Free Republic

Neil Young has grudgingly returned his catalog to Spotify. He removed his music in 2022 in protest against the streaming service’s exclusive Joe Rogan podcast, accusing the production of spreading “misinformation.” In a new post on his website, Young made no bones about his dislike of Spotify, but explained his move was a reaction to Rogan’s show becoming available on other platforms too. “Spotify, the number one streamer of low-res music in the world – Spotify, where you get less quality than we made – will now be home of my music again,” he wrote. “My decision comes as music...

The Canadian government is proposing a bill that would raise the maximum punishment for online hate speech from five years to a life sentence. The proposal forms part of the latest Online Harms Bill, put forward by Justin Trudeau's left-wing government, which seeks to its assert control over online discourse: The National Post reports: "Bill C-63 aims to force social-media, user-uploaded adult content and live-streaming services to reduce exposure to online content deemed harmful, to strengthen the reporting of child pornography and to better address hate propaganda and provide recourse to victims of hate online. "It also amends the Criminal...

@RepThomasMassie The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary.”

The United States government has been pouring millions of tax dollars into developing AI-powered tools to censor and blacklist dissent voices. This month, the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Committee revealed that the U.S. government is funding AI censorship technology via the National Science Foundation (NSF) to censor political debate on social media platforms.

Residents of the Evergreen State will soon be able to report their neighbors for expressing “bias.” The governor of Washington is poised to sign a bill that ends free speech in certain counties – and the rest of the state probably sometime thereafter. Recently passed by the Washington state legislature, this measure creates a “bias incident hotline” to the State Attorney General’s Office. You read that right: American citizens in the northwestern state will soon be able to turn in their friends, neighbors, family members, or even strangers for not only physical “hate crimes” but also expressions of “bias.” Substitute...

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh has been given a not-so-nice name after she said officials would try to identify firefighters that erupted in jeers on Thursday at New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously vowed to take down former President Donald Trump. The Daily Mail reported Saturday that Kavanagh has been labeled a “fascist pit bull” for planning to go after the first responders.

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan got heated at Thursday’s hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government after a Democratic congressman said there are “limits” to free speech and the First Amendment. Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman argued the committee is “chilling the federal government” to “undermine” the severity of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. “We all agree with the First Amendment, but the problem is that the First Amendment is not absolute. It does not protect any single thing anyone says, and there are limits, and that’s important,” Goldman said. “And what this committee has been trying...

The mother of a Marine killed during the US’ botched withdrawal from Afghanistan on Saturday called “BS” on the fallen hero’s father getting arrested for heckling President Biden during his State of the Union address.“I was shocked because I thought it was complete BS that they arrested him,” Shana Chappell told The Post. “He shouldn’t have been arrested, he’s a Gold Star father. He’s in the same room as the man that he knows is responsible for our son’s death, so why was he arrested?”Chappell, 51, of Lake Elsinore, Calif., said she’s still struggling to survive nearly three years after...

Banksy, the ever-elusive artist well-known for his hidden identity, may be forced to reveal his name after art collectors sued him for refusing to authenticate a print. Nicky Katz and Ray Howse sued Banksy’s company, Pest Control, for what they say is a refusal to authenticate their print of “Monkey Queen,” which they acquired for around $38,500. If the lawsuit makes it to court, the artist — who’s only revealed his first name, Robbie — might have to give up his full identity. The print, which features a Queen Elizabeth lookalike as a monkey with a crown and jewels, only...

New York’s partisan Attorney General Letitia James was loudly booed at a ceremony for the New York Fire Department on Thursday. While speaking at the event, James is heard praising FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, right before a large number of individuals in the audience begin shouting former President Trump’s name. When James began her lecture, several in the audience booed, leading her to reply, “Come on, we’re in a house of God…simmer down.” NY Firefighters Loudly Boo Letitia James FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said in a statement, “Today’s ceremony was about one thing: the accomplishments of the members...

FDNY boss hunts down staffers who booed NY AG Letitia James, cheered for Trump at promotion ceremony FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh is hunting down smoke-eaters and other staffers who mercilessly booed New York Attorney General Letitia James – and cheered in support of Donald Trump – during a department promotion ceremony this week, The Post has learned. FDNY Chief of Department John Hodges fired off an email to other agency honchos warning a reckoning led by the department’s Bureau of Investigation and Trials was coming over the chorus of boos and chants of “Trump” that James received at Thursday’s event....

