Free Republic

America is crumbling before our eyes. Once, the U.S. was the envy of the world with its modern roads, airports, railroad bridges and other infrastructure. Everything was first-class. Now, it’s third-rate. An Amtrak passenger train derailed Tuesday in Philadelphia, killing at least seven passengers. The investigation into the crash is only beginning, and it’s too early to say what caused it. But it’s not too early to say that Amtrak’s crumbling infrastructure didn’t help matters. “It’s an extremely heavily used stretch of track,” transportation analyst Matthew L. Wald told CNN, referring to the area where the train derailed Tuesday night....

It's official. 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded! Oops! Never mind. It turned out upon closer investigation that NASA scientists admitted that there was only a 38% chance that was true. Perhaps Vox should have peered just a few months into the future when it made that declaration to see their own article written by Julia Belluz and Steven Hoffman which stated that Science is often flawed. It's time we embraced that. Okay, great, but will Vox embrace it in the future when it comes to wild declarations about Global Warming or will they relapse to their normal routine? Vox...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is getting more firepower to help with its damage control. Correct The Record, an outside rapid response and research group dedicated to defending the records of Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates is reorganizing so it can coordinate with Clinton’s campaign and devote all of its resources to her.

Standard General LP, which bought 1,700 RadioShack Corp. store leases in March, said it prevailed this week in an auction for the bankrupt electronics retailer’s brand name. The winning bid was $26.2 million, a spokesman for the hedge fund said Wednesday. That price also covers a trove of customer data. RadioShack entered bankruptcy in February with a plan to have a Standard General affiliate take over as many as half its approximately 4,000 stores in a co-branding arrangement with Sprint Corp. Standard General was declared the winner of the store auction with a bid worth about $145.5 million. The latest...

Students Split Over Racist BU Professor As University Walks The Line Saida Grundy was all set to start at Boston University in July as an associate professor of sociology and African American Studies, but her comments on race on social media may put that job in doubt. Grundy, who is black, has sent a lot of tweets many BU students find racist and inappropriate for a professor to express. But other students defend Grundy on the grounds that they believe blacks can’t be racist.

According to US federal records reviewed by the Associated Press, Louisiana-based LLOG Exploration Offshore plans to engage in deepwater drilling in the Macondo reservoir. The AP says Harper's Magazine first reported the drilling plans late Tuesday. The BSEE green-lighted LLOG's permit to drill a new well near the Macondo site on April 13. Last October, the company's exploration plan was approved after the conclusion of an environmental review conducted by the BOEM. Referring to the 2010 Macondo incident which occurred in the same reservoir, LLOG's vice president for deepwater projects, Rick Fowler, told the AP, "Our commitment is not to...

There will be no breathless stories about how left-wing extremists and obstructionists have hijacked the Democratic Party. No hand-wringing about the state of American politics now that congress has defied the will of the first black president. There will be no scary pieces on how a stubborn minority party is holding up bills that have proven to create jobs – both here and abroad. There’ll be no passionate speeches about the dangers of big-money interests buying democracy. Remember these aren’t your parents’ Democrats. And when Democrats rebelled against Obama’s bipartisan trade initiative this week and voted to stop debate on...

Democrats have spent years believing that one more left-wing justice on the Supreme Court will enable them to overturn the 2nd Amendment. And should they succeed, our most important inalienable right–the one which has secured the continued existence of all the others–would cease to exist. Of course, it’s no use telling liberals that the Bill of Rights doesn’t work that way; that inalienable—that is, God-given–rights can’t be voted, legislated or ruled out of existence. It’s no use because in their collectivist mind the left will have acquired the Holy Grail: constitutional permission to disarm the American people. The question is...

Over the weekend we talked about the Illinois state supreme court decision which effectively terminated any effort to reform the state’s collapsing public worker union pension system and how it was endangering the future stability of the Land of Lincoln. The city of Chicago has the exact same problems, though on a more localized level. With debts in the hundreds of billions of dollars and tax rates which are already driving away businesses and residents alike, the iron grip of the unions on not just the legislature, but the state constitution itself is turning into an albatross around the...

Celebrations have broken out in Burundi's capital Bujumbura over reports of a coup against the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza. The developments came after an army officer reportedly announced on Wednesday that Nkurunziza and his government had been dismissed. Major-General Godefroid Niyombare, who was fired by Nkurunziza as intelligence chief in February, made the announcement at a military barracks, reports said. He was surrounded by several other senior officers from the army and police, Reuters news agency reported. "Regarding President Nkurunziza's arrogance and defiance of the international community which advised him to respect the constitution and Arusha peace agreement, the...

