Free Republic

This trend may be individually smart, but it makes our society dumber and ultimately undermines the potential educational value of a college education. College students admit to lying about or hiding their views on family, faith, politics, and other socially contentious issues, such as gender ideology, in order to "fit in" at their colleges. At least, in this case, at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. Almost everybody is living a lie, to avoid bullying by the other 10% of students and, of course, the college professors who act like the old Soviet Political Officers in the Soviet Union's...

Ursula's new "European Media Freedom Act" permits the arrest of journalists if it is in the "public interest." ... The act also allows surveillance software to be deployed on devices used by media service providers, editorial staff, or related persons in the “public interest. Who decides the “public interest?” Sophie ... The new law also contains numerous provisions that call for action against alleged "disinformation." Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission President ... "national lists" are to be created listing the owners and addresses of media outlets, as stipulated in Article 6. Despite its intent to strengthen media freedom, critics...

A controversial European Union proposal dubbed “Chat Control” is regaining momentum, with 19 out of 27 EU member states reportedly backing the measure. The plan would mandate that messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, must scan every message, photo and video sent by users starting in October, even if end-to-end encryption is in place, popular French tech blogger Korben wrote on Monday. Denmark reintroduced the proposal on July 1, the first day of its EU Council presidency. France, once opposed, is now in favor, Korben said, citing Patrick Breyer, a former member of the European Parliament for Germany and...

Banks that “de-bank” or drop customers for political reasons could soon face monetary penalties and other disciplinary measures under an executive order that has been drafted by the White House. The Wall Street Journal reports that the executive order would direct bank regulators to investigate possible violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), antitrust laws or consumer financial protection laws when lenders discriminate against conservatives or cryptocurrency companies. The draft of the executive order doesn’t name any specific banks but it does reference an instance in which Bank of America was accused of shutting down the accounts of a...

Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertiliser derived from fossil fuels. This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides “will result in about half the world’s population not having enough food to eat”. They add that eliminating Net Zero fertiliser will create “worldwide starvation”. In a wide-ranging paper titled ‘Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero – the...

‘How many people do you employ this month?” might sound like the kind of question an employer can easily answer, but it’s not. Especially for large businesses, the exact number of employees in a given month is hard to pin down. The media report layoffs and hires in round numbers, but for calculating total employment in the country, it really matters whether “500” means 478 or 523, because those discrepancies multiplied across millions of businesses make a huge difference. Within government, Donald Trump’s appointee as BLS commissioner, William Beach, has been a leader in calling for modernizing the surveys that...

Orwell's Big Brother is definitely peering into every aspect of one's life in the United Kingdom.The latest step into dystopian hell is the so-called Online Safety Act, and it was enacted into law in the name of, again, as you might imagine, FOR THE CHILDREN.As these sorts of things tend to be.The way people in the UK might navigate the internet is changing.Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must take action - such as carrying out age checks - to stop children seeing illegal and harmful material from July.Services face large fines if they fail to comply with UK's sweeping...

On Wednesday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll ordered West Point to terminate the employment of President Biden’s recently hired censorship czar. The revelation came following a now unavailable Tuesday announcement from the academy that Jen Easterly, the former director of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), would be serving as the new Robert F. McDermott Distinguished Chair within the school’s Department of Social Sciences. Easterly graduated from West Point in 1990. “A Homecoming Worth Celebrating,” West Point Dean Shane Reeves wrote in a now unavailable X post congratulating Easterly. “Welcome home!” ... Easterly led CISA from July 2021 to January...

The White House has warned Sir Keir Starmer to stop threatening American tech companies amid mounting backlash over Britain’s online safety law. Members of Donald Trump’s administration are monitoring the Online Safety Act with “great interest and concern” after key allies said it was censoring free speech and imposing unfair burdens on US businesses. The law, which regulates online speech, allows the British government to levy massive fines on companies like Apple, Truth Social, and X if it finds that rules on hate speech have been broken. Those in the president’s inner circle see the potential penalties as an unwarranted...

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, allegedly told The Atlantic she was "shutting down" its profile of her after learning the author had reached out to other Democrats without telling her. Staff writer Elaine Godfrey described in an article on Sunday that Crockett called her four days before the piece was published "to express frustration that I had reached out to so many House members without telling her first." "She was, she told me, ‘shutting down the profile and revoking all permissions,’" Godfrey wrote. Despite this assertion, the article was published and included comments from both Crockett and other Democratic figures. Democrats...

