Free Republic

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the U.S., governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so...

How rude. " Double standard: @PPact is allowed to advertise on @Twitter, but our ads have been blocked until we delete tweets. https://t.co/QlPSItKYFx " — Live Action (@LiveAction) June 27, 2017 Via Live Action News: "While Planned Parenthood is allowed to advertise on Twitter, the social media company has suppressed Live Action’s ads, calling our pro-life messages offensive and inflammatory. What exactly is Twitter calling so offensive and inflammatory? Tweeting a picture of a child developing in the womb and saying that we believe in the right to life. Or tweeting ultrasound images, like the ones that most expectant moms...

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-East Harlem) said "ultra right-wing forces" in Puerto Rico are trying to undermine this year's Puerto Rican Day Parade. The city's parade made national headlines with its decision to designate Oscar Lopez Rivera, a convicted terrorist, as its "National Freedom Hero." Lopez Rivera led the FALN, a left-wing liberation movement in Puerto Rico, which bombed several sites across the United States - including NYPD barracks. "A lot of the campaign putting pressure on the sponsors to withdraw... is being manipulated and organized and orchestrated from an ultra-right wing element on the island [of...

In truly progressive fashion, Chicago renamed one of its streets after a terrorist. Earlier this month Alderman Robert Maldonado submitted a proposal to name three blocks of a city street after Oscar Lopez Rivera, the founder of the Puerto Rican terror group FALN, which was responsible for 120 bombings and armed robberies in the U.S. during the ‘70s and ‘80s that killed nine and injured hundreds of others. On Wednesday, aldermen approved the measure honoring Lopez Rivera, the terrorist whose 70-year sentence was recently commuted by Barack Obama. Aldermen also voted to approve an honorary street re-naming for Puerto...

The Obama administration signed a law-enforcement agreement with Cuba Monday that doesn’t call for the return of U.S. fugitives, including former Black Panther Joanne Chesimard, who is wanted for killing a New Jersey police officer. The pact was signed by Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the de facto U.S. ambassador in Havana, and the Cuban Interior minister Julio César Gandarilla. It covers a broad range of law-enforcement topics, such as counternarcotics operations. Also present at the signing was White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who played a key role in forging Mr. Obama’s policy of restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba in...

Over the Christmas weekend, Chicago surpassed the 750-murder mark for 2016. But as blacks lay dying on the streets of Chicago’s South and West Sides, a Black Lives Matter offshoot is more interested in traveling overseas to learn “resistance” from terrorists. The Dream Defenders bills itself as “an uprising of communities in struggle, shifting culture through transformational organizing.” But an investigation conducted by the Haym Salomon Center reveals the group’s embrace of anti-Semitism and collaboration with a State Department-designated terror group. In August, Black Lives Matter singled out Israel for condemnation, declaring it an “apartheid” state engaged in “genocide.” These...

A spokesperson for Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström has hit back at a Jewish human rights organization ranking some of her comments among the most anti-Semitic or anti-Israel remarks of 2016. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), which is headquartered in Los Angeles, lists the Swedish minister's comments in eighth place in its ranking of the “ten worst global anti-Semitic/anti-Israel incidents”. […] A spokesperson for the Swedish foreign minister hit back at the center on Wednesday. “The list is clearly not serious,” wrote Erik Wirkensjö in an e-mail to public broadcaster SVT. “It mixes up anti-Semitism and criticism of the State...

“Our response to this situation matters. If we respond to this situation by casting aspersions on millions of people that adhere to a particular religion or if we increase our suspicion of people who practice a particular religion, we are more likely going to contribute to acts of violence than we are to prevent them.” Of course we should not cast aspersions on people who had nothing to do with this jihad attack. But this kind of talk is used to preclude any examination of the motivating ideology underlying such attacks, and that leaves us more vulnerable to more such...

5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!" The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have...

A senior Al Qaeda leader and former Guantanamo detainee in Yemen has called for renewed attacks on the U.S. just days before Americans prepare to vote for a new president. “We pledge and vow to continue fighting America. Hitting, confronting and striking until it falls back behind the seas. None is upon us except by the will of Allah,” Ibrahim Al Qosi, a convicted Al Qaeda paymaster said in a speech entitled "15 years since the takeoff of the modern crusade." The Foreign Desk has obtained a transcript of Al Qosi's speech. Al Qosi advises followers to “concentrate your military...

