Free Republic

The office of Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is being accused of wielding its political power in order to seek retribution against a Vermont business owner who ran an ad attacking Sanders over his hypocrisy. Rodolphe “Skip” Vallee, the CEO of St. Albans-based gasoline distributor and retailer R.L. Vallee, is alleging that Sanders and his senior press adviser, Daniel McLean, conspired against the business owner by drumming up a class-action lawsuit, according to federal court documents. Vallee, who owns more than 45 gas stations in and around Vermont, produced an anti-Sanders television advertisement that aired locally in September 2014. The advertisement criticized...

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg will not run for re-election in 2020, opening himself up to speculation for a possible presidential run. Buttigieg made the announcement that he won’t be running Monday morning at South Bend City Hall. Some political pundits view Buttigieg has a Democratic candidate for president, based on his military experience and status as a Rhodes Scholar.

Christopher Steele, the former British spy who prepared the Russia “dossier” that has led to more than two years of investigations into President Donald Trump’s campaign, has told a London court that he was hired to provide a basis to challenge the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election in the event that Trump won. The Washington Times reported Monday (original links): He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference. His scenario is contained in a sealed...

Even though she's lunatic, she's right.................. VIDEO AT LINK.......................

Whatever Judge Emmett Sullivan decides tomorrow, one fact remains: on February 13, 2017 Lt General Flynn took a bullet and resigned to save the Trump Presidency. As REX explains, It was an act of incredible heroism and may well be the decisive turning point in POTUS Trump's war against The Swamp. oday, it's an open question as to whether Lt General Michael Flynn, a decorated military officer of decades standing and a legend with an unblemished record, "lied" to the FBI. In my opinion, the "lie" was invented by a rogue cop, Bob Mueller, conspiring with criminals such as the...

Alec Baldwin tweets that Trump is 'punishment' for slavery, slaughtering Native Americans By Jessica Sager | Fox News Alec Baldwin's severe disdain for President Donald Trump hasn't waned one bit. The actor, who frequently spoofs Trump on "Saturday Night Live," claimed in an incendiary tweet this weekend that the POTUS is "punishment" for a variety of American sins. "Trump is a curse, brought down on us as punishment 4 our sins. The slaughter of Native Americans, slavery, Japanese internment, Vietnam. Every hateful, misogynistic, racist notion, intertwined w our better nature, Trump embodies those. He is us. Now we can face...

While doing field work in the Arctic, University of Washington doctoral candidate Judy Twedt could see the impact of sea level rise, carbon emissions and rapidly disappearing sea ice firsthand. But communicating the urgency of that data to people outside the bubble of the scientific world remained a struggle. She found the answer in music. Twedt sonifies climate data — basically, she makes iconic or meaningful data sets audible by translating each data point into a note. When CO2 rises on a graph curve, the notes react by becoming high and screechy. As sea ice disappears, one hand replicates the...

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet. But, while cement - the key ingredient in concrete - has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint. Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world - behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is...

For all the charts and graphs that scientists use to sound the alarm on climate change, nothing gets people’s attention quite like videos of massive glaciers collapsing into the sea or images of raging wildfires consuming drought-ridden landscapes. “We know we need science to understand these problems, but we also know that science is not enough to reach people in that visceral way,” says Assoc. Prof. of Environmental Science Juliette Rooney-Varga, director of the university’s Climate Change Initiative. “And we also know from the social science research that it’s that visceral reaction that spurs action.” So this year’s David Lustick...

Civil society groups have pledged growing international protests to drive rapid action on global warming after the UN climate summit in Poland. The summit agreed rules for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement, which aims to keep global warming as close to 1.5C as possible, but it made little progress in increasing governments’ commitments to cut emissions. The world remains on track for 3C of warming, which scientists says will bring catastrophic extreme weather. May Boeve, the executive director of the 350.org climate change campaign group, said: “Hope now rests on the shoulders of the many people who are rising to...