An alliance of free-market conservatives is building support for a bill that would thwart the Obama administration's bid to make foreign computers, servers and data farms subject to Justice Department search and seizure.The alliance stepped up its pressure on Capitol Hill with the release of its May 1 “coalition letter” to Sen. Charles “Chuck” Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R.-Va.), the two men who chair the judiciary committees in their chamber. The letter calls on the chairmen to move forward on the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad Act.To put things in perspective, in 1995 the email...

The man who attacked several women with a hammer on Monday was fatally shot in midtown on Wednesday morning. Before being shot by police officers, he reportedly tried to attack a female police officer with a hammer when approached for questioning shortly before 10 a.m. There is a heavy police presence at the intersection of 37th Street and Eighth Avenue near Penn Station, which has been closed to traffic.

Michael Snyder May 12th, 2015 What are we going to do once all the water is gone? Thanks to the worst drought in more than 1,000 years, the western third of the country is facing the greatest water crisis that the United States has ever seen. Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has ever been since the Hoover Dam was finished in the 1930s, mandatory water restrictions have already been implemented in the state of California, and there are already widespread reports of people stealing water in some of the worst hit areas. But this is just the...

UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo is suing Rolling Stone and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely for statements in Rolling Stone’s now-retracted “A Rape on Campus” story. How will courts likely deal with this lawsuit? Here are a few early and tentative thoughts, though of course much depends on facts that are not yet known. 1. Federal vs. state court: Eramo sued in Virginia state court, but it seems likely that Rolling Stone and Erdely will want the case removed to federal court: The conventional wisdom is that libel defendants are procedurally better off in federal court, where it’s easier to get...

Conservative climate champions are often laughed off or ignored. But what’s happening within the American political right could change everything, and fast.Each year since 1989, the JFK Library bestows its Profile in Courage award to a public servant who takes a principled but unpopular position. This year,the award went to Bob Inglis, a former congressman from South Carolina who’s turned into America’s best hope for near-term climate action. Oh, he’s also a Republican.As you might expect, Inglis wasn’t always a climate campaigner. In his acceptance speech last week at the JFK Library in Boston,he described how and why he changed...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia will help Palestine in achieving its goal of becoming an independent state with the capital in East Jerusalem, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday in his address to the Arab League summit participants. “Russia will continue contributing to the attainment of this goal [Palestine’s independence], working through bilateral channels and through multilateral channels, including in the ‘Quartet’ of international mediators,” Putin said. The Quartet comprising Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, was established in 2002, aiming to reach a long-term peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians. The Russian president stressed on...

God’s holy minister on climate.Pope Francis warned “the powerful” that it was their responsibility to feed the planet and that environmental sinners will face God’s judgement.The Guardian reported: Pope Francis has warned “the powerful of the Earth” they will answer to God if they fail to protect the environment to ensure the world can feed its population.“The planet has enough food for all, but it seems that there is a lack of willingness to share it with everyone,” Francis said at a mass to mark the opening of the general assembly of the Catholic charitable organisation Caritas.“We must do...

Imagine it's 2007 and a prominent journalist is interviewing then-Sen. Barack Obama. "Senator, people are really interested in you and your identity. I just wanted to ask you as a historical matter, when you filled out your application to Columbia, to Harvard Law School, did you list yourself as an African-American?" Imagine he pressed further. Do you have a favorite traditional black food? Who's your favorite African-American performer? It's a safe bet that journalist would be lucky to have a job today as a greeter at Wal-Mart. Mark Halperin isn't in danger of losing his job -- nor should...

Like babies themselves, the intestinal microbiomes of infants start out in an immature state and over time grow into communities similar to those of adults. In a new survey of 98 Swedish babies whose microbiota were sampled several times during their first year of life, researchers found that the microbiomes of breastfed infants persisted in a “younger” state longer than those of non-breastfed babies, even after the introduction of solid foods. The conclusion that “stopping breastfeeding—rather than introducing solids—drives maturation is a new idea, because we all thought so far that solids introduction was a key factor in changing the...

An Amtrak train involved in a fatal crash here appears to have been traveling at more than 100 miles an hour as it entered a sharp curve where it derailed Tuesday night, killing at least six people, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation. The speed limit in that section of track drops to 50 miles per hour, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Investigators are focusing on the possibility that excessive speed was a factor in the derailment, one of these people said. The locomotive and all seven passenger cars of the train went off the tracks...