Free Republic

In the midst of a Democratic protest this evening against the nomination of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as the next attorney general, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., began reading the contents of a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, widow of the slain civil rights leader, protesting his nomination as a U.S. District judge. (That nomination was unsuccessful.) But 31 years later, Warren was sanctioned by her Senate colleagues for reading the letter on the chamber floor, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said impugned the character of her fellow senator.

The front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday blasts President-elect Donald Trump with the headline "Atlanta to Trump: Wrong." The accompanying front-page article reacts to Trump’s criticism of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), after the incoming president said Saturday the longtime congressman does nothing for his district, which Trump said is in "horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested)." “The district that Trump described as in ‘horrible shape’ includes Emory University and Morehouse College, as well as Spelman College and Georgia Tech. The Coca-Cola headquarters is just one of that district’s many, high-profile corporate residents,” the AJC article...

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed pushed back Saturday on President-elect Donald Trump’s assessment of civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ district. In a series of tweets, Reed said: “John Lewis is an American hero & a national treasure. Period. Full stop. “That PEOTUS Trump would attack Congressman Lewis on MLK Day weekend for “all talk…no action” when he bled to actually “Make America Great” is why far less than half the country supports him at the dawn of his presidency.” Trump said Lewis’s district was “in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested)” in an early...

President-elect Donald Trump labeled a congressional district that sweeps through the heart of Atlanta as a “crime infested” area that is in “horrible shape” in an early-morning tweet Saturday aimed at one of his most outspoken Democratic critics. The Republican was unloading at Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who has represented the Atlanta district since his 1986 election, after the civil rights icon made national headlines when he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he will skip Trump’s inauguration next week. “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling...

he big, overarching reason that President-elect Donald Trump doesn't want to accept the conclusions of the intelligence community about Russia's alleged hacking is pretty simple: It would call into question whether he would have won the 2016 election without it. Trump is a winner, and it would hurt his brand. And he's making that very clear right now — in a deceptive way.

On the day leading up to the final rally of Donald Trump’s “thank you” tour, city officials in Mobile, Ala., raved about its plans for a festive, Christmas welcome for the president-elect. The mayor’s chief of staff tweeted that the city “did the impossible,” erecting and decorating a 50-foot Christmas tree as a backdrop for Trump’s speech. But some Mobile residents soon speculated that the majestic cedar tree was one they had seen before, AL.com reported. Just over a mile away from the stadium where Trump would speak, in a public park, a massive cedar tree was gone. As skeptical...

A YouTube star known for pranks and hoaxing says he was removed from a Delta Air Lines flight after speaking Arabic. In a series of tweets and videos, Adam Saleh described the incident on Delta Flight 1 from London Heathrow Airport to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. “We got kicked out of a @Delta airplane because I spoke Arabic to my mom on the phone and with my friend slim,” Saleh wrote. In one tweet, he called for a boycott of Delta. Delta said two customers were removed from the flight and later rebooked “after a disturbance in the...

In Australia, and around the world, we have been living this presidential transition with you. We watched the debates on our lunch breaks, we scrolled through news on our phones as the voting results were announced, in the warm light of a spring day. Since the election I have cried many times, in the shower, in the car, as the conventions that define liberal Western democracy are stripped away by Donald J. Trump, with every distressful appointment, each impulsive outburst. I have embarrassment of grief for a government that is not mine and for a country that does not belong...

The Rev. William Barber, the head of the North Carolina NAACP and a leader in the state’s Moral Mondays movement, says he was kicked off an American Airlines flight earlier this year because he is black. He filed suit against the company on Wednesday in Alexandria, Va., federal court, demanding unspecified monetary damages as well as changes at the airline. According to the minister, he was harassed by fellow passengers and a flight attendant before being removed from his flight, which was departing Reagan National Airport, for no reason. “To be born two days after the March on Washington and...

The UW-Milwaukee transgender student who was singled out by controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos sent an angry, expletive-laden filled email to Chancellor Mark Mone, accusing the chancellor of insulting her and engaging in “goddamn lip service.” “GO F-CK YOURSELF,” Adelaide Karen Kramer started the email, which she sent to the chancellor and 458 members of the university community on December 14, the morning after Breitbart editor Yiannopoulos spoke to a sold-out crowd in the Wisconsin Room at the UWM Student Union. Kramer was responding to an email that Mone sent to all students and faculty after Yiannopoulos’ incendiary speech. *** In...

