Free Republic

Author, art professor, feminist, and cultural commentator Camille Paglia speaks on the current transgender mania, the wisdom of early medical & surgical intervention (calling it "child abuse"), and how the explosion of gender identities is a recurring sign of cultural collapse throughout the history of civilization. (see 7 min video)

Ten states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized adult use of marijuana.Supporters of America's long war on drugs said legalization would create disaster. Has it? No.Colorado and Washington offer the longest points of comparison because weed has been legal in those states now for five years.More people in Colorado tried marijuana after legalization, but that's not a surprise.Colorado's crime rate did rise a bit. But many things influence crime rates. Washington state's violent crime rate rose a little but slightly less than the national average.In California, people I interviewed said legalization made the streets safer. "It's cleaned up the corner,"...

A silver mask that had belonged to a Roman cavalryman of imperial times. It was found on the site of the battle of Teutoburg, fought in September 9 A.D. This year marks the 2000th anniversary of the battle that led to the annihilation of three Roman legions and changed forever the history of Europe. It was a tremendous shock for the Romans, who saw their mighty army destroyed by uncivilized barbarians. It was not yet the peak of the Roman Empire, but it was a first hint that something was deeply wrong with it. This text describes the presentation that...

CLEMSON, SC (WSPA) - 30 People were taken to the hospital Sunday morning after a floor collapsed during a party at an apartment complex. It happened around 12:30 am at The Woodlands Apartments on Old Greenville Highway. According to Clemson City Police Department, a private party was being held in the Clubhouse when at some point the floor collapsed and crashed to the second level of the building. So far, there is no life-threatening injuries being reported. The investigation is on-going.

Last week, federal authorities fined Munilla Construction Management $25,868 for “serious” safety violations in its role as the contractor on the Florida International University bridge that collapsed in March, killing six people. The morning after the collapse, Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said the department’s homicide squad would explore criminal charges for contractors such as MCM. “We’ve got to look at the reality that there may be some negligence down the line,” Perez said. Perez answers to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who appointed him director in January 2016. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida where the...

A federal judge Friday blocked the release of documents that could shed light on why a busy road outside Miami was not shut down before a brand-new bridge developing severe cracks collapsed and killed six people. Judge William Stafford said the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the Florida International University bridge disaster, “was exercising its valid federal regulatory authority” in keeping the documents confidential from the media. Stafford’s ruling essentially overturns a previous decision from a state court that would have released the records under Florida’s broad public records law. Stafford said the state court did not...

I’ve been watching the Brett Kavanaugh debacle very closely from this side of the pond, because in a general sense we are so afflicted as well. Reading reports, opinions and comments far and wide I’ve concluded that it is a symptom of an apolitical schism opening up, a schism that is nothing to do with Kavanaugh and is not specifically reported as such anywhere, only obliquely alluded to without any in-depth comprehension. Now that schism has become a chasm that is rapidly widening, and that chasm is the accelerating destruction of the essential, mutually beneficial relationship between heterosexual men and...

Saving Our Institutions: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has always been a man of brilliance and integrity, but something he told an audience recently really resonated with Americans who are growing weary of the Left’s destruction of our culture and society. During a speech at a Federalist Society conference in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, Thomas needled Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey over his “I am Spartacus” clown show during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week for Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Stock markets dropped Thursday on profit-taking after a recent run higher on optimism on trade deals, and news on more US tariffs on China, while Argentina's peso and the Turkish lira tumbled. The peso slumped to a new record low, prompting Argentina's central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to 60 from 45 percent in a bid to arrest a slide in its value. The drop came even after the International Monetary Fund's agreed to consider Argentina's request to speed up payments under its $50 billion loan. The peso fell 13 percent against the US dollar, taking its losses...

MIAMI - Federal officials said a construction company did not do enough to protect its workers before a concrete barrier collapsed and killed two men along Interstate 95 in February. "This tragedy could have been prevented if the employer had ensured that adjoining structures were shored, braced or underpinned to avoid a collapse," said Condell Eastmond, with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Atlanta-based Archer Western Construction Inc. faces up to $33,000 in fines. OSHA officials also said the work site was not properly inspected for hazards. The Florida Highway Patrol said Abel Orlando Zuniga-Fajardo, 37,...

The hundred-some billion dollars that President Obama sent to Iran apparently has come and gone, leaving the Iranian economy once again desperate to avoid collapse.  The pallets containing more than a billion dollars in hard currency have funded terror groups, and the rest of the haul apparently has gone to pay for debts, spending, and graft, leaving the real economy gasping for air, unable to generate hard currency yet dependent on imports. Steve Hanke reports at Forbes: Iran's rial plunged from 98,000 IRR/USD on Saturday to 112,000 IRR/USD on Sunday on Tehran's Ferdowsi Street.  That stunning 12.5% one-day plunge has pushed the...

