Free Republic

The exploding segment of the population suffering from certain food ailments is skyrocketing, and experts are stumped on the reasons why.

Teen Vogue showed the ignorance of a poorly educated and lazy generation by trashing capitalism in favor of socialism. The magazine told kids who act like they read Teen Vogue that capitalism has left the world in a “dystopian ‘Mad Max’ nightmare in which resources have dwindled and rich plutocrats own everything.” In this view, we should strive for the much more desirable system of socialism. It went on to espouse the virtues of socialism over capitalism. That tone of lazy economic ignorance could foretell problems for our country. Years of the influence of Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren...

EXHIBIT: The power of media On display here is the power of the media that I think is helping to shape the distorted opinions of millennials. While the charts and maps show optimistic trends in almost every category, the author starts this report by saying: "For most Americans, these feel like bleak times. We have a massively unpopular, scandal-plagued president whose aides are being convicted of serious federal felonies. Overt, old-fashioned racism is publicly visible and powerful in a way it wasn’t only five years ago. More than 200 admired, powerful men have been accused of sexual misconduct or assault....

Americans' support for a ban on semi-automatic guns in the U.S. has dropped eight percentage points from a year ago, when opinions were more evenly divided after the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Last year's measure was unusually high for the trend over the past several years; the current 40% is back to within a few points of where it was between 2011 and 2016.

Frank Buckley is a real original, and his recent book, The Republican Workers Party, gives us plenty to ponder. He is a political maverick, rejecting labels and stereotypes, which delights me. The title comes from Trump’s speech to CPAC in 2017. Which Buckley characterizes this way: The Republican Workers Party would be libertarian in its opposition to crony capitalism but economically liberal when it comes to welfare policies for those truly in need. It would be a party of nationalists who reject a globalism that is indifferent between the welfare of Americans and of foreigners. It would be a jobs...

As political discord appears to grow every day on Capitol Hill, Republican Senator Ben Sasse told "CBS This Morning" that the country is headed toward a "deeper, darker tribal place." Sasse, author of the new book "Them: Why We Hate Each Other - and How to Heal" (St. Martin's Press) argues that politics is merely "filling a void" in Americans' lives amid a "hallowing out" of their sense of community. "I think politics are important but they're not the first thing, they're certainly not the only thing, and I think right now our politics are suffering because people are looking...

The Kavanaugh confirmation is the high water mark of the conservative resurgence in America that began nearly ten years ago, when Barack Obama was elected president and the Democrats began steadily losing legislative seats across the country, first at the state level (1,000-plus and counting) and then nationally. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), whose primary symptom before violent tantrums is denial of reality, led the Democrats to engage in tactics against Judge Kavanaugh that might have been surefire winners prior to the Trump era, however unprecedented they might be in their degree of viciousness and disregard for over a thousand years'...

Sears was once the nation's largest retailer and its largest employer. In its heyday, it was both the Walmart and Amazon of its time. Formed in 1886 by railroad station agent Richard Sears, the company started as a watch business in North Redwood, Minnesota. Sears moved to Chicago in 1887, and he hired watchmaker Alvah Roebuck as his partner. The first Sears Roebuck catalog, which sold watches and jewelry, was printed in 1896. The Sears catalog was the way many Americans first started to buy mass-produced goods. That was an enormous shift for people who lived on farms and in...

Sears Holdings filed for bankruptcy protection early Monday after years of staying afloat through financial maneuvering and relying on billions of CEO Eddie Lampert's own money. The company also announced that Lampert will be stepping down as CEO, effective immediately, although he remains its chairman. The 125-year-old retailer, once the nation's largest, said Monday it was appointing Mohsin Meghji, managing partner of M-III Partners, as its chief restructuring officer. As part of the bankruptcy, Sears will shutter 142 stores toward the end of the year. It expects to begin liquidation sales shortly. The bankruptcy filing comes more than a decade...

Brandon Straka, the openly gay former Democrat behind the recent movement to #Walkaway from liberalism says he has seen an uptick in the number of people who say they’re ‘walking away’ from the Democratic party. He says hundreds of people have reached out to him since the Justice Brett Kavanaugh battle started, and he began receiving more video testimonials and messages from people who say they will now vote Republican because of the smear campaign launched against Kavanaugh. Straka also talks about the first #WalkAway Campaign march he will be hosting in Washington D.C. on Oct 26-28th. For more details...

