Free Republic

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to reduce methane emissions, targeting the oil and gas industry for its role in global warming even as President Joe Biden has pressed energy producers for more oil drilling to lower prices at the gasoline pump. The new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency follows up on a methane rule Biden announced last year at a United Nations climate summit in Scotland. The 2021 rule targets emissions from existing oil and gas wells nationwide, rather than focusing only on new wells as previous EPA regulations have done. The...

Iowa was one of only six states without a provision in the state constitution to offer protection of the right to keep and bear arms. In the last part of a long, complicated process to amend the Iowa State Constitution, Iowa voters approved of Iowa Amendment 1, Right to Keep and Bear Arms (2022) by nearly a 2-1 margin. From ballotpedia:A “yes” vote supported adding a right to own and bear firearms to the Iowa Constitution and require strict scrutiny for any alleged violations of the right brought before a court.A “no” vote opposed adding a right to own and...

The country may have experienced a red wave after all. It just didn't translate into the electoral outcomes that have historically accompanied major political shifts — and after the initial wave of instant narratives extemporized by pundits on election night, close observers are now just beginning to dig for the reasons underlying the model-shattering disconnect. Republicans are currently winning the national popular vote for the House in Tuesday's midterm elections by a large margin, according to the latest data from the Cook Political Report. Specifically, GOP candidates have so far received 50,672,592 votes, or 52.3% of the total ballots cast...

A tsunami warning has been issued following a 7.5 magnitude earthquake near the Pacific island of Tonga. The government has warned residents to seek high ground. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake was recorded in the sea off the Pacific island of Tonga late Friday, according to the US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center "A hazardous tsunami may have been generated by this nearby earthquake that could soon impact nearby coasts," the center said. It adding that the tsunami threat was being monitored for evaluation. The center warned of a threat of sea level fluctuations and strong ocean to American Samoa that could...

For America’s cultural elites, it is now almost obligatory to hate Elon Musk. It is not difficult to see why they feel this way. After all, Musk is one of the very few high-profile businessmen who is prepared to publicly distance himself from the woke values that the elites hold dear. For several years now, the man who made electric cars cool has shown a rare willingness to question social-justice orthodoxies. He has frequently referred to himself as a ‘free-speech absolutist’. And now, after buying Twitter, he has promised to make the popular social-media platform a ‘haven for free speech’....

But this predictable attempt to make Donald Trump the scapegoat for closer-than-expected midterm election results is highly misleading, and an oversimplification in the extreme.The results of Tuesday night’s elections do not tell an easy story for those looking to pin the blame on Trump. Many Trump candidates—including J. D. Vance, Ted Budd, almost certainly Kari Lake and Adam Laxalt, potentially Blake Masters, and possibly (after the runoff) Herschel Walker—will have won their races in highly competitive swing states despite most being outspent by tens of millions of dollars.Where Republican candidates faltered, it was not just those who were chosen by...

Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), who was the Democrats’ biggest Republican target in the Senate, was projected to defeat Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) and win reelection to a third term. NBC News and CNN both called the race for Johnson. Johnson and allied outside groups spent the last several months of the race defining Barnes as soft on crime in a barrage of attack ads, which some Democratic critics say were intended to sow racial divisions and play on the fears of suburban voters Johnson and Republican allied groups repeatedly hit Barnes for supporting the end of cash bail,...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

When Gen. Sergey Surovikin was appointed the overall commander of Russian forces in Ukraine a month ago, the Kremlin’s cheerleaders in the media lauded him as exactly the kind of severe warrior needed to bring order to the stumbling invasion. “General Armageddon,” some called him. The general appeared on national television in a rather different role on Wednesday: He was the designated bearer of bad tidings, announcing that Russia should abandon the southern regional capital of Kherson in order to preserve the lives of its soldiers there. President Vladimir V. Putin, who in a belligerent appearance in Moscow’s Red Square...

Perhaps it was the way he carried himself in an unassuming and humble manner, but day after day hundreds of Air Force Academy cadets would pass this janitor in the hall oblivious to the greatness that was among them. In the mid-1970s, William Crawford might spend one day sweeping the halls and another cleaning the bathrooms, but it was a day approximately 30 years prior that would create for him a special place in the history of war. In 1943 in Italy, the only thing Private William Crawford was cleaning out was German machine gun nest and bunkers.

