Free Republic

The Bureau of Land Management has published details of a plan to make millions of acres of public lands across the western U.S. available for development of solar power. The Western Solar Plan, which revises guidelines from more than a decade ago, was published in the Federal Register on August 30, 2024. The BLM said the plan would make 31 million acres of public lands (that is 48,437 square miles!) available for potential solar energy development. The new proposal seeks to bring solar projects to 11 states. The plan would place development closer to existing or planned power transmission lines,...

July was a bad month for Jack Smith. He was stripped of his special counsel title by a federal judge in Florida, and he lost 6-3 in the Supreme Court on the critical issue of presidential immunity. Despite the setbacks, he just took another shot at former President Donald Trump in the hopes of bringing him down before the November election. Many likely assumed the case was dead, considering the legal drubbing Mr. Smith just received. But this determined prosecutor moved back to the United States from The Hague for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of sending a Republican candidate to jail....

Philadelphia has collected personal citizen information for years through a company now instructing Democrat get-out-the-vote foot soldiers.What are your pronouns? Your sex? Your race and sexual orientation? Are you physically or mentally disabled? The Philadelphia Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity wants to know these to “better serve the residents of Philadelphia.”These “optional demographic questions” are attached to the form you must fill out if you want to take the city’s Civic Engagement Academy Learning Series class titled, “Leading a Community Meeting.” It promises to teach how to “host a successful meeting and manage conflict.” The bottom of the form...

The cold, hard world of betting markets framing the outcome of the 2024 presidential election were singularly unimpressed by the showing of Kamala Harris during her CNN interview on Thursday evening. Newsweek sought the views of two leading bookmakers and this was the outcome of the pre-taped Harris-Walz chat with Dana Bash: The vice president went from being the favorite to win with odds of 10/11 (52.4 percent) on Thursday to tied with Donald Trump on 19/20 (51.3 percent) each on Friday morning, according to the Star Sports betting company. Over the same period, Trump’s odds of victory in November...

...She’s vague to the point of vacuous. She struggled to give straight answers to her shifting positions on fracking and border security other than to say, “my values have not changed.” Fine, but she evaded the question of why it took the Biden administration more than three years to gain better control of the border, which it ultimately did through an executive order that could have been in place years earlier. It also doesn’t answer the question of why she reversed her former policy positions — or whether she has higher values other than political expediency. Harris also relied on...

Vice President Kamala Harris showed her true colors Thursday in her first TV interview since becoming the Democratic nominee – admitting her lefty “values have not changed” even though her positions on major policies have. In a sit-down with CNN, Harris, 59, defended various backtracks when asked if voters can know what they’re getting — as Republicans question the sincerity of her pivots to the political center on immigration, healthcare and energy policy ahead of the Nov. 5 election. “I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,”...

Australians will soon be able to verify their identity with a business or service by tapping their smart phone, with the rollout of new technology funded by the federal government. Labor says the system will be more secure and save time, but concerns remain about how much data the government could collect.

An expert has suggested the UK could see rioting in the streets if the pension age is raised to 71 as some think-tanks are suggest the move is necessary. Warnings that the retirement age for state pension eligibility must rise to 71 have sparked a furious response. Experts have told the Labour Government they must act now over the unaffordability of the UK's state pension payment commitments. And one has even suggested the UK could see rioting in the streets if the pension age is raised again.

Kamala Harris was last night ripped to shreds for her 'word salad' answers in a softball liberal media interview - her first since Joe Biden stepped down 40 days ago. The Democratic nominee appeared beside her running mate Tim Walz for an hourlong broadcast - which in reality amounted to less than half an hour of actual questioning by Dana Bash. Scott Jennings, an ex-Bush advisor, issued the ominous warning that Donald Trump will be 'salivating' ahead of the presidential debate on September 10 - their first ever face-to-face meeting. That sentiment was echoed by GOP polling guru Frank Luntz...

Vice President Kamala Harris insisted that she did not support a fracking ban, even though in 2019 she strongly backed a nationwide ban on it. “I made it clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I would not ban fracking,” she told CNN in an interview Thursday night. But before she dropped her bid for president in 2019 and joined President Biden’s ticket, Ms. Harris said in a CNN town hall, “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” When asked whether her...

Claim: Vice President Kamala Harris said that she and President Biden have created 800,000 manufacturing jobs. “We created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. I’ll say that that’s good work,” Harris said in her interview with CNN on Thursday. Verdict: Harris’s statement is misleading. U.S. manufacturers increased their payrolls by around 742,000 workers between January 2021 when Biden took office and October 2022 but most of those were not “new” manufacturing jobs as Harris claimed. They were factories re-filling jobs that had been created under President Trump. What’s more, only 20,000 jobs have been added since October 2022, indicating a year...

