Free Republic

Keir Starmer is to hand up to £200 million to offshore wind companies to build factories in traditional oil and gas areas, he will announce at the COP29 climate change summit on Tuesday. Wind farms will be eligible for tens of millions to establish factories building turbine blades, cables and ports under the Government’s new “clean industry bonus”. The Government has insisted that its push for clean energy will benefit the public with new jobs, and promised that oil and gas communities would not be left behind in the transition. Sir Keir will be one of only two G7 leaders...

The new VP candidate has made enemies and allies in Silicon Valley, while on a quest to regulate the tech cartel. Last night, Sen. JD Vance officially accepted the Republican nomination for vice president at the 2024 Republican Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sending optimism to Silicon Valley and the tech community. A right-wing populist, Vance has been critical of the old right’s market fundamentalism in favor of the new right’s pro-worker economic nationalism — one that calls for antitrust crackdowns on Big Tech. A New York Times article described Vance as “pro-labor, a fan of crypto and the F.T.C.'s Lina...

The number of children being educated at home has been growing for the past few decades. No one knows by how much, and that is part of the problem. Home­school­ing is barely tracked or regulated in the U.S. But children deserve a safe and robust education, whether they attend a traditional school or are educated at home.The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that by last count, in 2019, nearly 3 percent of U.S. children—1.5 million—were being home­schooled. This number, calculated from a nationwide survey, is surely an undercount because the home­schooling population is notoriously hard to survey, and...

Over the course of the last week, some of President Trump’s most ardent and vocal online supporters have engaged in a bit of cognitive dissonance, praising the former president for his foresight and wisdom in calling for a federalist solution to one of the nation’s most intractable problems while simultaneously singing the praises of the one man who likely did more than any other American to crush the nation’s federalist history and culture. Specifically, President Trump called for the question of abortion to be handled by the states, for the federal government to relinquish its power over the issue and...

I still think frequently about the fact that a pandemic came & created an undeniable moral imperative for solidarity -- for acting together, on one another's behalf -- and it caused an eruption of fury among conservatives that is still raging.

California retailers that refuse to incorporate “gender-neutral” toy sections could face hundreds of dollars in fines from the state under a new law that takes effect Jan. 1. Any California department store that has 500 or more employees and sells childcare items will be required to feature a “gender-neutral” section “regardless of whether [the toys] have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys,” thanks to a new law signed by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. Lawmakers claimed the new requirements are based on the state’s civil rights statutes.“Any department store that fails to create a gender-neutral section could face...

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney revealed the two GOP presidential candidates he refuses to support under any circumstance in a “Person to Person” interview that aired on CBS News. Romney responded that he would support “anybody” except former President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy when asked by Norah O’Donnell if there was anybody he liked in the Republican field. “You know, I would uh, I’d be happy to support virtually any one of the Republicans. Maybe not Vivek. But uh, but the others that are running would be acceptable to me, and I’d be happy to vote for them,” Romney...

Former Republican presidential candidate and outgoing Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he would vote for a Democrat if former President Donald Trump or political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy secure the Republican nomination.CBS News host Norah O’Donnell asked the retiring senator for his preference in the 2024 Republican presidential field.“Anybody. I’d be happy to support virtually any one of the Republicans, maybe not Vivek, but the others that are running would be acceptable to me and I’d be happy to vote for them. I’d be happy to vote for a number of the Democrats too. I mean, it would be an upgrade...

The greatest reason for the existential threat to America posed by the woke/the progressive/the Left is that liberals vote for them.If liberals voted for their values, the Left-wing destruction of every American institution — the American Medical Association and medical profession generally; the universities, high school and elementary schools; and the military, among many others — could not happen.This is the American tragedy in a nutshell: The Left votes its values. The Right votes its values. Liberals do not vote their values. Liberalism has almost nothing in common with leftism, yet virtually every liberal votes for the Left.Liberals believe in...

The Condescender-in-Chief is at it again. Just weeks after Barack Obama — the descendent of Africans and white people — dared to criticize Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — the descendent of actual slaves and a son of the state where the Civil War started — for being optimistic about the state of race in America today, the former president weighed in on what he thinks spurs on “right-wing populism.” In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, Obama said, “It’s very hard to sustain a democracy when you have such massive concentrations of wealth.” He went on to blather about...

