Free Republic

Washington -- Have you seen John Forbes Kerry's face lately? Who stole his lines? No, I am not talking about his lines, as in his joke lines. President Joe Biden's special envoy for climate has, in fact, never told a joke in his life, notwithstanding the jocose nature of his official title, which, by the way, allows him Cabinet-level rank. Seriously, he never laughs. He is what psychiatrists call an agelast. He never laughs or jokes or even snickers. Truth be known he is the perfect prig, and someone stole his lines. I am referring to the lines that used...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 to reverse a lower court ruling that had invalidated a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will bring West Virginia natural gas to Virginia and North Carolina, for home heating, factory power, electricity generation and manufacturing petrochemical feedstocks. Environmentalists had claimed the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) had no authority to issue the permit because a 0.1-mile (530-foot) segment would cross 600 feet below the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail, which is administered by the National Park Service. Justice Thomas’s majority opinion scuttled that assertion.Pipeline project developers Dominion Resources and Duke Energy should receive the...

Do you ever wonder why people run for office? I mean, unless you're a total cynic, you must assume that at least part of the motivation is wanting to do good. Sure, those who run for office want fame and prestige, but they also have strongly held views and want to affect public policy, right? So why in the world would they engage in sabotage of the ideas they hope to advance? That's undeniably what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey have done with their juvenile Green New Deal. Consider: The caricature of environmentalists is that they are just...

To say that conservatives haven’t had much to cheer about at the Supreme Court lately is an understatement. Much has been said -- and rightly so -- denouncing the judicial acrobatics required to save Obamacare and strike down state bans on same-sex marriage. So I wanted to take a moment to spotlight a case where the Court got it right: Michigan v. EPA. As the saying goes, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while. And in ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency improperly ignored costs when it decided to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants,...

Uh oh… The evil, hate filled, GOP now has control of the US Senate. Clearly the world will soon end. (Lucky for me, I have stocked up on guns and ammo… So I’m feeling better prepared than my Diana DeGette-loving neighbor.) Ben Adler, the former Newsweek.com editor, was among the more frantic examples of post-election meltdown. Appearing somewhat like Chris Matthews during a Republican victory, Ben scrambled to express his frustration at conservative gains with over-the-top rhetoric. He even went so far as to say that conservatives should not be mistaken for “rational human beings” or “patriotic Americans”.Super classy. Adler insisted...

Environmental activists and politicians would like you to think that we must love their regulations -- or hate trees and animals. I love trees and animals. But you can love nature and still hate the tyranny that environmental regulations bring. The Environmental Protection Agency just announced it will boost gas prices ("only" a penny, although industry says 6 to 9 cents) to make another minuscule improvement to air quality. In New York City, my mayor wants to ban Styrofoam cups, saying, "I think it's something we can do without." Congress already dictates the design of our cars, toilets and light...