Free Republic

The issue of nuisance lawsuits against gun manufacturers has moved well beyond the courtroom drama playing out with the Sandy Hook families. Bernie Sanders has managed to drive Hillary Clinton further to the left as she seeks lines of attack against the Vermont Senator, coaxing her into calling for the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in recent campaign stops. That may serve her purposes in the primary, but how well does such a position play nationally as we look forward to the general election in November? A new survey conducted by Harper Polling indicates...

House Speaker Paul Ryan concedes the “five-point” Republican legislative agenda he’s pursuing in Congress could be construed as competing with policy points the GOP presidential candidates are pushing in the primary season. But he argues that the party shouldn’t wait until its nominating convention in July to tell the public its priorities, including lowering the national debt, strengthening the military and easing government regulation of business. […] … Ryan adds that the GOP needs “a transition from being an opposition party to being a proposition party.” …

A Gallup poll [1]released on Friday shows that the number of Americans who identify as environmentalists has dropped 36 points, from 78 percent in 1991 to 42 percent in 2016. There has also been a decline in Americans expressing concern about environmental problems, such as pollution. The Earth Day poll [1] is conducted annually by Gallup. The polling firm cites the politicization of environmental issues as one possible reason for the decline, highlighting the growing partisan gap in those who identify as environmentalists. A large percentage of Americans (Republicans and Democrats) – 78 percent – considered themselves environmentalists in 1991....

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Chinese company Sun Paper announced plans Tuesday for a $1 billion bio-products mill in southern Arkansas, the paper company’s first facility in North America. Sun Paper officials were joined by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to announce the project. Hutchinson said the project will create 250 jobs and is one of the largest private investments in Arkansas’ history. Based in Shandong Province, Sun Paper employs 10,000 people worldwide and is China’s largest privately owned paper-making enterprise, according to the company’s website. The new plant will built about 65 miles southwest of Little Rock in the city...

If all the extra leaves that are growing because of increased CO2 in the atmosphere were laid end to end, it would cover a space twice the size of the continental US. That's the conclusion of a new study conducted by 32of scientists and i24 nstitutions. BBC: Climate sceptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet. But the researchers say the fertilisation effect diminishes over time. They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives.

SWIFT, the global financial network that banks use to transfer billions of dollars every day, warned its customers on Monday that it was aware of "a number of recent cyber incidents" where attackers had sent fraudulent messages over its system. The disclosure came as law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere investigated the February cyber theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a cooperative owned by 3,000 financial institutions.

The internet represents an extraordinary opportunity for democracy. Yet despite the scientific consensus that global warming is real and primarily due to human activity, studies show that only about half the population in some countries with among the highest CO2 emissions per capita understand that human beings are the driving force of our changing climate. Even fewer people are aware of the scientific consensus on this question. Climate Feedback intends to change that. It brings together a global network of scientists who use a new web-annotation platform to provide feedback on climate change reporting. For the first time, Climate Feedback...

British voters are getting set for a national referendum in June that will decide whether they leave the European Union or stay in. There are many issues driving the British exit vote (dubbed the “Brexit”): EU spending, EU taxes, EU regulations, EU bailouts, EU corruption, EU usurpations of power, EU migration — and much more. The ongoing migrant/refugee crisis caused by the disastrous EU policies was the last straw, not only for freedom-minded Brits, but for sensible residents all across Euroland. With a tidal wave of more than a million and a half migrants and “refugees” flooding across Europe since...

<p>The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering fixes on General Electric engines used on some Boeing 787 Dreamliners after it found that an icing problem can cause the engines to shut down mid-flight.</p>

...someone is going to call this the Hillary rally. As the chances of Mrs. Clinton’s nomination have strengthened, the Dow Jones industrial average has soared, rising 2,344 points, or 15 percent, from its recent low on Feb. 11. Other factors could have helped drive stocks higher... It wouldn’t be wise to also call it a Trump rally... ...Time and time again, political partisans have tried to recruit the stock market to their side. Most of the time it backfires... ...March 2009, days after The Wall Street Journal opinion section published an article headlined “Obama’s Radicalism Is Killing the Dow,” the...

