Free Republic

If you have been walking quietly through the week, keeping this thought to yourself because you dare not express it to your clients, patients, customers, kids in northeast liberal-arts colleges’ social-sciences programs, or your coworkers, here is your validation: Yes, indeed — the whole lot of them are absolutely bat crazy. Smile at them as Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic wisely did. But know quietly that you are correct in your political assessment, which — go figure! — makes you politically correct! They all are crazy.

A Virginia high school teacher was fired Thursday for refusing to use a transgender student’s new pronouns, a case believed to be the first of its kind in the state. After a four-hour hearing, the West Point School Board voted 5-0 to terminate Peter Vlaming, a French teacher at West Point High School who resisted administrators’ orders to use male pronouns to refer to a ninth-grade student who had undergone a gender transition. The board met in closed session for nearly an hour before the vote. Like a similar transgender rights case in nearby Gloucester County that eventually reached the...

Climate change isn’t just about extreme heat waves in distant future decades, or melting glaciers far away from the neighborhoods, forests and farms of Virginia. Storms are dropping heavier rainfall, summer nights aren't cooling off as much, tides are creeping higher than before – and it’s already happening in our backyards. Those trends are likely to continue and intensify by the time a child growing up today gets to retirement age. The scenarios and the evidence are laid out in a new report called the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was composed by hundreds of experts across 13 federal agencies.

In two Republican administrations, Comey has proved that he does indeed place key principles above partisan fealty — that he does in fact subscribe to a higher loyalty. Unfortunately for America, that makes him one of the last of a dying breed.

In a bid to stop people from removing the tarps over Charlottesville’s Confederate statues, city officials placed plastic fencing around the monuments, forbidding anyone from crossing the barriers. The black tarps covering the statues of Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson have been ripped down from the statues six times since they were installed on Aug. 23. The coverings were put up in a gesture of mourning for Heather Heyer, who was killed in the car attack on Fourth Street on Aug. 12, the day of the Unite the Right rally.

Cities with Confederate history are debating whether or not to remove Civil War monuments in places like picturesque Monument Avenue that is lined with statues for Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. Citizens are asking the question in Richmond - do you think Richmond should remove its Confederate monuments?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will retire at the end of the season, Hendrick Motorsports has announced. Voted the sport's most popular driver for the last 14 seasons, Earnhardt began his career with a start at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 1999. He has since accumulated 26 career wins, including two in the Daytona 500. He also captured a win in the All-Star Race as a rookie.

Thirteen protesters have been sentenced to five days in jail for illegally blocking traffic on Interstate 95 in Richmond during a Black Lives Matter protest in July. All 13 demonstrators pleaded guilty Monday afternoon in Richmond General District Court as part of a plea agreement.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday moved to drop their corruption case against former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, bringing to a close a case that gripped the state capital, tarnishing the former governor’s reputation and the state’s.

I hate to be the one to rain – or even sprinkle – all over the merry Tim Kaine parade. But someone has to. It’s time to shake off the he’s-so-much-nicer-than-Hillary-and-he-speaks-Spanish euphoria to ask Kaine to explain his conduct during his final days in Virginia’s governor’s mansion. The issue concerns a convicted murderer serving life in prison and Kaine’s last-minute move to quietly spring him. We’re going to talk about Jens Soering today. Members of the national press corps ought to be asking Kaine about the Soering matter every day – at least until the veep hopeful from Virginia comes...

Hillary Clinton’s choice for presidential running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, is a Harvard Law grad who cut his teeth as a young lawyer fighting for fair housing issues, winning a $100 million jury verdict against Nationwide Insurance over allegedly discriminatory lending practices. Clinton’s campaign announced the former Virginia governor as her pick for vice president on Friday evening. Clinton and Kaine are expected to make their first campaign appearance together on Saturday in Miami. ... The case went to trial in 1998, after Kaine had become Richmond’s mayor. The jury sided with HOME and returned a $100 million verdict...

When the state sent 2,500 volts through the body of murderer Richard Lee Whitley on Monday night, a little bit of Timothy Kaine died, too. It's not that Kaine, Whitley's lawyer, thought his client was innocent. Whitley had a long criminal history and had confessed to the 1980 murder and sexual assault of an elderly Fairfax County neighbor.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee today placed former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's name in nomination for the state Supreme Court to succeed Justice Jane Marum Roush. Cuccinelli said in a statement: “I have been approached to consider an appointment to the Virginia Supreme Court. I am humbled and honored to be considered for such a position, but it is not something that my wife and I have previously contemplated. Together, we will prayerfully review this possibility in light of our family’s needs and whether or not this is the best way for us to contribute to making Virginia a...

A gun-safety group backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now pouring $1.5 million into a crucial Northern Virginia legislative contest for the seat of retiring Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William. The new ad buy backs Democrat Jeremy McPike and targets Republican Harry J. “Hal” Parrish II. It comes a day after the group announced it is buying $700,000 of political advertising to back Democrat Daniel A. Gecker and oppose Republican Glen H. Sturtevant in the race for the seat of retiring Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan.

A critical race in the battle for control of the Virginia Senate has entered a new dimension for state legislative races with a national gun-control group’s announcement that it is buying $700,000 of political advertisements for Democrat Daniel A. Gecker in his race for the 10th District seat in Richmond and its suburbs. Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Wednesday it will begin airing a television ad today in the Richmond media market that features the father of Alison Parker, a 24-year-old Roanoke television reporter gunned down with her cameraman, Adam...

Del. Joseph D. Morrissey tonight won a special election to keep his seat in the 74th House of Delegates district, making him the first jailed lawmaker in modern Virginia history to win reelection. On the eve of the start of the 2015 General Assembly session, the Democrat-turned-independent defeated Democrat Kevin Sullivan and Republican Matt Walton in spite of Morrissey's ongoing legal woes and controversy over his conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In 1783, with the Revolutionary War nearly over, the American dream of an independent republic almost died at the hands of the army that fought for it. While Continental Army officers waited in camp at Newburgh, New York, for negotiators to end the conflict, their long-simmering frustration with Congress finally boiled over. Anger swept through the corps from the lieutenants to the generals. These men had had enough—enough of inedible rations, inadequate clothing and supplies, and, most important, years of foregoing pay. A coup was in the making. Even the British knew it. As one of their spies reported, military...

Editor, Times-Dispatch: I am self-employed and I pay for my own health insurance. I assumed I would pay a surcharge for the Affordable Care Act every month. I assumed incorrectly that I would have the freedom to choose, that my future and security were in my hands. My insurance agent visited my office and asked me what provision of the ACA I wanted to sign up for. I thought he was kidding; he wasn’t. I do not have a choice. My policy will go from $325 a month to more than $900 a month, my coverage will be nowhere near...

NOAA runs maintains a number of weather buoys on the Chesapeake bay that transmit about 26 weather related data each to a website that boaters can access on the website http://governmentshutdown.noaa.gov. (That is not the real web address. NOAA has changed it to this. But this is what you get if you enter the normal NOAA buoys address.) Sailors can learn about wind speed and direct, current and direction. Fishermen can learns about water temperature, etc. The buoys were paid for and installed at taxpayer expense. They are transmitting their data right now. But look at the website. Rather than...

A leaked draft of the U.N.’s latest climate assessment rates the probability that human action is warming the planet as a near certainty. Six years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with 90 percent certainty that human activity has caused most of the planet’s warming over the past half-century. This year’s draft raises the probability to 95 percent. The small cadre of committed skeptics likely will dismiss the latest finding as yet another lie by a vast conspiracy bent on imposing one-world government. Two decades ago that might have been a defensible position. Today it is laughable. Just...