Free Republic

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ deputies are ending President Barack Obama’s last-minute decision to impose the transgender ideology in federal prisons. Obama’s January 2017 transgender policy directed prison officials to allow men to move into women’s prisons if the men claim a female “gender identity.” Sessions’ revised policy says officials “will use biological sex as the initial determination” when assigning people to either male or female prisons, according to the policy document published May 11 by Buzzfeed. Critics said Obama’s transgender policy would have created huge risks of rape because few people who say they are transgender have undergone genital cosmetic...

Did President Trump know something? Almost five years ago, Mr. Trump tweeted that Eric Schneiderman, then the new New York attorney general, was “worse than” two well-known Democratic sex criminals. On Monday night, Mr. Schneiderman was the object of the latest #MeToo bombshell. The New Yorker reported in a lengthy feature about four women — two named, two unnamed — accusing Mr. Schneiderman of slapping and choking them in intimate situations without consent and with threatening them with surveillance and death if they talked. Within hours of the article’s publication, Mr. Schneiderman resigned. Mr. Trump compared Mr. Schneiderman in a...

The Illinois Senate has approved a bill that would require public schools to teach LGBT history. The measure passed Wednesday on a 34-18 vote, according to The Associated Press. It mandates elementary and high schools teach a unit studying "the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State." School boards would be allowed to determine how much instructional time is spent on the subject. If the legislation passes in the House and it is signed into law, Illinois would become the second state to require an inclusive LGBT curriculum....

Twenty-seven more women have accused Charlie Rose of sexual harassment, according to a report Thursday that says CBS was alerted to his alleged behavior as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017. The 76-year-old journalist was fired from CBS and PBS in November in light of sexual misconduct allegations from eight women. But an additional 27 have now come forward — 14 CBS News employees and 13 others who worked with him elsewhere, according to the Washington Post, which conducted five months of interviews and spoke with more than 100 of his former colleagues. The new allegations date...

A transgender inmate is suing a North Carolina prison, saying it’s blocking her from practicing witchcraft. The Charlotte Observer reports 40-year-old Jennifer Ann Jasmaine says in the lawsuit that chaplains at the all-male Lanesboro Correctional Institution have violated her constitutional rights by restricting when, where and how she can practice Wicca, the religion based on ancient pagan beliefs. Jasmaine also says Lanesboro refused to provide her with the foods Wiccans are supposed to eat. By contrast, Jasmaine said Christian inmates at Lanesboro are allowed to worship six times a week, while Native Americans can conduct their rituals three times weekly....

Investigators said they have not yet recovered a murder weapon. Corina said investigators are working to determined a motive in the fatal stabbing. Friends and investigators at the scene said the suspect was Sanchez's boyfriend, and that the victim was ending their relationship. Officials do not believe anyone else was involved. Students and staff at South El Monte High School were just learning about his death Thursday. Grief counselors will be made available to students wishing to talk. “Jeremy was a well-known student here. … I believe he played baseball, football, wrestling … a year-round athlete,” El Monte Union High...

In 1967, a Boston Marathon official nearly dragged a woman off the course after she managed to enter the men's-only race. Five decades later, race officials aren't as concerned about gender boundaries: They're now publicly acknowledging that transgender runners can compete using the gender they identify with. "We take people at their word. We register people as they specify themselves to be," said Tom Grilk, chief of the Boston Athletic Association, the group behind the race. "Members of the LGBT community have had a lot to deal with over the years, and we'd rather not add to that burden." At...

Vatican Promoter of Justice issues arrest warrant for Msgr Capella On Saturday morning at the request of the Vatican Promoter of Justice, the investigating Magistrate of the Vatican City State Tribunal, an arrest warrant was issued for Msgr Carlo Alberto Capella. According to a statement from the Vatican Press Office, the former Vatican Diplomat is now being held in a cell in the barracks of the Gendarmerie in the Vatican.This arrest comes at the end of an investigation on the part of the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice. The investigation in the Vatican was opened in the fall of 2017 after...

There’s breaking news coming out of San Antonio, Texas tonight where a formerly powerful Democrat, Attorney Mark Benavides, has been found guilty on six individual counts of human trafficking in a grotesque and sex-filled criminal conspiracy. Mark Benavides, a well-known Democrat who ran for the 186th District Court in 2014, was accused by federal law enforcement of trading his legal services as an attorney for sex from his clients and then recording those manipulative sex-romps, according to local ABC affiliate KSAT 12 in San Antonio. The clients of Benavides were all criminals such as prostitutes and drug addicts, all of...

