Free Republic

On September 24, the Michigan Bureau of Elections (BOE) issued a critical change in its FOIA disclosure policy. According to a communication sent to organizations receiving absentee voter (AV) data, the BOE will no longer provide certain key data fields essential for election monitoring and audits. The message from the Secretary of State’s BOE indicated that data related to absentee ballot applications sent and received, as well as ballots returned by voters, will no longer be available under FOIA requests (letter below). Organizations including CheckMyVote.org and MFE’s Soles to Rolls rely on the transparency of these figures for their election...

“What the masks showed us, the parents, the most powerful group in the country, is that we are taking back the wheel.” “We are taking back the wheel from Washington to Raleigh all the way to the local school board. Because CRT, the parents don’t want it.” #parentalrights

My name is Keisha King. I’m a mom of two, one who’s in the Duvall County Public School System, and one in private school, thanks to school choice. I’m also a member of Moms for Liberty, representing thousands of parents. Just coming off of May 31st, marking the 100 years of the Tulsa riots, it is sad that we are even contemplating something like critical race theory, where children will be separated by their skin color and deemed permanently oppressors or oppressed in 2021. That is not teaching the truth, unless you believe that whites are better than blacks. I...

Donald J. Trump 2,732,084 Joseph R. Biden 2,655,383 Jo Jorgensen 47,215 Write-In (Miscellaneous) 12,940 Howie Hawkins 11,825 Don Blankenship 7,381

Bank Of England Chief: The US Faces The Same Issues As Greece, And Europe Has Only Kicked The Can Down The Road Joe WeisenthalMay. 13, 2010, 9:52 PM Image: Bank of England Lost in the shuffle over the past 24 hours were some surprisingly stiff comments from Mervyn King, the head of the Bank of England. The Telegraph flags some of the interesting comments he made at a press conference, following the release of the BoE's latest inflation report. Particularly notable is his warning to US and UK governments about debt Every country around the world is in a similar...

Forget Deflation This Is Stagflation Economics / Spain Jan 20, 2010 - 04:12 PM By: Adrian Ash Well, this is a pretty pass. Deflation in all things except inflation... THEY WERE SUPPOSED to avert depression. The Bank of England continues to tout their "success". But it looks like the best that money-printing and zero rates might now deliver is '70s-style stagflation, plus '30s-style wealth destruction and a glacé cherry on top. Giving Britain its "stag" – as in stagnation – are economic output, wages, capital investment, real estate prices and now, perhaps, a return of the bear market in London...

The Bank of England will begin laying the groundwork for a rise in interest rates as early as March, according to one of the City's leading economists. Simon Ward of Henderson New Star reckons that in addition to ending the radical programme of quantitative easing, members of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee will begin voting to raise interest rates from 0.5pc in February. The MPC today gives its first decision on interest rates of 2010 and is widely expected to keep them at the record low they've been at since March last year. The Bank slashed interest rates after the...

It's the Holy Grail of reformers and politicians, a seemingly oxymoronic two-word phrase that prompts cynics to sneer and fans the faint hopes of taxpayers: "Government efficiency." From the outset of his administration in fall 2003, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's rhetorical arsenal has consistently featured calls for making California's government leaner, more responsive and more citizen-friendly. ...California's tax collection system has evolved as the state has added taxes to its revenue base.... An amendment in the 1879 state constitution created the Board of Equalization (BOE). Its four elected members (plus the state controller) were charged with "equalizing" property assessments. In the...

Sales and Use Tax Rate Increases on April 1, 2009 Effective April 1, 2009, the State sales and use tax rate increases by 1%. In addition, if you are in a city or county that has a new voter approved local district tax rate increase effective on April 1, 2009, your overall tax rate increase will be higher. The combined statewide and district tax rates that apply as of April 1, 2009, are listed on the reverse side of the Special Notice, Sales and Use Tax Rate Increases on April 1, 2009. For more information about the additional new district...

The governing body of the Church of England, the General Synod, voted overwhelmingly to follow the lead of the police and bar ordained priests, trainees and lay staff from becoming members of racist political parties, specifically including the BNP. It will require discplinary rules for vicars to be rewritten, and some critics claimed the move could still breach human rights and trigger employment tribunal cases because the BNP is a legal organisation. Others warned that far-right parties could get around the rules by changing their names, or by claiming their members are merely supporters rather than official members. ... Earlier...

Citigroup has called for radical measures to end Britain's financial crisis, rebuking the Bank of England for moving too slowly to meet liquidity needs and waiting too long to head off an economic downturn. "The downside risks to UK growth are sufficiently severe that the Bank of England should now be adopting a more determined approach to easing financial market strains. Relative inaction has a cost," said the bank's chief UK economist, Michael Saunders. Citigroup said the BoE should adopt a slate of targeted measures The blunt criticisms come as Britain's interbank borrowing market began to sieze up again. Comment:...

Tough talk on inflation, first by US Federal Reserve officials, then by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has got the markets rattled. Last week all the leading equity indices retreated, with the S&P 500 down 2.7 per cent, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 down 1.8 per cent, the Nikkei off 2.6 per cent and the FTSE 100 off 2.1 per cent. It looks as if investors are questioning the notion that the US, and to some extent the world economy, has entered a new "Goldilocks" phase with growth neither too hot (risking accelerating inflation) nor too cold (risking...

<p>Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered racial integration of public schools in the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, middle-class flight has resegregated most big-city public-school systems.</p> <p>"Why are we not all joyfully dancing, celebrating our collective release from the bondage of prejudice and inequality?" asks Ellis Cose in a report to the Rockefeller Foundation about the results a half-century after the court ruled that state-enforced racial separation in public facilities was unconstitutional.</p>