Free Republic

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, sparked controversy on May 23, 2025, by posting on the Bluesky social media platform: “If Trump doesn’t comply, we’re in second amendment territory.” The statement was made in response to a report on a federal judge’s ruling that blocked President Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, appearing to suggest people take up arms to overthrow or assassinate the America First leader. The May 22 injunction froze the administration’s plan to eliminate the department, which included terminating around 1,300 employees. Mann’s post—interpreted by many as...

**SNIP** "October 8, when I saw the protests in Times Square, and then I saw what was happening the next day on October 9, and at Harvard, where more than 30 student groups signed onto a letter blaming Israel on the attack on itself. And then we saw the same thing happen from campus after campus, from Columbia to NYU to Tulane to MIT, Cornell, Penn. It just felt like the world had lost its mind," she said. "The silence, the dismissal, the denial." "And so, by the end of October, I knew that I needed to document what was...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Giving a new meaning to the phrase mad scientists, angry researchers, doctors, their patients and supporters ventured out of labs, hospitals and offices Friday to fight against what they call a blitz on life-saving science by the Trump administration. In the nation’s capital, a couple thousand gathered at the Stand Up for Science rally. Organizers said similar rallies were planned in more than 30 U.S. cities. Politicians, scientists, musicians, doctors and their patients made the case that firings, budget and grant cuts in health, climate, science and other research government agencies in the Trump administration’s first 47...

A University of Pennsylvania Professor is being slammed for sharing social media posts celebrating the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the school's connection to the crime. Alumni Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested on Monday and charged with murder for the December 4 slaying. Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies Julia Alekseyeva, who described herself as a 'socialist and ardent antifascist' on her website, made several posts embracing Mangione. In a since-deleted TikTok, Alekseyeva is smiling as the Les Miserables song 'Do You Hear the People Sing?' played. 'Have never been prouder to be a professor...

Luigi Nicholas Mangione, the whiz kid Ivy League-educated high school valedictorian accused of the execution-style murder of the CEO of one of the nation's largest healthcare providers, may have spiraled out of control after traumatic back surgery. The procedure, which allegedly left Mangione in significant physical and emotional distress, may have contributed to his deteriorating mental state, a factor authorities are considering as part of their investigation. New York prosecutors have formally accused 26-year-old Mangione, a native of Towson, Maryland, of the fatal shooting of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. The incident occurred outside the New York Hilton in midtown...

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 University of Pennsylvania will move forward with its historic punishment of conservative professor Amy Wax. The Ivy League university has been investigating Wax, a legal scholar, for years now following a variety of comments she has made over the years about crime, IQ, and immigration. She has also invited white nationalist speaker Jared Taylor to address her class several times.

The University of Pennsylvania is embroiled in yet another scandal in the wake of October 7: communications school lecturer Dwayne Booth is under fire for political cartoons that critics say are antisemitic. One of Booth’s illustrations, entitled “Slaughterhouse,” shows Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with red glowing eyes, covered in blood and holding a knife. The controversial images were published on Booth’s personal website, crowncrack.com, where he uses the pseudonym Mr. Fish.

Dr. Mohammed Alghamdi, a physician and professor at University of Pennsylvania helps his students destroy posters of Israeli civilians kidnapped by Hamas. He brought his own scissors with him. Via @canarymission.

Swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship earlier this year, has been nominated for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

A Philippine government attorney was fatally shot while riding in an Uber with his mother on their way to the airport in Philadelphia, police said. Prosecutor John Albert Laylo, 35, and his mom, Leah Bustamante Laylo, were heading to Philadelphia International Airport to catch a flight home from a vacation in the US when gunfire broke out around 4 a.m. Saturday, police said. Police said someone in a black car fired several rounds into the victims’ Uber at a red light near the University of Pennsylvania, striking Laylo in the back of the head. The gunman then moved to the...

