Free Republic

A school district in Fargo, North Dakota, will conceal the gender identities of students from parents in spite of a state law prohibiting the policy. "We will not openly out any student because of one law if we know that that's going to cause harm to that child," said Fargo Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Rupak Gandhi, who is backed in the decision by the school board. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican, signed the bill earlier in May that banned schools from withholding or concealing "information about a student's transgender status from the student's parent or legal guardian." Some...

A North Dakota man accused of mowing down an 18-year-old with his car because he thought the young man was a “Republican extremist” has pleaded guilty to manslaughter after initially being charged with murder. Instead of the prospect of life in prison, Shannon Brandt, 42, now faces a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars in connection with the death of Cayler Ellingson, KVRR-TV reported. Brandt’s attorney, Mark Friese, told the news station earlier this month that the local prosecutor had dropped the murder charge on her own and that “it was not a part of any plea deal.” Continue...

A left-wing radical from North Dakota has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and faces just 10 years in prison thanks to a sweetheart deal that saw his original murder charge downgraded after he admitted to killing a teenager for having conservative political views. 42-year-old left-wing radical Shannon Brandt, of Glenfield, North Dakota, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the 2022 politically-motivated homicide of 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson. Though Brandt was initially charged with murder in Ellingson’s death and admitted that he killed the young man for political reasons, his murder charge was reduced in a sweetheart deal...

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is continuing his abortion barnstorming tour around the state. Cooper is desperately making the case why abortion is a good thing for the Tar Heel State as he hopes to somehow convince one or more legislator not to override his veto of a common sense bill that would ban abortions after 12 weeks. The Democrat governor’s latest argument is one that is sure to turn off many voters: Killing babies is good for the economy. Here’s more: Among his concerns about Senate Bill 20, Gov. Roy Cooper believes the legislation’s restrictions on abortion — limits...

BISMARCK, North Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum announced Wednesday that he signed a law that makes the state’s college students and prisoners use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their biological sex. According to the provisions of H.B. 1473, jails, prisons, and public colleges must designate bathrooms, showers, locker rooms in a dormitory or living facility owned by the state board of higher education, as well as penitentiaries and correctional facilities for adults and youths, as “for use exclusively for males or exclusively for females.” The legislation further requires special accommodations be given to students...

BISMARCK, North Dakota (LifeSiteNews) – North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law Monday a measure forbidding state colleges and universities from requiring students, employees, applicants, and potential hires from being forced to conform to left-wing ideology. SB 2247 prohibits students or employees of public higher-ed institutions from being “[p]enalized, discriminated against,” or otherwise mistreated for refusing to “support, believe, endorse, embrace, confess, act upon, or otherwise assent to or oppose a specified concept”; “[r]equired to endorse or oppose a specific ideology or political viewpoint to be eligible for hiring, tenure, promotion, or graduation”; or asked for their “ideological...

BISMARCK, North Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — North Dakota has become the latest state to prohibit minors from being chemically or surgically mutilated through transgender drugs and surgeries. House Bill 1254, signed on April 19 by Republican Governor Doug Burgum, prohibits medical professionals from performing “castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, or vaginoplasty” on minors. It also prohibits a mastectomy and the administration of puberty blockers. There are exceptions for intersex individuals and anyone who has already started one of these medical procedures. Intersex and transgender are not the same thing, as explained here by LifeSiteNews’ Jeremy Williamson. The American...

The North Dakota governor has signed a bill to ban abortions on babies with beating hearts — a measure that legislators hope will be upheld in curt so North Dakota can become the next state to provide legal protection for unborn children. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signe the pro-life bill into law that bans abortions starting at 6 weeks when an unborn baby’s heartbeat can easily be detected. And it comes just a week after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill to make his state the next to protect women and unborn children. “This bill clarifies and...

North Dakota has adopted one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country - as Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed legislation banning nearly all procedures. The slim exception is if the abortion is performed in the first six weeks of pregnancy. In those early weeks, abortion would be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency, such as ectopic pregnancy. Most women do not realize they are pregnant by six weeks. Until now, procedures in the state had previously been legal until up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. 'This bill clarifies and refines existing state law ... and...

North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday that blocked the implementation of the Biden administration's clean water rule, also known as WOTUS. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers published the rule on Jan. 18 that brings the country's wetlands, streams and other waterways under federal jurisdiction. The rule was implemented during the Obama administration and repealed under the Trump administration. Twenty-three states and several organizations joined North Dakota in the lawsuit filed on Feb. 21. Hovland said in his order that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority and could be...

