Free Republic

(Look at that beautiful corn in the background)Texans need to be prepared for the grid to fail. Again. A new bombshell report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) shows that while Texas has made some progress in increasing surplus energy flow to the grid for times of heightened demand, power is going to be extremely tight this summer, and Texans should prepare to expect rolling blackouts during the hottest months of the year. The recently released 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment found that Texas, along with parts of California and the Southwest, are in an “elevated risk category of...

WASHINGTON—Testimony that suggested the Donald Trump-Russia claims given to the FBI by a Hillary Clinton lawyer may have been fabricated will be struck from the record, along with mention of the email that triggered the testimony, a judge has ruled. On Tuesday, FBI agent Curtis Heide was presented with an email sent by Rodney Joffe to researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology dated Sept. 14, 2016. Joffe discussed one of the white papers Michael Sussmann, a lawyer representing both Joffe and the Clinton campaign, later handed over to the FBI alleging a secret link between Trump and a Russian...

From time to time we like to highlight academic job ads as an indicator of how badly politicized our universities have become. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes the University of Oklahoma with a job ad so jaw-dropping bad that it sets a new standard. In this case, for a musical theater performance slot. The full ad is quite long, but I’ve excised some of the boilerplate employment language and highlighted the most egregious parts: Assistant Professor of Performance (tenure-track) Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre, University of Oklahoma The A. Max Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre...

The globalists of the World Economic Forum are meeting at Davos to plan the future world order -- the world’s elites meet there annually to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives under their guidance and tutelage. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to the would-be philosopher kings (and queens) and received a standing ovation for his courageous defiance of Russian aggression. But the speaker who should have received the greatest applause was Henry Kissinger, who at the age of 98 still understands how the world works better than most of his fellow global elites. In contrast...

Strive co-founder and executive chairman Vivek Ramaswamy talks ESG and stakeholder capitalism on 'Fox Business Tonight.' See video at link Synopsis: Ramaswamy exposes asset manager companies' (such as Vanguard, Black Rock, State Street) penchant for advancing a "woke" agenda in their boardrooms, often contrary to the will of shareholders who give them money.

Karl Marx is one of the most well-known deadbeats of 19th century history. So inept (or perhaps incapable) of financial provision, his wife once sold his last pair of pants for food; consistently delinquent on rent, he used fake names to dodge creditors; and in a letter to his friend-turned-sponsor Engels, Marx’s mother wrote, “if only Karl made capital instead of just writing about it.” Given the fact he offered nothing substantial, to either his family or society, it should come as no surprise that he “birthed the toxic tenet of communism.”In his writing, he discussed his hatred for property...

As the trial of 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann draws to a close, his legal team has yet to decide whether to let him testify — an option that may be less risky due to a Washington, D.C. jury apt to be favorably predisposed toward a Democratic defendant in a case enmeshed in politics. Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI in a September 2016 meeting by allegedly claiming that he was not representing any clients in pitching a now-debunked allegation of a Donald Trump back channel to the Kremlin via a secret communications link with Russia's...

Top House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI after court-ordered information came to light showing that the federal agency had collected the information of over 3 million Americans without a warrant. In a May 25 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) asked Wray to explain why his agency had wiretapped and gathered personal information on over 3.3 million Americans without a warrant (pdf). Limited authority to gather foreign intelligence information is granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Specifically, section 702 of the bill says: “the Attorney General (AG) and...

The World Economic Forum and the globalist movement it helps lead have used the "climate crisis" and the COVID-19 pandemic as pretexts for measures to redistribute the wealth of nations. But this week, as WEF convenes is annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, the Arctic sea ice expanse so far this month is at a 30-year high, according to data from intergovernmental European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, points out climate-change skeptic Tony Heller. EUMETSAT, as the organization is known, was created through an international convention signed by 30 European nations. The extent of Arctic ice during the warmer...

