Free Republic

The U.S. Farm Belt helped deliver Donald Trump to the White House, drawn to his promises to revive rural America and deregulate industry. Now, the president’s global trade offensive is threatening the livelihoods of many farmers. Mounting trade disputes, spurred by U.S. threats to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of goods from key trading partners, have cut U.S. agricultural exports and sent commodity prices tumbling. Many farmers, who depend on shipments overseas for one-fifth of the goods they produce, say they are anxious, especially because they are already expecting bumper...

@realDonaldTrump Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the turmoil & disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference...Prices to high! He has agreed! 7:37 AM · Jun 30, 2018

The Senate today easily passed its version of the farm bill by a vote of 86-11,paving the way for a conference committee to reconcile differences with the House's version of the sweeping agriculture and nutrition legislation. The Senate farm bill attracted bipartisan support, as expected, but key differences with the House's partisan version, which passed last week, set up potentially contentious negotiations between the lawmakers who will be tasked with melding the two measures into one. The main differences relate to proposals for the food stamp program, farm subsidy caps and conservation initiatives. Congress has until Sept. 30 to get...

You can understand their frustration, as the steady stream of radical environmentalist successes during the Obama years has been replaced with endless setbacks. Oil, gas and coal leasing, permits and production have risen significantly. Big Green just lost its first Big Cities v. Big Oil climate change shakedown lawsuit. President Trump pulled the USA out of the economy-wrecking, all-pain-no-gain Paris Climate Treaty and will soon nominate another Supreme Court justice. So, all these rabidly anti-fossil-fuel actions in Oakland and New York and across the USA will have no effect on global emissions or even theoretically on Earth’s climate. It’s all...

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday that he will travel Washington in July to meet with President Trump amid an escalating trade war between the U.S. and Europe. Juncker said that Europe stands committed to "free and fair, multilateral based trade," and announced that he would meet with the U.S. president before the end of July, according to a European Commission spokeswoman. That meeting will not take place before July 24, he said. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment. ETC...

The leaders of the Baltic states and Poland will sign a long-awaited deal on Thursday to connect their power grids to the European Union grid by 2025 and break their energy relationship with Russia, a Soviet legacy. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, once ruled by Moscow, view being plugged into Russia's power network as a threat to their national security. "We worked nine years for the agreement," President Dalia Grybauskaite told Lithuanian LRT television on Thursday. "This is the last millstone tied to our feet, keeping us from real energy independence," she said. "That tool of blackmail, which was used (by...

The UN Human Rights Office alleges that extra-judicial killings were carried out by officers involved with the Operations for the Liberation of the People, ostensibly a crime-reduction initiative.These officers may have killed more than 500 people since July 2015 as a way to showcase crime-reduction results, it says. They are alleged to have faked evidence to make it look as though the victims died in exchanges of fire. Where a coffee costs wads of banknotesWhy mums-to-be are fleeing Venezuela UN investigators have been denied access to Venezuela. They made their findings from interviews with about 150 witnesses and victims contacted...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is asking U.S. allies around the world to lower their level of oil imports from Iran to zero by November 4th of this year, a senior U.S. Official said on Tuesday. The official added that the administration isn't planning to produce any waivers that will exclude certain countries or companies from this requirement. "We are pushing allies to cut oil imports to zero by November," the senior official said. "We view this as one of our top national security priorities." Talks on this demand have been ongoing for recent weeks, but the senior official said...

JinkoSolar Holding Co. is the world’s largest maker of solar panels after four previous top companies tripped up in the past decade ... Many of the top producing companies have had problems with quality control. ... China’s large solar industry has stoked fears of a slow-developing environmental crisis as the country’s solar panels and infrastructure age and need to be replaced. (RELATED: Old Solar Panels Causing An Environmental Crisis In China) China has yet to develop a plan for disposing broken solar panels, which are difficult to recycle. The effect could be up to 20 million metric tons of waste...

People over 50 remember the OPEC oil embargoes and Americans waiting in line to buy gasoline. We were the most powerful nation the world. We had won World War II, rebuilt Europe and Japan. Yet, here we were begging some faceless Middle Eastern Sheiks for a few gallons so we could get to work. It was both frustrating and humiliating. The answers we got from our political leadership were pathetic. Yes, they authorized farmers to start making ethanol and gave tax credits to the big refineries to get them to blend it. Congress created a Department of Energy to look...

