Free Republic

It seems like ancient history now, but in the run-up to the presidential election of 2016, many educators warned that then-candidate Donald Trump did not have the temperament to be president. We listened closely to his words—the constant stream of insults, the belittling, the bullying. We recognized these outbursts. This was adolescent behavior at its worst. We knew then that this man should not be president and we knew he would be a terrible role model for our students.One year in, and it is even worse than many of us imagined it would be.

Picked-up pieces while wondering whether “bomb cyclone” and “survive the ground” have ever been used in the same sentence . . . ■ For the record, Nancy Kerrigan has not seen “I, Tonya” and doesn’t care to discuss the cinematic softening of Tonya Harding. “I, Tonya” is a terrific film, perhaps Oscar-worthy, and Harding is on a redemption tour 24 years after her goons kneecapped Kerrigan before the Lillehammer Olympics. Tonya was a guest of honor at the recent Golden Globes and the subject of a TV special that aired on ABC Thursday night. Dollars to doughnuts she’ll be at...

A female student who told school administrators she'd been sexually assaulted by a teacher was suspended and then forced to apologize to the accused perpetrator and hug him, according to an indictment against three Colorado school officials handed down Wednesday. Principal David Gonzales, Vice Principal AJ MacIntosh and counselor Cheryl Somers-Wegienka of Prairie Middle School in Aurora, Colo. were named in the indictments, FOX31 Denver reported. The Cherry Creek School District informed parents MacIntosh and Gonzales were placed on administrative leave “pending the outcome of the court proceedings.” Somers-Wegienka stopped working at the school before the indictment. The indictment stems...

Right before he turned himself in on a warrant, Kyle Barrett said he got one last moment with his 4-year-old daughter Gabrielle. “I got to give her a kiss and a hug and say I loved her,” he told the Detroit Free Press. It would be the last time the 26-year-old from Sumpter Township, Michigan, would ever see his daughter alive. Police say they found Gabrielle unresponsive on Jan. 1 just before 11 a.m. with burns and bruises covering her body, according to Michigan Live. The girl, who family members were performing CPR on when officers arrived, was pronounced dead...

Richard A. Root caused more than 20 broken bones in the infant, along with a brain bleed. Oshkosh, WI - A man who severely beat his two-month-old daughter in March, causing more than 20 broken bones and bleeding on the brain, was just sentenced after both the defense and prosecution argued against prison time. Richard A. Root, 21, of Oshkosh, pleaded no contest to a charge of child neglect resulting in great bodily harm in Winnebago County Court in August, and was found guilty, according to WGBA. He had originally been charged with child abuse, recklessly causing great harm. "My...

Brett Pendleton raped an 8-year-old girl, and forced her to eat methamphetamine, police said. Washington, MO – A 48-year-old parolee confessed that he raped an 8-year-old girl, fed her methamphetamine, and forced her to smoke marijuana, police said on Wednesday. Brett Pendleton, 48, has been charged with sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The incident occurred at an American Inn hotel on Jan. 1, Washington Police Department (WPD) Detective Betsey Schulze told KTVI. According to WPD Detective Sergeant Steve Sitzes, the child was Pendleton’s relative, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The girl’s mother...

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A Hillsborough County man is charged with murdering his step-son, then forcing the boy’s brothers to sleep in the same bed with the body all night. 31-year-old Jack Junior Montgomery is being held at the county jail on $870-thousand dollars bond. He is accused of repeatedly punching and kicking 7-year-old Brice Russell. Montgomery told investigators he disciplined the child after Brice got out of bed to get a cookie.

California - A new study has found that smoking marijuana is increasing among pregnant women in California, which leads to health concerns about the unborn child. The study was published on Dec. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, according to Fox News, and used the medical records of 279,000 women residing in California who were on Kaiser Permanente, a health care service. Women who agreed to participate were asked to answer a questionnaire when they were about eight weeks pregnant, and take a drug test to see if they tested positive for marijuana use. In the study,...

The world is changing.  It's fierce (in a good way).  Somewhere in it, among everyone else trying to break out of their insecurity shells, is a young boy named Ethan.  This 8-year-old heard the call to become something outside of the status quo, and he's rocking it with untethered passion.  Ethan wants to dress in drag and, with the support of his mom, he's making it happen.  Keep reading to see the professionally made-up Ethan donning his dream appearance — that of a fierce drag queen. Do you support your children in whatever choices they make?  Let us know in the comments!

A man whose speech defending same-sex marriage went viral in 2011 has announced his bid for an Iowa State Senate seat. Zach Wahls, who was 19 when he made the viral video, gave a powerful speech to the Iowa House of Representatives’s Judiciary Committee about growing up with two moms. The video was YouTube’s most-watched political video that year. Wahls, now 26, is running as a Democrat to fill the Iowa State Senate seat for the 37th District, which will be vacated by Democrat Bob Dvorsky, who is not seeking reelection. Wahls announced his campaign on Twitter on Dec. 21,...

