Free Republic

Police have arrested more than 3,400 people for ‘offensive’ online comments in one year an investigation by The Times has revealed. Figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that political police chiefs have been spending taxpayers’ money on arresting internet trolls under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it illegal to intentionally “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” introduced in 2016. Given that thirteen police forces have refused to submit the figures of their arrests of internet commentators, the total number of politically motivated harassment and arrest by police is certain to...

Free speech has been faring poorly on American college campuses. Many students don’t believe in it at all (a point I examined recently in this piece), and many administrators believe they can restrict it to small areas and only with their prior approval. The trustees and top officials at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) are in that group. For the system’s flagship campus at Amherst, the officials have decreed a policy that places student First Amendment rights in a straightjacket. Free speech and rallies may only be held on a small plot of land (less than one percent of the...

The court determined that Antifa leader Yvette Felarca's legal claim "was not brought in good faith." Hayward, CA – Antifa leader and middle school teacher Yvette Felarca was ordered to pay over $11,000 in damages to former Berkeley College Republicans President Troy Worden on Thursday, following an Alameda County Superior Court ruling. Felarca, a national organizer for antifa-aligned group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), filed a civil harassment restraining order against Worden in September, 2017, and alleged that he stalked her by appearing at BAMN events, the San Francisco Gate reported. BAMN also led protests against conservative speakers who came...

Free speech, the driving principle of the American experiment in how free men govern themselves, is a principle that does not always travel well. Free speech requires constant defense and the careful attention of loving hands. Mere lip service won’t do it. Americans are armed with the First Amendment, the most important amendment of all, and it does not guarantee polite or even responsible speech, but free speech. The humblest citizen is entitled to say whatever he pleases. He can expect to pay the consequences of irresponsible speech, but the government can’t stop him from saying it. Certain politicians even...

The government's theory would equally criminalize insulting posts on a NRA page, or on a pro-Trump organization's page, or on a Communist Party page. In September 2016, Mark Feigin posted five insulting comments on the Islamic Center of Southern California's Facebook page (before he was finally blocked by the ICSC from commenting): • "THE TERROR HIKE ... SOUNDS LIKE FUN" (written in response to the Center's "Sunset Hike" announcement). • "THE MORE MUSLIMS WE ALLOW INTO AMERICA THE MORE TERROR WE WILL SEE." • "PRACTICING ISLAM CAN SLOW OR EVEN REVERSE THE PROCESS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION." • "Islam is dangerous...

It was apparently the Holy Grail of the left’s dream narrative , a white right wing terrorist with hordes of guns stopped in the nick of time from committing a mosque massacre by a bold black Democrat heroine! The way the facts seemed to fit the leftist template was so compelling that any Democrat party apparatchik would have jumped on the chance . Hard core Democrat/Socialist Kamela Harris was no exception. A fellow calls a mosque and makes threats. A mosque member following up on some anti-Islamic Facebook posts calls the Facebook man and thinks the voice is similar to the...

Larry Abramson, Dean of the University of Montana (UM) School of Journalism, has irreparably harmed the reputation of his school. With its 93% acceptance rate, UM has never been a selective university with a stellar reputation. Nonetheless, Abramson’s decision to reject my selection as the keynote for 10th annual Jeff Cole Distinguished Lecture Series has backfired and badly embarrassed the institution. To make matters worse, UM President Sheila Stearns has missed a golden opportunity to mitigate the damage by responding with an unequivocal defense of free speech.Those needing additional background information on the controversy can read my column “Grizzly Bigotry...

California has leveled misdemeanor charges against 41-year-old Mark Feigin after he sent five anti-Muslim posts to the Islamic Center of Southern California’s (ICSC) Facebook page in 2016. The California Attorney General’s office argues that his comments constituted “repeated contact by means of an electronic communication device” with “intent to annoy or harass,” a misdemeanor under California law...

Semester after semester, year after year, tensions on college campuses have escalated, with intolerance of dissent climbing to darkly censorious levels. Facing Trump-fueled rage and censorship from campus leftists, conservative students reacted by bringing in the most offensive speakers possible, such as Milo Yiannopoulos. At the University of California, Berkeley, this rhetorical bomb thrower's opponents lit real fires and smashed the place. Then at Middlebury College in March, protesters against Charles Murray, the conservative social scientist, disrupted his event so that he simply could not speak. They did not want debate. He was obliged to give his address on video...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A California judge has ruled in favor of a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The judge denied a motion for a temporary restraining order filed on Wednesday against Cathy Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California. According to a press release sent by The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, the order would have compelled "Miller to create wedding cakes for LGBT persons, even though doing so would violate her sincerely held religious beliefs."

