Free Republic

A transgender student at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown could be banned from extracurricular activities for a year for using a men's locker room. Seamus Johnston, 22, a junior computer science major from Johnstown, was born female. Two years ago he began identifying as a male. Johnston is undergoing hormone therapy, but has not undergone surgery for a sex change. University records reflect that he is a woman, but Johnston is trying to get those records changed. On Dec. 2, Johnston said, the university found him guilty under its code of conduct of disorderly conduct, failure to obey a locker room...

Actor Alec Baldwin for the second time in as many months went nuts on Twitter. His targets Monday were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mark Levin, readers of the website Free Republic, and what he referred to as "right wing trash":

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tells MSNBC regulations create jobs because a business will have to hire people to help them comply with the new requirement. "I think the answer is no," Ellison said when asked if he believes regulations kill jobs. "And here is why: When we talked about increasing fuel efficiency standards, the industry responded, and they need engineers and designers and manufacturers, and they need actually more people to help respond to the new requirement." "I believe if the government says, look, we have got to reduce our carbon footprint, you will kick into gear a whole number...

UNITED NATIONS—In what is becoming an annual event, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again slammed the West in a radical speech at the UN General Assembly, with diplomats from a number of Western nations leaving the meeting hall in apparent protest. Representatives from the US and Europe were among those who walked out in the mass exit as Ahmadinejad on Thursday implicitly criticized some Europeans for still using the Holocaust “as the excuse to pay fine or ransom to the Zionists,” which is his term for Israel. The US Mission to the UN reacted strongly to

WASHINGTON—Ushering in the largest decrease in auto fuel consumption since the 1970s, President Barack Obama and automobile manufacturers Friday announced a deal that will save drivers money at the pump and dramatically cut heat-trapping gases coming from tailpipes. The agreement pledges to double overall fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, bringing major under-the-hood changes for the nation's automobiles starting in model year 2017. Cars and trucks on the road today average 27 miles per gallon. "This agreement on fuel standards represents the single most important step we have taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on...

WFTV learned on Monday that former U.S. Congressman Alan Grayson is running for office again. On Monday, Grayson said he doesn't plan to do anything different. He said he's running again because of all the people who have reached out and asked him to. Grayson already raised nearly $100,000 in donations before filing his paperwork on Monday. "We need somebody who's gonna stick up for what's right. Somebody with guts," Grayson said. During Grayson's last campaign an ad referred to his opponent, Daniel Webster, as Taliban Dan. Grayson lost his District 8 Congressional seat to Webster after a highly controversial...

I wonder what this Bay Area nutjob THOUGHT was going to happen when he fought to put Democrats in Charge??? I want my f*#%ing life back I want to not be invisible anymore. I want to get up and shower and have somewhere to go. I want to punch the people who talk about the recession being over. I want to not have to choose between toilet paper or dog food. I want to take back all the money I spent on student loans for an education that does me no good now. I want to stop mending the waistband...

HR 2278, a bill to limit the use of funds appropriated to Department of Defense for United States Armed Forces in support of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Operation Unified Protector with respect to Libya, unless otherwise specifically authorized by law. Mr. Speaker I rise to oppose this legislation, which masquerades as a limitation of funds for the president's war on Libya but is in fact an authorization for that very war. According to HR 2278, the US military cannot be involved in NATO's actions in Libya, with four important exceptions. If this passes, for the first time the president would...

Ned Nefer and his wife Teagan can be seen plodding along the rural highways of upstate New York and are hard to miss. Nefer's wife is a tall mannequin in a wheelchair. Motorists driving by have been doing double takes as they pass the couple by. So many people have spotted the duo that they have become an Internet sensation. They have their own Facebook page and countless videos on YouTube. He's even been interviewed from the road by a pair of Iowa DJs. Plenty of people laugh at the idea and dismiss Nefer as a crazy person, but those...

Mrs Abedin, returning from a trip to Africa with her boss Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has remained silent since the whole Weinergate sexting affair broke two weeks ago. The National Enquirer pictures show Weiner protectively posing in a pair of pantihose and a bra as he smiles cheekily at the camera.

It's no secret that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas plans to lobby the U.N. General Assembly this September for a resolution that will predetermine the results of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on borders. He made clear in a New York Times op-ed this week that he will insist that member states recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 lines, meaning Israel's boundaries before the Six Day War. Unfortunately, even President Barack Obama appears to have been influenced by this thinking. He asserted in a speech Thursday that Israel's future borders with a Palestinian state "should be based on the 1967 lines," a...

