Free Republic

When John Tereska’s Trump-voting family members open their gifts from him on Christmas Day, they will get a shock. Inside pretty boxes they’ll find notes thanking them for making donations to organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club that support causes expected to come under attack from the new administration.

On Monday, it was Hillary Clinton who was losing a stream of Electoral College votes to surprising individuals, not Donald Trump. Four Democratic electors in Washington State alone declined to vote for Clinton, who won the state overwhelmingly, and instead threw their votes behind Standing Rock activist Faith Spotted Eagle, former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Daily Beast reports that Powell, a longtime Republican who supported the Democratic nominee in the last three elections, actually received three of the four rogue votes.

Continuing years of long-shot efforts to reform the American electoral system, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig said Tuesday that at least 20 Republican members of the Electoral College may not cast their votes for President-elect Donald Trump. Since Donald Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, Lessig, who briefly ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his anti-Trump group, "Electors Trust," have been working to offer legal advice to members of the Electoral College who are considering voting for a candidate that did not win the popular vote in their state. The group also promises to inform interested...

Harvard University law professor Larry Lessig said Tuesday that 20 Republican Electoral College voters are considering flipping to vote against Donald Trump, more than half the number of anti-Trump votes needed to stall the president-elect from being sworn into office. "Obviously, whether an elector ultimately votes his or her conscience will depend in part upon whether there are enough doing the same. We now believe there are more than half the number needed to change the result seriously considering making that vote," Lessig told Politico. Lessig has been offering free legal counsel to "faithless electors" who are considering casting a...

The Internet is ablaze with outrage over a new Fisher Price toy hitting markets just in time for Christmas—only the toy isn’t real, Fisher Price has no intention of producing it, and the image that’s riling up consumers is a Photoshopped product box intended as a social media joke. A photo, supposedly of a “Fisher Price Happy Hour Playset,” has been going viral on Facebook. According to the “ad,” the set, which has three very happy looking children playing bartender and barfly on the box, comes with a plastic bar, complete with three plastic bar stools and beer bottles,...

New Yorkers don't want Melania Trump in the city. Almost 100,000 people signed a petition requesting that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio refuse to pay close to $1 million per day to protect President-elect Donald Trump's wife, The Independent reported. "The New York taxpayers refuse to pay over $1 million a day so she can stay," they said. "If this decision has been made, between the two of them they should be the ones to pay for it. Not New York taxpayer dollars that could be used on roads, schools, transit, sanitation, new jobs and...

This is in the category of know what the enemy is doing. It comes with a very high BARF ALERT! Thousands of petitions - some of them: Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President. Prosecute Trump for illegal offenses before the Dec. 19 Electoral College Vote. Impeach Donald J. Trump

Good grief: A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center showed children have been negatively impacted by the election, with kids' classroom climate suffering drastically. The Monday report, which surveyed 10,000 teachers across the U.S., found many students were experiencing higher anxiety and there were more reported cases of "verbal harassment, the use of slurs and derogatory language, and disturbing incidents involving swastikas, Nazi salutes and Confederate flags." According to the survey's findings, nine out of 10 educators saw a negative impact on students' mood and behavior after the election. Eight out of 10 educators reported higher anxiety by...

Anti-Trump forces are apparently planning an all out legal assault on the Electoral College in a last ditch effort to keep Donald Trump from taking office in the White House. The plan? To file legal action in all 29 states which have laws that prohibit electors from “voting their conscience.” In other words, laws that prevent electors from going against the state’s popular vote. The inside scoop on what is being planned: Leaders of the effort, mainly Democrats, have plans to challenge laws in the 29 states that force electors to support their party’s candidate. Those laws have never been...

Idaho Trump electors report ‘barrage’ of harassing messages urging them to change votes By Betsy Z. Russell bzrussell@gmail.com (208) 336-2854 MONDAY, NOV. 14, 2016, 3:45 P.M. Idaho’s four presidential electors say they have been getting harassing phone calls, emails and Facebook messages urging them to become “faithless electors” and not cast their votes for Donald Trump in the electoral college. “A lot of ’em use bad, rough language,” said Layne Bangerter, one of the four electors. “Nothing I feel intimidated over. But we’re watching it very closely. They’ve got our home phone numbers, our cell numbers, our emails, our Facebook....

