Free Republic

Freshman [Representative] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will grace the front page of the April 1 [2019] edition of Time Magazine...The Bronx-native, who shook the Democratic establishment by defeating longtime congressman Joe Crowly in 2018, appears in a headshot taken by photographer Collier Schorr next to the headline: “The Phenom.” The story accompanying the front page, written by Charolette Alter, describes Ocasio-Cortez as “the second-most talked about politician in America...

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez should get her own reality TV show. It would be a comedy, of course, with cameras following her around to record a typical day in the life of the face of the Democratic party. Those cameras would record some of the most illogical, incoherent, idiotic, and just plain weird statements from a woman whose worldview has been shaped by socialism. That she's an ignoramus with a primary school understanding of most issues is a bonus. Yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez "grilled" the chairman of Wells Fargo, Timothy Sloan, asking him a series of bizarre questions about "caging migrant children" and...

Statue vandals seem to have mistaken WWII hero for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, museum officials say Vandals in North Carolina may be in need of a history lesson after having set fire to a statue honoring a World War II hero they apparently mistook for a Confederate general, officials said earlier this week. A white marble monument of U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William C. Lee, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division's "Screaming Eagles" during World War II, was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire last week, museum officials said. The statue bears black scorch marks running up...

DUNN, NC (WNCN/CNN) - Authorities said vandals wanted to express their opposition to Confederate monuments by targeting a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The problem is, they went after the wrong statue. Gen. William C. Lee was the commanding officer of the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, and his statue stands in front of his namesake museum, the William C. Lee Airborne Museum. Authorities say someone recently tried to set the statue on fire. “This is a hometown grown boy here that turned out to be an international hero in World War II, but to come...

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka “Occasional Cortex“, revealed an energy and social justice plan today called “The Green New Deal“, promising a massive transformation of American society. However, the substance (full pdf below) is so ridiculous, there are many people now wondering if she and her allies were set-up by political opponents to make themselves look like fools. The goal is to have all Americans eating sustainable algae cakes and sitting around campfires, barefoot, picking parasites off each other…. or something.

“Think of the impact California has had on our culture,” FCTRY CEO Jason Feinberg said in a statement about the company’s Harris doll. “Same-sex marriage. Computers, of course. Movies. Even small things like avocado toast! As a proud New Yorker, it’s a little hard to admit this, but California always figures things out a bit before the rest of us.” “Right now it’s hard to look at Kamala Harris and not get that same sense,” Feinberg said. FCTRY boasts that the 6-inch Harris figures are “a perfect size for all uses” whether “you want to keep her on your desk...

California is suing one of its own cities for not allowing the construction of enough affordable places to live, signaling an aggressive approach to the state’s housing crisis by the new governor, Gavin Newsom. Huntington Beach, an upscale coastal city outside Los Angeles,

As the longest government shutdown in American history lurches toward its fifth week, a grim but growing consensus has begun to emerge on Capitol Hill: There may be no way out of this mess until something disastrous happens. This is, of course, not a sentiment lawmakers are eager to share on the record. But in interviews this week with congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle (whom I granted anonymity in exchange for candor), I heard the same morbid idea expressed again and again. The basic theory—explained to me between weary sighs and defeated shrugs—goes like this: Washington is...

Kakistocracy is a badly underused word which needs to make a major comeback this year, as it is perfectly descriptive of the cabal of loons, clowns, demagogues, crooks and halfwits who are now in charge of the House of Representatives. The literal definition of the word is a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. It’s been around for a few hundred years, but overtaken by others perhaps more colorful to describe slimeball government. Kleptocracy, for example, has a real ring to it. But in surveying the crowd now in charge, who...

Americans just celebrated the birth of Christ 2,000 years ago. What we are celebrating a lot less these days is the birth of our own babies. In short, America’s fertility rate is in a free fall. Over a 60-year period between 1957 and 2017, fertility rates in the United States plummeted. About 11 percent fewer babies were born in America in 2017 (3,853,472) than in 1957 (4,316,233.) But drop is at the same time as the population in America doubled, meaning the fertility rate as measured by number of births per woman in the country has fallen by more than...

