Free Republic

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (BP) -- California Baptist University is engaged in a legal battle against a transgender former student who is charging expulsion because of discrimination based on gender identity. Former nursing student Domaine Javier, a male who identifies as female, charges he was kicked out of the Baptist school because he revealed on an episode of MTV'S "True Life" reality show, that he is biologically male, the Press-Enterprise reported. The school counters Javier was expelled for falsely claiming on his application that he is female. A lawsuit Javier filed after the August 2011 expulsion has survived the university's attempt to...

Golfer Phil Mickelson made national headlines this year when he dared to grouse about his ever-growing tax burden. Faced with yet another tax increase in California, he threatened to relocate rather than lose 63 percent of his earnings to greedy governments. Naturally, he was set upon by the news-media horde, who without the benefit of even a peek at his books, declared his tax rate was only 50 percent. To journalists and other lefties, 50 percent doesn't rise to the level of "fair share" for a man of Mr. Mickelson's means. And though they didn't say so, down deep, you...

For a long time now, something has puzzled me, not a faith shaking puzzlement but puzzling nevertheless. The genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew shows Jesus, descended from King David, through his son Solomon thusly: 6 And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; 7 And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; 8 And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; 9 And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; 10 And...

Apartheid, as practiced in South Africa from the late 1940s until the early 1990s, was a body of law that ensured the supremacy of the white minority and deprived generations of black Africans of the most fundamental rights and government protections. Using this term to describe current practices in the United States and other Western nations is tantamount to applying the "Nazi" label to anyone with whom one disagrees on matters of policy. Deploying such a loaded term discredits the speaker. Consider the NAACP's New Haven branch discredited. The branch got a bit of news-media buzz last week upon releasing...

Hollywood comes out this week with "42," its first feature movie on the life of Jackie Robinson since the hero himself starred in "The Jackie Robinson Story" in 1950. Despite the 63 years between the movies, Robinson's is an oft-told tale, always at risk of being too self-congratulatory and smug, of celebrating the country's getting over race. But the new movie looks like it may at least depict the great drama of a time when no one really knew what would become of the Robinson experiment — the fearless Robinson provocation, actually, engineered by baseball executive Branch Rickey. In any...

When America was liberalizing divorce in the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was it would produce myriad benefits, especially for women, children and the economy. The arguments survive to this day. Women are better off because they no longer are "trapped in bad marriages"; unshackled from their tormenters, they are free to pursue their careers and otherwise live the happy, productive lives that marriage once denied them. Children are happier and more relaxed when their parents aren't fighting, and get more one-on-one parenting through shared custody. And the economy benefits because divorce creates two households where there was one, while supporting...

I bought a new desk top today, Gateway and it has Windows 8 as the O.S. This is in addition to the desk top I already have, not to replace one. I ignorantly assumed that I'd be able to hook it up and pick up my wireless router signal, not so.. Can anyone tell me what I need to do so? I get a box from widows saying I need an Ethernet cord (not card) and to hook the computer to a modem that's connected to cable, which would make it not wireless at all. Years ago, when I first...

Republican deep thinkers who have been agonizing lately about their party's future should take heart in recent developments in Michigan and Tennessee. The lesson: Money talks. Michigan famously banned mandatory collection of union dues last year, and the measure takes effect Thursday. But public-employee unions are fighting back. "(U)nions representing thousands of public-school and university employees are racing to reach long-term contracts that cement the dues-collection practice for at least the next several years," The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. At one university, a labor contract preserves mandatory dues collection for eight years. Legislative Republicans are engineering a counter-attack. Under...

In nominating Thomas Perez to be secretary of Labor, President Obama cited the personal story of Mr. Perez, a first-generation American, as "remind(ing) us of this country's promise." The president's decision is alarming. Throughout his career, Mr. Perez has been motivated by one goal: the advancement of the far left's agenda. It seems unlikely that he is flexible enough to run the Labor Department as the economy changes rapidly. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Perez was Labor secretary in Maryland. The Washington Post reports he was best known for pushing a minimum-wage increase. Mr. Perez staunchly backed unions, and several...

Not a new problem but I'm looking for a solution, other than the obvious one. Comcast puts a pop up ad for their soft ware on every web page I open, "XFinity Constant Guard". It covers about 75% of the page. There is no way to simply exit out of it, all I can do is grab it in the upper left corner and drag it out of sight to the far right side of the page. I went to Comcast in person yesterday and the woman there said, "I should go into my programs and remove it". The rub...

