Free Republic

ESG scoring is a financial racket, and we're starting to learn how it works. The unfolding saga with huge American corporations like Anheuser-Busch (Bud Light) and Target are showing us a glimpse of what's going on behind the curtain with this cartel scam that's trapping our corporations. One tool of this cartel is the Human Rights Campaign's "Corporate Equality Index," which is concerned with "LGBTQ+" issues and is used as a scoring mechanism for the S, Social (Justice), part of ESG scoring. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay walks through how the ESG racket works,...

Bud Light, Target … why are they killing their own brands? Why, it’s very simple. And yet scary as Hell. The Redheaded libertarian put together a thread explaining why – take a gander: Why is everything gay? Buckle up, we’re going down this gay rabbit hole. The CEI— Corporate Equality Index— is a woke credit score, that judges companies based on how many woke issues they are pushing. 1. What is “woke”? A word co-oped from the black community by… — The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) May 27, 2023 If you don’t want to Google number 4, we did it for...

At last we know why the corporate world has fallen in love with pretend woman Dylan Mulvaney. As I noted Thursday, he seems to be everywhere all at once, and it seems unlikely that corporate giants are suddenly so taken with Dylan’s charm and wit that they are spontaneously all at once falling over themselves to make him their pitchman. But now we know why there is this sudden imperative to make this man America’s sweetheart: corporations are being strong-armed into featuring him, or else. The New York Post reported Friday that “executives at companies like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Kate...

VIDEOBecause of public exposure, CRT proponents no longer present themselves as "CRT" (Critical Race Theory) and instead now use the term DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) which is the same scam. CRT, now DEI, performs the money-making scam of providing profitable "consultation services" to school districts in order to indoctrinate students as to why capitalism is wrong (while using capitalism to make school district money for themselves). Fortunately, parents around the country, including the ones seen here at the Park Hill School District School Board meeting near Kansas City, are on to this scam and are speaking out about it. In...

The surface transportation construction industry has long had to rely on Washington for its prosperity. We spend most years holding our breath and hoping we will receive more Federal funding to fix our crumbling roads, bridges and highway systems. Currently in the United States, 7 percent of bridges are structurally deficient, and 19 percent of major highway pavements have deteriorated. Yet, our existing financing structure has few tools to address the looming reconstruction challenges facing existing infrastructure. In 2020, Congress passed a one-year extension of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. While the one-year extension of the FAST Act...

On Tuesday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sent NASA a formal complaint, asking the agency to withdraw the false claim that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that humans are the primary cause of global warming and climate change. The 2013 study purporting to demonstrate that number was fatally flawed and proved no such thing."The claim that 97% of climate scientists believe humans are the primary cause of global warming is simply false," CEI attorney Devin Watkins said in a statement. "That figure was created only by ignoring many climate scientists’ views, including those of undecided scientists. It is time...

The mug-shot posters, pasted on walls and lampposts around Paris by an activist group during the United Nations climate talks last year, were hardly flattering. They depicted Myron Ebell, a climate contrarian, as one of seven “climate criminals” wanted for “destroying our future.” But in his customary mild-mannered way, Mr. Ebell, who directs environmental and energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian advocacy group in Washington, brushed it off. In looking for someone to follow through on his campaign vow to dismantle one of the Obama administration’s signature climate change policies, President-elect Donald J. Trump probably could not...

As the nation’s chief diplomat, Hillary Clinton was responsible for ascertaining whether information in her possession was classified and acknowledged that “negligent handling” of that information could jeopardize national security, according to a copy of an agreement she signed upon taking the job. A day after assuming office as secretary of state, Clinton signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement that laid out criminal penalties for “any unauthorized disclosure” of classified information. Experts have guessed that Clinton signed such an agreement, but a copy of her specific contract, obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute through an open records request and...

Dem presidential candidate and top aides signed NDAs warning against 'negligent handling' of classified information. As the nation's chief diplomat, Hillary Clinton was responsible for ascertaining whether information in her possession was classified and acknowledged that "negligent handling" of that information could jeopardize national security, according to a copy of an agreement she signed upon taking the job. A day after assuming office as secretary of state, Clinton signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement that laid out criminal penalties for "any unauthorized disclosure" of classified information. Experts have guessed that Clinton signed such an agreement, but a copy of...

The most transparent administration in American history is at it again -- dodging sunlight and evading public disclosure. Joining former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her secret servers, former IRS witch hunt queen Lois Lerner and her secret email accounts, former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and her Internet alter egos, and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and his non-public email account is White House science czar John Holdren. President Obama's top climate change adviser is defending his hide-and-seek game in federal court. Earlier this month, the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute appealed a D.C. district court ruling protecting Holdren's...