Critic calls research ‘postmodern word salad’ University of Toronto scholar Stephanie Springgay’s newly published research alleges that there is more to felt, the material, than typically perceived. In her paper, “‘How to Write as Felt’: Touching Transmaterialities and More-Than-Human Intimacies,” published online in late July by Studies in Philosophy and Education, Springgay suggests that felt, a “dense material of permanently interlocking fibers,” can be linked to racism and capitalism. “[T]his paper addresses ‘the problem of education’ that is predicated on cis-heteronormative White supremacist settler colonial logics that assume knowledge enters from an outside, that is predicated on progress, and that...

Former President Bill Clinton was interrupted by protesters demanding the decriminalization of sex workers worldwide on Friday, while he was giving the closing speech at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. Clinton had just begun addressing the crowd when the protestors began chatting and blowing whistles. “President Clinton, we demand for decriminalization of sex work worldwide and in the United States,” one protester shouted at Clinton. Another protestor shouted at Clinton, “we know you support sex workers, please help us!” Clinton remained silent on stage while the protestors shouted their demands at him. Once they concluded, he commended the conference...

In his first major speech since leaving office, former President Barack Obama endorsed the idea of providing a universal basic income. Speaking at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in South Africa on Tuesday, Obama raised the notion of guaranteed income as a way to reduce what he called "yawning disparities" in wealth, education, and security across different socioeconomic groups. "It's not just money that a job provides," said Obama. "It provides dignity and structure and a sense of place and a sense of purpose. So we're going to have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems, like a...

WASHINGTON -- Austin, Texas, will be the location for the headquarters of the new U.S. Army Futures Command, Army Secretary Mark T. Esper announced today at a Pentagon news conference. Army Undersecretary Ryan D. McCarthy then explained the details. He said the process started with 150 metropolitan areas, narrowed down to five. Besides Austin, officials considered Boston; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and Philadelphia

Thousands of protestors took to the streets in hundreds of cities across the U.S. Saturday, participating in "Families Belong Together" rallies and demonstrations. What protestors are hoping to gain: The immediate reunification of families that have been separated, the end of family detentions, and, more broadly, the dissolution of Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy.

Researchers have discovered an alarming trend: the average I.Q.s of human beings is on a downward spiral. Westerns have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian age, according to a study published by the University of Amsterdam last year.  Jan te Nijenhuis thinks this could be because intelligent women tend to have less [sic] children than women who are not as clever[.] ... [E]ducated people are deciding to have fewer children, so that subsequent generations are largely made up of less intelligent people. Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, calculated the decline in humans' genetic potential....

There will soon be more focus on flushes and scrutiny over showers with a new law signed in by the governor. California is now the first state in the nation to enact tough new water-efficiency standards. The controversial rules limit how many gallons a person can use inside their home per day. “So that everyone in California is at least integrating efficiency into our preparations for climate change,” said Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. So, what are the new rules? In 2022, the new indoor water standard will be 55 gallons per person, per day....

Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall. Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and "hot topic" in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells. It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that...

"President Winfrey" was the talk of the entertainment world after Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. And the "Oprah for president?" possibility was a top story on morning TV. The touchstone of her speech was the #MeToo movement. But her hopeful message -- "A new day is on the horizon" -- could have doubled as a campaign rallying cry. Many liberal-leaning celebrities and viewers certainly heard it that way. And that may have been exactly what Winfrey wanted. As some political strategists have pointed out in the past year, her fame and wealth could make...

A Russian ambulance spotted in central Stockholm sparked far-fetched fears on Twitter that the city might be undergoing an invasion. The ambulance, a good 865 kilometers from the Russian border, was first noticed by local Måns Jonasson when it stopped to help a sick man in Stockholm's Södermalm district. To the great surprise of passers-by, the ambulance had Russian plates and inscriptions, and its Russian-speaking personnel wore uniforms with Russian script. Swedes have a perennial fear of "Russian invasion," and the unexpected guest – although benevolent – played into their anxiety. While some who responded to Jonasson's tweet guessed a...