Some people may call it the chickens coming home to roost. Media Matters for America (MMfA), a George Soros-funded left-wing censorship group, reportedly may be on the verge of collapse. The organization is reeling after a series of lawsuits and government investigations, which are straining its already frazzled finances. (MMfA raised $19 million in 2023 — and somehow spent $20 million.) But here’s what some may consider poetic justice: The group essentially claims the government is now doing the Right’s bidding in an effort to destroy it.This is the same group, a 2012 report held, that was previously coordinating with...

Speaking at the opening of the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called AI a new engine for growth while adding that governance is fragmented.China said on Saturday (Jul 26) that it wanted to create an organisation to foster global cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI), positioning itself as an alternative to the US as the two vie for influence over the transformative technology. China wants to help coordinate global efforts to regulate fast-evolving AI technology and share the country's advances, Premier Li Qiang told the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. US President Donald...

US politics polling on President Trump's popularity... Meanwhile polling regarding the Democratic Party gives it strongly negative... "finish the job" President Trump says that Israel... Facebook and Instagram forced to ban political advertising in the European Union... Iran holding a 'serious, frank and detailed' discussion with Britain, France and Germany... It's Saturday in Taiwan where recall elections are underway for 24 members... After two days of clashes Cambodia saying it wants an 'immediate ceasefire' with Thailand... A Reuters report says that entrepreneur Elon Musk shut down Starlink... ...federal judge in Illinois throwing out a US Justice Department lawsuit against that...

*************************************************** STUDENT LEADERS PERSECUTED FOR BELIEFS One Student Faces Suspension, the Other Impeachment *************************************************** HERNDON, VA - What started as a dispute at Arizona State University over "gifts or information" received from a Young America's Foundation activist rewards program has quickly escalated to one student leader being threatened with impeachment, and another suspended from school without due process. Shanna Bowman, vice president of activities for the ASU student government, and Oubai Shahbandar, her chief-of-staff, are the first student government leaders at ASU to advocate a balanced lecture program. They have invited several well known conservatives to counter the leftist speakers...

It’s bad enough that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had been funneling millions in tax dollars to leftist propaganda mills NPR and PBS over the decades. But what if we were to tell you that the CPB funded one of America's "fact-checking" giants backed by George Soros responsible for censoring conservatives on social media platforms for years? Because that’s exactly what we’re about to tell you. MRC Business discovered that the CPB, which is fully funded by tax dollars through federal appropriations, gave $599,330 to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in 2023. Poynter, which runs the left-tilting International Fact-Checking...

"The Late Show" wasn't just a platform for Democrats under Stephen Colbert's tenure, it was also one for left-wing journalists and hosts. Fox News Digital has counted at least 200 episodes of "The Late Show" that featured members of the liberal media. The far-left politics of "The Late Show" have been facing scrutiny after CBS announced last week that it was pulling the plug on Colbert's program, which will officially wrap up in May 2026. According to IMDB search results, CNN anchor and "60 Minutes" correspondent Anderson Cooper holds the record with 20 formal guest appearances on "The Late Show."...

The Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) filed a public civil action on Tuesday that seeks to strip conservative news network Jovem Pan of its three radio broadcasting licenses. MPF accuses the network of allegedly having spread a “disinformation campaign,” broadcasting content that “attacks democracy,” and advocating for military intervention during the 2022 presidential election through three of the shows produced by the network. The action would also require some Jovem Pan networks to air government-created content.

Mike Benz on how USAID spent tens of millions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to remove Jair Bolsonaro from power and end free speech in Brazil: “When populist waves swept the world within the U. S. in 2016 with Trump and with what happened all over Europe with Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini and Nigel Farage, USAID declared censorship holy war against every single populist group, including Bolsonaro. Steve, I’m telling you right now, if USAID did not exist, Bolsonaro would still be the president of Brazil and Brazil would still have a free and open internet. It...

Can someone please tell New York things have changed? New Yorkers are stuck in the Biden era or earlier. Some are still pushing BLM-catch-and-release policing; some are still hoping that defunding the cops might somehow be a way to make the streets safer. Meanwhile, they just nominated Zohran Mamdani, a wacky radical socialist, as their Democratic candidate for city mayor, a guy who makes AOC look like she could be an editor for The American Conservative. But the biggest policy throwback of recent memory is a new law to force social media censorship on a state-wide level to cut off...

"CBS has announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026, bringing the show’s historic run—and the Late Show franchise itself—to a close."Colbert addressed the show’s cancellation himself while taping tonight’s show."