Free Republic

Sarah Palin is right. Obama losing Lois Lerner’s emails is worse than Nixon erasing 19 minutes of tape. Two years of emails is much more significant than 19 minutes of conversation. But then Obama’s just being Obama. If the IRS would only turn over the hard drive of Lois Lerner, I would happily be able to restore those lost two years of data. Do you know how hard it is to permanently delete data off of a hard drive? Very hard… you’d have to deliberately do it. It would be kind of like spending $1 trillion on shovel ready...

The VA Scandal began at the Phoenix VA Health Care System where administrators earned promotions and bonuses by shunting patients who needed treatment into fake waiting lists. As many as 40 veterans had died while waiting for care and 1,715 veterans in the Phoenix VA Health Care System had waited more than 90 days for an appointment. A retired Navy serviceman died of bladder cancer after being put on a 7-month waiting list after blood was found in his urine. He finally received an appointment a week after his death.

It’s bad enough that American taxpayers have been repeatedly fleeced by President Obama’s many failed “green” projects, now the commander-in-chief is dedicating an extra $2 billion—on top of $2 billion already dispersed in 2011—to make federal buildings in the United States energy efficient. It’s a necessary expense to protect the planet, according to the global warming movement spearheaded—and largely funded—by the U.S. government and much of the international community. This particular investment will cut carbon pollution by more than 380 million metric tons, according to a White House announcement. That’s equivalent to removing 80 million cars from roads for a...

The Department of Defense (DOD) paid $150 per gallon for alternative jet fuel made from algae, more than 64 times the current market price for standard carbon-based fuels, according to a report released on Wednesday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its report that a Pentagon official reported paying “about $150 per gallon for 1,500 gallons of alternative jet fuel derived from algal oil.” GAO’s report examined the financial challenges facing increased purchases and use of alternative jet fuels by federal agencies. “Currently, the price for alternative jet fuels exceeds that of conventional jet fuel,” the report noted. The...

An adorable baby bald eagle whose parents were executed by solar panels. (AP) The Obama administration has opened up a new front in its war on America’s eagles. For years, the president has relied on wind turbines to orchestrate his eco-genocide. Biologists estimate that wind farms kill as many as 328,000 birds each year by chopping them out of the sky. The administration’s successful weaponization of solar farms will only accelerate the death rate. Studies indicate that the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California has proved to be an especially efficient apparatus for eagle extermination. The facility, which...

Smith Electric was the future of the UK. Then it was the future of America. Now maybe it can be the future of Zimbabwe or Syria. Or some other sucker country.The Obama economy would look a lot like the Soviet economy if instead of building non-working third rate versions of Western technologies, the USSR had spent all its time trying to make a car that runs on dreams and pixie dust.Say what you will about the Lada, but at least they managed to make more than 500 of them.Smith had a long strange and troubled history and essentially we...

Only a few weeks after President Obama's controversial decision to delay the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Obama administration is expected in the next several weeks to approve a 500-mile green energy transmission line project running through Arizona and New Mexico that his own Defense Department says may pose "an unacceptable risk to national security." The multibillion-dollar electric power line project, financed by a group called SunZia, would connect wind power facilities in eastern New Mexico to the electric grid and supply power to Arizona and California. About 45 miles of the transmission lines would be located in...

The Bureau of Land Management is attempting to shut down the Bundy Ranch to clear the path for massive solar energy developments in southern Nevada that will enrich an A-list of well-connected Democrats close to President Obama, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and others. Completely unreported however, a scandal of epic proportions has been brewing with yet another Democrat-connected recipient of “green energy” stimulus funds. The Spain-based conglomerate Abengoa operates close to 600 subsidiaries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, and has received $3.6 billion in loans and grants in direct violation of President Obama’s "Recovery Act" promise...

em>"Probably for the next decade, the most dominate technology around the world will be coal..." -Jeff Immelt The fastest growing source of energy in the world last year was coal, and it is going to stay that way for a very long time. With that in mind, one has to wonder why President Obama has insisted on the gut-wrenching destruction of the coal industry that has costs thousands of jobs, and has sent electricity costs to all-time highs. This, combined with last month's report from the International Energy Agency, state that reaching the goal of carbon emission reduction would cost...

Can Opinion Turn Against Not-So-Jolly Green Giant?How much of a toll on the American economy does the green movement have to charge before Americans start to wake up to the dastardliness of radical environmentalism? Last month we saw firsthand one impact of Big Green on our economy with the White House announcement that the Keystone XL pipeline won't be built for at least six more months. Ten thousand blue collar jobs, almost all paying more than $50,000 a year, down the drain. It's a project that polls show almost all Americans want, except for the deep-pocketed green elite in Hollywood,...

