Free Republic

Before she was allowed to register and vote for the first time in Franklin County, N.C., Rosanell Eaton had to read the entire preamble to the U.S. Constitution out loud in front of three men in the county courthouse. Eaton is black. The three men testing her were white. The time was the early 1940s, when trying to vote was difficult and even dangerous for African-Americans. Contrived "literacy tests" were one of the milder obstacles that were deployed to suppress the black vote in the South. Now 93, Eaton is back in court. This summer she is the lead plaintiff...

Fidelity Investments holds big fundraiser for Barney Frank, raising thousands of dollars for his campaign fund. Supporting Congressman connected to financial crisis, hate crimes bill, more. May 5, 2009 US Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is probably among the most despised members of Congress these days. As Chairman of the House Banking Committee, most people have seen his arrogant, condescending manner in various television interviews over the past several months. Barney Frank's recent activities seem to range across the spectrum (and this is just his recent stuff): Financial meltdown. Frank's complicity in this country's financial crisis has become legendary. This includes...

The existence of gay Republicans is hardly a new phenomenon. The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay men and women within the party, was founded back in 1977 in California. But every so often, the existence of gay conservatives gets media attention, particularly during election cycles. In more recent years, gay conservatives have been getting more attention as the Republican Party struggles with its identity. American opinion has shifted significantly to support top issues among gays and lesbians, particularly in support of marriage recognition. Support for gay marriage among evangelical Christians has doubled over the past decade, according to...

The IRS declared under oath and penalty of perjury on Friday that Lois Lerner’s hard drive is irrecoverable after being wiped clean by tech staff and recycled with an outside contractor, according to a court filing.

Federal employees, like all Americans, are entitled to hold passionate political beliefs. Most executive branch federal employees, however, may not engage in certain political activities, thanks to an anti-conflict of interest principle enshrined in a federal law called the Hatch Act. To wit, President Bush requested the resignation of his GSA administrator in 2008 after the US Office of Special Counsel determined she had violated federal law by participating in a video conference with Karl Rove and sending out partisan letters. (The New York Times was scandalized at the time, though I strangely can´t find their editorial calling for Kathleen

In June Senator Thad Cochran won the GOP primary runoff election over conservative challenger Chris McDaniel after 25,000-35,000 Democrats helped push him to victory. Cochran and the Republican establishment also were behind the racist anti-Tea Party ads that ran in Mississippi prior to the runoff election. Thad Cochran won the election over Chris McDaniel by 6,880 votes in the June 24 runoff.

A Mississippi man who accused the Thad Cochran campaign of paying African-Americans to vote for the senator in his primary runoff last month is walking back his story. Stevie Fielder told California-based blogger Charles C. Johnson he was asked to buy votes for $15 a pop in the June 24 runoff between Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel. Now, he's saying he never paid anyone to vote, saying the conversations he claimed he had with Cochran campaign staffers Kirk Sims and Amanda Shook were "hypothetical" and the interview with Johnson was edited.

After supposed RINO Thad Cochran relied in part on African-American voters to defeat Tea Party favorite Chris McDaniel and win the Mississippi GOP’s nomination to the Senate, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe was very upset. Kibbe was so angry, in fact, that he was moved to petulantly declare, “If the only way the K Street wing of the GOP establishment can win is by courting Democrats to vote in GOP primaries then we’ve already won.” This Black Knight-like declaration of victory following conspicuous defeat was widely mocked as yet another example of the Tea Party’s preference to curate reality.

Breaking– The Chris McDaniel campaign identified multiple Mississippi counties in which enough improper ballots were cast that a legal challenge to the outcome of the election is warranted. This comes after 25,000-35,000 Democrat votes helped push Thad Cochran to victory over Chris McDaniel (by 6,880 votes) in the June 24 runoff. The McDaniel campaign has already found 1,000 examples in one county of Democrats who voted in the June 3rd primary as Democrats and then crossed over into the Republican primary this week. This is illegal and their votes should not be counted. Update—– Lindsay Krout, an independent contractor working...

Washington (CNN) - Expanding his IRS investigation by more than two decades, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, has sent a subpoena to the Federal Elections Commission for all communications involving former IRS administrator Lois Lerner from January 1, 1986 to the present day. This new search is the broadest-yet for records in a year-long investigation by Issa and congressional Republicans, who are trying to assess why the agency targeted tea party and other political groups for extra scrutiny.

