Free Republic

This week is climate action week where climate change cultists will be holding all sorts of marches and school strikes to demand action on “climate justice.” I do believe that the climate is changing (as it always does) and that man is a contributor to it. I think how much man contributes to it is up for debate. But to be honest I don’t take most climate change cultists seriously and the few that I do take seriously I believe are extremely dangerous for individual liberty and human flourishing. Why? Most seem to use the “climate justice” bandwagon as an...

The Trump administration on Tuesday escalated its fight with California over environmental issues by threatening to withdraw billions of dollars in federal highway funds because of poor air quality in the state. In a letter to California Air Resource Board chief Mary Nichols, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the state "has failed to carry out its most basic tasks under the Clean Air Act," and not produced timely plans to meet targets for ambient air quality goals. The EPA said California must withdraw inactive plans that would most likely be denied. If the EPA rejects a...

French investigators announced Tuesday that they carried out comprehensive searches at the home and modeling agency founded by Jean-Luc Brunel, a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Brunel’s Karin Models has been an integral part of the investigation into Epstein’s vast network of young women. Epstein, who died in custody awaiting trial on sex-trafficking-related charges, mentioned many women tied to Karin Models in his infamous black book https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-paris-police-search-jean-luc-brunels-french-modeling-agency-in-probe-of-late-financier

President Donald Trump used part of his speech before the United Nations Tuesday to warn of the growing accumulation of power by big tech companies. In one of the President’s strongest statements on social media bias yet, Trump argued that social media censorship is incompatible with a free society. He also drew attention to the growing trend of censorship, “canceling,” and blacklisting in general. “We must always be skeptical of those who want conformity and control,” said the President. “Even in free nations, we see alarming signs and new challenges to liberty.” “A small number of social media platforms are...

President Trump — and his views on immigration, Muslims and foreign affairs — isn’t popular with Indian Americans. That’s not likely to change much, so why did Trump travel to Houston over the weekend to appear with the recently reelected Indian prime minister before thousands of them? More than 80 percent of Indian Americans voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, according to an analysis by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. And according to the Asian American Voter Survey, Trump’s approval rating was 28 percent with Indian Americans registered to vote in 2018. But that...

"welp ... thanks, MSNBC, for giving me this wonderful new reaction GIF."

NFL Live Thread: Week 4 Thursday, September 26, 2019 (All Times Eastern) Philadelphia at Green Bay 8:20 pm FOX / NFL Network / Amazon Prime Video Lambeau Field Sunday, September 29, 2019 New England at Buffalo 1:00 pm CBS New Era Field L.A. Chargers at Miami 1:00 pm CBS Hard Rock Stadium Oakland at Indianapolis 1:00 pm CBS Lucas Oil Stadium Tennessee at Atlanta 1:00 pm CBS Mercedes-Benz Stadium Washington at N.Y. Giants 1:00 pm FOX MetLife Stadium Kansas City at Detroit 1:00 pm FOX Ford Field Cleveland at Baltimore 1:00 pm CBS M&T Bank Stadium Carolina at Houston 1:00...

September 25 2019 Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Ezr 9:5-9 At the time of the evening sacrifice, I, Ezra, rose in my wretchedness,and with cloak and mantle torn I fell on my knees,stretching out my hands to the LORD, my God. I said: "My God, I am too ashamed and confounded to raise my face to you,O my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our headsand our guilt reaches up to heaven.From the time of our fathers even to this daygreat has been our guilt,and for our wicked deeds we have...

Sen. Bernie Sanders announces a wealth tax that would hit multibillionaires like Jeff Bezos especially hard. Rival presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has a plan that would impose a tax of 2% of wealth over $50 million and 3% on wealth over $1 billion. Sanders’ plan starts at a lower wealth level – taxing those worth $32 million at 1% – so his tax would hit about 180,000 families while Warren’s would affect about 75,000 households. The sliding scale of the Sanders plan quickly escalates for wealth over $500 million, which would be taxed at 4%. Here are estimates...

