Former Vice President Al Gore gave an 'impassioned' and 'unhinged' speech about climate change while on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The eco-warrior warned the crowd of 'rain bombs' and boiling oceans while discussing the concerns facing Earth if drastic changes aren't made to address the environmental concerns. 

Gore, who also voiced support for climate activist Greta Thunberg after her recent arrest for protesting a coal mine in Germany, said the world would soon fall into peril if citizens continue to treat the atmosphere as an 'open-air sewer.' 

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Popular cryptocurrency broker Genesis is expected to file for bankruptcy within days, insiders have revealed.

It would make the firm the latest crypto casualty following the spectacular downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, where the company held some of its funds.

According to people familiar with the matter, Genesis is currently in the final stage of its Chapter 11 paperwork as it works toward a deal with creditors. 

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) is bracing for a challenging reelection bid as she vies to remain the city’s top executive against eight other candidates in next month’s election.

Lightfoot, who made history in 2019 as the city’s first Black female and openly gay mayor, has faced a slew of challenges in recent years, including confrontations with local unions, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising concerns over crime.

Now the mayor is staring down efforts from within her own party to take her down, though observers suggest ousting Lightfoot will be no easy feat.

“She currently has two challenges. I would call them crime and combativeness,” said Jason DeSanto, a senior lecturer at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and a Democratic debate strategist.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a bid by New York's gun retailers to repeal firearms laws implemented by the state, which they claimed threatened their businesses.

The laws were brought in by New York's attorney general, Letitia James.

She acted after the Supreme Court in June repealed a 1913 law in New York which made it very difficult to obtain a permit for concealed carry.

Under the almost 110-year-old rule, New Yorkers - unlike residents in most other states - had to prove 'proper cause' to be able to concealed carry. The restrictions were so tight permits were scarcely issued, and went mainly to business owners who handled large amounts of cash, celebrities who faced death threats and retired police officers.

The list of concealed carry license holders in New York City was not public, but an analysis by the New York Times in 2011 found that about 4,000 people in the city had permits.

I often refer to how much of America has been eroded away during my lifetime, so much so that the country  into which I was born no longer exists.  Younger people don’t know what’s been lost as they never experienced the real America.  What is normal to people is what they are born into and grow up with.  The numerous infringements on individual freedom, for example, that exist today as normal and unquestioned would have been impossible in my youth.  

Is your doctor in private practice or is he an employee of a HMO or a health care provider such as a hospital’s corporate empire?  

Why does it matter?  If he is a corporate employee, he has lost his independence and has to comply, regardless of his judgment, with protocols handed down by the likes of Tony Fauci and Big Pharma as in the restrictions placed on Covid treatment.  Corporate employees were prohibited from saving lives by treating Covid patients with Ivermectin or HCQ.  Those who thought the Hippocratic Oath protected them and ignored the protocols in order to save lives did so at the cost of their jobs and medical licenses.   Doctors in private practice  cannot be fired, but medical boards can still go after them, but it is not as easy.

Over the course of my life I have watched the gradual erosion of medical independence.  It has occurred through a variety of means.  Medicine in the US today is a price controlled business.  Medicare and private insurance companies set the prices doctors are paid for the range of services and treatments.  The prices discriminate against doctors in private practice. There is one set of prices for corporate medical practice and another set with lower prices for doctors in private practice.  The intentional effect is to drive doctors out of private practice.  I have watched it happen to my doctors.

Defense contractors are raking in millions of dollars as the Biden administration pledges to continue supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

The U.S. Army announced in December it awarded an $84 million contract to Raytheon Missiles and Defense for more than 1,000 Excalibur 1B precision munitions to replenish those sent to Ukraine.

Just weeks before, the Army awarded a $432 million contract to Lockheed Martin to replenish High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers that the U.S. and allies sent to Ukraine, according to Defense News. The Army also awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Raytheon for six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) batteries for Ukraine.

While in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) previewed a “bipartisan coalition” that she claims to be forming to shape an immigration package that would include amnesty for some illegal aliens as well as a green card giveaway measure.

During a panel discussion with other American politicians, Sinema referenced a plan that she compiled with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) last year that included amnesty for at least two million illegal aliens and a green card giveaway program that would funnel hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into mostly white-collar American jobs.

Ultimately, the plan failed to gain traction in the House and Senate.

Sinema, speaking in Davos, called the plan “an immigration framework” that she hopes to restore in the new Congress. Sinema said:

Have you ever considered escaping your state without moving even a single mile away?

More than a dozen counties in rural Oregon could declare their independence from the progressive-dominated state and forge a new future within the state of Idaho.

Legislation introduced this month in the Oregon Senate invites the state legislatures and governors of both states to begin talks on relocating the border separating Idaho and Oregon.

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has announced her support for House Bill 1080, a measure which would prohibit controversial transgender medical interventions such as hormones and surgery for minors.

“Governor Noem supports this legislation and will be watching as the legislature works through the process,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday.

H.B. 1080 aims “to prohibit certain medical and surgical interventions on minor patients.”

Specifically, the bill bars a health care professional from performing certain acts on a minor “for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor’s perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”

H.B. 1080 bars health professionals from prescribing or administering to minors any drug to delay or stop normal puberty or any cross-sex hormones such as testosterone to females and estrogen to males. It also bars them from performing “any sterilizing surgery, including castration, hysterectomy,” and other surgeries to remove sex organs, or any surgery “that artificially constructs tissue having the appearance of genitalia differing from the minor’s sex.” Finally, the bill prohibits the removal of “any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.”

