Free Republic

*Proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for power plant emissions could spur blackouts in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid region and cost stakeholders nearly $250 billion in the coming decades, according to comments filed in response to the rule by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).*The average annual cost to stakeholders of building enough capacity to stave off the blackouts CAE projects in the MISO region is greater than the average annual benefit the EPA estimates its proposals will bring for the entire country by 2055, according to CAE’s analysis.*“This is the regulatory equivalent of studying...

Right on the heels of seeing a downgrade of the creditworthiness of the United States itself, Moody’s has downgraded ten small to medium banks across the country, citing “financial strain” and “strains that could erode their profitability.” Six more banks are under review, and another eleven have been shifted from “stable” to negative. If you still have all your money in the banking system, you’re quickly running out of time to change strategies and preserve some of your wealth. Which banks got downgraded? The ten banks which were downgraded are: Commerce Bancshares BOK Financial Corporation M&T Bank Corporation Old National...

Pair your portable power station with portable solar panels and take the power of the sun with you wherever you go. Here's our tested picks for the best solar generators. Solar panels and batteries are the newest innovations in portable power, mirroring home power trends. Portable power stations have been available for a while now, taking care of power needs in all sorts of situations. Using solar panels to charge on the go is the next logical step. Combine portable power stations with solar panels and you have yourself a solar generator. Solar generators, like their gas-powered counterparts, are portable...

Under a shocking new plan that is scheduled to be adopted two months before the U.S. presidential election in 2024, all it would take is some sort of a major “global shock” for the United Nations to literally take authority over the entire planet. I realize that this may sound like the plot to a really bad science fiction movie, but this is actually what is being proposed, and the Biden administration is fully behind this insidious plan. Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States is not covering this at all, and so most people have absolutely no idea...

In a joint statement, representatives from nations involved in the anti-farming pact celebrated the agreement. “Food systems are responsible for 60% of methane emissions,” said Marcelo Mena, CEO of Global Methane Hub. “We congratulate countries willing to take the lead in food systems methane mitigation and confirm our commitment to support this type of initiative with programs that explore promising methane mitigation technologies and the underpinning research of methane mitigation mechanisms to create new technologies.” “Mitigating methane is the fastest way to reduce warming in the short term,” said U.S. “Climate Czar” John Kerry. The news comes as unelected bureaucratic...

Even though I started writing this column days ago, apparently Wednesday was National Situational Awareness Day. So much for my digital self-awareness. But the timing couldn’t be better: The US Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) dropped a hypothetical restaurant layout on their Facebook page a few days ago, asking their readers to pick their preferred seat and why. The idea may be overly simplistic, but anything that helps people literally open their eyes is probably worthy of a discussion. So, looking at the above floor plan, what seat would you pick and why? ( graphic of restaurant seating arraingement at blog...

"Forever chemicals" are widespread in the environment, and new research finds they can be detected in about 45% of U.S. tap water samples. The chemicals are per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, and their spread through drinking water—both tap and well—may be even higher because researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were unable to test for all of them, CNN reported. These synthetic substances have been linked to a variety of health issues, including cancer, liver damage, hormone suppression, decreased fertility, obesity, high cholesterol and thyroid disease. To gauge the impact on drinking water, a team used water...

"They're tapping into the American food structure and this country. And we should be looking at that as food security, people," National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. said on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" Tuesday, "because they're tapping into American farms and tapping into the hog industry, all of these industries that China is quietly taking over here in the United States." Farmers have voiced their concerns for more than two years over Chinese-owned companies purchasing large swaths of rural farmland in states like Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data from 2021 indicates...

The US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) recent unveiling of a $1.7 million initiative to foster the development of digital wallets will raise eyebrows among privacy advocates. While DHS’s Science & Technology Directorate ostensibly presents this as the “Privacy Preserving Digital Credential Wallets & Verifiers” SVIP Topic Call, the devil will be in the details. The plan is to use the system for “travel, immigration and citizenship status, employment, residency status and more.”A look at the DHS’s announcement shows a particular emphasis on wallets that are compatible with World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Verifiable Credential Data Model (VCDM) and W3C...

If you’re looking for a reason the world will suddenly end, it’s not hard to find one—especially if your job is to convince people they need to buy things to prepare for the apocalypse. “World War III, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Joe Biden—you know, everything that’s messed up in the world,” Ron Hubbard, the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, told me. His Texas-based company sells bunkers with bulletproof doors and concrete walls to people willing to shell out several thousand—and up to millions—of dollars for peace of mind about potential catastrophic events. Lately, interest in his underground bunkers has...

