Free Republic

Firefighting efforts can help protect communities but can't tackle Canada's vast fire landscapeIt's another smoky summer in southern Ontario, and people breathing poor air in and around Toronto are once again asking what governments can do about wildfire smoke. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended the province's wildfire budget and has asked Ottawa for extra help. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have also demanded Canada do more to stop smoke from drifting across the border. But experts say the politics can obscure a harder reality: fire is a natural part of Canada's forests, and a warming climate is making...

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville argued Sunday that former President Joe Biden’s refusal to drop out of the 2024 election earlier caused lasting damage to his party. "So, the reason the Democratic Party is in the shape it is, is because Joe Biden wouldn't get out until July the 21st of the election year, alright?" Carville said on his "Politics War Room" podcast. "Had Joe Biden gotten out in October of 2023, we would have a Democratic president. Don't kid yourself." "And by the way, all the people on the left who say the Democrats don't fight hard enough never...

The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers. Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van. “We were at a village that Israeli settlers...

According to Wisconsin socialist Democrat candidate Francesca Hong, "I think that when folks hear 'socialism,' they may be taken aback, but I bring it back to potholes and the [Green Bay] Packers and public education." That was how Hong explained to an MSNOW interviewer her deceitful strategy to slip evil past Badger State voters. Maine's garbage-hearted Graham Platner may have quit his electoral effort, but the communist wickedness that today wields great influence in the Democrat party ain't goin' nowhere. Hong's 'spoonful of sugar' skullduggery is common to scheming electoral subversives. Rather than concede communism has murdered some 100 million...

Most stories one reads about the legendary sci-fi author Harlan Ellison tend to be about how cranky and/or litigious he was. Harlan Ellison hated Hollywood. The stories about his dissatisfaction with "Star Trek" are legendary, and he often took other writers and/or studios to court, claiming they had ripped off his idea. He once sued the makers of the obscure 1970s sci-fi cop show "Future Cop," and he famously (and successfully) sued James Cameron over "The Terminator." He sued the movie "In Time" for "borrowing" one of his ideas. And in interviews, Ellison remained cantankerous. A notable 1979 interview with...

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is alarmed that Democrats might expand the membership of the Supreme Court It is true that leading Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, have welcomed “ideas, for example, that are about Supreme Court reform, including the notion of expanding the court.” But it is wrong to call it court-packing. In fact, the Supreme Court has already been strategically stacked by President Trump and his Senate allies, entrenching an illegitimate conservative supermajority. Adding four seats under the next Democratic trifecta would actually be unpacking the court. After Justice Antonin Scalia died on Feb 13. 2016, President...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decried Apple’s recent $200 price hikes on computers and tablets, which the tech giant blamed on a memory chip crunch — and called for breaking up Big Tech. “We need to break up a lot of these companies that are far, far too big, and we need to be instituting consumer protections for people,” the New York Democrat told Fox News. Most analysts believe the so-called “RAM-ageddon” crisis is a result of the rapid build-out of data centers to power artificial intelligence, which has turbocharged demand for memory chips. Citing memory chip shortages, Apple jacked...

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says. Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens. “This is a dramatic warning being sent once again by nature on what it means to have a different climate system,” she told the Guardian. “What we are experiencing today [in the form of record heat] is what we knew could happen, but we have not been smart enough to...

Backsliding on climate action would drive the Labour party into political obscurity, Zack Polanski has warned, as trade union leaders said more drilling in the North Sea would not help UK workers. The Green party leader, speaking to the Guardian as searing heat swept the country for the second time this year, urged Andy Burnham – widely expected to be the UK’s next prime minister – to be bold on climate justice. He said any move to water down the party’s commitments would have dire consequences at the ballot box. “Half measures or backsliding on climate action would be a...

What is a proof? The question has two answers. The right wing ("right-or-wrong", "rule-of-law") definition is that a proof is a logically correct argument that establishes the truth of a given statement. The left wing answer (fuzzy, democratic, and human centered) is that a proof is an argument that convinces a typical mathematician of the truth of a given statement. While valid in an idealistic sense, the right wing definition of a proof has the problem that, except for trivial examples, it is not clear that anyone has ever seen such a thing. The traditional examples of correct proofs that...

