Free Republic

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this year, says he won’t back former President Trump in 2024, but also won’t vote for President Biden. “I get asked a lot if I believe Trump is a threat to our democracy,” he writes in a USA Today op-ed. “I am not good at predicting the future, but we can learn from history and we should take heed when politicians tell us what they are going to do.” Hutchinson says in the piece that he voted for Trump twice, but that insight gleaned from former Rep. Liz...

Asked about the potential impact of Europe's unfolding cost of living and energy crises on support for Ukraine, Von der Leyen said supporting Ukraine "comes at a high cost, but our freedom, the international peace order, and democracy, is priceless."Supporting Ukraine comes at a high cost, but freedom is "priceless," European Commission chief Urszula Von der Leyen said on Thursday amid soaring inflation and high energy prices in Europe.The EU's sanctions on Russia are having a deep and visible impact, European Commission President Urszula Von der Leyen told Reuters at an interview in Kyiv, shortly after she met Ukraine's President...

For the past few weeks, Puerto Rico has been subjected to a multitude of actions by our political class and the oversight board related to the handling of our current debt and fiscal crisis that would make left-wingers such as Nicolás Maduro proud. The actions being undertaken are a response to the current policy clash between the government of Ricardo Rossello and the Fiscal and Oversight Management Board about the host of fiscal plans to be adopted by the commonwealth. As the island heads to its next fiscal year, and the island is still recovering from the disaster of Hurricane...

Donald Trump is not a fan of wind turbines, as he has hinted occasionally on Twitter. Not only are wind farms disgusting looking, but even worse they are bad for people’s health http://t.co/2G8YrOUZ (cont) http://t.co/NujHgnXU — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2012 Wind farms are killing many thousands of birds. They make hunters look like nice people! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2012 It’s Friday. How many bald eagles did wind turbines kill today? They are an environmental & aesthetic disaster. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2012 But there’s a very powerful lobby which would...

"World War III is well and truly underway," said Bill McKibben, founder of the climate activist group 350.org. "And we are losing." "We're used to war as metaphor: the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on cancer," he said in an op-ed published in this week's New Republic magazine. "But this is no metaphor. By most of the ways we measure wars, climate change is the real deal: Carbon and methane are seizing physical territory, sowing havoc and panic, racking up casualties and even destabilizing governments." […] McKibben also has been piling increased pressure on Republicans in...

So it begins: Panel Urges Overhauling Health Care at End of Life Taking care to make sure that Republicans are implicated, the NY Times hails death of the elderly. “The current system is geared towards doing more, more, more, and that system by definition is not necessarily consistent with what patients want, and is also more costly.” The operative word here is "costly."I have no problem with any old person expressing the wish to be left to die in peace. I have a big problem with Death Panels deciding that death is cheaper than life and making that the national...

OSLO (Reuters) - A little-known technology that may be able to take the equivalent of China's greenhouse gas emissions out of the carbon cycle could be the radical policy shift needed to slow climate change this century, a draft U.N. report shows. Using the technology, power plants would burn biomass - wood, wood pellets, or plant waste like from sugar cane - to generate electricity while the carbon dioxide in the biomass is extracted, piped away and buried deep underground. Among techniques, a chemical process can strip carbon dioxide from the flue gases from combustion. The process - called bio-energy...

While Americans demand vociferously the defunding of ObamaCare in hopes of getting rid of the most destructive and freedom-robbing piece of legislation passed in modern times, Congressmen pretend to make valiant efforts to do so via various proposals that only low information and extremely naïve voters can believe to be true. Their efforts are akin to a handful of people standing on the tracks of an oncoming speeding train, waving their hands in hopes that the engineer will see them in time and be able to stop thousands of tons of momentum at the last minute. Even Heritage President, Jim...

After 16 years and $1.5 billion of other people’s money, it is almost showtime for NASA and Sam Ting. Sitting and being fussed over by technicians in a clean room at the Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a February launching — and looking for all the world like a giant corrugated rain barrel — is an eight-ton assemblage of magnets, wires, iron, aluminum, silicon and electronics that is one of the most ambitious and complicated experiments ever to set out for space. The experiment, if it succeeds, could help NASA take a giant step toward answering the question of...

As we look back to that day 66 years ago, we should reflect on the qualities that allowed us to achieve victory over tyranny. And we should do our best to rebuild those qualities, now that we need them again. But if we need a reminder of what those qualities are, we need only look at our multi-racial, multi-ethnic armed forces. They are role models for us all. On D-Day, soldiers didn’t wonder whether the man next to them was a “real” Latino or a “real” whatever. They already knew he was a real American. Nothing else mattered then. It...

