Free Republic

Minnesota beaches may never be the same, following a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling this week overturning a woman’s indecent exposure misdemeanor conviction on the grounds that men, transgender individuals and breast cancer survivors are not held to the same standard. “Criminalizing the exposure of female — but not male — breasts does not provide Minnesotans with adequate notice as to the conduct the indecent exposure statute prohibits,” Associate Justice Sarah Hennesy wrote of the court’s decision. “Because a binary approach to breasts fails to recognize the more nuanced physical realities of human bodies, whether they are intersex, transgender, nonbinary,...

Art imitates life ... maybe.There’s something intriguing, even frightening, about the image of an ancient horned serpent roaming across the land. Thanks to some suggestive fossils and legends of old, talk of such a creature isn’t a new concept. But the recent discovery of 200-year-old rock paintings found in South Africa now has scientists hypothesizing that this ancient creature may have been far more than just a legend. The first formal scientific descriptions of this horned serpent—a supposed member of the dicynodont group—appeared in 1845. Considering the abundance of dicynodont fossils found in the Karoo Basin in South Africa, some...

President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end federal funding for NPR and PBS — because of news coverage he called “biased and partisan” — triggered a fierce backlash from public broadcasters that appears poised to expand the White House’s larger legal battleground with the media industry. Issued Thursday night, the order instructs the congressionally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cut off direct funding to the venerable public media giants — producers of long-running news shows such as “All Things Considered” and “PBS NewsHour” — as well as any grants to local stations that might underwrite the national broadcasters’...

A Kentucky man won the Powerball lottery in his home state and then went to Florida to celebrate, which allegedly got a bit out of hand. James Farthing, 50, won the Kentucky Powerball on April 26 after playing a $2 ticket along with his mother, Linda Grizzle. But just days later, on Monday, Farthing and his girlfriend, 42-year-old Jacqueline Fightmaster, were at a TradeWinds Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida, and allegedly got into a physical altercation with another guest at the bar. According to an arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies attempted to break up the...

President Trump is considering an executive order to examine payments made to college athletes and whether they have created an unfair system, two people briefed on the matter said Friday.Mr. Trump’s focus on the issue — which he’s talked about in the past, one of the people briefed on the matter noted — was renewed after he spoke with Nick Saban, the famed former University of Alabama football coach, backstage at an event Thursday night in Tuscaloosa, where Mr. Trump delivered an address to graduates.The Wall Street Journal first reported on Mr. Trump’s consideration. The two people who were briefed...

A tough first semester at Princeton taught Michelle Obama a career lesson that she's passing down to young professionals.(snip) As an affirmative action student from Chicago, Obama said, she felt "a little intimidated" by Princeton's Ivy status when she arrived on campus in 1981 despite knowing she'd be underestimated. After receiving all A's her first semester, she realized her self-doubt was by design. It was based on notions produced by a "world grounded in racism." "I was like, 'I get this now. You're just trying to get into my head. You're scared of me,'" Obama said. While there were plenty...

Immediately prior to a Papal Conclave seems like the absolute best time to break out the Liber Pontificalis – that fascinating, frustrating, and enigmatic work of Late Antiquity that purports to provide a brief biographical sketch of each of the first 65 Popes of Rome. This is perhaps the fourth or fifth time I have read the Liber cover to cover, not including the dozens of times I’ve referenced individual accounts for research purposes, posts, comments, etc. Admittedly, the text is littered with errors: some obvious, others requiring a PhD in Patristics to spot. Thankfully, the version I most commonly...

House Republicans are planning to include several of President Trump’s campaign promises in the first draft of the bill, which they hope to release soon.It was easy to miss, but last weekend President Trump floated a fundamental rewrite of the American tax code. In a social media post, and again in remarks to reporters, Mr. Trump suggested the United States could stop taxing income under $200,000 and instead rely on revenue from his extensive tariffs. “It’ll take a little while before we do that, but we’re going to be cutting taxes, and it’s possible we’ll do a complete tax cut,”...

NEW YORK (AP) — Tim Friede has been bitten by snakes hundreds of times — often on purpose. Now scientists are studying his blood in hopes of creating a better treatment for snake bites. Friede has long had a fascination with reptiles and other venomous creatures. He used to milk scorpions’ and spiders’ venom as a hobby and kept dozens of snakes at his Wisconsin home.Hoping to protect himself from snake bites — and out of what he calls “simple curiosity” — he began injecting himself with small doses of snake venom and then slowly increased the amount to try...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump, the real estate developer turned commander in chief, is laying bare his style of diplomacy in the early weeks of his new term: It’s a whole lot like a high-stakes business deal, and his No. 1 goal is to come out of the transaction on top.The tactics are clear in his brewing trade war with Canada and Mexico, in his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine and in his selection of the first country he will visit in his second term.“President Trump approaches diplomacy and engages in a very transactional manner, with economics as the...

