Free Republic

The American Dream Mall, New Jersey’s behemoth shopping destination located in the Meadowlands, saw its losses quadruple in 2022 to $245 million as it struggled to attract retail tenants amid sagging customer traffic and expenses soared amid a heavy debt load, according to recent filings. In the years since its opening just five months before the pandemic struck in 2020, the 3.5 million-square-foot mall — which is home to an indoor ski slope, the Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park, and a whopping 450-plus stores — hasn’t caught a break. Aside from coronavirus-driven shutdowns and construction delays, the mall has been slammed...

There is so much wrong with America’s cities, it’s hard to see why any contributing member of society would live and/or work in one of them. Some of the issues arise from far-Left local governance while others are generated by more widespread Leftist policy. These are coupled with an organic workforce evolution, as the United States transitions from an industry-based to an information-based economy. The result is urban areas caught in a downward spiral — and, as with any sinking vessel, threatening to suck everyone nearby down with them.

SALLISAW, Okla. — A Sallisaw police captain crashed into a pursuit suspect head-on, preventing him from getting near a crowded festival on Saturday. Police were following the driver when he got near a crowded area where children were attending the Diamond Daze Festival, according to a City of Sallisaw social media post. Sallisaw Police Captain John Weber used his patrol vehicle to crash into the driver, stopping the pursuit from getting any closer to the event.

The great westward drive that began with Lewis and Clark has been steadily rolling backward. Southern California is filled with moving trucks headed to Arizona, Texas and Nevada. Those who can afford it, fly to Florida. The Russians were here once and then the Spanish. The American presence in California was more comprehensive and lasted longer, but may one day leave sagging Wells Fargo banks and decrepit mini malls filled with sushi places and nail salons the way the Spanish left their missions. It's a beautiful country, but so is Afghanistan and any number of otherwise unlivable places. Every other...

Like many senior citizens, I have been bewildered by the rapid degeneration of our American society. A half-century ago, we were a decent people and a benevolent force in global affairs. Even then, we had to contend with drugs, violence, pornography, and the materialism engendered by prosperity, but we somehow managed to keep these malignancies at sub-critical levels. But by 1990, even though the threat of Communism seemed to be fading away, we had become aware that something was seriously wrong. Consider Michelle's famous "Pollyanna" monolog in TV's "Knots Landing":

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A garbage company has stopped picking up yard waste in at least seven metropolitan cities due a lack of drivers. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Thursday that Waste Management confirmed Thursday that it had suspended yard waste service in Robbinsdale, Stillwater, Columbia Heights, Little Canada, St. Anthony, St. Paul and Vadnais Heights due to a staffing shortage. Company spokeswoman Julie Ketchum said high demand for people with commercial driver’s licenses has created the shortage. She said the yard waste pickup suspensions could last weeks and could expand to other cities going forward. ...

Men, like nations, think they’re eternal. What man in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever?In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality.Nations too have seasons. Imagine a Roman of the 2nd. century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.Forever was about 500 years, give or take.France was the thing in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah.In the...

Whatever happened to good ol’ weed? The Devil’s Lettuce? That sweet Mary Jane? Everyone seems to have forgotten about the glories of grass, as evidenced by some netizens who are eating rotten meat to get high. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but please do not try that at home. IFL Science reports that some folks are consuming meat that’s been decomposing for months or even years. I’m talking visible bacteria colonies, funky colors, slimy texture. Decidedly putrid meat. Practitioners call it “high meat” because eating it apparently, well, gets you high. Like this gentleman, for example. (Watch...

California is a mess; no secret there. But the degree of decline that befalls it, and the quickness with which that decline is moving, seems to be largely ignored, particularly by Californians themselves. The nation's most populous state, and arguably its most naturally beautiful, is falling apart virtually everywhere we look. Yet state and local governments not only insist on moving forward with leftist policies, but continually double down by moving even farther left, and the state's voters return them to office with ever-increasing electoral margins. California's current approach to virtually all aspects of society — the economy, environment, legal...

