Free Republic

Every time a disruptive technology arrives, the prediction is exactly the same: mass unemployment. ATMs were supposed to eliminate bank tellers. Spreadsheets were supposed to wipe out accountants. History tells a completely different, and terrifyingly counterintuitive, story. Out of every job title tracked by the U.S. Census over the past 60 years, exactly one has been fully eliminated by automation. In this episode, we break down the history of automation, from the birth of the ATM to the strange paradox of the airline pilot, to find out what it tells us about our future with AI. Are tools like Claude...

Gone are the days of university freshmen reading classical philosophers like Plato or contemporary pedagogues like Ta-Nehisi Coates. These days, incoming college students are lucky if they can get through Judy Blume’s “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.” According to a new “Survey of Adult Skills” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a forum for 38 high-income, predominantly Western countries — a not insignificant number of adult students enrolled in higher education are now reading and doing math at a level which, in a more functional society, would be alarming for a middle schooler. The survey,...

As the country marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a new 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐞 survey lands like a gut punch: nearly half of all Americans — 𝟒𝟔% — don’t know what America 250 is actually celebrating. Among Gen Z, it’s worse: 𝟔𝟏% couldn’t say. Laura Ingraham didn’t hold back on air: “𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴? 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵? 𝘖𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺?” The answer, judging by the numbers, is...

A Debate on College Sports June 30, 2026 College sports are not a topic I address often, though the subject has surfaced occasionally in my writing. Most recently, in “A Rally on Campus,” I argued that the rapid growth of pickleball on college campuses is a positive development. It gets students off their phones, helps them build friendships, and deepens their connection to campus life. But, earlier this year, in “A Dangerous Bet,” I also criticized colleges and universities for partnering with sports-betting companies that normalize gambling. Much of our coverage of collegiate athletics has likewise taken a skeptical view....

“You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid." Dennis Prager would often respond to callers on his national radio show with that line when they said something so bereft of common sense that the only explanation for it had to be four or more years of brainwashing from radical professors. During his years as a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, where his professors believed such inane things as the belief that there is no difference between men and women and that the Soviet Union and the United States were morally equivalent during the...

Katharine Birbalsingh, delivered a recent speech for The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship./Image: Video screenshot via ARC British educator, author, and prominent advocate for education reform, Katharine Birbalsingh, delivered a recent speech for The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, and her frank assessment of modern education has taken the internet by storm. In her address at the ARC Conference, Birbalsingh, Britain’s “strictest headmistress,” argued that the West is experiencing a profound civilizational decline driven by the erosion of traditional moral values in the younger generation. Citing incidents like the death of Henry Novak and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, she blamed “white...

Britain's strictest headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, argues that the West's moral crisis began with the values we taught our children. She explores how schools, culture, and social media have shaped a generation to see the world through the lens of oppressor and oppressed—and why restoring duty, responsibility, and moral character is essential to the future of Western civilization. This is a powerful speech presented this week in London about saving Western Civilization. It's worth listening to her entire speech. She is an amazing, dynamic speaker very passionate about saving Western Civilization. Stunning! She calls herself is the "Strictest Headmistress in Britain"...

A man who routinely boasted about being the first open drag queen to be elected to a school board in the United States was arrested last week for disturbing sex crimes involving children as young as 18 months. Travis J. Longo, 46, who is the vice president of the Cazenovia Central School District’s board of education in New York state, was initially charged over a “pattern” of sending explicit communications to a child under 12 years old. Once authorities seized and searched Longo’s phone, child pornography was discovered. Tyler Toomey, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office in the...

Praising a proposal to require Texas public school students to read Bible stories and passages in class, supporters say the perspective is an important acknowledgment that the nation was founded on Judeo-Christian values. Rabbis and Jewish leaders, however, criticized the biblical passages chosen by the State Board of Education as heavy on Christianity and dismissive of Judaism, reducing the term Judeo-Christian to “a fig leaf at inclusion.” The State Board of Education kicked off a week of meetings Monday by hearing from more than 400 experts, teachers and concerned citizens on two proposals — one that would overhaul the state’s...

The perfect Democrat.

For years, a South Florida nursing school operator sold a simple proposition: Skip the schooling, buy the diploma, become a nurse. Nearly 3,000 people took her up on it. On Monday, the scheme caught up with her. Carleen Noreus, 52, of Plantation, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering following a two-week trial in Fort Lauderdale. She had taken her chances before a jury rather than accepting a plea deal, changing her mind mid-trial, a decision prosecutors say will factor in her favor at sentencing. Noreus served as president of Carleen Home Health...

