Free Republic

Two federal studies add up the corn fuel's exorbitant cost. The Obama Administration is pushing a big expansion in ethanol, including a mandate to increase the share of the corn-based fuel required in gasoline to 15% from 10%. Apparently no one in the Administration has read a pair of new studies, one from its own EPA, that expose ethanol as a bad deal for consumers with little environmental benefit. The biofuels industry already receives a 45 cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol produced, or about $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, import tariffs of 54 cents a gallon and...

If fighting global warming may cost the economy $9.6 trillion and more than 1 million lost jobs by 2035, as the Heritage Foundation forecasts, it'd be a good idea to be sure there's a sound basis before making such a massive sacrifice. We've noted before that climate change is occurring as it always has, but the claim that man-made greenhouse gases will cause catastrophic temperature increases is based on questionable science and projections. Man's contribution to greenhouse gases is minuscule. There are some theories but no convincing proof that increased emissions cause increased temperature. Before devastating the economy to fix...

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. BREAKING NEWS Russia warns NATO not to rattle weapons near Russia's borders The strict traditions of Sumo wrestling More... True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll...

LOS ANGELES — Even as he conceded there is still much hard work to do, President Obama was in a boastful mood Wednesday night, telling a star-studded crowd at a fundraising dinner that he "would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR." The president, speaking to a dinner that included Hollywood A-listers like Kiefer Sutherland, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, lauded the legislation he has signed since taking office but added that he is "not satisfied."

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Beijing on Thursday to cooperate on climate change, calling a safe environment a basic human right.

On Oct. 3, as the spreading economic meltdown threatened to topple financial behemoths like American International Group (AIG) and Bank of America and plunged global markets into free fall, the U.S. government responded with the largest bailout in American history. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy. The legislation's guidelines for crafting the rescue plan were clear: The TARP should protect home values and consumer savings, help citizens keep...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded in the media as the ultimate authority on climate change. Created by two divisions of the United Nations, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, its pronouncements are received as if they come down from Mount Olympus or Mount Sinai. The common presumption is that the IPCC has assembled the best scientific knowledge. Let’s take a closer look at this organization to see whether it merits such uncritical deference. The IPCC’s Feb. 2007 report stated: It is “very likely” that human activity is causing global warming. Why then, just...

Got another question for you, too, O'Reilly – why do you and Fox News spend so much time and energy worrying about ACORN anyway? Could it be because it does a great job in its work -- that is, helping disenfranchised populations become part of the political and economic process? That can't bode well for your ilk, white males who fear that blacks will rise up and take all their stuff. Seems that threatening the white male power structure strikes a nerve on Fox News, and in that whopping 23% Republican Party which Fox News is a mouthpiece for. Someone...

A person needn't be a buffoon or political hack to be skeptical of global warming. That would be news to The Washington Post's news desk, however. A Post article on May 19 falsely reported that there is a "consensus" among scientists and a growing portion of the American public that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous, long-term increase in worldwide temperatures. The facts, overwhelmingly, show no such consensus. The Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported that Republican "warming skeptics" are becoming ever bolder on Capitol Hill even as "most" or a "consensus" of "scientists around the globe have rejected their...

First, if the earth was warming at a rate of about 1 or even 2 degrees per century in recent decades, there are reasons to believe that's slowed or stopped. One of those reasons is that the "global warming" fanatics have abruptly shifted their rhetoric, adopting instead the new nonsense euphemism "climate change." This is a clear attempt at inoculation: If it turns out the globe is indeed cooling again, they will merely take their same pre-set, ulterior agenda -- huge energy tax hikes to finance bigger government, cripple capitalism and destroy the freedom-giving automobile, instead forcing everyone to pile...

A new study, which researchers have called "the most exhaustive end-to-end analysis of climate change impacts yet performed", predicts that global warming could be twice as bad as previous estimates had suggested. Published this month in the Journal of Climate, the MIT-based research found a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise at least 9 degrees by 2100.

The Tuesday headline was clear: "Obama's new rules will transform U.S. auto fleet." The Associated Press picked it up from there: "Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs. Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity. The higher mileage and emissions standards set by the Obama administration on Tuesday, which begin to take effect in 2012 and are to be achieved by 2016, will transform the American car and truck fleet. "The new rules would bring new cars and trucks sold in the United States to an average of 35.5...

Even-Handed Idiocy By: P. David Hornik FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, May 21, 2009 A mist of verbiage arises from the reports on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meetings with President Barack Obama and other officials in Washington. Stock words and phrases are used ritualistically that may have little connection to realities on the ground in Israel and the region. Among the more mindlessly repeated and least reality-linked are “two-state solution” and “regional peace.” 1. “Two-state solution.” At present, in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, three political entities already exist. One, Israel, is sovereign except for its partial or...

One puzzling characteristic of citizen disarmament advocates is their bizarre apparent belief that "gun violence" is somehow "worse" than other forms of violence. One would think that being stabbed, beaten, bludgeoned, strangled, etc. to death would be just as bad as being shot to death, but apparently that's not a universally held belief. I was reminded of this peculiar attitude yesterday when reading "New York's Gun Battle," an article in the Gotham Gazette about current attempts to make gun laws in New York state even more restrictive than they are now (the Brady Campaign ranks New York the 6th most...

The Obama administration will issue new national requirements for the emissions and mileage of cars and light trucks in an effort to end a long-running conflict among the states, the federal government and auto manufacturers, industry officials said Monday. President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine California’s tough new auto-emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard to create a single new national standard, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016. The White House...

During last year’s presidential campaign, gun-owners’ groups like the National Rifle Association said Barack Obama, if he were elected, would be the most anti-gun president in the history of the United States. That claim and similar statements sparked a buying spree on guns and ammunition immediately following the election, which continued well into this year. I bought some shells last week, and told I was limited to two boxes. There is nothing to indicate that this shortage is the result of Obama administration actions, however. I’m not here to proclaim that President Obama is really a great friend to gun...

We’ve heard the cliché: there is a difference between campaigning and governing. But in the last few weeks the contrast between the two could not have been more stark. And the gap between President Obama’s effectiveness at the former and shakiness at the latter is coming into focus. Guantanamo is the most vivid example. As a candidate, Obama pushed the notion that George W. Bush was a constitutional Neanderthal and destroyer of American values. Now he’s discovered that it is really hard to figure out what to do with these really bad people. And he’s even discovered the virtue of...

<p>Other polls that ask Americans how they feel about a proposed "cap and trade" system to control pollution have tended to produce positive responses. But those surveys never seem to mention what such a system might cost. The latest IBD/TIPP Poll laid it all out in a somewhat lengthy question and drew a very different response: By nearly 3-to-1, Americans oppose a cap-and-trade system that, if opponents are correct, could add $800 to $1,200 per household to energy prices.</p>

President Obama's plan to move quickly to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources relies on technology that analysts agree is neither affordable nor available on a commercial scale and won't be for many years to come. Expensive, small-scale pilot projects are under way that convert vegetation into fuel for cars and capture carbon dioxide before it is released into the air from coal-burning power plants. But these prototypes have not been proved at levels that would make even a dent in the U.S. appetite for fossil fuels, casting doubt on the viability of the president's plans. Still, the administration...

A major Issue where John McCain lost support of the American People was Immigration reform. The year before he ran for president, he worked with Ted Kennedy and President Bush to develop a comprehensive immigration bill that included just about everything except protecting our borders. The bill failed miserably because Americans on both sides of the aisle because Americans wanted their government to secure the US borders before they addressed any other issues. President Obama and his leftist allies that illegal immigration is a racial issue. They believe that those of us who want to protect the US boarders are...