I fear that this will not end well. Via Reuters: Segolene Royal, appointed French energy and environment minister this month, said on Friday she planned to create 100,000 jobs in the next three years with a drive for green growth.Royal told a news conference she wanted to accelerate investment in renewable energies like wind, solar, biomass and marine energy, as well as in insulation of buildings. …“I consider that, in the current context, the quasi-automatic increases of power bills are too brutal,” she said, adding that her cabinet was studying a new decree to control energy bills in the coming...

Solar’s getting cheaper, but it can never be a big reducer of carbon emissions.Solar energy can solve global warming. That’s what Paul Krugman claims in his April 18 column in the New York Times, “Salvation Gets Cheap.” Krugman extolled “the incredible recent decline in the cost of renewable energy, solar power in particular.” He used to dismiss the claim that renewable energy would be a major source of global energy “as hippie-dippy wishful thinking.” But now, he says, thanks to the falling price of renewable energy, the process of decarbonization can be accelerated and “drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions...

Failed Policy: The federal government has spent some $100 billion in taxpayer subsidies on green energy since 2006. Now we are seeing the flimsy and declining returns on that investment. The wind industry saw its growth tumble by 92% last year, according to a new report from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), and that's off of a very low base to begin with. Big Wind blames the decline in output on uncertainty over the future of a federal wind industry tax credit — an absurdly generous subsidy of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour produced. This handout is what keeps...

Look for a Climate Credit from the State of California on Your April Utility Bill This month your electricity bill will include a credit identified as the "California Climate Credit." Twice a year, in April and October, your household and millions of others throughout the state will receive this credit on your electricity bills. The Climate Credit is a payment to Californians from a program designed to fight climate change by limiting the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that our largest industries put into the atmosphere. This program is one of many developed as a result of landmark legislation called...

The son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory Reid, is the primary representative for ENN Energy Group, a Chinese energy company seeking to build a $5 billion solar panel plant on a 9,000-acre Clark County desert plot in Laughlin, Nevada. ENN scored big when Clark County commissioners unanimously voted to sell the Chinese company the public land for just $4.5 million, despite the fact that it was appraised at $38.6 million. Sen. Reid has been one of ENN’s biggest supporters, having recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China. According to Reuters, last month Sen. Reid tried...

The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists.VideoAs a family in Clark County, Nev. continues to face an onslaught of heavily armed federal agents determined to kick them off of their ranch, reports have surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be behind the entire ordeal. The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy’s family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists. Despite attempting to silence protesters...

In the summer of 2012, when Marita Noon and I began our collaboration in exposing the entire green corruption scheme, we covered a favored White House Spanish conglomerate in our piece "How Democrats Say 'Crony Corruption' in Spanish: Abengoa." Early this year, we received bombshell testimony, coupled with substantiated documentation, that Abengoa, at least at one of their three projects funded with billions of U.S. taxpayer money from President Obama’s 2009-Recovery Act, has broken stimulus laws and DOE loan stipulations. Worse, what we uncovered is that this foreign-owned firm has engaged in chilling, unethical and potentially criminal activity, including, but...

Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today on Nevada’s February employment report which indicated Nevada’s unemployment rate fell to 8.5%:“Today’s Nevada employment report shows that we continue to see signs of economic growth in the Silver State. 8.5% is still a high rate of unemployment, and for this reason we need to ensure that we extend unemployment insurance for those who are struggling to make ends meet by no fault of their own. Their need is real, and next week I hope to have a final vote to extend these emergency benefits for thousands in...

A reporter has been detained by Capitol Hill police for trying to ask a question of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy. Bloomberg BNA energy reporter Ari Natter tweeted about being detained. #transparency RT @AriNatter: I am being detained by Capital Police for trying to ask @EPAGina a question after her remarks. — nickjuliano (@nickjuliano) March 28, 2014 Natter was detained while covering the American Council On Renewable Energy conference, where McCarthy spoke. Also speaking at the conference was Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a staunch supporter of green energy who regularly takes the Senate floor to sound the...

Saving The Planet: It used to be said that socialism was the opium of the liberal intelligentsia. But now the drug of choice for the elite is environmentalism. The dirty little secret of the modern green movement is that it's become a luxury good for the uber-rich who espouse policies — from carbon taxes to renewable energy standards to closing down coal plants — that impose high costs on poor people who can least afford to pay the green tab. A Pew Research Center poll released last week offers further confirmation of this truism. It found that only two major...