Free Republic

The harm President Biden is doing goes far beyond public policy and geopolitical mistakes. The harm President Biden is doing goes far beyond public policy and geopolitical mistakes. The damage has not only stained the presidency, but has permeated American culture and any other culture that has access to audio and video of him. At this point, we must acknowledge that the Democrat party is responsible for the damage, and the president can no longer be held accountable for his actions. In addition to jeopardizing multiple American interests, the president’s deteriorating health -- being allowed to play out as it...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called on Wednesday for older Americans to pass the political torch to a new generation, saying that it’s up to a new cohort of leaders to change the country’s “toxic political climate.” “As a 70-year-old person, I’m part of the problem,” Bush said at a luncheon at Miami’s Jungle Island hosted by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. “It’s time for my generation to get off the stage politically.” Bush, who served eight years as Florida governor before launching an ill-fated bid for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, did not point fingers at any...

There has not been a U.S. president in recent history who has made the number of blunders or exhibited the confusion of current President Joe Biden. Biden’s cognitive abilities and physical condition have been called into question ever since he took office in 2020. Everyone in the Biden administration has covered for the president but obviously recognized his state as an 80-year-old man with these issues. Former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, was a powerhouse of energy during his term, staying on the go and working long hours. When the pandemic reared its head, Trump visited the hospital...

Dr. Zeke Emanuel, an advisory board member appointed to Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, has argued that living past the age of 75 is not of value and that younger people should receive a flu pandemic vaccine first. In 2014, Emanuel penned an article arguing that the quality of life by the age of 75 had dwindled to the point that one would be “better off” if nature took “its course swiftly and promptly.” “The fact is that by 75, creativity, originality, and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us,” he argued. Biden, the presumed...

On Monday, Joe Biden — who has claimed the mantle of president-elect while President Donald Trump continues to contest the preliminary election results — named 13 health experts to his Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, including former Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. Back in 2014, Emanuel published an op-ed in The Atlantic saying he wants to die at age 75 because life simply isn’t worth living after that point. The op-ed isn’t just personal, either — it attempts to convince the reader that death may be preferable to living to an advanced age. Biden named three co-chairs to the advisory board:...

Tom Brady is a now free agent, but the NFL player doesn’t have the same worries as millions of Americans over 40. Workers over 40 are only about half as likely, or less, to get a job offer than younger workers if employers know their age, according to research released this week that was conducted by economics professor David Neumark at the University of California, Irvine. The data was adjusted for differences in skills, fit and availability. Key to the study was a major change that a company made to its hiring systems. Previously all applicants at a national restaurant...

A 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker on Tuesday offered a blunt response to a colleague who apparently heckled her during a speech she gave addressing the urgency of climate change on the floor of Parliament: “OK, boomer.” Chlöe Swarbrick, a member of the Green Party, expressed the statement as she emphasized how the consequences of climate change will fall on people of her generation. As she expressed support for legislation to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Swarbrick noted how she would be around the age of the average lawmaker in Parliament by that time. "We are in a climate...

Bernie Sanders insists he feels better than ever less than a month after heart surgery, but his return to the campaign trail this week sparked new questions about the unusually old age of the Democratic Party’s leading 2020 presidential candidates. Both Sanders, 78, and Joe Biden, 76, suggest their age isn’t a major issue, but voters, particularly older voters, aren’t so sure. Gordon Lundberg, a 71-year-old retired Lutheran pastor from Ames, said candidates’ health is a key issue for him because he understands how it feels to age. He’s leaning toward Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because, even though she’s...

Kamala Harris herself couldn't have been tougher on Joe Biden than David Gregory was on CNN's New Day this morning. Gregory raked the Dem frontrunner over the coals on numerous issues. Highlights: "No, I don't think he looks really good right now." "He looks out of touch. He looks older. He looks out of step with the times." "I don't think there's any good excuse for him not being ready for that first debate on these issues. Are you kidding? Kamala Harris previewed all this stuff. She had criticized him on this before. Now he says he was unprepared? That's...

