Free Republic

Electric car manufacturing is running into a hiccup as the price of one key material is rising. This will also cause problems for President Joe Biden and his administration, as they were planning on growing the electric car industry in order to promote sustainability. The price for lithium, a key material for electric car batteries, is skyrocketing. In the past 12 months, the cost of lithium has gone up more than 250 percent, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, meaning the price of batteries is going up as well. Overall, there has been a downward trend in the pricing of battery...

Areported explosion inside an ExxonMobil plant in Texas early Thursday morning has injured at least four people. The incident occurred at about 1 a.m. local time at a plant in Baytown, about 25 miles from Houston. Three of the victims were taken to a hospital by helicopter, according to CNN. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted that another person was taken away by ambulance and no evacuation has been ordered. ExxonMobil say acknowledged a fire occurred at the facility.

Colleges across the country are facing a mental health crisis, driven in part by the pandemic. After almost two years of remote schooling, restricted gatherings and constant testing, many students are anxious, socially isolated, depressed — and overwhelming mental health centers. At a few institutions, there has been a troubling spate of suicides. Now another swell of Covid cases, driven by the Omicron variant, threatens to make life on campus worse.

... In times of crisis, our leaders must be present. They must provide compassion and hope, leading with integrity and open arms. Gov. Andy Beshear and President Joe Biden have both exemplified that this week — but Paul, whose own hometown was ravaged by tornadoes, has done the bare minimum. While many Kentuckians mourn their loved ones and start to try to put their lives back together, Paul has had to defend his record of trying to block disaster relief. His votes against providing relief for Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in 2017, and even voting...

The Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia is already proving to be bitterly divisive, but the two candidates are on the same page when it comes to at least one issue: Constitutional Carry. Both incumbent governor Brian Kemp and his Trump-approved challenger David Perdue say they support the idea, which could dramatically improve the odds of success when the 2022 legislative session kicks off in early January.

ABC 6: Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon Carjacked At Gunpoint in Philadelphia, Gov’t Issued ID, Cell Phone Also Stolen pic.twitter.com/dcAesmjfuU — Alexandra Datig | Front Page Index (@alexdatig) December 22, 2021 Democrat Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon was carjacked and robbed at gunpoint on Wednesday afternoon shortly after finishing a meeting at FDR Park, her office and police officials confirmed. Scanlon and other elected officials met to discuss constituent concerns around ongoing development plans for FDR Park, a sprawling and heavily used green space at the southern edge of the city. It’s blocks away from the sports complex where the Eagles, Sixers,...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay Tuesday which prevents the enforcement of California’s “large-capacity” magazine ban while an appeal is made to the Supreme Court.

This time of year, dear readers, is when us writers curate lists. Some are about the best movies, top kitchen appliances or favorite new songs of 2021. This year, I'd like to recommend three books to read after the tumultuous events of 2021. My first is a new and important book by law professors Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick: "The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and before it, no individuals of African descent -- including slaves and free persons -- could become U.S. citizens. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it didn't...

The battle against wokeism, aka the Critical Social Justice perspective, is entering its third phase. The first phase involved sounding the alarm and drawing attention to this retrograde, caustic, atavistic, anti-modern, anti-liberal, anti-science and anti-scientific creed. The second phase whose end we are now approaching involved understanding, analyzing and describing to the public at large what characterizes the creed, where it comes from, its results and the extent to which it has captured our institutions. The third phase involves challenging the creed and recapturing our institutions. The beginning of this phase began in earnest in K-12 education with parents all...

New York Magazine is using its cover photo to celebrate a woman who cut off her breasts and had a tube of flesh from her leg surgically added to her groin. The article by Gabriel Mac is headlined: “My Penis, Myself; I didn’t need a penis to be a man. But I needed one to be me.” The display is a visceral and anti-female rejection of women and their bodies, says a barrage of comments from stunned women. “Most of us have had a body dysmorphia & traumatic sexual experience & now we’re seeing an abandonment of womanhood celebrated as...

...The closed event was held in a separate room (ca 145 m2) in a restaurant in Oslo from 18:00 to 22:30, after which the venue was opened to the public from 22:30 to 03:00. A pre-party had been arranged for the Christmas party attendees at a separate venue, after which they were transported by private buses to the restaurant....all attendees of the party were reported to be fully vaccinated and had been asked by the organiser to perform a rapid antigen self-test. ... Attendees of the party mingled at the venue before and after dinner, following which the bar and...

