Free Republic

As the debate over which bathroom an individual should use based on their sexual identity heats up, we are witnessing the ignorant and brash nature of state enforcement of these edicts come to a head. It is not only a distraction and a means for the state to get involved in your bowel movements, but it paints the trans and gay community in a negative light by asserting there is some sexual stigma involved in relieving oneÂ’s bladder. The end result of such obstinate legalese clouding the minds of the public is going to be state violence initiated against individuals...

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have accumulated at least $6.3 billion in more than 1,300 obscure spending accounts akin to slush funds that are essentially beyond congressional, media and public scrutiny. The accounts – which were created through EPA’s Superfund program – are not technically secret because the agency officially acknowledges their existence. But getting concrete details about deposits and expenditures is extremely difficult. The EPA deposited more than $6.3 billion into an estimated 1,308 special accounts between 1990 and 2015, according to the agency’s website, and has spent more than half of the total. The agency doesn’t publicly report...

There was a time in America — and it wasn't even so long ago — that liberals cared a lot about working-class people. They may have been misguided in many of their policy solutions — e.g., raising the minimum wage — but at least their hearts were in the right place. Then a strange thing happened about a decade ago. Radical environmentalists took control of the Democratic Party. These leftists care more about the supposed rise of the oceans than the financial survival of the middle class. The industrial unions made a catastrophic decision to get in bed with these...

Drinking water and the “human food chain” affecting thousands of people are seriously threatened, because the Environmental Protection Agency polluted a Colorado river with toxic metals waste, a government document shows.But that’s not what EPA has been telling the public since the agency’s August 2015 accident that turned the Animas River yellow for nearly two weeks, threatening the main source of drinking and working water for residents in three states and the Navajo Nation.The EPA polluted the Animas River with 880,000 pounds of dangerous metals like lead and arsenic after it intentionally breached the Gold King Mine in August. EPA released a statement shortly...

Last week, I discovered Frank Schnell when he wrote a comment on formaldehyde and said it was not a cancer-causing agent and that the EPA had lied about it. His comment was on an American Council on Science and Health posting by Josh Bloom, Ph.D. (organic chemistry), with a 20-year history of pharmaceutical research. Bloom busied himself in the post eviscerating a scare-monger on formaldehyde from the enviro-fanatic group National Resources Defense Council, and did a good job, but in the third or fourth comment, I saw a gem – a brief but insightful discussion by a man who described...

The Environmental Protection Agency, not satisfied with the damage their regulations are doing to the nation’s fossil fuel industry, has awarded $300,000 in grant money to a tech company that will alert American office workers that they are using too much energy. The company, Lucid Design Group, is in the midst of developing technology that will track electricity and water use in commercial office buildings. “Through this project, Lucid is focused on reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings by influencing people’s behavior,” said a press release from the EPA. “With this award, it will further develop, test and commercialize low-cost...

Obama administration officials called the Gold King Mine disaster in Colorado an “accident,” but an analysis of government documents and public statements makes clear the disaster was anything but accidental. The Environmental Protection Agency intentionally opened up the abandoned mine, which unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic waste into nearby rivers that residents of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and the Navajo Nation depend upon for drinking water. Agency administrator Gina McCarthy even called the mine spill an “unfortunate accident” in an Aug. 11, 2015, speech on the matter, but EPA officials have since been more cautious in describing the event....

The Republican chairman of a congressional panel investigating a 3-million-gallon spill of toxic wastewater from an inactive Colorado gold mine said Tuesday the mine was purposely breached by a government cleanup team. The assertion by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah contradicts claims by the Obama administration that the cleanup team was doing only preparatory work at the Gold King mine. Once it was breached, wastewater loaded with lead, arsenic and other contaminants fouled downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Bishop cited an email in which an Interior Department official said the spill last August...

Lisa Jackson, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who was caught using an email account under the pseudonym “Richard Windsor,” sits on the board of the Clinton Foundation, the charity of Hillary Clinton, of HDR22@clintonemail.com fame. Jackson’s — or “Windsor’s” — position on the board has not been a secret, but it has received little media attention during the Clinton email scandal, which threatens to derail the Democrat’s White House hopes. Jackson’s biography on the Clinton Foundation’s website shows that she took her position there in 2013. The bio states that Jackson is currently vice president of environmental initiatives as...

