Free Republic

HSBC has issued a warning to customers as retailers step up coronavirus safety measures amid a further 1,243 deaths. The lender - which also owns First Direct and Marks & Spencer bank - said customers who break the law could forfeit their bank account. Speaking to The Mirror, a spokesman said face masks are mandatory in all branches as per government guidelines. Those who refuse to comply will be refused service and could have their bank accounts withdrawn. Jackie Uhi, head of branch network, HSBC UK said: "Our branch colleagues are key workers, continuing to go to work in our...

Snapchat is ghosting President Trump. The messaging app banned the president’s account on Wednesday, joining other tech firms who have moved to curb Trump’s posting since a mob of his supporters breached the US Capitol last week. Snapchat said it decided to indefinitely suspend the account “in the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence.”

"It could be never," he said. "We don't know yet."..."It's hard to keep track of how many people are telling us that we can no longer do business with them," said Matze...Matze said Parler had also been booted from online payments service Stripe and from American Express and had lost its Scylla Enterprise database. Parler could not send SMS messages after being banned by Twilio and could not use Slack to contact its "jury" of paid and volunteer users who make Parler content moderation decisions...

New York State Assembly Member Noah Nicholas Perry (D-Brookyn) has introduced legislation that would authorize Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to "order the detention of any person who poses an imminent and significant threat to the public health." "The governor has issued numerous decrees ordering folks to stay home, shutdown their businesses, stay out of church, always wear a mask, and refrain from family gatherings involving nonresidents of the home," Perry said. "Most people obey, but there are recalcitrant types who complain that they have a right to live as they please. The fines we have been levying are ineffective when...

Is it more evil to hold existing shares of Apple/Google/Facebook/Twitter or to sell them and pay capital gains tax to the Biden Administration?

The spring shutdowns delivered a gut punch to owners of businesses from salons and daycare centers to tattoo parlors. At the onset of the pandemic 140,104 were marked temporarily closed on Yelp.com, but by August that had fallen to 65,769. That drop, however, is not entirely driven by businesses reopening; instead, many have simply gone under. More than 97,966 businesses have permanently shut down during the pandemic, according to Yelp.com's Local Economic Impact Report. And it may only get worse. While many parts of the economy have begun to hum again, many small businesses are still struggling and report needing...

Children squealing on their parents to the media is the worst part of the Democrats’ assault on America, because it shows that the liberal propaganda that passes for education in the schools has destroyed solidarity and loyalty in the family. Without the family, there is no society. Essentially, without family there is no country. In so many ways Americans are now people without a country. As the blatently public theft of a presidential election shows, democracy is a dead value among elites and institutions in the United States. The word will continue to be used as cover for oligarchic rule...

Just days ago, Twitter shocked the nation and international community alike by purging Donald J. Trump from its platform. Like hyenas, Big Tech companies attack in packs, and Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, and payment processor Stripe all quickly followed suit with their own bans and restrictions on the President.This dramatic full-spectrum “un-personing” of the President of the United States from the American digital communications infrastructure marks a clarifying inflection point in Americans’ understanding of what kind of country they live in, and who or what ultimately controls it. Big Tech’s deplatforming of Donald Trump also marks a dark culmination to...

Police will be quicker to enforce coronavirus rules during England's latest national lockdown due to the "severe" crisis the country faces, the crime and policing minister has told Sky News. Kit Malthouse said he hoped there wouldn't be an increase in the number of fines or arrests due to COVID rule-breaching, but he added it was up to the public to abide by restrictions. During the coronavirus crisis, police have been pursuing a "four Es" strategy, by engaging, explaining, encouraging and then, as a last step, enforcing lockdown measures. With England now in the second week of a third national...

A talk radio company that employs some of the nation’s most popular conservative radio hosts has issued a memo barring talent from spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. “We need to help induce national calm NOW,” wrote an executive with Cumulus Media in a Wednesday directive, the same day as the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, according to The Washington Post. Brian Philips, the company’s executive vice president, went on to say Cumulus and its program syndication branch, Westwood One, “will not tolerate any suggestion that the election has not ended. The election...

