Free Republic

Last week, 60 Minutes’ executive producer Bill Owens resigned in protest — but Owens and the rest of the news program have never taken responsibility for their own corruption.Last week, Bill Owens, the executive producer of CBS’ flagship news program 60 Minutes, resigned, “citing encroachments on his journalistic independence,” per The New York Times. In the first show since the news of Owens’ resignation broke, 60 Minutes ended the program with a glowing, if dubious, tribute to Owens that has since gone viral online. The program took the unusual step of alleging unethical behavior by CBS’ corporate parent Paramount for...

CNN's Jake Tapper launched a scathing attack on CBS owner Shari Redstone for 'bending the knee' to Donald Trump on Tuesday, following the resignation of longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens. Owens, 58, had been the executive producer of the CBS news magazine since 2019, but told staff in a memo on Tuesday that he has come to realize he is no longer able 'to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience' amid the president's $20 billion lawsuit against the network, the New York Times reports. Trump has claimed the network deceptively...

This video contains excerpts of Sam Altman's 9/15/16 interview with Elon Musk. They were the original Co-Chairs of OpenAI. Here, they openly promote the connection of AI and transhumanism (the merging of the human brain/mind with technology, as is being developed by Musk's Neuralink company). Elon Musk himself said that there's a "ten to twenty percent chance AI goes BAD." We are gambling with the future of every man, woman, and child on earth. At the very least, we should ensure that those who are involved in the Stargate Project are ethical and sensible human beings. There is a serious...

Larry Ellison says AI will enable a vast surveillance system that can monitor citizens.Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle, shared his thoughts on AI during a recent meeting.Oracle, a software company, is aggressively pursuing AI projects.Walking down a suburban neighborhood street already feels like a Ring doorbell panopticon.But this is only the start of our surveillance dystopia, according to Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle. He said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure "citizens will be on their best behavior."Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this...

Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Meta, has recently made waves with his latest acquisition—a $300 million superyacht named Launchpad. Zuckerberg’s luxurious vessel, which is longer than a football field, has drawn criticism based on his climate activism. The Hindustan Times reports that with an estimated net worth of $180 billion, Mark Zuckerberg has joined the ranks of tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in buying a luxurious superyacht. The 118-meter vessel, designed by Swedish-based Espen Øin International, boasts a sleek, multilayered exterior with a robust steel hull and an aluminum...

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is set to donate tens of millions of dollars to back Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) for president in 2024, according to reports. Ellison has been planning to support Scott’s presidential bid since he donated $30 million to the pro-Scott super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund, CNBC reported. After months of speculation, Scott officially kicked off his presidential campaign on Monday in North Charleston, South Carolina. Scott gave a shoutout to “one of his mentors,” Ellison, who sat in a VIP section at the rally. “One of my mentors, Larry Ellison, is with us today, and I am...

interviews with nearly two dozen GOP donors, strategists and voters suggest the desire for a backup option has intensified amid questions about how the Florida governor would fare [cut] With an eye on DeSantis’s vulnerabilities, many donors have kept the door open to other potential White House contenders. One lesson that sticks with many benefactors who helped Jeb Bush raise more than $100 million by July of 2015 only to see the former Florida governor falter is that Trump’s ability to torpedo his rivals — as he is now trying to do with DeSantis — necessitates a backup plan. “My...

Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, dies THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49. Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office....

Oracle and Walmart’s plan to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations has been pushed back indefinitely, as President Joe Biden reviews former president Donald Trump’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese tech companies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Oracle’s stock was slightly positive in premarket trading Wednesday and Walmart’s was slightly negative. Trump pushed TikTok to find an American buyer by threatening to ban the popular video app due to concerns that its Chinese parent company ByteDance could hand over U.S. users’ data to the Chinese government. TikTok has denied that this...

Billionaire Bill Gates is warning that America is heading for “civil war” and fears that “political polarization” could “bring it all to an end.” Gates made the prediction during a recent keynote conversation at this year’s Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy. The Microsoft co-founder revealed that he plans to end Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 25 years. “The goal for the foundation is to run for another 25 years,” Gates said in the keynote conversation with Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane. He revealed that he plans to spend billions of dollars over the next few years on...

