Free Republic

A person who says they " queer, trans-nonbinary, autistic" is asking for $4,000 to flee Kentucky as Republican legislators across the US wage war against LGBT+ rights. Earlier this year lawmakers in the state pushed through a bill dubbed "most extreme anti-LGBTQ bill in America ". The bill, SB 150, which passed despite the Governor's attempt to veto it, bans transgender medical treatment for minors and restricts discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. The GoFundMe fundraiser is just one of the latest being highlighted by The Mirror that shows how restrictive laws against LGBT+ people are forcing...

Meet the ‘Queen of Chaos,’ a 23-year-old college East Kentucky University student by the name of Rayanna Belle Brock, who’s made quite the splash on social media with her mugshots. In fact, she’s already been arrested a whopping 11 times! It all started back in March 2018 when she got caught shoplifting. At this point, however, she’s been taken in for all sorts of crimes, from terror-related offenses to stealing a firearm. If you check out her Instagram, you’ll find a highlight called ‘mugshawty,’ a nod to a popular account that shares mugshots from all over America. Rayanna proudly shows...

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a same-sex couple who sued a former county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue them a marriage license, claiming that doing so would violate her religious beliefs. Kim Davis, the former clerk in Rowan County, Ky., was sued by two same-sex couples to whom she refused to grant marriage licenses. The district court found Davis personally liable in both cases, but only awarded damages in one. In the case Ermold v. Davis, the jury awarded $50,000 to each of the plaintiffs, David Ermold and David Moore, according to attorneys for Davis. No...

According to a report from the Washington Times, should Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decide to step down due to health concerns, Kentucky's Democratic governor already has already made the constitutional case that he can pick a Democrat to fill the seat despite a law the state GOP majority passed in 2021. With questions being raised about how long the senior Republican will remain in Congress after an incident last week where he stood stock-still and appeared unable to speak before reporters -- only to be led away by some of his GOP colleagues -- attention in Kentucky has...

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had another medical episode in Covington, Kentucky. The aging Republican leader appeared to have lost his train of thought, staring into the abyss for at least 30 seconds before aides helped. The press had asked the Kentucky Republican if he planned to run for re-election in 2026. This incident of mental paralysis is the second time McConnell froze at the podium in less than three months. He had a similar incident on the Hill in July, preceded by a fall at Reagan National Airport. McConnell joins the ranks of Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman, two other...

LEXINGTON, KY — Senator Mitch McConnell revealed today his reelection campaign slogan, "..............". "..................................................," said Mr. McConnell, in an apparent statement. ".................................." As aides checked for a pulse, Senate Republicans rallied behind the GOP minority leader. "It's a powerful message," said Senator Rick Scott. "Mitch takes the time to really stare, for an extended period, at the everyday Americans we are working to serve. We are here to listen, during lengthy silences, to the concerns of our constituents. This is what the Republican party is all about." At publishing time, Mr. McConnell's press team had assured Americans that the Senator...

Less than two weeks into the school year, a Kentucky school district has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the week after nearly a fifth of its students came down with Covid, strep throat, the flu and other illnesses. The Lee County School District, which has just under 900 students, began classes Aug. 9 but noticed attendance drop to about 82% on Friday, Superintendent Earl Ray Schuler said. By Monday, the rate dipped to 81%, and 14 staff members called in sick, Schuler said. The district canceled classes Tuesday and Wednesday and will shift to remote learning Thursday and...

Deep in the hills of Appalachia is a land of beauty laced with heavy dr*g abuse. In some of these communities up to 50% of the 20-40 year olds are addicted to hard dr*gs creating a generation of children being raised by grandparents. Join me and the locals as we travel into the hills of Eastern Kentucky to show you the gravity of this situation, and also introduce you to the people who are creating positive ways out.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – During his weekly Team Kentucky news conference, Gov. Andy Beshear again voiced his opposition to gender reassignment surgery for minors and took a swipe at his Republican challenger, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, for emphasizing the issue. “Daniel Cameron has taken this race to the gutter in a way I’ve never seen,” Beshear said. “Right now, I think if you ask him about climate change, I think he’ll say it’s caused by children in gender reassignment surgeries.” Cameron has accused Beshear of lying about whether he supports transgender procedures for children. As Kentucky Today reported, the University...