F-16, during the massive rocket attacks on August 26, was shot down with the help of Patriot air defense systems due to the lack of coordination between the units of the Ukrainian Air Force. This was stated by the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Mariana Bezuglaya. "According to my information, the F-16 of the Ukrainian pilot Alexei "Moonfish" Mes was shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to discoordination between units. The reports noted that he "failed to manage." The event took place during one of the most powerful air attacks of the Russians on August...

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday offered her most expansive explanation to date on why she’s changed some of her positions on fracking and immigration, telling CNN’s Dana Bash her values haven’t shifted but that her time as vice president provided new perspective on some of the country’s most pressing issues. ... Pressed by Bash on her reversals on fracking and decriminalizing illegal border crossings, Harris sought to explain why her positions had changed. ... “How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made?” Bash asked Harris. “Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve...

CNN — Two top Ukrainian officials will present the Biden administration with a list of targets in Russia in face-to-face meetings this week, in an attempt to push the US to lift restrictions on the use of American weapons against Moscow, a Ukrainian lawmaker told CNN. Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, will meet with US officials “to try to concretely convince the White House to lift restrictions on long-range weapons strikes on Russian territory,” the lawmaker said. “They will provide a list of priority targets, without which it...

A group of about 20 migrants allegedly tried to enter a California school bus picking up students on Wednesday morning, district officials said. The incident was one of two that occurred at a bus stop for Jamul-Dulzura Union School District students, with three men previously trying to enter the school bus on Tuesday, Fox 5 reports. Superintendent Liz Bystedt said in a letter to parents that the group of migrants were walking in the middle of Highway 94 trying to stop one of the buses. Parents, however, were also at the site helping the bus driver ensure the students were...

Former President Donald Trump has the edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in a close race for the White House, according to a pair of polls published Thursday. Harris has a more challenging road to the White House than Trump when considering the polls–one from Emerson College/Nexstar Media and another from Fabrizio Ward & Associates– and deeper themes stirring both nationally and in the individual states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. For instance, one essential theme to consider is Trump regularly outperforms the polls: In the post-Democratic National Convention (DNC) August 25-28 Emerson College poll,...

New surveys from Emerson College Polling/The Hill show a toss-up election between former President Donald Trump Vice President Kamala Harris in swing states. The Republican presidential nominee is up in Wisconsin (49 percent to 48 percent), Arizona (50 percent to 47 percent), and North Carolina (49 percent to 48 percent). Harris, meanwhile, is ahead in Georgia (49 percent to 48 percent), Michigan (50 percent to 47 percent), and Nevada (49 percent to 48 percent). The race in Pennsylvania is tied at 48 percent. SWING STATE POLLS with @thehill2024 Presidential ElectionAZ: Trump 50%, Harris 47%GA: Harris 49%, Trump 48%MI: Harris 50%,...

Legacy media have found their latest hoax to run about Donald Trump, and this time it’s to convince you that he hates America’s fallen troops.Legacy media have found their latest hoax to run about Donald Trump, and this time it’s to convince you that he hates America’s fallen troops. The entire non-troversy began earlier this week, when anti-truth NPR ran an anonymously sourced article with claims that members of Trump’s team “had a verbal and physical altercation” with an Arlington National Cemetery official during the former president’s Monday visit. Trump was there at the request of Gold Star families whose...

Claim: MGM’s James Bond star Jeffrey Wright has claimed former President Donald Trump started a fight at Arlington National Cemetery this week while the current Republican presidential nominee was attending a memorial service to honor the 13 American service members who were killed during the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Verdict: False. Former President Donald Trump didn’t start a fight at Arlington. Jeffrey Wright’s accusation appears to stem from an incorrect reading of an NPR report alleging Trump campaign staff got into an “altercation” with a cemetery official who prevented them from taking photographs in an off-limits...

One of the things that riles even those Americans who aren’t politically inclined is seeing their tax dollars pay for illegal aliens’ education, housing, food, and medical care. When they raise these concerns, though, they’re immediately told, “quit yer whining” because even illegal aliens pay taxes and buy American products. The implication is that the illegal aliens are paying their way. This is a lie.According to leftist sites, illegal aliens are a net good to the economy. Not only do “they do the jobs Americans won’t do,” but they are also good taxpayers. According to a July report from the...