Free Republic

A tech tycoon who was abducted, stabbed and shot dead in central California had bullied and humiliated his employees ahead of his grisly murder, a court heard. Tushar Atre, 50, was dragged out of bed at his Santa Cruz beach house around 3am on October 1, 2019, by a group of men who broke into his plush $5.4 million residence. The men - two of whom were his employees - stabbed and kidnapped the millionaire, before shooting him and leaving him for dead 14 miles away in a rural mountain area, investigators alleged. They also stole thousands of dollars in...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — On a scorching hot Saturday in San Antonio, dozens of teachers traded a day off for a glimpse of the future. The topic of the day’s workshop: enhancing instruction with artificial intelligence.After marveling as AI graded classwork instantly and turned lesson plans into podcasts or online storybooks, one high school English teacher raised a concern that was on the minds of many: “Are we going to be replaced with AI?”That remains to be seen. But for the nation’s 4 million teachers to stay relevant and help students use the technology wisely, teachers unions have forged an...

For generations, Americans believed the First Amendment was untouchable — the cornerstone of our Republic. But today, freedom is under attack. Behind closed doors, government agencies, Big Tech, universities, and NGOs built a powerful system to control what citizens can say, hear, and believe. This is not speculation. It is a documented reality. “God Complex: The Rise of America’s Censorship Machine” is a Big Picture Originals documentary that reveals how this system came to be, how it operates, and why every American who values freedom must pay attention. Because when speech is silenced, the truth disappears — and with it,...

Elon Musk wants H-1B visas because he says America needs more tech workers. The real reason for these visas is our schools aren’t teaching math well enough. By law, H-1B visas go to foreigners who do specialized jobs, mostly in tech. Every year, 65,000 regular visas are handed out, plus 20,000 for advanced degrees. A 2023 federal report showed 65% of H-1B jobs are computer-related, but less than 1% go to social sciences. America’s math problem is getting worse. In 2024, a staggering 72% of eighth-graders failed to score at the proficient level in math, which is up from 66%...

GROK’ED AND LOADED: President Trump and Elon Musk are teaming up again — this time to bring Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast to his administration, aiming to revolutionize and supercharge AI innovation across all government agencies.

-snip- Foreign workers, starting September 21, can’t enter the U.S. on an H-1B visa unless their employer’s petition (the paperwork requesting the visa) includes an extra $100,000 payment to the federal government. This fee must be renewed and paid annually, according to United States Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. -snip- Nationally, there are approximately 730,000 active H-1B holders as of early 2025. -snip- Washington currently ranks 4th nationally for H-1B activity. The state, particularly the Seattle metropolitan area, is a major hub for the U.S. tech industry, with companies like Amazon and Microsoft relying heavily on H-1B visas to hire...

Summary Tech industry trade group sued to block Mississippi law NetChoice claims the law violates free speech protections WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Thursday to put on hold a Mississippi law requiring that users of social media platforms verify their age and that minors have parental consent in a challenge by a trade group whose members include Meta's (META.O), Facebook, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), YouTube and Snapchat (SNAP.N). The justices denied a request by NetChoice to block the law while the Washington-based tech industry trade association's legal challenge to the law, which it argues violates the...

Melinda French Gates has made a glaring dig at Donald Trump's tech billionaire friends for not staying true to their values. The billionaire philanthropist and businesswoman, 60, voiced her concern over Silicon Valley's political shift to the right and argued that many leading figures are only 'pivoting' because of public relations and image. It comes after tech giants, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook were all front and center at Trump's inauguration in January, and after her ex-husband, Bill Gates, sat down with the president at the White House to discuss his...

Numbers don't lie Recently, however, I was looking for web search engine popularity numbers. The usual sites people use for these numbers, such as Statcounter, as Ed Bott recently pointed out, have real problems. So, I went to the most reliable source I know of, the US federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP). This site gives a running count of US government website visits and an analysis. On average, there are 1.6 billion sessions in the last 30 days, with millions of users daily. In short, DAP gives a detailed view of what people use without massaging the data. According...

Evan Richardson grew up in Silicon Valley, surrounded by big tech companies that transformed how people live, socialize and work.As a curious kid, Richardson took apart electronics and put them back together. A career in technology seemed like a natural and safe path after his service in the military.“Tech was always an industry you go into, you’re going to make a lot of money and you’re never going to get fired,” he said.For thousands of tech workers like Richardson, those days are over. In March, the 43-year-old Hayward resident was caught off guard when he learned his employer, payment company...

Ok, sorry it has a paywall---this is only my review of it. Everyone needs to read this powerful book. It's DENSE, and took me about 4 hours to read, but the insight into how the big social tech companies are stealing our lives is important. Previously in my substacks I had written part 1, covering the first 1/3 of the book. This covers the last 2/3.

