Free Republic

A short history of Obama administration accountability: 1. No one fired at ATF or the Justice Department over Fast and Furious gun walking scandal 2. No one fired at IRS, two employees temporarily demoted over targeting scandal 3. Only 6 managers at the VA fired or allowed to resign over falsifying wait time records 4. No HHS employee fired over Obamacare exchange fiasco 5. No senior officers have been demoted or removed from CENTCOM for "cooking the books" on ISIS intelligence 6.. No EPA employee disciplined for toxic spill at Colorado mine As for that last scandal, Interior Secretary Sally...

The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime. Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books. “Protecting the environment just got real. With millions of dollars spent on military style weaponry, the EPA is now literally ensconced with all institutional force,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books and the author...

Meanwhile it’s not safe for anybody now that Barry’s come out of the school bathroom and into the parkland The Pirate in the Oval Office is not only fleecing American citizens out of more than 265 million acres of public lands and waters, he’s rubbing their noses in his park acquisition on his way out of the door. Barack ‘Captain-Kidd-you-not” Obama spent Father’s Day weekend hanging out in the park.

The federal government says filtered tap water is safe for everyone in Flint, Michigan, lifting a recommendation that pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under 6 drink only bottled water to avoid lead exposure. The announcement Thursday is based on tests of filters that have been distributed for months for free by the state of Michigan and the federal government. The Environmental Protection Agency says the filters remove or reduce lead to well below the action level of 15 parts per billion. …

March for Environmental Hope A real thing, Jimmy. If truth is stranger than fiction, it should come as no surprise that Friday marks the start of the first-ever pro-nuclear power march — probably in world history — and it all starts in San Francisco. The March for Environmental Hope, a four-day trek from the City by the Bay to Sacramento, is being pitched as a family-friendly event — and in this case that means more than funnel cakes and bounce houses. Organizers are hoping to tug on the collective heart strings of America by making this about the children, as...

Now that many environmentalists and climate scientists have realized that nuclear energy is essential for addressing global warming, a coalition of environmental groups is sponsoring a multi-day March for Environmental Hope in California in support of nuclear power

The entire Los Angeles metropolitan area and most of Southern California can expect blackouts this summer. The power grid is under direct threat as a result of the unprecedented, but little reported, massive natural gas leaks at Alisco Canyon that was ongoing for four months as an intense summer heat wave sets in. According to Reuters: California will have its first test of plans to keep the lights on this summer… With record-setting heat and air conditioning demand expected in Southern California, the state’s power grid operator issued a so-called "flex alert," urging consumers to conserve energy to help prevent...

While the production will almost certainly improve this summer, “SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes Project in Tonopah, Nevada [isn’t even] quietly providing clean, green solar energy to 75,000 homes in the Silver State even when the sun [is] shining”… The average U.S. residential utility customer uses about 900 kWh per month. 75,000 homes * 900 KWh/month = 67,500,000 kWh/month = 67,500 MWh/month In its best month so far, Crescent Dunes generated 9,095 MWh… About 3 hours of electricity per day for 75,000 homes. This is the Venezuela version of 24/7 /SARC.

Dr. Patrick Moore sent me this last week, and after reading it, I agree with him in his initial note to me that This is probably the most important paper I will ever write. Moore looks at the historical record of CO2 in our atmosphere and concludes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. He notes: A 140 million year decline in CO2 to levels that came close to threatening the survival of life on Earth can hardly be...

House Republicans are pressing efforts to safeguard the First Amendment rights of scientific skeptics who dissent from what they consider the Obama administration’s alarmist position on climate change, according to letters to 17 state attorneys general. The series of letters, sent Friday and signed by 19 of the 22 Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, renew an earlier request to the state attorneys general for information detailing their communications with environmental organizations. They also ask for communications between employees for the state attorneys general and the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the White House.

