Free Republic

With the arraignment of Donald Trump on charges brought under the Espionage Act, America’s cold civil war pitting blue cities against red regions has gotten considerably hotter. But that’s inevitable when you manipulate the nation’s laws to designate the leader of a movement representing one half of the country a traitor. Legal experts say the Justice Department’s case against Trump is strong. Even many on the right agree. “This indictment contains serious charges,” says Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence. The former president is “toast,” says his onetime Attorney General William Barr. But to others, the 37-count indictment looks like...

Subway has been accused of religious discrimination against Christians after an outlet in Wisconsin refused to serve customers because of the anti-abortion and anti-gay messages on their T-shirts. Street preacher David Grisham was in town for the Republican National Convention when he and three friends popped into a Waunakee branch of the fast-food franchise to grab a sandwich. But they were forced to go elsewhere when a young woman behind the counter confirmed she was refusing to serve the group because of the messages on their T-shirts. The world's largest restaurant operator has now been hit with a deluge of...

A California judge has ruled that teachers were right to punish a seven-year-old girl over a Black Lives Matter drawing because 'she's too young to have First Amendment rights.' The first grader was banned from recess and drawing pictures at Viejo Elementary in Orange County after she added the words 'any life' below Black Lives Matter on a picture she drew and and gave to a black friend. The picture showed the words 'Black Lives Matter' with four round shapes in various different tones of brown, beige and yellow, which was intended to 'represent her friends' who were 'racially-mixed'.

The mother of a first grader punished for handing an “innocent” drawing with the phrases “black lives matter” and “any life” to a classmate of color is appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after a lower court ruling declared first-grade students are too young to be protected by the First Amendment. After a first grade lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. and Black Lives Matter, a student who felt bad for her classmate of color drew a picture for that classmate to allegedly help the classmate feel more included. The picture had the phrase “Black Lives Mater” (sic)...

The Daily Caller reports:A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory board characterized supporters of former President Donald Trump, as well as those who are in the military and religious people, as posing potential domestic terrorism risks, according to internal documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL).The board, called the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” was created in September 2023 to provide DHS with “expert” analysis on subjects such as terrorism and fentanyl trafficking. The panel included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe.Do those names ring a bell? They...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology made headlines in May when its leaders told faculty to discontinue the practice of requiring mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion statements in faculty hiring. It blazed a trail for elite colleges, as Harvard did the same a few weeks later, and Cornell also appears to have followed suit. But a prominent MIT alumni group argues the move is not enough to protect free speech, academic freedom and intellectual diversity, and is calling on campus leaders to go further. The MIT Free Speech Alliance in mid-June released a set of recommendations urging the university to establish...

Military officials under the Biden administration continue to teach that their peaceful political opponents are violent extremists, according to a report about a terrorism presentation given to U.S. Army members at Fort Liberty (the renamed Fort Bragg). Sam Shoemate, an independent journalist and self-described “advocate for service members seeking justice,” posted to X/Twitter Wednesday evening a photograph of a slide he said was shown during an anti-terrorism briefing at Fort Bragg, right after one about the Islamist terror group ISIS.

I'm telling you that Barrett has decided she's a politician, not a Justice...' Tech companies are once again colluding with Democrats to push disinformation and censor legitimate conservative opinions, this time with the imprimatur of legitimacy conferred by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows them to do so more shamelessly and aggressively than ever. Today’s censorship is being made possible by the letters A, C and B—as in Justice Amy Coney Barrett. While the court’s two other centrists, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, are equally culpable (along with its leftist bloc) in allowing the atrocity that is...

A series of slides shown at an anti-terrorism briefing held at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), an Army base in Louisiana, have gone viral after one slide portrayed pro-life groups as terrorist organizations. A photo of the slide in the briefing was captured by someone in attendance, and listed National Right to Life (which has advocated for legal protections for preborn children since 1968) and Operation Rescue (which “exposes abortion abuses” by obtaining and publishing public records like 911 calls from abortion businesses) as examples of terrorist groups. The slide was reportedly displayed after one about ISIS. Bullet points on...

Dr. Jordan Peterson and Tammy Peterson sit down in-person with journalist and activist Tommy Robinson. They discuss why he was recently detained in Calgary, the lawfare being waged against him and the film he is attempting to screen, the story behind the film, why he became an activist, the brutality of the UK grooming gangs, and the cowardice of the government that is actively enabling it. ..... (0:00) Coming up (0:20) Intro (1:52) “A spot of trouble” - detained in Calgary (8:02) The film they don’t want you to see, headlines vs. reality (19:44) Lawfare waged against a journalist, paying...

