Free Republic

From mandates about what food children can eat to draconian attendance policies, it’s becoming increasingly clear that parental rights do not exist when you send your child to public school, as The Blaze’s Matt Walsh has argued before. But in Seattle, it’s even worse. In at least 13 public schools in the area, where kids are banned from even having soda or candy, middle and high school-aged girls can get a taxpayer-funded IUD without their parents’ consent. CNS News reports: [Long-acting reversible contraceptives] are associated with serious side effects, such as uterine perforation and infection. IUDs, specifically, can also act as abortifacients by...

When asked if a sixth grader could get an IUD implanted without parental consent, Take Charge told CNSNews.com: “We encourage all Take Charge providers to offer long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) in their clinics. A young person does not need parental consent to obtain a LARC or any other contraceptive method…If the young person is not choosing abstinence, she would be able to select a LARC and have it inserted without parental consent.”

Earlier this month, LifeNews.com reported on a high school in Seattle, Washington that is now implanting intrauterine devices (IUD), as well as other forms of birth control and doing so without parental knowledge or permission.The IUD is known as a long acting reversible contraception, and may even act as an abortifacient. So, a young teen in Seattle canÂ’t get a coke at her high school, but she can have a device implanted into her uterus, which can unknowingly kill her unborn child immediately after conception. Or, if she uses another method, she can increase her chances of health risks for...

Two street preachers were brutally beaten—punched and kicked—by a crowd at a gay pride festival in Seattle and the entire melee was captured on video. The preachers were holding signs reading "Repent or Else" and "Jesus Saves From Sin." The video shows a group of people initially screaming and threatening the men during Pridefest at the Seattle Space Needle. Television station KOMO reported that some of the attackers belonged to a group called NOH8.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in education continue to crumble when they encounter reality. “Not a single junior at Seattle’s Nathan Hale High School showed up to take this spring’s Smarter Balanced tests (SBAC—one version of the COMMON Core standardized tests), according to a school district spokeswoman,” according to the editors at Rethinking Schools. “Earlier this year, a group of teachers, administrators, parents, and students had agreed to boycott the standardized tests, but Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Larry Nyland threatened teachers with the loss of their teachers licenses if they didn’t administer the test.” “Under this pressure, the school’s...

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray unveiled rainbow crosswalks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood early Tuesday morning. The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports the LGBTQ community has been working on the symbolic effort for years. The rainbows were installed Monday night at six intersections on Pine and Pike streets. The city said the project cost about $66,000. The crosswalks are expected to last three to five years, but the city said it plans to maintain them for years to come. SDOT spokesperson Rick Sheridan said the work was paid for primarily using Street Use fees, which come from developers using the...

As Pride Week gets underway in Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray unveiled new rainbow crosswalks at several Capitol Hill intersections Tuesday morning. There are 11 crosswalks on Capitol Hill getting the rainbow treatment -- for a total cost of more than $100,000 according to the city's transportation director. Seven of those were painted and treated overnight and four others will be finished Tuesday night. The idea has been discussed for some time, but was delayed by logistics and cost. It was initially said that the colorful crosswalks cost about $6,000 for a total of $66,000 for all 11. The money comes...

On the fourth anniversary of her husband’s murder, Kim Renninger got a tattoo on the instep of her left foot reading, “Keep moving one step forward.” It is a discreet, poignant reminder of her mission to make something out of the death of Sgt. Mark Renninger and three officers in the 2009 Lakewood police shootings — the worst act of violence ever committed against police in Washington. Her to-do list has included a change to the state Constitution, reform of interstate parole rules and keeping watch over the seven felony prosecutions stemming from the shooting. Now comes the last big...

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Washington state school district pulled 143 students who lacked documentation proving they had received required immunizations from classrooms on Monday, in a first-in-the-state clamp-down triggered by a recent measles epidemic. The Spokane Public Schools, the state's second-largest district, made the decision after a measles epidemic in which more than 150 people fell ill across the United States, and a whooping cough outbreak in the state's eastern city. "(The students) stay out of school until they show compliance," district spokesman Kevin Morrison said. He said the district was the first in the state to take such action....

Just 3 percent of Americans consider themselves atheists, but there’s one city in which a much larger portion of the population — a stunning one in 10 residents — identify as nonbelievers: Seattle.In fact, according to the Seattle Sun Times, the city has the highest rate of atheists among the nation’s largest metro areas.Overall, the percentage of unaffiliated residents in Seattle — those individuals who either don’t believe in a higher power or are unaffiliated with a faith — is 37 percent, compared to about 23 percent nationally, according to recently released Pew Research Center data.And the total percentage...

