Free Republic

Fearing that incessant warnings about manmade climate cataclysms would not be enough to end U.S. fossil fuel use, the Obama-Biden administration instructed a special Interagency Working Group to concoct a “social cost of carbon” concept. The SCC would “scientifically” calibrate the dollar value of damages that a ton of carbon dioxide emitted today in America would inflict on the USA and world in the future.The price tag was set at $22/ton in 2010, raised to $36/ton in 2013, and just as arbitrarily increased to $40, before finishing the Obama era at $51/ton. President Trump disbanded the IWG and had the...

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is warning President Joe Biden to clamp down on the uncontrolled migrant inflow at the U.S. border. “They are rolling up their sleeves and working on this. I think it will get better in the next few months,” Schumer told ABC’s The View on Thursday, adding, “If it doesn’t, I will go to them and say, ‘You’ve got to do better.’ I will be public.” Schumer is very pro-migration, but has adopted a cautious strategy towards migration legislation since 2014 when Democrats lost five Senate seats after voters punished them for Schumer’s 2013-14 “Gang of Eight”...

“Lawmakers in the House passed a bill this week aimed at reforming policing in this country. It's called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act…this bill would ban chokeholds and make it easier to pursue misconduct claims against officers, among other reforms. The lead author is Congresswoman Karen Bass from California,” reported NPR on March 5.Well, Rep. Karen Bass certainly qualifies as an expert on “police misconduct,” considering that for decades she’s been providing aid and comfort to a police state that jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s during the Great Terror and murdered more...

“The wave of GOP Senate retirements—some from states Trump carried by a landslide (Alabama) others from states he barely won (North Carolina) or lost (Pennsylvania)—say a lot about how unpleasant it has become for traditional conservatives to serve in the Senate. That well-regarded Senators who could look forward to serving for another [two to three] terms don’t want to keep their jobs is astonishing,” J. Russell Muirhead, a democracy and politics professor at Dartmouth College, said in an email interview. Muirhead added, “And it says something about the exhaustion of traditional conservatism. Why don’t institutional conservatives want to fight for...

About 41 light-years from Earth is an exoplanet that lost one atmosphere but has seemingly gained a new one. Scientists also believe the planet, known as GJ 1132 b, has evolved quite drastically from a gaseous world to a rocky one the size of Earth... ...Pointing the Hubble Space Telescope at GJ 1132 b revealed a surprise. The telescope showed that the planet has developed a toxic and hazy "secondary atmosphere" made of hydrogen, methane, hydrogen cyanide and a haze of aerosol, like the smog we have on Earth. So how did this poisonous atmosphere come to be?

The air strike that March day in 1967 was on the ferociously well-defended Thai Nguyen steel mill, north of Hanoi, North Vietnam. One of the attacking U.S. Air Force McDonnell F-4C Phantoms was hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, and gas was streaming from the fuselage. Pilot Earl Aman and weapons systems officer Bob Houghton no longer had enough fuel to return to safe territory. The airplane Bob Pardo and backseater Steve Wayne were flying wasn’t in much better shape: During the strike it also caught an anti-aircraft round and was leaking fuel, and the two weren’t even sure they could...

A slew of female aides to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo say they were either explicitly told or felt pressured to wear makeup and dress up to please the governor and get ahead professionally. Twelve women told The New York Times that there was a general understanding that they should wear heels, dresses, and makeup when in Cuomo's presence. More than a dozen women who've worked for Cuomo told New York Magazine that the governor and his top female aides applied heavy pressure to dress well and in expensive clothing. Some said they were specifically directed to wear heels when...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and FBI are gathering evidence to try to build a large conspiracy indictment against members of the Oath Keepers for their roles in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with the matter, but the group’s sometimes fractious and fantasy-laden internal workings may complicate efforts to bring such a case. In the wake of the short-lived insurrection, the Oath Keepers is the most high-profile, self-styled militia group in the country. While members use the jargon and trappings of a paramilitary organization, in daily practice they are often more akin to...

CHINA tried to “blackmail” the US by threatening to block life-saving Covid medical supplies unless it stopped saying there was a cover-up over the origins of the coronavirus, it has been claimed. President Xi Jinping is said to have made the threat in a phone call to Donald Trump last spring when evidence first emerged suggesting the virus may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Then President Donald Trump’s State Department issued a statement on January 15 this year, saying there was evidence several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory were sick with Covid-like symptoms in autumn...

