Free Republic

Election Workers Violate Law, Cheer Embattled RangelBut their predictions of victory for scandal-plagued congressman may well come true By JAMES FORD wpix.com 11:35 a.m. EDT, September 14, 2010 HARLEM, N.Y. (WPIX) — Even though they're required to be impartial, poll workers cheered on scandal-plagued Congressman Charlie Rangel as he arrived to cast his vote. "The law prohibits electioneering and other improper activity within the polling place," is a requirement of the New York City Board of Elections. However, the people working for the board at Rangel's local polling place, P.S. 175, an elementary school on 134th Street in Harlem, not...

Ovide Lamontagne has taken an early lead in the New Hampshire Senate Republican primary versus Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte has been consistently ahead in the general election polling. Lamontagne was famously endorsed by Sarah Palin. With 5.3% reporting:

NEW YORK — Actor Kelsey Grammer is an investor and public face supporting a new network that launched last Wednesday with entertainment designed to appeal to political conservatives. RightNetwork, whose first series, "Running," follows the fortunes of a couple of Tea Party-backed candidates for public office, is also trying a new model to establish itself. It is initially making programming available through video-on-demand services, the Internet and through mobile phones, bypassing the route of traditional TV networks with a spot on channel lineups

This 30 second video shows Harry getting testy with a female reporter when asked about the polls. I will, again, put he link to the video in Box #1 for Comments, where it can be readily clicked on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbsGno4NZ9U&feature=channel

It's September, and election season is under way. Marching to the tune of President Obama's class-based political rhetoric, some candidates for Congress are campaigning on promises to raise taxes significantly on electorally safe targets. This year's list of victims includes "the rich," Wall Street and America's oil companies. Those three groups are in Washington's cross hairs because politicians need ways to generate more revenue — without spoiling their chances at the polls — to pay for the spending spree they have been on since at least the administration of George W. Bush. According to the Congressional Budget Office, baseline federal...

You can't burn a Koran in a crowded theater, and Supreme CourtJustice Stephen Breyer suggests that to placate foreign extremists, Koran burning might be banned everywhere else in America too. In an interview aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America,"Justice Breyer, who is on tour promoting his new book, averred that in the Internet age, speech traditionally protected by the First Amendment may have to be weighed against its global impact. George Stephanopoulos asked the justice about the canceled Sept. 11 Koran burning proposed by Pastor Terry Jones, and whether the fact that people riot in Afghanistan over what happens...

It is taken as gospel among politicians of both parties that small business is the engine of job creation. "We're starting with small businesses because that's where most of the new jobs do," President Obama said earlier this year. "Small businesses are the job generator of America," echoed Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. They're in good company. George W. Bush and John Kerry, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan have all made that claim. Only one problem: These assertions are overblown and simplistic. Take it from a reliable source — the chief economist for the Small Business Administration. "It's not true,"...

NEW YORK (AP) - A University of Delaware graduate student who made a bold bet has become the biggest one-day winner in the history of the game show "Jeopardy!" Roger Craig earned $77,000 on Tuesday's telecast. He beat the $75,000 standard set more than six years ago by legendary "Jeopardy!" champ Ken Jennings. Excerpted per FR posting rules.

Teachings from the leaders of the Mormon (LDS) Church on the blessings of our Constitution and the freedoms we must defend. President Ezra Taft Benson statements (continued): The Founding Fathers had no problems seeing the hand of the Lord in the birth of the nation. George Washington gave direct credit to God for the victory over the British in the Revolutionary War. But that did not end the need for inspiration and divine help. A constitution was drafted. And thirty-nine of fifty delegates signed it. I would ask: Why is it that the references to God’s influence in the noble...

DENVER -- Mayor John Hickenlooper paid back $52,486 to the Internal Revenue Service in 2008 because of questionable conservation tax easements he participated in over the past decade, CALL7 Investigators have learned. After CALL7 Investigators started questioning the easement's value, Hickenlooper campaign staff provided 7News with a letter from the IRS telling Hickenlooper he could settle a claim to avoid litigation. "This letter is to inform you that (the IRS) has considered the federal tax implications of a group of returns reflecting charitable contributions of conservation easements in the state of Colorado," the IRS letter said. "Because your conservation easement...