The Republican Hindu Coalition, which hosted Donald Trump's desi rally in New Jersey last month, has branded Huma Abedin 'pro-terrorist.' Will Huma cost Hillary the White House? The desi at the heart of Hillary's FBI troubles. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's embattled aide Huma Abedin is again under fire -- not over the e-mails she exchanged with her boss on her estranged husband Antony Weiner's laptop -- but for her heritage. The Republican Hindu Coalition, headed by Chicago businessman Shalabh 'Shalli' Kumar, has taken aim at Abedin, branding her 'pro-terrorist.' A 30-second television ad, beamed on desi channels in the US,...

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Fifty years ago this month in Oakland, a revolutionary group was founded and now the city is honoring the Black Panthers with a week of activities and a museum exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California.

Social media giant Twitter's got 99 problems, yet the politically correct company is far more worried about the "optics" of cooperating with federal agents trying to stop jihadist plotters online. Hashtag it: #TwistedTwitterPriorities. The company's stock hit a record low this month. Half of the company's senior executives abandoned their posts earlier this year. Ad growth is sluggish. Desperate attempts to mimic Facebook have turned off users. And the micro-blogging network's political pandering to liberals through the formation of an Orwellian Trust and Safety Council earned global scorn Despite these existential troubles, Twitter bigwigs turned their attention this week to...

There is certainly a conflict of interest concerning the FBI's alleged desires to deal with Hillary Clinton in a criminal matter, but is subservient to the Department of Justice that is run by a known Constitution violator by the name of Loretta Lynch. However, though Lynch is a Constitution violator, it is her law firm that is tied to Hillary Clinton that is a part of the issue in the current matter regarding Clinton's blatant disregard for federal law concerning her illegal and unsecured email server. WND reports: It's well known that if the FBI recommends prosecution in the Hillary...

Beyoncé didn't bring back the Black Panthers when she and an Afro-frizzed dance team donned black leather jackets and berets during Super Bowl 50's halftime show. That's because the Black Panthers never actually left. The Panthers were more than militants; they were pioneers in American pop and political culture. The Black Lives Matter movement, the rise of social media, music and sports, even Donald Trump -- all were shaped by the Panthers in some way, historians and ex-Panthers say. On the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party, people are taking a second look at the group....

Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, created Kwanzaa in 1966. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Dr. Karenga searched for ways to bring African-Americans together as a community.

Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London and member of Britain’s Labour Party, excused the terrorists who were part of the 2005 London terrorist attacks and instead blamed then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.Appearing on BBC Thursday, Livingstone, who was mayor of London at the time of the attacks, said of the suicide bombers, “Go and look what they put on their website. They did those killings because of our invasion of Iraq. They gave their lives, they said what they believed, they took Londoners’ lives in protest against our invasion of Iraq.”He added, “and we were lied to by Tony Blair about...

One retired FBI agent says Donald Trump's claims of seeing Muslim celebrations following the attacks on 9-11 are absolutely plausible. Jim Burkett was an assistant special agent in charge with the FBI's office in Boston during 9-11 and afterward. He says during that time the office received tons of phone calls from people who feared more attacks and others reporting suspicious activity. Many of those calls, said Burkett, came from concerned and angry Americans reporting Muslim's celebrating over the destruction of the twin towers and damage to the Pentagon. The calls were logged, reports were made and there were "stacks...

The American Left is beyond parody. Apparently Salon would have us believe that the Paris jihad massacre happened because “the right wing media” criticized the Black Lives Matter movement. Islamic jihad? Warfare against unbelievers? The Islamic State’s stated imperative to murder French civilians? Only greasy Islamophobes take such things seriously: everyone knows Fox News and Ben Carson are the real culprits!(AP photo snipped)“And so the hate speech begins: Let Paris be the end of the right’s violent language toward activists,” by Chauncey DeVega, Salon, November 13, 2015:In a still developing situation, the city of Paris, France, is under attack by...

Sunday at the Hilton in Rosemont, IL, Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan blamed the United States for ISIS and al Qaeda, calling them “illegitimate children of U.S. foreign policy.” Farrakhan said, “Some of you are afraid of the Sharia. And the enemy is looking for a moderate Muslim…No. You either are a Muslim or you’re not. There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.” He continued, “ISIS and al Qaeda are the illegitimate children of U.S. foreign policy. Osama bin Laden is a good man. When Russia moved into Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and the mujaheddin went to fight...