Original headline-Report: Cost of Federal Regulation Reached $1.88 Trillion in 2014 U.S. debt exceeds the size of China’s economy The cost of federal regulation neared $2 trillion in 2014, according to a new report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State, a report by Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI’s vice president for policy, also reveals that the U.S. debt now exceeds the size of China’s economy. “Federal regulation and intervention cost American consumers and businesses an estimated $1.88 trillion in 2014 in lost economic productivity and higher prices,” amounting to roughly...

When I came to Washington years ago, I had a revolutionary glimmer in my eye. I hated big government and I wanted to join a political movement to dismantle it. That was a long time ago, yet sometimes that rage kicks in when I read about the creeping socialism that is slowly destroying America.The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put out a study today titled “Ten Thousand Commandments – An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.” The results will make you spitting mad.The author Wayne Crews, Vice President for Policy at CEI, found that federal regulation cost $1.88 trillion in...

A little-noted provision of President Obama’s highway funding proposal would lift the federal prohibition against states imposing new tolls on existing interstate highways. The GROW AMERICA Act would eliminate restrictions held in place since the creation of the Federal Interstate System, according to a summary of the plan’s provisions, allowing states that receive permission from the Secretary of Transportation to toll existing Interstate highways “in order to make improvements or to manage congestion.” Since its creation in 1956, interstates have been funded primarily through fuel taxes, with tolls banned on all sections of highway built after that date, according to...

Background (from Sam Katzman, Competitive Enterprise Institute general counsel) going into the hearing of 11/25/14: “Regardless of where one stands on global warming, this case is about the First Amendment. Michael Mann’s defamation lawsuit is an unfounded attempt to chill speech on a major issue of public concern. Professor Mann is a high-profile figure in the global warming debate, and he himself is responsible for much of the overheated rhetoric in that debate. His complaint about CEI’s criticism of his statistical methods belongs in the arena of public discussion and scientific inquiry, not in the courts. “This is precisely the...

I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in King v. Burwell. Since January, the Obama administration has been spending billions of unauthorized federal dollars, and subjecting nearly 60 million Americans to unauthorized taxes, all to hide the full cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. The administration’s actions have not only violated the law and caused massive economic disruption, they have also subverted the democratic process.

Fed Ex was just indicted on charges that it helps facilitate the transport of illegal drugs, especially from Canadian pharmacies. (Where drugs are much less expensive.) That the CEO of FedEx, Fred Smith, is an ardent supporter of free enterprise, who has supported free market political groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and runs a non-union shop is a coincidence of course. That FedEx’s main competitor, is pro-union UPS (UPS got away with a $40 million fine, FedEx is looking at potentially over $1 billion) is also a coincidence. That pharma, which has close ties to this White House...

WASHINGTON – News outlets, advocacy groups and fellow think tanks are jumping to the defense of a conservative-leaning D.C. policy center and publication being sued for libel by a scientist who didn't like what they had to say about his work on global warming. Michael Mann, a prominent professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, has long been a target of climate change skeptics for his work claiming temperatures have risen dramatically in recent decades, and has sued before when groups tried to debunk his data. But this time, Mann is being accused of going too far with his case...

Obamacare has proven again to be the biggest legislative failure in history, with last week's ruling that its subsidies are illegal. These subsidies induced some 5 million Americans to sign up for Obamacare but are prohibited by law as held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell. This humiliation to the Obama administration was a devastating setback to legislation already disfavored by a 59-40 percent margin among the public, according to the latest CNN poll. Twice as many Americans say they are being hurt rather than helped by Obamacare. Officially known as the...

Left-leaning environmentalists, media and academics have long railed against the alleged conservative “war on science.” They augment this vitriol with substantial money, books, documentaries and conference sessions devoted to “protecting” global warming alarmists from supposed “harassment” by climate chaos skeptics, whom they accuse of wanting to conduct “fishing expeditions” of alarmist emails and “rifle” their file cabinets in search of juicy material (which might expose collusion or manipulated science). A primary target of this “unjustified harassment” has been Penn State University professor Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” temperature graph that purported to show a sudden spike...

WASHINGTON – A few blocks down the street from where the U.S. Supreme Court recently issued its ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, a powerful federal appeals court is preparing its own decision in a case that could cause serious complications for ObamaCare. The case, Halbig v Sebelius, is a major legal challenge that cuts to the heart of the Affordable Care Act by going after the legality of massive federal subsidies and those who benefit from them. A ruling could come as early as Friday. In the case, the plaintiff claims the Obama administration – in particular, the Internal...