WASHINGTON, DC – You might recall the films, The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains, and The Invisible Woman, starring Virginia Bruce. These works of fiction entertained audiences in the 1940s. But, it’s the 21st Century and it turns out invisible people really exist. “They live among us in the guise of senior citizens,” according to Dan Weber, president of AMAC, a powerful senior advocacy organization. San Francisco-based psychologist and psychotherapist Tamara McClintock Greenberg put it this way in an article for Psychology Today: “Why people are increasingly treated as if they’re invisible as they age (more prevalent it seems, for...

Soon it will be 50 years since Woodstock. Not sure what surprises more: the fact that seminal cultural event is coming up on a half-century or that some of its featured acts are still touring. Wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll a youth movement? Didn’t The Who’s Pete Townshend write the immortal line “Hope I die before I get old?” and sing it at Woodstock? Answers: Yes but not anymore. And yes Pete did, indeed, sing that line from “My Generation” on the third and last day of Woodstock on Aug. 17, 1969. This week, The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts...

<p>As he considers running for president, Joe Biden is talking with friends and longtime supporters about whether, at 76, he’s too old to seek the White House, according to several sources who have spoken with the former Democratic vice president.</p>

I was born into a family of famous gay pagan authors in the late Sixties. My mother was Marion Zimmer Bradley, and my father was Walter Breen. Between them, they wrote over 100 books: my mother wrote science fiction and fantasy (Mists of Avalon), and my father wrote books on numismatics: he was a coin expert.

A campaign that aims to get millennials to register to vote turned heads by enlisting the help of actors posing as elderly, white Trump supporters. The ad, titled "They’re doing fine, are you?" was created as part of the Knock the Vote movement, started by ACRONYM, an organization that claims to be "the largest digital program focused on electing Democrats to state legislative seats across the country." In the cheeky one-minute PSA, a group of elderly white actors purported to be Trump supporters urges "young people" not to get out and vote on Election Day for a plethora of outrageous...

It slashed IBM’s U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well...

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday welcomed Parkland student leftist David Hogg for an interview, and host Scott Simon offered the typical "how are you coping" and "do you have time to be a teenager" softballs. But when he teed up Hogg to say something political, Hogg was obnoxious. First, he insisted "oftentimes" cops discriminate against people of color: SCOTT SIMON: There were people who said this week when there was an incident at a school in southern Maryland. And the assailant was apparently put down by a guard at the school. There were people who said, that shows. You have armed...

On February 28, President Trump signed the repeal of Barack Obama’s Social Security gun ban. On March 2, SELF magazine reported that Trump had ended firearm background checks for persons who were severely mentally ill. This is Fake News 101 and it is a mantra that many other mainstream outlets have also pushed. For example, also on March 2, NBC News reported that Trump ended firearm “gun checks for people with mental illness” and during the process of repealing of the ban NYT, NYDN, and HuffPost accused Republicans of helping the mentally ill get guns.

There’s a stereotypical view of job opportunities for older workers, and it’s not pretty. It goes something like this. If you’re past 50 and thinking of a career switch, forget it. The opportunities for older workers in the new economy are pretty much nonexistent. And you’re in even worse shape if you’re in your 50s or 60s and retired but want to get back into the workforce in a job that is both challenging and financially rewarding. The only spots available are low-skilled and low-paying—whether that’s burger flipper, Wal-Mart greeter or Uber driver. Boy, have a lot of people have...

A friend recently called to tell me he had been laid off from a company where he worked for more than a decade. He’s 60 years old and not ready to retire, either financially or emotionally. He is, however, prepared for the reality of the situation. He recognizes that he has a tough road ahead. He knows he probably won’t ever earn the salary he had. And even for a much lower-paying job, he’ll be competing with people half his age. Need proof of that? A GAO report in 2012, the most recent available, said unemployed workers 55 and older...

The national engineering accreditation agency requires that curricula provide students with some exposure to ethics. My department decided to fulfill this requirement by teaching our own, in-house ethics course, and it’s my turn to teach it. I’m taking the theme of ethical decisions the students may need to address as future engineers, engineering managers, tech entrepreneurs and so on. As you can see from the course reading list, I’ve chosen age discrimination as one of the topics. This generated an especially lively class discussion, including on a couple of points that I believe are new to the tech age discrimination...