The Biden administration appeared to reverse its previous position that it wouldn’t consider an oil export ban Tuesday. “I can confirm the president is not taking any tools off the table,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm remarked, Reuters reported. “If you had a ban on crude oil exports, because you’re cutting off supply to the global market, you are going to have higher global crude prices and higher global refined product prices that would be fed through here,” said Garrett Golding, a business economist tasked with analyzing energy markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. EEnergy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said...

The Battle of Mariupol is over and Russia is busy proclaiming the liberation of the city. In reality, Mariupol has been murdered. This formerly bustling metropolis of almost half a million people now lies on the brink of extinction, pummeled into submission by a vicious campaign of Russian annihilation. The estimated 100,000 remaining residents of Mariupol find themselves reduced to living among the rubble without medicines, running water or electricity. With Russia in control of the city, there is no way of knowing the final death toll or assessing the true scale of the catastrophe that has befallen Mariupol. During...

The Massachusetts high court dismissed oil giant ExxonMobil’s motion to dismiss a state lawsuit accusing it of misleading investors on climate change Tuesday. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state could proceed with its lawsuit against ExxonMobil and that a free speech law didn’t protect the company’s activity in question, according to the decision written by Chief Justice Scott Kafker. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey filed the lawsuit against ExxonMobil in 2019, alleging that the company misled investors about the financial risks posed by fossil fuel-driven climate change through a “deceptive advertising” campaign.

VIDEOPoor Bill Gates. He just can't figure out why almost everybody finds him to be incredibly creepy. Could it be his constant fidgeting or rubbing with nervous guilt on his sweater? Or perhaps gloating over the fact that Jeffrey Epstein is now silent due to being dead?

So many interesting conversations this past week. During a chat about energy issues with the CEO of an advisory company, he stopped mid-sentence and said, “You know, our main problem right now is that those who are making all these decisions are not serious people.” The CEO of one industry trade association, discussing last week’s decision by the Biden administration to cancel three more scheduled federal lease sales, told me that, “by this point in Barack Obama’s first term, his Interior Department had conducted more than 50 such sales.” Sixteen months into the Biden administration, the number remains stuck on...

Alarm! US pending homes sales in April tanked -11.5% YoY and down -3.9% MoM which was greater than expected. Not really surprising when you see that REAL home prices are growing at an 11.55% YoY clip while REAL hourly earnings are declining at a -2.8% YoY pace. Do you feel like I do with Bidenflation crushing my check book and The Fed crushing my hopes for an affordable home.

The bombardment threatens to shut off the last main escape route for civilians trapped in the path of the invasion, which continues into its fourth month.Russia has poured thousands of troops into the region, attacking from three sides in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces holding out in the city of Sievierodonetsk and its twin Lysychansk.

On the day a crazed killer murdered 19 children and two teachers at an Uvalde, Texas elementary school, an ironically-timed Rasmussen poll revealed 50 percent of likely voters “don’t think stricter gun control would help” prevent mass shootings, while anti-gunners including Joe Biden quickly exploited the horrific crime to push for more gun restrictions. In reaction to the shooting, two of the nation’s largest gun rights organizations issued a joint statement, challenging the Biden administration to stop “demonizing” gun owners and manufacturers and “bring them to the table and benefit from their knowledge.”

Prayers up. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do or say. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly in the support of God,...

Today’s US Real GDP was worse than economists expected. US Real GDP Annualized QoQ printed at -1.5%. And GDP prices QoQ printed at 8.1%, also higher than expected. At least Personal Consumption printed higher than expected at 3.1%. Import prices (goods) led the way at 20.9%. Part of Biden’s brilliant strategy of reducing domestic oil production and import expensive energy from overseas? Consumers are spending more, but the personal savings rate is down to the lowest level since 2013 at 6.2% as consumers try to cope with inflation.

Ko Im always thought she would live in New York forever. She knew every corner of Manhattan and had worked hard to build a community of friends. Living in a small apartment, she found her attitude shifting early in the pandemic. After her brother accepted a job in Seattle in the summer of 2020, she decided to move there too. “It was fine until it wasn’t,” said Im, 36. “The pandemic really changed my mindset about how I wanted to live or how I needed to live.” Eight of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. lost population during the...