In truth, the ideas and images in men’s minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them. - John Locke, English philosopher, physician The American evangelicals whose frenzied scriptural arithmetic points to the Second Coming of Christ 2,000 years after his birth are engaged in an activity which has been threatening the stability of the Christian Church since the second century; they are trying to align God’s calendar with man’s. - Damian Thompson, author, ‘The End of Time’ ________________________________________________________________________________ MIDDLE EAST, INDIA, May 19, 2011 —I bumped into Harold Camping when I came across his book ‘1994?’ Since he put...

Ron Paul wouldn't have approved Osama bin Laden operation By: Juana Summers May 12, 2011 07:27 AM EDT Ron Paul says he would not have authorized the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, and that President Barack Obama should have worked with the Pakistani government instead of authorizing a raid. "I think things could have been done somewhat differently," Paul said this week. "I would suggest the way they got Khalid [Sheikh] Mohammed. We went and cooperated with Pakistan. They arrested him, actually, and turned him over to us, and he's been in prison. Why can't...

Comrades, a new conspiracy theory has emerged but unlike the "birthers", it is one we can and should (and will) embrace. I am talking about the RACERS, or those of us who cling obsessively but correctly to the idea that all criticism of Dear Born-in-Hawaii Leader Obama has no basis in reality but is purely an expression of racism. This term has its origins with an enemy of the people but like any good prog, I don't care, I just take what I think is necessary to promote the common good. Now, many of you reading this are asking (not...

VIENTIANE (AFP) – Serge Verniau is a man with a mission: to persuade the world to swap the chicken wings and steaks on their plates for crickets, palm weevils and other insects rich in protein and vitamins. Verniau, the Laos representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is only half-joking when he says his dream is "to feed the big metropolises from Tokyo to Los Angeles, via Paris" with the small arthropods. He plans to present the lessons drawn from a pilot project to the world at a conference on edible insects, probably in 2012. "Most of the...

(CNSNews.com) – Former Bush Administration Solicitor General Ted Olson, who represented the plaintiffs who sued California to overturn that state's ballot-approved constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that children do not need mothers--or a fathers--and do just as well being raised by two parents of the same sex. "Generally, statistically, the experts have said that a child growing up in a same-sex family household is as able to develop and will develop as well, generally speaking, as someone in an opposite-sex household," Olson said. VIDEO 1:46 minutes CNSNews.com...

The must watch 5 minutes from today's second day of Bernanke hearings before congress is the following interaction between the Chairman and his archnemesis: Ron Paul. The first brilliant rebuttal by Ron Paul has to do with the ongoing "Federal Reserve lecturing" on why Congress should not allow out of control deficits to escalate. As Paul so correctly put its, "the Congress and the Fed are symbiotic because the Congress spends and they know there is a moral hazard involved because they know that if interest rates go up, the Fed accommodates them. So the Fed really facilitates this spending,...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega says he has telephoned Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to express his solidarity. Ortega says he has called several times this week because Gadhafi "is again waging a great battle" to defend the unity of his nation. Human rights groups say more than 200 people have died as Libyan security forces crack down on protesters. Ortega has long been an ally of the Libyan leader, based in part on a shared distrust of the United States. Ortega says that "it's at difficult times that loyalty and resolve are put to the test."

Kucinich must pay $50,000 for improperly using campaign expensesBy Daniel Strauss - 02/18/11 10:29 AM ET The Federal Election Commission has ordered Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to repay more than $50,000 that that the agency says was improperly used for campaign expenses in 2004. In a ruling issued Thursday, the FEC said Kucinich used $52,443 in public matching funds to pay for campaign expenses after he was no longer a candidate for president. The Ohio Democrat was given 30 days to pay back the funds to the U.S. Treasury. "The Commission reaches this conclusion because the Commission found that [Kucinich...

The recent Arizona tragedy has, of course, brought the entire issue of firearms control to the front of our national consciousness, along with the usual assortment of bloviators, pundits and podium thumpers. At the risk of being considered one of them, I would like to offer several alternatives to address the problem. n Repeal the Second Amendment. At the time of its writing and through the early 1900s, The United States was a nation of largely isolated communities that depended on their own initiative for mutual security. That time is clearly passed...