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A federal science agency is “seriously” interested in reviewing tens of millions in taxpayer-funded grants awarded to a university professor who wants President Obama to prosecute those who don’t share the administration’s view that mankind is changing the world’s climate.

The National Science Foundation’s inspector general appears poised to look into Jagadish Shukla’s management of federal grant money, much of it from the science agency itself.

The science agency has its own rules and guidelines governing grants, which would be applicable to the millions Shukla, 71, received from the agency.

“The longstanding cozy relationship between [government] grantmakers and grantees makes them blind to even the most obvious conflict of interest,” Bonner Cohen, a scholar with a free-market think tank in Washington, told The Daily Signal.

Shukla, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., led the charge by 20 college professors to urge a federal investigation aimed at scientific skeptics who differ with their views on climate change.

At the same time, Shukla, his wife, and his research center were awash in taxpayers’ money, according to an internal audit by the university on which The Daily Signal previously reported.

A House panel looking into Shukla’s activities sent related information to Allison Lerner, …read more

When you turn to God after experiencing the raw side of life and run more than 3,700 miles across the entire country, it’s fair to say you’re someone who can endure intense physical, psychological, and emotional traum

But if you’re Jeff Grabosky, and in you’re in the midst of another long run, you’re not convinced the endurance that served you so well previously will be there again.

That thought came to mind last month as Grabosky and other “LIFE Runners” ascended the mountain regions in and around rural Nevada as part of a nationwide effort to raise awareness and funds on behalf of the unborn.

“We were dealing with some pretty tough elevation in some mountainous areas, I would say going 5,000- to 7,000-feet elevation the entire time,” Grabosky says in an interview with The Daily Signal. “So, any thought that you were in good shape began to dissipate when you tried to breathe in the thin air. But the scenery and the skies were just beautiful.”

Grabosky, now 33 and living with his family in Jefferson City, Mo., began planning for his cross-country journey back in 2006, after his mother died of cancer. His marriage ended that same year. He wrote a …read more

California schoolteachers appeared to be within striking distance of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that would uphold their right to free speech and end mandatory union dues.

That was before Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly Feb. 13, leaving a 4-4 conservative-liberal split on the high court. Scalia, perhaps the court’s most conservative justice, was viewed widely as the swing vote in the case known as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.

But should the Supreme Court eventually rule in favor of the challenge of union power by Rebecca Friedrichs, a 28-year veteran of the Savannah School District in Anaheim, Calif., the results could be dramatic.

The Center for Worker Freedom, a project of Americans for Tax Reform, provides a detailed look in the form of the just-released “2016 Indicator of Labor Liberty,” maps that show how a ruling in favor of Friedrichs and nine fellow teachers would affect other parts of the country as the “right to work” movement grows.

The center offers two versions of the map. One highlights the status quo of labor law across the country, the other demonstrates how government workers in 21 states would be freed from forced unionization if the high court rules mandatory …read more

American farmers haven’t had the benefit of operating under a free market system since the early 20th century, property rights advocate Joel Salatin says.

A critical turning point came when President Teddy Roosevelt established the Food Safety and Inspection Service, he says. The agency, now a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, draws its authority from the Pure Food and Drug Act signed into law by Roosevelt in 1906.

Salatin describes the Republican president as a “socialist” who did great damage to the free enterprise system.

Who is Joel Salatin?

He introduced himself Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference as a “Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist lunatic.”

So he said in prepared remarks delivered during an afternoon panel entitled “Saving America’s Property Rights and Family Farmers.”

Salatin, a prolific author on the subject of property rights, owns Polyface Farm in rural Swoope, Va.

With an eye toward history, Salatin points the finger at Roosevelt and other progressive political figures who unleashed the power of government on entrepreneurs.

“If the government never told us how to farm and to eat, we would be a healthier society,” he said.

Salatin agreed that Americans have legitimate concerns about pollution and irresponsible industry actions.

“Yes, we should stand up to …read more

“Political correctness kills.”

That’s what Deneen Borelli, chief political correspondent for the Conservative Review, told hundreds of conservative activists during a panel discussion this morning at the annual CPAC conference just outside Washington, D.C.

Borelli, also a noted author, used the mass murder by two Islamist terrorists in San Bernardino, Calif., to drive her point home. The husband-and-wife team killed 14 and seriously injured 22 in the December shooting at Inland Regional Center.

Although a neighbor observed suspicious activities by the couple and visitors to their home, the neighbor was “afraid of being called a racist” and declined to speak out, Borelli told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC.

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who lived in the town of Redlands, were killed in a shootout with police officers after their attack on a holiday party for employees with the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, where Farook worked.

The attack may not have taken place in the first place, Borelli suggested, if concerned citizens had not succumbed to political correctness.

“I’m tired of the race card being played,” she said.