In his 36 years in Congress, corrupt Democrat Chris Dodd reveled in pawning himself off as an expert on everything, especially the housing and financial-services industries, foreign policy and campaign-finance laws. History tells a different story. Mr. Dodd's vanity presidential run in 2007-08 kept him away from his duties as Senate Banking Committee chairman while the economy was imploding; the collapse was rooted in his manipulation of federal housing policies and his blocking of lending reforms that might have forestalled the Great Recession. On foreign affairs, he is known in some circles as "Sen. Wrong" for his reflexive support of...

People who lost their homes to foreclosure, homeowners whose mortgages are under water, and everyone else who suffered economic and employment miseries because of Chris Dodd's dirty dealings while a U.S. senator from Connecticut, will be interested to know Mr. Dodd is doing a whole lot better than they are. Trade publications report he made $2.4 million in his first year as chief lobbyist for the movie industry. That's almost 14 times what he grossed in his last year in the Senate and nearly twice what his predecessor made. But Mr. Dodd seems intent upon running the Motion Picture Association...

Good morning — despite all the doubts of late, we're confident the sun has risen — and welcome to Sequestered America. On your way to work, presuming the economy hasn't collapsed, don't be surprised to see mushroom clouds in the distance from America's exploding nuclear-weapons stockpiles. Which reminds us: If you work at a nuclear-power plant, you might as well stay home since your reactor by now has melted down and is on its way to China. If you are commuting, try not to run over all the old ladies, disabled children, unvaccinated preschoolers, emaciated mothers and infants, Section 8...

Gearing up for the 2014 gubernatorial election, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is desperate to portray himself as a tax cutter. But even if he prevails in ending municipal taxes on vehicles worth less than $28,500, he can't really believe voters would forget he boosted state taxes by $3.8 billion in this biennium and wants to increase them a further $1.9 billion in the next. In reality, his car-tax plan is a small herd of Trojan horses for taxpayers because scant few people actually will see a net decrease in their tax burden, already the third highest in America. First, there's...

The "national conversation" Americans demanded after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre is fast turning into a diatribe hinged — in some instances unhinged — on government "doing something," no matter how meaningless or expensive. Increasingly, proponents of stricter gun laws and "mental-health reform" claim their demands are rooted in "common sense," a strategy that attempts to pre-empt reasoned debate that surely would unmask them as counterproductive, unaffordable, unenforceable or useless. When the cost of their proposals is challenged, the do-something crowd quickly deploys its "if-it-saves-one-life" excuse and demonizes its critics as enablers of future mass shootings. Still,...

Paul "Skip" Stam, a Republican state lawmaker from North Carolina, is taking some heat for his proposal to ban people on welfare from buying lottery tickets. His bill also proposes to drop "Education" from "N.C. Education Lottery" ads because profits fund many government expenses unrelated to education. Moreover, the state shouldn't use "education" to promote "something that is essentially a scam," he said. It's good to know Connecticut wasn't the only state duped into creating a lottery "for the children" only to see the proceeds diverted for a plethora of political, non-educational purposes. Enforcing Rep. Stam's ban would be problematic,...

Lawmakers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and a number of other states are presenting bills that would require gun owners to buy liability insurance. For the responsible gun owner, it's sensible to have such coverage. Indeed, National Rifle Association members can buy coverage with a $100,000 limit for $47 a year, plus $118 for self-defense coverage. A $250,000 limit costs $67, plus $187 for self-defense coverage. O. Ricardo Pimental, a columnist for the San Antonio, Texas, Express-News, "reached out to a couple of insurance agents who drew a scenario under which gun owners could attach an excess liability or umbrella policy to...

The wealthiest Americans always have had targets on their backs, put there by politicians ginning up class envy to justify ever-more-progressive taxation and wealth distribution. But of late, "the rich" have been subjected to a relentless thrashing at the hands of leftist politicians and "journalists" for being guilty of the crime of first-degree success. The 2012 presidential campaign was all about the Top 1 Percent "not paying their fair share," even though for 100 years they've done the heavy lifting on income taxes. Today, while nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes, the Top 1 Percent account for...

An archaic term, too seldom heard or even contemplated nowadays, is "beyond the pale." Believed to date to the 14th century, it originally had to do with the physical boundaries of English authority in Ireland. Today, it means "beyond the limits of propriety, courtesy, protection, safety, etc.," according to www.dictionary.com. Two notably sordid examples of beyond-the-pale behavior emerged in recent weeks, and those responsible for them seemingly will keep rolling along, free of consequences. On Dec. 25, 2012 (!), a petition was filed on the White House's "We the People" site, calling upon the federal government to declare the Roman...

