Free Republic

Lower courts have ruled school can ban wearing such apparel as ‘can reasonably be interpreted as profane’ The case of two Michigan middle-school brothers who were told to remove their hoodies emblazoned with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The siblings are represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression which says the boys’ school violated their First Amendment rights. The phrase was popularized during a 2021 NASCAR event when a crowd was shouting “F*** Joe Biden!” but the NBC interviewer told racer Brandon Brown they were yelling “Let’s go Brandon!” A judge...

A Christian politician in Finland has been convicted of a crime for publishing her views on marriage and sexual ethics 22 years ago. The country's Supreme Court found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of "hate speech" for publishing her biblical beliefs. In a 3–2 decision, the court upheld a criminal conviction against Räsänen and a Lutheran bishop for "making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group." The high court did acquit her on a separate charge of tweeting a Bible verse, but it found her guilty of "insult" for the two-decade-old pamphlet. In a statement, Räsänen...

Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen was found guilty of hate speech and fined by the Supreme Court of Finland on Thursday over a pamphlet describing homosexuality as a psychosexual development disorder more than 20 years ago.Räsänen, who led Finland's Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015 and served as the country's interior minister from 2011 to 2015, was found guilty in a slim 3-2 decision of "making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group," according to a press release from the U.S.-based legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.Police first began investigating the grandmother of 12...

Jimmy Kimmel is a free speech warrior and a man of the people — well, some of the people. Earlier this week, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host slammed new U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin as “unqualified” for a curious reason. “Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber. “That’s right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now. It worked for Super Mario. Why not Markwayne?” Mullin, who until last week was a Senator from Oklahoma, took over the family plumbing business when his father became ill. Kimmel...

The government censorship machine took a huge hit Tuesday in a historic win for First Amendment rights. What is being billed as an “unprecedented” agreement will bar the three government agencies central to killing speech the Biden administration didn’t like from pressuring social media platforms from doing so in the future. “This case began with a suspicion, that blossomed into fact, that led to Congressional hearings and an Executive Order that government censorship of Americans’ social media posts should end,” said John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), the nonprofit civil rights group that has...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – To conclude a lawsuit brought by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, the city of Louisville has agreed to pay $800,000 in attorneys’ fees for violating the First Amendment rights of photographer and blogger Chelsey Nelson. The fee settlement comes after the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky held Louisville accountable for violating Nelson’s freedom to speak messages consistent with her religious beliefs. ADF attorneys representing Nelson and her photography studio filed the lawsuit, Chelsey Nelson Photography v. Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government, in 2019 because Louisville’s law threatened to compel Nelson to create photographs and blogs...

Naomi Seibt from Germany has filled for political asylum because the German government is monitoring her text messages, email and Youtube channel.

ADAMS COUNTY, Ohio -- The Grammy-nominated rapper Afroman won a defamation lawsuit filed by seven Ohio sheriff's deputies who sued him over music videos in which he used home security footage to mock their raid of his home. "We did it, America! Yeah, we did it! Freedom of speech! Right on! Right on!" the 51-year-old rapper, born Joseph Foreman, shouted outside the courthouse after the Wednesday evening verdict. He later posted the clip to social media. The case tested the limits of parody and the license artists can take in social commentary directed at public figures. The deputies, collectively, sought...

Jimmy Kimmel didn’t host the Oscars on Sunday — that job went for the second year in a row to the fantastic Conan O’Brien — but in presenting the documentary categories, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host still had a few sharp things to say. In coming out to present the documentary short and documentary feature Oscars, Kimmel joked that O’Brien had gone out and accidentally “exposed his face to the sun and was incinerated. So I will be finishing out the rest of the program.” But turning serious, he noted that with documentaries, “We hear a lot about courage at...

@TRobinsonNewEra I’m preparing for the most important presentation I’ve done to date & in the process I’ve kidnapped an American . Thanks for all the love america

The sound I remember most from the early days of Covid-19 is not the alarms. It was the silence between them. Intensive care units became Covid wards. Monitors glowed in dark rooms while ventilators pushed air into failing lungs. Nurses, shrouded in protective gear, moved quietly. Families were absent—barred from being with loved ones in their final hours. There are no politics in an ICU at 3 am. There is only a physician and a patient, and the responsibility to do everything possible to keep that patient alive. ..... That philosophy has guided physicians for generations. It is the foundation...