BREAKING: OPEC countries give in to President Trump's demands, agree to increase oil production by almost 1 million barrels a day - AP

Michigan’s two largest electricity companies struck a “breakthrough agreement” last month with billionaire California environmentalist Tom Steyer to boost the Wolverine State’s clean-energy requirements. Earlier this year, Mr. Steyer had funded a ballot initiative slated for August to force Michigan’s electricity providers to source 30% of their overall sales from renewable options such as wind and solar by 2030. But under the new agreement, the utilities will aim to produce a minimum 25% of their energy from renewable sources and a further 25% from energy-efficiency measures by that same year. This 50% green-energy goal will effectively govern the state’s energy...

For the umpteenth time, the United Nations General Assembly has voted to condemn Israel for defending itself. By a tally of 120 to 8, the members declared that Israel was guilty of “excessive use of force” against Palestinians who were protesting the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. The resolution also requested recommendations to protect Palestinians. For 10 weeks now, the two sides have clashed at the border, resulting in 120 Palestinian deaths. Israeli Defense Forces warned protesters not to approach the Israeli-Gaza border on May 14, the day of the embassy opening. They did anyway - some armed...

Bitcoin could be the money of the future — unless it continues to operate in the same way that it currently does. A new study authored by economist and data consultant Alex de Vries has painted a horrifying picture of a few months from now with the cryptocurrency growing as rapidly as it does at the moment. As per the research, keeping the Bitcoin business up and running by the end of this year would mean using 7.67 gigawatts of power, which is one two-hundredth of all the electricity used on the planet. In its current form, the Bitcoin network...

The U.S. President Donald Trump objected to the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline to carry Russian gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea prior to a working lunch with the heads of the Baltic States. In April, Trump met with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the White House to discuss energy and security issues. "Germany hooks up a pipeline into Russia, where Germany is going to be paying billions of dollars for energy into Russia," said Trump and added, "And I’m saying, “What’s going on with that? How come Germany is paying vast amounts of money...

Norway will ask the United States to double the number of U.S. troops stationed in the country and deploy them nearer the border with Russia, the government said Tuesday. The announcement came after nine nations along NATO's eastern flank called Friday for the alliance to bolster its presence in their region: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Oslo said it wants to boost the troop numbers to 700 and station them further north at Setermoen, 420 kilometres (260 miles) from Russia. The U.S. deployment agreement would also be extended from the current six-month renewable periods...

One of the most common fallacies of the new populists is to say that their model is the “Nordic” one and that those countries are successful examples of how “socialism works”. When I mentioned it to the Finnish Finance Minister Petteri Orpo at a recent ECR dinner, he could not believe it. Expropriations, massive tax increases, appropriation of savings and subordinating the growth model to political control is what populists defend. The same as Venezuela, which all of them praised — from Bernie Sanders to Owen Jones or Corbyn and Chomsky — until it collapsed. Then they moved on to...

Don’t laugh too hard but this has been a terrible week for the renewable energy dream. Across the world solar energy share prices have crashed. This was caused by a sudden and unexpected decision by China, the world’s biggest solar manufacturer and user, to rein in subsidies.

Nikola Motor has started hiring for its Arizona Research & Development Center that is slated to open in November in Phoenix, Ariz. The facility will test and develop the Nikola’s hydrogen electric Class 8 trucks. The company has received 10,000 orders so far, including a high profile order from Anheuser Busch for 800 trucks. The first vehicle prototypes, along with heavy-duty demonstration stations, are being built for the concept testing phase to roll out later this year. “We want the world’s top talent in vehicle electrification, fuel cell development, hydrogen storage and hydrogen fueling to apply for these premium positions,”...

Big Oil is having an incredible impact, again, in Texas. Midland, TX is experiencing such a booming shale-oil economy that truck drivers are making more than $100,000. In turn, smaller businesses are forced to either raise their wages or extend hours to retain workers. But, this successful economy has what some say are a few downsides as well. With increased wages comes increased rents and labor shortages in public positions. Regardless, the region’s industry is providing bevy of economic benefits that could last for a very long time, reports the Los Angeles Times. Midland has an astoundingly low 2.1% unemployment rate...