A proposal to train and arm Washington Community High School administrators will be discussed Monday by the District 308 School Board. Washington Police Chief Jim Kuchenbecker and Superintendent Jim Dunnan devised the plan in the wake of the tragedy last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Three administrators would become special part-time Washington police officers with authority to possess a firearm only inside the high school. The administrators would undergo the same firearms training as all police officers, including a 40-hour course and monthly qualification. “We feel this is a sound, logical plan because Illinois doesn’t allow...

Here are some of the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables for the worst reporting of 2012. DENYING THE OBVIOUS AWARD Host Stephen Dubner: "There is a kind of, I think, common analog, I hope I'm not overstating it by saying that it's common, that Fox News is to the right what The New York Times is to the left. I'm guessing you would see that as a false equivalency on a lot of levels ..." Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal: "The word I want to use here ... begins with 'bull' and ends in 'it' and you can figure out...

The right-to-work movement that has swallowed up Michigan, heretofore the state that seemed least likely to enact legislation that could be construed as anti-union, has evoked a see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil reaction in staunchly pro-union Connecticut. But the facts don't lie. Right-to-work is the key to curing much of what ails the Nutmeg State's economy, and it belongs on lawmakers' radar screen. The strongest argument for right-to-work is that it is a job creator. The strongest argument against it is that those jobs don't pay as well as comparable jobs in the 26 states that have not passed such legislation. Experience...

With the result of the Nov. 6 election being what it was, it is pretty clear a cap-and-trade tax is just around the corner. The cap-and-trade tax is a tax on the production of carbon dioxide. This will affect primarily the energy-producing industries. They will, in turn, undoubtedly pass the tax down to the consumer. The price of electricity should skyrocket, and gasoline prices are estimated to increase by at least 20 cents a gallon. This will bring the United States in line with the rest of the world, which, obviously, the citizens of this country (well, at least half...

<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- A substantial tax credit that couples or individuals receive when they adopt is set to expire at year's end unless Congress acts, and experts fear that without it fewer families will adopt.</p> <p>At issue is the adoption tax credit -- last year it was a maximum of $13,360 -- that allows low- and middle-income families who otherwise couldn't afford it to adopt. Unlike a tax deduction, which only reduces taxable income, a tax credit actually reduces a person's tax liability.</p>

NEW YORK CITY (BP) -- New York City may be one of the more liberal cities in America, but more than 80 percent of voters there believe public officials should neither prevent Chick-fil-A from opening new franchises nor discourage citizens from visiting it, a new poll shows. The Quinnipiac University survey of 1,298 New York City voters showed that by an 82-12 percent margin, the city's voters don't think that the Chick-fil-A president's stance on marriage should "have an impact on their ability to obtain government permits to do business." Similarly, by an 83-11 margin, voters don't believe elected officials...

IRVING, Texas (BP) -- With 100-plus degree temperatures outside the Boy Scouts of America Museum, the sweating, 7-year-old Cruz Burns couldn't come up with an answer as to why his mom was holding a press conference. "Is all this stuff the adults are talking about just weird?" the journalist asked the Tiger Cub Scout, while 32-year-old Jennifer Tyrrell continued to make her case for allowing homosexuals to serve in Boy Scouts leadership. Staring at the ground, tugging at the scarf of his uniform, the little boy nodded, "Yeah." Burns' participation in an Ohio Cub Scout pack was short-lived. His mother,...

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP) -- Today it is popular among those promoting same-sex marriage to say that Jesus never addressed the issue, that He was silent on the subject. Those who affirm the historical and traditional understanding of marriage between a man and woman often are admonished to go and read the Bible more carefully. If we do so, we are told, we will see that Jesus never addressed the issue. So, the question that I want to raise is, "Is this assertion correct?" Is it indeed the fact that Jesus never addresses the issue of same-sex marriage? When one...

I'm retired but while still employed I bought stock in the company I worked for and my wife still buys stock in the company she works for. We've bought lesser amounts in other stocks from time to time with after tax money but these two are our major investments. This stock was bought with after tax money, in her case through payroll deduction with a 15% company match, no match for me in addition she owns some company stock in her 401K. I understand the 401K is untaxed until she starts withdrawing and she will owe taxes on the full...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- The news hit the airwaves like a sudden onslaught, and the truth began to sink in. It has happened again. This time, 71 people shot while attending the midnight premier of the last in the Batman sequence, "The Dark Knight Rises." According to press reports, a 24-year-old man burst into the crowded theater, wearing a gas mask and carrying an arsenal. After deploying what is believed to be tear gas, he opened fire with a shotgun, a rifle and two handguns. At least 12 people are dead, and dozens are injured, many critically. More than 100...