Plausible Deniability: Frustrated by the lack of progress on holding guilty parties involved in the dubious Obama-era “Spygate” scandal accountable, outgoing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said there should be an “Office of Transparency” connected to the White House that is responsible for deciding which documents can be declassified and released to the public. “Our investigation is essentially over. We have everything that we need. What we’re lacking now is that we’re lacking the declassification by the president,” Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News of his panel’s look into the handling of the “Russia” inquiry by the Justice Department and...

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill to move California's primary elections in 2020 to the beginning of March, three months ahead of when they were held in 2016.

a report from the Auditor of the State of California on the High Speed Rail Project ... To understand just how damning the HSR audit was, just consider the subtitle: “Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System’s Construction.” But like many government documents, the audit is couched in bureaucratic language that ordinary citizens may not understand. For that reason, below are the summary points as provided by the state auditor with accompanying translations. Auditor: “Although the Authority has secured and identified funding of over $28 billion that it...

Video at link. Mary Ann Mendoza displays picture of son killed by illegal alien. (Screenshot) Mothers who have had children killed by illegal aliens are rallying at a San Diego, California port of entry this week to demand Congress fund construction of a border wall. Angel Families Founder Mary Ann Mendoza, whose son, Police Officer Brandon Mendoza, was killed by an illegal alien, says recent comments by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) opposing wall funding prompted her to hold a press conference: “Angel Families decided that we needed to do a press conference here at a...

A prominent ‘Republican' women's political action committee that regularly receives national media attention for its criticisms of President Donald Trump and the GOP is bankrolled by three liberal billionaire donors and activists, Federal Election Commission filings show. Republican Women for Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, was founded by Jennifer Lim and Meghan Milloy, both former employees of Republican organizations. The duo also previously founded Republican Women for Hillary and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in the past. The Republican Women for Progress PAC was established on Sept. 13 to back their work during the midterm elections, which included throwing...

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander announced Monday he will not run for re-election in 2020, saying it’s time for “someone else” to have the privilege of representing Tennessee in the Senate. “I will not be a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate in 2020,” the 78-year-old Alexander said in a statement. Alexander, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, previously served as governor of Tennessee. He also worked as secretary of the Department of Education under then-President George H.W. Bush. “The people of Tennessee have been very generous, electing me to serve more combined years...

Melania Trump’s spokeswoman penned an op-ed Monday slamming the media for focusing on “trivial and superficial” matters, like the first lady’s marriage and fashion choices, despite her continued work benefiting children and military families. Stephanie Grisham, Mrs. Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications, took issue with an opinion piece by CNN contributor Kate Anderson Brower, who accused the first lady of throwing herself a “pity party” for lamenting how she’s covered by the media during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week. “This condescending opinion, apparently written in response to a single answer Mrs. Trump gave in...

It’s a question he has been asked since entering public life, and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker was again forced to address his personal life as he considers whether to run for president in 2020. “I’m heterosexual,” Booker told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The interview took place as Booker decides whether to jump into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He told NJ Advance Media last month that he would “consider running for president" in 2020 and would "take some time during this holiday season to sit with family and close friends and advisers to give it a really good consideration.”...

It's become common in the liberal media to accuse President Trump of sounding like a "mob boss." But CNN legal analyst Elie Honig took things an ugly step further on New Day this morning. Speaking of President Trump's tweet in which he referred to Michael Cohen as a "rat," Honig said:"People get killed because of that . . . People have been murdered because someone said, that guy's a rat."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

President Donald Trump expressed frustration with the FBI prosecution of his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, wondering why they never did the same to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE!” Trump wrote, referring to an FBI raid on Cohen’s home. “Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked [Hillary]’s office?” Trump was referring to the FBI never verifying DNC claims that they were hacked by Russians and never seizing Clinton’s private e-mail server where she illegally sent classified information. The president’s comments appeared to have struck a nerve with former...