Giving an entirely new meaning to the term “collaboration,” Oracle has become a paying customer of Amazon Web Services as part of Larry Ellison’s strategy to make Oracle’s databases available on as many cloud platforms as possible. Ellison opened his remarks on this week’s earnings call by describing the availability of Oracle’s MySQL HeatWave database on AWS and emphasized repeatedly the imperative of customer choice. Declaring that “the multi-cloud era has begun,” Ellison said, “Our job is to give our customers the ability to choose application and infrastructure technology from multiple cloud providers, and then have those different clouds coexist...

REDWOOD CITY (CBS SF) – Longtime Bay Area software giant Oracle announced Friday that it has moved its headquarters to Texas, becoming the latest Silicon Valley firm to relocate during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a regulatory filing obtained by Bloomberg, the company based in Redwood City will be headquartered in Austin. In the filing, the software company said the move “means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time.” Oracle said it would continue to support other office locations throughout the country,...

TikTok's US footprint is saved in a deal that includes Oracle and Walmart owning 20% of a newly formed TikTok Global and an IPO within 12 months. Oracle said it will be TikTok's cloud provider in a deal that gives it a 12.5% stake in the social media network and a key reference customer. Walmart will own a 7.5% stake and explore the intersection of TikTok and e-commerce. In a statement, Oracle said "the technical decision" by TikTok was based on the Zoom reference account. However, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, was facing a Sunday shutdown order over security concerns by...

Oracle Corp said on Monday it would team up with China’s ByteDance to keep TikTok operating in the United States, beating Microsoft Corp in a deal structured as a partnership rather than an outright sale. Getting the transaction across the finish line will rest heavily on Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison, one of the few top technology executives to openly support President Donald Trump, who has ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok amid concerns over the safety of the personal data of U.S. consumers. Key moments: December 2016: Oracle Chief Executive Safra Catz joined then president-elect Trump's transition team, and...

Last week Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison held a fundraiser for President Trump’s re-election campaign at his Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs, Calif. At the time the fundraiser was announced, there was silence from The Resistance, which is unusual given the reality of today’s political environment – public figures who support Trump must be shamed and shunned. It turns out about 300 employees of the American multinational computer technology corporation protested Ellison’s fundraiser but they did so the day after the event which seems like an odd way of going about it. Oracle employs about 136,000 people, so...

Dr. Rick Bright, who led the agency tasked with creating a coronavirus vaccine, is alleging that he was demoted for not bowing to pressure to direct money toward hydroxychloroquine, and has hired Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, who became known for representing Christine Blasey Ford, to make his case. Bright, the now-former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said in a statement Wednesday that he was also removed as deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response and instead given a smaller position at the National Institutes of Health. Bright told the New York Times that he...

Last week Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison held a fundraiser for President Trump’s re-election campaign at his Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs, Calif. At the time the fundraiser was announced, there was silence from The Resistance, which is unusual given the reality of today’s political environment – public figures who support Trump must be shamed and shunned. It turns out about 300 employees of the American multinational computer technology corporation protested Ellison’s fundraiser but they did so the day after the event which seems like an odd way of going about it. Oracle employs about 136,000 people,...

Employees at software giant Oracle are demanding that the company’s Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison cancel a fundraiser for President Donald Trump set to take place this week. Recode reports that following Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison’s decision to host a fundraiser for President Trump this week, employees at the company have demanded that Ellison cancel the event. Breitbart News reported that President Donald Trump is expected to attend a campaign fundraising event at Ellison’s Rancho Mirage estate on Wednesday, just two weeks before California’s Super Tuesday primary. Ellison will be hosting supporters on a golf outing at his home on...

The left went bonkers on Twitter when news broke that Big Tech billionaire Larry Ellison was hosting a pro-Trump fundraiser. Lefty outlet Vox Recode characterized the billionaire founder of Oracle Corporation's decision to support President Donald Trump as "unthinkable for a tech titan" and “a major coup for the Trump team." Recode continued: "Ellison is, after all, the country’s fifth-richest person, with a net worth of almost $70 billion.” Vox Recode also issued a harbinger in its Feb. 12 report: “[T]he fundraiser [to be held in Ellison’s estate] is sure to expose the flamboyant 75-year-old billionaire [Ellison] to a new...

A super PAC supporting Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign raised $2.5 million in January, including $1 million from tech billionaire Larry Ellison, according to a report filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. The donation from Ellison, the executive chairman of Oracle Corporation, brings his total spending on behalf of Rubio to $4 million, making him among the top donors of the 2016 cycle. Conservative Solutions PAC spent nearly $11 million last month, mostly on ads and direct mail attacking Rubio’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination Ted Cruz and his former rival Chris Christie, who has since dropped out. The...