Over 7,700 suspected "ghost students" have now been flagged in the Minnesota public education system. This comes as the federal government is working to crack down on fraudsters and scammers across the nation. Scammers known as "ghost students" enroll in colleges, claim financial aid, then disappear with taxpayer funds, and the Minnesota State system, which has 33 colleges and universities, has now identified over 7,700 in the 2024-2025 school year in the public university system. The Minnesota education system was recently given $3 million to verify students as well as identify scammers. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously...

Denver Public Schools board members voted unanimously May 20 to dismiss a 50-year-old foreign language teacher following a district investigation and an independent review into student complaints about a class assignment. The board voted 7-0 after meeting in executive session to consider the firing of Jennifer Honka. Honka taught French Language and Culture at Northeast Early College for all of her eight years with the district. Officially, Honka was fired for incompetence and neglect of duty. There was no public debate among the board members prior to the vote. Honka's classroom instruction first came into question during the 2023-24 school...

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday to temporarily halt an Idaho law that would restrict bathroom access for transgender people, ruling that major parts of the law are likely unconstitutional. In a 30-page decision, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford issued a preliminary injunction preventing House Bill 752 from taking effect while legal challenges proceed. The ruling also granted provisional class-action status to transgender residents across the state, extending the court’s protections beyond the original plaintiffs. “Another issue of enforceability is a law enforcement officer’s ability to determine an individual’s ‘biological sex,'” Judge Brailsford wrote. This ruling is a...

A federal judge in Idaho on Tuesday partially blocked enforcement of a new law that would’ve criminalized transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The law was set to go into effect July 1. The portion of it that prohibits people from entering changing rooms that don’t align with their biological sex will still go into effect. The federal court order comes in response to a lawsuit filed by six transgender Idahoans challenging House Bill 752, which the Legislature passed and Gov. Brad Little signed this year. The law makes it a misdemeanor crime, punishable by...

A UC Berkeley camp counselor accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl while she slept in a campus dormitory has been slapped with eight felony charges, authorities said. Quaylin Wesley, 27, a former youth basketball trainer, substitute teacher and Cal graduate, was arrested after the alleged attack during a summer camp hosted at the university on Saturday. According to The Scanner, the girl was in a bed in a UC Berkeley residence hall when Wesley — who was serving as an overnight counselor — allegedly fondled her while she pretended to be asleep. The suspect fled the room when one...

The Denver Public Schools Board of Education voted UNANIMOUSLY to dismiss French teacher Jennifer Honka. Honka, who taught at Northeast Early College high school, reportedly made female students kiss each other during classroom skits and graded them on their performance. . . One student who refused to participate testified she received a zero on the assignment. Students told other teachers they felt pressured and uncomfortable being forced to engage in these highly personal and sexualized role-plays in front of classmates.

Last week in Frisco, Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. No one in the jury believed his claim of self-defense and instead found that Anthony provoked a confrontation with student Austin Metcalf by going into his school’s tent during a track meet, taunting the students there, refusing to leave despite repeated requests, and finally plunging a knife into Austin’s heart after being nudged. It remains a mystery why exactly Anthony did this, which might explain why so many people even entertained his claim of self-defense. But the facts of the...

Hundreds of Stanford graduates staged a dramatic walkout during a commencement ceremony on Sunday as Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to the stage. The massive protest turned what should have been a celebration of academic achievement into the latest flashpoint in the ongoing battle over Big Tech's ties to Israel. As Pichai rose to deliver the keynote address at one of the nation's most prestigious universities, groups of students stood up and streamed out of the ceremony in protest. Some waved Palestinian flags, blew whistles and unfurled banners condemning Google's relationship with the Israeli government. The demonstration marked the latest...

Jeff Metcalf is to blame for the murder of his son, according to one professor at a historically black university. Dr. Stacey Patton, a journalism professor at Howard University, accused Metcalf of failing “to teach your boy that Black children have boundaries” in a personal Substack post on June 10, 2026, a day after Karmelo Anthony was found guilty in the 2025 murder of Austin Metcalf. Anthony, of Centennial High School, pulled a knife on Metcalf, of Memorial High School, and stabbed him in the heart at a track meet in April 2025 moments after Metcalf asked Anthony to leave...