The CPAC panel, entitled “Greatest National Security Challenge Facing the Next President,” took a hard look at how the …read more

Congressional investigators have obtained an internal audit from George Mason University that suggests one of its professors—a major proponent of man-made climate change—mismanaged millions of dollars in taxpayer money by “double dipping” in violation of university policy.

The professor, Jagadish Shukla, received $511,410 in combined compensation from George Mason University and his own taxpayer-funded climate change research center in 2014 alone, without receiving required permission from university officials, the audit found.

The audit looking at more than a decade of Shukla’s finances is disclosed in a letter sent this morning from Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, to the inspector general of the National Science Foundation.

“The committee’s investigation has revealed serious concerns related to Dr. Shukla’s management of taxpayer money,” Smith writes in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Signal.

Since 2001, Shukla used his research center to pay himself and his wife more than $5.6 million in compensation, “an excessive amount for a nonprofit relying on taxpayer money,” Smith writes.

In the letter, Smith offers to assist Allison Lerner, the National Science Foundation’s inspector general, in any investigation she “may deem appropriate” in response to the GMU audit.

The …read more

Grassroots conservationists and property rights activists in Nevada stand poised to secure an unprecedented legal victory over government-backed wind energy proponents that could reverberate across state lines.

If they prevail, they will have handed a rare defeat to the U.S. Senate’s top Democrat, Harry Reid, in his hometown.

A federal District Court judge ruled against the development of an 87-turbine, 200-megawatt wind farm in tiny Searchlight, Nev., and the company behind the project joined with the U.S. Interior Department to file an appeal.

The case, which now sits before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, could stretch out for at least another year.

Even so, the Searchlight Wind Energy Project, as it is officially known, appears to be stalled permanently.

If the court decision in October had gone the other way, it would have provided the federal government with the legal “right-of-way” to press ahead with installing wind turbines that would cut across almost 19,000 acres of public lands.

“For at least the time being, the District Court ruling means that people in Searchlight can continue to enjoy the spectacular mountain views they presently have, and can avoid the dust storms that follow when large areas of the desert are stripped …read more

One of the biggest sources of grants in the nation’s smallest state rakes in taxpayer dollars while advancing centralized planning of environmental controls that burden entrepreneurs and taxpayers alike, its critics charge.

The Rhode Island Foundation received hundreds of thousands of dollars from taxpayers over the past few years even as it awarded money to promote “sustainable development” and “smart growth” that undermine job creation and the best interest of taxpayers, say public officials and citizen activists familiar with the foundation’s plans.

To commemorate its 100th anniversary, the Rhode Island Foundation touts a “diverse range of projects” built around Centennial Community Grants. But its critics charge that the nonprofit institution has become devoted exclusively to pushing a progressive, even radical, agenda.

“This is all about HUD bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., working to take away local control on zoning so they can determine who lives where,” tea party activist Mike Puyana says of a “smart growth” plan backed by the foundation.

With almost $1 billion in assets, the foundation bills itself as Rhode Island’s largest grant-maker, awarding more than $30 million a year, according to annual reports. Tax records show the foundation concentrated its most recent donations on left-of-center organizations, with …read more

An “adversarial attitude” toward people of faith permeates the public education system and should be confronted by teachers and parents who disagree, the head of an organization for Christian educators said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Finn Laursen, executive director of the Christian Educators Association International, said that attitude toward religion first took hold in the 1960s, then grew and festered.

It’s a main reason his nonprofit outfit joined with 10 California public school teachers to challenge a state law requiring them to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

“There has been a growing frustration among people of faith,” Laursen told The Daily Signal, adding: “The union leadership is so far left now that it sees anything that is godly as the enemy.”

The U.S. Supreme Court heard about 80 minutes of oral arguments Monday in the case known as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Rebecca Friedrichs, the lead plaintiff in the case, is a member of Christian Educators Association International.

Attorneys for the group and the individual teachers argued that California’s “agency shop” law violates the plaintiffs’ free speech rights under the First Amendment. The law, they told the high court, coerced the teachers into helping pay …read more

HOT SPRINGS, Va.—Conservative lawmakers, scholars and activists say it’s time for the Virginia General Assembly to look into the taxpayer funding of academics who don’t want President Obama to tolerate dissenting views on climate change.

The question, they told The Daily Signal, is why taxpayers should pay for the work of radical academics and scientists who want Obama to launch a racketeering investigation of organizations that have an open mind on how much mankind contributes to global warming.

“I’m just not sure about where we are right now on the question of climate change,” said Angela Chellew, a legislative liaison in the Virginia House of Delegates.

“I’ve been reading about sea level rise near where I live off Norfolk,” Chellew said, “but then I read conflicting things about what it all means. I do think we need to be careful about how we spend our taxpayer dollars and how government regulations will impact average people.”

Chellew and other climate change skeptics spoke to The Daily Signal during the 2014 Republican Advance, a weekend retreat held at the Omni Homestead in Hot Springs.

About 500 Virginia legislators and party activists attended Dec. 12, even as hundreds of government officials and delegates from across …read more