Free Republic

A reader writes: I manage a high end resort-like property that has a mix of short term guests (vacationers) and long-term guests (residents). We aren’t big enough for a separate HR department, so that usually falls to me and/or our CFO. Our amenities such as the fitness center, clubhouse, and the pool/spa are open to all guests; they are not separated by length of stay. We have a long-term guest, let’s call them Pat, who has been a resident about six years. A couple of years ago, they came out as non-binary and for the most part this has been...

I'm hoping to sell my house by springtime (I need a bigger one for my wife and kids) and would like my bathroom redone. Needs some drywall work, new bathroom tub and shower surround, etc. I had a really hard time finding contractors and I got two bids. I can pick out the items from Home Depot I want him to install. Nothing fancy or complicated. is it expected for me to buy the items I want him to install? Or does he do that as part of the cost of the job?

CNN) — After a woman tested positive for Covid-19 midflight, the bathroom became her seat for the next few hours. Marisa Fotieo was on an Icelandair flight from Chicago to Reykjavik, Iceland, on December 19, en route to her final destination of Switzerland with her brother and father.

The superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools sent a brief, confidential email to school board members on May 28 — the same day a female student at Stone Bridge High School said she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom. In an email provided to WTOP by the school system, Superintendent Scott Ziegler alerted the board that the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office was investigating the incident, but provided few details. The school board is often notified of major incidents at schools, but rarely given the specifics or told about who is involved because the board may be involved in student disciplinary...

Boy in dress came into girls' bathroom and molested his daughter.

I love a good, hot bath. I'm 73 and mobility is a problem. Walk ins are expensive- Has anyone invented a drop-on-top-of-your-existing-tub-rail, a door unit that raises an existing tub to around 30", so I can sit on a chair in a "walk in" without paying 6K ?

Most police departments—including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police—are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely. Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building. For the past six...

To quote, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld: This is a "known known" (by the swamp). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns Why is this NOT public information?

BURLINGTON, NJ—Local man Bradley Waters was reading an interesting story he'd seen on Facebook while on the toilet this morning. He wasn't sure if everything in the story was true, but he thought it was a significant story anyway. He was about to share it on Facebook with some thoughtful comments encouraging his friends to check it out and use their own judgment to figure out if it's true. But just as his finger hovered over the share button, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg jumped out from behind his shower curtain to warn him the story might be fake news. "Greetings,...

The superintendent of the City Schools of Decatur, a district of metropolitan Atlanta, secretly instituted a gender identity policy in 2016 allowing students of both sexes to enter any bathroom they chose. In November 2017, a kindergarten girl was allegedly sexually assaulted in her Decatur school bathroom by a boy who was allowed to be there because of that policy. After reporting the assault to district officials but getting little response, the girl’s mother, Pascha Thomas, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR’s recently released findings illustrate the dangers and deception inherent...

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Tokyo — The latest must-have product to take Japan by storm isn't high-tech and it certainly isn't garnering rave reviews in glossy design magazines. The country where electronically controlled, heated, bidet-accessorized, high-tech toilets are commonplace has in fact made another contribution to lavatory luxury. High-end toilet paper is rolling off the shelves. So what's convinced Japanese consumers to fork out more than $12 per roll? It started five years ago in the sleepy paper-making town of Tosa, on Japan's southwestern island of Shikoku. The aging owner of an obscure, family-run paper company called Mochitsuki Seishi was troubled by sensitive skin...

All publicly available single-occupancy bathrooms in Baltimore are now required to be gender-inclusive after Bernard C. “Jack” Young signed a bill banning gender-specific restrooms into law Saturday during Baltimore’s Pride Parade. Young made Baltimore the latest major metropolitan city to ban the use of gender-specific single-use bathrooms at private and publicly owned establishments. Bill 19-0385 will also require gender-inclusive signage, as words like “All Gender” or “Gender Included” will be mandated over gender-specific signage. Establishments can also just call them “restrooms.”

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke of Texas swung through North Carolina on Monday opening with greetings of “buenos dias” to nearly 100 students and others in Charlotte. Newly minted Democrat State Senator Mujtaba Mohammed, elected in 2018, launched the Central Piedmont Community College event around 9 a.m. It was the first of three 2020 campaign events for O’Rourke in North Carolina on Monday. O’Rourke’s opening remark on gerrymandering elicited cheers from the crowd. He threw in mention of LGBT issues, voter suppression, and a new voting rights act.

The liberal bastion of Massachusetts is sweating over a ballot initiative that could overturn a 2016 law that opened women's public restrooms to men. Bay State voters will see several issues on their ballot in November, including the results of an underdog, grassroots effort to fight the bill signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker. The grassroots effort, begun by 21 people just weeks after Baker signed the bill, meant collecting 50,000 signatures in 45 days. Yet the group now known as Keep MA Safe successfully gathered enough certified signatures by the deadline, and that effort is listed as Question...

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Montclair Public School District is rolling out a new initiative this year: "all-gender restrooms" in each building. Superintendent Kendra Johnson alerted local parents and guardians about the restroom changes as part of a "Welcome Back" letter sent at the beginning of the school year. According to Johnson, 2018-19 will be the first year that the district has at least one "all-gender" restroom in each school building.

What was supposed to be a flight to paradise turned into a smelly debacle when a problem arose with the plane’s restrooms. A woman aboard an American Airlines flight to Kona, Hawaii, from Phoenix said passengers were being asked to urinate in plastic bags and bottles. She took video of a flight attendant asking her to go in a plastic bag.

A woman running for Congress shared a video of herself on social media confronting a transgender woman at Denny’s for using the women’s bathroom. Jazmina Saavedra, who’s running as a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in California’s 44th District, posted the video to her Facebook page Tuesday. The video shows her going into the women’s bathroom at the Los Angeles restaurant to confront someone in a stall. “I’m trying to use the ladies room and there is a man here saying he’s a lady,” she tells the camera as she enters the bathroom. The person inside the bathroom tells Saavedra...

A prejudiced California pol likely flushed whatever election hopes she had down the drain after targeting a transgender person in a restaurant bathroom. Social-media users are attacking Republican ­congressional candidate Jazmina Saavedra over her videotaped harassment of a transgender woman who used a ladies’ room at a Los Angeles Denny’s last week.

Customers are not only paying for the coffee; they are paying for the heat and air conditioning, tables, accessible WiFi and bathrooms. Partners are paid to keep the place clean and comfortable for customers who spend literal hours studying, working, and holding meetings in the store. It seems like a fair trade to me. It doesn’t seem like a fair trade to me, however, if I pay $5 for my drink and then have to wait in line with a bunch of random tourists who just walked in wanting to use the single-family bathroom without buying anything. It also doesn’t...