Free Republic

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...

A preschool that leases space from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder is shutting down at the end of the month after the church congregation voted to become a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants facing deportation. "It put us out of business," said Active Boulder Kids owner Kristen Argow Heaton. About 90 percent of the congregation that attended a church meeting on the matter last month voted to move forward with plans to outfit a portion of the building to provide living quarters for an immigrant taking sanctuary. Argow Heaton said that parents notified the church ahead of the vote that...

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Art Commission voted Wednesday to recommend the Stephen Foster statue in Oakland be removed. The recommendation is that the statue is removed from the public and placed in a place in private and "properly contextualized." The Pittsburgh Art Commission will recommend removal of the statue within six months. Foster, a Pittsburgh native who died in 1864, is famous for classic songs including “Oh! Susanna” and “Camptown Races.” Many of his songs were used in minstrel shows in which actors performed in blackface. The statue depicts Foster sitting above shoeless, banjo-playing “Uncle Ned,” a slave character from...

Donald Trump took a lot of heat when he announced his candidacy for President, stating that he would build a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville and make Mexico pay for it, all to keep Mexico’s “unwanted” and “undesirables” from flooding the United States. In August 2015, on the campaign trail, he shed light on a flawed interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that has caused much of the problem of illegal immigration. That misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, written to guarantee the citizenship rights of freed slaves after the Civil War, has morphed the amendment into a guarantee of...

Take one round-trip flight between New York and California, and you’ve generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year. If you’re flying, you’re adding a significant amount of planet-warming gases to the atmosphere — there’s no way around it. But there are some ways to make your airplane travel a little bit greener. The most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to fly less often. If everyone took fewer flights, airline companies wouldn’t burn as much jet fuel. ...according to some calculations, a round-trip flight from New York to San...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said that Democrats should try to impeach Vice President Mike Pence after they impeach President Trump on “The View” on Friday. “Do you think Pence will be better than Trump?” host Joy Behar asked Waters. “No, and when we finish with Trump, we have to go and get Putin. He’s next,” Waters said. “Putin or Pence?” Behar asked, confused. “Pence,” Waters said, correcting herself. Waters has been calling for Trump’s impeachment since February.

Aiming to help thousands of students who get sidetracked in developmental courses that don’t count toward their degrees, California State University will do away next year with traditional remedial education. In an executive order issued Wednesday night, Chancellor Timothy White directed the 23-campus system to overhaul by fall 2018 its curriculum for students found to be unprepared for college-level English and math. About 39 percent of CSU’s incoming freshmen, or 25,000 students, are required to take remedial classes for no credit before they can begin their general education. University officials argue this is no longer the right approach in an...

Los Angeles still leads the nation in television pilot production, but a study released today by FilmL.A. reveals that the home of Hollywood took a double-digit hit this year to fall to its lowest total since 2009. However, with pilots down this most recent cycle in all the major production centers except tax-incentive lucrative Louisiana, a jump in straight-to-series orders by cable outlets and the streaming services might be part of the problem.

Do you have any idea how stupid this is? Then you may have "cognitive privilege"? As the intersectional left continues to kill satire through its very existence, we advance toward the bright future of idiocracy. Here's the Daily Iowan. The college paper of the University of Iowa. And where better to denounce "cognitive privilege" than a college paper. There are many kinds of privilege besides white privilege: cognitive privilege, for example. We now know that intelligence is not something we have significant control over but is something we are born with. We are living in a society in which success...