Free Republic

When President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office Friday, he'll be the most unpopular man to do so in decades, two new polls showed. A majority of Americans - 54% - have an unfavorable opinion of the incoming president, a Tuesday Washington Post/ABC News poll showed. A second survey, conducted by CNN and ORC, reported that 52% of people do not approve of the way the president-elect has been handling the transition. In each poll, just 40% of respondents said they view Trump and his transition team favorably.

Some 25 colleges and universities – many of them public – have answered a call by professors at UCLA to use their regular class time to “teach, organize, and resist” what they view as the discriminatory political agenda of President-elect Donald Trump. Slated for Wednesday, January 18, the teach-in, dubbed #J18, is taking place between the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and Trump’s inauguration. The event’s planners say: Let it be known that on #J18 and beyond, universities, colleges, and high schools refused to bear silent witness to the politics of hate and fear; that in these times, these places...

Trump is a fascist. He's picking on everybody. Waaaah!

Exulted by Donald Trump's victory in the U.S., the Kremlin is counting the days to his inauguration and venting its anger at Barack Obama's outgoing administration, no holds barred. Careful not to hurt chances for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have deferred questions about their plans for future contacts with Trump and any agenda for those talks until he takes office on Friday. Trump's open admiration of Putin has brought wide expectations of improved Moscow-Washington relations, but Trump has not articulated a clear Russia policy. His Cabinet nominees include both a retired general...

Meryl Streep's speech condemning President-elect Donald Trump for perceived bullying tactics and intolerance didn't go over well with at least two of the stars in the gilded Golden Globes audience on Sunday night. Mel Gibson, known as conservative, and Vince Vaughn, known as libertarian, death glared throughout Streep's speech - with Vaughn demonstrating the ability to not blink for an uncomfortably long period of time. Gibson looked confused as he frowned and touched his chin as Meryl took Donald Trump to task for mocking a disabled reporter, bullying, and inciting disrespect and violence. Twitter noticed that the pair's stony mugs...

We are the most religious democracy in the world, and our Judeo-Christian ethic demands that we take care of the downtrodden. But we are also the only advanced democracy without universal health coverage. Are we confused . . . or just hypocrites? My bet is that we are very confused. The public’s reaction to Obamacare (also known as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) is a prime example of our confusion. Most Americans are preoccupied with making a living and raising a family, and rightly so. They have no time to fully examine health care policy issues. Surveys show that...

He entered the White House a living symbol, breaking a color line that stood for 220 years. Barack Obama took office, and race immediately became a focal point in a way that was unprecedented in American history. No matter his accomplishments, he seemed destined to be remembered foremost as the first black man to lead the world’s most powerful nation. But eight years later, Obama’s racial legacy is as complicated as the president himself. […] Perhaps most strikingly, the president’s successor, Donald Trump, is seen by many as the antithesis of a colorblind society, a one-time leader of the “birther”...

The FBI did not look over the Democratic National Committee's servers before issuing a report that Russia had hacked the organization, according to a report published Wednesday evening. Other than the FBI, no federal agency has conducted an investigation into the DNC's email server since the incident was uncovered six months ago. "The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office, the Department of Justice's National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation, but the FBI never requested access to the DNC's...

One of 2016’s most spectacular examples of government dysfunction was the U.S. Senate’s outrageous refusal to consider President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. That dereliction of duty by the Republican majority not only denied a sitting president his constitutional prerogative to fill vacancies in the court (so that the appointment would go instead to a hoped-for Republican successor). It also prevented the court from resolving a handful of cases because of a 4-4 split and probably discouraged the justices from accepting other cases because of the possibility of a...

As we face the new year and the realities of politics in a post-Obama world, the Democrats understandably feel the need to act as if some things are still normal. That is, even if they suspect that Donald Trump and the Republicans will soon turn the U.S. into a one-party state in all but name, the Democrats need to avoid admitting as much—to themselves or anyone else—to prevent their fears from become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that, in the hope of being able to win elections in the future, Democrats are trying to think through the various reasons that...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted on Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail. The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure. The surprising vote came on the eve of the...

