Free Republic

For decades, Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan dominated the state’s political system, corrupting it to his own ends. What should we make of his ouster? The Chicago machine turned out some of the most notorious names in American public corruption, including Anton Cermak, Richard J. Daley, and Ed Kelly. The machine also turned out Mike Madigan, who ruled over Illinois politics for 50 years, 36 of which he spent calling the shots as House speaker. Most people thought Madigan would only leave office in handcuffs or a casket. Most people were wrong. For the first time since 1970, “the Velvet...

Standing in a federal courthouse in a city he long called his political home, former Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the once powerful State Senate majority leader, was found not guilty on federal fraud charges on Friday. The verdict put an end to a legal battle nearly a decade in the making. “This system, it works, sometimes its slow but it works.,” Mr. Bruno, 85, said on the courthouse steps minutes later, flanked by his legal team and family members. Mr. Bruno, a Republican, was one of the three most powerful politicians in the state until his resignation in 2008 amid...

My military friends have a favorite saying: "If you're not catching flak, you're not over the target." This campaign season, conservative women in politics have caught more flak than WWII Lancaster bombers over Berlin. Despite daily assaults from the Democratic machine, liberal media and Hollywood, the ladies of the right have maintained their dignity, grace and wit. Voters will remember in November. When "comedian" and "The View" co-host Joy Behar lambasted GOP Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle this week as a "b-tch" who would be "going to hell" for using images of illegal-alien gang members in a campaign ad, Angle...

The epic battle between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley is drawing national attention as a referendum on President Obama. But Brown is also tapping into that special brand of anger that helps Republicans beat Democrats in otherwise solidly blue Massachusetts. When the party in power gets too arrogant - as often, it does - the people get mad. Over the past two decades, they sent their message by electing three successive Republican governors. On Tuesday, they may signal their disgust with the status quo by sending Brown to Washington to succeed Edward M. Kennedy, the most iconic of...

A reader sent me this message about voter fraud in Pennsylvania: I'm listening to WPHT, 1210AM. Dom Giordano is interviewing PA Congressman Curt Weldon (from Pennsylvania's Delaware County). Weldon caught four women who visited a prison and they were filmed running from the prison with absentee ballots from the prisoners. It was filmed by a Philly TV station (not sure which one). Weldon caught these women red-handed, allegedly college girls, who should not have been inside and involved in this absentee ballot process. The women somehow went inside to "assist" the prisoners in filling out the ballots. These four...

The Democratic Party machine, as Lake County knows it, may be on the endangered list over a rash of criminal indictments, racketeering lawsuits and, now, an Indiana Supreme Court ruling ordering a new 2003 mayoral primary election in East Chicago. The might of East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick, one of the longest-serving mayors in the country, isn't the only thing being tested for its strength to survive. Gov. Joe Kernan's gubernatorial race also is on shaky ground, said longtime Lake County GOP party member Randy Peters and Maurice Eisenstein, a Purdue University Calumet associate professor of political science. "He's toast,''...

Despite President George W. Bush's high poll numbers, the Democrats think they have the key to winning the 2004 elections. Get the votes of convicted felons. Don't laugh; the Democrats are deadly serious. The nation's 4 million convicted felons could be enough to swing the November election. Surveys show that the overwhelming majority would vote Democratic if they could, so felons are a voting bloc that Democrats are just itching to harvest. In addition to providing the magic bullet to elect their candidates in November, this issue reprises all the sour grapes whining by Democrats about the president winning Florida...