One person died and a dozen others were injured after what's being described as a construction accident at a hospital in Gatesville, just north of Fort Hood, Tuesday afternoon. An explosion occurred at a construction site at Coryell Memorial Hospital around 2:15 p.m., hospital officials said. The person who died and the twelve people injured were construction workers, officials said. Seven of them are in critical condition. The construction crew was working on a hospital expansion project at the time, the hospital's CEO David Byrom said. No hospitals staff or patients were injured in the blast, hospital officials said. Crews...

Republicans have had a rough week, mostly of their own making, and on Wednesday they added to their self-punishment with a spending fiasco in the Senate. Two GOP Senators blocked the Trump Administration’s rescissions package that would claw back $15 billion, much of which wasn’t even likely to be spent under current policy. A Senate procedural vote to move the rescissions package failed 48-50 after defections from Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Burr of North Carolina. From what we’ve heard Ms. Collins wanted to keep the money on ice so if it isn’t spent as part of its current...

MIAMI - No one seemed to notice when a large white crane that had been working at the doomed Florida International University bridge lurched away down Tamiami Trail shortly after the span collapsed. There was a disaster to respond to: Mountains of concrete. Horribly mangled cars. Dead and injured people. It wasn't until some time later that authorities began wondering what happened to the crane and its operator, a close eyewitness who might help the investigation into the collapse. But he, and the crane, were gone. "He drove away in the crane and nobody stopped him,"

Satellite data backs theory of North Korean nuclear site collapse Whether underground cave-ins have made the facility unusable is unknown BY MARIA TEMMING 2:00PM, MAY 10, 2018 A new analysis of satellite images and seismic waves from North Korea’s nuclear test site support theories that the underground facility has at least partially collapsed. Seismologists across the world have been tracking the clandestine nuclear weapons program for years by analyzing vibrations that emanate from explosions at the test site under Mount Mantap (SN: 8/5/17, p. 18). Now, researchers have paired 3-D satellite images of Mount Mantap with seismic tremor data to...

North Korea’s nuclear test site has collapsed ... and that may be why Kim Jong-un suspended tests The mountain’s collapse after a fifth blast last fall has led to the creation of a massive ‘chimney’ that could leak radioactive fallout into the air, researchers have found North Korea’s mountain nuclear test site has collapsed, putting China and other nearby nations at unprecedented risk of radioactive exposure, two separate groups of Chinese scientists studying the issue have confirmed. The collapse after five nuclear blasts may be why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared on Friday that he would freeze the hermit...

Elizabeth Zemba of Mt. Pleasant, a daily Pennsylvania Turnpike traveler, turned to art and creativity to express frustration with the highway's ever-rising tolls. She created an Internet meme. A photo of a turnpike tollbooth is overlaid with the logo: "Pennsylvania Turnpike re-inventing highway robbery since 2009." For many, annual turnpike toll increases simply have become too much to bear. Two weeks ago, a coalition of truckers and motorists advocates filed a class action suit against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, PennDOT and Gov. Tom Wolf, seeking to recoup "excessive fees" that went to underwrite projects other than the operation of the...

FULL TITLE: 'Up to 10' people crushed to death as 950-ton pedestrian bridge collapses on top of cars and pedestrians on Florida college campus - just five days after it was installed Up to 10 people have been killed when a newly installed pedestrian bridge spanning several lanes of traffic collapsed at Florida International University on Thursday. US Senator Bill Nelson of Florida told local TV station CBS Miami that between six to 10 people died. The 174-foot 'instant bridge' hailed as a feat of engineering and safety, was installed Saturday morning but was not due to open to the...

Tensions between Whole Foods Market and some of the most important brands it sells in its stores will come to head on March 19. The grocer notified certain vendors about the meeting last Saturday. A key issue discussed will be Whole Foods' efforts to centralize its merchandising. Tensions between Whole Foods Market and some of the most important brands it sells in its stores will come to a head on March 19, when they will congregate for a recently announced summit, sources familiar with the situation tell CNBC. The grocer notified certain vendors about the meeting by email last Saturday....

Imagine you open the faucet of your kitchen sink expecting water and instead out comes cash. Now imagine that it comes out at the rate of $1 million a minute. You call your plumber, who thinks you’re crazy. To get you off the phone, he opines that it is your sink and therefore must be your money. So you spend it wildly. Then you realize that the money wasn’t yours and you owe it back. Now imagine that this happens every minute of every day for the next three years. At the end of the three years, you owe back...