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BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6.8 trillion under its control, becomes the latest signatory to Climate Action 100+, an influential big-money pact that’s pushing - although with spotty results so far - many of the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitters to take action on man-made climate change. BlackRock joins more than 370 global investors, including pension giant CalPERS and HSBC Global Asset Management, already participating in the initiative, which aims to sway companies ranging from fossil-fuel producers to consumer-product conglomerates to be carbon neutral by 2050. With BlackRock on board, total assets under management represented by Climate...

America is the midst of an imaginary impeachment standoff between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Both have drawn firm lines in the sand. Someone's got to give," one reporter recently declared. There is, of course, nothing to "give." Pelosi has no standing to dictate the terms of a Senate trial; no constitutional right or political leverage. Why she has put herself in a position that will ultimately end, one way or another, with her surrendering to McConnell is perplexing. A new piece in Time magazine does shed some light on the thought process behind Pelosi's...

Like take an ax to your computer.Given my computer situation – new one’s on the blink and old one’s a dinosaur that’s nearly as unstable as the one I’m having fixed  – I will be pre-posting threads for today through Monday. I won’t be around much so you know the drill: have fun, behave (not mutually exclusive) and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.Should you by some chance reach the end of the internet and have nothing else to talk about might I suggest you go back and replumb the Megxit story. Such royal virtue signaling is so full of...

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Since 1969, "Virginia Is for Lovers" has been the tourism and travel slogan of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Advertising Age called it "one of the most iconic ad campaigns in the past 50 years." But the Virginia of 2020 seems to be another country than the friendly commonwealth to which this writer moved four decades ago. Charlottesville, home to Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia, has become famous as the site of a 2017 Klan-Nazi clash with Antifa over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a municipal park. During the clash, protester Heather Heyer was run over...

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s BEA air accident agency said on Friday it would be involved in the investigation into a Ukrainian airliner crash in Iran. “We have been notified of the event by Iran and we have designated an accredited representative to the safety investigation...,” a BEA spokesman said. “No further assistance has been requested at this point in time”, he added. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said earlier France was ready to contribute to the probe into Wednesday’s crash, which killed all 176 people aboard.

U.S. Representative Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) claimed Thursday that President Donald Trump could be to blame for the fatal crash of a Ukraine passenger jet in Iran on Wednesday, due to "collateral damage" caused by his "provocative" killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Speier made the remarks during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, on the Thursday edition of his show The Situation Room. The congresswoman confirmed that she had heard classified details concerning the claim by U.S. officials that the plane was accidentally brought down by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile strike. She insisted Trump would be responsible for the crash...

Did you notice how presidential President Donald Trump appeared at his press conference on Iran? It was a fitting symbol for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's colossal failure in withholding the impeachment articles from the Senate. Whatever Pelosi's loony strategy -- her unorthodox decision to withhold is only about strategy and not principle -- she has ensured that the hyperpartisan impeachment will be viewed for exactly what it was. For all the Democrats' manufactured impeachment drama, people seem to care less and less about the their shameless effort to affix a scarlet letter to Trump's presidential record. Have you also noticed...

Bernie Sanders makes global warming and inequality worse by spending his campaign donations on private jets Bernie Sanders has repeatedly spoken out against global warming and income inequality.However, I just came across this Politico article from last year:In his campaign launch video last week, Bernie Sanders singled out the fossil fuel industry for criticism, listing it among the special interests he planned to take on. But in the final months of the 2016 campaign, Sanders repeatedly requested and received the use of a carbon-spewing private jet for himself and his traveling staff when he served as a surrogate campaigner for Hillary...

Who do we believe? The CIA director or the people ideologically dedicated to protecting Obama's precious Iran deal? When watching the Obama team -- whether they are anchoring CNN coverage or mouthing off on MSNBC -- it is striking just how invested they are in denying reality. After Iran launched its functionally impotent attack against American positions in Iraq, Trump rightly pointed out the Obama administration helped Iran launch those missiles. The pushback from media fact checkers and Obama surrogates was fast and furious -- and also more dedicated to protecting Obama than the truth. The truth is that the...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer for our nation.

