Free Republic

The world must ditch austerity and economic neo-liberalism and undertake a global “New Deal” to rebalance the global economy and achieve prosperity for all, the U.N. trade and development agency UNCTAD said in a report on Thursday. UNCTAD chief Mukhisa Kituyi said the global economy was picking up but still not lifting off. Much of the blame was aimed at “neo-liberalism”, a term used to refer to governments cutting back on their own role and leaving the private sector to lead economic and social development within a free-market capitalist system. After decades of such policies, the system was perceived to...

Most of France, famously, takes the whole of August off. Emmanuel Macron, the new President, did not. He was busy holed up in the Elysee Palace working on what he intends to be the biggest shake-up of France's labour laws since at least the Second World War. Frankly, it's amazing he and his circle of advisers did it all in a month. The 'Code du Travail', as it is known, is a complex 3,448-page document enshrining working practices that, in some cases, date back to the French Revolution more than two centuries ago. The code sets a maximum number of...

In this week’s episode of Your Tax Dollars At Work, we bring you a nearly $100K grant handed out by the National Park Service (NPS) to U.C. Berkeley. You might be wondering what Berkeley is doing that involves parks, but it turns out not to really have anything to do with the grand spectacle of nature. It’s a grant to compile information intended to celebrate and “honor the legacy” of the Black Panther Party (BPP).I’ll just let that sink in for a moment. Hey! Maybe this is something that Ben Shapiro can bring up tonight when he’s speaking there....

So, here we are, 2017. America finds itself bumping along with two distinct camps lined up vehemently opposed to one another, those that love the America of their grandparents era (1940s and 50s) and those that hate everything about that era. The left has long been at war with "the best ideals" of America and American culture. Why? Why does the left hate Mom, baseball, apple pie, Norman Rockwell, and Chevrolet? And love abortion, transgenderism, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, anti-Patriotism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Capitalism? Because the left could never measure up to the lofty goals that come with being that kind of...

Several climate experts, flummoxed by the failure of a widely predicted El Niño to make a dent in California’s drought during the winter of 2015-16, are saying they are unsure what this winter will bring. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says December-February in California will be a winter with equal chances of normal, below normal and above normal rain. “That means they do not know. There is no strong signal,” said Bill Putzert, the expert climatologist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who incorrectly predicted tons of rain from the “Godzilla El Niño” for the 2015-2016 winter. For this coming...

Riot police clashed with hooded youths on the fringe of a protest in central Paris against French President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to loosen labor regulations. Police fired water canons and could be seen dragging several demonstrators behind their lines.

The bullying of Conservatives has become trendy, with Big Media leading the charge. The Democrats in Dem 'leadership' are disgusting with their support of the Leftist groups that cause violence and bodily injury and encourage the support of 'youths' to join in on Social Media.

As Hurricane Harvey’s inland sea drains from Houston, the cleanup tally is rising: $180 billion for Texas alone, equal to the entire GDP of New Zealand. We in Texas and Louisiana – and perhaps Florida – direly need funds to haul debris, fix houses and schools, replace cars, and build better flood protection. With all these needs, a carbon tax can help. A federal tax on carbon would discourage emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHGs that are warming the seas and the air. Done right, a carbon tax would also bankroll cleanup campaigns led by FEMA and local agencies....

If you’ve been following the Antifa movement you might have noticed a growing theme of “solidarity” with the Rojava revolution. Key Antifa organizing platforms like It’sGoing Down, Sub.media, Insurrection News, and CrimethInc. routinely share interviews and battle updates and were all instrumental in promoting the launch of the International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Force (IRPGF) in May of this year. Additionally, you can find several pictures of foreign guerrilla fighters posing with Antifa flags. These have been widely circulated and often times include the false claim that the fighters pictured are members of ISIS. This is inaccurate. In fact, the fighters...

In the political struggle for the man’s superiority over the state (the Right), and supporters of the state’s superiority over all man (the Left), we naturally arrive at a final crisis. Why final? Because the Left seems to have exhausted all of its ammunition, and they have nothing left. From the very beginning, it was clear that Leftist ideas were a dead-end in the development of mankind, although in some cases everything looked quite the opposite on the surface. One of the most dismal examples is Romneycare, a payment system for medical services in the state of Massachusetts. The system...

