Free Republic

A tipster brought MRC Business’s attention to some damning information about one of website traffic cop NewsGuard’s senior editors, which begs the question of why she was even hired in the first place. Dina Contini, who had previously served in various editorial roles at liberal outlet Reuters, currently serves as the senior managing editor of NewsGuard. However, it appears that Contini has a sordid history of being accused of creating hostile work environments and engaging in harassment. “In a ‘Management Conduct Notice’ that the journalists’ union sent on Sept. 21 [to Reuters’s top brass], it claimed Dina Kyriakidou Contini, the...

Through relentless government action and social pressure, America’s operating vocabulary has become Orwellian. Most everyone has heard the meme, “He who controls the agenda controls the meeting.” Acknowledging that we can understand ultimate power would be controlling the words and language everyone uses lest they find socially or professionally ostracized. When our government removes social media posts that differ from government policy or suppresses speech by arbitrarily deeming it hate speech, we begin to look quite like Orwell’s fictional Oceania. But that’s just a start. All kinds of behavior and thought are being restricted, manipulated, or banned through the left’s...

Rep. Jamie Raskin, who protested with fellow Democratic legislators, federal workers, and outraged Americans outside the Washington, D.C. headquarters of USAID, speaking out against Elon Musk's seizure of federal databases and the Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. federal government.

Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Helen Mirren... Carlos Gascon? Even though one of these things is not like the other, they all have something in common: They've been nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Actress." Look, I couldn't care less about the Oscars, and I'm sure most of you agree. Hollywood has long proven that it is out of touch with reality and out of touch with the rest of the country. But as a woman — an actual biological woman in case we have any confused liberals lurking around — I'm so sick of...

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday launched a page on his campaign website he says is to combat "misinformation and disinformation" being spread online and by political leaders regarding the ongoing wildfires in Southern California. He says the site will "continue to update and provide valuable, fact-based information to the public around policies, budget allocations, personnel on the ground and more.." The webpage is notably located on Newsom's campaign website funded by Newsom for California, and not on an official government site. “There is an astonishing amount of mis- and dis-information being spread online -- much of it by so-called leaders...

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg criticized the Biden administration for pushing for censorship around COVID-19 vaccines, the media for hounding Facebook to clamp down on misinformation after the 2016 election, and his own company for complying in an appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. Why it matters: Zuckerberg's three-hour interview with Rogan gives a clear window into his thinking during a remarkable week in which Meta loosened its content moderation policies and shut down its DEI programs. Driving the news: The Meta CEO said a turning point for his approach to censorship came after Biden publicly said social media companies were...

Larry Ellison says AI will enable a vast surveillance system that can monitor citizens.Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle, shared his thoughts on AI during a recent meeting.Oracle, a software company, is aggressively pursuing AI projects.Walking down a suburban neighborhood street already feels like a Ring doorbell panopticon.But this is only the start of our surveillance dystopia, according to Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle. He said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure "citizens will be on their best behavior."Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this...

Anew report published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, highlights more than $1 trillion worth of taxpayer money spent on projects that he argues wastes and abuses taxpayer money. Tucked in the report are three programs funded by federal agencies using millions of taxpayer dollars to experiment on cats. The details are explicit and gruesome.

Well-coiffed woman in pearls sits, happy and in control, (not sick and elderly, confined to a hospital bed under psychological pressure to sign), gazing wistfully from her writing desk ready to sign her "living will" (authorization to Dr.s to euthanize her). Her desk fades into a happy, soft image of a man--presumably her son--explaining to a boy--her "grandson"--"Grandma loved us so much that she wanted to have something to leave us, and she didn’t want to burden us by trying to cling to life after she had lived her time."

The first- and second-wave feminist movements really just wanted women to have equal footing with men, which was noble, even if we disagree with some of the methods and outcomes. But the late-stage feminism, with its capitulation to the transgender agenda, has literally undone over a century of work on behalf of women. To the point where women are not only second-class citizens to delusional men who pretend they're women, but we can't even be called women anymore. They've had a list of euphemisms for us -- womb owner, egg producer, birthing person -- but now we're literally being redefined...

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement. The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points. Experts say the development...

Why we shouldn’t waste our time on the Nobel committee's Newspeak.. Last week nominations for the Noble Peace Prize were announced, and the nominees were typical of the Prize’s history. A perusal of past winners reveals that the majority of prizes are for good intention, moralizing internationalism and its institutions, short-lived peace treaties, feckless disarmament, and any choice that gratifies global anti-Americanism. And let’s not forget terrorists and their enablers included in this year’s nominees: the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency, the International Court of Justice, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. All three reflect the Prize’s long history of promulgating...

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...

City leaders, along with law enforcement officials gathered to announce the launch of a program that will install 100 license plate reading cameras in the San Fernando Valley that authorities believe will help police track criminals down. Officials said that some neighborhoods north of Rinaldi Street in Porter Ranch have some of the highest crime rates in the city, which is why several cameras have already been installed in the area. “Last year, the Devonshire District reported that homes north of this very street experienced a 103% jump in home burglaries,” District 12 Councilman Jon Lee said at the event....

Joe Rogan shared an ominous prediction about the state of free speech if Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz win the November election, arguing the Democratic ticket poses a grave threat to the First Amendment. Rogan offered his thoughts on the troubling trend of censorship in the US in a conversation with former Navy Seal, ex-CIA contractor and podcaster Shawn Ryan in an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released Thursday. “I don’t think it turns around if Kamala Harris gets into office,” Rogan said of the censorship trend, “I think they clamp down more.” “I...

Nearly two-thirds of Americans conceal their political opinions on contentious issues in public, according to a new Populace Research/YouGov survey. Most Americans, 58%, said they cannot express their private opinions publicly, and 61% admit to “self-silencing” their political views, according to the survey. At the same time, Americans publicly claim to have higher trust in our institutions than they do in private. Only 36% of Democrats publicly said that they trust the government to tell the truth, but only 5% agreed with the statement in private, according to the survey. Similarly, 42% of Democrats publicly report that they trust the...

Hillary Clinton has long been one of the most anti-free speech figures in American politics, including calling upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). She is now suggesting the arrest of Americans who spread what she considers disinformation. It is a crushingly ironic moment since it was her campaign that funded the infamous Steele dossier and spread false stories of Russian collusion during her presidential campaign. Presumably, that disinformation would not be treated as criminal viewpoints. Speaking on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show this week, Clinton was asked about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed three bills Tuesday to crack down on the use of artificial intelligence to create false images or videos in political ads ahead of the 2024 election. A new law, set to take effect immediately, makes it illegal to create and publish deepfakes related to elections 120 days before Election Day and 60 days thereafter. It also allows courts to stop distribution of the materials and impose civil penalties. “Safeguarding the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and it’s critical that we ensure AI is not deployed to undermine the public’s...

As the back-to-school school season kicks off, the Vermont Department of Health is encouraging school employees and others to refrain from referring to children as a "son" or "daughter" and instead embrace gender-neutral terminology. In a Facebook post Wednesday, the department declared, "The language we use matters." "When talking about family, it's important to use terms that cover the many versions of what family can look like," the department stated. A picture accompanying the Facebook post featured a few examples of what constituted "inclusive language for families." The agency advised the use of the terms "child" or "kid" to refer...

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,...