Trump is far more of a menace than Nixon. Trump will commit impeachable offenses. There is no way to contain him other than removing him from office, before the damage to our democracy is irrevocable. The process of building the impeachment case needs to begin now.

Russian hackers tied to recent cyberattacks on U.S. political organizations breached a Vermont utility, the Washington Post reported Friday. A code associated with the Russian hacking operation aimed at the U.S. presidential election, which the intelligence community has named “Grizzly Steppe,” was detected within the Vermont system. The Russians did not disrupt electrical operations, officials told the Post. According to the Burlington Free Press, the city-owned Burlington Electric was the target of the hack. Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia said malware was discovered on a laptop that was not connected to the grid's operations. "The grid is not in...

Put this in the category of be careful what you wish for. The instant that Trump won the White House, the chatter about impeaching him has been non-stop. The reasons many legal scholars, ethics experts, and political analysts give boil down to this. He has business dealings with foreign governments, most notably Russia, his family management arrangement still presents business conflicts, his possible violation of the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits presidents from buying influence with federal officials or receiving special treatment, and influence peddling and gift taking from foreign governments. These are all sticky points that Trump hasn’t done much...

The Agence France-Presse on Thursday updated a misleading headline that suggested that Russia manipulated US vote totals on Election Day through hacking. "US sanctions Russia over vote hacking," read an AFP headline. The Obama administration leveled sanctions against Russia on Thursday for election-related hacking. But there is no evidence that Russian hackers broke into election systems to change vote totals. The White House and US intelligence agencies have only accused Moscow of hacking the Democratic National Committee and political operatives. The AFP later corrected its headline to read: "US punishes Russia over election hacks." An editor's note was not attached...

As President Obama's second term winds down, now is a great time to look back at all of the joy the Obama family has brought to the country. And at a time when we're facing a Donald Trump presidency, we can use all of the positive feelings we can get. So, what better way to look back at the Obamas' legacy than remembering all the times Michelle Obama mom-danced her way through her role as First Lady. During Barack's presidency, Michelle has been very active in supporting causes she believes in. She's encouraged healthy eating habits, promoted an active lifestyle...

“Senior politics reporter” Laura Bassett acts as the abortion conglomerate’s publicist in a December 21 story headlined “Some Trump Voters Will Be ‘Pissed Off As Hell’ If He Defunds Planned Parenthood.” Their evidence is focus groups paid for by Planned Parenthood itself in four states, and a Politico poll. Get a load of the “Trump voters” whose quotes are salted through this thinly disguised press release opposing a defunding bill:

Frustrated after seeing another candidate secure the presidency without winning the national popular vote, mostly Democratic lawmakers in several capitols want their states to join a 10-year-old movement to work around the Electoral College. In states including Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico, legislators have said they plan to introduce legislation that would require their state's Electoral College voters cast ballots for the presidential candidate who earns the most votes nationwide, regardless of the statewide results. "Every vote in this country should have equal weight. The Electoral College is a relic of a bygone era, and we need to change...

Sony Pictures Television is in very early stages of rebooting several classic sitcoms from TV legend Norman Lear as miniseries — including “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Good Times” — Variety has learned exclusively. The idea currently being discussed by Lear and Sony executives would be to have new actors recreate classic episodes of the shows, working from the original scripts, and package them as short, six-episode anthologies. The scripts would be treated similar to plays being mounted in new productions. “There is some talk about doing some of the original shows, redoing them with today’s stars,” Lear...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michelle Obama will be ceding the title of first lady to Melania Trump next month, but she may hold for some time the other distinction she earned during her time in the White House: America's best known advocate for healthy food. The non-profit organization she helped create as first lady, Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), where she is honorary chair, will continue its work convincing food companies to improve nutrition content and labeling of products, the group said. "Michelle Obama has been a tremendous leader in this space," said Larry Soler, president and chief executive...