The Utah Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture, claiming the agencies' strategy to disallow new mining on or near greater sage grouse habitats is a breach of "numerous federal laws and regulations." The lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks an order voiding the federal government's land-use plan amendments submitted last year that would directly prohibit new hard rock mining on 233,300 acres in Utah. "The state of Utah claims that the 2015 federal plan amendments disregarded the hallmark of federal land management -- multiple use and sustained yield --...

EPA regional chief FINALLY resigns over Flint crisis - 22 months after residents first started complaining about the high levels of lead in the water A regional director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has resigned in connection with the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Susan Hedman, the head of the agency's regional office in Chicago whose jurisdiction includes the state, will step down on February 1 so the government can focus solely on the crisis in the city. High levels of lead have been detected in the impoverished city's water since officials switched from the Detroit municipal system...

...now it gets interesting.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder apologized to the residents of Flint for a water crisis that has prompted outrage, federal scrutiny and lawsuits, vowing to seek long-term assistance for the city’s residents. In his State of the State address on Tuesday night, Snyder said he was asking state lawmakers for $28 million to help residents reeling after Flint’s drinking water became contaminated with dangerously high levels of lead. He also vowed to release his emails related to Flint from 2014 and 2015.

DETROIT -- Commenting for the first time on the lead contamination in the drinking water of Flint, Mich., President Obama said Wednesday that he "would be beside myself" if he were a parent in the city. Mr. Obama said that in a White House meeting on Tuesday with Flint's mayor, Karen Weaver, "I told her that we are going to have her back, and all of the people of Flint's back, as they work their way through this terrible tragedy." The long-running crisis, which has poisoned dozens of Flint residents, at least, and left tens of thousands of others unsure...

See if you can tell that I'm angry. Sean Penn is the dolt who fancies himself as a journalist while surrendering all editorial control to his subject, a drug lord and murderer. CBS This Morning has decided to enroll in the Sean Penn School of Journalism. The Hillary whores hosts at CBS This Morning spent an entire segment of the show painting Michigan Governor as the bad guy in the Flint Michigan tainted water scandal. They likened it to a "Katrina moment." The segment then turned entirely into a Hillary Clinton campaign commercial. Everything centered around what Hillary had to...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder responded Monday to criticism from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic debates for his handling of Flint's water emergency, saying Clinton is making it a political issue. During Sunday's debate, Clinton said "every single American should be outraged" by the water crisis, adding that "if the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would have been action." Following a speaking engagement at a Martin Luther King Day event in Flint, the Republican governor said her tactic doesn't help solve the problem. "We're going to...

"You mentioned making the service better for our customers; but the American citizens aren't our customers--about 400 junk mailers are our customers.", said US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to Outbox founder Evan Baehr. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) top Midwest official knew about the Flint, Michigan drinking water crisis of 2015 months before telling the public, according to a Tuesday report by the The Detroit News. You can't judge the motives of individuals. But these government agencies and pandemic-mega-corporations aren't individuals. Therefore, it's fair to observe, that their behavior reveals their group motives, that "by their fruits you shall know...

FLINT, MI -- The Michigan chapter of Al Sharpton's National Action Network says the state needs to set up a special court to hear criminal cases against juveniles who may have been poisoned by lead contaminants in Flint water. "All juvenile offenders arrested, charged or incarcerated in Genesee County that may have consumed Flint water during the period of lead contamination should be tested for lead content in their blood," Sam Riddle, state political director of Michigan NAN, said in a news release.

With the start of a new year, President Obama and his army of unelected bureaucrats are resolving to acquire more power and increase regulations. Throughout his tenure, President Obama has shown that he will do anything to achieve his personal policy agenda. Whether by passing new regulations through federal agencies or issuing executive orders, the Obama Administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress and the will of the American people. In the realm of energy policy, Obama has made it clear that nothing will stand in the way of his so-called climate "legacy," not the economy, not the livelihood of millions of...

For thousands of years, man has sought to ward off the dark by using light to illuminate the night. Now, EPA chief Gina McCarthy and celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson want to take us back a few thousand years by giving the agency the ability to deal with "light pollution." The only way to deal with light pollution is to, well, turn off the lights. This will be a boon to astronomers like Tyson who will be able to see the stars and planets a lot better. But for the rest of us, not so good. Crime will rise, accidents...