Free Republic

My last two posts have been about the new Federal Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, just out (December 31) from the Federal Justice Center. The Chair of that Center is U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts. The latest version of the Manual is the Fourth Edition. The prior version in 2011 was the Third Edition; and there were also two prior Editions from 2000 and 1994. In those previous two posts, I principally criticized a newly-added chapter in the Fourth Edition titled “Reference Guide on Climate Science.” Today, I want to take a look at another chapter titled “How Science Works.”...

Bernie Sanders has made a name for himself as Congress' resident cranky commie. He likes to pretend he's a man of the people and champion of the working class, but the reality is he owns three houses and likes capitalism when he's selling his latest book. He's also a raging hypocrite who lectures us about the dangers of climate change and the "oligarchy" while he jets around the country on a private aircraft. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who crisscrossed the country last year on a Fighting Oligarchy tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spent over $550,000 in 2025 on private...

A bill advancing through the Massachusetts Senate would make reducing how much people drive an explicit goal of state transportation policy. It is called the Freedom to Move Act. The bill, SB 2246, does not impose mileage caps on individual drivers. There is no odometer check, no per-driver limit, and no new fines or taxes written into the legislation. Instead it directs the state to set targets for reducing total vehicle miles traveled statewide — targets that would be incorporated into transportation planning, infrastructure investment, and long-term emissions policy. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts,...

California drivers and Republican legislators are furious over a Democrat-led proposal that could see motorists taxed for each mile they drive. With the state staring down a budget deficit in the billions and more Californians switching to electric vehicles, Democratic lawmakers are searching for new ways to shore up declining gas tax revenue. Californians pay the second-highest gas price in the nation behind only Hawaii. In January, the average price was $4.23 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. On Thursday, state legislators advanced Democrat Lori Wilson’s bill, AB 1421, which would direct the California Transportation Commission and the...

As most know by now, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” global warming propaganda film turned 20 a few days ago. It won a couple of Oscars in 2007, one for best documentary. The latter should be returned. The movie was filled with errors. Exalting the celluloid screed with an Academy Award for best documentary is the equivalent of handing the Nobel Peace Prize to a terrorist, an incompetent, a fraud, an unaccomplished charlatan, and, yes, Gore himself, because it was far more a faux-umentary than an honest account of the facts. In the same year that Gore was given his...

President Trump cited a major winter storm forecast to impact about two-thirds of the United States as evidence to suggest that global warming does not exist, repeating a misleading claim that has been consistently debunked by climate experts. In a Truth Social post on Friday, he said, "Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???" Climate scientists say Mr. Trump's statement conflates short-term weather trends with long-term climate changes. The unusually cold air spilling into the United States is an example of...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinals’ letter against Trump’s foreign policy is a blatant political attackCardinals Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin speak of their concern for ‘religious liberty’ and ‘the right to life’ after years of silence under the Biden administration, even when it spied on Catholics and locked up pro-lifers.By now it shouldn’t be surprising when Catholic clergy counter-signal President Trump. It happened first when Pope Francis attacked him for wanting to build a border wall in 2016. It happened in December of last year when Leo indirectly rebuked him for his peace plan in Ukraine, which he said would “break apart” the...

Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.” Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte...

The EU has strengthened its energy security by cutting gas demand by over 20% between 2021 and 2024 and curbing gas imports from Russia. However, this progress masks a new vulnerability for the EU: Incentivising imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) has created a potentially high-risk new geopolitical dependency. Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has gradually reduced its reliance on Russian gas. The bloc’s imports of Russian gas (including pipeline gas and LNG) fell by 75% between 2021 and 2025. Despite this shift, Russia remains one of the EU’s largest gas suppliers. The EU...

Researchers have retrieved samples of 1.4 billion-year-old air from ancient crystals and found something surprising about a supposedly “boring” time period. The team studied the gases and fluids locked in halite crystals (rock salt) from Canada, shedding light on the composition of the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs walked the Earth. It turns out the planet was sporting more oxygen than expected—at least, in that exact moment in time—as they explained in a study published last month in PNAS. Direct samples of air “The carbon dioxide measurements Justin obtained have never been done before,” Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s...

