Free Republic

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission was created by Congress to inform the public about the impact Abraham Lincoln had on the development of our nation, and to find the best possible ways to honor his accomplishments. The President, the Senate and the House of Representatives appointed a fifteen-member commission to commemorate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and to emphasize the contribution of his thoughts and ideals to America and the world. The official public Bicentennial Commemoration launches February 2008 and closes February 2010, with the climax of the Commemoration taking place on February 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of...

Republicans have declared a 21-17 victory in the fight for control of the Michigan Senate, but Democrats are questioning voting irregularities in Oakland County and Saginaw-area districts. Democrats said a large number of absentee ballots were torn during a vote count in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township and had to be duplicated by hand. Hand counts in Oakland County and outside Saginaw lasted into early hours of Thursday. Democrats said they are reviewing their options but have not decided whether to ask for recounts. Senate Republicans called Democrats sore losers and have denied any irregularities.

NORMAN, Okla. -- University of Oklahoma president David Boren sent a letter to Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg on Monday, asking him to push for the Sooners' game against Oregon to be eliminated from the record books and have the Pac-10 officials involved in the game suspended for the remainder of the seasonhttp://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2593369

UPDATE: Looks like Bill is going to need a case of Pepto, email from overseas, guess what “bootleg” movie is showing up? Told you, can’t stop the flood. Look for the “Berger Cuts” to show up on You Tube any day now.

Columbus -- Ballots were sabotaged in Democratic areas, including Cleveland, and double-counted in Republican strongholds during the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, said critics bringing new charges of rigging to favor George W. Bush. Those critics include advocacy attorneys and community groups led by voting rights attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who had also filed an unsuccessful suit challenging the election. They sued Secetary of State Ken Blackwell in federal court Thursday, hoping to preserve the paper ballots from that election until they can further examine their theory. By federal law, the secretary of state can destroy the ballots 22 months after...

NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio — The leading GOP candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Bob Ney is eligible to run in the primary, a county elections board ruled yesterday, denying a complaint filed by the brother of one of her opponents. The Tuscarawas County Board of Elections voted 2-1 along party lines against the challenge, which asserted that state Sen. Joy Padgett could not run because she already lost an election this year. One board member, Socrates Space, abstained from voting because his son, Dover law director Zack Space, is the Democratic candidate who will face the winner of the primary in...

Presidential election protests will call for ballot-by-ballot recount MONTERREY, Mexico - Supporters of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador headed to Mexico City on Wednesday, leaving mountain towns and sprawling industrial cities to demand a ballot-by-ballot recount. Protesters gathered outside the country’s 300 electoral districts before heading to the capital, where a mass rally is planned for Sunday to denounce official results showing conservative Felipe Calderon as the apparent winner of the July 2 election. Carrying signs that read “Vote by vote! No to electoral fraud!” and wearing yellow, the color of Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party, dozens of...

BERLIN (AP) -- Zinedine Zidane cut short his dazzling World Cup and closed his career with an ugly head butt -- and a loss. The France captain was given a red card for slamming the crown of his bald head into the center of Italy defender Marco Materazzi's chest after the two exchanged words while walking down the field in extra time. The game was tied 1-1 when Zidane was sent off, head bowed, in the 110th minute Sunday. Without their sharpshooting captain, France couldn't unlock Italy's defense and went on to lose in a shootout, 5-3. Zidane's strike was...

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - A massive crowd, estimated at 280,000 by authorities and 400,000 by organizers, has protested the conservative victory in Mexico's presidential election, which the leftist candidate challenged in court. "We are requesting a ballot-by-ballot recount," said leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, drawing rousing cheers from the crowd that packed Mexico City's huge downtown Zocalo square and neighboring streets. "We are certain we triumphed on July 2," he said, claiming widespread irregularities marked the electoral process that gave victory by a razor-thin margin to conservative Felipe Calderon, of the governing National Action Party (PAN.) He called for nationwide...

After a huge push from the illegal alien lobby, Chris "King of Amnesty" Cannon defeated Team America endorsed Candidate John Jacob 56-44% in Utah's 3rd congressional district.While we are obviously disapointed in the result, the campaign was still a victory for the cause of secure borders. Cannon accredits his win to "extremists" who backed Jacob (i.e. us) and turned off voters. This couldn't be further for the truth. If he didn't have to hide from his pro-illegal record, Cannon would have coasted to victory. In order to defeat a political novice, Cannon had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars...

Jacobs Concedes, Cannon Moves on to General Election June 27th, 2006 @ 11:12pm SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, challenged by a political newcomer who accused the five-term incumbent of being soft on illegal immigration, was leading in Utah's Republican primary Tuesday with more than half of precincts reporting. Cannon led John Jacob 58 percent to 42 percent, or 19,575 votes to 14,395 votes, with 313 of 623 precincts reporting. That includes 100 percent of returns from Juab, Beaver and Millard counties. The 3rd Congressional District race focused primarily on who stands taller in opposition to Bush's...

