Free Republic

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is getting a failing grade from the conservative caucus in Congress while positioning himself to pick up the speaker's gavel from John Boehner, Breitbart reported. Cantor, a Virginia Republican, is first in line to replace Boehner should the Ohio congressman be forced out of office or decide to quit his leadership role in the House next year. But Breibart has reported that Cantor keeps shooting himself in the foot, as far as conservatives are concerned, while conducting an unofficial job interview for Boehner's coveted position. "Cantor replacing Boehner doesn't move the ball at all," said...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has publicly acknowledged that ethanol in gasoline can damage internal combustion engines by increasing exhaust temperatures and indirectly causing component failures, the American Motorcyclist Association reports. The EPA statements are found in a rule proposal issued by the Federal Trade Commission regarding a new label for pumps that supply fuel blends high in ethanol. According to the EPA, "[e]thanol impacts motor vehicles in two primary ways. First ... ethanol enleans the [air/fuel] ratio (increases the proportion of oxygen relative to hydrocarbons) which can lead to increased exhaust gas temperatures and potentially increase incremental deterioration of...

Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday promised a firm response if its citizens or interests come under attack in Ukraine — a vow that came after Ukraine announced a renewal of its "anti-terror" campaign against those occupying buildings in its troubled east. Although Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not specifically say Russia would launch a military attack, his comments bolstered wide concern that Russia could use any violence in eastern Ukraine as a pretext for sending in troops. Large contingents of Russian troops — tens of thousands, NATO says — are in place near the Ukrainian border. "Russian citizens being attacked...

Speaker of the House John Boehner, speaking to a group of donors at a Republican Party fundraiser last month, pledged that the House would pass several immigration bills this summer. Several attendees at the fundraiser told the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler that Boehner said he was “hellbent on getting this done this year.” One of Boehner’s House colleagues, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said during a recent trip to Silicon Valley that legislative action this year was “entirely possible,” with the House likely voting this summer on five to seven immigration bills....

Illegal arms were shipped to Syrian rebels from Libya and this could be the reason Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lied and claimed the attack on the consulate was the result of a video. Seymour Hirsch published an investigative report stating that there is an addendum to the Senate Intelligence Committee report which explains what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. Our government was shipping arms from Libya through Turkey to Syrian rebels before we realized they were al-Qaida. The reason the government lied was probably to conceal an illegal operation to arm Syrian rebels. Ambassador Stevens was the coordinator....

Ethanol Impact on Feed Prices Written By: Renewable Fuels Association Fueled by its desire for conflict, and a well-funded and organized public relations blitz by food and livestock industries, the media has spent a great deal of time in the past two years trying to portray an epic battle between America’s need for renewable alternatives to gasoline and its role as breadbasket to world. Despite unsupported and hysterical claims, the battle between ethanol production and food and feed resources is not a battle at all. In fact, it is a symbiotic relationship that promises to provide long term financial gain...

Government funded, peer-reviewed study concludes biofuels worse than gasoline for the environmentThe $30 billion or so wasted each year on the federal government’s biofuels mandates and subsidies needs to end now. The program is a complete disaster, and now has been shown to harm the environment, something anti-warmist skeptics (aka, deniers) have warned about for many years.  Even the left wing UK Guardian reports via AP: Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a new study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil...

Well, this is going to be a heartbreaker for the hysterical global warming crowd. According to a new study, emissions from burning corn are worse for the environment and produce more CO2 or 'global warming' gases than the burning of traditional gasoline. Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change. A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal...

Boehner says he's 'hell-bent' on passing immigration legislation this year Published April 19, 2014 The Wall Street Journal House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican leadership team are telling donors and industry groups that they want to pass immigration legislation this year, despite the reluctance of other party members to tackle the divisive issue before the November elections. Many lawmakers and activists have assumed the issue was off the table in an election year. But Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a recent Las Vegas fundraiser that he was "hell-bent on getting this done this year," two people in the room told...

City's chief rabbi states pamphlet is fake, claiming it is meant to discredit pro-Russian protesters or Jewish community The barricades outside the Donetsk regional administration building are plastered with anti-fascist posters. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images The barricades that mark the entrance to the "Donetsk People's Republic" are plastered with anti-fascist posters, including an American flag with a swastika in place of the stars. The pro-Russian protestors who have set up their own government in the occupied administration building see the new Kiev regime as dominated by intolerant Ukrainian nationalists, which is why it was more than a little ironic when...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is "hellbent" on passing amnesty legislation, and other GOP leaders are signaling to donors and lobbyists that they also want to pass legislation this Congress, even though attempting to do so would depress the GOP base and create divisions within the party ahead of 2014's midterm elections that could give Republicans control of Congress.

