Free Republic

I am writing this column on a beautiful sunny day in Southern California. It is a Monday in mid-August, so it is not a national holiday, yet in Los Angeles County, where I live, all the schools and all government offices are closed. Why? Because, for the past week, the National Weather Service, state and local authorities, and national and local media have been ceaselessly warning that a tropical storm would hit Southern California on Sunday night and Monday with a "life-threatening" intensity not seen since the last tropical storm hit California in 1939, 84 years ago. On Saturday, CNN...

Some readers have asked why Russia regards Finland’s membership in NATO as a provocation. For the same reason that Ukraine’s membership is a provocation: US missile bases on Russia’s border. Editor’s Commentary: I have always appreciated Paul Craig Roberts’ perspectives. My conversations with him have shown me he understands geopolitics better than just about anyone I know. I do not agree with everything he posted in the article below from Free West Media, but I’m printing it anyway because it does shed light on the reality that we are closer to war with Russia than any time since the Cold...

The panic over the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which is milder than previous variants, in New York City is now causing a strain on the city's medical and emergency services as people are jamming up 911 lines and emergency rooms over minor symptoms. New York City Councilmember and Chair of the Health Committee Mark Levine has pleaded with residents to not call 911 for mild symptoms or to go to an emergency room for COVID-19 tests. The New York City Fire Department tweeted a video telling people "ambulances do not provide testing for COVID-19, and patients are not transported to...

I am not familiar with the author or the site but this came from a family member who is a high level academic physician. It is the most compelling assessment I have yet seen. We are about a week behind Italy. Public Health Authorities are dithering behind platitudes. President Trump should lock the country down now.

If you went to bed early Tuesday, you were surprised to wake up Wednesday and learn that World War III has been delayed. No doubt you were also shocked that Iran blinked, oil prices were tumbling and the stock market was soaring. Once again, the Chicken Little chorus got everything all wrong. The sky isn’t falling and Donald Trump pulled off a huge victory. Oh, and he’s still president. Iran’s decision to pretend it was retaliating for the death of Qassem Soleimani by lobbing ineffective missiles is terrific news for America and freedom-loving people everywhere. So was Trump’s Wednesday offer...

I use a lot of dangerous drugs. Well, not me personally, but on my patients. Of course, I use dangerous drugs only when the disease I’m treating is more dangerous than the drug. In diseases that are not life-threatening, naturally I avoid dangerous drugs and try to stick with safer therapies. Chemotherapy drugs can save your life, but they can also have significant side effects. Side effects that you would not tolerate if you were treating a sinus infection. But if you have cancer, and you’re trying to avoid dying, it may make sense to take a chance on side...

President Trump is in a whole lot of trouble. Andy Beshear, who has claimed victory in the Kentucky governor’s race, showed that Democrats prosper when they focus on what he called “kitchen-table issues.” In Virginia, voters demonstrated that support for gun control is now an asset, not a liability, in American politics. More broadly: Railing against impeachment and attacking Democrats as “socialists” won’t get the job done for Republicans when the GOP finds itself on the wrong end of questions such as health care and education.

Some Republican defenders of President Trump fear White House lawyers are about to make a crucial misstep in House impeachment proceedings by not asserting executive privilege as Tim Morrison prepares to become the first current White House staffer to testify. Morrison, brought to the White House by deposed national security adviser John Bolton, is viewed with suspicion by many Trump allies, who are expressing concern that the "superhawk" may speak without restriction and offer his opinions about work on Ukraine policy issues. Two sources familiar with proceedings on Capitol Hill say the White House has not indicated that it will...

Rush just replied to a caller who was dismayed at the fact that it has been 3 years and no one has been indicted (Comey, Hillary, Biden etc. FISA).

CNN anchor Jim Sciutto issued a stark warning on Wednesday morning against the effects of climate change, stating during a newscast that "we don't want to be slowly burned to death." “I just want to ask the question for folks at home, folks like us. We got kids. We don’t want to be slowly burned to death on our own planet here," said Sciutto, who served in the Obama State Department prior to coming to CNN. "Is the human race running - in the simplest terms running out of time to take the measures necessary to rein in this rise...

