Free Republic

There are about 90 to 100 million of us who claim Jesus. The problem is only half of you register to vote and out of the half of you that registers to vote, only half of that group actually goes and votes…. Therefore, when you’re looking up there and griping and complaining about what you see in Washington, D.C., you might as well shut up. The reason they’re there is we’re putting them there. If you don’t get anything else out of this, remember this — register to vote for crying out loud… If the dude or woman is for...

The Kent Black Action Commission (KBAC) plans a No Ferguson in Kent rally and march on Tuesday evening, Sept. 16 from the Maleng Regional Justice Center to City Hall. The ongoing events in Ferguson, Missouri surrounding the shooting death of Michael Brown have caused the KBAC to take pause and reflect on the likelihood of a similar incident taking place in Kent, according to a KBAC press release. "Although we all agree that community relations in Kent are a long way from being a Ferguson, we feel that we should take this opportunity to start the process of having the...

It doesn't matter that low voter turnout did not kill Ferguson Missouri's Michael Brown, any more than it killed Trayvon Martin or Troy Davis or even James Byrd back in 1998 Jasper Texas. What really matters to our black political class is not what we need but what they need. They need their perks, they need their careers, they need to constantly reaffirm and to re-legitimize their privileged status as the imaginary representatives of all the rest of us. Their answers to every question reflect what they need, and not what we need. South Carolina representative James Clyburn was on...

Michigan's primary elections were last month and for a young progressive who loves all things political, it was Christmas in August for me. As a member of LaunchProgress PAC's Candidate Advisory Board, I was excited to support our Michigan candidates Jon Hoadley, Stephanie Chang, and Kristy Pagan who won big on August 5, and Rebecca Thompson, a strong LaunchProgress candidate who was just 500 votes shy of winning her election. But still, I'm haunted by the text message I received the afternoon of the primary, "Today are elections? Wasn't Obama just re-elected?" Sadly this is the reality our country lives...

Libertarianism isnÂ’t confined to caucasians anymore. The Pew Research Center recently released a study on who in America describes themselves as libertarian while being able to accurately identify what the label actually means. Of the total demographic, 12 percent of respondents who identified as libertarian were white, unsurprisingly the largest demographic population. However, Hispanics self-identified as libertarian at almost the same rate, 11 percent. By comparison, only three percent of blacks fell into the same category (other demographics were not included in the final results). Libertarians also tend to be young; Millennials are the largest group of libertarians, with the...

Even after the unrest in Ferguson has subsided, we're left with questions about the tension that built up and exploded in the small St. Louis suburb. Among those questions: How did a city where two-thirds of the residents are black elect an almost entirely white city government? The answer is simple: Ferguson holds its city elections entirely separate from state and national elections, and that can make all the difference. People rarely think about the timing of elections. But Missouri's election rules set the stage for the discontent that has tormented Ferguson recently. The state requires its cities to hold...

<p>An Oct. 20 trial has been set for a Mesa woman accused of running over her husband with an SUV because he didn't vote in the 2012 presidential election.</p>

A Florida Catholic parish's 45-year tradition of serving as a polling place for elections came to an end after Tuesday's primary after ongoing complaints by a handful of pro-abortion and pro-homosexual activists led church leaders to end their partnership with the Brevard County Board of Elections. Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Indialantic, FL, has hosted about 5,000 voters from three precincts in a multi-use area of the building that is separate from the main church. Florida Today reported that the trouble began in 2008, when the church displayed a message on its marquee urging parishioners to vote for...

Elections: The city of Los Angeles is considering paying voters to encourage turnout. Needless to say, it's a ridiculous idea that will reward low-information voting, foster political demagogues and breed corruption.Sure, some in the political class will say what's not to like? Higher voter turnout sounds good and, more to the point, the political left likely will benefit from paying people to vote.This is what's done, officially or not, in places like Venezuela, Central America and southern Mexico, where the political class doles the goodies and subliterate voters sell their votes for bags of beans. Lots of left-wing demagogues have...

In Ferguson and many towns like it, majority African-American communities most grapple with mostly white county governments. How this leads to dysfunction, racial tension, and a skewed justice system. As we watch Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson bumble his way through press conferences, let’s take a couple steps back and think about how this two-thirds African-American town has retained such a nearly complete all-white power structure. It is partly, as Slate noted, a question of voting power, as whites are more entrenched and vote in greater numbers. But there’s a larger story here about race in America that involves the...