Concern over soaring tuition rates and ballooning student debt has propelled a rapidly expanding campaign for free public higher education at the local, state and even national level. In California, lawmakers, gubernatorial candidates and education advocates are among those pushing for ways to get rid of fees and other costs for some students. Some higher education experts noted that California already has arguably the most generous financial aid system in the country. It spends more than $2 billion annually on programs such as the Cal Grant, which covers up to four years of tuition at UC and CSU for low-...

Yes, to not ask questions about climate change is indeed dumb, as Senator Sanders pointed out. It is dumber to not also question the current global economic system and policies perpetuating racial inequalities. The conversation must shift toward climate justice. Climate justice explicitly confronts basic inequalities: the world’s biggest polluters are not those directly affected by climate change. The big polluters are also the biggest “winners” in this economic system. It is no coincidence that higher climate vulnerability communities are largely communities of color and disenfranchised communities within the Global South. To achieve climate justice requires making sure that communities...

All of this raises critical questions for climate change law and policy. Here, the team of lawyers at the Sabin Center offers a brief primer on eleven key climate law issues highlighted by and likely to arise due to Hurricane Harvey: 1. Disaster Recovery Legislation... 2. Flood Insurance Reform... 3. Flood Maps 4. Flood Protection for Federal Projects 5. Controlling Air Emissions from Damaged Facilities 6. Handling Toxic Pollutants and Discharges of Toxic Water Pollution 7. Chemical Safety 8. Damage to Superfund Sites 9. Zoning and Building Codes 10. Public utilities 11. Climate Change Attribution and Hurricanes: Numerous scientists have...

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis and Orthodox Christian leader Patriarch Bartholomew called on Friday for a collective response from world leaders to climate change, saying the planet was deteriorating and vulnerable people were the first to be affected. The appeal comes three months after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a global agreement, struck in Paris, to limit greenhouse gas emissions. “We urgently appeal to those in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized,” Francis and Bartholomew said in...

Dear Members of the Antifa, You’ve had quite a run in the last year, haven’t you? You’ve assaulted hundreds of Trump supporters at rallies, vandalized property in the nation’s capital and gone on an arson rampage because you were upset Milo was going to speak. In Charlottesville, you arrived on the scene, prepared to commit violence yourselves. Instead, your sick plans were superseded by the monstrous behavior of people as lunatic as you are. The only difference being that the extreme right doesn’t have two cable news networks working as agit-prop wings for them every day, like you do. Last...

Survivor: Heroes v. Healers v. Hustlers is the thirty-fifth season of Survivor (for those unfamiliar with the show, there are two seasons each year). It begins Wednesday, September 27, 2017 on CBS at 8/7c. References: Official Survivor site at CBSWikipedia article Survivor: Heroes v. Healers v. Hustlers: Jeff Probst gives intel on NEXT seasonSeason preview As with the last two seasons, this season will be held in the Mamanuca Islands, Fiji. It will consist of 18 new players divided into three tribes based on dominant perceived trait: "Heroes" (those who possess courage), "Healers" (those who help others) and "Hustlers" (those...

Harvey is precisely the kind of weather event that scientists have been predicting climate change would give us, a monster hurricane with severe downpours and devastating flooding. Yet some are still resisting reality, by noting that we can't connect this specific storm to climate change. The same is true of cancer and tobacco, as climate scientist Heidi Cullen points out. We still can't say for sure that someone who smokes two packs a day and dies from lung cancer died because of smoking. The pace and severity of global storms today is unnatural, as are the melting glaciers and rising...

Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-fascist” — thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields that read (I kid you not) “No Hate.” The Post reports how one peaceful protester “was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.” Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were then stalked by antifa goons who followed them to a gas station and demanded they “get the [expletive] out” of their car,...

Hugo Chávez's populist government had expropriated the property from its longtime owners Among the once-productive farms put out of business earlier this decade was this 33,606-acre ranch in Cojedes state owned by the Vestey Group, a British company. El Charcote used to turn out 3.3 million pounds of beef a year, making it one of the country's top 10 producers. Today, the 13,000 head of cattle that once roamed here are gone. New farm machinery, painted the government's trademark red, gathers dust in a lot on the outskirts of this town. Officials, including Chávez, had previously announced that they have...

GENEVA - U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticism of journalists amounts to an attack on the freedom of the press and could provoke violence against reporters, the United Nations’ human rights chief said on Wednesday. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Trump had also made worrying remarks about women, Mexicans and Muslims and went on to question the president’s approach to immigration and decision to pardon former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio. “It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only sort of a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution", the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said. Referring to...