Free Republic

"Esteemed Comrades of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! Today we ask you to review your files for any communications you may have had with unreliable elements who are critical of our Party and our leader. If you have had contact with journalists, researchers, or other subversives, we ask you to report these interactions in full to the senior comrades responsible for the important work of ideological vigilance. Also, please also indicate if you have encountered any suspicious use of the following terms…" That’s not actually how Acting Undersecretary of State Darren Beattie communicated his request for information - snip =,...

Sowell and Robinson announce Sowell’s new web site, FactsAgainstRhetoric.org

Twelve students who participated in a violent antisemitic protest at Stanford University in 2024 have been charged with felonies, according to a Thursday announcement. The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced that the protesters were charged for "breaking into a Stanford University campus building last year, barricading themselves inside, and vandalizing administrative offices." Many protesters across the nation continue to face penalties for the violent and destructive anti-Israel demonstrations that swept college campuses since the start of Hamas' war on Israel, as investigations have revealed administrators allowed and at times supported pro-Hamas events. "Dissent is American. Vandalism is criminal,"...

At least three dozen more international students and recent alumni of pristine California universities have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration as it continues to zero in on anti-Israel protesters. Stanford University and several colleges part of the University of California system all confirmed to NBC News members of their school communities were caught up in the ongoing crackdown that began last month with the high-profile detainment of Columbia University alum and activist Mahmoud Khalil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month he’s pulled back 300 visas from foreign students, claiming they should be kicked out of...

This week, the ladies react to the ransacking of the federal government by Elon Musk and his fleet of DOGE dorks. Then, Kate and Leah speak with Jonathan Gienapp, professor of law and history at Stanford University and author of Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique, about what originalists get wrong about history and how the founders thought about the law.

Researchers in artificial intelligence (AI), from Stanford and the University of Washington, have trained a "cutting-edge" reasoning AI model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a research paper published recently. The model, named s1, purportedly rivals industry-leading models like OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R1 in tests of math and coding skills. The s1 model, along with the data and code used for training, is now available on GitHub. The team behind s1 started with an off-the-shelf base model and fine-tuned it through distillation, a process that extracts reasoning abilities from another AI model by training on its...

...and targeted @TuckerCarlson, @LauraLoomer, @seanhannity, @dbongino, @marklevinshow, @EricTrump, @TheBabylonBee, @prageru, @RealAlexJones, @gatewaypundit and MORE!

When Attorney General William Barr stated "spying did occur" against the 2016 Trump campaign, most attention was focused on the FBI's surveillance of former junior foreign policy aide Carter Page. But the spying Barr was thinking of, and which he said may or may not have been legally authorized, is more likely to be that carried out by Stefan Halper, a former Republican operative and White House aide who became a foreign policy academic with close ties to both American and British intelligence. One could be forgiven for believing Halper was a creation of the spy novelist John Le Carré....

As lawyers, we often take a series of steps to protect the interests of our clients when it becomes necessary to sever or end representation. The dropping of a client can have a damaging impact on the reputation or standing of a client. That is why it was surprising to see Mark Lemley, a Stanford law professor publicly denounce Mark Zuckerberg as part of social media tirade. It is a deeply concerning lesson for students at a law school already rocked by prior controversies over intolerance for opposing viewpoints. When we take on a client, we are closely identified with...

Historian Norman Naimark argues that today's narrow definition of genocide is Stalin's lasting legacy Murder on a national scale, yes – but is it genocide? “The word carries a powerful punch,” said Stanford history Professor Norman Naimark. “In international courts, it’s considered the crime of crimes.”

Attacks on free speech at Stanford University in recent years are emblematic of the problems colleges across the country are facing ... Universities have suffered a cataclysmic decline in public approval and support. only 36% of Americans polled either expressed “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education — once the agreed-on touchstone to upward mobility. Gifting to most universities has been down for two consecutive years. There is zero intellectual diversity on most university campuses. Speakers with conservative viewpoints are often either disinvited or shouted down — and worse. The federally guaranteed student loan program...

In an bizarre twist, a Stanford University expert who studies misinformation appears to have created some of his own — while under oath.

Those who go to sleep at night with the threat of terrorism on their minds might be surprised to learn that Muslim CEOs are running companies that watch over our safety. • Fuad El-Hibri is CEO of BioPort, the only U.S. maker of anthrax vaccine. • Houssam Salloum is CEO of Axiolog, a Detroit firm developing a high-tech system for tracking international cargo into vulnerable U.S. ports. • Nafa Khalaf is CEO of Detroit Contracting, which after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 secured the five major treatment plants that supply water to 4.5 million residents of the Detroit area....

American Academy of Sciences and Letters honors Dr. Jay Bhattacharya with highest award WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya received the American Academy of Sciences and Letters’ top intellectual freedom award on Wednesday for resisting attempts to politically control his scientific work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The academy presents its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom to a scholar “who displays extraordinary courage in the exercise of intellectual freedom,” according to its website. Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, received the honor during the academy’s annual investiture ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C....

Anti-Israel activists took over a building at Stanford University and thoroughly vandalized it before being arrested on Wednesday.The protesters are facing felony charges, and seniors in the group will not be allowed to graduate.Thirteen anti-Israel protesters who invaded and occupied Stanford University’s president’s office were charged with felonies by the school, with some being forbidden from graduating as a result. On Wednesday, the protesters forcefully entered the building that serves as the office of Stanford’s president and provost. The activists, who included 11 current students, left graffiti throughout the Main Quad before barricading themselves in the office building, such as...

Seeks power of popular vote A movement to bypass the Electoral College and elect the president based on the popular vote is gaining steam, racking up almost one-fifth of the support needed to trigger the plan. National Popular Vote, a California-based group formed in 2006, has won commitments from four states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Those four states — Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii — have 50 electoral votes among them. The goal is for states with a total of 270 electoral votes to enter into a compact in which they...

Popular-vote pact picks up steam A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan. *snip* Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s...

The government-funded research project's mysterious removal of Azov’s profile was followed by a State Department decision to allow the controversial right-wing unit to receive U.S. military aid Stanford University’s Mapping Militants Project (MMP), a U.S. Government-funded initiative that conducts research on “violent militant or extremist organizations,” quietly removed their profile on the Azov Battalion early last month. The Azov Battalion (now known as the 12th Special Purpose Brigade “Azov”) is a Ukrainian National Guard unit infamous for its use of neo-Nazi insignia, recruitment of far-right foreign fighters, and alleged war crimes. The Stanford MMP’s mysterious removal of its Azov profile...

During 26 years at the CIA, Marc Polymeropoulos spent a lot of time in rough places, like war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he never suffered any harm until December 2017, when he was sound asleep at a Marriott Hotel in Moscow near the U.S. Embassy. "I was awoken in the middle of the night," recalled Polymeropoulos, 51. "I just had incredible vertigo, dizziness. I wanted to throw up. The room was spinning. I couldn't even stand up without falling down. I had tinnitus ringing in my ears." He suspected a bad case of food poisoning and carried on...

The Stanford Internet Observatory, a small but prominent research group studying abuse on social media platforms, looks to be in crisis, according to a report by Platformer. Some key staff have departed recently, including founding director Alex Stamos and research director Renée DiResta, Platformer reports. A handful of staff have left recently after not having their contracts renewed, and other members have been told to look for other jobs. Platformer describes the turmoil as a “dismantling” of the research group. Stanford Internet Observatory research centers on some of the most pressing types of abuse online, including threats to democracy and...