Free Republic

In the first quarter of this year, freshman Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), once again demonstrating remarkable fund-raising ability, raised more than $1 million -- all for Democrat Senate colleagues who are up for re-election in 2006. The biggest beneficiary of Obama's assistance is Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat elected to the Senate in 1958 who may be the No. 1 target of Republicans this cycle. "Senator Robert Byrd was one of the first senators I met with when I came to the Senate three months ago,'' Obama wrote in an e-mail sent out on behalf of the political...

Owners of the Chicago's Little Lady tour boat are the latest to file a civil lawsuit against the Dave Matthews Band, claiming human waste from the rock band's tour bus was emptied from a downtown bridge into the Chicago River --right in the path of the watercraft. Children, senior citizens, persons with disabilities and a pregnant woman were drenched by the "foul-smelling, brownish-yellow liquid" in the Aug. 8 incident, according to a suit filed by the vessel's owner Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. Mercury Skyline Yacht Charters Inc. is seeking compensatory damages in excess of $50,000 and punitive damages...