Free Republic

An official from the aptly-named group By Any Means Necessary is quoted today in the Omaha World-Herald, on why her group is trying to disrupt the signature-gathering efforts of Ward Connerly, who is leading an effort in Nebraska (and Colorado and Arizona) to pass a ballot initiative that would ban preferences based on race, ethnicity, and sex: "The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place. That's the only way we're going to win.” The Left, as you know, favors democracy, power to the people, and nondiscrimination, except when it doesn’t.

Several scandals in recent years have revealed Congress members may have sought earmarks that were somehow repaying the favor. NYC's reps, including likely Democratic mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel, opted to not reveal their plans. The current system allows members of Congress to secretly petition the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to instruct agencies to direct federal funds to their districts.

WASHINGTON — Nearly 32 months after a Texas grand jury indicted him for election-law violations, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay still hasn’t gotten his day in court on one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. More than two years ago DeLay surrendered to a Harris County jail. Even by Texas standards, that lag is an unusually long time for a relatively minor criminal case to remain unresolved. It does take two to two-step: Appeals have been flying from the defendants as well as from Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle’s office. The...

Much more information over here --->>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301751.html 

Governor says deal curbs the growth of Indian gamblingOLYMPIA -- Gov. Chris Gregoire is benefiting from more than $650,000 in campaign contributions from Indian tribes that hit the jackpot in 2005 when she killed a gambling compact potentially worth more than $140 million a year to the state. Unlike 22 other states that collect millions from revenue sharing agreements for tribal gambling, Washington gets no money from tribal casinos under the compact that Gregoire renegotiated with the Spokane Tribe. Gregoire backed away from the 2005 agreement that included revenue sharing in an attempt to keep gambling from expanding too quickly...

Analysts used to joke about waiting for the results from cemetery precincts in Chicago before calling elections. In Louisiana, that may be closer to the truth than one might imagine. WBRZ reports on a voter registration scandal that had Democrats submitting thousands of fraudulent enrollments, included George W. Bush and a bunch of dead people:Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said Tuesday he will meet today with a Democrat-affiliated group responsible for a voter registration effort that is inundating East Baton Rouge and other parish registrars with bogus and incomplete applications.Dardenne said his investigators are trying to determine if any state...

It's been 24 years since a Republican candidate for president came out on top in Washington state. Given our longtime blue-state status, what chance does John McCain have of beating Barack Obama here? For that matter, will he even try? So far, the McCain campaign has sent mixed signals. When McCain held a fundraiser in Bellevue — including a $31,000 per person "Victory Dinner" — none of the money raised that evening went to the Washington State Republican Party. Instead, it was divided among the McCain campaign, the national GOP and the state parties in places that both sides view...

Karen Bass, sworn in as Assembly speaker less than a month ago, is facing her first big test of leadership. The events of those ignoble three days in May - when the Assembly scrambled to meet a deadline to pass bills it originated - represented an affront to representative democracy. In one documented case, a member of the leadership team, Assemblyman Kevin de León of Los Angeles, hit the voting switch of a fellow Democrat, Mary Hayashi of Castro Valley, while she was elsewhere in the Capitol. That would have violated Assembly rules even if she had agreed with the...

Relatives of a U.S. congressman indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and racketeering, have been charged with using charities for personal financial gain, reports the Associated Press The sister, brother, and niece of U.S. Representative William Jefferson, a Democrat from Louisiana, have been charged with conspiracy and fraud. Mr. Jefferson’s sister, Betty Jefferson, an elected New Orleans property-tax assessor; his brother Mose Jefferson; and Betty Jefferson’s daughter, Angela Coleman, are accused of stealing as much $620,000 from charities that were supposed to benefit poor people. They each face up to more than 200 years in prison. Mr. Jefferson has been...

The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot. Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for...

MARSHALL — The Texas Democratic Party and a group of voters have settled a federal lawsuit against state officials over allegations of voter suppression. The agreement reached Wednesday came just before a U.S. District Court trial was to begin in a lawsuit challenging the state and Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott. Gerry Hebert, an attorney representing voters, said the settlement includes the Texas Attorney General's Office agreeing to no longer prosecute what are called hypertechnical violations involving mail-in ballots. In a statement, Abbott proclaimed the settlement a victory in efforts to fight election fraud.

