Free Republic

Vote fraud is a serious issue, which the Democratic Party and the mainstream media has had success in linking it to the Republicans, going back to the 2000 Florida recount debacle and the historical fiction of Ohio and Diebold in 2004. That same year, irregularities in Wisconsin, which allows same-day voter registration, arguably allowed the Democrats to steal Wisconsin and its 11 electoral votes. For instance, in addition to felons voting illegally in America's Dairyland, people voting twice, the number of votes counted in Milwaukee County, the state's most populous, exceeded the number of people who actually exercised their franchise....

Acrimony with racial overtones has plagued the advisory council. The key issue: whether meetings in Spanish should be allowed.For months, parents on a Los Angeles Unified School District advisory council have disagreed over whether their meetings should be conducted in Spanish or English. Such arguments became so abusive that district officials canceled meetings for two months and brought in dispute-resolution specialists and mental-health counselors. But Friday morning's gathering of the District Advisory Council proved dysfunctional in any language. By one vote, parents censured their own chairman for alleged bad behavior, leading to a walkout of most Spanish-speakers. The rebuked chairman,...

Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets Published on: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Written by: Elizabeth Smith Although the overall U.S. population grew by 6.39 percent between 2000 and 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, certain areas of the nation actually declined in population during that period. Many of those areas also experienced negative economic factors and job losses. An abandoned train station in Detroit, MichiganNuWire analyzed Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and divisions of MSAs with populations of more than one million to determine the Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets. Each of these markets experienced negative job growth between 2000 and...

SACRAMENTO – California has become the first state in the nation to prohibit local governments from forcing landlords to check the immigration status of tenants. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed landmark legislation that was drafted as a direct response to an Escondido ordinance – quickly abandoned – that would have required landlords to prove their tenants were legal residents. “We need to be assured that landlords cannot be compelled by local government to compile dossiers and become de facto immigration police,” said Ron Kingston, who helped craft the state legislation on behalf of the Apartment Association of Southern California Cities....

State money woes to mount - Deficits could dwarf this year's emergency shortfall BY JOHN WISELY FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Created: 10/6/2007 9:55:14 PM Updated: 10/6/2007 9:56:00 PM In a detailed analysis of state budget troubles, a former state treasury official painted a grim picture of Michigan's budget over the next 10 years, despite a controversial deal struck this week that includes two tax increases. Tom Clay told almost 300 policy makers from across the state Friday that, at current levels, state expenses will outpace revenues by roughly 5% each year, creating a $6-billion annual shortfall in the state's general...

Mich. Jobless Rate Rises To 7.4 PercentPOSTED: 4:26 pm EDT September 19, 2007 UPDATED: 5:53 pm EDT September 19, 2007 DETROIT -- Auto and construction job cuts pushed Michigan's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up to 7.4 percent in Aug., 0.2 points higher than July's rate, the state announced Wednesday. The number of jobs in the state fell by 28,000, while unemployment rose by 12,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth. "Michigan's labor force in 2007 has declined in six out of eight months," said Rick Waclawek, a department labor market official,...

Visitors to the 1st-century amphitheatre are taking away "chunks of stone" as souvenirs despite the presence of guards and surveillance cameras, according to Angelo Bottini, the Superintendent of Archaeology for Rome. He said that most of the five million tourists who visited the Colosseum annually behaved responsibly. But others covered it in graffiti, left their rubbish behind and picked up bits of Ancient Roman wall or paving... He said he had started an inquiry and was asking police to reinforce patrols and closed-circuit television surveillance at the Colosseum and the adjoining Roman Forum, where tourists also pocketed souvenirs. At night,...

Working at the prison can be dangerous and stressful, but it has always offered a much-coveted perk: job security. While factories have downsized or shut down in recent years, the area's prisons have been relatively safe from layoffs. But the state's recent budget woes have upended that stability, leaving employees at Jackson County facilities in a state of uncertainty. State Department of Corrections officials announced in February plans to close Southern Michigan Correctional Facility -- one of five prisons in Jackson County -- as a step toward filling a $92 million deficit in the Department of Corrections budget. But the...

We have packed up our house and movedto Kentucky. Has anyone else been able to sell and get out? We lost about 30 grand but it is sold. We close on Monday. Guess I will have to change my tag line!

David Long, a sixth-grade teacher at Hamilton Middle School, compares the situation to dealing with a classroom at school. The bulk of the kids are great, but a couple of troublemakers spoil the whole dynamic. "It's that kind of situation, I think," he said, talking about the band of nomads who have taken up residence on his street. Long, 40, and his wife live on the 1200 block of East Wilson Street and have raised two kids there. But they have been the unwitting "hosts" to a street full of "car campers," people -- some of them homeless, others who...

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A security video from an apartment hallway shows at least 10 witnesses ignored a woman's cries for help for more than an hour as a man beat and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors in Minnesota said. The surveillance video clearly showed men and women looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the woman was assaulted for nearly 90 minutes, police spokesman Tom Walsh said.

The drumbeat of bad economic news out of Michigan keeps pounding. The Great Lakes State has lost jobs for six consecutive years, Michigan’s longest run of workplace shrinkages since the Great Depression. Automakers are laying off tens of thousands. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is closing up shop in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. The state ranks among the top three in the country for home foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies. Analysts at Comerica Bank, which is moving its headquarters from Detroit to Dallas, say Michigan is stuck in a “one-state recession.”

The horrific, execution-style killing of three teens in Newark last weekend has sparked widespread outrage and promises of reform from politicians, religious leaders, and community activists, who are pledging a renewed campaign against the violence that plagues New Jersey’s largest city. But much of the reaction, though well-intentioned, misses the point. Behind Newark’s persistent violence and deep social dysfunction is a profound cultural shift that has left many of the city’s children growing up outside the two-parent family—and in particular, growing up without fathers. Decades of research tell us that such children are far likelier to fail in school and...

A telling irony shines through last week's ruling by a federal judge that found only Congress can set immigration law. The judge knew full well that half the plaintiffs in the case were in the US illegally. But he let them challenge a city ordinance on immigration anyway – and anonymously. And so it's been in America for too long: Turn a blind eye to the massive lawbreaking of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Imagine if a scofflaw wanted by the FBI had sued a city for enacting a criminal law tougher than a federal law. Would that person...

While code enforcement inspectors and city police plotted to raid an overcrowded west Frederick house early Tuesday morning, its nine residents slept. Before the surprise inspection, a woman and her four children dozed in a 10- by 12-foot bedroom. Her uncle slept in the adjacent bedroom while her nephew curled up in a crudely converted attic space. Two other men slept in the house's primitive basement apartment. A 7-year-old boy tucked into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bed roll was dreaming about playing with dogs. Later in the afternoon, the city code enforcers decided to condemn 5712 Butterfly Lane, a...

Forty years ago today, several days of race riots began in Detroit. On July 23, 1967, Black Panthers and assorted other Black extremists (with White hippies and far-leftists backing and encouraging them) eventually wrote their political epitaphs with it (though their movement unfortunately died a long, slow death--far past its time, if there ever was a time). But they robbed and killed Detroit--and a significant portion of Black America with it. Black Panthers and their radical allies, supported by a thousands of Black Detroiters, rioted for days, starting fires and destroying the city. They wanted more power in the city....