Chaos reigned Sunday ahead of the Democratic National Convention, as the party’s head was forced to quit, thousands of protesters took to the streets and delegates threatened a walk-out over Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential pick. On the eve of the four-day convention to nominate the county’s first female presidential candidate, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in disgrace over the hack of emails that showed DNC staffers favoring Clinton over her then rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Meanwhile, throngs of Sanders supporters marched and pounded on drums, chanting “Hell no, DNC — we won’t vote for Hillary” in the...

A "divider" like GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will have a hard time winning Ohio, an important battleground that could help decide the election in November, said Buckeye State Gov. John Kasich, a former Republican presidential candidate. "Ohio's a snapshot of the country. People in Ohio want to see a positive agenda, a positive way to move forward," Kasich said Friday in an interview at the Union League of Philadelphia. He attended a fund-raiser for Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican running for an open congressional seat. Kasich's remarks came a day after Trump accepted the Republican Party's nomination at...

Fascinating so many news and entertainment outlets had the same claims at nearly to the minute of Melania. They even coincided on reports of Don Jr, yet the author admits he helped write the speech.

Corey Menafee says he destroyed the window inside Calhoun College in New Haven, Connecticut, last month because he found it offensive. The name of the residential college has sparked protests because it honors former Vice President John C. Calhoun, an 1804 Yale graduate and an ardent defender of slavery. Menafee apologized for breaking the window. Yale said it was willing to let him return to work next week.

Participants were “smudged,” meaning the smoke from the sweetgrass was wafted over them before they could enter the sacred circle and begin a Wiccan ritual to support Sanders ahead of Oregon’s primary on Tuesday. “Welcome to the ‘Feeling the Bern ritual,’” Leigha Lafleur, 41, told the gathering as she prepared to lead them in the “amplification of positive energy of Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement.”

Who would have ever dreamed that the pope would win a primary for Donald Trump — in South Carolina, of all places, the buckle of the Bible Belt. Sure, Trump was probably going to prevail tomorrow anyway. But it’s over now, thanks to Pope Francis and his sanctimonious, tone-deaf statement that “a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Related Articles Pope Francis flap could boost Donald Trump in South Donald Trump blames Mexican gov’t for Pope Francis’ remarks Bernie Sanders goes on the defense while Hillary Clinton goes...

**SNIP** The talks have featured a high-profile negotiation over whether the goal should remain 2 degrees, or lowered to 1.5 degrees - the target favored by a string of island nations afraid of being swallowed whole by rising seas. It's looking increasingly likely that the final deal will have at least a nod to a 1.5 degree ceiling. The latest draft accord circulating in Paris late Thursday calls for "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C, recognizing that this would significantly...

So how is this going to fair with the idea that Russia is “Magog’ and is to invade Israel (Ezekiel 38) when reality is that Israel is going to be assisting and helping Russia in its crushing of ISIS in Syria? What is coming out of Israel is disproving all these hordes who think that Russia is using Syria as a pretext to eventually invade Israel. According to the Israeli media itself: Israel will provide Russia with intelligence information about opposition sites in Syria to facilitate Moscow’s military operations, Channel 2TV has reported. The Israeli network said that a senior...

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura thinks he and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders would make a good tag team Former Minnesota Governor and retired pro wrestler Jesse (The Body) Ventura is into Bernie Sanders. Ventura stirred up controversy last month by hinting he might be interested in serving as Donald Trump’s vice president, but the fiercely independent rabble rouser told Confidenti@l that a Sanders/Ventura ticket might be a better fit. “Would I run with Bernie? Sure, I’d give him consideration,” Ventura tells Confidenti@l, reasoning that Sanders, quickly gaining traction, is the candidate most likely to bring our troops back from the...

California governor Jerry Brown gave signs in a Wednesday interview on CNN that he may be considering running for president. Brown, who has run for president three before, spoke with Wolf Blitzer about the current Democratic field. The Democrat said he has not yet endorsed a candidate, calling frontrunner Hillary Clinton "formidable" and refused to give advice about Vice President Joe Biden, who is reportedly mulling a run.