Free Republic

He is known in China as the "godfather of real estate," helping lay the groundwork for private homeownership in China, a move that enriched millions and laid the foundations for a vibrant and thriving Chinese middle class. Now, Meng Xiaosu wants a lot of Chinese — the older ones, specifically — to cash out. Older people need to mortgage their homes to address China's looming demographic bust, Mr. Meng argues. Because of China's now-defunct one-child policy and other social trends, the country has a rapidly graying population that someday soon may become too expensive for the Chinese government to support....

In a lengthy profile piece in New York Magazine, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid discussed the future of the Democratic Party, especially with him the prospect of him no longer being in the Senate to act as the vocal opposition to the incoming Trump administration. While covering Reid speaking to his staffers earlier this month ahead of his final weekly lunch with Senate Democrats, the Nevada Senator was observed giving his thoughts on the possibilities the party had for the White House in 2020. Another aide brought up Joe Biden’s recent remark that he was thinking about running for...

Reid: Dem 2020 class looks like an 'old folks' home' By Mallory Shelbourne - 12/27/16 10:01 AM EST The prospective class of Democrats who could run for president in 2020 is shaping up as an "old-folks’ home," according to retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid made the remark earlier this month when asked by an aide whether he might support a White House run by Vice President Biden, according to New York Magazine. In response to the question, Reid mentioned the age of several prominent Democrats who are talked about as likely candidates in 2020. “It depends on...

Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian actress whose self-parodying glamour and revolving-door marriages to millionaires put a luster of American celebrity on a long but only modestly successful career in movies and television, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 99. The cause was heart failure, her longtime publicist Edward Lozzi said. Married at least eight times, calling everyone “Dahlink,” flaunting a diamonds-and-furs lifestyle and abetted by gossip columnists and tabloid headline writers, Ms. Gabor played the coifed platinum femme fatale in plunging necklines in dozens of film and television roles, many of them cameos as herself. Her career, which...

Pope Francis is crossing the threshold of 80: Ingravescentem aetatem (advanced age), as the motu proprio of 21 November 1970 by Paul VI declared, which, by reaching this age, requires all cardinals to put their tasks to an end, and deprives them of the right to participate in the conclave. Paul VI. established this rule to create a new "Montinian" curia. Moreover, he introduced a fundamental contradiction in the Church's more than a thousand years of practice. If the advanced age is an impediment to the direction of a diocese or a dicastery, and even prevents a cardinal from choosing a pope, how can we imagine that a...

‘I think 2018 is going to be a very good year for the Democrats’ he leaders of the Democratic Party of the future will be Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, said Joe Biden in an interview Sunday. The outgoing vice president appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper: TAPPER: “Who is the leader of the Democratic Party as of January 21st?" BIDEN: “Well, like after every presidential election where the party loses, there is no single leader. There are voices that hopefully will be heard. Hopefully, I’ll be able to have a voice...

Kirk Douglas, one of Hollywood's most celebrated icons, turns 100 on Friday, marking a milestone in a life filled with some of the best roles a star could hope for and some of the best performances anyone has ever given. With three Oscar nominations and an honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar under his belt, ET is taking a look back at some of Douglas' greatest films in honor of his special day.

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has few regrets, but one is his injury-forced retirement from the Senate. "I love this institution," he said. "I wish I could be here forever." In a profile for GW, the George Washington University magazine, the school alum said an exercise accident that blinded his right eye two years ago has forced him to leave.

Meat could be used in 3D printing to produce a soft food with specific nutrients and suitable for people who have problems with chewing or swallowing. By using a meat extract as ink, layer-by-layer, a food could be created that is as soft as butter and like meat, packed with nutrients. Meat and Livestock Australia was alerted to the possibility of red meat three-dimensional printing after seeing it done with chicken meat in Germany. The research, development and marketing body has investigated a way to turn every last bit of meat from the bone into a high value product and...