A petition drive to divide California into six separate states was active on Saturday and Sunday in Los Angeles, aimed at getting the plan on the ballot in 2016. According to the Los Angeles Times, Timothy Draper, a venture capitalist from Menlo Park, is spearheading the current effort and has injected $2 million dollars into the project so far. The optimistic Draper argues that a truncated California will dissolve bureaucratic gridlock in Sacramento and will be more conducive for business. Draper told the Times back in April that "California has become the worst managed state in the country… It just...

Current IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will testify this morning at the Ways and Means Committee, as well as on Monday at Oversight, on why he testified in March that the records would be retrievable, only to change course last Friday. Koskinen offered up his opening statement in writing, in part to suggest that e-mail should not be considered an “official record” anyway: In discussing document retention at the IRS, it is important to point out that our email system is not being used as an electronic record keeping system. Furthermore, it should be remembered that not all emails on IRS...

Despite growing outrage over the mysterious disappearance of former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner’s emails, the new White House press secretary sees nothing wrong with the government’s inadequate explanation. “I think it’s entirely reasonable. And it’s fact,” incoming spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, according to CNN. “You’ve never heard of a computer crashing before?” The IRS admits that it can’t find two years’ of emails requested during the time tea party activists claim they were targeted. Even CNN anchor John King found the explanation unbelievable. “Do you believe in the Easter Bunny?” he...

JACKSON, Mississippi — Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is appealing to Democratic voters to cross party lines and vote in an upcoming runoff election against his conservative challenger, state senator Chris McDaniel. But a noted election law expert says that may be illegal. J. Christian Adams, a former Civil Rights Division attorney at the Department of Justice with experience litigating election law cases in Mississippi, said a law there prevents people from voting in the primary for candidates they don't plan to support in the general election. Adams is now a high-profile author and news commentator for conservative outlet PJ Media....

Friendly reminder, America. They think you're stupid: A top White House official blamed a computer crash for the disappearance of emails from embattled former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, echoing the explanation the agency gave Congress last week for the two years' worth of missing subpoenaed correspondence. "I think it's entirely reasonable. And it's fact," incoming White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One Monday. "You've never heard of a computer crashing before?" he asked.

A source tipped me off last week to a curious occurrence: It seems that two planeloads of illegal aliens were recently shipped to Massachusetts. The first reportedly landed at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford. According to my tipster, approximately 160 illegal immigrants arrived on that flight and stayed nearly a week before being transferred to a Department of Homeland Security site and then released. The second flight reportedly was diverted from Hanscom to Boston's Logan Airport this past weekend. I am told that both Massachusetts and New Hampshire officials were on hand. I reached out to Hanscom AFB...

A Texas court ruled Thursday to overturn the conviction of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who was found guilty of money laundering in 2010. According to KHOU 11 and the Associated Press, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the case's evidence was "legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions," formally acquitting the former congressman on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Still wondering why Lois Lerner took the Fifth or if there is indeed a “smidgen” of corruption in the IRS targeting scandal? It now appears that the IRS was not only engaged in an illegal witch hunt of conservatives applying for tax-exempt status, but that it was actively pushing criminal investigation of already approved groups. The latest revelations from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation of the IRS are that Lois Lerner sent the Obama Administration’s FBI a 1.1 million document file of then-current 501(c)(4) organizations. This file, given to the FBI just weeks before the 2010 elections,...

The Internal Revenue Service may have been caught violating federal tax law: In October 2010, the agency sent a database on 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups containing confidential taxpayer information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to documents obtained by a House panel. The information was transmitted in advance of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s meeting the same month with Justice Department officials about the possibility of using campaign-finance laws to prosecute certain non-profit groups. E-mails between Lerner and Richard Pilger, the director of the Justice Department’s election crimes branch, obtained through a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder, show Lerner asking about the format in which...

GALVESTON, Texas — A man who voted absentee in Texas and Minnesota during the 2012 general election then touted his bogus balloting on Facebook has pleaded guilty. A judge in Galveston on Tuesday fined Richard Alan Collier $4,000 after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of Texas election law. Collier, who pleaded guilty to attempt to commit illegal voting, claimed residence in both states when seeking absentee ballots for the November 2012 election. Authorities say Collier then voted in Anoka (uh-NOH'-kuh) County, Minnesota, and in Galveston County. Prosecutors in Galveston say a tip that Collier posted a Facebook message...