Free Republic

Sherikia Hawkins was charged Monday with six felony counts for allegedly altering absentee ballots during the November 2018 election in her capacity as city clerk for the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Mich. Hawkins, a 38-year-old registered Democrat, stands accused of altering 193 absentee ballots. She was arraigned Monday in Southfield on charges including falsifying returns or records, forgery of a public record, misconduct in office, and multiple counts of using a computer to commit a crime. She was released on $15,000 bond. The alleged misconduct was discovered after the Oakland County Clerk’s Office noticed that 193 voter files had been...

For complete transparency, I’ll state up front I completely support this effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. As a California resident, I’ve seen the dysfunction from our elected officials and the radical progressive ideas they push. As an American, I understand the need to fight Democrats tooth and nail, especially when their leadership has been as disastrous as it’s been in California. Erin Cruz is leading the effort to launch a recall vote against the Governor. We endorsed her campaign two years ago and we support this effort today. Newsom’s policies, from endorsing the sanctuary state status to removing parental...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) struggles to appeal personally to voters despite her popular policies, Axios reporter Alexi McCammond said on MSNBC Monday. McCammond discussed her article arguing that voters find Warren's left-wing policies appealing but have "qualms" about the Massachusetts senator's personality. Voters "liked things like canceling student loan debt, they liked the idea of taxing corporations and the wealthy because they feel like it will help people like them personally, but they didn't like Elizabeth Warren's personality," McCammond said.

Trump is winning with urban voters and has record support with African Americans A new Zogby Poll® of 897 likely voters nationwide in the U.S., conducted from 8/9/19-8/12/19, with a margin of sampling error of +/-3.3 percentage points, shows President Trump's job approval rating at its best since we've been tracking the figure. A separate poll of adults in Canada was conducted 8/9/19-8/11/19 with a margin of sampling error of +/- 4.3 percentage points... ... Independents were more balanced in their impression of Trump's job performance (45% approve/50% disapprove). The president's numbers continue to improve with Independents, which a few...

President Trump is visiting Houston to attend a large rally with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-seven percent (47%) disapprove. The latest figures include 37% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing and 39% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. (see trends).

Former Vice President Joe Biden went on the offense Saturday over President Trump’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, in which Trump reportedly urged the leader to investigate Biden’s son’s dealings in the country -- with Biden backing calls for a House investigation and for the White House to release the transcript of the call. “Trump’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum, and he’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me,” he told reporters in Iowa. (snip) “Depending on what the...

Microsoft says it'll offer free security updates through the 2020 election in the United States — and in other interested democratic countries with national elections next year — for federally certified voting systems running on soon-to-be-outdated Windows 7 software.

A federal judge ordered a temporary injunction Thursday against California’s first-in-the-nation law requiring candidates to disclose their tax returns for a spot on the presidential primary ballot, an early victory for President Trump but a decision that will undoubtedly be appealed by state officials. U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. said he would issue a final ruling in the coming days but took the unusual step of issuing the tentative order from the bench. He said there would be “irreparable harm without temporary relief” for Trump and other candidates from the law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July. Morrison...

According to Channel 13, 97.6% of the votes from Tuesday's elections have already been counted, Blue and White stands at 33 seats and Likud at 31 seats, with Blue and White leading by a narrow margin. It is important to note that these are still not the final results. Overnight, the committee was counting the near quarter of a million soldiers' votes cast by Israeli soldiers. The Central Election Committee (CEC) has been updating its website since the close of the polls at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. The last update was at 10:40 a.m. on Thursday: 4,354,991 votes had been...

More bettors at one British bookmaker are backing Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Party's 2020 nominee than they are any of the candidates actually running in the race, giving her better odds of winning than Senator Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke, among others. At the bookmaker Ladbrokes, Clinton has seen enough backing by bettors to rise to the seventh favorite for the 2020 nomination at 20/1. Booker, a senator of New Jersey, is eighth at 33/1. O'Rourke, a former representative of Texas, is ninth at 50/1. "We're baffled, to be honest," Matthew Shaddick, head of political betting at Ladbrokes,...