President Trump did a grunting impression of a female weightlifter as he criticized the participation of transgender women in sports. The President spoke on Thursday night at the University of Alabama.

The Freeper Canteen Presents....~It’s The 151st Kentucky Derby TimeMay 3, 2025~ Barbershop Quartet ~ Star Spangled BannerCall To The Post KENTUCKY DERBY TROPHY Since the 50th running of the Kentucky Derby in 1924, Churchill Downs has annually presented a gold trophy to the winning owner of the famed "Run for the Roses." History is unclear if a trophy was presented in 1875 to the winner of the first Kentucky Derby, and trophy presentations were sporadically made in following years. Finally, in 1924, legendary Churchill Downs President Matt Winn commissioned that a standard design be developed for the "Golden Anniversary"...

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) stated that “the vast majority of immigrants who happen to be here unlawfully” “are so critical to keep our economy going” and blamed the Trump administration’s immigration policies for GDP shrinking in the last quarter despite “inheriting a strong economy from President Biden.” Padilla stated, “You were talking in previous segments about the state of the economy. Prices are up, right? There [are] a lot of consumers on edge. When immigrants represent such significant elements of the necessary workforce in agriculture, in hospitality, in construction, in transportation, in health...

Corrupt Obama judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of Perkins Coie law firm on Friday and permanently blocked President Trump’s executive order. President Trump previously stripped security clearances of the employees at DNC law firm Perkins Coie. Recall that Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid law firm Perkins Coie more than $1 million to hire oppo research firm Fusion GPS to peddle the bogus ‘Trump-Russia’ dossier during the 2016 election. Former British spy Christopher Steele compiled over a dozen memos alleging the Russians had blackmail on Trump and that his associates were conspiring with the Kremlin to win the 2016...

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s police department provided federal immigration authorities with an internal record about a Palestinian woman who they arrested at a protest, which the Trump administration is now using as evidence in its bid to deport her, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.The report — shared by the NYPD in March — includes a summary of information in the department’s files about Leqaa Kordia, a New Jersey resident who was arrested at a protest outside Columbia University last spring. It lists her home address, date of birth and an officer’s two-sentence account...

Today, May 2, the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay in Social Security Administration v. AFSCME. This case was brought to stop DOGE employees from accessing SSA data. Immediately after the application was filed, the Chief Justice called for a response due on May 12. Response to application (24A1063) requested by The Chief Justice, due by 4 p.m. (EDT) on May 12, 2025. Here, Roberts continues his trend by calling for a response immediately. but Roberts apparently does not think this case is urgent. He did not grant even a temporary administrative stay, and granted the...

A group of MS-13 gangbangers — who are in the country illegally — allegedly stabbed three correctional officers in a Friday morning attack inside a Virginia prison, authorities said. Six inmates at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap attacked the officers around 9:45 a.m., according to the Virginia Department of Corrections. Two corrections officers were hospitalized in stable condition, with three others seeking treatment at area hospitals.

Three Virginia Department of Corrections officers were stabbed in a state prison on Friday in a premeditated attack involving five MS-13 illegal alien gang members. Never forget, Democrats and radical judges are fighting to keep these MS-13 gang members in the US. An investigation is underway after a premeditated stabbing of three Corrections Officers at Wallens Ridge State Prison on Friday morning. “The attack occurred at approximately 9:45 am on Friday, May 2. Five of the six inmates involved in the attack are confirmed MS-13 gang members from El Salvador, who were in this country illegally. Each have been convicted...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is conducting a nationwide, multi-agency review of 450,000 migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents during President Joe Biden’s term. Trump officials say they want to track down those children and ensure their safety. Many of the children came to the U.S. during surges at the border in recent years and were later placed in homes with adult sponsors, typically parents, relatives or family friends.Migrant advocates are dubious of the Republican administration’s tactics, which include dispatching Homeland Security and FBI agents to visit the children. Trump’s zero-tolerance approach to immigrants...

On Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that lawsuits have been filed against several states over certain climate policies that the federal government says impede natural energy production and threaten energy independence. The complaints were filed against the states of New York, Vermont, Michigan, and Hawaii. This comes after President Donald Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to take decisive action to stop the enforcement of state laws that "unreasonably burden domestic energy development," per the DOJ. The president issued this directive through an executive order titled "Protecting American Energy from State Overreach." The Justice Department has sued New...