Free Republic

On XApr 17, 2024 TRANSCRIPT:Katherine Maher: The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States... is a fairly robust protection of rights, and that is a protection of rights, both for platforms, which I actually think is very important. The platforms have those rights to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites, but it also means it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of 'where does bad information come from?' and some of the influence peddlers who have made a real...

Terror group appears to pour cold water on mediators’ latest offer after Qatari PM says ‘good progress’ made; Israel said open to lengthy truce but refuses to end war Hamas on Monday evening appeared to reject a new framework for a hostage deal that had been agreed to by Israel, saying it would not accept any agreement that did not include an end to the war and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. The terror group issued a statement alongside a smaller terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, insisting Israel must halt its “aggression”...

Former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden, who has fashioned a post-government career attacking and censoring conservatives, is spending his Thanksgiving week smearing patriotic American Christians who own firearms, claiming they are “no different” from Hamas terrorists. On Wednesday, Michael Hayden responded to a post on X that juxtaposed two photos: one of a woman holding an American flag, Bible, and handgun; the other of Palestinian terrorist Reem Riyashi, who killed herself along with four Israelis in a 2004 suicide bombing that was claimed by Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The Department of Homeland Security partnered with Stanford University and other colleges to create a 'disinformation group' to censor speech leading up to the 2020 election, new emails reveal. The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in July 2020, and consisted of members from the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, according to a new report from the House Judiciary Committee and released Monday evening. '[T]he federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions,' the report said...

Before his removal in a military coup, Gabon’s hopelessly corrupt President Ali Bongo was courted by Obama and feted from Washington to Davos. The US war on Libya which destabilized the region may not have succeeded without him. When a military junta arrested President Ali Bongo Ondimba on August 30, Gabon became the ninth African nation to depose its government through a military coup. As citizens of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali did before them, crowds of Gabonese poured into the streets to celebrate the removal of a Western-backed leader whose family flaunted its lavish lifestyle while more than a...

@Forbes Rep. Mike Rogers, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, told reporters Thursday after a closed-door House GOP meeting that he wants Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to tell Republicans what concessions they’ll have to make for Democrats to help them elect a speaker.

Former CIA Director and retired Gen. Michael Hayden seemed to call for the death of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) Monday night.Quoting a Twitter post that asked, "Should Tommy Tuberville be removed from his committee? Yes or No?" Hayden wrote, "How about the human race?"Tuberville has been bullied by Senate Democrats and know-nothing pundits since last December over his opposition to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's creation of an "abortion tourism benefit." As Streiff explained:In July 2022, Lloyd Austin declared that the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs. Jackon Women's Health adversely impacted military readiness because if pregnant members of the...

This is a way underreported story. It was Antony Blinken, the limp wristed Secretary of State who bends over for all US adversaries while calling it a success, who reached out to ex-CIA Director Mike Morrell to cobble together a group of "intelligence experts" who would sign a false statement calling the Hunter Biden laptop "Russian disinformation" so Biden could use it a hammer to pound Donald Trump in their debate. Morrell was eager to help. After all, he was motivated to do so. Financially motivated. In 2017 the thinktank Atlantic Council signed an agreement with Burisma despite knowing it...

To understand Russia’s current obsession with Ukraine, it is important to recognize that Russia was never a state in the common usage of the term. Unlike the modern Turkish state that emerged from the Ottoman Empire, or Great Britain, which acquired and lost an empire, Russia never had an identity separate from empire. As British historian Geoffrey Hosking observed, “Britain had an empire, but Russia was an empire.” The Kremlin’s preferred narrative of Russia rising from present-day Ukraine (“Kyivan Rus”) is a Moscow-concocted fairy tale. The officially endorsed 1000-year history of Russia is a self-created and self-perpetuated myth that generations...

It would be hard to image a more fitting symbol of Russia’s declining military fortunes than the sight of a solitary Stalin-era tank trundling across Red Square during the country’s traditional Victory Day celebrations on May 9. For the past two decades, Vladimir Putin has used Victory Day to showcase modern Russia’s resurgence as a military superpower, with dozens of the very latest tanks typically taking part in each annual parade. This year, however, the only tank on display was a T-34 model dating back to World War II. Inevitably, the embarrassing absence of tanks at this year’s Victory Day...

