Free Republic

In an unusual move that is getting some national political buzz, the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party is asking the national GOP to investigate campaign ads and robocalls that attacked Mississippi Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel in his failed attempt to unseat U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Missouri Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin has requested that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus appoint a task to investigate the “racially divisive” ads and robocalls that alleged McDaniel had racist ties.

Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) campaign said Tuesday it “screwed up” its Federal Election Commission reports when disclosing $53,000 in get-out-the-vote cash payments, and will have to amend its filings. The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., reports that campaign adviser Austin Barbour said the campaign made a mistake when disclosing large sums listed as reimbursements for “Campaign Walkers” to staffer Amanda Shook. Conservative blogger Charles Johnson reported Monday night that the reimbursements, including payments ranging from $8,000 to $15,000, violated FEC rules, which declare staffers can only be reimbursed for food and travel costs. Any other reimbursements to staff are considered loans,...

The precinct level returns in Hinds County bolster the theory that a surge in black, Democratic turnout allowed Senator Thad Cochran to defeat Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed state senator, in last month’s Republican primary runoff in Mississippi. Mr. Cochran won by 7,667 votes. Nearly half — a net 3,532 votes — came from the most Democratic precincts in Jackson’s Hinds County, where President Obama won a combined 97.8 percent of the vote in 2012, according to figures released Tuesday night by the Mississippi secretary of state. The surge in turnout was clearest in overwhelmingly black precincts; turnout sometimes increased...

There are a lot of naysayers toward Charles Johnson and his reporting on Mississippi, despite the high accuracy of his content. Well, he has a scalp to add to his accuracy score. The Cochran campaign is admitting it “screwed up” its accounting. The Gotnews.com site Monday night reported that the Cochran campaign reimbursed staffer Amanda Shook for large sums of cash listed as “Reimbursed Expense – Campaign Walkers.” FEC regulations allow reimbursement to staff only for travel and food expenses, and any other outlay of money by a staffer would be considered a contribution, and subject to a $2,600 limit....

The headline in the New York Times over the weekend was straightforward: “Unease in G.O.P. Over Mississippi Tea Party Anger”: The stormy aftermath of Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff has sent Tea Party conservatives around the country to the ramparts, raising the prospect of a prolonged battle that holds the potential to depress conservative turnout in November in Mississippi — and possibly beyond. Well, there’s an understatement. Just last night Texas Senator Ted Cruz was on Mark Levin's show talking about “the D.C. machine” running “false attacks” that were “racially charged” and demanding that allegations of criminal conduct — one man...

How an obscure Mississippi state senator became the poster boy for all that’s wrong with the right. There was a conservative NRA- and Right To Life-endorsed candidate in the Mississippi race, one who opposed Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants, as well as any similar efforts by President Bush and Obama. Unlike his opponent, he was a veteran who fought the Obama administration’s cuts to the military, including plans to reduce the Navy to a dangerously low level of ships. He had a history of reducing spending when he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He had co-sponsored anti-Obamacare...

JACKSON, Miss. — U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran won the state's Republican primary runoff over challenger Chris McDaniel by 7,667 votes, according to a certification made by the state Republican Party and submitted to the Secretary of State on Monday, the legal deadline. The result was wider than the 6,800-vote win counted by The Associated Press after the June election. Tallies usually change as county parties examine provisional ballots and finalize results....

Serious allegations are cropping up against the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC paid an Alexandria, VA company $13,000.00 for media production and $69,000 for media on June 20, 2014. On the same day that same company placed media buys for “All Citizens of Mississippi,” a campaign group that has failed to file any documentation with the FEC other than its statement of organization. Here’s the problem. No one can seem to find any evidence that any ads ran in Mississippi after June 20th paid for an authorized by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In fact, Rick Shaftan, a political...

July 7th, 2014 • Jackson, Mississippi • The campaign for Senator Chris McDaniel held a press conference outside the state courthouse in Jackson to update media on the status of their legal challenge to the "result" of the June 24th run-off. The event was conducted by McDaniel lead counsel Mitch Tyner.

Chuck Johnson via Twitter "REPORT: McDaniel will say that they have identified more than the 6900 irregular votes they need at press conference."