Americans are struggling to pay for groceries and gas while Elon Musk becomes a TRILLIONAIRE. When the federal government is for sale, the rich get richer and everyone else gets shafted. The system is rigged.

5:00-- need a thorough de magafication like the de nazification in Germany

The President of the United States is mentally ill, but everybody knows that. So while we should continue to focus on this degeneration taking place in front of our eyes, we should also, beyond that, ask what we can do about the powers, the interests, the system that put this horrifying person in a position of power. (snip) Obviously, we need to defang Trump as much as possible and make sure that neither he nor anybody who follows in his footsteps has power after the next two elections. But beyond that, we really need to do a thorough purging of...

Racial justice advocates descended on Capitol Hill to slam the Trump administration’s policies that they say are an “attack on the Black economy,” as Black Americans see rising unemployment and disproportionate impacts of America’s affordability crisis. “The state of the Black economy is under attack,” said U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who hosted a press conference on Wednesday with coalition groups, including the NAACP, Color of Change, the National Urban League, and The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “We are plagued by an economic crisis that is a direct result of Trump’s reckless financial policies that are...

“California’s ‘Trump Tax Loophole’ is a billionaire-friendly tax break that lets the wealthiest commercial property owners avoid paying taxes based on what their properties are actually worth,” proclaims Tom Steyer, candidate for governor of California, on his website. Steyer has described this “loophole” in debates as if it is a special benefit for corporations, a “corporate real estate tax loophole.” In the gubernatorial debate on CNN, for example, he declared: “I will on the first day [in office] call a special election to close a corporate real estate tax loophole that’s worth over $20 billion. … California government needs more...

Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico said he believes state laws have stacked the deck against him as he looks to become the first Democrat to win statewide office since 1994. "Means you’re probably going to have to win by a little more than we would have to in a completely free and fair election," Talarico said in a recent podcast interview. Talarico’s posture towards Texas voting laws reflects a broader Democratic belief that Republican dominance in the Lone Star State is due to low turnout brought on by election security measures rather than the state’s conservative leanings — a...

Sen. Cory Booker told CNN on Sunday that Democrats need to stop focusing on party mechanics and start rebuilding trust with voters, arguing that the Democratic "party apparatus" has failed to meet the moment and "desperately needs new leadership." JAKE TAPPER, CNN: I guess my question is, how can the Democratic Party hope to win tomorrow if it won't even honestly confront the problems of yesterday? SEN. CORY BOOKER: Well, first of all, I have had frustrations, as you and I were talking off camera, with the Democratic Party for a long time. And the DNC has got to...

Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey is shaping up to be the biggest movie of the year, and right-wing voices are furious at it. “Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey,” wrote Elon Musk on X. Musk, alongside hundreds of right-wing culture warriors algorithmically boosted on his platform, have spent the past few weeks fuming over the news that Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy, and that transgender actor Elliot Page might be playing Achilles. One right-wing influencer described the casting of Page as Achilles as “the final straw to ruin Homer.” Another pundit, in a post that received...

Seattle’s lefty Mayor Katie Wilson admitted she was wrong to slam Starbucks and push for a boycott of the mega-coffee chain birthed in the Pacific City. Wilson, 43, issued a terse mea culpa to the New York Times this week as questions swirl about whether the liberal Northwest city can attract and retain businesses, including Starbucks, which recently chose to expand its footprint in Tennessee. The democratic socialist made waves last fall when she joined a barista union rally as mayor-elect and expressed her disgust with one of Seattle’s most recognizable businesses. “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should...

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned new rulings have “spawned chaos” in Louisiana after the court agreed on Monday to speed up a previous order that a map drawn by the state was found to be unconstitutional for racial gerrymander and that the Voting Rights Act did not require the state to create an additional majority-minority district. ... Jackson, one of the three liberal justices in the court, dissented, writing that “the Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” and highlighted the timing of elections in the state and that mail-in ballots were...