The billionaire founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, is using his fortune to further shape journalism into partisan activism to help Democrats win elections. He is the nation’s leading financier of the “mis”- and “disinformation” industries and is now the largest private stakeholder in America’s legacy journalism schools. The most recent Twitter Files released by Matt Taibbi add a deeply disturbing new layer to the story. They show Newmark is at the very heart of an incestuous web of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and corporate media institutions operating in concert to censor political opponents on social media. Newmark is financing the...

What’s known is that $250 billion in capital has left, equivalent to 14 percent of its GDP. One expert guesstimates that Russia’s economy has shrunk from the size of Italy’s to Chile’s in the past year — you wouldn’t know this based on bogus figures fed to the media by Moscow. Economist Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) calculates that Western sanctions alone have also “basically shrunk Russia’s economy by 10 percent”, bigger than what happened in the 2009 financial crisis. What is also known is that immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, an...

Journalist and author Matt Taibbi noted the U.S. government’s role in creating a “new cottage industry” of “disinformation labs” ostensibly combatting fraudulent online propaganda in the interest of national security in his latest Twitter Files report published Thursday. The “Twitter Files #17” thread focuses on the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a subsidiary of the State Department, and its claimed objective to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.” The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab...

Germany and the United States have recently made headlines by deciding to send tanks to Ukraine. However, the unsung hero behind this landmark decision was actually Poland. Polish leaders were instrumental in efforts to persuade Berlin in particular of the need to provide Ukraine with modern tanks. This was the latest example of Polish leadership over the past year as Europe has found itself confronted by the continent’s largest armed conflict since World War II. Poland’s leading role in the European response to Putin’s invasion reflects the country’s extensive experience of Russian imperialism in both its Czarist and Soviet forms....

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Sunday outlined core principles for a "high-integrity" carbon offset plan meant to help developing nations speed their energy transition, and next steps including establishing a consultative group. The Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), first announced at last year's COP27 climate conference, is being developed by the United States with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation to mobilise private capital. Kerry told the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi the aim was to create bankable deals to accelerate reduction of emissions, stressing that the ETA was not a...

Censorship involving the Hunter Biden Laptop Censorship Syndicate! DHS deputized a Burisma Lobbist to censor 10's of millions of social media posts about the 2020 elections 100% of the targets. Censored 22 million tweets, databased 860 million tweets Go through 15 different platforms The Atlantic Council has 7 living CIA Directors currently serving on it's board (called by name)

The federal government has been working with a group of four private companies to flag supposed election “misinformation” for censorship by social media platforms. Two recent reports, published on Friday and Saturday by Just the News, reveal the group was responsible for the censorship of 20 news outlets during the 2020 election. After Biden was in the White House, Just the News reported, the group was “rewarded” with millions of taxpayer dollars and its work continues today. Most of the targeted groups were right-leaning in their coverage. Those outlets include Just the News, the New York Post, The Epoch Times,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered one of his most unhinged performances on September 30 in a speech announcing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Addressing hundreds of Russian officials during a ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin had relatively little to say about the war in Ukraine. Instead, his address was dominated by some of the fiercest anti-Western rhetoric of his 22-year reign. Putin branded Western leaders as “racist” and claimed they were guilty of “spreading Russophobia all around the globe.” However, his main focus was the allegedly imperialistic policies of the West. The Russian leader supported...

Discord chat app faces moderation questions after mass shooting suspects are linked to platform “When we talk about people who commit these acts of violence ... it's going to be a part of this nexus,” one expert said of Discord. The suspect in the Highland Park shooting had dedicated chat rooms on the popular social messaging platform Discord and frequented some others that trafficked in violent content despite rules meant to limit such material. It's the second time this year Discord has come up as an application used by a suspect in a mass shooting. The man accused of killing...

The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city. In reality, Mariupol has been murdered. This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction, pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation. The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines, running water or electricity. With Russia in control of the city, there is no way of knowing the final death toll or assessing the true scale of the catastrophe that has befallen Mariupol. During...