BOSTON (AP) -- The campaign headquarters of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney was burglarized over the weekend and a television and computers stolen. A campaign spokesman for the former Massachusetts governor described the crime as "a routine burglary" and did not believe it was politically motivated. "Several laptops and a TV were stolen," said campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. "All the computers are password-enabled and the hard drives are encrypted. The only thing they're good for is parts." The Boston Police Department was called to the scene, an office building overlooking Boston Harbor in the city's North End, but a report...

<p>The Federal Election Commission has fined one of the biggest liberal political action committees $775,000 for using unregulated cash to boost Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections.</p> <p>America Coming Together (ACT) raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 17 states in the 2004 elections, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits or were otherwise barred by campaign rules.</p>

Hugo Chavez may have lost both the recall referendum in 2004 and the December 2006 presidential election, according to studies conducted by a distinguished multidisciplinary team in Caracas, Venezuela. The team includes the rector of Universidad Simon Bolivar, Frederick Malpica, and a former rector of the National Electoral Council, Alfredo Weil. Astonishing as it may seem to Americans who believe the contention by Mr. Chavez that he won both elections by a landslide — 58% to 42% in the recall and 61% to 39% in the presidential election — the studies show that since 2003, Mr. Chavez has added 4.4...

It is being compared to Watergate, on a much smaller scale. Two Democrats were caught on tape rifling through a Republican's desk drawer at the Legislative Office Building. For nearly five minutes, on a day late last month, after 5 o'clock, the security camera showed a man going through a desk while a second man watches. The desk belongs to Republican assistant clerk Juliana Simone. A four-day investigation concludes that this was intentional employee misconduct, but not criminal behavior. "I think I'm in the minority party and they just wanted to let me know that and that I should not...

The following are news stories involving potential voting irregularities around the nation. Headlines are changed only to provide more or clearer information. When multiple stories about the same incident appear, I try to post the later ones, supposing the information may be more up-to-date. I make no judgments about the credibility of the accusations, as I consider wolf cries to be newsworthy and I also make no claim to expertise in evaluating credibility of events in distant states. Judge issues injunctions against Democrats for vote-buying; accusations would be of felonies. -- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1734244/posts Pennsylvania voter (union thug) smashes vote machine --...

Lieberman Web Site Down, Lamont Supporters Blamed Image Tamsen Fadal Reporting (CBS/AP) HARTFORD, Conn. The Joe Lieberman campaign claims it's been victimized by computer hackers who support his challenger Ned Lamont for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. The senator's official campaign Web site, Lieberman2006.com, is down and has been down since this morning. The site has been hacked and apparently it has been so thorough that the senator's campaign can't even use e-mail.

Yesterday a federal district court in Seattle handed down a decision that undermines the security of your ballot this fall. The case is called Washington Association of Churches v. Secretary of State Reed, and is the brainchild of a New York-based group called the Brennan Center for Justice. If you’ve never heard of them before, don’t feel bad. All through the recounts and lawsuits of the 2004 gubernatorial election, and despite the thousands of legal voters who were disenfranchised by illegal votes and counting errors, the Brennan Center hasn’t once stepped foot into the state of Washington to help bring...

The chairman of the PA Dem party, T.J. Rooney, said today he'll challenge the signatures that Green Party candidate Carl J. Romanelli submitted to join the Senate ballot. A number of those signatures were collected by JSM, Inc. Rooney: “This is a questionable and controversial firm that has a history of fraudulent activity where many signatures, and candidates in some instances, have been thrown off the ballot in various states. We will ensure that this doesn’t take place in Pennsylvania and that the integrity of the electoral process is safeguarded.” Backers of Sen. Rick Santorum donated nearly $60,000 to help...

A prominent Seattle lawyer and a scion of a prominent Seattle family are suing a prominent politician -- U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick -- over his lucrative retirement package from a prominent Seattle company, Safeco. The intriguing cast of characters came together Tuesday in a shareholder lawsuit, heavy with political overtones, against Safeco's board of directors and McGavick, a Republican who was its chief executive. It was filed in federal court in Seattle. The complaint said Safeco paid the candidate $28.4 million in early 2006 in an illegal "waste of corporate assets" after he resigned to run against Democratic Sen....