Free Republic

Close to 100 voters have come to the Northampton County Republican Party with complaints alleging they were turned away from polls on Election Day or their votes weren’t registered securely, according to the county party chairman. Northampton County Republican Committee Chairman Glenn Geissinger said he’s working with attorneys at the local and state level to prevent the election results from being certified as scheduled next week. Of the 100 statements he’s received, 75 were notarized, Geissinger said. “By pursuing this, we hope that these errors will be eradicated and that we can move to a system that better represents the...

A top executive from the company behind the voting machines that “flipped votes” in Pennsylvania on Tuesday has admitted that “someone from our team programmed the election.” The voting machine issued caused votes in an eastern Pennsylvania county to appear to be “flipped” on a ballot question, officials said Tuesday. Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms. The “yes” or “no” votes for each judge were switched on a summary displayed to voters before they cast their ballot, said Charles Dertinger, the Northampton County director...

Last week, I told you about how the New York City Council is on the brink of giving non-citizens with green cards the right to vote in the city’s municipal elections. Today, they will make it official. The council president has stated proponents “have the votes” and this very bad idea will soon become law. The sponsor of the bill, Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, is pleased as punch with the possibility of making “history” this week:“New York City will be making history. After getting the right to vote in local elections as a result of this bill, there is a high...

In Northampton, artists’ feud over Mayflower print leads to fallout after biennial is canceled When members of the arts council logged into a meeting in late September, few could have imagined a retired librarian’s artwork was about to torpedo their upcoming biennial, a popular juried show at the local library. Continue reading →

A female student at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts is seen on video being arrested for trespassing on campus in September. After getting expelled for multiple mask violations and being denied a medical exemption, Morgan Mack was allegedly on campus to retrieve her laptop from her car Sept. 12 when the police and Interim Director of Campus Safety Debra Duncan met her. “Video shows Duncan holding her down on the pavement,” wrote The College Fix correspondent Charles Hilu. The student can be heard on camera saying she was on a hunger strike and had not had water for two days,...

More than 40 African American intellectuals are asking Smith College to end the “forced, accusatory ‘anti-bias’ training” that was mandated for campus service workers after a student falsely accused some workers of racially-profiling her. The letter, obtained by National Review, was sent on Monday to Smith College president Kathleen McCartney by Bob Woodson, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and founder of “1776 Unites,” and 44 fellow black intellectuals. The signatories ask McCartney to “rethink how you have handled” the fallout over an alleged incident of racial profiling in the summer of 2018, and urge her to “publicly apologize”...

A protest organized by the group ‘STAND UP! FIGHT FOR BLACK LIVES!’ and led by Jasmine Sinclair brought thousands of people to the Northampton Police Station at 4 p.m. on Saturday to protest police brutality. Northampton Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police erected concrete barriers on Pearl Street that lead to the police station as a safety measure for the protest to highlight police brutality in memory of George Floyd. The protest planned on Saturday is the second in Northampton. The first was held on Monday and ended when Kasper met with protesters, and in a show of unity,...

On this date in 1806, immigrants Dominic Daley and James Halligan were hanged at Northampton, Massachusetts. In the words of one widely reproduced report, “They persisted in their innocence to the last moment, although there were perhaps not a single one of the numerous spectators present, which was presumed to amount to nearly 15,000, who entertained a doubt of their guilt.” Today, nearly everyone thinks them innocent. The case began, as many wrongful convictions do, with a particularly outrageous crime — a young farmer, Marcus Lyon, found dead in a Massachusetts creek en route to his home in Connecticut. He’d...

Due to ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, multiple Western Massachusetts defense attorneys are urging area sheriffs not to let correctional officers attend a Northampton rally in favor of Republican President Donald Trump and then go to work after the event. The request was made after “Correctional Officers for Trump 2020” appeared as a listed contact for the rally, called “Trump Standout & China Virus Liberation Celebration.” The event is one of dozens happening across the U.S. this week in support of Trump’s reelection and the reopening of the country amid the COVID-19 public health crisis. The Northampton event is...

At a time when momentum and political pundits seem to favor Barack Obama winning the Democratic presidential nomination, other indicators suggest the LGBT community's support is still largely behind Hillary Clinton, except in Texas. And Texas is one of three large primary states remaining that pundits say Clinton must win in order to stay even with Obama in the contest to secure enough delegates to win the nomination. The latest poll in Texas, conducted by CNN February 15-17 among 529 likely primary voters, found Clinton just two points ahead of Obama. A poll just a few days earlier, by the...

