Free Republic

The Washington State Office of the Attorney General has launched a taxpayer-funded hotline in three counties that would allow residents, including foreign nationals and illegal immigrants, to report U.S. citizens for engaging in legally protected speech and activity, in addition to hate crimes. The launch of the hate crimes and bias incidents hotline in King, Clark and Spokane counties occurred almost exactly a year after The Center Square reported that Oregon’s hate crime and bias incident hotline mostly tracks legal activities. Referring to both legal crimes and protected speech, the hotline’s website says “these incidents have a devastating and long-lasting...

Bob Vylan have had their US visas revoked over their "hateful tirade at Glastonbury", a Trump official has said. It comes after the band were dropped by their talent agency following their anti-IDF chant at the music festival. The BBC has said it regrets not pulling the live stream of the "unacceptable" Glastonbury set, with Ofcom saying the broadcaster had "questions to answer". The corporation has faced mounting criticism over airing the performance on Glastonbury's West Holts Stage, during which the rap-punk duo's frontman Bobby Vylan led chants of, "free, free Palestine", and "death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence...

I have paid a modicum of attention to British and European media regulation ever since I was removed from UK broadcasting, now and forever. Probably would have been wiser to pay attention before my removal, but, be that as it may, Ofcom decided that my conversation with Naomi Wolf about the Covid vaccines risked causing "harm" to people. And we wouldn't want that, would we? So I was interested to learn from the weekend's Glastonbury Festival just who you can target for "harm". Back in my youth, Glasto was a big peace'n'lovefest with a somewhat tedious hippie aesthetic. But now...

Dr. Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya appeared this week at Aspen Ideas: Health, addressing his previously controversial stance on COVID-19, as well as his plans as the new National Institutes of Health director. Bhattacharya was sworn in as the 18th director of the NIH on April 1. President Trump nominated him for the position in late November, and the U.S. Senate confirmed his position on March 25. The NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, with Bhattacharya referring to it as “the crown jewel of American biomedical sciences.” In his conversation Tuesday evening with Stefanie Ilgenfritz, coverage chief for...

House raids over speech violations are becoming commonplace across Germany, even as violent crime explodes... On Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., a large-scale police operation was launched across Germany, targeting hundreds of individuals suspected of insulting politicians or spreading “hate and incitement” online. The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country. The action, which was conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), uses the new Criminal Code Paragraph 188 to target individuals accused of racism and hate speech....

At around 6 a.m. this morning, hundreds of people across Germany awoke to police officers at their door. Their only ‘crime’ is to have openly made critical or offensive comments on the internet, many about specific politicians. German police raiding right-wing Compact Magazine’s editor-in-chief’s home, Twitter This is not a scene from the Third Reich or the German Democratic Republic, but from the Federal Republic in the 21st Century. Officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) intend to make approximately 170 house visits today, to investigate ‘hateful’ or insulting comments made online. Suspects have had their tablets, laptops, and...

Police in Germany have executed more than 170 operations targeting people they referred to as “digital arsonists”. Starting early on the morning of June 25, officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office raided the homes of people suspected of running “criminal posts” online. The police move was not the first such in Germany, where it is flagged a “day of action”, targeting alleged authors of “online hate and hate messages”. This was the 12th time that the police took such nationwide action against so-called politically motivated crime (PMK). Two-thirds of those people whom officers hit had reportedly made right-wing radical...

Kaitlin was banned from ANOTHER farmers market in Winter Garden for her free speech!

Obama’s embrace of censorship speaks to the desperation of a party that can’t survive without uniform control of the information space.. The modern Democrat Party is many things. But an ardent defender of Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech is not one of them. This theme was front and center during a sit-down interview former President Barack Obama participated in at The Connecticut Forum earlier this week. At one point in his conversation with historian and author Heather Cox Richardson, America’s 44th commander-in-chief broached the subject of “propaganda” and how “[t]hose in power, those with money, exploit [the information]...

Vice President JD Vance was suspended from the left-leaning social media platform Bluesky on Wednesday, just minutes after joining and sharing his first post. “Hello Bluesky, I’ve been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis,” Vance wrote in his first post on the X competitor. “So I’m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you.” The vice president went on to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld Tennessee’s restrictions on transgender medical treatments for minors. “To that end, I found Justice [Clarence] Thomas’s concurrence on medical...

