Free Republic

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley called for an end to anonymity on social media during a television appearance on Nov. 14. “Every person on social media should be verified by their name,” the 2024 presidential hopeful said while fielding questions from voters on Fox News’s “The Faulkner Focus,” hosted by Harris Faulkner. “First of all, it’s a national security threat. When you do that, all of a sudden, people have to stand by what they say. And it gets rid of the Russian bots, the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots. And then you’re going to get some civility, when...

Federal investigators in Manhattan executed a search warrant on Wednesday at the Upper East Side apartment of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, stepping up a criminal investigation into Mr. Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, three people with knowledge of the matter said. One of the people said the investigators had seized Mr. Giuliani’s electronic devices. Executing a search warrant is an extraordinary move for prosecutors to take against a lawyer, let alone a lawyer for a former president, and it marks a major turning point in the long-running investigation...

Skip Indeed, students reported that they worry less about censure from faculty than from peers. Skip An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives. Skip Also troubling were the undergraduates who reported having kept an opinion to themselves in the classroom, even though the opinion was related to the class, because they were worried about the potential consequences...

Shortened title. Full title: UST IN: Rosenstein Threatened to Subpoena Emails, Phone Records of Nunes and House Intel if They Didn’t Stop Investigation Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to subpoena emails, phone records and other documents of Republican lawmakers on the House Intel Committee back in January, confirming previous reports. Fox News Catherine Herridge reported: The emails memorialized a January 2018 closed-door meeting involving senior FBI and Justice Department officials as well as members of the House Intelligence Committee. The account claimed Rosenstein threatened to turn the tables on the committee’s inquiries regarding the Russia probe.

The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents. The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is...

First Amendment: Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage. A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit. The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay...

THREE Fox News staffers were monitored by DOJ. WOW. WOW. WOW.— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 20, 2013 Whoa.Drip, drip, drip.Megyn Kelly is reporting that it was not just James Rosen who was targeted by Obama’s Department of Justice. @MegynKelly on @FoxNews now reporting not just Rosen targed by DoJ; 3 Fox News staffers.— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) May 20, 2013 Not just one! Three Fox News staffers in DoJ sites reports @megynkelly #fb— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) May 20, 2013 Now @megynkelly reporting @JamesRosenFNC, another FNC reporter and producer were targeted by DOJ— Andy Lancaster (@andylancaster) May 20, 2013 Evidently, two...

N.Y. comptroller trying to force disclosure of political spending by corporations to cut off funding for conservativesNew York state is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight over free speech and corporate political spending as a top state official with ties to left-wing campaign finance reform groups attempts to pressure private companies into making their political contributions public.New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who is the state’s top accountant and is spearheading the campaign, cites the importance of transparency.Observers warn that “shareholder activism” in pursuit of political disclosure represents the first stage of coordinated intimidation campaigns against private companies conducted...

The stated rationale for the Fairness Doctrine was to encourage more information to be aired by radio and TV stations, on the theory that private broadcasters would tend to underprovide a public good-news about important social issues. Yet, the danger has been seen, at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Communications Commission, and elsewhere, that there exists a potentially unconstitutional "chilling effect": the prospect of having to award equal (unpaid) time to dissenting points of view institutes a tax on controversial speech. In that the Doctrine was abolished in 1987, the radio market now allows us to observe licensees' unregulated...

The FBI is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents -- allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention. < SNIP > Some of the most notable changes apply to the lowest category of investigations, called an "assessment." The category, created in December 2008, allows agents to look into people and organizations "proactively" and without firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity.

Time to learn a new dance -- the race hustle where whites are now racist if they talk about race and cowards if they don't. Call it the Honkey Pokey. To the tune of the Hokey Pokey: You put the race card out, You pull the race bait in, You're a racist if you talk about it, -- a coward if you don't, That's what it's all about. Played the race card then, And Clinton called him out, Tried in vain to bait Sen-a-tor McCain But Johnny didn't bite. Racist ben-e-dic-tions are fine you see, But innocent cartoons are not....

HOUSE BILL No. 6394 September 3, 2008, Introduced by Reps. Elsenheimer and Walker and referred to the Committee on Intergovernmental, Urban and Regional Affairs. A bill to amend 2006 PA 110, entitled "Michigan zoning enabling act," (MCL 125.3101 to 125.3702) by adding section 409.

If Sen. Barack Obama loses the presidency or wins by far narrower margins than the double-digit lead some mainstream media polls predict, his weak performance will not be the result of the so-called “Bradley Effect,” which holds that black candidates underperform at the polls due to latent racism. Rather, the true culprit will be something public opinion scholars call the “Spiral of Silence Theory.” In the 1970s, German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann introduced a provocative and startling theory of mass communication she called the “Spiral of Silence.” Noelle-Neumann argued that when mass media create an impression that the majority of...

From the very moment when students of Polytechnic University chanted slogans against president Ahmadinejad while he was presenting a speech to them at their school on the occasion of Student Day, one could predict that the president’s aides and particularly his political-security ones, would strive to get even with them harshly. On that occasion, while the president tried to remain calm and present a kind image in response to their charts, eventually his patience ran out and he called the protesting students American agents, spoke about them getting money from foreigner and even made an unprecedented threat: “We will crucify...