President Barack Obama used his visit to Yosemite National Park on Saturday to tout his administration’s environmental record and to warn Americans about the dangers of climate change — albeit with false information. “Fires are raging across the west right now … all while it’s still really early in the season,” he said in a speech at the park, according to the Los Angeles Times. Obama joins California Governor Jerry Brown in making a spurious connection between wildfires and climate change that scientists have long since rejected.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is now the latest state prosecutor to start investigating conservative groups with supposed ties to ExxonMobil, after she issued a subpoena for 40 years of internal company documents and communications with a handful of think tanks. Healey’s office subpoenaed Exxon as part of a multi-state effort among liberal attorneys general to investigate Exxon for allegedly trying to cover up global warming science. Healey charges that the oil giant lied to shareholders and consumers about the risks of global warming in its communications and shareholder filings, according to a copy of the subpoena obtained by The...

So you’re a global warming skeptic, author, philosopher and think tank creator who champions the use of fossil fuels. Then you get subpoenaed by the Massachusetts attorney general over your think-tank’s supposed ties to ExxonMobil — the claim being that the oil giant allegedly attempted to cover up global warming science. And how did Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” respond to Maura Healey’s subpoena on Wednesday? " F---- Off, Fascist"

A federal judge ruled Friday that a lobbyist and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official can testify for a coal company in its lawsuit against the agency. The EPA had sought to block Jeff Holmstead, who led the EPA’s air pollution office under then-President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, from appearing as an expert witness in Murray Energy Corp.’s case. The agency argued that Holmstead’s time at the EPA is a significant conflict of interest and his testimony would amount to little more than unreliable legal conclusions. The EPA “effectively argues that, because Mr. Holmstead once worked at...

New reports indicate the Cuomo administration tried to subvert information about a cancer-causing chemical in the water supply of the town of Hoosick Falls … and nobody seems all that concerned. Documents obtained by Politico show the New York State Department of Health dismissing warnings from the EPA, and refusing to alert residents of the very dangerous situation. Over a year ago, health department officials issued a ‘fact sheet’ indicating that “health effects are not expected to occur from normal use of the water” within days of a contradictory declaration by the EPA which advised residents not to drink or...

A site run by Denbury Onshore LLC in southwestern North Dakota has spilled more than 120,000 gallons of oil and wastewater into pastureland after a mechanical failure. Some estimated 17,000 gallons of oil and 105,000 gallons of drilling wastewater containing saltwater and chemicals leaked into pastureland near the city of Marmarth when a tank sensor failed, news agencies quoted state regulators as saying. The tank overflowed on Wednesday, and by Friday, workers were excavating the affected pastureland, which is being equated to the size of a football field.

In this year of political rage, one aspect that baffles me somewhat is the absolute, electrified, apoplectic, blurred-vision hatred of Hillary Clinton. Nor do I get the similar outrage expressed about President Barack Obama, who in Comment Section World makes Donald Trump look like a lovable Disney character. I can only ascribe this Rage Against the Clinton Machine to misogyny. Yeah. I said it (send enraged emails to my boss, Dan Morain at dmorain@sacbee.com). Looking back on political figures, I can truly say that there are only a handful of people I could really get vein-popping angry about. â–ª Sarah...

Tyler O’Neil gives us a list of the Top Thirteen Incompetent Failures in the Obama Administration. I’m not sure how he narrowed it down, but here it is, presumably starting with the least of the incompetents and counting down to the most incompetent. Ben "The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama's Foreign-Policy Guru" Rhodes. Makes sense he would land a gig with "the Aspiring Singer, Basketball Player, Community Organizer Who Became President. Tommy “Dude, that was like 2 years ago” Vietor. The former press van driver who became National Security Council spokesman and special assistant to the president (and beer pong...

You’ve probably never heard of Sebring, Ohio. Despite tainted water, which the EPA knew about for months before the public did, shipments of water bottles for the angry residents, two EPA employees being put on leave, and all the other elements of a scandal, it was missing something.

Colorado Republicans blasted the EPA after an agency official refused to cover the full cost of damages done by the EPA’s release of toxic sludge from the Gold King Mine last August contaminated water supplies in Colorado and New Mexico after spreading from the Animas River to the San Juan River. EPA official Bill Murray explained that “people need to understand that when we took responsibility for the spill we were making a moral statement, not agreeing to compensate anyone for any injuries suffered. The government has ‘sovereign immunity’ and cannot be held liable without its consent. Obviously, we are...