU politician and Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, is a child of the current zeitgeist. As the leader of Germany’s most populous state, he views it as his mission not merely to preach the dominant ideology of the CO2-neutral society, but to enforce it rigorously. Together with...

The US State Department will focus on “natural rights” like freedom of speech in its next human rights report, a senior State Department official said Thursday, as the Trump administration targets traditional European allies for alleged freedom of speech restrictions. The move further institutionalizes changes seen in the latest report released in August, which covered the 2024 calendar year. That report alleged “significant human rights issues” in allied countries including the United Kingdom, France and Germany over “serious restrictions on freedom of expression.” The State Department instructed all embassies and consulates in a diplomatic cable Thursday to begin preparing the...