Well, then! Following the bombshell announcement that they’re stepping back as senior members of the royal family, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wax figures have been moved away from the sculptures of their famous family at Madame Tussauds museum in London. “Alongside the rest of the world, we are reacting to the surprising news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be stepping back as senior royals. From today Meghan and Harry’s figures will no longer appear in our Royal Family set,” Steve Davies, general manager of Madame Tussauds London, said of the news.

Australia urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes on Friday and prepared military backup as authorities said the next few hours could be “very, very challenging” even as rain poured down in some parts. Defense personnel stood ready to move to bushfire grounds if conditions became extreme, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters, as soaring temperatures and erratic winds create dangerous conditions. “Even with rain in Melbourne, even with forecast better conditions next week, there is a long way to go in what has been an unprecedented fire event...and, of course, we know that we...

Trey Gowdy said the Democrats' impeachment strategy is an acknowledgment they believe President Trump will be reelected in 2020. A former Republican congressman from South Carolina, Gowdy argued the Democrats instead are angling to take control of the Senate to rein in Trump. "The impeachment inquiry, investigation, votes, and ultimate refusal to transmit articles are not about removing Trump from office. Rather, it is a tacit acknowledgment he will be reelected in November of 2020. The plan now is to use impeachment to neuter that second term with a Democrat-controlled Senate," Gowdy said in a Fox News opinion piece published...

Legal deposition: US Rep Ilhan Omar accused of being foreign agent Allegedly used her position in House of Representatives to access sensitive information which she relayed to Qatar, and through them to Iran Al Arabiya English's Abdulla Almanai reports that U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was recruited by a foreign government, passed sensitive information that was relayed to Iran, and received funding by a foreign government, quoting a sworn deposition by a Canadian businessman in a Florida court. In video link testimony from Toronto, Canada to a Florida District Court on October 23, Kuwaiti-born Alan Bender claims to have ties with...

Ricky Gervais didn’t flag this particular outrage at the Golden Globes, but Empire State Development Corp. chief Eric Gertler did it the next day: Seven of the winners, all sure to make a good profit for their producers, were subsidized by … you. Via the state Film Production Credit, the EDC hands $420 million a year in taxpayer cash to companies that film in New York, by far the most generous Hollywood subsidy of any state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other politicians love this giveaway because it lets them hobnob with (and fundraise from) the grandees of Tinseltown. But it’s...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi just pushed through a bill aiming to limit President Trump’s ability to hit Iran, even though the crisis is over. Why? Thursday’s House passage of her war-powers resolution is almost certainly pure symbolism: Nothing like this is going to pass the Senate, and even if it did its constitutional status would be dubious. And events, including the president’s actions, have shown that the fears that inspired the bill are unfounded.

"I may have been a victim that night, but I am not a victim for the rest of my life," said veteran foreign correspondent Lara Logan describing the mindset she adopted in the aftermath of a brutal attack and rape by a mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011 -- the night that former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. In an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on her show "Mornings with Maria" on Thursday, Logan talked about how the experience impacted her. "I think that one of the most significant things for me was that... I had...

A CNN analyst claimed on Thursday that "crossfire of reckless escalation" resulted in Iran firing a missile at an airplane, leading to the death of 176 people. The Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s international airport Wednesday was shot down by mistake by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile, Pentagon officials told Fox News. Officials said U.S. intelligence increasingly points at the airliner being accidentally struck by a Russian-made missile, killing all those on board the flight, just hours after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles targeting two military bases housing American and coalition troops.

A journalist for Vox was mocked on Thursday for suggesting that President Trump purposely itches his face with his middle finger in order to subtly insult Democrats and other opponents. Vox associate editor Aaron Rupar shared a video clip of the president touching his face with "the bird" on two separate occasions. One instance was while Trump was on speakerphone with what Rupar described was an "uppity woman"; the other was of him at a press conference responding to a question about whether he thought Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Hunter Biden should testify as part of the impeachment inquiry.