North Dakota House Republicans on Monday failed to secure enough votes to override Gov. Doug Burgum’s (R) veto of legislation that would have allowed state employees and educators to misgender transgender staff and students. The North Dakota House in a 56-36 vote on Monday failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to override Burgum’s veto of Senate Bill 2231, which had sought to prevent public schools and state government entities from adopting policies that require students and employees to address a transgender person using pronouns consistent with their gender identity. Burgum vetoed the measure last week, writing in a letter...

North Dakota's Republican governor vetoed a bill that would generally prohibit public schools teachers and staff from referring to transgender students by pronouns other than those reflecting the sex assigned to them at birth. Gov. Doug Burgum's veto on Thursday could be reversed by the state Legislature. If it became law, public school teachers and employees would be barred from using a transgender student's preferred pronoun unless they have permission from the student's parents as well as a school administrator. The bill would also prohibit government agencies from requiring employees to use a transgender colleague’s preferred pronoun. The proposal comes...

There has been another train derailment leading to a hazardous waste leak. This time the incident occurred in North Dakota. As reported by KFGO, several Canadian Pacific train cars derailed “with some spilling hazardous material in Richland County.” “Authorities say it happened around 11:15 p.m. on Sunday, March 26 just one mile southeast of Wyndmere, ND,” the report noted. “31 cars of a 70-car train derailed, with some leaking petroleum used to make asphalt. At this time, authorities are saying there’s no danger to the public.” “Canadian Pacific says its hazardous material experts are on scene along with local authorities...

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., joined forces with 18 GOP governors to reject President Joe Biden's environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) "agenda," claiming the push is a "direct threat" to the economic freedom of American retirees. Governors in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming formed the alliance Thursday in what they described as an effort to ensure American retirement funds are not used for "woke" investments. "Yet again, President Biden put his political agenda above the wellbeing and individual freedoms of hardworking Americans,"...

Six US Air Force personnel were fired for failing to ensure the safety and security of the country’s nuclear stockpile. Two commanders and four subordinates were relieved of duty at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota after their units failed an inspection, according to CNN. The base houses strategic bombers and missile silos, two branches of America’s “nuclear triad” military structure. Both Commanders were part of the 5th Mission Support Group and the 5th Logistics Readiness Squadron. The news organisation says that the security inspection is a pass/fail test and that the results are classified. There is no suggestion...

The U.S. Air Force relieved six leaders from their positions at a nuclear base in North Dakota but offered few details about why they were removed. A brief press release said Maj. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, commander of 8th Air Force, removed two commanders from their positions of leadership at Minot Air Force Base on Monday. Task and Purpose identified the these leaders as Col. Gregory Mayer, who led the 5th Mission Support Group, and Maj. Jonathan Welch, commander of the 5th Logistics Readiness Squadron. They were removed “due to a loss of confidence in their ability to complete their...

The North Dakota Senate on Thursday amended and passed a bill for lawmakers to study vaccines, including shots for COVID-19. Senate Bill 2384 would have banned messenger RNA vaccines in North Dakota and penalized providers with a misdemeanor charge. But sponsor Sen. Jeff Magrum, R-Hazelton, asked the Senate to amend his bill into an optional 2023-24 interim legislative study of "the long-term health effects on human beings of vaccines" for respiratory syncytial virus and of mRNA vaccines. The Senate adopted Magrum's amendments in a 26-21 vote and passed the bill in a 25-22 vote. The bill now goes to the...

North Dakota took a major step towards securing its elections on Wednesday after the state’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill banning ranked-choice voting (RCV). The move aligns with the Republican National Committee, which disavowed RCV in its January meeting.In a 74-19 vote, North Dakota’s lower chamber approved HB 1273, which specifies that RCV “may not be used in determining the election or nomination of any candidate to any local, state, or federal elective office.” No North Dakota jurisdiction currently employs ranked-choice voting for elections, according to a local state news outlet.Under RCV, which critics call ” rigged-choice voting,”...

"Washington Gun Law President, William Kirk, discusses now the third, of what will be many lawsuits to stop ATF's gross overreach with the publication of their new Pistol Brace Rule. Today we discuss the case of Firearms Responsibility Accountability Coalition v. Garland, filed in the U.S. District Court for the North Dakota. What make this case so unique however, is that 26 states have joined in as plaintiffs meaning that more than half the states in our country are now suing the Federal Government over this rule. Learn what all of this means to you and arm yourself with education...

The US intelligence community developed a secret technology to track China’s fleet of surveillance balloons only in the last year ... Although they won’t say how we’re doing it, the sources claim that the US can now even track past balloon flights—which is why the news only recently came out that the lighter-than-air craft crossed American airspace during the Trump administration. Like a scene out of “Back to the Future,” the Pentagon only recently realized that these intrusions had occurred. Despite the Biden administration’s insinuation that somehow Trump knew about these flights and did nothing about them, the truth is...