Despite difficulties in direct negotiations, western officials say Jerusalem considering goodwill gestures, including extending settlement freeze in areas outside settlement blocs. Netanyahu, Abbas to meet in Jerusalem Wednesday... Israel and the Palestinians have yet to reach a compromise on settlement construction, but Jerusalem is nonetheless considering a number of gestures, including releasing prisoners and transferring areas in the West Bank to Palestinian control, western officials familiar with peace talks told Ynet Tuesday night. The second round of direct negotiations began in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Tuesday and will continue Wednesday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas...

<p>The outage was due to "technical problems," said Chase spokesman Tom Kelly, who added that the problem was "not related to hackers or fraud."</p> <p>Kelly said the company was "working to fix the problem as soon as possible."</p> <p>"Rather then give a prediction about when it will be fixed, we're just going to tell people when it goes back up," Kelly said about 6:00pm ET. "But we are talking hours not days."</p>

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) launched its first independent expenditure advertisement of the 2010 midterm election cycle today in Kentucky, entitled “Jockey Jack.” NRSC Press Secretary Amber Marchand issued the following statement regarding the new advertisement in Kentucky: “It’s clear from numerous public surveys that Rand Paul continues to dominate the race in Kentucky thanks to liberal trial lawyer Jack Conway’s eager endorsement of President Obama’s reckless spending agenda in Washington, including his failed stimulus debacle and massive health spending bill.” Title: “Jockey Jack” TV (:30) ANNOUNCER: Whose horse is Jack Conway riding? When the U.S. Senate debated a...

Westerwelle’s Belgrade VisitGerman foreign minister and vice chancellor, Guido Westerwelle, came to Belgrade on August the 26th, to lecture the Serbian government and the Serbian parliamentary parties with a pompous and an arrogant slogan that the address is EU (Brussels) not the UN (New York). In addition he delivered the ultimatum that the Southeast Europe map is cast in concrete and that Serbia must come to terms with its amputation if she wants to pursue what I perceive to be unreal EU membership. While in Pristina Westerwelle called on five EU nations, which have not yet recognized the independence of...

Defense: Some are now saying al-Qaida is weak and we overreacted after 9/11. Al-Qaida is weak because of our reaction and a tool that shows that America and its technology is alive and well. The latest chapter in the mainstream media's revisionist history of the war on terror is the recent claim by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria that al-Qaida was and "is simply not that deadly a threat," and that after a spectacular success on 9/11 is reduced to recruiting a radicalized young man over the Internet and teaching "him to stuff his underwear with explosives." In saying we've "overreacted," Zakaria...

San Francisco lawmakers have approved a fee on alcohol distribution to help the city recover the cost of dealing with problem drinkers, but the measure faces a likely mayoral veto.

Thousands of dead fish floated up in a marsh on Plaquemines Parish west bank over the weekend. While experts work to determine the cause, there is a likely suspect. The BP oil spill may not have directly caused the fish kill, but WWL Outdoors expert Don Dubuc says all the extra fresh water diverted from the river to try and flush oil from the marsh is what did it. "You mix the nutrients in fresh water with hot water temperatures, poof! You get the algae bloom and it starts to deteriorate and deplete the oxygen," Dubuc said. Much of the...

Debate begins at 8:00 p.m. You can stream the debate from here for video or here for audio. Kasich holds a double-digit leads in recent polls.

Does anyone know what's going on today with the online banking systems? Chase has been down since yesterday. Bank of America's debit card system is down all day. Social Security's online systems are down. My daughter's paycheck which was supposed to be a direct deposit wound up going through as a debit instead of a credit yesterday (also Bank of America). Are we under some sort of attack, or are these events just some sort of coincidence?

There was a rare chance for some bipartisanship mixed with some sincere debate in Washington next week when a defense policy bill will be taken up by the Senate. This type of bill usually passes with plenty of support from both sides of the aisle but the inclusion of the repeal of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy left open some uncertainty as that important and relative issue is to be debated and hopefully resolved. But just to make sure that chaos ensued and in a desperate attempt to put politics over doing his actual job, Senate Majority Leader...