Most people assume what has kept the market afloat this year after sinking 11% at the start of the year was a mixture of better news out of China, oil prices stabilizing, and indications that the Fed won’t raise rates as much as thought. But the real thing bouying the market could be something else: Stock buybacks. “Corporate repurchases are the main source of net demand for US stocks,” a team of Goldman Sachs analysts led by David Kostin noted in report out on Friday. Demand stemming from stock buybacks will help push up share prices—boosting the S&P 500 to...

Luke Russert tweets a photo of a pro-amnesty protester holding a sign at the Supreme Court which says: "Roses are red, tacos are enjoyable, don't blame a Mexican because you're unemployable."

The left-leaning Huffington Post published an article which seems concerned that Donald Trump could defeat Hillary Clinton in a general election contest due to his strong position on trade. In a Friday piece entitled, “Hillary Must Toughen Up On Trade In Case She Is Nominee Against Trump,” Dave Johnson, a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future, writes: If Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee she had better get tough on trade – and mean it. One of Donald Trump’ main elements of appeal to his voters – if not the main appeal – is his stance on...

A tanker from Louisiana loaded with U.S. natural gas is en route to Portugal, the first shipment in a trade relationship that could shake up the European market. The 970-foot long Creole Spirit, carrying liquefied natural gas, is expected to arrive by the end of April, according to shipping data and people familiar with the matter. In Europe, American gas will add to a swell in supply in a crowded market long dominated by Russia. Analysts predict that the arrival of U.S. gas could trigger a price war, leading to lower prices for consumers that could act as a shot...

The owner of the Arlington gun store that opened last month despite vociferous objections from local residents has sued 64 people, including elected officials, claiming that they conspired to destroy the business, harassed the owner and landlord and mailed death threats to the 16-year-old “owner-in-training.” The suit, filed last week in Richmond Circuit Court, named seven state legislators who appealed to the landlord, on official General Assembly stationery, to refuse to rent 2300 N. Pershing Dr. to Nova Armory. The lawsuit also named Arlington County Board member Christian Dorsey, School Board member Barbara Kanninen and multiple residents who have spoken...

Last week, Argentina successfully sold $16.5 billion in bonds to international investors, a record amount for any developing country. And on Friday, Elliott and the other bondholders finally received their reward in the form of billions of dollars in repayment, representing returns worth multiple times their original investments. “Today, we have put a definitive close to this chapter,” Alfonso Prat-Gay, Argentina’s economic minister, told an Argentine radio station on Friday.

Recent discussions within Los Angeles labor groups reveal inherent hypocrisy within the “Fight for $15” campaign. Unions paid plenty of lip service toward this effort, which would raise the minimum wage to $15. The Los Angeles City Council is considering a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 by 2020, and this month California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2022. It seems that unions should be celebrating this supposed win for workers – yet union leaders are currently seeking an exemption to the $15-an-hour minimum wage for union...

The British government’s sole assessment of the shadowy Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal indicates there are “lots of risks and no benefit,” according to documents seen by Global Justice Now. In February a freedom of information (FoI) request was made to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to find out whether risk assessments had been carried out in relation to the secretive deal, which is currently in its 13th round of negotiations. The BIS reported that the only assessment had been carried out by the London School of Economics (LSE), which found “little reason” to believe...

Cheap steel from China has been blamed for distorting global markets and putting other countries' steelmakers under pressure. How have we got here and why does it all matter? China's steel industry - what's the problem? Chinese steel production has expanded hugely. Over the past 25 years, output has grown more than 12-fold. By comparison, the EU's output fell by 12% while the US's remained largely flat. The drive behind that stellar increase has been China's double-digit economic growth over the past decades. That led to ever more domestic demand for steel and the government invested heavily in the industry...

Germany and its European allies must not give up on the values that have brought the continent unparalleled peace and prosperity, US President Barack Obama said on Monday. On what is expected to be his last visit to Germany as President, Obama told an audience in Hanover that Europeans ought not to allow the different crises facing the world to scare them away from their values. […] Obama ticked off a checklist of successes to highlight the strength of US-EU cooperation — from the historic achievements of bringing a peaceful end to the Cold War, to overcoming the financial crisis,...