Free Republic

The specter of divorce still haunts young adults and disadvantaged couples, contributing to family instability.

Democracy depends on the consent of the losers. For most of the 20th century, parties and candidates in the United States have competed in elections with the understanding that electoral defeats are neither permanent nor intolerable. The losers could accept the result, adjust their ideas and coalitions, and move on to fight in the next election. Ideas and policies would be contested, sometimes viciously, but however heated the rhetoric got, defeat was not generally equated with political annihilation. The stakes could feel high, but rarely existential. In recent years, however, beginning before the election of Donald Trump and accelerating since,...

Dean Foods, America's biggest milk processor, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday amid a steep, decades-long drop-off in U.S. milk consumption blamed on soda, juices and, more recently, nondairy substitutes. The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing cooperative owned by thousands of farmers. "Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption," CEO Eric Berigause said in a statement. Since 1975, the amount of milk consumed per capita in America has tumbled...

A “tidal wave” of mass immigration has “tilt(ed) the field toward the Democrats” in the state of Virginia, the New York Times admits. Last week, Democrats took control of Virginia’s House of Delegates and the State Senate. Now, the Democrats hold power over the state’s legislature, the governor’s seat and the lieutenant governor’s seat — the first time since 1993 that this has occurred. The New York Times now admits that four to five decades of mass immigration — where about 1.2 million legal immigrants are admitted to the United States every year — has shifted Virginia into a blue...

The downward spiral of learning in American K-12 public schools continues. Does anybody care? Where’s the outrage, headlines, or breaking news? Congress and Big Media are too preoccupied with the impeachment scam in Washington D.C., to notice a real crisis in America. Our fourth and eighth-grade kids can’t read, and they are struggling to subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number to come up with the correct answer. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, fourth-graders are the only ones to make a statistical gain and by only 1 point in...

Popularity continues to increase in an innovative way for women to become familiar and hone their skills with firearms through the Shoot Like A Girl 2019 Great American Tour. This year about 2,455 women participated in the mobile firearms, range-training program that is housed in a traveling semi-tractor trailer. “It is extremely popular,” Karen Butler, president and founder of Shoot Like A Girl (SLG2 Inc.) told America’s 1st Freedom. “This year we’ve had the longest lines we have ever had, with people waiting for half an hour before we even opened.” Some female participants visit the range in order to...

Poll: Nones Outnumber Catholics More than 1 in 4 US adults are atheist, agnostic or irreligious DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Irreligious adults — called "nones" — now outnumber adult Catholics in the United States, according to a recent poll. A report by Pew Research Center released Thursday is showing that 26% percent of America's adult population identify as nones, a group composed of atheists, agnostics and irreligious. This dwarfs the mere 20% of U.S. adults claiming to be Catholic. The poll found the percentage of U.S. adults professing to be nones surged in just one decade from 17% in 2009 to 26% in 2019. During the same period, the adult...

The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009. Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in...

Despite being the start of meteorological autumn, September felt more like a summer swelter across much of the contiguous United States. The month was also drier than normal, but 2019 continued its soggy stretch with the wettest January through September period (YTD) ever recorded. The U.S. also experienced four new weather disasters since May, each exceeding $1 billion: Hurricane Dorian, Tropical Storm Imelda, a southern/eastern severe weather outbreak, and flooding of the Arkansas River that impacted Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Here are more highlights from NOAA’s latest monthly U.S. Climate Report: Climate by the numbers September 2019 The average temperature...

A survey produced by the Harris Poll in partnership with Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) finds young Americans’ comfort with LGBTQ individuals has plunged from 63 percent in 2016 to 45 percent in 2018. According to the Accelerating Acceptance report, Americans aged 18-34 who say they are comfortable interacting with LGBTQ people dropped from 63 percent in 2016 to 53 percent in 2017, and then to 45 percent in 2018. The survey results are published as lesbian, gay, and transgender activists celebrate Pride month. “At the same time, the Trump administration continues to attack the LGBTQ community through...

The Guttmacher Institute released updated U.S. abortion data for 2017 showing that America’s abortion decline continues. Overall, the U.S. abortion rate fell by approximately 20 percent between 2011 and 2017. Furthermore, the decline was widespread, with 45 of 50 U.S. states reporting declining rates.Considering the salience of abortion as a public policy issue this year, it is unsurprising that Guttmacher’s new data received a great deal of media coverage. On Wednesday morning, the five U.S. newspapers with the largest online circulation, USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, all...

