Free Republic

A former staffer for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, has claimed in a lawsuit that she was fired last year in retaliation for legal action the staffer planned to bring against the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) related to an alleged rape in 2015. According to documents filed in federal court in Washington last week, the former staffer -- identified only as "Jane Doe" -- claimed she was raped in October 2015 while she was a CBCF intern by Damien Jones, who was the foundation's internship program coordinator and her supervisor at the time. The lawsuit was first reported by BuzzFeed...

Many people awaited last Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral of a highly classified US payload. The launch had been delayed for weeks, speculation as to the satellite’s purpose was rampant, and successfully delivering national security satellites to orbit is an important part of SpaceX’s business. The launch, however, remains shrouded in mystery.Shortly after the launch, Bloomberg reported that the satellite was lost, due to US Strategic Command saying they were not tracking any objects. The Wall Street Journal suggested that Congress was being briefed on a failure, and that it was due to a failure of the satellite...

Top generals have been insisting for years that if North Korea launched a missile at the United States, the U.S military would be able to shoot it down. But that is a highly questionable assertion, according to independent scientists and government investigators. In making it, the generals fail to acknowledge huge questions about the effectiveness of the $40 billion missile defense system they rely on to stop a potential nuclear-armed ballistic missile fired by North Korean or Iran, according to a series of outside reviews. "They are leading political leaders to believe that they have a military capability that they...

Suffice to say that neither being a U.S. Senator nor signing a petition by the UCS makes you a scientist. That "App" needs (much) more work! No need for you to feel “scientifically challenged” anymore; there’s an App for nearly everything now. It appears that one of the easiest ways to become a “scientist” (concerned or not, my personal view) is to join the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). That group has already millions of members (so it claims) and you are most welcome to join. No experience or other credentials required—if anything, just a few dollars from your wallet....

Going "Concern": UCS is a corruption of science by Daniel Clark If you often read news articles about "climate change," then you've surely seen a group called the Union of Concerned Scientists cited as an expert source. When you encounter such a reference, you might as well stop reading, because what follows will have no scientific validity whatsoever. We know this from the fact that the very title of UCS is a contradiction in terms. There's a reason why there isn't an organization called the Union of Objective Scientists. A scientist is supposed to follow the evidence wherever it leads...

At a time when the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is censuring free market organizations for accepting donations from ExxonMobil, critics have turned the spotlight back onto the UCS, its left-wing positions, and its own funding practices. In a recent report, the UCS charged that organizations are using oil industry money to create public uncertainty about what it calls "consensus" about climate change and the role of human activity in affecting temperatures see related story. Organizations named in the report have denied the claims. The UCS describes itself as an "alliance" of over 200,000 citizens and scientists that initially came...

Press Release: ExxonMobil's Response to a Report by the Union of Concerned ScientistsExxonMobil believes the Union of Concerned Scientists' paper is deeply offensive and wrong. ExxonMobil engages in public policy discussions by encouraging serious inquiry, analysis, the sharing of information and transparency. Our support of scientific research on climate change is made public on our web site and it includes more than 40 peer reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists, and our participation on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous related scientific bodies. While there is more to learn on climate science, what is clear...

Accusing ExxonMobil of funding a "disinformation campaign" against global warming, an environmental activist group said Wednesday the oil giant has been paying advocacy groups to create confusion about climate change. The corporation and two of the organizations targeted by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) dismissed the allegation, variously calling it a smear, "junk," and motivated by a left-wing agenda. In a new report, the UCS charged that ExxonMobil "doesn't want you to know the facts about global warming" and that it "vehemently opposes any governmental regulation that would require significantly expanded investments in clean energy technologies or reductions in...

Green TheologyAustin Ruse, President of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, the only Catholic lobbying group at the United Nations in New York, reports that there are a number of troubling groups circling around the UN. One such group is fairly new and as yet little-reported movement called the United Religious Initiative (URI), now active in 58 countries and 33 states in the U.S. It has been described as "an exclusive, decentralized organization, a spiritual partner of the United Nations." URI positions support population control, environmental extremism, and are radical on sexual matters. A new document signed by URI's...

April 3, 2004 Bush's Science Aide Rejects Claims of Distorted FactsBy ANDREW C. REVKIN he White House issued a detailed rebuttal yesterday to accusations by an advocacy group and 60 prominent scientists that the Bush administration had distorted or suppressed scientific information to suit its politics. In a letter to Congress, which had requested a White House response, Dr. John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush, said most of the accusations were false and in some cases "preposterous." In February, the advocacy group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has long criticized administration policies on issues like...

Playing politics with data. A new front in the war over "sound science" opened on February 29, with the publication of a Washington Post oped by former American Prospect Online editor Chris Mooney, "Beware 'Sound Science.' It's Doublespeak for Trouble." In this article, Mooney argues that the Bush administration has twisted the idea of "sound science" so that "instead of allowing facts to inform policies, preexisting political commitments have twisted facts and tainted information." He warns that, as a result, "The once-cooperative relationship between politicians and scientists in this country seems to be in serious jeopardy." Yet a close look...