Free Republic

Journalism is in crisis. After some much-needed self-examination, however, reporters are finally beginning to figure out why many Americans are souring on their industry: They’ve been too critical of the Democratic Party. The trend was evident in 2016, when media outlets decided to focus on Hillary Clinton’s corruption, favor trading, and subsequent cover-up attempts. As any journalism professor could tell you, the purpose of reporting is to answer basic questions, like Who? What? When? Where? Why? And does this story help bolster the chances of the Democratic Party’s candidate or not? New York Times reporter Amy Chozick, who covered Clinton...

President Donald Trump surprised the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday when he remarked that the collapsing situation in Venezuela was not due to the poor implementation of socialism, but rather its successful implementation. "The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented," he said. Trump paused, and there was audible muttering in the chamber before some tepid applause broke out. "From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure," he said. {..snip..}

The Democratic party faces a dilemma. Since its inception, the party has defined itself as the champion of the little guy and a bulwark against plutocracy. Over the past few years, however, a funny thing has happened: The plutocrats have been joining the party en masse, and they’re changing it in the process. When we take a more granular look at the millionaires and billionaires of Silicon Valley, where most of America’s biggest new fortunes are being minted, we find that they are overwhelmingly Democratic. The left-liberalism of the Silicon Valley elite is reflected in support for drastically higher taxes...

Climate change has driven Australia to its warmest winter on record, a leading climate group has said. Data released this month showed average maximum temperatures in the winter months of June to August were nearly 2C above average. Climate change made the "exceptionally warm and dry" winter 60 times more likely, the Climate Council said in a report. The group has linked the record hot winter to "worsening climate change". The Climate Council is an independent, non-profit organisation that was set up in 2013 to continue the work of its government-funded predecessor, which was abolished by the Tony Abbott government....

A group of mountain researchers hiked the length of the Alps this summer, retracing a similar trek 25 years ago. Much has changed since then, especially when it comes to the environment. At lower elevations, forests are drying out and tree-killing beetles are spreading. Orchards have been damaged by extreme spring weather, as severe cold snaps follow early warmups. Among the summits, some glaciers have retreated out of view and the permafrost that holds the rocky crags together is thawing. Extreme rain storms have become more frequent, triggering ever-larger landslides that are reshaping mountainsides—so much that the path of the...

We know. Global warming is daunting. So here’s a place to start: 17 often-asked questions with some straightforward answers. 1. Climate change? Global warming? What do we call it? Both are accurate, but they mean different things. 2. How much is the Earth heating up? Two degrees is more significant than it sounds. 3. What is the greenhouse effect? We’ve known about it for more than a century. Really. 4. How do we know humans are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide? This one is nailed down. 5. Could natural factors be the cause of the warming? Nope. 6....

UPDATE: While Murphy initially said his tuition-free plan would cost as much as $400 million, a Murphy spokesman later clarified that the most it would cost would be $200 million. TRENTON -- Democratic nominee for governor Phil Murphy on Monday formally announced a plan to offer tuition-free community college to all New Jerseyans. "We simply do not have the workforce that we need," said Murphy, standing on the sidewalk of the Trenton Junior College & School of Industrial Arts and flanked by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. "We can and we must open the doors of opportunity, wide, for all...

After slightly slowing for the past 15 years, global warming is once again rising more quickly due to a decade-long weather pattern that warms and cools the Pacific, Britain's meteorological office said Monday. The Met Office said the rate of global warming slowed between 1999 and 2014, but has now picked up due to a "flip" in the Pacific weather pattern. "The end of the recent slowdown in global warming is due to a flip in Pacific sea-surface temperatures," said Adam Scaife, head of climate predictions at the Met Office. "This was due to a change in the Pacific Decadal...

If Sanders has his way, 180 million Americans who currently have private coverage would have it ripped away and be automatically enrolled in public insurance. Kids would be enrolled at birth. Medicare for All doesn’t just offer government health insurance to the needy. It makes private coverage illegal, including the health coverage you get at your job. Employers are prohibited from covering workers, retirees and their families. Sanders’ bill raises a critical question: If you’re seriously ill, will you be able to get the care you need? BernieCare guarantees you hospital care, doctors’ visits, dental and vision care, mental health...