OKMULGEE, Okla. -- An Okmulgee man is behind bars after police say he beat his girlfriend's five-year-old because the little boy opened a Christmas present early. The child's mother says her boyfriend was watching her children while she was Christmas shopping Saturday. She came home to something she never thought she would see. She saw bruises to her five-year-old son's back and arms, whelps on his forehead, and an apparent hand print on his cheek. In a Facebook post, the mother wrote, "Words cannot explain seeing your baby like this and having no clue what happened. I ran to him...

(FoxNews.com) - A Wisconsin man convicted of beating his 2-month-old daughter -- breaking more than 20 of the infant’s bones and causing bleeding in her brain -- has been sentenced to six months behind bars. The jail term for Richard A. Root, 21, of Oshkosh, was part of seven years of probation for child neglect resulting in great bodily harm, the Oshkosh Northwestern reported. Winnebago County Circuit Judge Thomas Gritton also ordered Root to avoid alcohol and drugs, keep a steady job or attend school full time, and undergo counseling, the newspaper reported.

<p>LANCASTER — Los Angeles County authorities say two parents have been arrested on suspicion of trying to sell their two sons for drugs.</p> <p>Sheriff's officials said Monday that deputies responded last week to a home in the Mojave Desert city of Lancaster following reports of possible child abuse.</p>

Whether the police have the right to force your teenage son to masturbate in front of them in order to incriminate himself is a legal question few parents would think they’d have to consider. And yet Trey Sims’ legal guardians had to do exactly that. In an effort to prosecute the 17-year-old for sexting his 15-year-old girlfriend, Manassas police detective David Abbott obtained a search warrant authorizing him to take “photographs of [Sims’] genitals,” including “a photograph of the suspect’s erect penis.” According to court documents, in the process of executing the search warrant, Abbott took the teenager to a...

With so much confusion surrounding the whole issue of gender identity, transgenderism, and gender dysphoria, it can be refreshing to have a true expert come out and give us some well-researched facts on the matter. That is exactly what Dr. Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, has done in this new video. Her remarks are direct and very hard-hitting. “Our bodies declare our sex,” opened Cretella in the video posted by The Daily Signal. “Biological sex is not assigned. Sex is determined at conception by our DNA. It is stamped into every cell of our bodies.” This...

More than a quarter of California schoolchildren between 12 and 17 believe their peers see them as “gender nonconforming,” meaning those boys are perceived as more feminine and the girls as more masculine, according to a new study that is among the first of its kind in the U.S. The study made public Wednesday found that the 27 percent of California children perceived as gender nonconforming are more than twice as likely to experience psychological distress, such as bullying, as their gender conforming counterparts. The study did not find that gender nonconforming children have statistically significant higher levels of suicide,...

Former child star Corey Feldman revealed on Wednesday he survived a “near-death experience” after two trucks apparently tried to run him over — all because he's working to expose what he calls a pedophlia ring that's plagued Hollywood for decades. The star posted an ominous video to social media explaining what he plans to do, and described how his physical safety is in danger because of this plan. He previously also posted vague tweets promising a big announcement about the pedophlia that he’s been reporting happened to him and former child star Corey Haim for years In his 2013 memoir,...

Pink has opened up about how she’s raising her kids as gender neutral, and shared what she really thinks of Donald Trump. The “Beautiful Trauma” singer told The People that she does not want to impose traditional gender roles on her two children, six-year-old daughter Willow and 11-month-old son Jameson. “We are a very label-less household,” the pop star said of her family with motorcycle racer Carey Hart. “Last week Willow told me she is going to marry an African woman. I was like: ‘Great, can you teach me how to make African food?’” Pink said. “And she’s like: ‘Sure...

Investigators have recovered a body in a creek believed to be 3-year-old Mariah Woods, officials said Saturday. District Attorney Ernie Lee told reporters that divers recovered the body in neighboring Pender County, about 25 miles from Mariah's home in Jacksonville. He added that they were awaiting a medical examiner's report to determine the official cause of death. The body was found hours after Earl Kimrey, the live-in boyfriend of Mariah's mother, was arrested and held on $1 million bond. He is charged with concealing of death, obstruction of justice, second-degree burglary, felony larceny and possession of stolen property. Prosecutors are...

A three-week-old boy suffered a fractured skull when authorities say his mother threw him at his father's feet during an argument. Heidy Rios, 24, of Terrytown, was arrested Friday (Nov. 24) and booked with cruelty to a juvenile, according to a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office arrest report.