After standing by proudly but quietly as their son continued to protest the national anthem and draw intense criticism, the parents of Colin Kaepernick finally decided to talk about his decision and beliefs. "Colin is carrying a heavy load and following a difficult path that he truly believes in. He is putting his entire future and possibly his life on the line for those beliefs," Teresa and Rick Kaepernick wrote in a statement released to The Undefeated. "As his parents, it pains us to read articles and tweets saying that his family does not support him; this could not be...

SU Students 4 Trump, and other conservative forces on campus, would have students believe that their First Amendment rights are under assault by the tyrannical administration here at Iowa State University. The organization, which is not an official student group but rather a charter of the nationwide group Students 4 Trump, made national headlines after canceling a Milo Yiannopoulos event last week. *** However, there is no evidence to show that this wasn’t just a simple case of bureaucratic overlook, or a situation where the university looked at the reality of past Yiannopoulos events and decided that more security would...

RUTHERFORD COUNTY, N.C. A Rutherford County woman said her son left his visit to Santa Claus in tears because the man made fun of his weight. Ashley Mayse said she wished she'd never brought Anthony, 9, to talk to the Santa employed by Forest City, Channel 9's partner, WLOS, reported. Anthony posed for a picture with Santa and shared his Christmas list, but the man's final comments caused Anthony to later tear up the picture with the not-so-jolly character. "And when it got done, he said, ‘Lay off the hamburgers and french fries’ and that really just disrespected me, and...

On Friday afternoon, House Speaker David Ralston joined host Bill Nigut and I for some conversation on GPB’s “Political Rewind.” Many topics were touched, and you can listen to the entire exchange here. Perhaps most important was Ralston’s contention that an end to gridlock in Washington was a reason to give the “religious liberty” issue a rest come January – and let Congress take a crack at it. The House speaker also said it would be “irresponsible” not to consider the apparent defeat of North Carolina’s governor, who signed legislation similar to the measure that Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed last...

Top brass at the Metro Atlanta Chamber said Wednesday they will make avoiding another firestorm of controversy over “religious liberty” legislation a top priority when the state Legislature reconvenes in January. SunTrust Banks Executive Vice President Jenner Wood, the outgoing chairman of the chamber’s board, said the conversation alone over the legislation, which critics deride as discriminatory toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, is damaging to the state’s reputation of tolerance and inclusion. It also can dent Georgia’s economic progress since the recession.

Liberal professor of political philosophy Mark Lilla is all for the gains on behalf of diversity rightly understood over the last generation. And we conservatives agree there really has been progress on this front, and our country in some key respects is more just than it used to be. Our rigorous “selective nostalgia” — attentive as it is to the ways things are getting better and worse — celebrates the ways things have gotten better for African Americans, women, gays, Latinos, and others. One of the most memorable days of my life, in fact, was driving through midtown Atlanta the...

After the West Coast overwhelming supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for president, Canadians are taking to social media to invite Washington, Oregon, and California to join Canada.

Throughout his campaign, Donald J. Trump has displayed a particular type of hyper masculinity — the man who is proud not to apologize and to have never changed a diaper; who views “loser” as the ultimate insult; who bonds with other men by objectifying women. It’s especially striking because today’s schools and workplaces try to value something different: empathy, impulse control and collaboration. For three decades, jobs that require these social skills have grown much more than others, researchers have found. They say one reason that boys are more likely than girls to get in trouble in school and are...

(CNN)Donald Trump exceeded expectations, but Hillary Clinton won the second presidential debate, according to a CNN / ORC poll of debate watchers. The results showed a clear victory for Clinton, with 57% saying Clinton won, as opposed to 34% for Trump. It's a strong showing for Clinton, but not as good as her performance at the first presidential debate, when 62% of debate watchers said she won.

Earlier this month, a Trump-supporting student at the University of West Georgia took umbrage at a sign declaring a bathroom on campus to be “liberated” from the “gender binary.” He tore the paper sign off, but first he had a buddy take photos of him doing it so he could post it on Facebook later . That earned junior Lans Carcioppolo a visit from college administrators, but he is unapologetic.