Free Republic

Imagine you are dropping your child off for the first day of college, and when you get to his dorm it is surrounded by mountains of garbage and homeless people living in sidewalk tents. That's exactly what happened to one woman who also happens to work in journalism and decided to break out her phone to document the experience. If you're from out of state, tuition at UC-Berkeley can run up to around $50,000 per year with room and board. Who would expect to see homeless encampments and garbage on the streets at those prices? The New York Post reports:...

The top DSA leader whose parents set him up in cushy Brooklyn digs short-circuited as a union electrician — and then convinced his socialist party comrades to pay him a near-six-figure salary, The Post has learned. Former Yale University liberal arts student Gustavo Gordillo, 38, was fired from his apprenticeship program in March after ghosting his employer for months, meaning he never made it as a fully-credentialed electrician, the IBEW Local 3 union confirmed Wednesday. “After learning of Mr. Gordillo’s prolonged absence from and failure to participate in required work and classes, the trustees of the Joint Apprentice Training Committee...

While we were looking the other way, it seemed, a new version of an old, toxic ideology drifted out of certain academic circles in Europe and into faculty lounges on this side of the Atlantic. In due course, it spread from the universities to K-12 schools. Now, a couple of generations later, candidates infected with the contagion have, with alarming frequency, been seeking and winning elections to municipal and state offices as well as the Congress of the United States. Like the shapeshifters of science fiction, the scourge of communism has returned in a new and possibly more virulent guise,...

From the article:Having spent over 55 years inside academe — earning Bachelor of Science (BS) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, then serving as a post-doctoral cancer researcher, faculty member, and research administrator, not retiring until almost 79 years of age — how the one-year title of Staff Sergeant (SSG) decades ago could mean more to me than my PhD might seem bizarre. Nonetheless, it’s true. Why? The 19-months in the U.S. Army, as a 24-year-old draftee, transformed my life. Essentially every significant civilian success thereafter can be attributed to that brief stint serving America, and two main factors...

In a recent opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, CDC Principal Deputy Director Ralph Abraham argued that “framing measles as an American policy failure is inaccurate and misleading,” asserting that resources including vaccines and therapeutics have been surging nationwide and that the current measles situation reflects broader global trends rather than a uniquely domestic policy breakdown. Citing a recent Measles, Mortality Weekly Report article, Abraham hinted that something else was failing. He fell short of mentioning waning immunity or vaccine failure. The fact that 44.4 percent of secondary measles cases in the Colorado outbreak occurred in individuals who had...

Don’t believe the Democratic National Committee’s official storyline: The DNC’s decision to make South Carolina the first Democratic presidential primary in 2028 isn’t about introducing more racial diversity into the early contests. It’s actually about keeping power in the hands of the party establishment — the people who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and who are likely to wind up supporting Kamala Harris in 2028. The fix is in. South Carolina was the establishment’s firewall against Bernie Sanders’ left-wing insurgency twice over. In 2016, Sanders nearly beat Hillary Clinton in the first caucus, in Iowa,...

Portland, Oregon, mother Allison Roberts filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Portland Public Schools and her children’s elementary school after allegedly facing retaliation over her opposition to their gender curriculum. According to the Liberty Justice Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Roberts, she initially expressed concern last year over Meriwether Lewis Elementary School’s decision to repaint its traditional rainbow pride flag into an “Intersex-Inclusive Progress” variant to include support for racial and transgender ideology. Though Roberts supported “being immersed” in Portland’s gay community, she felt that the new flag was “an overtly political symbol that promotes values contradictory...

Pennsylvania authorities have announced charges against 14 individuals in connection to a lengthy drug trafficking investigation that reportedly involved two Penn State fraternities. Investigators identified former students Agostino Abbatiello, of Westbury, New York, and Thomas Michael Robinson, of Pittsburgh, as the two alleged ring leaders behind the operation.

WASHINGTON — A Democratic Socialists of America candidate running for Congress in Florida appeared to cut a weekend TV interview short when the journo started fact-checking his allegation that Israel is committing genocide. Wannabe House member Oliver Larkin, who is vying to unseat Dem Rep. Jared Moskowitz, pointed to the United Nations, Amnesty International and some Israeli human-rights organizations in trying to make the claim, but top “This Week in South Florida” host Glenna Milberg wasn’t having it. “That is factually incorrect,” she bluntly told him. “There’s the definition of genocide in the UN. The UN has said this does...