...According to the report, 25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.” (snip) If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education....

When investigative journalist Julia Angwin worked for ProPublica, the nonprofit news organization became known as “big tech’s scariest watchdog.” By partnering with programmers and data scientists, Angwin pioneered the work of studying big tech’s algorithms — the secret codes that have an enormous effect on everyday American life. Her findings shed light on how companies like Facebook were creating tools that could be used to promote racial bias, fraudulent schemes and extremist content. Now, with a $20 million gift from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, she and her partner at ProPublica, data journalist Jeff Larson, are starting The Markup, a news...

Video LinkFor those of you unfamiliar with Stephen Hicks, he is a professor at Rockford College (Illinois). He is an authority on Post-Modernism and is often cited by Jordan Peterson when Peterson speaks of Post-Modernism and/or Nietzsche.This somewhat short video is interesting because, in it, Hicks describes a little bit about how socialism and socialist resentment of capitalism/free markets evolved into Post-Modernism that we see today. In other videos I have seen he also describes how Marxism has evolved into Post-Modernism.His basic point is that socialism (based on old socialist writings) exhibited a resentment toward capitalism whereas Post-Modernism literally seethes...

Former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz discussed Elon Musk’s Tesla in a recent interview stating that the company is “headed for the graveyard.” In a recent interview with CNBC the former Vice Chairman of General Motors, Bob Lutz, does not have high hopes for the future of Elon Musk’s electric-car manufacturer Tesla. According to Lutz, Tesla is “headed for the graveyard,” given the recent announcement that both the company and Musk are being investigated by the DOJ and the SEC. “They will never make money on the Model 3 because the cost is way too high,” Lutz said during...

The portion of children under 6 living with "married parents" in 2017 jumped about half of one percent from the year before. That may not seem like much, but it's a dramatic departure from long-term trends. I think the reason this isn't a news story is because the government looks to the Center for Disease Control for news about who's raising who, and this data comes from the Census Department. I gleaned these numbers from data that the Census Department was publishing showing the decline in the poverty rate; the CDC hasn't published 2017 figures. In 2016, 16.46 million children...

Winning: Americans’ use of food stamp assistance has now fallen for the eighth straight month as the POTUS Trump economy continues to expand, raising all boats and not just those of “the rich.”

More Americans have left Catholicism behind than any other religion in the U.S., according to a new report. About 13 percent of American adults are former Catholics – people who were raised in the faith but now say they have no religion, or converted to Protestantism or other beliefs, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. At the other end of the spectrum, 2 percent of U.S. adults report converting to Catholicism.

However, the high number might not be entirely reflective of how many kids actually have ADHD, said Dr. Scott Benson, a psychiatrist at the Creekside Psychiatric Center in Pensacola, Florida. Many children, especially those living in poverty or dealing with challenges at home, may struggle to focus. That's natural given the stressors they're dealing with, but it may cause some doctors to question whether the child has ADHD. Inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity are symptoms of ADHD, according to the American Psychiatric Association. "We know one of the common errors is misdiagnosis," said Benson, who was not involved with the study....

It’s the year 2038. The word “flavor” has fallen into disuse. Sugar is the new cigarettes, and we have managed to replace salt with healthy plants.
 We live in a society in which we eat fruit grown using genetics. We drink synthetic wine, scramble eggs that do not come from chickens, grill meat that was not taken from animals, and roast fish that never saw the sea. ...... Agriculture is now mostly in the hands of the young generation, 70% of whom are college graduates and refer to themselves as “urban farmer-scientists.” They grow all kinds of plants in containers...

Despite the expectations of many after the 2016 elections, the number of concealed handgun permits has again increased. In 2018, the number of concealed handgun permits soared to over 17.25 million - a 273% increase since 2007. 7.14% of American adults have permits. Unlike surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer some personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really "hard data" that we have on gun ownership across the United States. Still, an even larger number of people carry because in 14 states people don’t need a permit to carry in all or...