Free Republic

Placebo frontman Brian Molko was charged Monday with calling right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni a fascist and a Nazi at a concert in Turin in July 2023. The justice ministry gave Turin prosecutors the green light to charge Molko, a 52-year-old American-Scottish musician, with insulting Italian institutions on July 11 at Stupinigi. The alternative rock band’s singer will be liable to pay a fine if the charges stick.

A 60 Minutes segment on Germany's approach to policing online speech has ignited fierce debate on both sides of the Atlantic after it aired in the U.S. on Sunday. Critics have called the country's laws "Orwellian," while defenders insist they are necessary to prevent hate-fueled violence. The CBS News piece showcased how German authorities crack down on online speech deemed harmful or offensive under the country's stringent speech laws. The report documented early-morning police raids targeting individuals suspected of posting content that could incite hatred, including insults and even memes. Why It Matters The debate over Germany's online speech laws...

HAMBURG — Chaos erupted and hundreds fled in a German city once again today, after what witnesses described as a "deranged maniac" allegedly fired off over 17 memes in a crowded shopping mall. The incident occurred during peak shopping hours, with one witness saying that a commotion arose near the food court, as someone began screaming, "Memes! Memes! Run! Run!" before people began making panicked runs for the exits. "You see this on the news, but you never expect to experience it firsthand," said witness Friedrich Müller. "We were just shopping and enjoying our day when this sick lunatic just...

Actor Tom Hanks played a racist Trump supporter in a Saturday Night Live bit for the sketch show’s 50th anniversary on Sunday. The sketch resurrected the character Doug, who first made an appearance in 2016 for the Black Jeopardy! sketch. Per USA Today: Hosted as usual by Kenan Thompson’s Darnell, this version of “Black Jeopardy!” featured Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Eddie Murphy, who was showing off a Tracy Morgan impression that was almost better than the real thing. Or actually one of the best bits Murphy’s done in the last decade. Tom Hanks made an appearance as Doug, the...

The panic that gripped Europe’s political elites after J.D. Vance delivered some overdue home truths in Munich found expression back home in the most embarrassing question ever asked by a network anchor. Our vice president had accused smug Eurocrats at the Munich Security Conference of abandoning free speech and allowing unchecked migration to roil their countries, warned them to respect their voters and told them America should not bear the primary burden of funding Europe’s security. “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything...

Vice President JD Vance has slammed CBS News' Margaret Brennan for what he called a 'crazy exchange' she had with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Sunday morning. Brennan was questioning Rubio about the vice president's remarks at the Munich Security Conference, in which he argued that free speech and democratic institutions were being eroded, when she erroneously linked the Holocaust to free speech. 'He was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct genocide and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups,' the news...

Collin Rugg @CollinRugg NEW: 60 Minutes joins German police as they raid a man’s home for sharing a “racist” cartoon online. JD Vance was 100% right about Germany and the buffoons in the media acted like he was crazy. 60 Minutes: “Is it a crime to insult people online?” German prosectors: “Yes” 60 Minutes: “Is someone committing a crime if they repost a lie?” German prosecutors: “Yes.”

Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went on Face the Nation and was confronted with this historical illiteracy from host Margaret Brennan:Brennan: "[Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide..." Rubio: "I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide." "The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews... There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none."

Here’s what she had to say during a recent hearing on censorship: “The thing about the Constitution is that it has always been a balancing test. There are limits to this. And right now what we continue to hear from a certain side of the aisle is that there are no limits to this lawlessness. In fact, there are limits, and I can tell you that one of those limits typically is around hate crimes. You may or may not know that when it comes down to it, if somebody decides that they want to send something hateful in, say,...

Vice President JD Vance urged European leaders on Friday to fight back against censorship, declaring that their contempt for and even criminalization of free speech was posing the biggest threat on the continent — more even than Russian aggression. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” Vance said in an address at the Munich Security Conference. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.” Vance...

Today's key sessions Christina Anagnostopoulos 14:00-14:30 p.m. (13:00-13:30) Main Stage I: "The EU in the World" This will be a conversation with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 14:30-15:15 p.m. Main Stage I: "The U.S. in the World" U.S. Vice President will speak. 15:00-15:30 p.m. Main Stage I: "China in the World" China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will speak. 15:30-16:00 p.m. Main Stage II: "Stabilizing a Restless Region: Prospects for Peace in the Middle East" A conversation with Israel's foreign minister Gideon Moshe Sa‘ar. 15:30-16:15 p.m. Townhall: "Strategic Investment: The Future of U.S. - Ukraine Security Cooperation" The conversation...

