Free Republic

A Vermont school district has just reached a settlement to pay one local family $125,000 in damages after disciplining them for speaking out against a transgender student that was creeping out high school girls in a school locker room. In addition, the school has promised to reinstate Travis Allen as a middle school soccer coach, as well as remove any records of discipline against him and his daughter in the school database. -snip As reported by The Daily Signal, the legal battle began last October with the Allen family filing a lawsuit claiming that Travis and his daughter Blake "were...

An Enosburg Falls man who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., has been charged with a felony for marching with a torch during a demonstration with other white nationalists. Ryan Roy, 34, faces one count of burning an object with the intent to intimidate. He's at least the fourth person indicted for participating in the August 11, 2017, rally on the University of Virginia campus. Marchers carried lit torches and chanted things such as "Jews will not replace us!" and the Nazi slogan "Blood and soil!" Roy, who grew up in Essex, did not respond to...

Below is a slightly modified version of my column in The Hill on the call of Democrat members for Joe Biden to circumvent Congress and simply raise the debt limit unilaterally. It is more than a flawed constitutional theory. It is an abandonment of the core premise of our constitutional system that each branch would jealously protect its own institutional interests and powers. It is reminiscent of when Democrats applauded wildly when Barack Obama told them that he was going to circumvent Congress entirely after it refused to approve his immigration and environmental legislation. They were applauding their own institutional...

WASHINGTON—Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a former Louisiana sheriff, physically removed a protester who crossed into a Republican news conference on May 17 and approached Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) in a way Higgins described as “threatening.” The news conference, during which Higgins, Boebert, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and others expressed their opposition to ongoing treaty negotiations with the World Health Organization, was interrupted when a left-wing protester began heckling members of Congress. After the protester crossed into the news conference, Higgins removed him. The conference was in the House Triangle, one of the most popular news conference...

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel organization in the U.S., is slamming Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for hosting an antisemitic event commemorating the so-called Palestinian "Nakba." ...an annual observance by Palestinians that denies the right of the State of Israel to exist, thus denying political self-determination to Jews — and only Jews — in their own homeland...The term refers to the defeat in 1948 of the Palestinians and other Arab forces who tried to crush the newly-formed Jewish state as it declared independence. They failed, and about 700,000 Palestinians fled as refugees.The Arab world, which had encouraged...

WASHINGTON–Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill on May 4 to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour. The proposal, which is more than double the current rate of $7.25, was unveiled to the cheers of various labor leaders outside Capitol Hill. “It is time to pass a new livable wage,” Sanders said. He was joined by AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who said the increase would not burden large corporations, citing a leaked McDonald’s earnings call wherein the CEO says the company would do “just fine” under a $15 minimum wage. Last December, McDonald’s opened its first largely...

If you had any doubt that Bernie Sanders (I-USSR) was an actual Communist, doubt no longer. The guy who stands ready in case Old Joe retires and the Democrats opt to pick another octogenarian Leftist sat down Friday for a chat with Chris Wallace on HBO Max, and declared that if someone earns more than $999 million in a given year, the U.S. government should seize all of it. That’s right: all of it. Not 90 percent. Every last penny. And he showed no indication of having any idea why this policy, if it were ever enacted, would kill the...

No billionaires at all! Not American ones, at least. That’s the newly proclaimed policy of Bernie Sanders, who most definitely is not challenging the Democrats to nominate him for president in 2024, as he did in 2020. Nope, Bernie is perfectly comfortable with the policies being followed by President Biden’s handlers. Presumably, in exchange for not rocking the boat as he did in 2020, forcing the party’s controllers to pick an already senescent Joe Biden just because he was easy to control with all these bribes that could be exposed when needed (cough! Stay tuned as Biden’s desire for re-election...

Consider the parallels between Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for POTUS and the Bernie Sanders debacle. In both cases, Americans witness an entrenched Democrat juggernaut of corrupt power brokers who believe they get to choose who will be the Democrat candidate -- not their own primary-voting Democrat electorate. In both cases, every trick or gimmick is pulled by the Dems and legacy media to discredit the challenger in favor of the anointed. In both cases, the discredited candidate would fare better than the establishment favorite against Donald Trump in the general election. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be a mightier opponent...

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should be investigated by the Department of Justice. Psaki said, “There were new revelations this week, about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his financial relationship with a billionaire Harlan Crow. Just this morning there’s even new reporting about some inaccuracies on his financial disclosure forms. Your colleague Sheldon Whitehouse is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate on Clarence Thomas for potential ethic violation. Do you back Senator Whitehouse’s call?”

