Free Republic

The quest was a noble one: To develop, and help bring to market, new energy technologies that are better for the environment, provide greater system reliability and lower system costs, while furnishing “tangible benefits to electric utility customers.” Well, electric utility customers, you’ve shelled out $700 million for this noble effort since 1996, and what have you gotten? Precious little that could be even loosely interpreted as “tangible benefits,” concludes a report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. TENUOUS CONNECTIONS Meet the state’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, built into your electric bill as a “public goods” charge. It has...

Some Republican and Democratic lawmakers called for national reform of eminent domain policy on Tuesday, the same day the Senate Judiciary Committee heard witnesses offer their appraisals of the Supreme Court's recent decision expanding the ability of government to seize private land.

Where's the ACLU? This co-mingling of government and religious resources must stop! Church groups, asked by local and state officials to take charge of feeding programs at government shelters like the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, also held worship services and passed out Bibles. Pastors prayed with evacuees, offering spiritual as well as material help. The horror! Where is the press vigilance? Instead of exposing this blatant attempt to destroy the separation of church and state, reporters quoted New Orleans evacuees such as Dorothy Lewis welcoming the Christian service because she (obviously with false consciousness) believed that God...