Free Republic

The clock has run out on the climate change debate. It's time for predictions to give way to radical action.For most of my career, I've been a trend spotter, sometimes referred to as a futurist. I've divined trends for companies seeking to innovate; anticipated consumer appetites; and kept pioneering brands ahead of the pack. My work has been a passion, a calling, never just a job. So, it was fundamentally disorienting when I realized recently, I'd lost my feeling for the future.Gradually, over a period of I don't know how long -- months? -- my usually strong connection with intuition...

Just months before the most important U.N. climate conference in years, Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives are taking aim at one of the Obama administration’s most cherished priorities—international climate change funding. An appropriations bill for the State Department and foreign operations, released Tuesday, excludes funding for three major climate initiatives—the Green Climate Fund, the Clean Technology Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund—and also removes funding for the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also in the firing line is funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and debt relief. …

President Barack Obama said during a town hall meeting at the White House on Tuesday that he would never engage in a politics that was aimed at dividing people along the lines of race, ethnicity, religion or gender.

An Indiana-based church that worships marijuana has been granted tax-exempt status. First Church of Cannabis founder Bill Levin said it took 30 days for the IRS to grant his group tax-exempt status. “Somebody at the IRS loves us,” he added. […] Marijuana is still illegal in Indiana. …

We currently have a Leftist campaigning nationally for president as an acknowledged Socialist and you would think that the nation’s left would now admit to the obvious – that he and they are socialists. But this isn’t the case, converse with them even a short time and you will find that they will fight you tooth and nail to deny the obvious. Numerous times Bernie Sanders has ‘outed’ himself as a socialist on the national stage, and yet leftists all over the nation deny that he’s (and they by extension) are Socialists. Go ahead and look up the definition of...

A BBC documentary depicting Winston Churchill as a drunken enemy of the working class has been branded as ‘graceless’ and ‘ill-informed’ by his grandson. Churchill: When Britain Said No, broadcast on BBC2 last week, was an account of how the wartime leader lost the 1945 General Election. It showed him as a deeply hated figure among the working class, in part because of the harsh economic policies he pursued as Chancellor in the 1920s. The most vocal critic of Churchill in the programme was a man presented as ‘activist and writer’, Dave Douglass. He said of Churchill: ‘His role during...

The street artist behind the iconic “Hope” poster of then-candidate Barack Obama says the president has let him down. In an interview with Esquire, Shepard Fairey said President Obama has not lived up to the expectations of the image that captured the verve behind Obama’s 2008 run. In fact, Fairey said, he’s “not even close.” “Obama has had a really tough time, but there have been a lot of things that he’s compromised on that I never would have expected. I mean, drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought [he’d support],” he told Esquire.

Why would a country at war with islamic terrorists, indiscriminately import thousands of potential problems? Why would that SAME country also allow a porous, if not inviting, border for 'potentially hostile refugees' on the southern border while keeping the northern border hypersecure from people of a historical alliance? You can't solve a problem till there IS a problem, and it's way easier to solve if you created the problem. Remember Rahm, “never let a serious crises go to waste” Fast & furious and the porous southern border/importation of muslim refugees. It seems to be the same strategy of creating a...

On a recent bright spring morning, students admitted to the Barnard College Class of 2019 gathered on campus. As blue-and-white balloons fluttered in the breeze, the prospective freshmen attended panels and lunched on the lawn, chatting animatedly with current students. There were, of course, young women from a variety of backgrounds, but at least one category wasn’t included: transgender women. Barnard, like other women’s colleges, has traditionally admitted only students born female. But that might be changing. Next week, Barnard’s trustees are expected to vote on an issue that has arrived loudly and emphatically on the front burner for women’s...

Initial estimates of positive economic growth in the first quarter of 2015 have now turned negative. The U.S. economy actually shrank in the first quarter of 2015 as real gross domestic product (GDP) declined at an annual rate of 0.7 percent, according to the Obama administration’s second look at the numbers. The 0.7 percent decline in first-quarter real GDP was revised from the previously reported gain of 0.2 percent, which was the advance estimate put out at the end of April by the Commerce Department and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Real GDP is adjusted for inflation and represents...

The U.S. has taken Cuba off its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Secretary of State John Kerry has signed an order removing Cuba from the U.S. terrorism blacklist as part of the process of normalizing relations between the Cold War foes.

Washington (CNN)The heavy flooding that's overwhelmed Texas and killed more than 30 people has put Sen. Ted Cruz in a bind on climate change.The Republican presidential contender has held two press conferences over the past two days to address the flooding and the government's response. At each one, he was asked about the impact of climate change on natural disasters like the Texas flooding, and at each one, he dodged the question."In a time of tragedy, I think it's wrong to try to politicize a natural disaster -- and so there's plenty of time to talk about other issues," he...

Michelle Obama urged another class of college graduates Monday to work aggressively to change American society and not be deterred by noisy or obstructionist opposition. The 51-year-old first lady spent her Memorial Day not with her husband honoring the fallen military at Arlington National Cemetery (Scroll down for C-SPAN video of that), but urging graduates at Ohio's Oberlin College to become persistent, determined agents of change in their communities.

Ted Cruz, the junior U.S. senator from Texas and first official contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, compared people who think that the climate is warming to "flat-Earthers" and described himself as a modern-day Galileo in an interview with the Texas Tribune."On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don't engage in reasoned debate," Cruz said in an interview with reporter Jay Root on Tuesday. "What do they do? They scream, 'You're a denier.' They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the...

Barack Obama has been putting his new Twitter account to good use, using it to support a little girl’s ideas on gay marriage. Five-year-old Yasmeen Faruqui wrote a letter to the President with a list of insightful requests, and was amazed when she received a reply. ‘Please stop war for our world, instead have a meeting’, Yasmeen said in the handwritten note. ‘Please give a speech to tell everyone they can marry who they want.’

The teeming plant world could become a virtual mystery in the coming decades as college students increasingly shy away from studying botany and universities across the U.S. shutter their long-standing herbaria. Since 1988, the number of research universities offering botany degrees has dropped by half, according to National Science Foundation research funding statistics. And the National Center for Education Statistics reports that fewer than 400 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral botany degrees were awarded in 2012. Educators say that’s because students are being pushed into more modern, technology-related majors. Current botanists fear that will lead to a dearth of people able...

EXCLUSIVE: The United Nations Foundation created by billionaire Ted Turner, along with a branch of media giant Thomson Reuters, is starting to train a squadron of journalists and subsidize media content in 33 countries—including the U.S. and Britain--in a planned $6 million effort to popularize the bulky and sweeping U.N.-sponsored Sustainable Development Goals, prior to a global U.N. summit this September. where U.N. organizers hope they will be endorsed by world leaders. The unprecedented media push is formally intended to start on May 25 but is already underway. It is intended to help breathe some new life into a sprawling...

Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz (R) hit some of his main stump points while meeting with local leaders here Tuesday afternoon — promising to defend the Constitution, step back from the Obama administration's foreign policy and promote economic growth. Then Texas's junior U.S. senator — visiting Beaumont to meet privately with county officials and others — got in a light sparring round with reporters, mainly working on his attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton and defending his views on same-sex marriage. "Is there something about the left — and I am going to put the media in this category — that is...

Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today’s black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history. Let’s look at some of it. Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to...

The one thing most Americans can agree on is that members of Congress do not need a pay raise. But that didn’t stop one Democrat lawmaker from stating his case. At a hearing regarding the 2016 Legislative Branch appropriations bill yesterday, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) said that his salary of $174,000 a year simply isn’t enough to live on in Washington, D.C. […] Congress’ current approval rating is 19 percent. …