A Republican congressman introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling for the ouster of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., from his panel post for pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Trump. The proceedings were formally backed late Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, said in a release that Nadler has acted against the will of the House of Representatives, which never gave his committee explicit authorization to begin impeachment proceedings. The body voted 332-95 in July to table an impeachment resolution from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.

Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family. Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset”...

The Democratic primary is a three-way race, at least among declared candidates. There is one battle-tested candidate still on the sidelines who could enter the race at any time and wrest her party's nomination from the likes of former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Recent developments suggest that such a scenario could be more likely than the so-called experts are willing to admit. For starters, the Daily Beast reports that former Hillary Clinton campaign aides are giving "advice" to the Biden campaign on how...

MPs and peers will return to Parliament later after the Supreme Court ruled that its suspension was unlawful. Boris Johnson is returning early from a UN summit in New York, while Labour cut its conference short in the wake of Tuesday's unanimous ruling. The PM, who has faced calls to resign, has said he "profoundly disagreed" with the decision but would respect it. Commons Speaker John Bercow has said there will be "full scope" for urgent questions and ministerial statements.

Hillary Clinton joined her fellow Democrats in calling for impeachment proceedings against President Trump on Tuesday. Clinton made the statement while speaking to People Magazine, saying the country is in a “crisis.” “I did not come to that decision easily or quickly, but this is an emergency as I see it,” she told the magazine. “This latest behavior around Ukraine, trying to enlist the president of Ukraine in a plot to undermine former Vice President Biden or lose the military aid he needs to defend against Trump’s friend Vladimir Putin — if that’s not an impeachable offense, I don’t know...

We don’t yet know whether President Trump delayed some military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get Ukraine’s president to reopen an investigation into Hunter Biden. But if we are concerned about U.S. officials inappropriately threatening aid to Ukraine, then there are others who have some explaining to do. It got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the...

Federal agents descended Tuesday on the home and offices of state Sen. Martin Sandoval as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, adding him to the growing list of city and state politicians facing serious scrutiny. Feds in suits could be seen lugging boxes, electronics and a bag marked “Evidence” from the state capitol building in Springfield. A similar scene played out at Sandoval’s Southwest Side home. And agents could be seen outside Sandoval’s political office in Cicero. FBI Special Agent John Althen confirmed the agency had personnel in the state capitol conducting “authorized law enforcement activity,” but he declined to...

"The question is will he be removed from office, and that's a separate question that Mitch McConnell can answer," Newsom said on 'The Daily Show.' California governor Gavin Newsom appeared as a guest on The Daily Show Tuesday, where he spoke with host Trevor Noah about the biggest political news of the day: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. The probe centers on whether Trump sought help from a foreign government to undermine Democratic candidate Joe Biden and help his own re-election, an action that is, according to Pelosi, "a...

The US and India are two of the most populous and powerful democracies in the world. And they are both represented by far-right leaders. Even by the standards of the Trump era, the “Howdy Modi!” meeting in Houston, Texas, this Sunday was weird. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, had invited Donald Trump to be his guest at a massive rally in the American heartland. And, unsurprisingly, giving his submissive behavior towards authoritarian leaders, the president had accepted, happily playing second fiddle to a foreign leader on US soil. But beyond these remarkable details, the meeting was in many ways...

United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–N.Y.) announced the initiation of a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon. This launch of an impeachment inquiry comes after this weekend’s revelations that President Trump requested damaging information from the Ukraine government about presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is leading the race for the Democratic nomination in the majority of public opinion polls. Impeachment has “no legal standard,” according to Prof. David Bateman, government. The process is meant to be entirely political –– not “partisan or tawdry,” Bateman said, but considering if the “whether the president’s actions have...

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday he would back impeaching President Donald Trump if the White House refuses to comply with congressional demands for information about his interactions with Ukraine’s president and other Democratic probes. “Congress should demand the information it has a legal right to receive,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware. If he doesn’t, Biden said, “Donald Trump will leave Congress no choice but to initiate impeachment. It would be a tragedy, but a tragedy of his own making.” Biden’s remarks were his first extended comments about Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump...