Free Republic

Electric buses are just like electric passenger vehicles: they’re not ready for prime time, only more so. Proterra buses are a case in point. Cities that wasted money on them found they had far less range then advertised. They commonly couldn’t complete even short, flat routes specifically designed for them. The enormous weight of their batteries cracked frames, and getting parts from the factory was virtually impossible. But to make up for their failures, they were far more expensive than reliable diesel buses. Proterra went bankrupt in August of 2023.President Biden gave Proterra at least $10 million, and lauded it...

We have seen many times that when Democrats cannot achieve their agenda at the ballot box, they use the courts, or Democrat presidents use executive orders. The same holds true with the “Green New Deal.” If Democrats have their way, we will all be driving electric cars and cooking on electric stoves, whether we want to or not. But Republican lawmakers may have a way to prevent President Joe Biden from doing what Democrats have been calling for him to do for a while — namely, declaring a “national climate emergency,” thus enabling him to invoke emergency powers allowed by...

WASHINGTON — Signs are popping up around the country delivering the message that President Joe Biden deserves a big piece of credit for the new bridges and roads being built with billions in federal money. “Project funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” one reads at a project to ease traffic on the Brent Spence Bridge across the Ohio River, between Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati. “President Joe Biden,” the message continues. “Building a better America.” Federal tax dollars are upgrading the bridge and paying for the signs, but Biden hopes there will be a windfall at the ballot box in 2024....

Last week the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they had sentenced ESI Energy for a “blatant disregard” of federal wildlife laws of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). In their guilty plea to multiple violations, ESI admitted to the killing of at least 150 bald and golden eagles across 50 of its wind-energy facilities since 2012. Nearly all died of blunt force trauma attributable to being struck by a wind-turbine blade. The so-called “clean” energy company — a subsidiary of NextEra Energy — was fined $8 million, or about $53,300 per carcass. It turns out that the fine...

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci has addressed attacks made on his career and reputation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who last month released the book “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.” Speaking to Yahoo News, the director of the NIAID said, “it really is a shame that he is attacking me in my career,” when asked about RFK’s book not being “a flattering portrait of” his career. “I think if you look at my career there are not a lot of people that would be attacking my career,...

Members of Congress say they still can’t get clear answers about the U.S evacuation effort in Afghanistan, but they’re being asked to approve an additional $7 billion to manage the pipeline of people still coming and the tens of thousands of Afghans already here. House Democrats announced the $7 billion item early Thursday as part of a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running past a Friday shutdown deadline, buying time for lawmakers to try to hash out a broader spending deal for fiscal year 2022. The evacuee money, agreed to by top Republicans and Democrats, comes on top...

The government of California is prepared to pay off past-due rent accumulated during the coronavirus pandemic as the state's eviction moratorium nears expiration. Derived from several packages of financial aid distributed to states and localities by Congress, California has roughly $5.2 billion at the ready — an amount that Jason Elliott, a senior counselor to Gov. Gavin Newsom on housing and homelessness, said should be more than enough to cover unpaid rents, according to the Associated Press. Newsom and lawmakers are set to hold meetings this week to discuss the state’s roughly $260 billion operating budget. One topic they are...

A public interest advocacy group has identified the country’s “most wasteful and pointless” transportation projects, which are costing taxpayers $25 billion. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) cites among “the biggest boondoggles” a $2.2 billion widening of Interstate 81 in Virginia, a $7 billion interstate project in Houston and a $802 million “Connecting Miami” redesign of city highways. According to PIRG, widening highways to reduce gridlock fails for several reasons. Multiple studies show that more road space over time leads to further congestion because of a phenomenon called “induced demand.” “We’re stuck in a car-centric rut in the United...

Shortened title. Full title: Nancy Pelosi Charged The Air Force Nearly $200k To Fly Her Family And Other Lawmakers To Italy And Ukraine House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional delegation (CODEL) to Belgium, Egypt and Afghanistan garnered extra attention after President Donald Trump banned her from using military aircraft, but the trip would not have been the first time she used Air Force money to travel the world. Pelosi’s trip to Italy and Ukraine from July 30 to Aug. 6, 2015, cost the Air Force $184,587.81, according to documents released Saturday under a 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by...

Once again, the oh-so progressive, oh-so enlightened Seattle City Council is showing the rest of the country what not to do. The idealistic leftists who control the Council are wasting millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars in failed attempts to solve problems the Council members created. All this is turning Seattle into the poster city for the failure of Big Government. The city best known for fish markets, coffee stores, rain and flannel-wearing musicians is now becoming legendary for its incompetent leadership and its financial boondoggles. The latest example of Seattle senselessness is the Council’s costly and deeply flawed efforts to...