One of the first concepts taught in basic economics is the demand curve. As the price of something goes up, the demand for it goes down. And vice versa. One doesn’t even need an economics class to understand that a $50-million house will not have a bunch of buyers in a bidding war, compared to a much less expensive house. Or that a sale, lowering the price of something, is a good way to sell more and clear the inventory. So why is there such confusion about the minimum wage? A wage is simply the price of labor. Raise the...

Contractors are now planning to dismantle the beached and broken Davy Crockett right where it sits. Workers will encircle the 431-foot barge with a cofferdam, forming an enclosed area, and take it apart piece by piece. The original plan of floating it away to a dry dock proved to be untenable, marking another setback in an operation that’s already the most expensive shipwreck in Washington history. Until this week, federal and state authorities had been planning to cut the ship in two and float both halves away to a dry dock. But officials said they were unable to reach agreements...

Did The New York Times just inadvertently tell us what the real goal of the raise-the-minimum-wage campaign is? A Times editorial last week cheered Los Angeles’ enactment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage — but noted that restaurants, particularly fast-food joints, don’t like it. Said The Times: “The restaurant industry . . . will not go down without a fight.” We didn’t think that bringing down an entire industry was what the campaign for a $15 minimum was supposed to be about. Oops. Back in March, we noted that a similar hikein Seattle’s minimum wage was leading to a spate of local restaurant closings, given that labor costs...

A pizza shop owner in Seattle says the city's new minimum wage law is forcing her to close her doors. The new law says businesses have six years to phase into giving employees $15 an hour. Devin Jeran was happy to get a raise when Seattle's minimum wage went up to $11 an hour at the beginning of the month. “I definitely recognize that having more money is important, especially in a city as expensive as this one,” he said. He'll only enjoy that bigger paycheck for a few more months. In August, his boss is shutting down Z Pizza,...

A new wind of "ADD " Venture is coming to you , Prepare for the wind that is blowing through , For what is coming is The One and The Three , All in agreement " The All Of Me " , The gates of hell shall not prevail , For what is coming is a HOLY GALE ! Isaiah 43:18-20 18 “ Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in...

Hundreds of people in kayaks and small boats have staged a protest in the north-western US port city of Seattle against oil drilling in the Arctic by the Shell energy giant. Paddle in Seattle was held by activists who said the firm's drilling would damage the environment. It comes after the first of Shell's two massive oil rigs arrived at the port. The firm wants to move them in the coming months to explore for oil off Alaska's northern coast. Earlier this week, Shell won conditional approval from the US Department of Interior for oil exploration in the Arctic. The...

Now that stalled tunnel machine Bertha’s front end is disassembled, the damage looks worse than project experts thought — and contractors will miss their goal to resume digging in August. Not only did grit penetrate the rubber bearing seals, but the steel casings around the seals broke apart, sending fragments into the drive gears. Some teeth are cracked in the giant bull gear, which rotates the circular drill face, as well as several pinion gears that are spun by 24 electric motors. The news was revealed Monday morning by Todd Trepanier, administrator for the state’s Highway 99 replacement project, at...

The arrival in Seattle Thursday of an oil rig Royal Dutch Shell is outfitting for oil exploration in the remote Arctic Ocean marks a pivotal moment for an environmental movement increasingly mobilized around climate change. Activists paddling out in kayaks to meet the rig off Seattle's picturesque waterfront said it's their moment to stand against opening a new frontier of fossil fuel exploration. "Unless people get out there and put themselves on the front lines and say enough is enough, than nothing will ever change," said Jordan Van Voast, 55, an acupuncturist who was going out on the water to...

President Barack Obama got four mayors to fully endorse his nationwide program to “build welcoming communities” for millions of “new Americans” and roll out the red carpet. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed — who recently made headlines for terminating his city’s fire chief over a Christian book that described homosexual behavior as sin — signed on late last month to join three other mayors of major American cities: Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Nashville’s Karl Dean. Reed’s message to the millions of refugees and immigrants entering the country: Come to Atlanta. “Reed became the nation’s fourth mayor to...

On April 28, a high-ranking female ISIS officer with more than 8,000 followers on Twitter and primarily tasked with recruiting women to join the terror group was identified by Channel 4 News as a journalism student in her early 20s living in Seattle. The now suspended Twitter handle “@_UmmWaqqas” reportedly belongs to Rawdah Abdisalaam, although it was not confirmed that she is the sole account user, Channel 4 News reports.