Fewer and fewer Americans are getting divorced, with the rate falling 18 percent from 2008 to 2016. Among American adults, there is support for divorce when couples do not get along. Women, people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and adults who have experienced divorce personally or among friends and family are especially likely to be accepting. Despite this growing acceptance, the divorce rate dipped again in 2018. The decline began in 1980 or 1990, depending on the data source and experts. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of divorced people per 1,000 Americans fell from 4.7...

Nothing says “welcome to the third world” quite like entering Jasper County, South Carolina on Interstate 95. Traveling from Georgia, the highway narrows from six lanes to four lanes – with rusty guardrails flanking the roadside. Trash is everywhere, greeting visiting motorists as they pass through a 1990s-era stucco display that might as well be the entrance to a drug kingpin’s barn – or a trailer park. Which … is fitting. Traffic grinds to a slow crawl, then proceeds in stop-and-go fashion for the next fifty miles. Worst of all is the pavement – which resembles an Afghan airstrip following...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — USA Today has named Baltimore the most dangerous city in the country. The paper analyzed police crime data in the nation’s 50 biggest cities, which revealed Baltimore had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation with nearly 56 murders per 100,000 people — a record for the city. The rate outpaced New Orleans and Detroit, with a rate of 40 and 39 killings per 100,000 people, respectively. Baltimore’s 342 murders in 2017 was an increase from 318 in 2016. Baltimore — the most populated city in Maryland with more than 615,000 residents — had more...

BALTIMORE, MD – Charm City is once again among America's "Rattiest Cities," according to a new report from pest control company Orkin, although it has shown progress in each of the past two years. Baltimore comes in at No. 9 on the company's 2018 rankings released Monday. This is the fourth year that Orkin has compiled the rankings, which are based on the number of rodent treatments the company performed from Sept. 15, 2017 to Sept. 15, 2018. It includes both residential and commercial treatments. Baltimore dropped one slot from last year, when it was ranked eighth; two years ago...

The values that allow advancement in a society are often described as "Western values." They are not "Western," "Chinese," or "Catholic." They are universal values and no more "Western" than 2 + 2 = 4.

It takes 1 trillion times the age of the universe for a xenon-124 sample to shrink by half For the first time, researchers have directly observed an exotic type of radioactive decay called two-neutrino double electron capture.The decay, seen in xenon-124 atoms, happens so sparingly that it would take 18 sextillion years (18 followed by 21 zeros) for a sample of xenon-124 to shrink by half, making the decay extremely difficult to detect. The long-anticipated observation of two-neutrino double electron capture, reported in the April 25 Nature, lays the groundwork for researchers to glimpse a yet unseen, even rarer version...

A young man's thoughts of the current decline of civility and discourse in America today. Warning - occasional language alert

Race, class, love, death, white privilege, black disadvantage. Those heavy subjects are present, alongside the seemingly foregone conclusions that the system is rigged against those at the bottom by those at the top, you can’t fight city hall (but you absolutely must not give in to despair). Alongside the kaleidoscopic chaos of just plain being a teenager in 21st-century America, these global themes carom off each other in this wise and bittersweet adaptation of Angie Thomas’ best-selling young-adult novel.

"The White House could answer [Ford’s request] very quickly by asking the FBI to reopen its background check and to take into account the accusation that's been made and to gather the evidence about what can be known. So far, they haven't done that," Clinton said. "And as someone who has watched this process unfold over many years, there does have to be some direction given to the FBI to pursue an investigation."

Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society. That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the...

Kellyanne Conway called out Hillary Clinton Thursday for claiming Trump voters were looking "backwards" in 2016 and blamed pressure from men for why white women voted for the president. Conway called out the former secretary of state on "Fox and Friends," asking her to "stop pretending you're a feminist, you’re for equality, you’re for fairness to women, and then running around accusing us of checking with our husbands and our significant others before we vote." Many - including Democrats up for re-election in tough states - have been critical of Clinton's comments made at the India Today Conclave. "She basically...