For four decades, the Pacific coast of Panama has counted on a reliable seasonal pulse of cold, nutrient-rich water that powers local fisheries and cools coral reefs. In early 2025 that pulse all but vanished. Scientists report that the Gulf of Panama’s usual upwelling failed for the first time in the instrumental record, a breakdown they see as a warning about how quickly climate disruption can unsettle tropical seas. During most years from roughly December to April, strong northerly trade winds sweep across Central America and into the Gulf of Panama. Those winds push aside warm surface waters so that...

The Trump administration announced Wednesday it’s taking U.S. taxpayer dollars away from 66 globalist organizations, nearly half of them affiliated with the United Nations and all of which are identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States.” Most notable is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty underpinning all major international climate agreements, AFP reports. The treaty adopted in 1992 is a global pact by nations to cooperate to drive down planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of so-called “climate change.” A despairing European Union climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said the...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies and commissions, including those affiliated with the United Nations, as the country further retreats from global cooperation.The targets are primarily U.N.-related groups that focus on climate, labor and other issues that the Trump administration has criticized for catering to “woke” initiatives.The decision to withdraw comes as ongoing U.S. military efforts and threats have rattled allies and adversaries alike, including the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and indications of U.S. intention to take over Greenland.On Wednesday morning, the Trump administration seized two Venezuela-linked sanctioned...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. to withdraw from 66 international organizations that the White House said no longer serve American interests. The White House said the directive orders all executive departments and agencies to stop participating in and funding 35 non-United Nations organizations and 31 U.N. entities that the administration concluded operate contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty. The White House said the action follows a review of every international intergovernmental organization, convention, and treaty that the U.S. belongs to, funds, or otherwise supports. The White House said the...

I’ve covered Washington government for years. I understand rounding errors. I get that numbers shift, estimates change, projections don’t always pan out. That’s bureaucracy. That’s life. And then the Department of Commerce dropped a bombshell. Washington drivers are paying billions more at the pump. For what, exactly? The national average for gas is $2.82 a gallon. Idaho is $2.80. Oregon is $3.39. Washington? We’re at $3.82 statewide. In Seattle, it’s $4.12. We have the third-highest gas prices in the entire country. Washington families have paid billions more at the pump since the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) took effect. Before the...

Many environment and climate-related stories hit the headlines in 2025. Here at home, we had the record-breaking Storm Éowyn, one of the most powerful and widespread wind events to hit Ireland since the so-called “Night of the Big Wind” in 1839. Globally we had confirmation that average temperatures throughout the past three years exceeded 1.5°C of warming, and each of the past three years was either the hottest, the second hottest or the third hottest year on record. […] But one story is head and shoulders above all others when it comes to the most consequential environment event of 2025....

A new analysis of July temperatures in Death Valley between 1923 and 2024 suggests the world record near-surface air temperature of 134 F measured in July 1913 may be erroneous. ============================================================== Death Valley has held the record for the hottest air temperature ever measured near Earth's surface for 112 years, but now scientists are calling for the title to be rescinded. According to U.S. Weather Bureau data, the air temperature at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley reached a scorching 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius) on July 10, 1913. This is still the highest air temperature on record, but its...

https://x.com/Real_RobN/status/2005086582995669193🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸@Real_RobN·4hHere it is:The organization whose sole goal is to overthrow the United States government and bring down Western civilization with it.The Democrat Party, through the Biden–Harris terrorist administration, paid $6 billion in American taxpayer money to a network of United Nations agencies and over 200 NGOs to take down and overthrow the Constitutional Republic of the United States.Mike Howell: currently serve as the executive director of the Oversight Projects and previously was at DHS and on Capitol Hill conducting oversight of immigration matters.“The United States of America is still reeling from the worst border invasion in its history.”Mike Howell: “This...

Most of us have moved on from the global warming hoax — but not the moonbats running New York, unfortunately for kids. Via Fox Business: Parents in western New York are raising alarms over cold rides and breakdowns after officials mandated that all school bus purchases must be electric by 2027. Kids come home frozen in the Lake Shore Central School District. Already nearly half of its buses are electric. Running the heat drains their batteries. Several parents told the outlet that they heard of at least one instance of the buses breaking down, in addition to the heating issues....