Good morning fellow Freepers. I wanted to take this opportunity to pick your brains. I am looking for suggestions on where to shop for prepper supplies. Most websites want to sell you a huge bucket of stuff, most of which I'd probably never use. What I am looking for instead is a website (besides Amazon of course) where I could go to in order to purchase what I want to acquire. For instance, I can't find any place that will sell individual packets of dried milk, or crackers, stuff like that. The reason I am asking for help is because...

There is a war on food. As an absolute necessity of life, this seems like a ridiculously counterintuitive thing to do, but there you go.Why is food suddenly a bad thing? Easy peasy: Farming uses nitrogen, and nitrogen is being blamed for global warming, so of course it must be eliminated. In the name of saving the planet, huge swaths of global food production are being targeted."Rice is to blame for around 10% of global emissions of methane, a gas that over two decades, traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide," intones the AP. "Scientists say that...

There's a scene in the Liam Neeson movie "Taken" where he's on the phone with his daughter. Men are there to kidnap her and she's a world away from him in Europe. As a former intel agent, he knows what's going to happen and realizes there's no way to stop it. As much as he'd love to come up with a way for his daughter to escape or fight off the assailants, he knows the best thing he can do is to prepare her by telling her the truth. "Now, the next part is very important — they're going to...

Biden’s approval ratings are terrible. Okay, Biden is the worst President in history, weak, can’t speak coherently and is letting chaos reign on the southern border. But from a consumer standpoint, he and crazy spending Congress have helped make America simply unaffordable for miillions. Once again, Biden’s obsession with foolish green energy, Congress using Covid to spend trillions, then the green energy subsidy Act (aka, Inflation Reduction Act) where Biden and Congress agreed to make massive payoffs to big donors (the donor class). All this resulted in 40 year highs in inflation leading The Federal Reserve to raise interest rates...

WowThe European Union is officially insane. The buyout scheme prohibits Dutch farmers from moving to other countries and starting up farms abroad, meaning that their knowledge and expertise would be lost.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2023With something this draconian, this beyond all comprehension, I guess “Wow” is about all you can say, huh?Holy smokes. But it’s for real. The European Commission on Tuesday said it had approved two Dutch plans worth a combined 1.47 billion euros ($1.61 billion) to buy out livestock farmers to reduce nitrogen pollution, saying they are permissible under state aid rules.The Dutch need to reduce...

This article is not financial advice and is for informational purposes only. All financial decisions and investments should be made based on your personal objectives, risk profile, and other factors. After my appearances with Glenn Beck, I often receive hundreds of emails asking a variety of financial questions (and I try my best to get at least some of them answered)! The top question I have been receiving recently underscores a huge fear: the safety and preservation of your hard-earned dollars. More than any question, what people are asking of late is, “Should I pull my money from the bank?”...

While campaigning in 2019, Joe Biden guaranteed “we’re going to end fossil fuels.” What he didn’t say is that eliminating fossil fuels will create a troublesome scarcity of electricity. He also didn’t say that was part of the plan, even though it just might be. Now with the power of the presidency behind him – again we ask, how could such a disastrous event happen? – Biden is just a few pages of paperwork away from forcing natural gas- and coal-fired power plants to sharply cut their greenhouse emissions. If the emission caps can’t be met, power plants will then...

The US economy is slippin’ into darkness. The Philly Fed NBOS General Business Activity Region Diffusion Index SA crashed to -22.8 in April. And today’s Fed Funds Futures data points to a return of The Bernanke/Yellen “Low Rider” policy for rate management. Why can’t the corporate media, AOC and Tucker Carlson be friends?

Americans are worried that a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) could end up compromising essential freedoms, further centralizing monetary policy, and making the country’s currency vulnerable to hacking, according to a recently published Fed survey. In January last year, the Fed published a white paper on what a CBDC could look like. It asked for public comments on issues like potential risks and benefits a CBDC can have on the country. On April 20, the Fed released the responses in nine documents. Here are some of the various answers and concerns expressed by respondents, some of whom were named,...

If you are able and over the age of 18 in the US, you are a member of the Constitutional (Part II) Militia. Here are books covering nearly all aspects of your education as armed citizens. Download all of them, burn them to disc, and share them with other members. Do your part to help safeguard your neighbors, your community, and the US Constitution. Topics deal with marksmanship, tactical shooting skills, communication, medical assistance, movement of formations and squads, tactics, command, communication, intelligence, ammunition, sniper skills and camouflage, breaching, rifle manuals, maps, and much more. Some of the books...