The FTC is not suing Meta for its past leftism or current MAGA-ism but for its longstanding, documented monopolism. Even Big Tech’s toughest conservative critics must admit Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have had a good few months. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, the $1 trillion company finally scrapped its worst woke initiatives, from Facebook’s infamous “fact-checking” regime to its internal DEI programming. Its sites are apparently no longer throttling political content. And Zuckerberg has even rebranded himself — going “all-in on a MAGA-dominated Washington,” buying a $23 million home two miles from the White House,...

Joe Biden’s final act of shamelessness was pardoning his entire crime family in the final hours of his presidency. There’s a mountain of corruption that’s yet to be fully revealed. On the weaponization of government front, you’d think the sustained lawfare launched against President Donald Trump from the Department of Justice was evidence enough. Pro-life activists and the January 6 defendants also being ensnared by the Biden DOJ’s extralegal crusade on political dissidents. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The Media Research Center found not one, not ten, but 57 anti-free speech and censorship initiatives aimed at chipping away...

Elon Musk is leading a group of investors offering to buy OpenAI for nearly $100 billion. The takeover bid was submitted to OpenAI's board of directors on Monday, Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff told the Wall Street Journal. Open AI is currently a non-profit run by Musk's nemesis Sam Altman. The tech entrepreneurs are currently locked in a legal battle about the future of the company, considered a leader in artificial intelligence research. The maker's of ChatGPT have not publicly responded to the unsolicited bid from Musk and his associates. Musk's audacious bid has thrown a spanner in Altman's plans to...

Subtitle: A unanimous jury verdict was reversed by an Obama judge shortly after the Democratic administration apparently took interest in the case. Jeff Parker, the CEO of the small Florida-based technology company ParkerVision, explained to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck Thursday how tech giant Qualcomm allegedly stole one of the most revolutionary patented innovations in American history with the help of elements of the Obama administration — technology that was ultimately offshored to China, possibly giving America's pre-eminent adversary a competitive edge. "We are at the beginning of seeing corruption exposed like never before in America," said Beck. Long war...

The establishment's worst nightmare isn't Donald Trump. It's his teenage son. With ONE decision he sent the mainstream media scrambling. Here's how an 18-year-old just outsmarted every political expert: In 2024, something unprecedented happened in political media: A presidential candidate completely abandoned traditional news outlets. Instead, he went all-in on podcasts, YouTube, and creator collaborations. The mastermind behind this shift? His 18-year-old son. But here's where it gets fascinating... See, Barron Trump understood something crucial about Gen Z: 63% of them prefer to see "real people" rather than polished media personalities. They trust long-form conversations over soundbites. And they can...

We were able to meet with senior staff. So we met with very senior people in the White House, in the inner core. We will directly regulate and control those companies. There will be no start-ups. This whole thing where you guys think you can just start companies and write code and release code on the internet — those days are over. That’s not happening.” This is why I took you through the long preamble earlier, because at this point, we are no longer dealing with rational people. We’re no longer dealing with people we can deal with. And that’s...

Recently, I read a phenomenal article in The Tablet titled ‘Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment’. If you haven’t yet, stop everything and read it here. It’s one of those rare pieces that crystallises so much of what’s wrong with modern governance and societal manipulation, dissecting how narratives are shaped and enforced in ways that feel insidious and disturbingly effective. Most people are completely unaware that this is how power works today. The article explains a strategy used to manufacture consent and control dissent called ‘permission structures’— the societal cues and signals that compel us to conform or stay silent. (Also known as...

* Meta is set to cut about 5% of its workforce, focusing on the company’s lowest-performing workers, CNBC confirmed Tuesday. * CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed employees about the decision to “move out low performers faster” in a memo posted on the company’s internal Workplace forum on Tuesday. * Zuckerberg told employees 2025 will “be an intense year.” Meta is set to cut about 5% of its workforce, focusing on the company’s lowest-performing staffers, CNBC confirmed Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed employees about the decision to “move out low performers faster” in a memo posted on the company’s internal Workplace forum...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted the Biden administration “pushed” for Facebook and Instagram to censor posts that were factually true but politically inconvenient. And his admission proves what many already knew: the Supreme Court’s decision in Missouri v. Murthy was a grave miscarriage of “justice” and an affront to the First Amendment. Upon taking office, the Biden administration coordinated with social media giants to censor posts that contained factually correct information that was deemed unfavorable. But the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Murthy v. Missouri that Louisiana and Missouri did not have standing to challenge the Biden administration’s collusion with...