Free Republic

17-year-old scolded for crying over transgender woman’s penis at YMCA A California teen cried as she recalled seeing “a naked man” in her local YMCA, telling the city council in her San Diego suburb she’d been traumatized by the experience with the person she described as a trans woman. Rebecca Philips, 17, said she was changing after swimming one day last month at the Santee YMCA when she spotted a naked trans woman in the changing rooms. “As I was showering after my workout I saw a naked male in the women’s locker room,’ she told the Santee City Council....

The left usually understands optics. They play the optics game far better than the right. But every now and then, their egos get the better of them and they end up making the worst possible optics moves imaginable. Case-in-point: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attending the Met Gala with a dress that reads “Tax The Rich.” Of course, you won’t see any poor or homeless people in attendance. You won’t see many middle-class people for that matter unless they’re with the press or invited by a rich friend. The tickets to get into the exclusive event are $30,000 each. The dress AOC...

Twitter is experiencing an outage that began in the early evening on Thursday, with some users reporting problems sending tweets and refreshing their timelines starting shortly after 5:30PM ET. We have seen no new tweets cross our timelines since then, though we were able to find a tweet sent as late as 5:40PM ET using Twitter’s search tool. User-generated reports on Downdetector.com are skyrocketing as well, but there’s no communication from the company itself as to the nature of the outrage. Twitter’s last major outage, occurring in February of this year, still allowed users to circumvent that outage by scheduling...

Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental restructuring if justices do not take steps to "heal" the court in the near future. *snip* Dramatic changes to the Supreme Court have been proposed by several Democrats vying for their party's 2020 presidential nomination, with "court-packing" being a common -- though highly controversial -- suggestion.

Laugh a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAGAkEluGCs

UPDATE: Hoyer spokesperson clarifies, “Hoyer said on CNN that the SOTU is off, but his spox clarifies: “He hadn’t read the actual letter and misunderstood.” Still just a proposal from Pelosi, not a formal disinvitation.”

The Senate moved unanimously to block President Trump from making appointments during the August break this evening. Democrats had said they'd make such a move after reports emerged that Trump was considering replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the recess. The Senate agreed to hold pro forma sessions throughout the recess. This procedure was also used to block appointments during the Obama administration. Worth noting: the announcement was made by moderate Republican Lisa Murkowski, who split from Trump over health care. The Senate also made a slew of confirmations and passed several measures before shutting down for the summer. Another...

A British school boy said he is “scarred for life” after his teaching assistant courted him over Facebook, had sex with him 50 times and then told him she was pregnant. Caroline Berriman’s teenage victim spoke out Tuesday to detail his twittered relationship with the 30-year-old Abraham Moss Community School assistant, the Manchester Evening News reported. Berriman dodged jail time when she pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child charges last week. Instead, she was sentenced to community service and ordered to pay fines. The unidentified teen, who no longer attends the community school, said he began his relationship...

The 'dust lady' of 9/11 dies: Iconic survivor Marcy Borders, 42, succumbs to stomach cancer which she blamed on ash from the Twin Towers attack Marcy Borders was a 28-year-old Bank of America worker when she fled the 81st floor of 1 World Trade Center after the first plane struckShe was on the ground when the second plane hit on September 11, 2001AFP photographer Stan Honda took a photo of her running for safetyBorders became known as 'dust lady' and her picture became iconicShe fell into a spiral of depression and addiction but became sober in 2011In August 2014 Borders was...

Two people were killed and at least six others were injured in a shooting Thursday night at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, authorities told NBC News.

Only if we get our acts together will the climate crisis problem be able to be overcome. This is the conviction of Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who has been a right-hand expert for Pope Francis' just-released encyclical on ecology. In an interview with ZENIT yesterday following the release of Pope Francis' 184-page encyclical on ecology 'Laudato Si': on the Care for Our Common Home,' Dr. Schellnhuber, who has recently been appointed to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, spoke on the importance of the encyclical and how...