During the presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump said he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, but no matter. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority leader, on Tuesday warned that Republicans are “plotting a war on seniors.” The New York Democrat said he was “so disappointed” that Trump has nominated Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary. “When it comes to issues like Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, Congressman Price and the average American couldn’t be further apart,” Schumer told a news conference on Capitol Hill. …

Rome (AFP) - An alert and chatty Italian woman, Emma Morano, on Tuesday celebrates her 117th birthday as the last known person alive who was born in the 19th century. Born November 29, 1899, she is the world's oldest living person and the secret to her longevity appears to lie in eschewing usual medical wisdom. "I eat two eggs a day, and that's it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth," she told AFP in an interview last month in her room in Verbania, a town in northern Italy on Lake Maggiore.

The Senate’s longest serving Republican is thinking about running for another term. Utah Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, a member of the Senate since 1977 and its president pro tempore, said after Wednesday’s leadership elections that he was getting significant pressure to seek an eighth term. Hatch, 82, had previously said he would retire at the end of his current term, in two years time.  - See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/orrin-hatch-gwetting-pressure-run-2018#sthash.7I5y84K3.dpuf

"I have personally been on the ballot in Nevada for 26 elections and I have never seen anything like the reaction to the election completed last Tuesday. The election of Donald Trump has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America. "White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump's victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear - especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America. "I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours...

Today, "a lady I know" who is a social worker, told me about how she was told by several of the older folks she has as clients, were all bused to their voting site, and were assisted by those who did the busing, and all of them were assisted to vote for Hillary, exclusively. Many of those elderly are over the age of 70 and don't follow politics, and frankly, don't care one way or the other, but, their votes went exclusively to Hillary.

On the Paradoxical Beauty of Dying Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2016 • As most of you know, the Washington, D.C. City Council recently took a step toward legalizing physician-assisted suicide for those with less than six months to live.Although I have written elsewhere about the dangerous implications of this legislation, in today’s post I want to stand up for the dying, at home and in nursing homes, the fully lucid and those with advanced Alzheimer’s, those who are moving toward death relatively painlessly and those who are suffering.As a priest, it has been my privilege to accompany...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With over seven million votes cast so far in the U.S. presidential election, early voting data is pointing to a tight race in most key battleground states. But there is one battleground upon which the Donald Trump campaign appears to be headed towards utter defeat: The fight for votes from World War I veterans. With at least 25,000 World War I veterans casting their votes thus far, the party affiliation breakdown of submitted ballots is suggesting a hard break towards the Clinton camp among veterans who fought in the Great War from 1914-1918, sources say. Some 98...

New York’s criminal element has sunk to a new despicable low in 2016, as crimes against the elderly have skyrocketed thanks to a wave of violent attacks on senior citizens, according to newly released NYPD statistics. Slightly more than 1,000 people over 65 have been assaulted across the city through Oct. 31 — a 16 percent increase over the 863 old folks who were attacked in the same period in 2015, cops said.

It's always wonderful when karma comes calling at the right time, and for one school principal along with his band of bratty cheerleaders, that day came just at the right time. They thought no one would find out about the sick thing they did to World War II veterans, but once the word got out, the backlash was so enormous, it went on to make national news. On September 30, 12 cheerleaders from Cornell High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, decided to take a knee during the national anthem. While we’ve gotten used to these disgusting displays of disrespect across...

A heartbroken son remembered his murdered 95-year-old father as an adventurer beloved by all who knew him as the two suspects held in connection with his slaying in Orange are set to appear before a judge in Virginia. “He had a great personality, forever an optimist,” Thomas Harty, 64, told the Herald about his late father, also named Thomas. “He lived by the theory of Henry Ford. He said, ‘If you believe you can do something, or you believe you can’t, you’ll be right.’ “He always thought he could,” Harty said.

A high-profile Republican will officially endorse Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, the Democratic nominee's campaign announced Tuesday evening. Former Navy secretary and Sen. John Warner is set to back Clinton Wednesday morning, adding his name to the list of conservatives who have picked the Obama Cabinet member over Republican nominee Donald Trump.