Senator Bernie Sanders, the "independent" from Vermont who's made a name for himself as an outspoken and hypocritical opponent of capitalism, is once again hitting the road to hawk his latest book — which is not free — at a series of in-person events — which are also not free. That is, Bernie Sanders is again relying on the systems he claims to oppose as he pushes his views. Perhaps he's looking to get some capital to buy another vacation home because his existing private properties aren't cutting it anymore? Sanders was pressed on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday about...

Vermont on Tuesday became the first state in the country to change its medically assisted suicide law to allow terminally ill people from out of state to take advantage of it to end their lives. Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill that removes the residency requirement for the decades-old law. Last year in a court settlement, Oregon agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement of its law allowing terminally ill people to receive lethal medication. It also agreed to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law. ... Patients routinely travel to other states to utilize the best...

A Vermont elementary school says it will no longer use the words “male” or “female” when teaching fifth-grade students about puberty and human reproductive systems. Families of students at Founders Memorial School received a letter on April 20 informing them of the changes to the science and health curriculum. Instead of referring to a person as a “boy” or “male,” teachers will say “person who produces sperm.” Likewise, they will no longer say “girl” or “female” but “person who produces eggs.” Caroline Moore, the vice president of Parents Defending Education, blasted the change in a statement to The Post Wednesday...

A homeless woman "was wiping blood off of her hands with a paper towel" after she allegedly killed a homeless shelter coordinator with an ax, police said. Zaaina Asra Zakirrah Mahvish-Jammeh, a 38-year-old resident of Morningside House shelter in Brattleboro, Vermont, wanted to talk to Leah Rosin-Pritchard, a 36-year-old social worker, in the living room, according to a probable cause affidavit. Responding officers, who reviewed security footage, said Mahvish-Jammeh and Rosin-Pritchard were out of the camera's view, but they heard a "muffled" conversation before the "thudding and screaming started," the affidavit says. The two women entered view of the camera,...

BRATTLEBORO — The crime began and ended Monday. The court arraignment concluded Tuesday. But for residents shocked by this week’s violent death of a local social worker, questions linger. “There’s a wish we have when the unthinkable and tragic happens like this — to find a simple answer,” said Kurt White, vice president of outpatient programs at the state’s largest psychiatric hospital, the Brattleboro Retreat. “But this is not really that kind of thing. These are complicated and complex problems, and there are not simple answers.” And so, many southeastern Vermonters are struggling to process the death of Leah Rosin-Pritchard,...

A select panel of Vermont citizens has appointed three radical Vermonters to serve on the state's new Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Last year, the state legislature voted to approve the creation of the commission, which is intended to address "instances of discrimination and harm caused by State laws and/or policies to specific marginalized communities in Vermont," especially those who were affected by a 1931 state law that legalized forced sterilization. In 2021, the state issued a formal apology for that law, which disproportionately affected "Indigenous people, French Canadians, mixed-race people, people with disabilities and low-income families," according to the VT...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Thousands of people rallied across the country Friday as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility in support of the rights of transgender people and their resilience amid what many denounced as an increasingly hostile environment. Supporters converged on statehouses nationwide, at the Capitol Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., and were planned as far away as Mexico City to mark a day of international unity first proclaimed more than a decade ago. Chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” many at the statehouse in Montpelier, Vermont, draped themselves in pride flags or carried posters...

JUNCTION, VT – The Mid Vermont Christian School has been banned from competing in future sports tournaments after their team purposely forfeited a game in the girl’s state basketball playoffs in February due to the fact that the opposing team had a male-to-female transgender student on their roster. The Principals’ Association (VPA) ruled on Monday that Mid Vermont violated the organization’s policies on race, gender and disability awareness – as well as state law – and as a result the school’s teams are no longer allowed to participate in future VPA-sanctioned tournaments in any sport whatsoever. “The VPA again reiterates...

Not too long ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene raised a lot of eyebrows when she began teasing the possibility of a “national divorce.” While nobody wants to see another disastrous civil war (with much better weapons), she posited that the nation is splitting in two along social lines with the two sides embracing ideas and morals that are so far apart that there may not be any compromise left to be found. I’m still not entirely sold on that concept, but one example that might support the phenomenon has popped up in Vermont and it brings us back to the ongoing...

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont religious school that withdrew its girls’ basketball team from a playoff game because a transgender student was playing on the opposing team won’t be able to participate in future tournaments, the Vermont Principals’ Association announced Monday. Mid Vermont Christian School, in White River Junction, Vermont, forfeited the Feb. 21 game, saying that it believed that the transgender player “jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.” The executive council of the principals’ association, which is the governing body for Vermont school sports and activities for member schools, ruled that the...