Members of the New York Fire Department (FDNY) who are fed-up with Trump-hating fascist attorney general Letitia James during a recent promotion ceremony are now facing severe consequences. The Gateway Pundit first reported the incident wherein a wave of boos and chants supporting President Trump overshadowed the event. A large group of firefighters made their stance perfectly clear during Thursday’s New York Fire Department (FDNY) promotion ceremony regarding James’s inquisition of President Trump. After honoring FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, James’s speech was effectively drowned out by LOUD pro-Trump chants in the crowd. She struggles a bit to find her words...

Recently, the city of Portland, Oregon, exhibited a moment of sanity when city officials decided to reverse a law they had enacted in 2020 that basically decriminalized all drugs. The results of that law were extremely predictable (everyone did, in fact, predict it). Crime escalated, drug use became rampant, overdoses soared, and the city descended even further into chaos than it already had. But if you were fooled into thinking that Portland may have regained a modicum of common sense, you can rest easy: it has not. Yesterday, independent journalist Andy Ngô broke the news that a Portland area woman...

Cops cite ‘freedom of speech’ An Israeli physics professor’s lecture at the University of Nevada Las Vegas was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters late last month, but campus cops refused to remove them — citing the First Amendment.This led Professor Asaf Peer, who was discussing the topic of black holes, to ask “What about my freedom of speech?”According to The Jerusalem Post, Peer was but a mere quarter-hour into his lecture when the shouting protesters (pictured) “burst into the room […] with banners and flags.”Protesters’ placards commemorated Islamic University of Gaza physicist Sufyan Tayeh (killed in a December Israeli airstrike) and...

The far left leaning Senate is about to try and kill the first amendment. Senate Bill 5427, after it is signed into law, would allow private individuals (note: this is not limited to American citizens) to report “bias incidents*” (see definition below) to the State Attorney General’s Office, with the possibility of receiving up to $2,000 of taxpayers money for this noncriminal incident. The bill was very clear: this is a non-crime which they will then forward to local law enforcement to investigate. What’s to investigate? No crime, no investigation.

Officials from the National Science Foundation tried to conceal the spending of millions of taxpayer dollars on research and development for artificial intelligence tools used to censor political speech and influence the outcome of elections, according to a new congressional report. The report looking into the National Science Foundation (NSF) is the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that critics claim shows federal officials—especially at the FBI and the CIA—are creating a “censorship-industrial complex” to monitor American public expression and suppress speech disfavored by the government. “In the name of combatting alleged misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the 2020...

Heather Idoni picked up a phone receiver and punched in her inmate number on a keypad to activate it through the visitation window at Grayson County Detention Center. She had 15 minutes to talk before the sound was cut off without warning and her guests were told to leave.In prison, every move an inmate makes is controlled. Ms. Idoni, 59, is getting used to that. She must, because she is facing more than 41 years in prison—the rest of her natural life.Her sentence is expected to be the longest in the United States for someone charged with violating the Freedom...

One in five national governments tried to intimidate or kill exiles in recent years. A Russian defector is assassinated in Spain. The Chinese government offers bounties for dissidents who take refuge in foreign countries. The Canadian government fingers Indian officials for murdering a Sikh activist in British Columbia. What do these incidents have in common? They represent acts of "transnational repression," a form of authoritarianism that reaches across national frontiers and has becoming disturbingly common in recent years. Repression Without Borders"More than 20 percent of the world's national governments have reached beyond their borders since 2014 to forcibly silence exiled...

I remember when White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer made an off-hand remark about what he thought was Bill Maher praising the Al Qaeda terrorists, suggesting that people should watch what they say, and we have spent years hearing about the Bush administration “terrorizing”, “censoring” and “intimidating” the press.Bush was compared to Hitler and the incident still continues to be brought up today even as the Biden administration is fighting in court for the “free speech right” to censor political opponents on social media, and now the White House has fired off a letter to FOX News warning it to stop...

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...