Maryland’s $9 billion plan to expand the Beltway and Interstate 270 is among the nation’s biggest boondoggles, a public-interest advocacy group said Tuesday in a new report. The report — issued by U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group — highlights nine highway projects, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s plan to widen certain roadways using public-private partnerships and tolling to pay for them. The advocates say these projects are unwise for several reasons. They say expanding or building new highways always leads to more congestion over time through the wholly predictable phenomenon of “induced demand”: When new capacity opens up,...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama began peddling his national healthcare system. On more than one occasion, he pointed to Canada and the United Kingdom as examples of a workable national healthcare system. When I first heard him point to them, I instantly thought of Rachel, a work acquaintance who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. She was experiencing abdominal pains and having problems eating for months before England’s National Health Service doctors finally diagnosed the problem to be her gall bladder. The doctor said it needed to be removed. However, from the time they wrote the...

For almost a decade, transit ridership has declined across Southern California despite enormous and costly efforts by top transportation officials to entice people out of their cars and onto buses and trains. The LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the region's largest carrier, lost more than 10% of its boardings from 2006 to 2015, a decline that appears to be accelerating. Despite a $9-billion investment in new light rail and subway lines, Metro now has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago, when buses were the county's only transit option. The decline suggests that Southern California policymakers are falling short...

You’ve undoubtedly seen the “No Kid Hungry” advertisements on websites. They’ve even popped up here in Google ads on The New American (before we specifically requested that they be blocked). The Food Network is a big sponsor of the program, as are Walmart, Denny’s restaurants, and Sysco Corporation. Actor Jeff Bridges (True Grit, Tron, Iron Man) is the national spokesman for the “No Kid Hungry” program. Now, who could be opposed to an effort to feed hungry children? Exactly: The folks at No Kid Hungry — Share Our Strength know how to push the compassion button to raise lots of...

(Watch Dog) – The federal government’s dream of a renewable energy empire hinges on a scrubby outpost here, where scientists and executives doggedly explore a new frontier. If you live outside Colorado, you probably haven’t heard of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – NREL for short. It’s the place where solar panels, windmills and corn are deemed the energy source of the future and companies who support such endeavors are courted. It’s also the place where highly paid staff decide how to spend hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. And the public pays those decision-makers well: NREL’s top executive, Dr....

Obama: ‘Some of the Businesses We Encourage Will Fail’ By Matt Cover November 1, 2012 (CNSNews.com) – President Obama told a campaign rally that “some of the businesses we encourage will fail” while talking about his plans for increased green energy subsidies in a possible second term. “Today there are thousands of workers building long-lasting batteries and wind turbines and solar panels all across the country, jobs that weren’t there four years ago,” Obama said, touting his administration’s efforts to subsidize the green energy industry. Obama then admitted that not everything the government will “bet on” will be successful, admitting...

July was a tough month for the Pentagon. The Washington Post revealed that three U.S. special-operations soldiers died in Mali when their vehicle plunged off a bridge with three Moroccan prostitutes in the vehicle at the time. The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction issued one of his final reports on U.S. reconstruction efforts in that country and estimated that $6 billion to $8 billion of the $51 billion spent on reconstruction was likely wasted, embezzled or misplaced. The inspector general’s investigations have produced 90 indictments, 72 convictions and $177 million in fines and other penalties, with the highest percentage...

Keep yourselves in God’s LOVE as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Jude 1:21 People wonder why the politicians are so enamored by a transportation system which is as inefficient a way of moving people as Light Rail. Every train that has ever been used for transportation has never made money or been a convenient method to get from where you are to where you are going. Never mind a car is far more efficient in every category, the city pols need trains and all the graft and corruption they...

And so we know and rely on the LOVE God has for us. God is LOVE. Whoever lives in LOVE lives in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16 In the Peoples Republic of Portland the commies really love their Choo Choos. They have wasted tens of Billions of other people’s money so a few thousand riders can ride Light Rail. This is not about transportation or even the corruption we have in Tri-Met mass transit, this is goes to the darkest depths of the liberal mindset. For the most hardcore liberal who worships the earth these trains are...

Let's stipulate that high-speed trains might be worthwhile. Sometimes. In some places. Now let's make this perfectly clear: California in the foreseeable future is neither the time nor the place. A high-speed rail system for California would be like a canoe concession in Saudi Arabia. Unneeded. Unprofitable. Just plain stupid. So, why do so many clamor for just such an unneeded, unprofitable, stupid idea? . . .