Actor Ben Affleck has made it very clear where his sympathies lie in the Leakgate affair -- and it isn't with the White House. Appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Affleck charged that President Bush "probably also leaked” CIA agent Valerie Plame's name and so "if he did, you can be hung for that! That's treason!” He continued: "You could be killed. That's not a joking around Tom DeLay 'I'll do a year, I bribed the state officials with corporate money.' That's like they shoot you in the battlefield for doing that.” Affleck also called DeLay a "criminal."

SAN ANTONIO--More than one political venture has met an unseemly end in the hardscrabble landscape of South Texas. It was here, in 1948, that Box 13 gave Lyndon Johnson a dubious 87-vote primary victory, crushing former Gov. Coke Stevenson's Senate aspirations. It was here, two years ago, that a bitter primary fight for a House seat shattered a friendship between two Hispanic Democrats. And it was here, this month, in a rematch of that contest, that a blogger-led quest to defeat a mainstream Democrat and drive the party further to the left smashed head-on into the realities of local politics....

Director Oliver Stone says he doesn't know if America is ready for his upcoming film about the September 11 terror attacks, but stresses the movie is a human rather than political account of the tragedy. The often controversial three-times Oscar-winner said "World Trade Center", to be released this year around the fifth anniversary of the attacks, documented a day in the life of two men trapped at the scene, their rescuers and families. Speaking to an audience during a question and answer session late Monday at the Bangkok International Film Festival, Stone was asked if Americans were ready for the...

BERLIN (Hollywood Reporter) - Turkey's "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," an action drama that depicts U.S. troops in Iraq committing multiple atrocities, is setting new box-office records in its homeland. The movie has sold more than 3 million tickets since its February 3 release, according to Turkish tracking agency Kenda. The current record-holder for ticket sales in Turkey is "G.O.R.A.," which drew 4 million admissions in 2004. "'Valley of the Wolves' will maybe reach 5 million," a Kenda representative said... Billy Zane stars as the evangelistic local U.S. commander, a Col. Kurtz-like figure intent on retaining control of the various...

(snip)....Under a three-year contract that went into place Feb. 1, state agencies are directed to buy all their office supplies from Atlanta-based Office Depot. In the past, agencies had been allowed to choose from several companies, including several North Carolina suppliers. "The small businesses are the ones who pay the most taxes back to the state," said Christopher Sharpe, vice president of Piedmont Office Suppliers in Greensboro. "It won't put us out of business, but it will definitely hurt the bottom line." He estimated the contract will cost six independent suppliers in the state more than 100 jobs and $24.5...

Al Gore, the Vice President under President Bill Clinton and the losing 2000 Democratic Party presidential candidate, last Sunday was in Saudi Arabia, bad-mouthing the United States. Was Gore’s motive money and political ambition? America’s government committed “terrible abuses” against Arabs following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Gore told a Saudi audience at the Jiddah Economic Forum. Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up,” said Gore, and held in “unforgivable” conditions. Gore did not mention that 15 of the 19 terrorists who carried out mass murder on September 11 in the United States were Saudis. Nor did Gore mention...

It is more than 20 years later, and Milo Hamilton hasn't forgotten. Not a single minute. Not a single incident. Not a single insult. Not a single word. And now the words are his -- more than 4,000 of them in an explosive chapter in his new autobiography that savages Harry Caray from beginning to end. ''I just felt nobody really knew him,'' Hamilton, who succeeded Jack Brickhouse as the Cubs broadcaster in 1980, said Wednesday from his home in Houston. ''I think it's time they did.'' IN HIS WORDS ''I see [the statue of Harry Caray] every time the...

Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, promoting his book in New Mexico, said that Iran simply wants peaceful nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, and that US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, already has a speech written for the coming US nuclear bombing of Iran. “We just don’t know when, but it’s going to happen,” Scott Ritter said to a crowd of about 150 at the James A. Little Theater on Sunday night. Ritter described how the U.S. government might justify war with Iran in a scenario similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion. He also argued that Iran...

Fracas erupts at GOP caucus By Mark LaFlamme, Staff Writer Tuesday, February 7,2006 LEWISTON - Stavros Mendros just wanted to keep the peace. The Republican county caucus was over and most participants had left. But there was still a small group of people there and an argument was getting heated. "There were some pretty nasty words being said. I just kept trying to calm it down, calm it down," Mendros, a city councilor, said Monday, two days after a scuffle at the Republican caucus. "The whole way it developed and exploded just made no sense." Bruce Boutilier, 40, of Auburn...