Free Republic

STORY AT-A-GLANCE Bill Gates owns a minimum of 242,000 acres of U.S. farmland in Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, California and multiple other states Gates has a big vision for all that land, but unfortunately it doesn’t involve organic, biodynamic or regenerative farming methods, which are needed to heal ecosystems and produce truly sustainable, nourishing food for future generations Gates, along with Pat Brown, founder of imitation meat company Impossible Foods, supports GMOs, agricultural chemicals and technology as the future of farming Gates believes switching to synthetic beef is the solution to reducing methane emissions; Impossible Foods was co-funded by Google,...

#MeToo strikes again. No due process. No presumption of innocence. But this is hard-nosed, down and dirty politics The King is Dead- Long Live the New Princess Caroline Mulroney. Politics is a dirty, dirty, dirty, zero-sum, winner take all business. Or to paraphrase my favorite cynical political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, “Ontario Conservative politics since the Harris era, is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. One day Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is cruising to a sure minority or majority political victory. The next day, his political career is destroyed over allegations of sexual misconduct by two anonymous women.

It was one of those stunning live-TV moments revealing the seamier side of TV news. Pat Brown is a criminal profiler who has taken a principled stand on media appearances about mass murderers. She will not discuss individual criminals, their motives, etc., believing that to do so pnly increases the number of mass murders. But when Brown appeared on CNN's New Day this morning, co-host Christi Paul immediately tried to engage her in a discussion of Colorado Springs shooter Robert Dear's possible "anti-government" views. Retorted Brown: "I'm a little disturbed because I made an agreement with CNN to appear this...

The tour guides at the old Governor's Mansion in Sacramento are trying to solve a mystery, one that involves a black cat. One of the guides, John Casey, is the grandson of former Gov. Pat Brown, the last governor to live in the Victorian mansion at 16th and H streets, and therefore the nephew of the current governor, Jerry Brown. Casey was given the black ceramic cat by his aunt, former Treasurer Kathleen Brown, with a story that Pat Brown used it to denote whether his conversations with reporters at the mansion were on or off the record. If the...

In a nutshell: After Jerry's father, Pat, left the governorship in 1967, he was introduced to the Indonesian generals who had just overthrown the country's post-colonial dictator, Sukarno, and set up a military junta. The former governor was able to cobble together a consortium of banks that lent $12 billion to the junta - "a lot of money in the late '60s," Mr. Walters said. The banks were interested in the immense Royal Dutch Shell petroleum holdings in Indonesia, which Sukarno had nationalized and the junta controlled. The grateful generals then set up two trading firms - one in Hong...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday launched a super-sized plan to rebuild the very foundations of California — a $222-billion construction project to fortify freeways, schools, jails, ports and waterways. Schwarzenegger used his annual State of the State speech to outline a decade-long blueprint for reshaping California to its core. If successful, he would be author of the state's largest public building program since the 1960s, when former Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown helped California absorb millions of new residents during a postwar boom. In the 23-minute address to lawmakers, which was as much about rebuilding his own image as...

That ominous shadow that is now darkening the Golden State is being cast from a massive "infrastructure" bond trial balloon. Although an exact amount has not been announced, the Capitol is abuzz with numbers that would make Bill Gates blush. Insiders from both the Schwarzenegger administration and the Democrat controlled legislature have suggested that a "megabond" of $50 billion, or even $100 billion, is possible. Backers of this monstrous debt issuance claim that the proceeds would be used to rebuild California's infrastructure of roads, levies, dams and other critical "brick and mortar" needs which no one disputes have been horribly...

Double Standard for Jennifer Wilbanks According to Ms. Pat Brown, criminal profiler and CEO of The Sexual Homicide Exchange, there is no excuse for letting Jennifer Wilbanks -- the 32-year-old runaway bride from Duluth, Georgia -- off the hook. Wilbanks, who obviously wants and needs a lot of attention, committed a crime -- including a fraudulent 9-1-1 call to claim she had been kidnapped -- and should be charged as a criminal, claims Brown. Wilbanks put her family through hell and wasted precious police resources. Furthermore, she had many chances over five days to let her family and the police...

SACRAMENTO – The most comprehensive state government reform attempted in nearly a century was born on the back of a phone book. Ideas for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review - his plan to "blow up the boxes" of state government - began percolating last year after Schwarzenegger was shown a copy of the state's tangled bureaucratic organizational chart, printed on the back of a government telephone directory. Within weeks, Schwarzenegger's amazement at the scope of state bureaucracy had transformed into a campaign slogan that government is riddled with waste, then a rushed search among friends for a credible reform...

"We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." -- Richard J. Daley (Mayor of Chicago, 1955-76) "This is the worst disaster in California since I was elected." -- Pat Brown (Governor of California, 1959-66) "She's a wonderful, wonderful person and we're looking to a happy and wonderful night -- ah, life." -- Ted Kennedy (Massachusetts Senator) on his then-fiancee, Victoria Reggie

quot;On primary election night, Simon made the comparison to Reagan explicit. The early Reagan, he said, was quot;short on experience, but long on principle, vision and optimism.quot; It was a nice try to tie himself to the man who beat Pat Brown. But unless something changes dramatically, it's more likely that in 2002, it's the California Republicans, not the Democrats, who will have orchestrated a battle they are destined to lose.quot;