Free Republic

Imagine for a moment what the past few years would have been like if the nation’s socialist “Democratic” party and its media propaganda arm had absolutely no limitations on their power. What would it be like if we just had one-party rule and the GOP was only an afterthought? The problem is that you won’t have to imagine anything if President Trump and the pro-freedom right don’t prevail in November, and even then, it might just be a short respite from the Democrat party’s deliberate destruction of the country as founded. As much as most people would like to deny...

The federal judge who issued a July 4 preliminary injunction blocking the Biden regime from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans denied the administration’s motion to stay on Monday.Less than one week after he agreed the federal government appeared to lead “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history” and is “alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech,” Judge Terry Doughty of Lousiana’s Western District Court ruled against the Biden administration’s assertion that agencies “face irreparable harm with each day the injunction remains in effect.”“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies,...

Governor Chris Sununu (R-NH) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Republicans should not try to pass laws on cultural issues because it is “trying to beat the Democrats at being big government authoritarians.” Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve been talking about trying to sort of remind the party that Republicans are about limited government. You said recently, ‘Republicans are almost trying to outdo Democrats at their own game of being big government and having a solution and a say on everything.’ Who were you thinking of when you say that? SUNUNU: Oh, there’s a lot- I...

“Someone said things aren’t getting worse. The veil over society is being removed.” So begins the narration on a recently uploaded YouTube video titled, “The Veil over Society Got Removed for a Moment.” Currently pushing over 170,000 views in five days, it’s a stream-of-consciousness exploration of society during the pandemic. The video begins, (without quoting Shakespeare), by proposing that, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” It then segues into a straightforward review of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research in 1971, it was a real social experiment...

Former secretary of state and loser in 2016 presidential election Hillary Clinton worries that "that Americans may not really understand what is at stake in the midterm elections. They may not grasp that it could mean the end of our democracy if Republicans retake the House and Senate. Just the other day historian Michael Beschloss warned that if Republicans win our democracy will be lost, our children will be arrested and killed by a brutal authoritarian regime." "Republicans try to scare voters by harping on rising inflation and surging crime as reasons to oust Democrats from power," Clinton asserted. "We...

In Germany's Lower Saxony and Bavaria, citizens are now barred from publicly displaying the letter "Z," which has become a symbol used by the Russian army during the war. Anyone who displays the symbol at demonstrations or publicly showcases it on cars or buildings could now face a fine or up to three years in jail, according to the Moscow Times. "It is incomprehensible to me how this symbol 'Z' could be used in our country to condone this crime," Boris Pistorius, Lower Saxony's interior minister, said in a statement, according to the news outlet. Similarly, Bavaria's Justice Minister Georg...

To truly lead, one must serve. This concept is an accepted foundation of all good leaders, be they political, business, or religious. They are entrusted to lead through wisdom and never fear; humility and never arrogance. History shows that to reject that principle ultimately leads to authoritarianism, dictatorship, and a manifestation of evil in the world. But too many of our leaders have now let go of that basic practice, and it’s time that we hold all of our leaders to account. The recent actions and latest comment of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is just one of the glaring...

COVID-19 is a dream come true for every Marxist and would-be globalist aristocrat throughout the world. The governments of all freedom-loving democracies have been transformed, virtually overnight, into oppressive authoritarian regimes, seemingly while we slept. Evidence, however, that the COVID pandemic may not have been just an unfortunate set of circumstances is starting to accumulate.Six months ago, it was revealed that a scientist with connections to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the People’s Liberation Army, may have been trying to develop a vaccine long before the COVID virus “escaped” the confines of the institute. According to a June 4th...

Tory MP Sir Charles Walker has raged at 'disgraceful and un-British' police officers as they bundled an elderly woman into a van for protesting outside Parliament. The former chair of the 1922 Committee told the officers that their actions were 'an outrage' as he walked across towards Portcullis House on Tuesday afternoon. Various reports said that the 72-year-old woman was participating either in an anti-lockdown protest or an anti-vaccine demonstration. Raising the incident as a point of order, Sir Charles told the Commons: 'I have just witnessed an elderly lady peacefully protesting with a handful of other people be arrested...

Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. Question everything. Test everything. Scientific knowledge is established by evidence, not authority. The method is sound, but the execution may be imperfect. That's why I have faith in the methods of science but not necessarily in scientists. Experts in science have a store of credibility that can be maintained only by their performance. I have a great deal of trust in the meteorologists at the National Weather Service because their forecasts are 80%–90% accurate (no weatherman jokes, please — I used to be one!). But if most of their predictions began...