Afederal judge ordered the University of Oregon to pay $191,000 to Portland State University professor Bruce Gilley to cover his legal fees in a successful First Amendment challenge to its censorship of Gilley's comment "all men are created equal" in his retweet from UO's diversity, equity and inclusion office Twitter page, according to Gilley's lawyers. Gilley secured a preliminary injunction last summer that stops UO Equity's account on X, formerly Twitter, from blocking his interactions or "hiding, muting, or deleting" several kinds of his posts to its account. They settled in full this spring after nearly three years in court,...

Even as other banks are backing down, the bank that debanked us doubles down. Last spring, 15 state attorney generals wrote to Bank of America warning that its politically motivated debanking targeting conservatives and religious people was under the looking glass. After taking office, President Trump directly challenged Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to stop discriminating against conservatives. “I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank. What you’re doing is wrong.” But instead of ending its political discrimination, BOA launched a...

An estimated 50,000 people marched across New York City as part of nationwide protests against the Trump administration, according to early estimates from the NYPD. The demonstrations took place on city streets largely without incident. NBC New York’s Chris Jose report What to Know Protests against the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies have been ongoing in New York City and across the country since last weekend, when unrest erupted in Los Angeles and the president ordered in the National Guard. Demonstrations are taking place nationwide on Saturday for what organizers are calling 'No Kings Day' with the goal of protest...

On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second presidential term, Donald Trump signed an executive order: “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” The bad old days of the “censorship-industrial complex,” allegedly responsible for suppressing online speech under President Joe Biden, were over.Except they weren’t. The driving force behind online censorship had never been the U.S. government, which meant that freedom of speech could not be restored by the stroke of a president’s pen. Rather, the European Union has wielded its Digital Services Act (DSA) to restrict the speech not just of Europeans but especially of Americans...

A Brazilian comedian said a judge took issue with his Wikipedia page when she handed down an eight-year prison sentence. Comedian Leo Lins, whose full name is Leonardo de Lima Borges Lins, was about three years removed from his comedy special when Judge Barbara de Lima Iseppi ruled the comedian made "discriminatory" remarks while on stage. The comments the judge made during her ruling have been perceived as "power-hungry" by other comedians, who expressed shock at their compatriot's conviction. Lins' 2022 special "Disturbing," or "Perturbador" in Portuguese, was ordered to be taken down from the internet by the Brazilian government...

British activist Tommy Robinson and his friends were kicked out of a high-end steakhouse in London—not for breaking any rules or causing a disturbance—but because the staff reportedly “felt uncomfortable.” The incident unfolded at the upscale Hawksmoor steakhouse on Air Street, just steps from the prestigious Regent Street in central London, according to The Standard. Robinson was dining peacefully with a group of friends, including former English Defence League spokesman Guramit Singh Kalirai, when the group was approached by management halfway through their meal and asked to leave. Kalirai took to social media to expose the moment, posting a video...

A student in North Carolina just got $20,000 richer. His school district was forced to apologize to him and make the cash payment because he was suspended for using the term ‘illegal alien.’ The left is so triggered by the topic of illegal immigration, that you can’t even use accurate language when talking about the issue without someone going crazy. FOX News reports: North Carolina school district to issue apology, pay $20K to student suspended over ‘illegal alien’ comment. .....Snip...... The teen received a three-day suspension last year after asking his teacher if a conversation in class was centered around...

Standing in a town square, quietly holding a sign, two people were arrested by police Thursday in Brussels, Belgium. The offending message? “Children are never born in the wrong body.” Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom International, and Chris Elston, a Canadian advocate for children who goes by the nickname “Billboard Chris,” said they were in police custody for several hours before having their signs confiscated. According to Elston, they were initially told they were being charged with disturbing the peace, but were eventually let go. The arrest is just the latest instance of...

Judge upholds free speech! Tommy not under arrest. Mahyar Tousi and other alternative media waiting outside courtroom, joking around and relieved. Transcript linked below video.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has successfully stopped an enforcement guidance issued under former President Joe Biden that sought to redefine the definition of “discrimination” to include self-professed “gender identity.” This unlawful rewrite of federal law would have opened private and state employers to lawsuits if they did not adopt sweeping “transgender” inclusive policies. “The Biden Administration unlawfully tried to twist federal law into a tool for advancing radical gender ideology by attempting to force employers to adopt ‘transgender’ policies or risk being sued,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The federal government has no right to force Texans to play along with...