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A local Christian-based organization is going after the Tuscaloosa Public Library after it cancelled the organization's meeting due to the political climate. Now, attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Eagle Forum of Alabama. The suit against the Tuscaloosa Public Library board of trustees claims they violated the Eagle Forum’s freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, as well as the Alabama Religious Freedom Amendment.

Is the West sleepwalking into a crisis it refuses to talk about? Tommy Robinson sits down with Gabe Groisman to explain why he believes the UK has already crossed a tipping point on immigration, free speech and cultural change...and why Americans should be paying close attention. From censorship battles and social-media bans to his personal run-ins with the British legal system, Robinson lays out his case for why he says Western institutions are hiding uncomfortable truths. Viewers will learn how debates around Islam, migration and free speech are unfolding in Europe, why Robinson says social media censorship changed the political...

Spain will launch a tool to measure hate speech on digital ‌platforms as part of a broader strategy ‌to increase oversight of social media companies, Prime Minister Pedro ​Sanchez said on Wednesday. The country announced a wider plan last month to regulate social media, including a ban on its use for younger teenagers and ‌measures to hold ⁠platform executives accountable for illegal or hateful content hosted on their services. The new ⁠tool, called HODIO — an acronym in Spanish for Footprint of Hatred and Polarisation — will allow the ​government to ​systematically track the presence, ​amplification and impact of ‌hate...

As someone who looks at culture and politics regularly, I often write about problems and, on occasion, proffer solutions. Sometimes the solutions are relatively straightforward and obvious, like suggesting to the GOP that if they don’t pass the SAVE Act and bring about something resembling honest elections, they’re going to get their asses handed to them in November. Others, I recognize, are far more complex than my 30,000-foot take on the issue. This is most certainly the case when I suggested the government should get out of the wealth redistribution business. Knowing that there are thousands of programs handing out...

Virginia's legislature has passed a bill prohibiting schools from teaching what it considers to be falsehoods about the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including portraying it "as peaceful protest." The General Assembly approved the measure Thursday, as a first-of-its-kind legislation to combat false statements by supporters of President Trump. The bill says that school instruction must "Not describe, portray, or present as credible a description or portrayal of the actions precipitating or involved in the events of the January 6, 2021, insurrection as peaceful protest." Schools may also not "state, suggest, or present as credible a statement or suggestion...

X Freeze@XFreezeThe “Wikilaundering” scandal is finally blowing wide open and it’s worse than we thoughtA massive investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism just exposed the ugly truth: Wikipedia is corrupt to its coreYou do not get information. You get propaganda.... articles manipulated by the highest bidder, billionaires, PR firms, and woke activistsHere’s exactly how the rot works:📍 Shadow Network: London-based PR firms like Portland Communications run secret “black hat” editors and middlemen to bypass every rule📍 Reputation Scrubbing on Steroids: They delete scandals, human rights abuses, and even controversial Epstein files for powerful politicians...... while scrubbing migrant worker deaths...

The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been hosted by the Trump administration for a meeting at the state department in Washington. Robinson, 43, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was hosted by Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser at the state department. Rittenhouse wrote on X: “Honoured to have free speech warrior @TRobinsonNewEra at Department of State today. “The world and the West is a better place when we fight for freedom of speech and no one has been on the front lines more than Tommy. Good to see you my friend!” Robinson, who has convictions for assault, using a fake...

It is illegal to say that there are only two sexes, and that indoctrinating children to believe otherwise is dangerous. How illegal? Well, at least in British Columbia, it can bankrupt you. Canadian tribunal fines man $750,000 for believing there are only two genders https://t.co/W5DJVp0zIi— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) February 20, 2026The same totalitarian impulse that gets Europeans arrested and American companies fined hundreds of millions or billions of dollars exists in Canada, but the legal structures are different, so the censorious impulse is expressed differently. No doubt you are aware of the sensational cases of Jordan Peterson and Mark...

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced the country's intention to make anti-Zionism a criminal offense. She made the statement during a speech at the Speaking at the annual gathering of the French Jewish Institutions Council, Lecornu clarified that the government would no longer settle for simply imposing penalties for classic antisemitism, promising, "In April, we will bring to Parliament a bill that criminalizes anti-Zionist expressions." He explained, "To define oneself as anti-Zionist is to question Israel's right to exist. It's a call for the destruction of an entire people under the guise of ideology." .....