So what is to be done? Even pro-free speech alternative social media outlets are under attack from the Big Tech/government Leviathan. There are no easy solutions. But we must think back to the dissidents in the era of Soviet tyranny. They had no Internet. They had no social media. They had no ability to communicate with thousands and millions of like-minded, freedom lovers. Yet they used incredible creativity in the face of incredible adversity to continue pushing their ideas. Because no army – not even Big Tech partnered with Big Government - can stop an idea whose time has come....

Facebook Inc. said Monday it is removing all content mentioning “stop the steal,” a phrase popular among supporters of President Trump’s claims about the election, as part of a raft of emergency measures to stem misinformation and incitements to violence on its platform in the lead up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Paul Sperry @paulsperry_ DEVELOPING: Democrats in both the House and Senate are planning to draft legislation to classify MAGA rallies as "domestic terrorist activity" and require the FBI, DOJ & DHS to take steps to prevent such "domestic terrorism." Sen. Durbin is leading effort along with Rep Schneider https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1348488262210498560

Unfortunately, faculty and staff members in Jefferson County, WV just found out that it doesn’t matter if the voters in that county voted overwhelmingly to reelect President Trump, all it takes to put your livelihood in jeopardy is to have a bigoted and fascist school superintendent who is completely ignorant of the provisions in the US Constitution. These educators are now in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Nearly 30 teachers in Jefferson County, West Virginia that attended the rally at the Capitol in Washington DC on Wednesday are now being threatened with termination. A letter was sent to the teachers...

You see, people are fed up. Not just with economic conditions. But with the political ones. We suspect that that frustration is tinged with fear. We know it is in our case. The state is growing outright despotic…tyrannical. You have congressmen who make no bones about telling us that we should all be subject to arrest and detention by the military. This at a time when the definition of “terrorism” is expanding to include any activity that annoys the political class. The government has been in the business of prohibiting personal behaviors, regulating professional ones and eating out our substance...

DELTA airlines boots two women for private conversation about Trump…Kicked off their flight for supporting President TrumpDelta airlines ejected two people for having a private conversation in which they expressed support for Trump.They were removed from a @Delta flight for supporting Trump pic.twitter.com/PFaZPILNf3— Mike Yoder (@Yoder_Esqq) January 9, 2021NEW: @Delta Airlines removes Trump supporters from aircraft after having a private conversation about their support of President Trump. pic.twitter.com/dY1Q0ZHeuf— Katie Daviscourt🇺🇸 (@KatieDaviscourt) January 9, 2021

Twitter and Facebook are banning any discussion....simply discussions....about election fraud. They're coming for anyone with an alternative viewpoint, even as a discussion. Google App Store has also deplatformed right leaning app Parler. We imagine everyone saw the speeches yesterday? All outrage and "insurrection" and traitors and other inflammatory language? Does anyone know what the actual dollar amount of damage that was caused? A few thousand dollars. Total. But dems and lefties are talking like there was another Federal courthouse burned in Portland, a building leveled by a truck bomb in Oklahoma City, maybe some airliners crashed into New York skyscrapers....

I had this week's column all written and ready to go, until the events of Wednesday occurred. I trashed the column and stayed glued to the computer as the events in Washington, D.C., unfolded. I went to bed Wednesday night and hardly slept. I tossed and turned and watched the clock for hours. Election fraud. Antifa provocateur riots. Chaos. Anarchy. Murder. My thoughts tumbled around, each more dire than the last, as I speculated on what the upcoming year would bring. I finally realized the reason behind my sleeplessness: I was mourning America. The events of the last couple months...

Twitter has banned President Donald Trump’s official campaign account and the campaign’s Digital Director, Gary Coby. The platform permanently banned Trump earlier on Friday evening. Twitter’s suspension of accounts essentially censors the historical record by removing all the accounts’ tweets from being publicly accessed. The Trump campaign’s Twitter profile published a statement from Trump on Friday in which the president said he would build his own social media platform. Twitter immediately banned the profile.

Tucker Carlson: No one wants to live in a place like that or should have to no matter who the president is. We should be very concerned about all of this right now, these are the core concerns. Much more concerned about whether Donald Trump could claim he actually won of Pennsylvania or whatever. The Trump protest of the capital yesterday is already being used as a pretext for an unprecedented crackdown on civil liberties. In the last several hours, we have heard people in positions of power and authority demand those that support Donald Trump should no longer be...