Free Republic

Northwestern University academics have stirred controversy by labeling student responses to a gender survey as evidence of 'fascism' and 'white supremacy'. The assertion came after students humorously claimed to identify as 'Apache attack helicopters,' in reference to a longstanding internet meme used to deride the concept of non-binary gender identities. The researchers, also affiliated with Oregon State University, conducted the online questionnaire to study experiences of transgender undergraduates in engineering and computer science fields. Their findings, summarized in a paper titled 'Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interesting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science...

COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine has tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Governor’s Office. This story will be updated. [That's all in the story for now]

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Fourteen people arrested during the police violence protests in Cincinnati will face felony charges. They are accused of trying to assault police or damaging and looting stores. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the indictments on Thursday. "I will defend a person's right to peaceably protest and I always will. But when individuals use that occasion to loot, attack our police and their equipment and damage private and personal property and public property, I'm done with them." The 14 face a variety of charges including assault, breaking and entering and gun charges. Deters said none of those...

NPR's Mara Liasson outraged female listeners on Weekend Edition Sunday on April 15 when she said Mitt Romney's political problems aren't with "stay-at-home moms," but rather with "educated women." Seven days later, NPR admitted it scrubbed the clip and the transcript for the website. On April 22, in a letters segment, Liasson claimed "I misspoke and that's one reason why we corrected the interview for later feeds of the show." Maybe she didn't "misspeak" as much as she betrayed her own opinion. She's never stayed at home and her biographies list no children. At least NPR returned to the scene...

DAYTON — A crowd believed to be a few thousand has gathered downtown on Tax Day 2009 for the Dayton Tea Party on Courthouse Square.The event going on this evening, Wednesday, April 15, was created in protest of what organizers call “runaway government spending.”Rob Scott, one of the organizers, said petitions would be circulated in the crowd, calling for the repeal of economic stimulus funding or for governments agencies to refuse to accept stimulus funding.People in the crowd offered their take on the event and its intended message.“People are getting the same treatment as the Indian people,” Ricky Slow Elk,...

Is the U.S. graduated income tax — a tax that ties both the amount of taxes paid and the rate of taxation to wealth — "socialistic," as certain politicians have been arguing lately? It's hardly likely, since the U.S. graduated income tax in its present form has been around since 1916. The Sixteenth Amendment authorizing a federal income tax had been ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1913. It has been vetted by economists great and small, and endorsed by none others than Teddy Roosevelt, Adam Smith and, yes, Karl Marx. Maybe the problem is the term "progressive," which...

The fundraiser on Barack Obama's national website might be considered a raffle in Minnesota. Not so, his campaign says. The head of the Minnesota Gambling Control Board said that a solicitation for funds on the national website of the Barack Obama presidential campaign may constitute a raffle, which is a violation of Minnesota gambling laws. [snip] The state Gambling Board website specifically states that one cannot conduct a raffle as a fundraiser for a political campaign. Only nonprofit charities may conduct raffles. He said three elements make a drawing a form of gambling under state law: if it costs money...

In two weeks time, the ports of New York and New Jersey, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans will go under contract to a government-owned company in the United Arab Emirates. < snip > The most immediate thing Congress can do is ask that President Bush put a hold on the deal and order the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conduct a 45-day investigation of Dubai Ports World. Mr. Bush yesterday vowed, with a certain heat, to veto a ports bill; firm congressional action may nevertheless lead him to reconsider. There is a chance the deal...

Just heard this on a promo for Nightline during the FSU vs. Miami game at about 10:12 EDT. Ted Koppel: "The mayor of New Orleans, and it may be a wild exageration, but he said there could be 10,000 dead. And the Superdome, where you broadcast so many of your Monday Night Football games, that, I'm told, is coming down."

Digit apparently belonged to co-worker of accuser's husbandSAN JOSE, Calif. - Police say the finger that a woman found in a bowl of chili came from an associate of her husband’s who lost the digit in an industrial accident.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Break out the cigars. The Treasury ducklings are hatching. The brown mallard duck, which became Washington's newest tourist attraction a block away from the White House, began hatching her ducklings Saturday afternoon. For the curious tourists gathered around her enclosure, there wasn't a lot of activity to see because the hatching was occurring underneath her.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Police in California say they're checking out a possible lead in the case involving an allegedly contaminated bowl of Wendy's chili. San Jose police are investigating the case of a woman who lost part of her finger in a leopard attack. The woman, who has several exotic animals, reportedly got the finger back in a bag of ice, after doctors couldn’t re-attach it. She lives in a town about 45 miles north of Las Vegas. A month after that attack, a Las Vegas woman reported biting into a human finger while eating a bowl of Wendy’s...

Taft wants consumers to dig deep - againBusinesses, wealthy would get tax breaks Tuesday, February 08, 2005 Julie Carr Smyth and Sandy Theis Plain Dealer Bureau Columbus - Gov. Bob Taft is poised to unveil a tax reform package in today's State of the State address that asks consumers to bear a larger burden for getting Ohio's economy back on its feet. The Republican governor's plan calls for easing some of the state's most unpopular business taxes, while spreading the impact of others to out-of-state firms that sell their wares inside state lines. Taft also will propose 21 percent across-the-board...

It’s a column night, as I always say Tuesday morning. Of course it’s the morning to you, but grim thin night to me now, as I try to hammer out something to post before I put my head down and bellyflop into Lethe. Last week’s column is over at Jewishworldreview.com, and this week’s column will be there eventually. When it’s done. It’s a hard day to find something to write about - too much news. All the major chin-pullers will be thrashing the obvious, and I try not to be just another voice braying the company line. No one needs...