US Vice President JD Vance has ripped into Britain over its crackdown on free speech and attacked Europe on immigration policies. Donald Trump's number two blasted the continent at the Munich Security Conference just a day after a horror car attack left 36 people injured - including children - in the same city. Suspect Farhad N is being investigated by terror cops after he allegedly rammed a Mini Cooper into a group of demonstrators in the Bavarian capital on Thursday. Cops initially said he is a 24-year-old Afghan who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016 before later rectifying...

According to JD Vance, the Trump administration is very concerned about the state of European securityMUNICH, February 14. /TASS/. The United States believes that the biggest threat to Europe’s security is coming neither from Russia nor from China, but is inside Europe, US Vice President JD Vance said at the Munich Security Conference. "The Trump administration is very concerned about the state of European security, and we hope that we can reach a rational agreement between Russia and Ukraine," he said, adding that Europe should dramatically increase its defense spending in the coming years. "The threat that worries me the...

Good morning from JD Vance! Nothing like waking up on a Friday to see your vice president delivering a smackdown to the holier-than-thou Eurotrash who are working overtime to turn their continent into a totalitarian state. 👇 JUST IN: Vice President JD Vance rips European leaders to their faces at the Munich security conference, calls them out for criminalizing free speech.🔥🔥Vance specifically called out the United Kingdom for being the worst of them all.“I wish I could say that this was a… pic.twitter.com/1bj9TKxP4q— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 14, 2025I look at Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend...

Well, well, well—looks like Revolver was right again. While other conservative outlets turned a blind eye to NewsGuard or, some even played along with their “media literacy” scam, we were out in front, boldly calling them out for exactly what they were—a tool of the regime, designed to blacklist and silence conservative media under the phony guise of fact-checking. .. So, how were we right? Well, as we speak, Microsoft, one of their biggest backers, is now scrambling to distance itself, from the fake fact-checking group. Also, this probably won’t come as a shock, but the infamous USAID was also...

Ayanna Pressley says Democrats are willing to work with anyone who is serious about censoring the American people. These people are truly insane. Do they even hear themselves?

he health commissioner has asked the state’s Attorney General and lobbyist watchdog to launch a ‘formal inquiry.’ Prompted by a New York Focus article last week, Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration is seeking investigations into the mysterious funding behind a $10 million campaign targeting the governor’s plan to remake New York’s home care industry. As first reported by Gothamist, State Health Commissioner James McDonald sent a letter on Friday to Attorney General Letitia James and Sanford Berland, executive director of the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, urging a formal inquiry into “what appears to be a concerted effort...

In March 2024, the Metro Council voted to refuse a proposed settlement of $105K with Turner for what he posted on social media in 2020.. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - The attorney for former Nashville firefighter Tracy Turner has announced a victory in his civil rights case against the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. Turner, who was demoted following posts made on his personal Facebook page, was awarded nearly $1.8 million by a federal jury on Friday. His attorney says that the $1,775,513 in damages comes from the retaliation against Turner based on his exercise of free speech. “He...

Next Tuesday, the European Parliament will discuss with the European Commission the “need to enforce the Digital Services Act to protect democracy on social media platforms, including against foreign interference and biased algorithms.” The Digital Services Act (DSA) is the central European Union legislation regulating social media. The EU bigwigs in Brussels are up in arms because Elon Musk had a chat on X with Alice Weidel, leader of the Alternative for Germany. The AfD is an increasingly popular right-wing party which the EU establishment wants to isolate in a cordon sanitaire. According to the European Commission, Ms. Weidel’s chat...

Microsoft aims to smoothly transition from one presidential administration to the next. The company recently secured a major win in DC, receiving the official blessing of the President in a $500 billion AI investment partnership between SoftBank, Oracle, and Microsoft’s OpenAI. But as official policy turns against online censorship, the tech giant may have to confront its track record of deep involvement in the suppression of Americans’ online speech. Newly uncovered evidence now shows that Microsoft served as the tip of the spear in the private sector in censorship-industrial complex – the coordinated effort between corporations, government agencies, NGOs and...