The Obama administration is taking Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary, off of the ten dollar bill.They will replace him with a woman. Scoop: Goodbye Alexander Hamilton. Hello 1st woman on the $10 bill. http://t.co/S1Or49drYo pic.twitter.com/088rppV4dP— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 17, 2015 Dana Loesch added: There is nothing wrong now with Hamilton, a Founder, Constitution signer, and founder of the Federalist Party, on the $10 bill. The choice to remove him for a yet-to-be-named woman while a genocidal, Democrat bigot who defied a Supreme Court ruling to tickle his “relocation” fetish remains on the $20 is insulting.

Embattled NAACP activist Rachel Dolezal was forced to make a sex tape by her ex-husband, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday, citing court papers. Dolezal made the accusation against ex-husband Kevin Moore during a divorce and custody battle for their son Franklin, the paper reported. She said the videotape was “made at request of the defendant which required the plaintiff to participate in sexual acts with the defendant on tape against the plaintiff’s desires,” according to court papers filed in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, where Moore still lives. Dolezal claimed she had suffered years of “physical, emotional, sexual and verbal abuse” at...

Jeb Bush hasn't even officially launched his presidential campaign yet, and already there's a shakeup underway. In a surprise move, Bush has tapped veteran Republican strategist Danny Diaz to serve as his campaign manager, his political team announced on Monday. Diaz, 39, a longtime Republican operative known for his aggressive tactics and as a communications specialist, will move to Miami to take on a day-to-day managerial role after spending the last few months as a media consultant. The restructuring of Bush's staff was unexpected, given that Bush aides, donors and friends have said for months that David Kochel -- a...

Monday while President Barack Obama was answering questions at a town hall with YSEALI Fellows, an exchange program for community leaders from ASEAN, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he said his administration has restored the Untied States as the “the most respected country on earth.” Obama said, “People don’t remember, but when I came into office, the Untied States in world opinion ranked below China and just barley above Russia, and today once again, the Untied States is the most respected country on earth. Part of that I think is because of the work we did to reengage the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it is investigating what the Pentagon called an inadvertent shipment of live anthrax spores to at least one, and perhaps as many as nine, laboratories that expected to receive dead spores. "At this time we do not suspect any risk to the general public," CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben said.

.....FIFA, the powerful and polarizing governing body for soccer, came under prosecutorial assault from two fronts Wednesday. Acting on an indictment by the U.S. Justice Department, Swiss police arrested several top FIFA officials, including two vice presidents, during an overnight raid in Zurich on charges of corruption Wednesday. The U.S. investigation targets alleged wrongdoing that spans 24 years. U.S. prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 14 people, on charges ranging from money laundering to fraud and racketeering.

A United States Marine was convicted at a court-martial for refusing to remove a Bible verse on her computer – a verse of Scripture the military determined “could easily be seen as contrary to good order and discipline.” The plight of Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling seems unbelievable – a member of the Armed Forces criminally prosecuted for displaying a slightly altered passage of Scripture from the Old Testament: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” Sterling, who represented herself at trial, was convicted February 1, 2014 in a court-martial at Camp Lejune, North Carolina after she refused to obey orders...

His dream is to marry one of Obama’s daughters, Malia, and is ready to pay 50 cows, 70 sheep and 30 goats as bride price.Speaking to The Nairobian, Kiprono, who hit the headlines when he moved to court seeking to have William Ruto sworn in as president when Uhuru travelled to The Hague for his ICC case, said he is ready to meet Obama to discuss the matter when the US president visits in July.“I got interested in her in 2008. As a matter of fact, I haven’t dated anyone since and promise to be faithful to her. I have...

Actress Rose McGowan offered an apology — of sorts — this week after sharing what appeared to be an inflammatory quote from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Josh Duggar’s departure from the Family Research Council last Friday. Duggar’s resignation followed his acknowledgement of reports that he sexually molested younger children as a teenager, including his own sisters. Story Continued Below “While there may have been an age difference, Josh Duggar’s transgressions are far less an affront to God than what gays do with each other - Ted Cruz, 5/22/15,” read the text next to the photo of Duggar and Cruz...