A University of Pennsylvania professor drew ridicule online for suggesting that first responders waited too long to engage the shooter in Uvalde, Texas last week because “police didn’t give a damn” about “brown kids.” In a since-deleted tweet from Friday, UPenn Religious Studies and Africana Studies Professor Anthea Butler — who is also an MSNBC contributor — suggested that racism was responsible for the police failure to stop a gunman at a Texas elementary school in an attack that left 19 children and two adults dead. “So since no one else will ask, I will. Did those children die because...

A University of Pennsylvania professor drew ridicule online for suggesting that first responders waited too long to engage the shooter in Uvalde, Texas last week because “police didn’t give a damn” about “brown kids.” In a since-deleted tweet from Friday, UPenn Religious Studies and Africana Studies Professor Anthea Butler — who is also an MSNBC contributor — suggested that racism was responsible for the police failure to stop a gunman at a Texas elementary school in an attack that left 19 children and two adults dead.

University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) professor and MSNBC contributor Anthea Butler suggested that Texas police didn’t respond sooner to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde because they “didn’t give a damn” about a school filled with mostly “brown kids.” “So since no one else will ask, I will. Did those children die because most of them were Mexican American and the police didn’t give a damn about a school w predominately brown kids? I mean, because it’s Texas.. and if you think everyone who isn’t white is illegal,” Butler tweeted on Friday.

A University of Pennsylvania Law School professor's comments to Tucker Carlson have ignited a firestorm of criticism. Amy Wax told Carlson that "American Blacks" and non-Westerners feel "resentment, shame, and envy" toward Westerners for their "outsized achievements and contributions." Wax also referred to India as a "shithole" and said non-Western immigrants shouldn't criticize America because their countries are inferior. Nikki McCann Ramírez, senior research director at Media Matters for America, posted two clips of the exchange on Twitter. In fewer than 24 hours, the clips are approaching a cumulative 2 million views. The first begins with Carlson asking Wax about...

A University of Pennsylvania law student couldn't shake his paranoid suspicion that his two neighbors, Drexel University graduate students, were foreign spies sent to work on some sort of a terrorism plot, police said. His anger-laced curiosity grew after he approached the roommates, both Indian-born bio-engineering majors, during a seemingly friendly conversation yesterday morning as the three men left the apartment building at 43rd near Pine streets before class, said cops. At about 12:30 p.m, the 31-year-old Korean-American law student returned home, took out his legal Glock-9, and knocked on his neighbors' front door. The 22-year-old Drexel student, the only...

While Ukraine hoaxer Alex Vindman may achieve an early victory in this case, he may soon deeply regret his decision to sue. On Feb. 2, Alex Vindman, the driving force of the first impeachment of President Donald Trump, filed suit in a federal court in D.C. against Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son; Rudy Giuliani, the president’s former personal attorney; Julia Hahn, the former special assistant to the president; and Daniel Scavino Jr, a Trump communications official. Vindman’s lawsuit alleges the four defendants conspired to intimidate and retaliate against him, in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of...

When Joe Biden announced he was opening a foreign policy center at the University of Pennsylvania, the goals for the project were ambitious. At its founding in 2018, Biden described the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement as "a place where policymakers here and abroad will know they can be in touch with some of the best minds." The center is one of several organizations Biden founded since leaving the White House in 2017, including the domestic policy-focused Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and the Biden Cancer Initiative, all launched in 2017. All three entities have...

Over the weekend, a female swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team said in an interview that “women are now third-class citizens” and their “rights are being taken away.” Her remarks came after UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, who is a biological male competing on the women’s swim team, competed against biological females and won two races on Saturday. In an interview with The Washington Examiner, the unnamed swimmer said that Thomas won the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle races against Harvard University. This is Thomas’ first year competing on the women’s team. Thomas competed on the men’s team for three...

Peter Schweizer’s book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win shows how donations from Communist China to the University of Pennsylvania almost tripled after the university established a “Biden Center” in 2017. As the book lays out, the Biden family has a very extensive business relationship with Chinese Communist Party elites, and those elites were not shy about celebrating Joe Biden’s election in 2020 as a golden opportunity to further develop their influence over American government agencies and institutions. Three years before Biden was elected president, the University of Pennsylvania made him a professor and established the “Biden...