A dean at San Diego State University described the "Right’s agenda" on Twitter as one of racism, unintelligence, and inequality while also using the word "stench" to identify conservatives. "Just so we’re clear on the Right’s agenda: racism good, abortion bad, money good, women bad, capitalism good, sustainability bad, stupidity good, science bad, power good, equality bad, white people good, nonwhite people bad. Stench, indeed," SDSU’s dean of the College of Arts and Letters, Dr. Monica Casper, tweeted on December 1 and first reported by College Fix.

By contrast with Peggy Noonan, to take a prominent example, Gerard Baker provides an unillusioned assessment of President Biden and Vice President Harris in his Wall Street Journal column “Biden Emerges as Progressive Government’s Mr. Bad Example.” There is no false hope, no sentimentality, no uplift, no gush or mush in his evaluation: It’s not too harsh a judgment to say that this is a man who has risen to the top of American public life without a trace of accomplishment. When you’ve been in national politics for almost 50 years, you ought to have achieved something, if only by...

The Iranian regime may be facing a brick wall. How will the mullahs respond? The Iranian regime wants to return to the 2015 agreement that allowed it to maintain its entire nuclear infrastructure, recoup $150 billion, and sell up to 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. With this money, it has expanded and developed its network of paramilitary militias throughout the region, developed its missiles, attacked oil tankers and a Saudi refinery, and threatened the Strait of Hormuz. But the regime is unaware that the balance of power has changed in the region. It has been virtually driven out...

The BLM mission goes much deeper than boycotts. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is urging a boycott of “white” businesses. The official Black Xmas website urges “No spending with White corporations” and “buy exclusively from Black-owned businesses” until Jan. 1. It’s the seventh year BLM has proffered this perversion of the ecumenical spirit of Christmas. Racism begets racism. The ugly racism of the BLM message invites the retaliation to buy only from white-owned businesses. Thus do racist directives make for a society more segregated, intolerant, and angry. Racism always moves in that direction. Let’s establish first principles. In a free-market capitalist...

French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, plans to take legal action after a bizarre disinformation campaign was launched against her falsely claiming she was born a man. The rumors appeared to have originated in a March Facebook post before spreading in mid-October when a far-right outlet published an article on the supposed “mystery of Brigette Macron.” The unfounded gossip circulating on social media says Brigitte is a transgender woman whose name at birth was Jean-Michel Trogneux. In the past few weeks, the bizarre claims have gained new traction with the emergence of the trending hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux. Brigitte, 68, now intends...

Washington -- Do you recall how often our friends the progressives have rushed to tell us how we can save conservatism from self-destruction? It seems just a year ago that they diagnosed sudden calamity for conservatism. Then they were quick to tell us that all we had to do to save ourselves from disintegration was to join the progressives in spending trillions of dollars; raising taxes on the rich; and, oh, yes, defunding the police, ignoring our southern border and relaxing the laws governing our cities. We should stop arresting shoplifters and adopt various other cure-alls to restore conservatism to...

Procter & Gamble issued a voluntary recall last Friday of nearly three dozen aerosol hair products, including dry shampoos and dry conditioners, due to the potential presence of benzene, a cancer-causing agent. The affected brands include Pantene, Aussie, Herbal Essences, and Waterless produced in the United States. The company also recalled certain Old Spice and Secret aerosol spray antiperspirants and Old Spice "Below Deck" spray products last month due to the presence of benzene. Upon closer examination, they found "unexpected levels" of benzene in the rest of its aerosol products. "Following recent reports that indicated traces of benzene in some...

The most dangerous ongoing political phenomenon is the purge of the US military and badge-wearing, weapon-carrying federal agencies. In his December 21 article on these pages, Wolf Howling described the disordered thinking of three high ranking retired US military officers, who openly sought to justify a military coup to prevent Trump’s (second) reelection. That risk has been much on my mind. The most dangerous ongoing political phenomenon is the purge of the US military and badge-wearing, weapon-carrying federal agencies. This is nothing less than preparation for a leftist putsch, in the event the unruly and untrainable American populace should again...

According to a report, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out the warning December 16. As many as 60,000 victims of the pandemic per month could die in the U.S. Apparently the dire prediction is supposed to have its genesis beginning this December. I have no idea of the reliability of the information, but according to extensive reporting from Europe, a rapidly spreading disease related to COVID has governments in a panic. The United Kingdom, in particular, is in chaos over what to do about the new variant. Omicron, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci and others,...