Free Republic

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Oh. Why, nobody could’ve seen that coming. Oh, wait… – Useless North Carolina RINO Senator Richard Burr told the leering press yesterday that the incredibly mis-named Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence of “collusion” with Russia by the Trump Campaign, Trump Transition Team or Trump Administration. Go figure. Like American Gestapo Chief, er, “Special Counsel” Robert Mueller, Senate Intel is winding down its fake investigation because there is no “there” there – never was, isn’t now, and never will be. Democrats and fake journalists who really bought into this fantasy play...

If only Democrats controlled part of Congress so that we could have the robust national debate Ed Markey is demanding.Or rather, to reframe that point: There is a congressional leader who might be trying to sabotage the Green New Deal. But it ain’t McConnell. This isn't a new Republican trick. By rushing a vote on the #GreenNewDeal resolution, Republicans want to avoid a true national debate & kill our efforts to organize. We’re having the first national conversation on climate change in a decade. We can’t let Republicans sabotage it.— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) February 12, 2019 I continue to...

(CNN)Donald Trump is, by all measures, going to have a very difficult time winning a second term next November. He lost the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million votes. He's a deeply polarizing figure whose job approval ratings have never crested 50% in his presidency to date. He could face a serious primary challenge. And yet, in the last two weeks, Democrats have handed Trump two issues on a golden platter -- and it's already clear he is seizing on them. Bigly. 1) In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Reproductive Health Act, which,...

Union leaders warn Green New Deal may lead to poverty: Members worried about putting food on the table Labor unions are warning that the "Green New Deal" proposed by Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is vague and potentially dangerous, signaling that the progressive proposal may be in for even more turbulence following a rocky rollout last week. While conservatives have fiercely criticized the Green New Deal resolution for promising a job to "all people of the United States" -- including those "unwilling to work," according to an accompanying document published, and later disavowed, by Ocasio-Cortez's office -- the pushback...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate would vote on the Green New Deal introduced last week by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. "I've noted with great interest the Green New Deal, and we're going to be voting on that in the Senate to give everybody an opportunity to go on record," McConnell told reporters. The bill, which is not expected to pass the Republican-dominated upper chamber, could force some Democrats to make a politically awkward calculation.

<p>California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday in his “State of the State” address at the California State Capitol in Sacramento that he would abandon the state’s high-speed rail system because it was too expensive.</p> <p>The plan to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by high-speed rail “would cost too much and, respectfully, would take too long,” he told legislators. He said the state would still build a portion of the system under construction in the rural Central Valley, denying that it would be a “train to nowhere.” He said the state would not send $3.5 billion back to the federal government to be spent by President Donald Trump.</p>

Researchers say a massive cavity the size of two-thirds of Manhattan was found under a glacier in Antarctica. The pocket is a sign of "rapid decay" and just one of "several disturbing discoveries" made recently regarding the glacier, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release Wednesday. "[The size of] a cavity under a glacier plays an important role in melting," said Pietro Milillo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "As more heat and water get under the glacier, it melts faster." The growing cavity sits in West Antarctica at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier, which is about as big...

Earlier this week, the famed TV scientist Bill Nye went on an MSNBC talk show to discuss the economic cost of climate change and the consequences it could levy on rural America. Nye’s chat with Hardball host Chris Matthews took a surprising turn when the Science Guy started advocating for a U.S. incursion, of sorts, into Canada. As global temperatures rise, Nye said, “the growing (of crops) in North America is going to have to move north into what would nominally be Canada. We don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have the railroads and roads to get food from that...

Publicly supporting President Trump is becoming incredibly dangerous... Many people know of @randalthom of #FrontRowJoes fame... While Randal was live-streaming at the Amy Klobuchar event someone was on his farm murdering his Husky “Donald J Trump”...