Shocking video captured a vicious fight that sent two women's hijabs flying off inside a Target store. Footage of the scrap has been heavily circulating online, racking up tens of thousands of views and comments across several uploads. The two women, who appeared to be wearing traditional Muslim attire, could be heard shrieking as their hijabs lay on the ground while they tried to rip out each other's hair. Several bystanders attempted to break up the brawl, except for a security guard who appeared to wait a little too long before stepping in. The asset protection associate, wearing a high-visibility...

A special education teacher who recruited black people to “shoot some guns” and “rob some white people” is now banned from the school where she worked and is under police investigation. Kenisha Daily, a special ed teacher at Madera Unified School District in Fresno posted several disturbing videos of herself on social media over the weekend describing her want to create a “black militia.” Daily also loaded weapons, including a shotgun and a pistol, in the videos. “Starting today, I’m starting a black militia. So if you’re black, if you want to shoot some guns, come find me,” she said...

A well known University of California-Berkeley mathematics professor has slammed admissions standards at the top-flight university — where she says huge portions of her students are failing to keep up with college calculus and she’s forced to teach middle-school algebra and fractions students. “Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” wrote Zvezdelina Stankova, of UC Berkeley, in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard. Stankova — who rose through...

DUBAI — Iran’s parliament approved on Sunday the general principles of a bill that ​would criminalize interviews and other communications with media deemed hostile to the ‌Islamic Republic, including US or Israeli media and outlets financed by either country, Iran’s Shargh newspaper reported. Osman Salari, a member of parliament’s judicial and legal commission, said the individual provisions of the bill, ​which is aimed at countering foreign intelligence influence, have yet to be ​debated and approved. Reports about the bill’s details should not yet be ⁠considered final, Salari told the Mizan news agency. Under the proposed bill, interviews or participation ​in...

A Tennessee teacher who was named Teacher of the Year has quit after accusing the school district of directing her to change a failing student’s grade. Samira Hardcastle, named the 2025-2026 Teacher of the Year at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Antioch, Tenn., submitted her letter of resignation in May after eight years teaching art in Metro Nashville Public Schools. “District leaders asked me to fabricate grades for a parent who sat in the office for hours until her daughter’s failing grades were changed,” Hardcastle said in an impassioned speech at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “It creates false entitlement....

I asked Grok how the red states and blue states performed economically between 2000 and 2026. It only gave me up until 2024, but if trends continued, the red states have continued to close the gap and may actually be higher income economies than blue states. Approx. Real GDP CAGR 2000–2024 Yearly Red-leaning group ████████████████ ≈ 2.3–2.6% Blue-leaning group ██████████████ ≈ 1.9–2.2% U.S. overall ███████████████ ≈ 2.1% Approximate cumulative real GDP growth (total multiplicative increase) These are simple compounds of representative average annual rates over 24 years: Red-leaning group (~2.4% average annual): Growth factor ≈ 1.77 → ~77% total cumulative...

Calls to poison centers involving liver injuries caused by medications, supplements, alcohol and other substances jumped nearly 400% between 2000 and 2024, according to a new study from UVA Health published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Researchers led by UVA's Christopher P. Holstege, MD, looked at liver damage caused by "xenobiotics," foreign substances not naturally found in the human body. This category includes drugs, food additives, alcohol and environmental pollutants. More than 80% of the liver injuries required inpatient care, with the majority of cases stemming from medications. Acetaminophen was the most frequently implicated substance. "Xenobiotic-induced liver injuries reported to...

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a major astronomical facility located on Cerro Pachón in Chile, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. It is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who provided the first convincing evidence for the existence of dark matter. Key operational milestones include:First Light: Achieved in June 2025, with the release of the first images revealing billions of stars, galaxies, and thousands of previously unseen asteroids. Full Survey Operations: The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) officially began in July 2026 and will run for ten years. The observatory features...

A skyrocketing number of California residents have developed an incurable lung disease linked to kitchen quartz countertops — with many needing lung transplants, according to a terrifying new state study. One of those victims is Enrique Gonzalez, a San Fernando Valley stone worker who has been unable to work for the past two years after developing silicosis from years of working in granite and stone manufacturing. Gonzalez’s family says the disease has made it impossible for him to continue working as his condition has progressed, leaving the family struggling to cover medical expenses and everyday costs. The number of Californians...

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A CNN panel exploded in a heated clash Monday night after Dems accused Republicans of launching an “anti-Muslim” attack on Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed by running an ad campaign using his full name. During “CNN NewsNight” with guest host Jon Berman, the panel discussed Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) defense of an ad campaign that blasts El-Sayed as a dangerous candidate and uses the controversial lefty pol’s full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. In an interview clip, the senator was asked whether the ads are an attempt to tell voters “hint, hint…he’s Muslim.” Scott responded, “Not at all … I...