The Liberals of the Democrat party have given way to the progressive-socialists that have overtaken their party. Every law passed under the Obama administration was further down the pathway to a totalitarian government that would have been used to further control the citizens of this country. The rule of law has been pushed aside to show the American people that our laws so eloquently delineated in our founding the God given rights of our culture are longer of any use to those who wish to use the Democratic Party to destroy this country. The perception that the Progressive/socialist Democrat party...

People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. One candidate believes more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will “confer great benefits upon future inhabitants of the globe” by driving plant growth. Another has said of the climate change debate that “scare tactics and junk science are used to secure lucrative government contracts.” Five candidates have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s own science on the warming of the planet in court. But the...

Houston has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. So why isn’t the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper...

Climate models have an even better track record than the weather models that saved lives in Texas and Florida. The impacts of hurricanes Harvey and Irma were blunted because we saw them coming. Weather models accurately predicted the hurricane paths and anticipated their extreme intensities days in advance. This allowed millions of Floridians to evacuate the state, sparing countless lives. Although they focus on much different timescales and resolutions, climate and weather models are based on the same core physics. Millions of people watched the evolution of the model forecasts for hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and made important decisions based...

As Hurricane Harvey bore down on the Texas coast, few people in that state seemed to understand the nature of the looming danger. Experts pleaded with the public ahead of the storm that “the most dangerous aspect of this hurricane may be days of rainfall and associated flooding.” Now we know how events in Texas turned out. Dr. Shepherd and his colleagues have spent their careers issuing a larger warning, one that much of the public still chooses to ignore. I speak, of course, about the risks of climate change. Because of atmospheric emissions from human activity, the ocean waters...

Venomous snakes are among the most feared animals in the world, and they may start slithering into new places. Yanez-Arenas: “So as our climate changes, so too will the potential for a species to expand their ranges and come in contact with people they never will have before.” Carlos Yanez-Arenas is a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2015, while a post-doc at the University of Kansas, he used climate models to predict where dozens of species of snakes will be able to live by 2050. He found that with warmer temperatures, many snakes, such as copperheads...

... Suggesting that climate scientists are pushing a line about global warming because their salaries depend on it is a popular talking point that deniers love to throw around. But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money? Duke University history professor Nancy MacLean suggests some answers in her new book Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. The book documents how wealthy conservatives, in particular petrochemical billionaire Charles...

A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds a 5 percent chance that rapid global warming will be “catastrophic” or worse for the human race. The study led by Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, a distinguished professor of climate and atmospheric sciences and adviser to Pope Francis, found that an average global temperature increase greater than 3 degrees centigrade could result in “catastrophic” — and over 5 degrees “existential” — threat to humanity. These categories describe two low-probability but statistically significant scenarios that could play out by the century’s end according to an analysis of different models of global warming by...

Back in 1987, a much younger Bernie Sanders ... warned that expanding Medicaid, the jointly run federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled, to everyone in the country would "bankrupt the nation." "If we expanded Medicaid [to] everybody. Give everybody a Medicaid card—we would be spending such an astronomical sum of money that, you know, we would bankrupt the nation." Medicaid, notably, is far less generous than Medicare, the health program for seniors that Sanders wants to expand. Medicaid's provider networks are narrower, and its benefits are generally more limited. It pays doctors quite a bit less than...

Just over a year ago, Black Lives Matter UK successfully shut down London City airport. Our aims were to call attention to three things: Britain’s historical responsibility for global temperature changes, while the UK remains among the least vulnerable countries to the direct effects of climate change; second, that black people and poor people globally suffer the most from environmental impacts; and third, that safe freedom of movement is a reality only for the privileged, wealthy and mostly white. Black Lives Matter UK and the Black Lives Matter US network need to set the record straight: 1) Black Lives Matter...

Since they can’t sell electric cars — not enough of them, anyhow — and not without subsidies so huge they amount to outright bribes — the solution appears to be to outlaw all cars except electric cars. This is no joke. There are IC engine No Go Zones in Germany and France. The Brits have just decreed a ban on the sale of internal combustion-engined vehicles period, beginning in 2040. This sounds like a long time from now but isn’t — because car companies begin designing cars about ten years before they see the light of production and so the...