Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears attacked her Democrat opponent, Abigail Spanberger, for prioritizing the climate policies of environmental groups that contributed to her campaign, rather than an all-of-the-above energy plan. “Abigail Spanberger has sold out Virginians to the highest bidder,” Peyton Vogel, Earle-Sears’ press secretary, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “She’s taken millions from green special interests who want to force Virginia back into [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative] and drive up energy costs for working families.” “Winsome Earle-Sears can’t be bought,” Vogel added. “She stands for Virginia families, for an all-of-the-above affordable energy approach, and for doing what’s right rather than what’s politically convenient.” Spanberger is running on lowering costs for Virginians, promising last month that she “will be laser-focused on bringing costs down for families.” Yet she advocates policies that would arguably increase prices, such as returning to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and achieving the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, a 2020 law that requires Virginia’s utility companies—Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Company—to shift to renewable energy by 2045 (for Dominion) and 2050 (for Appalachian). The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an inter-state agreement, charges power plants for emissions and uses the money to prop up renewable energy. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, attempted to exit the initiative, calling it a “hidden tax” on electricity. Virginia’s withdrawal remains in limbo after a judge blocked it. The administration has a stay, allowing Spanberger has pledged to rejoin it. Constricting Choices “All these policies will do is constrict our energy choices while having no meaningful impact on the climate,” Kevin Dayaratna, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, told The Daily Signal. He said the Center for Data Analysis “looked at these policies at the federal level during the Biden administration using the government’s own models and found the result would be over $7 trillion in lost GDP over a 20-year time horizon, with less than two-tenths of one degree Celsius impact by the end of the century.” “Spanberger would apply these inane policies to Virginians while having an even more trifling impact on the climate,” Dayaratna added. Center of the American Experiment economists estimated the Virginia Clean Economy Act will cost an extra $3,500 per customer by 2045. After the law’s passage, Virginia’s electricity imports from out of state rose from 18% in 2020 to 40% in 2024. “Spanberger says she is committed to wind, solar, and grid batteries,” Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told The Daily Signal. “This means she is committed to ever-higher electricity prices.” “In Congress, she voted for the inflationary Green New Scam and generally supported President Joe Biden’s policies that sent gasoline prices through the roof,” Milloy added. Follow the Money The Virginia League of Conservation Voters gave Spanberger for Governor $1.38 million, and the Clean Virginia Fund contributed $700,000, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. “Spanberger is the only candidate in this race who will prioritize Virginians over big corporations by ensuring we meet the moment with clean, affordable energy and work to make electricity more affordable for Virginians instead of doubling down on dirty, expensive energy sources that line corporate polluter pockets by keeping our bills high,” Lee Francis, a spokesman for the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, told The Daily Signal. Francis said the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative “has a proven track record of lowering energy costs by incentivizing clean, and affordable energy sources over volatile coal and gas.” He claimed the programs receiving initiative funds “have a high return on investment,” preparing communities to face flooding and cutting energy costs “with programs that weatherize homes and make them more efficient.” He claimed that “increased fuel costs and infrastructure costs related to transmission and distribution, mostly to feed large energy-hungry data centers, are the largest drivers of bill increases in Virginia—not clean energy and not the [Virginia Clean Economy Act].” Clean Virginia, meanwhile, attacks the Old Dominion’s public utility companies, aiming to fight for “clean government and clean energy by fighting utility monopoly corruption.” “Abigail Spanberger’s plan for energy abundance focuses on investing in clean technologies, the only resources that can come online quickly, improve reliability, and lower costs for consumers,” Clean Virginia Executive Director Brennan Gilmore told The Daily Signal. “Clean Virginia supports her leadership to build an affordable, reliable, and forward-looking energy system.” RGGI Negatives Glenn Davis, director of the Virginia Department of Energy under Youngkin, told The Daily Signal that RGGI cost Virginians $828 million, “every dollar of which was passed on to Virginians in their energy bills.” He said other states use RGGI funds to offset ratepayers’ energy bills, since the program increases costs for consumers, but Virginia Democrats used the money to fund