Free Republic

You know you’re a misguided environmentalist if you support banning plastic straws – the latest enviro-craze sweeping the nation – while still consuming trendy Frappuccino-like drinks contained in big ol’ plastic cups. Cups that also have plastic lids. Has it ever occurred to enviro “elites,” who never hesitate to ban any product they dislike, that the plastic cups they routinely use will end up in the same landfill or ocean as those plastic straws? Perhaps the extremist crowd in Santa Barbara, a city that has criminalized the use of plastic straws and will jail and fine offenders, hasn’t noticed the...

Starbucks, the nation's largest food and drink retailer, announced on Monday that it would be going strawless.... As is to be expected, Starbucks' decision was greeted with universal adulation.... Yet missing from this fanfare was the inconvenient fact that by ditching plastic straws, Starbucks will actually be increasing its plastic use. As it turns out, the new nitro lids that Starbucks is leaning on to replace straws are made up of more plastic than the company's current lid/straw combination.

Energy Policy: Our interior secretary plans to reinstate the offshore drilling moratorium struck down by a federal judge. But if deep-water drilling is so unsafe, why are we helping Brazil drill nearly three times as deep? Maybe Secretary Ken Salazar can explain why Britain and others can safely drill in the North Sea and no other nation has suspended its offshore drilling. Yet there he was Tuesday saying he'll reissue a reworded moratorium that will make it clear to dunces like U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman why offshore drilling is unsafe. As with health care reform and other issues, the...

If you thought President Obama’s address to the nation this week would have focused on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is destroying the Gulf Coast economy, you would have been only partially correct. The president did mention what he called the “menacing cloud of black crude,” but the heart of his remarks was a political speech that attacked the president’s political enemies while pushing for a stock “green” agenda, including cap-and-trade legislation, that had no obvious connection to the menace in the Gulf Coast. What was supposed to be a leveling with the American people about the oil crisis...

Five weeks into the Hurricane Katrina crisis, President George W. Bush's Gallup weekly public approval rating stood at 45 percent. Five weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, the same survey pegged President Obama's approval rating at 46 percent. That is bad news for the White House. The worse news is that Mr. Bush's approval rating had increased five points since the Katrina crisis had started; Mr. Obama's has dropped four points. Katrina is sometimes seen as the breaking point for Mr. Bush's public approval ratings. Mr. Bush's general job approval did not plunge into the permanent...

WASHINGTON – A majority of Americans disapprove of how President Barack Obama has handled the devastating Gulf oil spill though far more blame BP for what people call a sluggish two-month response, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday. It comes as the president seeks to show more forceful leadership in confronting the nation's worst environmental crisis and convince a skeptical public he's up to the task. The survey found that 52 percent don't approve of Obama's handling of the spill, a significant increase from last month when a big chunk of Americans withheld judgment. But Obama's overall...

Leadership: FDR said we had nothing to fear but fear itself. JFK asked what we could do for our country. Now we can add Obama's whine about the disaster in the Gulf: "I can't suck it up with a straw." 'Even though I'm president of the United States, my power is not limitless," the president told Grand Isle, La., locals in a video released Friday. "So I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hardworking, smart people in place ....

Patriots, "Telephone Tea Party #2" starts NOW!!! Storm congress by phone by calling your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and telling them to "Kill the Pelosi/Reid/Obamacare Bill." Let's bury congress with calls and protest the bill. CALL NOW, CALL EARLY, CALL OFTEN. LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD. Rise up, call NOW!