Free Republic

The trust and prestige that took prior generations of journalists decades to earn have been thrown away in just a few years by incompetents and partisans. CBS’s iconic 60 Minutes has had plenty of scandals and embarrassments in its long 57-year history, most notably the fake-but-accurate Dan Rather mess. Yet never has it found itself in greater disrepute than in 2024. Donald Trump, for good reason, recently declined to join 60 Minutes for its traditional election-year in-depth interviews of the two presidential candidates. Why? Last time he consented in 2020, anchor and interviewer Leslie Stahl attacked Trump’s accurate assertion that...

Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false. 60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in...

Neither Democratic Party elites nor their establishment-media minions have any idea how insufferable a majority of men find them. Sunday on CNN, conservative commentator Scott Jennings tried to explain why, after years of foolishly alienating working-class American men, Vice President Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats astonishingly lame recent efforts to woo male voters will fall flat. CNN’s pro-Harris panelists, however, seemed not only uninterested in Jennings’s explanation but downright triggered by it. ... A lot lot of men think Democrats care more about dudes who want to become women than dudes who just wanna be dudes,” Jennings said. At...

As Vice President Kamala Harris vows to crack down on illegal immigration at the nation’s southern border, she has played up her experience as California’s attorney general pursuing criminal groups that traffic drugs, guns and people across the United States and Mexico.“I was the top law enforcement officer of the biggest state of the country, California — that is also a border state,” she said on Thursday at a town hall in Nevada. “I took on transnational criminal organizations.”Ms. Harris’s surrogates and allies say her push on transnational crime sheds light on how she might address challenges at the border....

Below is my column in USA Today on the most chilling moment from the Vance-Walz debate when the Democratic nominee showed why he is part of the dream ticket for the anti-free speech movement. Here is the column: In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm. His opponent, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, cited the massive system of censorship supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate. Walz proceeded to quote the line from a 1919 case in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to...

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.” Trump has been trying to weaponize the Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the Biden administration of failing to provide adequate assistance. As part of his critique, he claims there is no money available for hurricane relief because it was spent already to handle the surge of migrants at the...

U.S. job gains increased by the most in six months in September and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, pointing to a resilient economy that likely does not need the Federal Reserve to deliver large interest rate cuts*** In addition to the better-than expected increase in nonfarm payrolls reported by the Labor Department on Friday, wages rose at a solid pace last month. The closely watched employment report also showed the economy added 72,000 more jobs in July and August than previously estimated. The report followed on the heels of annual benchmark revisions to national accounts data last week that...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is waging a PR battle to combat ‘rumors’ and ‘confusion’ about the failures of the Biden-Harris administration to take care of Americans affected by Hurricane Helene. In a post on X Twitter on Thursday, FEMA said, “There has been a lot of rumors spreading about the #Helene response. Rumors can create confusion & prevent people from getting assistance they need. Help us share accurate information: http://fema.gov/helene-rumors There has been a lot of rumors spreading about the #Helene response. Rumors can create confusion & prevent people from getting assistance they need. Help us share accurate...

Misinformation and disinformation can be a threat to our democracy. [Almost stopped reading right there] It can divide communities. It can make it harder for people to make informed choices — at the ballot box, at the grocery store and at the doctor's office. No one is immune. “We just don't have the time, the cognitive resources or even the motivation to literally fact-check every piece of information that comes our way,” says Briony Swire-Thompson, director of the Psychology of Misinformation Lab at Northeastern University. How to avoid sharing false or misleading news about the election People trust information more...

A radical censorship-obsessed group financed by leftist billionaire George Soros is doubling down on efforts to interfere in the 2024 election by turning the screws on Big Tech to censor speech and by manipulating journalists.

Kamala: I will direct the DOJ to censor "misinformation and hate" online

Kamala Harris' veep should learn something about the First Amendment.Now that Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has become Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, it is ostensibly time for the media to scrutinize his record and past statements. (Emphasis on ostensibly.) To say the mainstream coverage of Walz has been fawning thus far would be quite an understatement; The New York Times described him as "a one-man rejoinder to the idea that the Democrats are the party of the cultural and coastal elite." The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel merrily aided media efforts to portray Walz as a lovable, folksy paternal figure,...

he First Amendment does not allow the United States to adopt "Oceania's Ministry of Truth." That line from George Orwell's dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" opens U.S. District Judge John Sinatra's order Thursday imposing a preliminary injunction on New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is threatening pro-life pregnancy centers for telling women about so-called abortion pill reversal, as their lawsuit proceeds. Her office may not enforce state consumer fraud laws against the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), Gianna's House and Options Care Center, which sued in May, for referring to APR, calling it safe and effective or...

The Musk-Trump interview was a conversation between two businessmen who understand government regulations better than most politicians or media lapdogs do. It was huge, or whatever other adjective explains a two-hour conversation over the internet. The Harris-Walz team, or the ones who have not sat down with anyone, are furious that Donald Trump had a conversation with Elon Musk. It came about 24 hours after Mr. Vance made the Sunday show rounds. One team is talking and the other isn’t. Hello media! Let’s check out one reaction in particular: Axios’ @sarafischer: ‘@elonmusk will let Donald Trump speak all of the...

A Washington Post ‘reporter’ on Monday asked Karine Jean-Pierre what Biden is going to do to stop Trump’s live X interview with Elon Musk on Monday night. President Trump is back on X after taking some time away from the social media platform. Trump tweeted a campaign ad ahead of his highly anticipated live interview with Elon Musk on Monday evening at 8 pm ET. Washington Post reporter Cleve Wootson wants the government to intervene to shut Trump down with just a few months to go until Election Day. “One more, Elon Musk is slated to interview Trump tonight on...

Schools in the United Kingdom will begin to teach students how to spot fake news and extremist content in the aftermath of riots that spread across the country last week. Schools across the U.K. will look to revamp their curriculum to help children identify and dismiss extremist content by "embedding" critical thinking lessons in subjects such as English and math, according to a report by The Telegraph. "It’s more important than ever that we give young people the knowledge and skills to be able to challenge what they see online," Bridget Phillipson, the U.K.'s secretary of state for education and...

Governor Kathy Hochul today met with State Commissioner of Education Betty A. Rosa and leaders from the State Education Department to discuss the ongoing development of a ‘Media Literacy’ toolkit for educators to help teach students HOW TO SPOT MIS/DIS/MAL-INFORMATION online. Following a surge in online hate speech in November 2023, Governor Hochul directed the State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to work with experts to develop and distribute an ideologically neutral product which gives teachers resources to develop students’ ability to analyze, evaluate, and assess all forms of media, including information delivered through social media. “The rising...

UK authorities begin to arrest citizens for social media posts "containing inaccurate information."

Five secretaries of state plan to send an open letter to billionaire Elon Musk on Monday, urging him to “immediately implement changes” to X’s AI chatbot Grok, after it shared with millions of users false information suggesting that Kamala Harris was not eligible to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot. The letter, spearheaded by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and signed by his counterparts Al Schmidt of Pennsylvania, Steve Hobbs of Washington, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan and Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico, urges Musk to “immediately implement changes to X’s AI search assistant, Grok, to ensure voters have...

Like something right out of Nazi Germany, the Michigan Bureau of Elections is demanding that citizens … “Do your part!” about election misinformation. “Just as election officials have a duty to detect election misinformation and quickly provide correct information based on the law,” the posting reads, “voters have a responsibility to proactively seek out reliable sources of information and encourage productive and honest dialogue.” Did you know that? Did you know you have that “responsibility?”