other projects, such as the flooding preparation Francis mentioned. Davis also criticized the Virginia Clean Economy Act. The act requires companies like Dominion to buy renewable energy credits if they can’t produce enough renewable energy themselves. Earlier this year, Dominion estimated it would have to buy $5.5 billion of renewable energy credits in the next ten years in order to make benchmarks. Dominion Energy Responds “For nearly 20 years, our electricity prices have remained below the national average,” Aaron Ruby, a spokesman for Dominion Energy, told The Daily Signal. “Our prices are currently 8% below the national average, and we expect that will continue in the coming years.” Ruby said Dominion proposed a price increase earlier this year “due to significant increases in the cost of fuel for our power plants and for equipment such as utility poles, wires, cables, and transformers.” These inflationary pressures have impacted the entire economy. He also referenced a recent Washington Post article highlighting the various reasons energy costs are increasing—and noting that the proliferation of data centers plays only a very small role in price hikes. Ruby countered Clean Virginia’s attacks by saying Dominion participates in the political process “on behalf of our customers and employees.” He said the company contributes to candidates of both parties “in support of bipartisan, commonsense energy policy.” Karen Wissing, a communications consultant at Appalachian Power Company, also noted that her company “faces higher interest rates and inflation, which have increased and are continuing to increase the cost of generating and delivering power.” “The company recognizes the need to provide safe, affordable electricity and works every day to keep bills as low as possible,” Wissing added. She noted that Virginian customers can expect an approximately $10 decrease in fuel costs on Nov. 1, and she referenced the company’s request with the Virginia State Corporate Commission, which could result in additional savings of approximately $11.44. Wissing also mentioned that Appalachian offers energy efficiency programs. The Spanberger campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The post Earle-Sears Slams Spanberger for Having ‘Sold Out Virginians’ by Taking Cash From Environmental Groups appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DONEGAL, Pennsylvania—It is 6:14 p.m. on a Thursday. You’re hiking along the Forbes Trail, nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere along the Westmoreland-Somerset County lines. It is 19 minutes until sunset, and you have just over a mile to go, mostly uphill, before you are out of the deep forest and in the clearing. The mountain range, which stretches from Maine to Georgia and is documented to be one of the oldest in the country, shares characteristics across the approximately 420 counties. It is rugged, often mist-covered with deep hollers and rugged peaks that cling to a rich tapestry of folklore—folklore that is a mix of generational stories and superstitions that came from the Scots-Irish, a variety of native American tribes, and African Americans who have carved out often isolated lives in this region. Your heart starts to race as the clearing gets within reach because if you grew up in any part of Appalachia, your elders have warned that if you find yourself in the woods after dark, that is not a good thing. And no matter what, never, ever, whistle. The legend goes, the folklore varying in each little community in the thousands of miles that make up the Appalachian Mountains region, that you should never whistle after the sun sets in the woods or you will draw supernatural attention from someone or something you do not want to encounter. Whistling at night in the woods is a tale that has been passed down for generations, usually by an elder with a warning about someone they knew who never made it out of the woods. These tales have caused the young and the old to avoid waking ancient spirits. It is also advised never to respond or run if one hears a whistle, but instead to ignore it, state your intentions out loud, and leave the area calmly. Everybody loves a good ghost story, whether you believe in them or not. Because of their age and isolation, the Appalachian Mountains have had plenty of them passed along through the ages—stories like the Appalachian Whistle that endured for centuries. It is one of many folk tales prevalent in American culture that go beyond the boundaries of the people who call this mountain range home. Clay Newcomb is a seventh-generation Arkansan, storyteller, and the host of “Bear Grease,” a widely popular podcast filled with rich recalls of communities and traditions that is part of the MeatEater podcast platform. A prolific publisher, writer, and cinematographer, he joined MeatEater in 2019 and is uniquely connected to the art of storytelling and folklore. He focuses on forgotten history that is highly relevant to the people who remain connected to their roots. Newcomb said his favorite local legend is sightings of the legendary black panther in Arkansas. “You could go any direction a mile, 10 miles, 100 miles from my house and just knock on a door. And I’d say there’s a 60% chance the person that lives there will have had an encounter with a black panther,” he said. What is so bizarre about that, Newcomb said, is that there are no black