Has the pursuit of moral triumphalism on the Left led them to abandon their moral compass altogether? Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi makes that argument on his own eponymous site in a lengthy condemnation of the abandonment of civil rights by Democrats and progressives. From Russiagate to COVID-19 all the way into Judge Emmet Sullivan’s courtroom, Taibbi accuses the Left of becoming the authoritarians — perhaps even the fascists, although Taibbi doesn’t use that term — the Left claims to abhor. Of course, one has to ask whether that was the point all along, but Taibbi starts with the presumption...

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had serious consequences for human rights, with authoritarian leaders taking advantage of the pandemic to exert greater authority, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the Bundestag on Friday. “We are observing with great concern how the crisis is boosting authoritarians,” the Social Democrat (SPD) politician said during a debate in the German parliament in Berlin. Maas listed repressive measures taken against journalists in Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and China as examples of responses to the pandemic, all of which are designed to repress freedoms. However, matters closer to home were also of concern to Maas....

Some commenters on this blog think I’m way out of line saying that the totalitarian threat in the US comes much more from the left than the right. Didn’t I see the men with rifles in the Michigan statehouse? (Yes, I did — and I criticized them.) Those men, however out of line they were, are nothing compared with the power of liberals in academia and media to change the narrative of American history. This is what totalitarianism does. It not only tries to control your actions — that’s what authoritarianism is — but it tries to control the way...

(Skip) The primary threat to this nation is not Donald Trump nor his supporters but an evolving autocratic oligarchy made up of the hierarchy of American Left, which includes elements of the political class, the mainstream media, the education establishment and, most recently, the titans of Silicon Valley. (Skip) The common mindset of all those determined to seize power in perpetuity, either by force of arms or the ballot box, is a profound contempt for the dignity and sanctity of human life. (Skip) Additionally, over the past 90 years virtually all potential oligarchs or tyrants have utilized the following six...

Democrats have become increasingly cognizant of the anger, but too often they’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. The answer certainly isn’t socialism. Middle-class voters currently presume that elites already control the government—so why would they want to give the bureaucracy any more power? Rather, Democrats need to become the party of justice. They need to demand accountability from bad actors—and point out where Republicans would give them a pass. They don’t need to castigate entire industries, as some might recommend. But when people make decisions that affect innocent bystanders—beating the drums for an ill-conceived war, making complicated financial instruments—they should be...

WASHINGTON — Pot. Cannabis. Hemp. Weed. Grass. The herb takes many names. But in the nation’s capital, where the marijuana lobby (search) was once the recreational diversion of Playboy Magazine's Hugh Hefner, pro-pot special interest groups have crystallized the divergent issues behind the plant and gained a seemingly unified voice. ________________ Puff, Cough, Puff, Cough________________ "It’s a no-brainer. It makes no sense putting old and sick folks in jail for an herb that makes them feel better," said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project (search), which was established in 1995 by Rob Kampia, a former mainstay at the...

Family Of Killed Soldier: Vigil Crowd Threatening POSTED: 5:48 pm CDT September 9, 2004 UPDATED: 11:02 am CDT September 10, 2004 DALLAS -- A candlelight vigil took place Wednesday night to remember U.S. war dead in Iraq during the week of the 1,000th casualty. One North Texas family whose relative -- Chad Drake -- was killed outside Baghdad on Monday, was among the mourners at Dallas City Hall Plaza. A family friend said the vigil turned abrasive toward the family members. The friend sent an e-mail message to NBC 5 News that described the alleged treatment some vigil attendees directed...

DEPLETED URANIUM SHELLS DECRIED Citizens find Bush guilty of Afghan war crimes By NAO SHIMOYACHI Staff writer A citizens' tribunal Saturday in Tokyo found U.S. President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms during the U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan in 2001. The tribunal also issued recommendations for banning depleted uranium shells and other weapons that could indiscriminately harm people, compensating the victims in Afghanistan and reforming the United Nations in light of its failure to stop the U.S.-led operation there. The tribunal participants spent two years examining Bush's role as...

Camera's first catch gets felony drug charge As Marcus D. Jackson smoked dope in a blue Chevy Caprice, he had no idea anyone was watching, police say. But about a block away, officers were monitoring his every move on a surveillance camera set up at Augusta and Pulaski to target crimes both serious and minor that bring down the neighborhood's quality of life. When they swooped in and arrested Jackson, the officers allegedly found $20 worth of pot and Ecstasy, a so-called "club drug," valued at $60. The 1:30 a.m. Saturday bust was the first one for Operation Disruption, which...

The Star Tribune's July 26 editorial "Cost of driving," which portrays a personal automobile culture as publicly subsidized in a betrayal of conservative values, gets its fundamental political nomenclature all wrong. If we don't name things correctly, our thinking goes off in dysfunctional directions, followed in logical course by inappropriate actions. Like many self-defining "progressive" Americans the Star Tribune misrepresents what "conservative" means in our culture. Today's conservatives are really "liberals" and today's liberals are really "authoritarians."