The Pentagon announced another $400 million weapons package for Ukraine on Thursday as Russia ramps up attacks on critical infrastructure with winter getting closer. The new aid includes four Avenger air defense systems, missiles for HAWK air defense systems, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, artillery rounds, and hundreds of grenade launchers. It comes one week after the Pentagon announced a separate $400 million package, bringing the total aid that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine to over $19 billion.

As an analyst and long-time election observer who has watched too many red states turn blue, I can see exactly how the midterms played out. After watching the debacle on Tuesday night, I did my own post-mortem of what happened. I lay the blame on three major factors: The Republican elites, the American public, and early voting. The Republican ElitesBy far the most important factor is the Republican elites. In 2020, the GOPe was almost as glad as the Dems to be rid of Donald Trump, so they ignored and denied the massive vote fraud that swept Joe Biden into...

Informant Likely to Testify as Defense Witness in Oath Keepers Sedition Trial A man who served as No. 2 to Stewart Rhodes, the group’s leader, is said to have secretly reported to the F.B.I. in the months leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. WASHINGTON — An F.B.I. informant who was embedded for months in the inner circle of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, is likely to testify as a defense witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of Mr. Rhodes in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The informant, Greg McWhirter,...

Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter Inc. two weeks ago and immediately pushed out almost all of its top executives, has started to assemble a new group of senior leaders atop the social network. The company started reshuffling teams this week following a massive round of job cuts that eliminated roughly half of its 7,000-plus workers on Nov. 4. Among managers who remained after the dust settled, a few have begun to emerge as stewards of some of Twitter’s most important internal divisions as Musk seeks to rapidly overhaul the struggling business. The rise of new leadership under Musk has provided...

All of the talk of the midterms, I thought it would be important to pause and remember the tragedy of November 10 1975. Any thoughts or memories welcome, sorry this is a day late.

Friday is Veterans Day. Originally designated as Armistice Day, it marked the end of hostilities in World War I. (The 1918 ceasefire with Germany was actually called for 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, or 11/11.) In 1954, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day to celebrate the service of all members of the Armed Forces and was formally made a federal holiday. Restaurants and other businesses may offer veterans and active-duty service members free meals, discounts and other deals on Veterans Day -- many requiring military ID or other proof of service. Below, check out the latest info on businesses saluting...

The head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee pledged Wednesday to raise whatever money he can and begin an advertising blitz this week for Herschel Walker’s runoff in Georgia against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. But there’s one aspect Sen. Rick Scott of Florida won’t weigh in on: whether former President Donald Trump should stay out of the Dec. 6 runoff. GOP insiders faulted Trump, who has had a toxic relationship with popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp even though he endorsed him the day before his re-election, for costing the party control of the Senate in two simultaneous runoffs last year,...

The Mississippi Democrat Congressional candidate said that the incident 'invoke[d] historical acts of terrorism' Police in Mississippi arrested a 23-year-old old suspect thought to be associated with seven fires across Jackson, with two of them being at churches, in what one Democrat Congressional candidate called an attempt to suppress votes. Among the two churches set on fire, one of them was destroyed in the fire. All the fires took place around Jackson early Tuesday morning. Shuwaski Young, a former candidate for Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District, said that the fire was an attempt to suppress votes in the area and said...

The Wonder (15, 108mins) Verdict: Compelling period drama Rating: **** The 2017 film Disobedience received oodles of critical acclaim without ever quite getting the audiences it deserved. It was about a woman, played by Rachel Weisz, ostracised by the strictly orthodox Jewish community in which she’d grown up in London after falling romantically for another woman. Disobedience was an auspicious English-language debut by talented Chilean director Sebastian Leilo, and in The Wonder, his third film in English (the second was another corker, Gloria Bell, with Julianne Moore), Leilo tackles some of the same subjects: religious intensity, a woman’s refusal to...

A Georgia man faces up to 20 years in prison after more than $3 billion in stolen Bitcoin was found stashed in a popcorn tin at his home in what authorities call the second largest seizure of cryptocurrency. James Zhong, 32, pleaded guilty on Friday to stealing the Bitcoin a decade ago from the illegal Silk Road marketplace, which the FBI shut down in 2013. The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that authorities raided Zhong's Gainesville home in November 2021 where they found 50,676 Bitcoin with a value of $3.36 billion at the time.