panthers in this part of the world, nor have there ever been. “I don’t think that’s unique to Arkansas. I think it’s unique to the Southeast, particularly, and it’s absolutely become folklore that has become so real to people that you can’t even argue with people because they are different gradient levels of belief in it,” he said “You’d be amazed at just how many people who are just 100% convinced that they’ve seen a black panther,” said Newcomb. “Yet the biology side of it is, the only big cat native to the southeast is a tan lion.” Just as many people have told the tale that they had a friend who had a friend who whistled in the woods after dark in Appalachia on a dare and was never seen again, or had an uncle or a cousin who swore they heard someone whistle while they were walking in the dark in the woods, Newcomb said folklore is often born out of cognitive bias that takes on a life of its own. “And because Americans for generations have been prolific storytellers, the tale extends rather than contracts,” he said. “Cognitive bias is really an interesting phenomenon in American storytelling. Think of it in these terms: If your father raised you up [telling you] that there were black panthers and he told you there [were] from the time you were a child, there is a high likelihood that you will see one in your life,” he said. That’s how folklore passes through generations. Newcomb said something about this time of year, after the harvest, as the days grow longer, that draws us toward stories and folklore with a supernatural dimension. “It goes back to our roots as an agrarian society, a time of harvest, which we are still culturally attached to. So in the fall, we might be thinking about those things and telling those stories when the days are shorter, you’re home quicker, you’re in the house, you’re sitting around in the fire, you’re probably celebrating your wins and losses on your harvest, and there’s something nostalgic about it that we love to remain attached to,” he said. He’s not wrong, and we’ve seen that not just around the fall season but year-round. It is part of why podcasting has grown so exponentially in the past decade: People have grown impatient with quick four-minute legacy news stories to explain something and are drawn toward something longer and more meaningful, something that doesn’t just inform us but also entertains us. In “Bear Grease,” Newcomb draws in those unfamiliar with historical stories and interviews about the ways frontier America is still relevant today, beginning with the moniker of his podcast, which is named after the rendered fat of a bear, which is then turned into a liquid oil that can be used for a multitude of things and was the fuel of the American frontier. The black bear, the second most widely distributed big game mammal in North America, had more tallow than any other animal. Before the modern convenience of widespread fossil fuels, animal oil was an essential component of survival for frontier families. The podcast brings so much of American history and life; it is hard to stop listening. Newcomb says that success in life comes from being able to connect to the values of your culture: “The most ancient possible way to connect people to those values is through an oral story. It’s not even the written word. It’s not a video program. It is people sitting around a fire telling a story. It’s primitive, and it is deep when a father tells a story to his sons at a hunting camp. That’s what I feel like we’re trying to tap into. When I tell a story, it is just a full-throttle story. And there’s just so much you learn from a story. You learn the values of the storyteller,” he said. American stories carry a value system; they always do. It is parabolic, and there’s a lot of hidden meaning inside stories. The ones that persist long enough to become folklore sometimes carry the values of the people who interpreted that story for the first time. There is a reason you are told not to whistle in the woods after dark: It is a tale that was likely a warning to young people that nothing good ever happens in the woods after dark. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post American Folklore Is More Than Just Scary Stories; It Carries a Value System appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Is the Climate Grift Collapsing?

Ye be warned.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs. Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.The new currency of powerThe world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.Two futures — both ending in tyrannyAmericans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy. Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.The forgotten wayA third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.RELATED: How Bill Gates and friends turned global health into a profit machine — at your expense AvigatorPhotographer via iStock/Getty ImagesThat idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.Both are traps.The only wayThe only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

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Messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers a few days into their voyage to the battlefields of France during World War I have been found more than a century later on Australia's coast. The Brown family found the Schweppes-brand bottle just above the waterline at...