Obama Orders Costly Energy Standards on Appliances Thursday, February 5, 2009 12:56 PM WASHINGTON – Eager to show action on the energy front, President Barack Obama ordered his government on Thursday to establish higher efficiency standards for everyday household appliances such as dishwashers, lamps and microwave ovens. "This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation, and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy," Obama declared during a visit to the Energy Department, where he touted his economic jobs plan. Obama announced he had signed a presidential memorandum directing the Energy Department to get moving on energy standards for appliances,...

CHICAGO – Citing an "economic crisis of historic proportions," President-elect Barack Obama urged Congress to pass a costly, job-creating stimulus bill as quickly as possible, a rare pre-inaugural call to action delivered as the outgoing Bush administration approved fresh billions to bail out one of the nation's largest banks. Stock prices surged — the biggest two-day percentage gain for the Dow Jones industrials in 21 years — as investors took heart Monday from the actions and words of the incoming and departing chief executives. "If we do not act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose...

THE local returns from Tuesday's election made one thing quite clear: Angelenos are generous when it comes to schools. So generous, in fact, that they have just agreed to continue to encumber themselves and their neighbors with hefty property taxes for decades to come. In fact, it was a little bit astonishing that voters in Los Angeles overwhelmingly passed the fifth building bond for LAUSD in the past decade - at $7 billion, the largest yet. It didn't even seem to matter that school officials hadn't made any real effort to make a plan to use the money. They knew...

What is it?" Kelly Charles asked as he walked to his job as a custodian in downtown Los Angeles and gazed up at a rather odd construction project. "A roller coaster?" As I wandered the neighborhood, other guesses were: A ski jump. A toboggan run. A water slide. What's got everyone talking is the odd-looking tower that rises 140 feet above the 101 Freeway, directly across from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The futuristic metallic edifice, with a wraparound spiral Dr. Seuss would love, is not part of a theme park. It is the signature adornment on...

Medical-bill confusion costly for Ohio patients Trying to understand a hospital bill can be a challenge. It usually provides little detail about the medical care you received, and the first version you get in the mail might say "This is not a bill." The next statement could include how much you owe and tell you that you need to pay in 30, 60, 90 or 120 days. Is this the final amount you owe? Are there more bills coming? Patient advocates say few people are prepared for the amount of paperwork that follows a hospital stay or surgery and even...

You Get What You Pay For? Costly Placebo Works Better Than Cheap One ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) — A 10-cent pill doesn't kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University. "Physicians want to think it's the medicine and not their enthusiasm about a particular drug that makes a drug more therapeutically effective, but now we really have to worry about the nuances of interaction between patients and physicians," said Ariely, whose findings appear as a letter in the March 5...

High levels of cancer-causing benzene and the suspected carcinogen MTBE have been found in the ground water beneath a Citgo gas station in Monrovia, the Frederick County Health Department said Tuesday. Both chemicals are gasoline additives.There is no indication that the contamination has migrated offsite, the health department said. All property owners within a half-mile of Green Valley Citgo will be notified of the sampling results, the agency said. The health department said benzene, a known carcinogen, was detected at a level of 66 parts per billion, or about 13 times the federal Environmental Protection Agency's maximum contaminant level of...

We have watched the news cover the Jessica Lunsford trial and to know that a child suffered at the hands of a sex offender, when it could have been prevented should be galvanizing our law makers, to enact. This could have been your daughter, just imagine the anguish any parent would have to live with, if this happened to them. John Couey, who was convicted, had a record as a sex offender and was just released from prison, at the time of her murder. There are many John Couey types and one could be living next to you. Often, administration...

WASHINGTON - A Washington lobbyist and his partner twice insinuated themselves into the tribal elections of an Inland tribe, which paved the way for them to receive lucrative contracts worth more than $7.2 million which the two split in a secret deal, according to a nearly 400-page report released by a congressional committee Thursday. The report by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is the most detailed account so far of how the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs came to hire Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partner, public relations specialist Michael S. Scanlon. Abramoff, who...

YUBA CITY, Calif. (AP) - It's been almost two years since Kimberly Ward moved from North Carolina to California with her husband, yet finding a job that pays well enough to keep pace with the state's high cost of living continues to be a struggle. She's had several jobs that paid $9 an hour - well above the state's minimum wage of $6.75 an hour - but each was temporary. The sales jobs she has been seeking at a local mall in this suburb north of Sacramento aren't likely to pay much more than the minimum. "They should raise the...