New Orleans lost nearly 30 percent of its population in the first decade of this century. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, more than 150,000 residents finally accepted what scientists have been warning for decades: Geology dooms The Big Easy to a watery grave. Built on the Mississippi River delta, the city is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, an inexorable process hastened by the occasional hurricane and the unintended consequences of flood-control engineering. Many of those who left owned houses. Their difficult choice was to abandon their investment or find someone stupid enough to buy their homes, which everyone knows...

I first read about "Shutterfly" in Forbes, print edition,it's a place to store pictures and it's free. I found the following at the web site: Benefits of a Free Shutterfly Membership Our picture storage is free and unlimited. We never delete photos We securely store your images at full resolution Enjoy free personalized websites 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed Plus, receive 50 free 4x6 prints Pick up prints at Target, Walgreens, or CVS in as little as an hour I currently have an account at "Photobucket" and post pictures at F.R. from that web hosting site but I doubt that they...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- A public line is being drawn in the sand of society by homosexual activists and the politically correct media who support them. There is only one issue that matters and that is, "What do you believe about same-sex marriage?" The current obsession with homosexual nuptials among the politically correct is such that all manner of celebrities are being asked where they stand on the issue, especially those who profess to be Christian or who are perceived to be conservative. Just ask country singer Carrie Underwood. Underwood, who was catapulted to fame when she won the 2005...

For smokers who bargained on roll-your-own cigarette stores for cheap smokes, it looks like those days are numbered. On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes. The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes. Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee...

A Downstate pro-gun group says it turned payouts from Chicago’s firearm buyback program last weekend into a fund-raiser for a youth summer camp — a National Rifle Association shooting camp, that is. The city collected 5,500 guns last Saturday in the annual buyback. The city gave out $100 MasterCard gift cards for each gun and $10 cards for BB guns and replicas. Sixty of the guns and several BB guns were turned in by the Champaign-based Guns Save Life. In return, the group received $6,240 in gift cards, said John Boch, president of the group. Guns Save Life is known...

The story of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s severely diminished prospects for becoming a real force in Chicago politics essentially begins and ends at 312, a restaurant across the street from City Hall. That’s where the Democratic congressman and a top aide sat at a sidewalk table on a sunny day in August 2005. They barely touched their lunches, working their cellphones for the latest news on then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s announcement that federal agents had questioned him. Jackson ultimately balked at challenging Daley, but a little more than three years later, he was at 312 again. This time, the...

Judy Kirby has been dreading this day for nearly 30 years. Since her youngest son, Jason, was shot and killed on Dec. 10, 1983. Since his body was found several hours later on an isolated, private drive in another town. Since a 60-year prison sentence was handed down to Jason’s killer — his own father. Richard Kirby was charged with killing his 5-year-old son by shooting him in the back at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. Richard was arrested at his son’s funeral. A jury later found him guilty even though he pleaded innocent then and, mostly likely, still...

All bullied bus monitor Karen Klein wanted was an apology. Now she's getting that … and then some. Police say the four boys who tormented the 68-year-old on a school bus in upstate New York earlier this week have taken responsibility for their actions. The students are also saying they're sorry. "I feel really bad about what I did," one said in a statement to CNN. "I wish I had never done those things. If that had happened to someone in my family, like my mother or grandmother, I would be really mad at the people who did that to...

Does it seem like your new cherry red car attracts more bird droppings than your old, beat up green one? Well, that may not be your imagination: A recent study into bird behavior suggests that red cars are at the highest danger for being a target for defecating avians. In the study, conducted in June 2012 for online retailer Halfords on 1,140 cars in the U.K., a full 18% of all the red cars tested wound up being the target of a bird bathroom break. Blue cars were almost as targeted, at 14%. Rounding out the study, 11% of black...

Today at the Tazewell County Court House in Pekin, Illinois, our adoption of our children became final. They are Amber Agee and Nick Agee, ages 13 and 12 respectively. Amber and Nick are sister and brother and have been in our care for about 4 years and we have been actively pursuing this adoption for the past two years. Rejoice with us. God is truly wonderful! Our new children will be reading the comments. I'm pinging a few hundred of my close friends, if I omitted anyone it was unintentional. If you're pinged more than once, get over it. Just...

Last month, House Republicans unveiled a plan to cut the federal budget by $261 billion over the next decade. One of the cornerstones of the proposal is a substantial cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as the food-stamp program. Democrats have resorted to their usual demagoguery in the face of spending-cut proposals by the GOP. "We're literally going to take it out of the mouths of babes. It's outrageous," said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. Around the same time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) weighed in on the future of SNAP, which is administered by...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke got it precisely backward last week when he blamed the Chris Dodd Bear Market and Recession on years of high leverage, unstable funding, and deficient risk management by the financial industry. The housing bubble with its subprime mortgages, he asserted, served merely as the trigger. Yes, banks irresponsibly wrote mortgages for millions of unqualified borrowers. Wall Street exacerbated matters by bundling toxic loans and selling them to unsuspecting investors and to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises that knew exactly what was going on when they assumed wave after wave of toxic mortgages to...

For homeowners planning to sell this year, condolences are in order. With the median price hitting a new low since its 2007 peak, Realtors say a big chunk of today’s sellers are in the “have-to” camp as the home buying season is set to shift into higher gear. For home buyers, it remains a dream market, and Realtors say they’ve seen a pick-up in activity as buyers look to take advantage of low interest rates and still-sinking prices. Twenty-five-year-old Sandra Becerra closed in February on a three-bedroom, 1½-bath tri-level home in Burbank she snapped up for $145,000. She said it...

Health care costs have risen in part because doctors order all manner of superfluous tests and treatments in the event they need to prove to a jury their treatment met or exceeded standards for care. If the extra measures actually prevented adverse outcomes, so much the better. Two studies in 2010 found as many as 92 percent of physicians make medical decisions with an eye toward keeping trial lawyers at bay. Defensive medicine has never been without its critics, but since the dawn of Obamacare, it has come under fire from medical researchers and even physicians' groups for making care...

President Obama began his term by pledging to bring about a new era of fiscal responsibility to take on the sizable deficit he inherited. Instead, the Obama years have been marked by soaring deficits and debt, in no small part because of the president's inclination to use federal dollars to remedy every problem. Voters responded by giving Republicans control of the House in 2010. Last week, the House approved a budget crafted by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for fiscal year 2013, which begins Oct. 1. While the budget has no chance of passing the Senate, it clearly demonstrates...

"If you pose a threat to this President, you're not merely a political adversary — you're clearly a bimbo, homosexual, a homophobe, alcoholic, moron, sexual harasser, crook, dupe, fellow traveler, embezzler, or even a murderer." So wrote Washington bureau chief Thomas DeFrank and political reporter Thomas Galvin of the New York Daily News in 1997 about William Jefferson Clinton, a perjurer, misogynist and serial adulterer who maintained a "war room" that specialized in character assassination to put down the numerous "bimbo eruptions" (a phrase coined by former Clinton aide Betsey Wright) that punctuated his presidency. Back in the day, Mr....

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, March 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Politicians usually calculate every action to maximize their popularity among future voters, especially during an election year. But a prominent leader of the nation’s second largest denomination says President Barack Obama’s HHS mandate has the potential to unite Catholics and Protestants into a coalition that will turn him out of office in November. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “The thing that frightens our opponents the most is the specter of an evangelical-Catholic alliance – because they can count.” He told listeners...

Your tax dollars at work. Lyle Scruggs, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, says the Great Recession is responsible for the spike in Americans' skepticism about man-made global warming. Based on his taxpayer-funded review of more than two decades of polling data, Mr. Scruggs says he has correlated people's belief in climate change with their economic well-being: the less secure they feel, the less likely they are to believe. At first blush, that seems logical. When the U.S. economy was robust, Americans were more willing to indulge the fantasies of Internet Al Gore and his...

Last week, The Associated Press reported some members of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest federation of unions, are upset with President Obama's steadfast opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline project. The concerns are justified, and this represents an opportunity for Republicans as Mr. Obama tries to convince Americans unemployment is receding. The economy gained 227,000 jobs in February, 16,000 jobs short of January's figure. The unemployment rate, still at a 30-year high, has not been below 8 percent since the spring of 2009, just months after Mr. Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus his former chief economic adviser said would...

As Connecticut's economy struggles to recover from the recession of the past few years, it has many obstacles to overcome. Near the top of the list is the state's reputation for being inhospitable to business. It is routine for state government to increase taxes (and spending), while saddling business owners with do-gooder regulations and mandates. Also contributing to Connecticut's anti-business reputation is the willingness of Hartford politicians to cater to organized labor. With this in mind, a piece of legislation currently under consideration would take Connecticut's union-coddling reputation to a new low, and further poison an already dismal business climate....

I'm so sick of all the fighting and mud slinging between Newt and Rick supporters,, I could puke. Neither one is the enemy. We have a real and immediate enemy in Mitt Romney. Like many others here, I'll not vote for Romney if he's anywhere on the Republican ticket, I'll not vote for Obama either and for those of you who will tell me that not voting for Romney in the general if he's the nominee, is the same as voting for Obama, I just don't give a rats ass any more. I'm getting way too old to settle for...