Free Republic

The first thing President Teresa Sullivan of the University of Virginia needs to do in the wake of what now appears to be a faux rape scandal is to apologize to the victims – that is, to the members of Phi Kappa Psi, who have been vilified, forced to move off campus into motels, and suffered suspicions even from family members and close friends. That would be the human and moral response. That Sullivan will not do so is nearly as certain as the chance of her taking false accusations as a matter that needs university attention. This is for...

Teresa Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia — the campus at the heart of the Rolling Stone magazine debacle over its since-debunked rape claim piece — has become the target of a Change.org petition that calls for her immediate firing. The petition has only gathered a few signatures so far, but its text is blunt. It reads: "University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan vandalized our legal system by immediately assuming the guilt of innocent men after an anonymous accuser without evidence cried, 'Rape!' Sullivan suspended activities of all fraternities (not just the one fraternity the accuser mentions), and...

[this letter was sent via email to UVA parents. the uva facebook does not carry this message when i posted this. --mb] Dear Parents: Today is the first day of final exams, and in a few weeks we will end a tumultuous fall semester. Three members of the Class of 2017 have died this semester, and the sense of grief and loss is palpable. In addition, many members of our community are grieving over the deaths of young black men in Staten Island and Ferguson. All of you are aware of the most recent incidents affecting the University and students...

Alaska updated their 2014 election results web site about 25 minutes ago. An additional 7,100 votes were added in to the race for Senator. Begich got 55.0% of those votes, while Sullivan got 37.3%. Sullivan's lead dropped from 7,911 to 6,651 votes. At that pace, if an additional 30,000 votes are counted, Begich would close to within 1,300 votes of Sullivan and within the 0.5% margin for a recount (I assume it's 0.5% for Alaska).

Does anyone have any idea why the election results for the Alaska Senate race (and all other races in that state) haven't been updated since Tuesday night? They managed to go through a little over 20,000 ballots on Tuesday, but nothing else since. It sounds like they have anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 more ballots to count. Did they announce they would continue the counting at a later date?

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican Dan Sullivan won Alaska's U.S. Senate race, defeating first-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. Sullivan led Begich by about 8,100 votes on Election Night last week and held a comparable edge after election workers had counted about 20,000 absentee, early-voted and questioned ballots late Tuesday. Thousands more ballots remained to be counted, but the results indicated that Begich could not overcome Sullivan's lead. The Alaska seat was initially considered key to the Republicans' hopes of taking control of the U.S. Senate, but that goal was accomplished before the Alaska race was decided. Sullivan, in a statement,...

Republican candidate Dan Sullivan defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Wednesday. The win gives the GOP eight Senate pickups in the midterm elections. The party is also seeking a ninth seat in Louisiana’s runoff in December.

<p>Republican candidate Dan Sullivan defeated Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Wednesday.</p> <p>The win gives the GOP eight Senate pickups in the midterm elections. The party is also seeking a ninth seat in Louisiana’s runoff in December.</p>

JUNEAU, Alaska — Republican Dan Sullivan won Alaska's U.S. Senate race, defeating incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. Sullivan led Begich by about 8,100 votes on Election Night last week, and when state officials counted absentee and questioned ballots Tuesday, the results indicated that Begich could not overcome Sullivan's lead.

Alaska will begin counting nearly 50,000 absentee and questioned ballots on Tuesday in an effort to resolve the state's unsettled contests for the Senate and for governor. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich trails Republican challenger Dan Sullivan by about 8,100 votes. ... The Alaska governor's race is also too close to call. Independent candidate Bill Walker leads incumbent Republican Gov. Sean Parnell by about 3,000 votes.

<p>Update (11-11-14): According to the Alaska Division of Elections Sullivan has picked up approximately 5,300 votes to 4,650 for the BigItch thus far.</p> <p>That’s 10,000 previously uncounted ballots, and the Sullivan gain has extended slightly. Dems were hoping for ridiculously lopsided BigItch votes for a comeback. So far so good. I thought you may want to refresh this thread in breaking since we have hard numbers to update.</p>

Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich wasn't conceding anything Wednesday in his race against Republican challenger Dan Sullivan. Sullivan held a 3.6 percentage point lead over Begich with all precincts reporting. Thousands of absentee ballots won't be counted until Nov. 11. In a statement Wednesday, Begich campaign manager Susanne Fleek-Green said the campaign wants a final vote count. Republicans said they believe the margin is insurmountable.

Republicans picked up another Senate seat Wednesday.Dan Sullivan led Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, by more than 8,000 votes with 100 percent reporting, according to Associated Press data.The outcome obliterated any last hope among Democrats for a silver lining to Tuesday's Republican wave, and capped a banner Election Day for the GOP.

Republican challenger Dan Sullivan has pulled to his biggest lead yet over Democratic incumbent Mark Begich in the final Rasmussen Reports survey of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

There's a time-honored cliche that political pundits tend to trot out whenever they're asked, usually on cable TV, to prognosticate about a race they aren't particularly familiar with: "It's going to come down to the ground game." Most of the time, this isn't really true. Fundamentals such as party registration numbers and the state of the economy usually play a larger part in election outcomes than the campaigns' respective efforts to ensure that their voters actually vote. But suddenly there's reason to believe that the ground game is going to matter more in this year's Alaska Senate contest between Democratic...

Alaska Senate Race Becomes Most Expensive Campaign In State's History By MARIA L. LA GANGA With $39 million in outside spending to sway half a million voters, Alaska Senate race is priciest per capita Both candidates in Alaska Senate contest condemn outside money, but it keeps rolling in The local official introducing the candidate eventually got around to the point — Sen. Mark Begich, standing up for Alaskans, get out the vote — but first he lit into the Koch brothers and what he described as money's power to warp politics. "They're literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars to...

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is telling her Alaska colleague, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, that when it comes to using her likeness in his ads, “no means no.” Begich, who is up for reelection in a closely watched race against Republican Dan Sullivan, has used Murkowski’s picture in campaign ads to highlight his bipartisan bona fides and the fact both he and Murkowski are on the Appropriations Committee. Over the summer, representatives for the Republican sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Begich campaign, but he used a photo of the two of them at a joint press event as recently as...

It’s no secret that Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) is in trouble. He votes with the president too often for many Alaskans’ liking, he’s too absent in Congress, and the Democratic candidate for governor has even declined to endorse him. Politico’s Amanda Coyne, however, apparently thinks Begich’s opponent, Dan Sullivan, is more fun to criticize. Among her jabs: Sullivan’s speeches are too predictable, he has only lived in Alaska for 12 years, and he doesn’t know when to pause during speeches. For shame! Coyne saved a bit of mockery for the “Rally for the Valley” held near former Governor Sarah Palin’s...

I caught guitar prodigy, Quinn Sullivan, this weekend at the Eastern States Exhibition. I saw him perform the extended version of his new single. I was able to speak to him briefly after the show and get a CD signed. Here is a link to his performance of his new single at "Legends." It's starts slow, but the second half is a wonderful, extended blues jam. The below links give you some idea of his rapid musical development: Age 5 Age 6 Don't miss the heartwarming, surprise ending after the 3 minute mark. Age 9 Performs "Texas Flood" at "Legends."

Israel is routinely beset by attacks, physical and rhetorical, at the hands of its hostile neighbors and the Western media and elite. Our mistake is to assume that we can counter those attacks with logic, reason, and evidence. We assume that we are presenting our arguments to people who want to objectively examine the arguments on each side of the conflict, and then come to a rational conclusion to discern right and wrong. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Take this example. Just days after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran publicly claimed that the Holocaust was a fabrication, Mark Steyn...