Free Republic

The first statement made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday was not verbal, but visual. Clad in bright blue and yellow alongside other senior politicians, she showed support for Ukraine's battle with Russia, making clear even before the speech began that the war would top the agenda. With Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska in Strasbourg for the occasion, von der Leyen pledged Europe's "unshakeable" commitment to Kyiv, sending a defiant message to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. "Putin will fail and Europe will prevail," the chief...

Ted Cruz is taking some time off from the Senate to recover from a brutal presidential campaign. After returning to Washington last week to work on a defense policy bill, the Texas senator is spending this week back home. He'll miss votes on Zika funding legislation as well as appropriations bills...

File this one under While You Were Out: the Obama Administration unveiled its new five-year energy plan on Thursday, when the rest of us were conveniently preoccupied with SCOTUS and the Holder contempt vote. Real smooth. Of course, it's pretty clear why they wanted this to fly under the radar: as Hot Air's Erika Johnsen noted on Saturday, the plan is just not good. She points out that it opens up a miniscule percentage of our offshore resources, but not nearly enough to make a dent in our energy use, and what's more, by constraining the number of jobs that...

Two employees of contractors working at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used dead peoples' Social Security numbers, according to DOE's Office of Inspector General. Four others used Social Security numbers the government has not yet issued, and two shared the same Social Security number. The fact that workers for contractors at DOE's Berkeley lab were misusing Social Security numbers -- and thus, by definition, working under false identities -- was revealed in a report DOE's IG completed on April 15. That means it came almost six years after the same IG's office revealed -- as reported in...

Tonight on C-SPAN is the unfolding debate regarding the Democrat's proposed 290 page energy bill. This bill severely limits potential oil production and includes price increasing taxes as well as a limit on drilling closer than 50 miles from the coast.