How is 56 greater than 60? Call it Netanyahu’s new math. “After we established the right-wing bloc, there are only two options,” Netanyahu said. “Either a government led by me, or a dangerous government leaning on Arab parties.” Netanyahu’s only chance to remain prime minister is by making sure that his potential coalition partners don’t start wandering over to Blue and White’s side. The way to make sure they don’t do that is to promise he will stay with them and not follow what seems like the more obvious path to a coalition, to reach across the aisle himself.

Right-wing factions convened at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon, deciding to establish a "right-wing bloc" headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, that will work for the establishment of the next government. It was decided to form a joint coalition negotiations team for all factions in the bloc. In addition to Netanyahu, the meeting saw the participation of Minister Yariv Levin and faction heads: Yaakov Litzman, Moshe Gafni, Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, and Bezalel Smotrich. Minister Aryeh Deri met with Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this morning, as he was unable to attend the meeting due to the memorial ceremony...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and Benny Gantz's Kahol Lavan are tied but neither can secure a ruling majority, with 92 percent of the votes in Israel's Tuesday election counted, according to a source in Israel's Central Elections Committee. (Who is Benny Gantz? Read the full profile) >> The election is here. Subscribe now - save 30% According to the partial results, Likud and Kahol Lavan won each 32 out of 120 Knesset seats. Netanyahu's bloc, comprised of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, currently stands at 56 seats. The center-left bloc, excluding Arab parties, has 43 seats. Avigdor Lieberman, whose...

The Central Elections Committee issued an injunction tonight (Sunday) against the left-wing NGO Zazim‘s initiative to bus 15,000 Arab voters to voting booths on election day, ruling that the initiative is in violation of the election laws. Zazim (movement) is an NGO that is backed by the New Israel Fund (NIF) which is backed by billionaire currency manipulator George Soros. The injunction came following a petition submitted by the Likud arguing that Zazim, which is heavily funded by the US-based New Israel Fund, is violating the election the laws. In 2017, the Knesset passed the “V15” law aimed at preventing...

The prime minister says media giant folds to Left pressure, and repeated his previous statements that the media is falsely reporting that large numbers of right-wing voters are casting their votes. BY JERUSALEM POST STAFF SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 19:53   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed social media giant Facebook for closing his chat bot on Tuesday, as he was using it to ask users whom are they voting for. Netanyahu repeated his previous statements that the media is falsely reporting that large numbers of Right-wing voters are casting their votes.  "This is a spin of a spin," he shouted on social media,...

The last one, held in April, looked like a victory for Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party. But when Netanyahu failed to get enough support from smaller parties to form a government, he was forced to call new elections. So here we are. The polling for the new election is too close to call. Likud is locked in a tight race with the centrist Blue and White party, which is leading the opposition. The ultimate outcome depends on a lot of things that are really hard to predict, ranging from minor party vote share to post-election parliamentary haggling.

The District Court of the Hague will hold a hearing on Tuesday about whether a war crimes case against Benny Gantz is admissible relating to his command decisions during the 2014 Gaza War. Israeli soldiers and commanders may also be on the hot seat at The Hague before the International Criminal Court, but Tuesday’s hearing, which also happens to be Election Day, is a local Dutch court proceeding that is unrelated to that. In fact, the ICC preliminary probe of Israel’s conduct of the 2014 war is moving slowly and is not expected to come to any conclusion earlier than...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to announce later Tuesday his intention to promote annexation steps in the occupied West Bank if he wins the next week's elections, an Israeli official tells me. Why it matters: Netanyahu has already spoken about annexation before Israel's elections in April, but he didn’t commit or promise anything. Netanyahu’s statement is directed at his right-wing base and the settler lobby in order to boost support for his Likud party over other right-wing parties, ensuring that Likud wins most seats in the elections to gain an upper hand in building a coalition. The international...

Israel will be holding national elections on September 17 for the second time this year. This is the second part of a series that offers insight into perspectives beyond whether Bibi will be reelected.* Unlike a two-party system, Israel has a parliamentary democracy which means that as many as 40 parties have competed to win votes to be represented in the Knesset. People vote for a party and its list of candidates rather than for a specific candidate. In order to be represented in Knesset, any party must receive at least 3.25% of the vote which means that there might...