New research takes a look at decades of corruption convictions to find the crookedest states in the union. When we think of government corruption (as one tends to do), our biased minds often gravitate to thoughts of military juntas and third world governments. But, of course, corruption is everywhere, in one form or another. And it’s costing U.S. citizens big time. A new study from researchers at the University of Hong Kong and Indiana University estimates that corruption on the state level is costing Americans in the 10 most corrupt states an average of $1,308 per year, or 5.2% of...

After black voters helped Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran survive an intense Republican primary runoff against an insurgent conservative challenger, some civil rights leaders in the South want him to repay the favor. Their request? Cochran should lead the charge in the Senate to renew a key section of the Voting Rights Act struck down last year by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. […] Cochran angered some conservatives with his unabashed appeal to Democrats in the June 24 runoff election against state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who eked out a win with the support of tea party groups in the state’s primary...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican who lost a primary runoff election to Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran said Friday he plans to challenge the results.</p> <p>Chris McDaniel said his campaign found at least 5,000 irregularities in voting and that he will mount a legal challenge "any day now."</p>

Mississippi Tea Party dreams were extirpated last week when State Senator Chris McDaniel lost his Republican primary bid to unseat Senator Thad Cochran. Yet if some of Mr. McDaniel’s most outspoken contemporaries are any guide, he may actually have greater political influence as a loser. Mr. McDaniel made clear this week that he was not giving up the fight, dashing off fund-raising emails declaring Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff “a sham, plain and simple,” and offering rewards to individuals who “provide evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in voter fraud.” “Thanks to illegal voting from liberal Democrats,...

The Republican who lost a primary runoff election to Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran is taking the first step to challenge the outcome. Chris McDaniel's campaign said it believes it has found about 4,900 of examples of improper voting in the June 24 runoff. Most of them were people marked as voting in the June 3 Democratic primary and the June 24, the campaign said. McDaniel spokesman Noel Fritsch said the campaign served papers Thursday to Cochran's son, Clayton, giving notice of the intent to challenge based on allegations of improper crossover voting.

The campaign of Republican Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran attempted to hold a conference call with the media on Wednesday, but was forced to cancel it midway through after someone hijacked the call with provocative questions about race. Cochran adviser Austin Barbour had been giving remarks to reporters for about seven minutes during the call when an unnamed person interrupted and started asking questions. “I’d like to know if black people were harvesting cotton, why do you think it’s ok to harvest their votes?” the activist said. “They’re not animals.”

As the curtain is pulled up on all the shenanigans involved in one way or another with last week’s Mississippi GOP Senate primary, the cast of characters amazes. At the story’s center is a group calling itself Mississippi Conservatives. The group is on the receiving end of furious charges of race-baiting and racism that have smeared not only Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel but the larger GOP and the GOP Establishment that participated in the smear. We’ve been through the names of contributors over there at the Federal Election Commission, and looked into some of those involved. The still unfolding...

JACKSON, Miss. - A Terry resident has been arrested for creating false public records while serving as Hinds County Deputy Circuit Court Clerk, according to Attorney General Jim Hood. [....] Gibson is accused of altering records to show she was legally married to a Department of Corrections inmate in order to have conjugal visits.

JACKSON, Miss. — The question seemed to tug at Senator Thad Cochran throughout his bumpy re-election campaign in Mississippi: Why, after a long, distinguished career — 42 years in Congress, including six terms in the Senate — was he seeking a seventh term? By all accounts, Mr. Cochran had needed to be talked into running. He told one national publication that he had planned to retire, and another that the first thing he wanted to do after Election Day was take a nap. And while the snowy-haired, 76-year-old Republican tried to hush whispers that he was not quite as sharp...

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has asked a pro-Thad Cochran Super PAC, called Mississippi Conservatives, to provide additional information about what the newspaper Roll Call said “appears to be campaign finance violations.” At issue are last-minute expenditures made by the PAC in the days before the initial June 3 primary. The FEC “Request for Additional Information” says the PAC does not appear to have disclosed some of its spending in a timely manner. The FEC notes in the letter sent to treasurer Brian Perry that failure to “adequately respond” by Aug. 1 “could result in an audit or enforcement action.”...