The 2022 midterms were the first major elections to occur in California after the Golden State approved all-mail voting in September 2021. Under the new system, all registered voters in the state are automatically mailed a ballot for each election cycle (Californians can still opt to vote in person if they wish). But during California’s first foray into mass mail-in balloting for the 2022 midterms, 226,250 mail ballots were rejected and more than 10 million remain unaccounted for, according to a new report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Per the report, the most common reason for rejection of mail ballots in the 2022 cycle was late arrival (48 percent of rejects). Under California law, mail ballots must be postmarked no later than Election Day and arrive at the tabulation center within seven days. For the state’s 2022 general elections, more than 57,000 ballots arrived after Nov. 15 (the seven-day mark). Largely as a result of the switch to mail-in balloting, more than 57,000 Californians were disenfranchised. Such voter disenfranchisement is sure to continue as long as the state keeps its vote-by-mail system. 

Disinformation purveyor and former CNN anchor Brian Stelter recently hosted a panel titled “The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation” at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday. Instead of discussing genuine truth-seeking, the panel was far more preoccupied with lamenting about Trump, demonizing the political right, and rebranding censorship as “public safety.” 

While many of the panelists claimed they wanted to protect free speech and expression, their policy prescriptions for combating disinformation showed us very clearly that this wasn’t the case. According to panelist and New York Times journalist Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, “the disinformation question maps basically to every other challenge that we’re grappling with as a society, and certainly the most existential among them.”

What is Sulzberger’s answer to the “existential” disinformation “challenge”? Censorship.

Actor Alec Baldwin will face charges in connection with the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rust.”

New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and Special Prosecutor Andrea Reeb issued a statement Thursday morning announcing their decision.

Baldwin will be charged with involuntary manslaughter, as will armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Assistant director David Halls has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.

The Arizona state Senate Education Committee met Wednesday to consider SB 1001, The Given Name Act, a one-page, 21-line bill that states that any individual involved in the Arizona public education system would be required to use the pronoun associated with a student’s biological sex unless the student’s public school or charter school received other instructions from the student’s parent or parents.

No public or charter school staff member, full time or contractor, would be able to use alternative pronouns for a student without the written permission of the student’s parents.

The legislation would reinforce parents’ ultimate authority in deciding what names their children should and should not be called by staff members, providing a stopgap via parental approval before public districts attempt to treat or affirm gender dysphoria with only the minor’s limited understanding of what they are going through.

Webmaster addition: My preferred pronouns are Highness/Lordship/Reverend. :)

Plans to compensate black Americans for slavery-era sins have been around for decades. They've gained traction in recent months as ever more left-leaning states and cities launch local inquiries into their own atonement schemes.

San Francisco made headlines this week with a proposal for $5 million payouts to every longtime black resident, and other plans to address generations of economic losses suffered by the minority group. 

The announcement provoked uproar, with many observers balking at the eye-watering sum and immediately asking what the scheme would cost in its entirety, who foots the bill, and whether it would hurt California's economy.

Meanwhile, the Illinois city of Evanston has been helping residents who suffered from long-forgotten racist housing policies. Its grants have paid off a few mortgages, but also stoked divisions between winners and losers.

Against this backdrop, DailyMail.com takes a look at the reparations debate, and finds out whether small-scale efforts in liberal enclaves could ever amount to a national bid to tackle racism's legacy once and for all.

Freshman New York Rep. George Santos has been caught making false representations about his background, education, and work experience during his successful congressional campaign, but a new report indicates that the Republican also fabricated a story about his mother surviving the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

Santos’s campaign website features a section about his family background, which includes a claim that his mother was working in the World Trade Center when planes flew into the towers.

"George’s mother was in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001, when the horrific events of that day unfolded. She survived the tragic events on September 11th, but she passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer," the website says.

FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke at the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos on Tuesday, accompanying his private meeting with banking leaders with a panel on cybersecurity. The panel on national security and cybersecurity focused on the conflict in Ukraine, using that war as a lens through which to discuss partnerships between tech companies and government, AI, and autonomous vehicles. 

"The sophistication of the private sector is improving, and particularly important, the level of collaboration between the private sector and the government. Especially the FBI has I think made significant strides. We are focused on looking at cyber attacks," Wray said. His comments are in-line with WEF founder Klaus Schwab's ideas on how leaders should "master the future" through public and private partnerships.

"We did see, as the conflict erupted and increased effort by the Russian intelligence services, which have been conducting malicious cyber activists against infrastructure for years," he continued. For Wray, any tech that is beneficial in US hands is somewhat terrifying when in the hands of American enemies. This he said specifically with regard to China's AI programs, saying they are the biggest hackers in the world.

FACT 1: A study of a COVID-19 outbreak in July 2021 published in Eurosurveillance found that “all transmissions between patients and staff occurred between masked and vaccinated individuals, as experienced in an outbreak from Finland.” The authors state that the study “challenges the assumption that high universal vaccination rates will lead to herd immunity and prevent COVID-19 outbreaks.”1

FACT 2: A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study of another COVID-19 outbreak in July 2021 found that 74% of cases were fully vaccinated.2

FACT 3: A Harvard study investigating COVID-19 cases across 68 countries and across 2,947 counties in the U.S. found “no significant signaling of COVID-19 cases decreasing with higher percentages of population fully vaccinated.”3