Free Republic

A Democrat former congressman has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for election fraud charges. The judge threw the book at a corrupt former Rep. Michael “Ozzie” Myers (D-PA), jailing the 79-year-old Philadelphia politician for multiple voter fraud felonies. Myers was sentenced to 30 months in prison, with three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines. $10,000 of the fine was due immediately. United States District Court Judge Paul S. Diamond threw the book at Myers after the disgraced Democrat plead guilty to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification...

One year ago, Manka Dhingra was preparing for a celebration, a gathering of family and friends to mark Hillary Clinton’s election as the nation’s first woman president. Today, she is bearing the hopes and dreams of Democrats crushed by Clinton’s loss and trying to help the party pull itself from a deep hole. A state Senate race pitting two campaign novices in the upscale suburbs east of Seattle has turned into a major battle between the two national parties, becoming the costliest legislative contest in state history and serving as a test of the Trump effect far from the other...

One simple statistic highlights the folly of much of the Democratic Party’s strategy and spending. If every person of color who voted for Hillary Clinton in Virginia last year turns out to vote in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest on November 7, Democrat Ralph Northam could win without getting a single vote from a white person. Not one. And yet most Democratic strategists and donors overlook and undervalue voters of color in general and African-American voters in particular. As a result, Democrats are at real risk of losing eminently winnable contests in Virginia this year, as well as in myriad races in...

The Virginia gubernatorial race concludes in just under four weeks. Democratic candidate and Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam has a lead of 6.8 percent over Republican Ed Gillespie in the RealClearPolitics polling averages. The last time Gillespie led in a public poll was in March. So what’s up with all the “panic” and “worry” and premonitions of “disaster” for Democrats in Virginia, given all the positive objective indicators of the state of the race? Democrats may be suffering from their own version of PTSD — Post-Trump Stress Disorder — in which pessimism operates as a natural defense mechanism to prevent the...

When more than 62 million Americans — including Alabama voters — got behind Donald Trump's message to make America great again, they latched onto a certain nostalgia. Many of these voters longed for a United States when “family values” were synonymous with “American values” — particularly to voters from the conservative stronghold of Alabama. And that's what Senate candidate Roy Moore has tapped into. The former judge won Alabama's Republican primary Tuesday and is now considered the front-runner in the general election. For Moore, returning “the knowledge of God” to Washington means very specific things — particularly when it comes...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Frank Wagner visited Roanoke Friday to pitch his campaign message of improving transportation infrastructure in order to create more jobs across Virginia.At a Roanoke County Republican Committee luncheon, Wagner, a GOP state senator from Virginia Beach, discussed his proposal to raise the gas tax for projects like widening Interstate 81 and building Interstate 73 and the Coalfields Expressway.Yes, he’s a rare Republican calling for a tax increase. He understands the irony. Building up major pathways in and out of Southwest Virginia will improve the business climate, he said.In the economically depressed Southside region , adding broadband and...

President Donald Trump now says he's open to releasing his tax returns — after he leaves office. When asked in an interview published Thursday by The Economist, Trump found no reason to make his tax returns public even if it means Democrats would get on board with his tax plan — a bare bones version of which was unveiled last month. "I doubt it. Because they're not going to … nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters," Trump said. "Oh, at some point I'll release them. Maybe I'll release them after I'm finished because I'm very proud...