Free Republic

A Curtin University researcher has shown that ancient volcanic eruptions in Australia 510 million years ago significantly affected the climate, causing the first known mass extinction in the history of complex life. Published in prestigious journal Geology, Associate Professor Fred Jourdan from Curtin’s Department of Applied Geology, along with colleagues from several Australian and international institutions, used radioactive dating techniques to precisely measure the age of the eruptions of the Kalkarindji volcanic province – where lavas covered an area of more than 2 million square kilometres in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.Dr Jourdan and his team were able...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has been a prominent supporter of granting amnesty to the children of illegal immigrants and awarding more high-tech visas. Yet ten days before his primary against Dave Brat, his positions on those issues are absent from his website.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suddenly reversed its support for biofuels. The panel now admits growing crops for fuel “poses risks to ecosystems and biodiversity.” Scientists—and many Green activists—turned against ethanol and biodiesel years ago because it took too much land. However, the United States and EU governments have kept their farmer subsidies. “Environmentalism” had suddenly become political payoff.

Israeli rabbi Michael Finkel says the Jewish community is on high alert because of the influence of the neo-Nazi's within Kiev's temporary government. "This is Right Sector. This is the peole who are marching in Nazi uniforms with SF on their arms and on their military uniforms," Finkel says. According to the rabbi, it is possible that Ukraine could turn into a country similar to Lebanon. "In Lebanon, there's an official government and there is Hezbollah, which is a terrrorist organization linked to the government. They're members of the parliament, and there's a Hezbollah militia over thre, a separate army,...

Since the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls, Hillary Clinton has risen to the fore of those demanding international action and calling Nigerian group Boko Haram terrorists. But during her tenure at the head of the U.S. Department of State, Clinton resisted numerous calls from the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Justice and a number of U.S. senators and congressmen to do just that. […] When Clinton was still in charge, the State Department went so far as to lobby against the Boko Haram Terrorist Designation Act of 2013, introduced by a number of senators to force a designation of...

Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman warned that the federal government—including some officials in his office—may soon move to clamp down on conservative media. “I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” Goodman told Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. At threat, in Goodman’s estimation, is the media’s exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations like PACs. Many in government want to curtail the ability of all news outlets to endorse and promote candidates and issues without any limits or disclosure...

Russian President Vladimir Putin charges that Western support for the newly declared state, torn from Serbia this week, is "immoral and illegal" behavior that will provoke a global storm of separatism and explode the international order. Jubilant Russian nationalists claim that "Western betrayal" has freed the Kremlin from any obligation to follow international laws in its own neighborhood. Kosovo was seized by NATO in a 1999 war after Serbia was accused of the ethnic cleansing of the tiny territory's mainly Albanian population. Russia opposed the war, but was persuaded to help negotiate a truce following 78 days of NATO air...

It's no secret that establishment Republicans are out to get Rand Paul, but the "darkest secret" on Wall Street, reports Politico, is that they'll happily vote Hillary in 2016 to do it. The Monday piece reveals that Wall Street Republicans won't think twice about voting for Hillary Clinton in a world where Jeb Bush and Chris Christie aren't running for president and Rand Paul holds the GOP nomination. "The bulk of the big money guys are either Big Boy [Christie] or Jeb," said a top GOP donor. "Rand Paul still is a grass-roots phenom and a boardroom horror show." The...

<p>The Right Sector played a leading role in January's violent anti-Yanukovych protests in Kiev.</p> <p>The Right Sector is the most radical wing of Ukraine's Maidan protest movement that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February.</p> <p>Activists claiming to be Right Sector members were involved in Kiev's Maidan protests [link at URL] from late November but the group did not attract much attention until violent clashes with police in central Kiev on 19 January, in which it played a leading role.</p>

Three weeks ago, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) responded with a simple message to the news that Affordable Care Act enrollment had exceeded expectations: “House Republicans will continue to work to repeal this law.” Three weeks later, it appears even Boehner doesn’t believe Boehner’s bluster. […] … Boehner specifically told his audience, “(To) repeal Obamacare … isn’t the answer. The answer is repeal and replace. The challenge is that Obamacare is the law of the land. It is there and it has driven all types of changes in our health care delivery system. You can’t recreate an insurance market overnight.”...