James Comey is tweeting again, this time quoting Robert H. Jackson, a former Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice and the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after WWII: James Comey ✔@Comey “[T]he citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor . . . who serves the law and not factional purposes” Robert H. Jackson (former Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice, chief Nuremberg prosecutor) 12:34 PM - Dec 15, 2017 2,025 Replies 13,885 Retweets 40,002 likes Subtle.

This week’s category winner: Calling millennials “snowflakes” is damaging to their mental health, reveals survey of 16-24 year olds.My first concern is the fact that anyone would even think to conduct such a survey.  My second is that it’s not just the snowflakes themselves buying into this victim du jour mentality: The thoughts were echoed by adults of all ages, with 58 per cent claiming the label is unfairly applied, the survey showed.A further 57 per cent felt that the term 'generation snowflake' could also harm the mental health of young people.  Instead of telling these post-millennials (which most of...

The University of Connecticut has issued new guidelines for speakers and campus events after an altercation at a speech by a conservative commentator titled “It’s OK To Be White.” UConn President Susan Herbst said Monday in a campus-wide email that events or other programming will not be allowed if the school determines the individual involved represents a “danger to our community.” Herbst says speaker Lucian Wintrich had no criminal history, but UConn was “disturbed” to learn that an individual who traveled with him has at least one arrest for a “violent offense.” A young woman appeared to take paperwork off...

A college professor is supposed to teach his subject and serve as a role model for students, especially when it comes to civility and respect for the rights of others. Often, however, professors feel justified in engaging in behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in children, as a recent case at Fresno State University shows. Last April, a group of students, members of Fresno State Students for Life (FSSL), sought and received permission from the university to exercise their rights of free speech by writing pro-life messages in chalk on the sidewalks leading to the university library. They had finished their...

AN OPEN LETTER TO SARAH CARTER, MARIBYRNONG, AUSTRALIA. Councillor Carter, This letter to you and for Australia is about environmentalist memorial trees, free speech and democracy. In 1945 during World War 2 (WW2), my father served in the fight against fascism on the Indonesian island of Morotai. In 2012, I encouraged some Morotai locals to plant memorial trees to honor the memory of soldiers who fought for freedom. Memorial trees are a proud Australian tradition often forming Avenues Of Honour in the approaches to many of our country towns. In 2013 a landowner in Morotai planted over 100 memorial trees...

I have survived Berkeley, twice. I had walked the Walk of Fame in Downtown Los Angeles, and I have taken on town halls all over Southern California, and I went through it all to fight for freedom of speech and make the case for President Trump and the MAGA Agenda.Halloween Night at Cal State Fullerton, I got to engage the crowd of students who would be protesting free speech absolutist and conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. I didn’t want to hear him. I wanted to meet the students, see the force of outrage against his presence on the campus, and start...

House Republicans have finally unveiled their new tax reform bill. Despite some delays, Republican leadership insists they are still on schedule to have the bill on President Trump's desk by the end of the year. "Our goal in the House is to get this bill out of the House, passed on the floor by Thanksgiving," House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers told CBN News. The hold-up centered on a proposal to end the federal income deduction for state and local taxes utilized by high tax states like New York and California. GOP lawmakers in those states are hesitant...

Antifa protesters led a chorus of demonstrators who tried to shout down and disrupt a speech at Columbia University by controversial right-leaning writer Mike Cernovich, marking yet another occasion of campus turmoil surrounding a speaker invited by a school's Republican club. Cernovich was invited by the Columbia University College Republicans to speak Monday night, however, protesters in the hall succeeded in multiple interruptions before demonstrators outside ratcheted up the tension.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Exasperated U.S. senators harshly criticized representatives of Facebook, Twitter and Google at a hearing Tuesday for not doing more to prevent Russian agents interfering with the American political process as early as 2015. At one point, Sen. Al Franken shook his head after he couldn't get all the companies to commit to not accepting political ads bought with North Korean currency.

This charade is really about is California Democrats and the left conflating a spurious rise in "racial strife" to the 2016 presidential campaign and President Donald Trump Last week the California State Senate held the second committee hearing in two weeks on “hate speech” couched as “Violent Protests and Police Response.” Democrats were once again seeking approval for legislation on thought crimes. This is a dangerous path as countries without a First Amendment have demonstrated. Writer Andrew Sullivan says, “writers and speakers are now routinely hauled into court for hurting someone’s feelings or violating some new PC edict. In Canada,...