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution Thursday expressing opposition to the notion the United States might cooperate with the Russian government to make former U.S. diplomats, officials, and military members available for questioning. The resolution is a direct response to Russian President Vladimir Putin discussing with the President Donald Trump on Monday the possibility of prosecuting American-born British financier Bill Browder, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and others for alleged crimes. The offer from Putin developed after the Justice Department indicted 12 GRU military intelligence officers for their involvement in Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 U.S....

As an apocalyptic haze blanketed Seattle last week, temperatures soared into the 90s and left Seattleites ruing their lack of air conditioning. Welcome to the future? Scientists project climate change will exacerbate wildfire activity. Extremely hot days — 95 degrees and above — are expected to become more common. How hot will it get? A consortium of researchers with the Climate Impact Lab has analyzed two consensus climate models and projected changes nationwide. The lab shared data for each of Washington’s counties with The Seattle Times. Historically, King County has averaged less than one day (.37) a year at or...

What happened to you white people? Really, please tell me what happened to the people that have achieved so much but have now become wimpy, pansies cowering in fear of someone not liking them. White people today are seeking safe places when there was no safe place from them 100 years ago. I wrote “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation” to help black people leave the inner city oppression. Now I need to write a book to help white people leave the outer city oppression. Granted, I am glad most of you saw through that slavery thing and that 360,000...

Change Trump: down 1.3 Clinton: up 1.1 10/12 Trump: 44.0 Clinton: 44.4 10/11 Trump: 45.3 Clinton: 43.3

**SNIP** The last topic of discussion was potential solutions. The panel split into two sides on this one. Some panelists suggested different options to prevent further greenhouse gas pollution, such as a transition to renewable energy and increasing fuel efficiency in vehicles. Others, however, saw the only real solution as finding ways to live in an imbalanced world, like avoiding development in flood-prone areas. Such a view might seem unnecessarily bleak and pessimistic, but it's by far the more practical view. The Earth has only 16 years left of emitting greenhouse gases until we reach a tipping point. That's not...

Mitt Romney is losing the most important election of our lifetime. Don’t be deceived by the polls that show him “within the margin of error.” Don’t put your faith in last minute media-buys from the campaign’s gargantuan war chest. Don’t expect the debates to turn things around. The president may not be an electrifying speaker, but he knows how to demagogue. His message will be: I love the middle class; Mitt Romney wants tax cuts for millionaires and eats children. And, don’t count on the fact that public opinion is against Obama on almost every significant issue. (At no time...

Climate change has come to New Jersey, according to Environment New Jersey, a statewide environmental advocacy group. The organization released a report Thursday that attributes this year’s extreme weather to global warming. “Certainly, we have a problem on our hands,” said Matt Elliott, a representative from Environment New Jersey. “We need to do everything we can to cut carbon pollution today.”

A new study by 22 biologists and ecologists has found that environmental changes on our planet are reaching a point of no return that leads to mass extinctions and harms human welfare. The situation, said one scientist, “scares the hell out of me.” That would be James H. Brown, one of the authors of alarming paper published by Nature, talking to New York Times Green blogger Justin Gillis. Brown is not one of your everyday cranks predicting raptures and the end of days. He is a macroecologist at the University of New Mexico. And as The Atlantic's James Fallows, who...

Unit 2 we now know completely liquified. We’ve never seen this before in the history of nuclear power. A 100% liquification of a uranium core.

A large commercial airplane flies low and slow over Willis Tower, causing curiosity and sudden fear among the crowd of people walking on downtown streets. Did the pilot veer off course? Or was the flight path intentional? With the public's nerves frayed over homeland security concerns, the sight of the plane would surely bring to mind the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, as well as recent attempts by terrorists to place explosives aboard passenger and cargo planes. "It was flying so low that everyone on the street stopped to stare," one observer e-mailed the Tribune...