Free Republic

Former clients are distancing themselves from Erik Brown, the California-based consultant in the spotlight for billing the Republican National Committee for a trip to a risqué Los Angeles nightclub. California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R), who's running for Senate, announced Monday he "has severed all ties" with Brown's consulting firm, Dynamic Marketing, Inc (DMI). The DeVore camp had been using DMI to print some campaign letterhead, signs and stickers, it said in a release. Their business dealings "ended some weeks ago when we contracted with a different printer, and will not resume." "There is no present relationship with DMI," DeVore's camp...

The Republican National Committee is asking one of its members to return nearly $2,000 that the member was reimbursed for a night out at a lesbian-themed bondage club. Doug Heye, a spokesman for the RNC, issued a statement Monday after two news agencies reported that the organization reimbursed a member $1,946 for a February trip to Voyeur, a bondage-themed nightclub in West Hollywood recently featured in The Los Angeles Times as the new hotspot. "We are investigating the expenditure in question," said Heye. "This was a reimbursement made an individual not on committee staff. ... The committee has requested that...

The Democratic National Committee is having a field day Monday at the expense of its cross-town rivals at the RNC--or the "Risque National Committee," as the Dems put it in one of the blizzard of e-mailed releases they are sending out. The Daily Caller says the FEC filings "suggest" that "Steele travels in style." From there it wasn't much of a leap for the DNC to send out emails stating that "Yes, it appears that Michael Steele spent RNC money" at the nightclub. SNIP It contains a payment to Erik Brown, at an address in Orange, California, who was reimbursed...

Store owner finds out he chased, tied up former basketball star By Valarie Honeycutt Spears And Jerry Tipton HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS Gas station owner Bobby Schneider didn't know or care that the robbery suspect he tackled to the ground was once the nation's leading freshman scorer in men's college basketball. After watching the suspect push a cashier to her knees and grab handfuls of cash, Schneider chased him for a half-mile, then borrowed a dog leash to hogtie him until police arrived. Only then did Schneider learn that the suspect in the first robbery of his family's BP Lansdowne Service...