Average scores dropped on the SAT this past test-taking cycle, with a greater percentage of high-school students not ready for college-level work, according to results released on Tuesday by the College Board. A record 2.2 million 2019 graduates took the college entrance exam, up from 2018’s record of 2.1 million. The increase is partly attributed to more districts offering students the option to take the test during the school day, often at no cost. The College Board said the lower scores were partly due to the rise in students taking the exam during the school day. These students are more...

For all the complaining we hear on cable news on a daily basis, you might be tempted to think that the world was ending. Liberals wring their hands over how terrible things are under the hateful regime of the Bad Orange Man. Conservatives see Democrats making gains in the polls and fret that the rise of socialism and the inevitable collapse of our nation that would follow may be just around the corner. Maybe we spend too much time watching cable news because most people don’t feel that way.A new poll out from Scott Rassmussen asked Americans how the...

Former NFL star Larry Johnson sounded off on social media about a supposed “effeminate agenda” in the NFL and NBA — and he says high-ranking Freemasons are involved. Johnson, who was the premier running back for the Kansas City Chiefs from 2003 to 2009, fired off the series of tweets seemingly out of nowhere. “There is an Effeminate Agenda going on amongst the NBA & NFL elite, peddled by high ranking Masons/handlers to indoctrinate the heterosexual sports world without them knowing, for the buying power of the LGBTQ community,” he started. “….But we not ready to have that conversation yet.”

Ah, those much-anticipated halcyon days of retirement — sleeping in, golf at will, travel too, leisurely day after leisurely day. No more whining colleagues, carping bosses, endless meetings with no result, tedious commutes.Of course, few retirements turn out that way. And now a new Associated Press poll finds that for a variety of reason about a quarter of Americans have no intention of ever retiring at all.That may turn out to be unrealistic too, given the vagaries of health for senior citizens and their family members, the rapid growth of robots and automation and the ever-changing work skill sets...

Oldline Protestant denominations make for a competitive peer group, but the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is on track to claim the top spot for fastest declining major U.S.-based church last year. Total membership declined from 411,140 in 2017 to 382,248 (-7%) while average worship attendance declined from 139,936 to 124,437 (-11%) according to numbers reported for 2018. Baptisms dropped from 4,344 to 3,782 (-13%) while the number of other additions (including transfers in) declined from 7,441 to 6,969 (-6.4%). At the current rate, the denomination will shrink by another 50 percent within a decade. This annual rate of decline...

I was taken by surprise last month while holidaying in Biarritz. As I splashed through the surf towards the beach I passed a woman paddling. She was topless and it struck me that this was a sight you don’t often see any more in France. I first came to France on summer holiday as a young boy and recall asking my mother, who is of Scottish presbyterian stock, why Frenchwomen didn’t wear bikini tops. She replied from behind her sturdy one-piece swimming suit that it ‘was just the French way’ Not any more. In 1984, a survey found that 43...

There is a lot spoken and written about the wine industry’s inability to truly connect with more consumers about what wine is all about and why there is so much to discover if only people took the time to look. But why should they? Are they ever going to change the habits of a lifetime and not just see wine for what essentially it is. An alcoholic drink to enjoy with friends or on your own. That’s where Paul Mabray start his conversations about wine. If wine is truly going to connect with its target audience it needs to really...

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has released an interesting poll this week regarding public attitudes toward legal abortion. Most public-opinion polls conducted by media outlets and survey-research firms contact only several hundred people. This PRRI survey, conducted between March and December of last year, surveyed more than 40,000 Americans. As a result, it is able to provide state-level data on public attitudes toward life issues, and on attitudes about abortion among some relatively small demographic groups. The poll contains two findings that are particularly helpful to the pro-life movement. First, this poll, like several polls conducted so far this...

For decades, the wealthy, suburban county – about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles – has been a conservative stronghold in a state that has become increasingly liberal. But since the 2018 midterm elections, the so-called “Orange Curtain” has come down and Democrats have made huge gains in an area once dominated by Republicans.