The Wall Street Journal, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., is banning its reporters from using the term “illegal immigrant” and “illegal” to refer to illegal aliens living in the United States. This week, in an update its style guide, the Journal states that while it will allow reporters to continue using the term “illegal immigration” to describe the process of illegal aliens arriving and staying in the U.S., it will no longer permit reporters to describe individuals as “illegal” or “illegal immigrant” in an effort to stop “labeling people.”

Their love for New York’s governor was so strong that a new sexual orientation had to be invented — “Cuomosexual.” Now as Andrew Cuomo fights for his political life amid nursing home and sexual harassment scandals, Hollywood’s burning desire for the Democratic politician has grown cold and desolate. Celebrities including Chelsea Handler, Ellen DeGeneres, and Cher helped lead the Cuomosexual pride parade last year. Most Cuomosexual stars have yet to publicly acknowledge the governor’s nursing home coverup, in which a top aide revealed that the administration withheld crucial data on nursing home deaths. They have also largely ignored the seven...

A Virginia veteran who was accused of being a member of the Oath Keepers and charged over the Capitol riot was released on bail on Friday, as the judge in his case questioned the strength of the charges against him. Thomas Caldwell, 65, was in poor health, Judge Amit Mehta noted, presiding over a Washington DC court. Federal prosecutors accused him of plotting for months in advance with fellow associates of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia.

During the month of February, the United States experienced a 28% increase in attempted crossings at the Southwest border. Of the more than 100,000 people who attempted to cross the border, nearly 30,000 were unaccompanied children. Newsweek got an inside look at the state of the U.S.-Mexico border through the eyes of Public Affairs Officers Justin Castrejon and Jacob MacIsaac of the U.S. Border Patrol... ....Despite tunneling efforts, the border wall's four-foot below-ground depth and 18 to 30 foot above-ground height have been effective in managing the border. Because, as MacIsaac puts it, "it's afforded us the luxury of time."...

White and non-black people are being told not to share any of the numerous Oprah Winfrey memes from her bombshell interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle - because they are a form of 'digital blackface'. The Slow Factory Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to social and environmental justice, this week issues a warning about digital blackface, describing it as an online phenomenon where white and non-black people share GIFs and photos of black people to express emotion, and stating that it often perpetuates negative stereotypes that they are 'aggressive, loud, and sassy.' In an Instagram post, the organization used an...

A Chinese hotel built around a central polar bear enclosure for the non-stop viewing pleasure of its guests has opened to immediate condemnation from conservationists. At Harbin Polar Land in north-east China, the hotel bedrooms’ windows face onto the bears’ pen, with visitors told the animals are their “neighbours 24 hours a day”. A video shows the bears – a threatened species – being photographed by crowds of guests under harsh warm lights, in a space consisting of fake rocks and icicles and a white painted floor. Animal rights organisations reacted with outrage, urging customers to stay away from establishments...

THE US military is shielding itself from a new type of weapon capable of knocking out entire power grids for extended periods. An Air Force base in Texas will soon test its systems against a simulated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, according to reports.... ...It's not clear when the base plans to launch its EMP defence tests, or precisely what those tests will entail. According to the Air Force request, the tests won't include the use of actual electromagnetic waves.... ...Trump moved to protect the US from the emerging threat of EMP attacks with an executive order issued in 2019. The...

An Oklahoma basketball announcer who was caught on a hot mic calling members of an all-girl high school team the N-word for kneeling during the national anthem is now blaming the outburst on his diabetes. “I will state that I suffer Type 1 diabetes and during the game, my sugar was spiking,” the announcer, Matt Rowan, told TMZ Sports. Rowan claimed, “it is not unusual when my sugar spikes that I become disoriented and often say things that are not appropriate as well as hurtful.”

Over the next five years, oil and gas companies will definitely see less investment as the world’s biggest institutional investors are increasingly looking at the environmental credentials of the companies in their portfolios As the global drive toward sustainability accelerates, the world’s biggest institutional investors are increasingly looking at the environmental credentials of the companies in their portfolios. The pressure on Big Oil and all other oil firms, coal miners, and even gas project developers is growing to show they can adapt to the energy transition and stay relevant in net-zero economies. The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) trend is...

“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12 KJV).

From this Brazilian tree grape to black jackfruit and West Indian cherry, exotic tropical fruits are being cultivated in India Have you tasted the abiu, jaboticaba, achachiru or gac? These exotic tropical fruits are now being grown locally and making their way to Indian dining tables. Initially a hobby, the commercial viability and nutritional value of the exotics have been established. “The mangosteen, rambutan and dragon fruit are now familiar and being grown commercially in many farms in India. Though it is early days for the abiu, jaboticaba and others, some are already in shops and on our tables,” says...