Free Republic

Parents across Massachusetts are upset over new rules that would not only allow transgender students to use their restrooms of their choice – but would also punish students who refuse to affirm or support their transgender classmates. Last week the Massachusetts Department of Education issued directives for handling transgender students – including allowing them to use the bathrooms of their choice or to play on sports teams that correspond to the gender with which they identify. The 11-page directive also urged schools to eliminate gender-based clothing and gender-based activities – like having boys and girls line up separately to leave...

With Free Republic being down Monday thru part of Thursday, some may not have seen this latest wave regarding the recent struggle calling for Mormons to either reform their church -- or leave it. Some internal Mormon critics -- like John Dehlin -- favors Mormons staying, but realizes that's NOT an option for all disafffected Lds. (Three of the links below are from PowerPoint presentations by Dehlin) Along these lines, these articles/presentations were all posted on FR last Sunday...feel free to either comment here...or go to one or more of these links below and comment there...Also...the first, second, and sixth...

The Congressional Budget Office says the current year's budget deficit will be a record $1.5 trillion. It also says that over the next decade we're on track for annual deficits of "only" $768 billion. I suspect the CBO has hired Rosy Scenario to do the bookkeeping, but let's take that number at face value. I'm now going to balance the budget, with the help of some experts. I'll begin with things I'm most eager to cut. Let's privatize air traffic control. Canada did it, and it works better. Then privatize Amtrak. Get rid of all subsidies for rail. That'll save...

Muslim activists often complain that murders by Muslims are over-reported. In fact they are often under-reported. Ali Syed shot six people in Orange County, killing three of them, and yet the story has not gotten the media coverage of other mass shootings. The media has reported it, but has failed to highlight it. And the word “Muslim” never appears in the report.

Stimulus déjà vu-lishness lurks: Another “green” tech company that received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is financially troubled, seeks a buyer (or their preferred term – a “partner”), and China is ready to swoop in and buy up the remains on the cheap. And the same two Republican senators who slammed the last deal that went down like this are sickened again. The first time this happened it was electric car battery maker A123 Systems that set up a deal to get $249 million (plus other multimillion dollar grants) from U.S. taxpayers, who thengot left holding the bag when...

There were several articles which mentioned Reggie Love disembarking Air Force One after Obama upon his return to DC...yet all mention of such has now been scrubbed from the web (except for a few blog notes).I guess Obama decided the time wasn't right to "come out."

In the opaque world of sovereign debt credit ratings, one of the most important issues facing a rating agency is a country’s economic growth. One of the reasons why the United States has had such large deficits is because economic growth for the last decade and a half has been anemic.  I highlight that here because recently I took umbrage with the Congressional Budget Office projections on the U.S. economy and the country’s budget deficit, writing for Townhall about the budget problems we will face once interest rates begin to rise. The “thorny problem with the CBO forecast is that after this year the report is...

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A Canadian tourist Tuesday was found dead in a water tank on top of a downtown Los Angeles hotel. Elisa Lam, 21, had last been seen at the hotel on Jan. 26. Police and firefighters were summoned to the Cecil Hotel at 640 South Main St. shortly after 10 a.m., according to LAPD Officer Bruce Borihanh. KNX 1070′s Claudia Peschiutta reports guests were disturbed to learn Lam’s nude body was found inside of one of four large water tanks. A maintenance worker discovered the body after he received reports from hotel guests of low water pressure in the building...

Today the White House credited Michelle Obama's three-year-old “Let's Move” initiative with halting and even reversing a thirty year trend of increasing childhood obesity, a trend that has led to what the Centers for Disease Control has called an epidemic. A press release from the Office of the First Lady announced details of a "two day nationwide tour" at the end of the month to celebrate the third anniversary of the program that promotes exercise and healthy eating habits to young people. The press release also included a short history of the program (emphasis added): Mrs. Obama launched Let’s Move! on February 9, 2010 to unite the country around our...

A group of professors has debunked the research of a sociologist, finding that children with heterosexual parents do better in school than those raised by homosexuals. ... According to Allen, every time a study that claims no harm to children raised by same-gender couples is released, it has been successfully disputed when put under a microscope.

Dads matter. President Barack Obama said it recently in Chicago, a city on track for 600 murders this year, the equivalent of two Sandy Hooks per month. Too bad he still does not understand that his left-wing ideology is the problem. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Obama, much of his party and much of the media have been calling for further gun control and advocating "common sense" measures such as limiting the number of rounds in a magazine, "universal" background checks and restrictions on "assault weapons." But there is an 800-pound politically incorrect elephant in the room. Most gun murders...

As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.” Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been... --snip-- Similarly the entire country...

DAYTON — A southwest Ohio woman who says she was fired because she voted for President Barack Obama filed a lawsuit against her former employer. 

Patricia Kunkle’s lawsuit accuses Dayton-based defense contractor Q-Mark Inc. and its president of telling employees that if Obama was re-elected, then his supporters would be the first to be fired, The Dayton Daily News reported. 

Brian Wildermuth, an attorney for the company president, said in a statement that Kunkle was laid off for economic reasons — “nothing more.” 

“I am sure you and your readers are familiar with the ongoing uncertainties regarding defense spending, and thus...

The finger pointing and the blame game of Washington gets old, but a messy representative democracy is better than an efficient dictatorship. This past weekend, I toured Washington with my 5th-grade son, Robert, his classmates and their mothers. I've been to Washington more times than I can remember, but each visit fills me with hope and inspiration. It's not just the city, which in the summer is hot, humid and buggy and in the winter can be bone-chilling (as it was this weekend), but it's what the city stands for: a city created to house the federal government of...

A Washington state man put a lot of planning into his cup of coffee and he may have set a record with it. Behold, "The Quadriginoctuple Frap."

Beau Chevassus says it is the costliest cup of coffee available at Starbucks with a price tag of $47.30.

He ordered a 52-ounce venti with 40 shots of espresso, Frappuccino soy mocha drizzle, and basically everything else on the menu. He placed the order on his birthday, so in admiration, the baristas gave it to him for free!

Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government's health-care overhaul. The giant theme-park resort, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, began informing employees this month that it will offer health-insurance to part-timers "only until December 31, 2013."

Q1: Can you please explain for us how the papal conclave will work? And are there any major aspects of it that will be different this time, because Pope Benedict is still living? –Leah Q2: Who can, and cannot, be elected Pope? –Joseph The Catholic world is still reeling from Pope Benedict’s astounding announcement last week, but the secular media has already been busily declaiming about the possible reasons for the decision, Pope Benedict’s legacy, possible contenders for the job, etc. etc. ad infinitum. In the process, the amount of misinformation that is being disseminated is staggering!

This image pretty much says it all, rape victims have been advied to uninate on themselves, it has been suggested that it is better to make the attacker piss himself. I concur. Check the image here: