Free Republic

NEW YORK, Dec 26 (Reuters) - New York state will fine fossil fuel companies a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years to pay for damage caused to the climate under a bill Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law on Thursday. The law is intended to shift some of the recovery and adaptation costs of climate change from individual taxpayers to oil, gas and coal companies that the law says are liable. The money raised will be spent on mitigating the impacts of climate change, including adapting roads, transit, water and sewage systems, buildings and other infrastructure. "New...

The Department of Justice has issued a press release showing that, over five years, from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2021, the number of firearms sold by unlicensed dealers in the USA was less than 1 of 10,000 sold in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s adjusted calculations during the five-year period, the number of firearms sold through the NICS system was 14 million in 2017, 13.5 million in 2018, 13.6 million in 2019, 21.1 million in 2020, and 18.5 million in 2021, for a total of 80.7 million over...

In September 2021, many people went into a frenzy when the United States Postal Service announced that their mail delivery service would become permanently slower. This new phenomenon is called Pre-Parcel Anxiety. “We live in a society where we build expectations and uphold perfectionism. We want things here and now. We want efficiency and struggle with patience,” psychotherapist Owen O’Kane explains. Today, we’re seeing what I’m calling Pre-Trib Anxiety. The world is in such a mess that anticipation of the always-imminent rapture is making people anxious. Where is it? It should have been here by now. Why is there a...

No Labels may finally have a candidate in consideration for its third-party "unity ticket" in the 2024 presidential election. Sources familiar with the group's efforts to field a third-party ticket tell ABC News that No Labels representatives have had meetings with former Georgia GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan about running as the group's presidential candidate. Duncan wouldn't comment on this report, but isn't shutting down speculation. On Friday, No Labels voted to move forward with the effort to field a bi-partisan challenge to the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. According to the...

The hype around AI-powered vertical farming has come crashing down as profitability remains elusive and funding dries up, pushing several startups into bankruptcy or restructuring. AeroFarms, an early pioneer in vertical farming, filed for bankruptcy last week after building a huge facility in Virginia that drained its cash. Kalera, a local vertical farming company in Florida, also filed for Chapter 11 protection in April after struggling for months. Furthermore, AppHarvest, which operates high-tech greenhouses, is facing lender threats and a sharp drop in its shares. The firm has warned it could become “bankrupt or insolvent” if the issue is not...

Longshot presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has accused his prospective Republican rivals of parroting him, but Ramaswamy himself has made an intentional effort to conceal his own biography, even paying a Wikipedia editor to remove potentially politically damaging details about his past from his page.

I was the first to write about Russia’s infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.Everywhere, you’ll find scholars, pundits, and policymakers talking about the threat the “Gerasimov doctrine” — named after Russia’s chief of the general staff — poses to the West. It’s a new way of war, “an expanded theory of modern warfare,” or even “a vision of total warfare.”There’s one small problem. It doesn’t exist. And the longer we pretend it does, the longer we misunderstand the — real, but different — challenge Russia poses.I feel I can say that because, to my immense chagrin,...

America’s colleges and universities are loaded with professors who insist on teaching students various theories that amount to nothing but fringe opinions and who don’t engage intellectually with those who disagree, but merely try to “cancel” them. There are, however, still some professors who won’t play those games. One of them is Erec Smith, who teaches rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. He recently wrote an article for Newsweek, “Black People Who Oppose Critical Race Theory Are Being Erased.” In it, he attacks the methods that are used to ignore and silence blacks (and others) who don’t accept the mainstream...

Here at Day 681 of 15 Days To Flatten The Curve, we are seeing the rise of medical fascism in hospitals across America, and this story today from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is especially chilling. Doctors there are telling the son of David Ferguson, DJ, that they are withholding a live-saving heart transplant until he agrees to receive the government injection of the COVID vaccine. Just wait until that idea trickles down to the Emergency Room, and they deny you medical attention. “But ye are forgers of lies,...

Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. Luke 2:28-32 (King James Version) Everyone knows that groupthink is always wrong and once again the Covid is a perfect example. The only people who believe the vax works are Fauxi, Braindead Biden and Donald Trump. Everyone else is looking at the exploding cases...

Earning a coveted endorsement from former President Donald Trump was not enough to clear a path to the Republican nomination for Max Miller, who is running for an open House seat in Ohio. Attorney Shay Hawkins, a former aide to Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, launched his campaign Wednesday, declaring himself the best candidate to ensure Republicans defend the suburban Cleveland district in the 2022 midterm elections.

Andrew Yang announced on Monday that he changed his voter registration from "Democrat" to "Independent," calling the move a "strangely emotional experience." What he's saying: While Yang said he has identified as a Democrat for years and has "dozens of friends and confidantes who are entrenched in the Democratic Party," he is "confident that no longer being a Democrat is the right thing." "My goal is to do as much as I can to advance our society. There are phenomenal public servants doing great work every day — but our system is stuck. It is stuck in part because polarization...

Sen. Tom Cotton says he’s "very confident about 2022." The GOP senator from Arkansas is crisscrossing the country this summer, helping to raise money and support Republicans running in the 2022 midterm elections, when GOP aims to win back majorities in the House and Senate. wo of the Republicans top four Senate targets in next year’s midterms are in Nevada and New Hampshire, where first-term Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto and Maggie Hassan are running for reelection. Those two states also happen to play crucial roles in the race for the White House, holding the second and fourth contests in the...

It’s just the flu, bro. We need to change the narrative. Right now the compassionate person is the one who wears a mask at all times and social distances. This is their act of charity to help keep grandma alive and help to avoid the spread of the “deadly” Coronavirus plague. The narrative above is terrible for those who love freedom. So I will refer back to yesterday’s thread for a narrative that properly paints the Flubros and Flubras as altruistic, which we are. Items below sum up the Flubro narrative and counters the covidiots. 1. When I refuse to...

As of late, the name Karen has been synonymous with entitlement, bigotry and “I want to speak to a manager” energy. What better way to explore this phenomenon than with a suspense thriller appropriately titled Karen starring Taryn Manning as the titular touchstone of privilege? The Orange Is The New Black alum is set to play Karen White (a suitable name) who believes that races should stick to their “own kind”. She carries this belief into her neighborhood. So when her new Black neighbors Assata and Malik move in, she makes it her personal mission to remove them from the...

Bill Mitchell @mitchellvii President Trump. Stop tweeting about naming #Antifa a terrorist group. Name them. Stop tweeting that the #BLM leader was a traitor - charge him. Stop tweeting that Twitter is unfair, fine them and remove their protections. More action, less tweets.

Joe Biden said if President Donald Trump loses the election in November and refuses to leave the White House, he expects the military to remove him.The Democratic presidential nominee told The Daily Show host Trevor Noah that Trump "going to try and steal this election."

The unproven claim that an antimalarial drug can cure coronavirus - called a 'game-changer' and a 'gift from God' by Donald Trump - has been promoted by a crypto-currency lawyer who has made a string of bogus claims, DailyMail.com can reveal. Gregory Rigano made a series of Fox News and conservative and Christian radio appearances to tout the idea that chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine 'cures' conronavirus. The anti-malaria drug is now the subject of series of clinical trials, including in New York, where the state received 10,000 doses. It has been praised by Trump repeatedly - but the first time he...

In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia. A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his...

What would it have been like to meet a Neandertal? Researchers have hypothesized answers for decades, seeking to put flesh on ancient bones. But fossils are silent on many traits, from hair and skin color to speech and personality. Personality will have to wait, but in a paper published online in Science this week (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1147417), an international team announces that it has extracted a pigmentation gene, mc1r, from the bones of two Neandertals. The researchers conclude that at least some Neandertals had pale skin and red hair, similar to some of the Homo sapiens who today inhabit their European homeland....