An Idaho man named Ralph Ginorio spoke out against the Coeur d’Alene city council’s “measuring objective behavior” after approving a new hate crime ordinance, introducing a significant addition to the municipal code. The law was described as “draconian” by the Idaho Tribune, which argued it “will basically make it illegal to think the wrong way.” “If found guilty, you’ll be sentenced to ‘[re]education.'” “Dear North Idaho, you just lost your 1st Amendment right to Free Speech,” the Tribune added.

For many years, I have testified and written about Antifa and its growing anti-free speech philosophy. Some Democratic leaders have embraced this violent movement, which continues to gain strength on campuses and its cities across the nation. It is also a global movement. That is reflected in the alarming election of Antifa candidates to the French National Assembly as well as the European Parliament. That is quite an accomplishment for a movement that President Joe Biden dismissed as “just an idea.”As discussed in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore the history...

Four more pro-life activists who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and felony conspiracy charges received their sentencing last week for activism at a Tennessee abortion business. These sentences have thus far been much less harsh than the sentences imposed upon pro-lifers convicted of FACE Act and conspiracy charges for activism at a Washington, D.C., abortion facility. According to The Associated Press (AP), the activists were convicted in January for participating in a 2021 pro-life action at the Carafem abortion business in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Sentences ranged from six months in prison to...

A San Diego judge said that on Jan. 9, 2021, in Pacific Beach, antifa members "sought to crush, through the use of violence, the First Amendment rights of others" during a pro-Trump rally A San Diego judge sentenced eight defendants to prison and jail terms Friday for their roles in a series of politically motivated attacks during a January 2021 rally in Pacific Beach, calling the defendants “hypocritical” for professing to be anti-fascist while violently assaulting political opponents practicing free speech. San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein said that after presiding for years over the first-of-its-kind case alleging an...

You are never, ever the good guy if you are for suffocating speech. Ever. In order for what follows to make sense, we all need to stipulate this point. Especially when you are being told to reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears and believe the lies you are being told. History has proven it true: if the people in power want to censor, punish, limit speech, they are always the bad guys. Always. There are simply no exceptions to this rule. In the 2,000 years of man being upright and organized into groups with a leader, however...

A town in the Mountain West found out the hard way that banning the most potent symbol in Christianity is not the best way to celebrate the nation’s enduring freedoms. Rules for this year’s Fourth of July parade in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, originally prohibited religious symbols from being part of the procession — a bitter irony in a country where the very first provision of the very First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. And the backlash forced organizers to back down.

During a June 22 speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, former President Donald Trump said that if elected to the presidency again, he would pardon the pro-life activists currently serving jail time for a sit-in style protest at an infamous late abortion facility in Washington, D.C. As reported by the Catholic News Agency, during his speech, Trump specifically mentioned one of the activists, 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison for conspiracy to violate civil rights and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Harlow had been on house arrest due...

The FDNY ordered firefighters and medics this week to hose down “political expression” on the job — a move some critics claim was done to muzzle supporters of Donald Trump. ... The FDNY under Kavanagh — a longtime political operative who began her career working for Barack Obama and other Dems — has a track record of trying to silence rank-and-file members who express conservative views, critics charge. “Once again, we’re seeing blatant overreach by the FDNY – overreach that is no doubt meant to silence supporters of the Republican party,” fumed City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens), who chairs the...

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Murthy v. Missouri dropped Wednesday, shattering the hopes of conservatives that maybe, just maybe, the Judicial Branch would stand up for the First Amendment rights of ordinary Americans against the egregious abuses of the executive bureaucracy. But no. The Court instead ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing because the Biden White House allegedly backed off of its censorship campaign after the 2022 midterms (it didn’t). The ruling essentially allows the federal government to continue trampling on the First Amendment rights of ordinary Americans by deputizing social media companies to do what federal agencies cannot...

SCOTUS Green-Lights Feds’ Big Tech Censorship Scheme Ahead Of 2024 Election‘We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.’The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s injunction prohibiting the federal government from colluding with Big Tech companies to censor posts it doesn’t like, effectively green-lighting the Biden administration’s ability to carry out such operations during the 2024 election. “To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the...