More than 100 parents contacted the Courier Journal to report problems with their child's transportation. Parents said they were particularly upset by the district's lack of communication about when their children would arrive home from school. The last bus riders weren't dropped off until 9:58 p.m. Smallwood said the bus her children rode didn’t have air conditioning, and since kids weren’t allowed to have food or drink on the bus, her autistic daughter, who has low blood sugar and must eat every two hours, was told she couldn’t eat because there were “no exceptions.” Smallwood said her family also couldn’t...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was heckled and jeered by a home state crowd as he gave a speech at the annual “Fancy Farm Picnic.” During comments criticizing Kentucky’s Democrat Governor Andy Beshear, McConnell was confronted with extended boos and the chants of “Retire, Retire, Retire,” and “lost the Senate.”The “boo bird” arrived during McConnell’s opening sentence and increased in volume as he went on.In the end, even the public address system couldn’t help.🚨Mitch McConnell gets drowned out by chants of “RETIRE” from his own constituents during a speech in Kentucky.It’s over for him.Step down.pic.twitter.com/0h5gMMDaPU— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 7,...

Authorities arrested a Kentucky mother after a 17-month-old toddler died of severe sexual abuse injuries. Erica Lawson, 21, was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter, first-degree criminal abuse against a child under 12, and first-degree wanton endangerment and failure to report child neglect, WBIR reported. The girl was first taken to Middlesboro ARH Hospital and then flown to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital on Friday, July 28. “What is disheartening is the public’s response,” Lynne Fugate, a Kentucky attorney, told WBIR. “If a child is abused, report it. Don’t withhold it, don’t go on — report it. Call someone. Do something...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - This story began December 1 at 5 p.m. with a phone call to our newsroom from a horrified University Hospital employee. The employee claimed security had just wheeled an elderly woman all the way out to the corner of Hancock and Ali, just off hospital property, dumped the woman out of the wheelchair on the sidewalk and left. VIDEO ON LINK

The Ark Encounter, a life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark as described in the biblical book of Genesis, has topped a list of the most popular tourist attractions.The website Bet Kentucky recently listed the top 10 “most popular Kentucky attractions in 2023,” with the Williamstown-based, Answers in Genesis-affiliated attraction topping the list.Bet Kentucky organized the list on the basis of rankings on Trip Advisor’s 25 best things to do in Kentucky, then combined it with Google search volume data from AhRefs.com over the last 12 months.The Ark Encounter got first place with around 60,000 searches on Google, followed by Churchill Downs...

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D) campaign fundraising team fundraised off of YouTube’s decision to censor a Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) ad attacking Beshear’s record of allowing “chemical castration of kids.” The RGA put up an ad on YouTube discussing Beshear’s support for allowing children to undergo permanent “gender reassignment surgery for anyone under 18” and Beshear’s veto of a bill that would ban doctors from performing sex-change surgery.

As concerns grow about the health of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky state laws have already guaranteed his potential replacement will be a Republican.

A Kentucky sorority girl who dubs herself 'the queen of chaos' has gone viral after sharing her myriad mugshots and boasting about her catalog of crimes. Rayanna Belle Brock has been arrested at least 11 times for offenses ranging from shoplifting in March 2018, to terror-related crimes in 2020, and stealing a firearm in January 2023. The 23-year-old is a current student at Western Kentucky University and member of its sorority Kentucky Chicks, according to her socials. In an Instagram stories reel titled 'mugshawty' after the popular account which posts mugshots from across America, Brock shares her 10-strong collection of...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WYMT) - 7-19-2023 Update: In a Tweet Wednesday morning, Kentucky Attorney General and Republican nominee for Governor Daniel Cameron announced his running mate. In the tweet, Cameron said Sen. Robby Mills from Henderson will run on his ticket as Lt. Governor. “Robby will be a strong partner in our quest to defeat Andy Beshear and bring common sense back to the governor’s office.” In a release from the current attorney general’s campaign, Cameron said the state senator is “a strong conservative with a history of beating legacy Democrats in a historically strong Democrat region” in Western Kentucky. Mills...

On Thursday, former University of Kentucky swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler joined OutKicks Dan Dakich to discuss her younger sister Abigail being kicked off her YMCA swim team after protesting a male being in the female locker room. During the interview posted on Twitter, Wheeler explained that her 16-year-old sister went into the locker room after practice one day in April "and she witnessed a man changing in her locker room, and obviously, the shock and settlement of that was scary to her. She felt unsafe, so she immediately went and told her head coach. She told him that there was a...

An early morning fire tore through a commercial building on State Street Friday, leading to a roof collapse and heavy damage in the structure, which is home to Sen. Rand Paul's Bowling Green local office. According to Katie McKee, public information officer for the Bowling Green Fire Department, no injuries were reported. McKee said emergency personnel responded to the blaze around 1:45 a.m., noticed the heavy fire and called for additional units. "And we have just been working on this structure fire ever since," she said Friday morning. McKee said the structure no longer has a roof, confirming that it...