Free Republic

President Biden narrowly leads former President Trump in a new poll asking whether democracy and the rule of law will be protected if either of the front-runners is elected to the White House. The new CBS News/YouGov poll found that 34 percent of voters think U.S. democracy and rule of law “will be safe” if Biden wins November’s election, while 33 percent said the same about Trump. Both candidates are the likely nominees from their respective parties as they barrel toward a possible 2020 rematch next fall. A significant share of voters also expressed pessimism over the safety of democracy...

Former President Obama on Wednesday warned against the rise of political violence across the U.S. and urged Americans to cast a vote in the midterm elections to save democracy. Obama told rallygoers at a Phoenix event that the “only way to preserve our democracy is if we nurture and invest in it.” “When true democracy goes away people get hurt,” Obama said. “It has real-life consequences, it’s not some abstract political science question. We are all affected. We take this for granted, and we can’t.” “There’s a reason why generations of Americans fought and died for this idea of self-government...

"I will remember December 23, 2016 for the rest of my life. It was my last day working a full-time job. My wife and I retired early at 33 and 35, respectively, after accumulating $870,000 working in information technology. With the help of the market, our net worth increased to $1 million shortly after."

At 2 a.m. local time on the second Sunday of March, clocks around the country will "spring forward" one hour to 3 a.m., marking the start of daylight saving time and the end of standard time. For decades, this shift has cost Americans a valuable hour of their weekend that they won't see again until clocks move back during the first Sunday of November. But an end to the tradition may be closer than ever before. According to USA Today, the federal government first enacted daylight saving to conserve coal during World War I in the spring of 1918. But...

Consumer psychology radically changed during the early days of the virus pandemic as shortages at supermarkets emerged. Bulk-buying habits were never a thing with the modern consumer in a pre-COVID world, but now ‘prepping’ has gone mainstream two years since the beginning of the virus pandemic as supply chains remain snarled and food inflation is out-of-control. Many have discovered: be prepared or be hungry. The pandemic was an eye-opener for tens of millions of consumers who learned the government and big corporations wouldn’t take care of them when things go south. Even our elected officials were nowhere to be found...

MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough on Monday slammed his former party during a segment about “the far-right’s finest from this past weekend.” The former GOP congressman hit Republicans for claiming to be the party that values the sanctity of life while also calling for people to be executed, refusing to “give kids health care” and “allowing school shootings to continue.” Scarborough argued the party fighting for freedom from vaccine and mask mandates was proof they were “not dedicated to saving lives.”

We Are Doomed.

In case you missed it (only 17k views). We owe it to the kids who died in Normandy who were too young to even vote. “Stop being worried. WE GOT THIS.” Video Here

The idea of rummaging around in a dumpster may gross you out, but freegans -- or dumpster divers -- are only too keen to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. They have become masters in the art of getting food by salvaging it rather than buying it, a militant act that seeks to combat food waste. In a bid to cut food waste, some people have decided to delve into the dumpsters left outside major supermarkets in order to fish out any unsold foodstuffs. This ecological movement is known as "freeganism" -- a portmanteau of the terms "free"...

Field reports from physicians around the world suggest that hydroxychloroquine, a relatively inexpensive drug used to treat malaria for more than 60 years, may be useful in fighting COVID-19. Based on this emerging data, President Trump has suggested that doctors consider the “off-label” use of hydroxychloroquine in this global emergency. So why is President Trump being ridiculed or condemned for at least spreading a ray of hope against a disease so new it would be impossible for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have its own officially approved treatment yet? Is the president promoting quackery, or worse? Nothing of...

**SNIP** Many workers would then begin their workday in darkness. Worse, young children waiting for the school bus would also be in darkness, creating a potential safety hazard. Further, this delayed sunrise would impact the body’s circadian rhythms. Shift work has long been known to have negative impacts on health. The delayed winter sunrise would have a similar effect, causing the equivalent of jet lag. Various scientific bodies have released statements opposing year-round DST and endorsing a return to year-round standard time. The Society for Research on Biological Rhythms has stated that year-round standard time would enhance sleep, increase cardiac...

A fisherman in New Zealand pulled an 18-month-old baby from the sea alive after the boy went missing from his campsite where he was staying with his parents. Gus Hutt, who was fishing at a beach near a holiday park in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island, thought he was pulling a doll from the ocean before realising he had rescued a baby when the boy “let out a little squeak”. He said he was checking his lines at about 7.15am late last month when he spotted the baby float past. "His face looked like porcelain with...

Over $20 million in taxpayer funds could be saved at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term in office due to his leaner White House operation. A new report on the White House Office Personnel revealed that Trump has a significantly smaller staff than his predecessor did at this time, according to an analysis by Open the Books, a government watchdog organization that focuses on spending. “Although the White House personnel budget is an infinitesimal part of the $3.9 trillion federal budget, it is an important forecasting indicator showing Trump’s deep commitment to cut the size, scope and power...

“As a business, it is failing,” said CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA), Matthew Polka, during an episode of C-SPAN Communicators this week. “It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can’t give them on cable.”

What makes the Air Force One program so costly? The CEO of Boeing told President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday that his company can build a new Air Force One for less than originally quoted -- after Trump complained about the cost. Earlier this month, Trump made headlines for blasting the company on Twitter for alleged cost overruns with the new fleet of Air Force One planes. Trump called on the government to cancel the contract and called the supposed $4 billion price tag out of control.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Constitution is a sacred and cherished American document. But Mark Levin, a popular conservative national radio talk show host, has started a modern-day movement to revamp it in order to save it from liberals who he believes seek to destroy it. The lines at bookstores are out the door with people waiting to get a signed copy of Levin's New York Times No. 1 best seller, The Liberty Amendments. "We are unmoored from the Constitution and people see it," Levin said. The radio talk show host and constitutional scholar says he's fed up with 100 years...

A conservation group says rare woodpecker chicks in burned forest stands at Lake Tahoe won't survive if the U.S. Forest Service proceeds with a contentious post-fire logging project. Leaders of the John Muir Project in the Sierra are pressing the agency to postpone cutting around the trees until after the nesting season in August. They are hoping for a ruling by then on their appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court aimed at blocking what's left of the salvage operation. The logging is in an area where a fire burned more than 250 homes in 2007. Group director Chad Hanson...

Before government engineers can deepen one of the nation's busiest seaports to accommodate future trade, they first need to remove a $14 million obstacle from the past -- a Confederate warship rotting on the Savannah River bottom for nearly 150 years. Confederate troops scuttled the ironclad CSS Georgia to prevent its capture by Gen. William T. Sherman when his Union troops took Savannah in December 1864. It's been on the river bottom ever since. Now, the Civil War shipwreck sits in the way of a government agency's $653 million plan to deepen the waterway that links the nation's fourth-busiest container...

How the U.S. National Debt Could Drain Your Savings January 9, 2012 By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning Now that Congress has allowed the U.S. national debt to grow bigger than the American economy, it won't be long until the American public suffers the consequences by losing most of its savings to inflation.Figures for last year show the national debt officially exceeded 100% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). According to government figures, the national debt stood at $15.23 trillion at the close of 2011, compared to a GDP of $15.18 trillion. "The 100% mark means that your...

high earners need to save extremely high percentages of their income -- as much as 77 percent for the 45-year-old just starting to save for retirement at age 62 -- to produce that 80 percent. The concept underlying Munnell's paper, and a lot of other retirement planning advice, is that you can figure out how much you need to save once you have a number for that 80 percent replacement rate. But there's reason to believe that oft-quoted 80 percent figure is wildly on the high side. That, in turn, makes the retirement calculations based upon it also wildly off....