Russia and Israel seem to have a growing affinity for each other. A few weeks ago, Israel abstained from a vote in the UN censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported [link at URL] that this is a sore spot for the White House and a diplomatic novum on the world scene. A senior Israeli official said that Israel's absence from the United Nations vote was viewed around the world as an extremely irregular measure, a departure from a long-standing Israeli policy of voting with the United States in the UN. While the Americans viewed...

For once he’s right. John Hinderaker, who’s sympathetic to Bundy, nonetheless acknowledges that he doesn’t have a leg to stand on legally. Bundy’s theory, that land universally recognized for the past 150 years as belonging to the federal government really belongs to Nevada because it was never properly conveyed to the U.S., is DOA in court. He’ll lose his appeals and then, presumably, he’ll go on refusing to pay grazing fees to use the land. What should the feds do then? Given the publicity the case has drawn and the fact that the judiciary’s on his side, Obama can’t look...

By incentivizing the production and mandating the consumption of first-generation biofuels — predominantly corn-based ethanol — lawmakers hoped to create a transportation fuel revolution. Instead, they've created a legislative monstrosity that has ravaged our land, polluted our air, diverted our water, driven up food prices at home and abroad, put engines at risk and cost U.S. taxpayers billions. In order to meet the excessive ethanol mandates in the RFS, more and more land has been converted to grow corn for fuel — not food. In the 16 years prior to RFS implementation, corn acreage in the U.S. rose by just...

A ragtag band of US mercenaries, Ukrainian National Guard soldiers, and fighters from the radical Right Sector movement have arrived in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk to raid a building occupied by anti-government protestors, a leader of a local militia group told RIA Novosti on Thursday. “About a hundred people from the National Guard are housed at the Donetsk airport,” said Sergey Tsyplakov, the deputy director of a local group called the People’s Militia of the Donbas. “Around a hundred Right Sector thugs are also in the city, as well as a hundred employees from a private US military...

Anti-Maidan activists have detained a foreign national in Kharkov’s Beketova Street and posted the video footage on the web. The same video features a group of aggressive people using strong language while interrogating an unidentified person wearing the uniform of the Sokol (Falcon) police task force. The unknown man, pinned to the ground, speaks English and says he is a US citizen. According to the activists, this proves the earlier reports that US mercenaries have indeed arrived to take part in a military operation in the southeast of Ukraine and that mercenaries have indeed changed into the uniforms of one...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against moving "overtly or covertly" into eastern Ukraine and said there was strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in the region were being paid.

The relative calm of the last two weeks as US talking-heads proclaim Ukraine 'fixed', Russia 'under control', and Europe 'recovering' is being obliterated this morning. The storming of various non-Crimean Ukrainian city government buildings suggest round two of the push is beginning and Russia is wasting no time explaining how this will go down. Russian Senator Viktor Ozerov stated that "Russia has no right to [send peacekeepers] unilaterally" to Eastern and Southern Ukraine (unless the UN agrees)... but... "Russia is interested in stability in Ukraine. At the same time, the will of the people must be documented. A referendum is...

KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government dispatched its highest-level police and security officials to the eastern part of the country Monday in an effort to put down separatist violence described as inspired by Russia and following a script that played out in Crimea. “The plan is to destabilize the situation,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency cabinet meeting Monday morning. “The plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow.” On Sunday, pro-Russian demonstrations in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk that had been orderly the last...

Pro-Russian protesters who seized the regional government building in Donetsk, Ukraine are reported to have declared a "people's republic". Footage online showed a Russian speaker telling the assembly "I proclaim the creation of the sovereign state of the People's Republic of Donetsk." The rebels are reported to have called a referendum on forming a new republic. Earlier on Monday, protesters seized state security buildings in both Donetsk and Luhansk. SNIP From the Wall Street Journal:On Monday, the occupying protesters proclaimed the creation of the "Donetsk People's Republic," ruled by the self-declared "Supreme Soviet," the Interfax news agency reported. The protesters...