This looks like an interesting piece of evidence when discussing the wildfires...Or so called wild fires all over the State of California. Basically all you have to do is search a California wildfires map in the last year or so and put the map of the proposed California high speed rail system continually being pushed by the far left government of California. What do you get when placing these images next to each other...Well it just so happens that the California wildfires happen to be all located along the proposed lines of the California high speed rail project.

As temperatures plunge, some subway riders say they’re seeing more and more homeless people seeking shelter inside subway cars. This winter, commuters say the problem has gotten so bad they’re left with no seats to use. Vagrants turning half of a subway car into their home, filling it with bags, boxes, and clothes.

“It’s not a train to nowhere,” Newsom said. “It’s insulting to suggest the Central Valley is nowhere. This is an economic development project, connecting the fastest growing and most dynamic economic regions in the country. That project is achievable and realistic. “The second phase [boring through the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles] is an open-ended question.”

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...

Jerry Brown did not invent the idea of a high-speed rail system to connect Northern and Southern California. It was voted on by the state Legislature and ratified by voters years before he returned to the governor’s office in 2011. But for the last eight years, as cost estimates have skyrocketed and federal and private sector funding for the project has evaporated, Brown has become high-speed rail’s most persistent defender. Only weeks away from the election to replace him, neither candidate for governor appears to share the depth of Brown’s commitment to a statewide rail system. Fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom...

Remember that high-speed rail project that was going to bring California’s infrastructure into the 21st century? The last we really heard about it was back in April when an audit was scheduled to take stock of just how far in the hole they were and if it could ever be finished. Of course, that’s been the story of this project from the beginning. One delay after another compounded by flawed budget estimates and construction schedules. Mix in a bit of political incompetence and malfeasance and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.This running boondoggle has been dragging on for ages,...

With its funding plans clearer, South Florida passenger start-up Brightline is looking west for its next venture into private high speed rail.Brightline on Tuesday said it had acquired XpressWest, a high-speed passenger rail project with rights to develop a federally approved corridor connecting Southern California and Las Vegas. he project would be only the second privately funded intercity passenger rail in the United States after Brightline. No terms were disclosed. “Brightline is changing transportation in our country by connecting heavily trafficked corridors that are too long to drive and too short to fly,” said Wes Edens, co-founder and co-chief executive...

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) surprised local communities on Wednesday by proposing a controversial Burbank-to-Palmdale route featuring above-ground tracks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the proposed 38-mile track alignment will cross the San Gabriel Mountains via a series of at grade sections and five separate tunnels. The bullet train’s original route, offered in support of the SB 1856 bond measure passed by the California Legislature in 2000, proposed to follow the Interstate 5 Freeway and tunnel under the 4,144 ft-Tejon Pass to link Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday he is pulling the plug on the state's massive high-speed rail project from Los Angeles to San Francisco that was more than a decade behind schedule and billions in the red. "Let's be real," Newsom said in his first State of the State address. "The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There's been too little oversight and not enough transparency." CALIFORNIA BULLET TRAIN PROJECT ON TRACK TO BLOW THROUGH BILLIONS OF MORE DOLLARS Newsom added that while California has "the capacity to complete a high-speed rail...

alfornia Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) just announced in his State of the State address to the legislature that he’s giving up on statewide high-speed rail from Sacramento to San Diego: !! AP: California Gov. Gavin Newsom abandoning plan for high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, says too costly. — Jon Passantino (@passantino) February 12, 2019 “Let’s be real,” he says a little too late: Gov Newsom on high speed rail: “Let’s be real… the project as currently planned would cost too much and take too long.” — Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) February 12, 2019 It’s almost as if conservatives...

The decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a dedicated progressive, to curtail California's high-speed rail project over cost concerns is a sign that the Green New Deal is doomed. The creation of a vast high-speed rail network is just one small part of the massive overhaul the Green New Deal contemplates for transportation, energy, healthcare, education, agriculture, housing, and a host of other issues. Yet now it's gone down in flames in a state that previously voted for it, and in which liberals have overwhelming control of government. The California high-speed rail project started when residents approved a ballot measure in...