It is a tight contest over which U.S. regulatory agency is most captured by industry. But leading the pack is surely the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Many of us in the past believed the main problem with the agency was the costs it imposed on industry. The situation turns out to be more complicated. Whatever its past, it’s become an industry-dominated vending machine for drug approvals enacted with a very expensive rubber stamp.The ordeal of the COVID vaccine proved it. So long as the check cleared, the FDA was ready with committee-based approvals for which no one in particular...

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to change the Constitution to curb gun rights.Fed up with inaction on gun control, Newsom unveiled a proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution on Thursday that would implement "common sense" gun safety measures he claims have widespread bipartisan support..The Democratic governor's proposed 28th Amendment would not abolish the Second Amendment, which establishes a right to bear firearms for personal self-defense. However, it would raise the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21; mandate universal background checks to purchase firearms; institute a waiting period for all gun purchases; and ban "assault...

TransPennine Express to be brought under government control due to 'continuous cancellations' Recent data showed that TransPennine Express had cancelled one in six services during March. The blame for the disruption has been laid at the feet of drivers, a backlog of training and the need to reform working practices.

Statism is nothing more than gang rule. A statist dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country.” – Ayn Rand, War and Peace, The Objectivist Newsletter, Oct 1962 What is statism? Merriam-Webster defines it as the “concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry.” In essence, statism is the belief that the state or government, regardless of its size or the amount of control it exerts over its subjects, is legitimate to at least some extent. In practice,...

More than 40 countries were included in the analysis, with the U.S., the U.K. and India being deemed populist-led nations...In 2020, excess deaths associated with Covid were more than twice as high in populist governed countries than in non-populist governed countries...

Asparagus is wonderful for you. Depending on how it’s prepared, asparagus provides -- at a minimum -- iron, vitamins C and B-6, potassium, fiber, and a trace of magnesium and calcium as well. But asparagus can be tricky to prepare, and it can be expensive. So, what is a health-conscious family to do? Well, let’s say the government decided to step in. A president might say, on some random Monday, “I hereby declare that, effective this coming Saturday, every American person -- male, female, and gender-bewildered -- is entitled to eight free servings of asparagus every month.” But… how to...

"There are many genuine threats facing humanity. None of them require authoritarianism or the infringement of civil liberties. A recent study published in American Political Science Review, a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University, begins with a teasing question: “Is authoritarian power ever legitimate?” For many, the answer is clearly no, concedes the study’s author—Ross Mittiga, an assistant professor of political theory at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. But Mittiga, in the abstract to the study, suggests otherwise: ..."

Like many people my age (62), I was taught both at home and in school that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great president. FDR, I was taught, saved American democracy in the 1930s with the New Deal and led the nation to victory against Hitlerism in the 1940s. That view of FDR was reinforced by many television documentaries and history books. And virtually every poll of historians — including the most recent C-Span poll — places FDR in the top five of all U.S. presidents (usually in third place behind Lincoln and Washington). This is so despite persuasive revisionist historical...

Police checking cars near the facility in Darwin's rural area. (ABC News: Peter Lacey)Northern Territory police say they don't believe three teenagers who allegedly absconded from Darwin's Howard Springs COVID-19 quarantine facility this morning came into contact with members of the community.At a COVID update press conference, NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner confirmed the teenagers, aged 15, 16 and 17, tested negative for the virus yesterday.He said all three were from the Binjari community near Katherine and had been sent into quarantine as close contacts of positive cases.~~SNIP~~The facility is housing people affected by the Katherine region COVID-19 outbreak as...

Freedom anywhere is a threat to authoritarianism everywhere. That is why authoritarians must destroy all freedom and why liberty lovers, and even the merely “lib-curious” (liberty curious), must not just resist blatant authoritarianism, but reject it in all its guises. The fate of the nation, and the world, again hangs in the balance. To the extent that any freedom persists, authoritarian diktat can be subverted, albeit at a cost. History is rife with examples of bizarre entities, like nonbank banks (I kid you not!), rent-a-banks (ditto!), and gold caches, designed to work around branching restrictions, usury laws (maximum interest rates),...