“There is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service," American Medical Association CEO Dr. James Madara wrote in a letter addressed to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The letter, sent Tuesday on behalf of "physician and medical student members" of the AMA, the nation's largest association of physicians, comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration released an order banning most transgender troops from serving in the military except under "limited circumstances." "The accession or retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria — those...

...secretive group in upstate New York...videotaped ceremonies where they were branded in their pelvic area with a symbol featuring Raniere’s initials. “During the branding ceremonies, slaves were required to be fully naked, and the master would order one slave to film while the other held down the slave being branded,” the complaint says...“slaves” had to stick to very low-calorie diets...“forced to wear fake cow udders over their breasts while people called them derogatory names,” or threatened with being put in cages,...Raniere has been bankrolled by Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune. Bronfman gave millions of dollars covering...

Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday to promote her new children’s book, Chelsea Clinton was treated to predictable fawning coverage. However, what made the softball segment particularly galling was the tone-deaf manner in which co-host Robin Roberts teed up the former first daughter to voice support for the #MeToo movement while not bothering to mention Bill Clinton’s treatment of women.(snip) Roberts followed up by urging Clinton to speak out on the anti-sexual harassment movement across the country: “You’re mother, great advocate for women and girls. You have been the same way, Chelsea. And seeing this #MeToo movement and...

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives approved H. Res. 724, a measure that prohibits sexual relationships between lawmakers and their staffers. The bill, pushed by Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), is the first significant step toward changing the system that has faced numerous sexual misconduct scandals against lawmakers in recent months amid the nationwide #MeToo movement. The measure is effective immediately, according to the Washington Post. The bill affects the House only.

After sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against his husband late last year, Senate President Stan Rosenberg reassured his colleagues about a key concern: His husband, Bryon Hefner, had no influence on Senate business. But according to interviews with those who dealt with Hefner, and communications reviewed by the Globe, Hefner was deeply involved in matters that Rosenberg had vowed to bar him from when he ascended to the presidency in 2015. They reveal that Hefner had full access to Rosenberg’s e-mails, attempted to affect the state budget, and involved himself in the workings of his husband’s office, as well as...

Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” while discussing Family Research Council president Tony Perkins saying evangelical voters gave Trump a “mulligan” for his alleged sexual indiscretions, co-host Meghan McCain said “young Republicans” are not going to “stand for” evangelical groups’ anti-LGBTQ “crap.”

Katie Couric has finally broken her silence over Matt Lauer’s sexual assault accusations and his firing from the “Today” show. “The whole thing has been very painful for me,” Couric told People Magazine. “The accounts I’ve read and heard have been disturbing, distressing and disorienting and it’s completely unacceptable that any women at the ‘Today’ show experienced this kind of treatment.” Couric co-hosted NBC’s “Today” show with Lauer for 15 years, but left in May 2006 to anchor “CBS Evening News.” “I had no idea this was going on during my tenure or after I left,” she continued. “I think...

Boris Niehaus / Görlitzer Park, Sputnik News, November 12, 2017: Police have arrested a 23-year-old Syrian for allegedly raping a pony at a children’s zoo in Berlin; the man’s crime was witnessed by shocked visitors who took a photo of the incident and handed it over to the authorities. The incident occurred at around 3pm on Friday, November 3 at the Kinderbauernhof (children’s farm) area of the German capital‘s Goelitzer Park. The man was spotted by a babysitter, who was visiting the zoo with a child. “My babysitter was at Goerlitzer Park with our son when they witnessed the man...

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said he believes former President George H.W. Bush is a “pervert” while condemning the Bush family for speaking out against President Trump. “I really detest them,” Bannon said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I mean, the old man is a pervert. He’s a pervert. Grabbing these girls and grabbing their asses?” The former White House official was alluding to recent reports of several women accusing the former president of sexual assault, to which he has publicly apologized. “To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke, and...

Princeton University has become the latest Ivy League school to officially 'charter' a student organization that embraces the unconventional sexual methods of bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism, also known as BDSM. And it's about to make its debut in the spring semester. The new group, called “Princeton Plays,” is now officially recognized by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, as well as the Undergraduate Student Government, making the club eligible to apply for and receive university funding. “Through conversation, we kinda realized that we wanted a space for this on campus, more than what was out here, which...

Los Angeles Congressman Brad Sherman is being accused of creating a toxic work environment for his employees after longtime aide and California Assemblyman Matt Dababneh was accused of sexual harassment while working in his office. Eight former aides said the environment in Sherman’s D.C. and California offices made them feel so uncomfortable that many junior staff members felt they could not raise concerns about harassment or any other matter, according to a report from the McClatchy D.C. Bureau. On Friday, Dababneh said he would resign from his position as assemblyman after several allegations of harassment, including sexual assault, were made...