Free Republic

Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to academic sociology these days knows there are serious problems. I have been writing about this phenomenon now for a number of years, pointing out, e.g., sociology’s drift from its origins and how its journals and conferences clearly illustrate its biases. The discipline has become captured by an ideology and has given up on its earlier scientific promise. A glance at the titles of conference papers and journal articles, or indeed at the course offerings in sociology at any institution of higher learning, reveals the transformation. Even some Marxist professors have come...

Irresponsible Trump, responsible China: that is the message the BBC’s climate editor seemed to be sending us by juxtaposing the news that the President had repealed Barack Obama’s “endangerment finding” and that China’s carbon emissions fell slightly last year. Trump’s critics like to portray him as a rogue figure in a world which is otherwise committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. But is there any truth in that? The endangerment finding was a piece of legalese issued in a 2009 ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It stated that six greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called on world leaders attending the Munich Security Conference in Germany to think about a future without President Donald Trump. Newsom's comments on climate policy reflected the larger theme of his message for Europe. "I hope if there is nothing else I communicate today: Donald Trump is temporary. He'll be gone in three years," Newsom said. He added, "It's important for folks to understand the temporary nature of this current administration in relationship to the issue of climate change and climate policy." He slammed the Trump administration's rollback of the 2009 "endangerment finding" and accused the...

Townhall reported: Elites Did Their Part to Fight Global Warming by Flying Dozens of Private Jets to the Super Bowl The Democrats keep telling us we have to address climate change immediately, or half the country will end up underwater. Bernie Sanders, who supports the Green New Deal and calls climate change an “existential threat” to humanity, spent more than half a million dollars on private jets during his “Fight Oligarchy” tour. Yesterday, following the Super Bowl in San Francisco, hundreds of private jets were seen leaving the area. We’re willing to be that 90 percent or more of them...

Here at Manhattan Contrarian, we get results. After my last three posts harshly critiquing the Federal Judicial Center’s newly revised Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, and particularly its chapter on Climate Science, suddenly on Friday the Center’s Director sent a letter stating that the Center has now “omitted” that chapter! Well OK, I was not the only one objecting. On January 29, a coalition of state Attorneys General from red states, led by the AG of West Virginia (JB McCuskey), had sent a letter to Judge Robin Rosenberg, the Director of the Center, asking for immediate withdrawal of the offending...

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.”...

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...

[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...

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...

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...

A third of Washington State Ferries are offline—and this crisis didn’t just happen. Years of Democrats chasing battery-powered ferry press releases while neglecting basic maintenance left commuters stranded and routes unreliable. This is what misplaced priorities look like. And those in charge waltz off into the sunset with a government pension.

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...

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...

A series of tax documents have revealed that Rewiring America, a climate group that Democratic activist Stacey Abrams served as senior counsel for, banked over $5 million in federal climate funding just before President Donald Trump slashed the grant, which came into existence during former President Joe Biden’s administration, earlier in the year. The documentation indicates that Abrams played a much bigger part in getting the grant than she previously claimed. The $5 million was the first portion of what ultimately ended up being a $2 billion grant awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2024 to a group...

Supply and demand. If there’s little supply and demand remains constant, things cost more. If there’s plenty of supply and demand remains constant or declines, they cost less. Unfortunately for Californians, the basic law of supply and demand doesn’t well fit with Democrat ideology. Democrats don’t bother to live in the real world. They create their own to conform to their self-imagined intellectual and moral superiority. Their imaginary utopia can’t compete with reality, which inevitably comes crashing down on their heads. In this case, reality is gas prices, which are credibly predicted to reach $10 a gallon while elsewhere in...

California's gas prices have reached crisis levels—and drivers across the Golden State are demanding answers. This video exposes the complex web of factors keeping California's fuel costs the highest in the nation. Discover how the state's strict refinery requirements, low-carbon fuel standards, and environmental regulations create a perfect storm for sky-high prices at the pump. Learn why California's unique fuel blend can only be produced by a handful of refineries, how the Cap-and-Trade program adds hidden costs to every gallon, and why even minor supply disruptions send prices skyrocketing. We'll explore the refinery shutdowns threatening California's fuel supply, the oligopoly...

Hoo boy. Sometimes, you might do something so embarrassing, so humiliating, that you want to hide in the closet. The prestigious science journal Nature may be thinking about doing that right about now, because on Wednesday, they officially retracted an influential 2024 climate report that predicted gloom and doom, death and misery, and impending economic catastrophe. As is the case with so much of the leftist climate narrative, their wild claims were quite simply unproven:In April 2024, the prestigious journal Nature released a study finding that climate change would cause far more economic damage by the end of the century...

European countries and major corporations are pressuring President Donald Trump to remain in the Paris climate agreement despite his promises on the campaign trail to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era deal that never gained congressional approval.The Trump administration so far is sticking with being undecided—at least until Trump returns to the United States from his first foreign trip, where on Friday, he’s meeting with Group of Seven ally countries, which support the agreement.Back home, the pressure is growing from multinational corporations, even the energy sector, which have opposed stricter limitations on carbon.Exxon Mobil Corp., once run by Trump’s...