Massachusetts could become the first state to call on the U.S. Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, if a resolution in the State Senate moves forward. State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, on Thursday introduced the action that cites 10 legal reasons for drawing up articles of impeachment against Trump, including “cruelly and unusually imprisoning children and their families,” obstructing justice by firing and threatening to fire senior Justice Department officials, such as former FBI Director James Comey, and acting to interfere with the investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Russia. Comerford said in a statement...

Students in Northampton used to begin Friday mornings with high fives and fist bumps from local police officers, but because of concerns from parents that program has been halted. The “High Five Friday” program aimed to bring uniformed police officers to the city’s elementary schools on Fridays to welcome students to school. The idea for the program began after a law enforcement conference in San Diego, in which High Five Fridays were promoted as a way for officers to engage with young people, WWLP reported. Northampton police said they received a lot of support for the program from the public,...

It was 88 years ago this month that President Calvin Coolidge handed out strips of paper (that he cut himself) to members of the press during a brief conference with these words: I do not choose to run for President in 1928. This stunning event took place at the Summer White House in the Black Hills of South Dakota on August 2, 1927. The implications of Coolidge not actively seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 1928 reverberate to this day. While the terse phrasing appeared to leave the door open for a draft movement, the result was that Herbert Hoover...

A 32-year-old doctor who specialises in Himalayan archaeology was said to be “absolutely terrified” and incredibly shaken after narrowly avoiding death in the devastating earthquake. Hayley Saul, from Northampton, had left Langtang village in Kathmandu just two hours before it was completely wiped out in the quake. As the disaster hit, she was trekking with her friend and a guide, en route to Lama Hotel, the next village on the trail. Her sister, Emma Price, 24, said: “She had just left Langtang village and that village has gone now. The path they were trekking on had gone and they had...

The head of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is awaiting reply from Hampshire College to his letter deploring the college’s decision to cancel a performance by an Afrobeat band because some deemed the band “too white” to play African music. Shokazoba, an Afrobeat ensemble that blends jazz, funk and African rhythms, was scheduled to play on Halloween at Hampshire. However, the band was canceled after some students voiced concerns that the band, which has a black singer but is predominantly white, was appropriating black music. The college’s Hype Committee broke the news on its Facebook, saying:...

Don’t get rid of that clothesline. It could be the wave of the future, as envisioned by a roomful of people who turned out Wednesday at the Senior Center for the city’s first Community Energy Forum. Some 90 people showed up for the forum, according to Northampton’s Energy and Sustainability officer Chris Mason. They threw out ideas about conserving energy and going green that ranged from cutting down on gasoline use to reducing greenhouse gases to using the city’s landfill for solar energy. ”It was a smashing success,” said Mason. City Councilor Jesse Adams, who was in attendance, said the...

Seven foreigners from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Singapore were arrested for trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir on Tuesday. The Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts is one of the country’s largest man-made water supplies. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) CBS Local reported, via Free Republic: Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir. State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates....

CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper, whose newscast “Anderson Cooper 360°” is devoted to reporting in-depth stories from multiple points of view, will speak at Smith College on April 14 at 8 p.m. at John M. Greene Hall. A college release bills the event as "Anderson Cooper: A 360-Degree Look at World Events." Tickets are required and must be purchased prior to the event. Cooper covers major news events around the world, often reporting from the scene. Most recently, he played a pivotal role in CNN’s 2012 political coverage, anchoring election night, presidential debates and conventions and moderating the CNN Republican presidential...

On the biggest shopping day of the year, some people here in western Massachusetts participated in one of the largest protests against Walmart, America’s largest retailer. At stores in Springfield, Ware, and Northampton, protestors chanted slogans like: “Walmart rich and rude… we don’t like your attitude.” As Black Friday shoppers walked in with their holiday gift shopping lists, they were given flyers from protesters. The local demonstrations were part of a larger nationwide rally for workers’ rights. In Northampton, the majority of those rallying were nearby residents and not store employees, though at other locations, employees joined the protests after...

A city man working on the sanitation team at the Occupy Wall Street protests was featured on the MTV show “True Life” on Nov. 5. In the episode “I’m Occupying Wall Street,” 23-year-old Bryan Guyette is seen rallying his fellow protesters to clean up Zuccotti Park in the financial district, where thousands of people have staged demonstrations demanding economic equality since September 17. Guyette, who has been at the park almost non-stop since day one, worked to end a tense stand-off between protesters and the New York City police department, which planned to forcibly evict the massive crowd Oct. 13...