I seriously admire one thing in particular about most tea party members. If you ever wonder how a relatively small group of people have so much impact on state, local and national policy, the answer is simple: They show up. They outwork most other groups. They go to meetings, study the issues and rally the faithful to the cause. They make sure their voices are heard (and man, are they heard). ItÂ’s also easy to say they make the most noise, but thatÂ’s because theyÂ’re often the only outside voice in the room when issues are being decided. In short,...

Los Angeles is considering turning voting ballots into lottery tickets. With fewer than a fourth of voters showing up for recent local elections, the city's Ethics Commission voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the City Council consider a cash-prize drawing as an incentive to vote. Commission President Nathan Hochman suggests the prizes could be $25,000 or $50,000, saying a pilot program should be used first to find out the number and size of prizes that would bump up turnout. The Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/1uV1Ekw) that federal law prohibits payment for voting, but Ethics Commissioner Jessica Levinson says that statute...

A pilot project at 25 Pima County polling places will have workers asking voters to scan their driver’s licenses with an iPad. The goal is to replace the signature roster books currently used at the polling places, Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson said. Poll workers will use the iPads to scan voters’ driver’s licenses and verify their identification. Voters will then sign their names on the iPad screens with their finger. The information scanned will be matched to data already contained in county databases that’s filled out when a person registers to vote, Nelson said. An Arizona driver’s license...

From voter ID laws to broken immigration detention centers, the U.S. is not the model democracy it fancies itself. Watching Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians in Gaza over our TV screens makes it easy to forget about the human rights abuses taking place right here on American soil. Sybrina Fulton and Ron Davis, whose sons were killed in what many believe were racially motivated attacks, are using their children’s deaths to remind Americans that human rights are being violated right here in the United States. More than a year after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, Fulton felt the humiliating pendulum...

I've been trying till I'm blue in the face to get an Astorino Lawn Sign!!

Abbott said requiring voters to present government issued IDs is “the first step in the process is to ensure that only those that are legally allowed to vote actually vote.” Under the law, seven forms of identification are accepted at Texas polling stations, among them state drivers’ licenses and identification cards, election identification certificates, military IDs, passports, citizenship documents with photos, and concealed handgun licenses. And noticeably absent from that list: student identification cards. Ryan Haygood, director for the Legal Defense Fund’s political participation group, said student IDs were specifically left off the list because they fail to prove whether...

MADISON, Wis. -- A court-ordered change to Wisconsin's photo identification law that's designed to cut down on voter fraud is creating confusion and may even open the door to the very type of behavior Republican lawmakers were trying to prevent. Policy makers, attorneys and voter ID experts were struggling Friday with how to interpret a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling from a day earlier, which mandated a change to the law in order to make it constitutional. The court said the state can't require applicants for state-issued IDs to present government documents that cost money to obtain, such as a copy...

With the newest border crisis focusing on the influx of immigrants from Central America, many of them children, the political punching bag that is immigration reform is again leading the news.  Democrats, incongruously, claim that the obvious ineffectiveness of our border is proof that we need to reform immigration laws to allow current foreigners who are here illegally to stay.  How this stops the flow rather than increase it is not explained.Many Republicans have taken up the cause of amnesty by raising the curious proposition that many of those currently here illegally may eventually join the ranks of the Republican...

The Hennepin County attorney’s office is investigating whether a private mailbox center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been improperly used as an address for more than 140 voters. State records show that 419 Cedar Avenue S. has been used by some of the voters as far back as 2008. No one lives at the address, which is a Somali-dominated commercial building housing several small businesses and a popular mail center. Several dozen apartments upstairs use a different building number. Records also show that more than 90 of the registrants at that address have voted in previous elections, although it’s unclear...

Absentee voting started Friday, six weeks ahead of primary elections. Already there are strong allegations of voter fraud. The attorney for Phyllis Kahn says he got word Thursday night; there might be hundreds of people who are registering and voting using an address that's not their home. Absentee voting kicked-off Friday morning in a hotly contested democratic primary race for the state house between incumbent Phyllis Kahn and Mohamud Noor. Brian Rice, attorney for the Phyllis Kahn Volunteer Committee, claims there's voter fraud. "I think there is a coordinated effort to use this address to bring voters into the DFL...