House Speaker John Boehner hasn't been coy about his interest in tackling immigration reform legislation. Just last week the Republican leader said he was 'hell bent' on doing so before the 113th Congress adjourns at the end of this year, despite facing pressure from members of his caucus not to bring the issue to the House floor. The Speaker's zeal for getting his Republican colleagues to embrace immigration reform took a sharp turn on Thursday from determination to antagonism, however, when Boehner publicly made fun of his Republican colleagues for being too afraid to confront the issue publicly. 'Here's the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker John Boehner drew criticism from left and right Friday over comments mocking his own Republican lawmakers for their reluctance to take up immigration legislation, rekindling election-year debate on the contentious issue even as President Barack Obama weighs acting on his own. Boehner said at a Rotary Club lunch at home in Ohio Thursday that House Republicans don't have the appetite to deal with immigration because it's too tough. He imitated them whining in protest, "'Ohh don't make me do this, ohh this is too hard.'" Latino advocates and Capitol Hill Democrats responded with derision, saying...

Establishment Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner is taking a lot of well-deserved heat for mocking conservative House Republicans who are opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens. Boehner’s mocking imitation of opponents of immigration “reform,” that is anything but a “reform” and more like an abandonment of American sovereignty in favor of a policy of open borders, was indicative of why, under Boehner’s arrogant “leadership,” the House Republican Conference has floundered from crisis to crisis. But buried in Boehner’s remarks was an even more bizarre example of establishment Republican “leadership” that explains the great fault line in American politics...

Imagine the leaders of the Democrat Party mocking the party faithful. Try to conjure up the image of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid running false ads against liberal candidates. Save that thought in your mind because you will never see it in real life. Democrats harness the power of their base to advance the cause of their ideology and party platform. Republican leaders, on the other hand, are at war with their party’s platform. While speaking to a rotary club in his Ohio district, Speaker John Boehner had this to say about conservatives who are concerned about open borders: “Here’s...

The leader of a tea party group warned Friday that House GOP leaders will cave to Democrats on the issue of immigration by signing off on a proposal that includes a “suicidal leap for amnesty.” Judson Phillips, of Tea Party Nation, predicted in a fundraising email that House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will cut a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, that will legalize “between thirty and forty million” illegal immigrants and doom the GOP over the long run. “If the Republicans sell us out on amnesty, it is game over for...

A House GOP lawmaker is urging Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to bring up immigration reform, saying it would benefit the nation and the Republican Party to undertake an overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The letter from Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) adds to a quiet but growing chorus of comments from House Republicans during the current congressional recess speaking in favor of immigration reform this year – which remains a steep uphill battle, with the House GOP fundamentally divided on the hot-button issue.

John Boehner is most likely not well-known for his impressions. His name? Yes. Well, he showed a different side of himself altogether at the Middletown Rotary Club Thursday when he adapted a very whiny impression of his Republican colleagues in Congress. Boehner was talking about how he wants to get immigration reform done in Congress soon, but it’s not happening because of some Republican obstinance. This is how Boehner described the situation: “But here’s the attitude. ‘Ooooh, don’t make me do this! Ooooh, this is too hard!”"

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/24/boehner-mocks-colleagues-immigration-reform/8101699/ Link only

Follow on Twitter April 23, 2014 As a congressional staffer, John Stone got a firsthand look at how House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team operate. His boss was one of its members. Yet now, as he vies for a seat of his own in a crowded Georgia primary, Stone is running on a promise to oust those very same leaders—not just Boehner, but the whole team. "When I got here in the district … what I kept hearing is, we've got to change the party leadership," Stone said. "We need to end the GOP's civil war between the...

The reading of political tea leaves is one of Washington's most popular parlor games. And when it comes to the future of House Speaker John Boehner, political soothsayers are busy divining patterns in tea leaves, wine sediments and coffee grounds to determine whether the Ohio Republican will stick around for another term. Questions are rampant as to whether Boehner could decide to leave on his own accord or be shoved out the door by a cabal of upstart conservatives intent to flip the House of Representatives on its ear. This tasseography involving the speaker's gavel takes on many forms. The...