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Burlington — The head of a private laboratory where DNA evidence in the Duke lacrosse case was tested no longer works there. The move comes less than a month after the former defendants filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Dr. Brian Meehan, former District Attorney Mike Nifong and several others involved in the investigation. Civil attorneys allege they were part of a "DNA conspiracy" and purposely withheld potentially exculpatory evidence that could have been used to clear their clients of the criminal charges against them. Neither Meehan nor his attorney would talk Monday about why he was replaced. DNA...

WASHINGTON - The editor of the Lowell Sun, which last December published a special section in tribute to Martin T. Meehan under a controversial arrangement between the newspaper and Meehan's staff, has purchased Meehan's house

Last week, a SurveyUSA/WBZ poll out of Boston caused a minor earthquake in the Massachusetts political universe. The race to replace liberal Congressman Marty Meehan was supposed to be a sleepy affair leading to a walk-in-the-park victory for Democrat Niki Tsongas, the well-known wife of the late Senator Paul Tsongas. So it came as quite a surprise when the poll showed Republican Jim Ogonowski, a farmer and veteran from the Merrimack Valley, within 10 points of Tsongas. Tsongas polled just 51 percent to Ogonowski's 41 percent. In any political environment, a win by Ogonowski on October 16th would be considered...

LOWELL - Neophyte candidate Niki Tsongas, the widow of Sen. and presidential contender Paul Tsongas, won a hard-fought primary against established Lowell pol Eileen Donoghue and three others in her first election yesterday. The race to replace U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan pitted the Tsongas name against Donoghue’s local political machine. The almost legendary name won out in the Merrimack Valley’s 5th Congressional District with 19,811 votes, or 36 percent, to Donoghue’s 17,373 votes, 31 percent. “This is just Round 1,” Tsongas said. “Make no mistake. This election will be a referendum on the presidency of George W. Bush.” The Democrats...

WASHINGTON -- Candidates for the 5th District Congressional seat are sharply divided on giving millions of unlawful immigrants eventual citizenship, highlighting a passionate issue in a region where nearly one in six people were born outside the United States. Blurring the district's population picture is the presence of perhaps thousands of people who dare not be counted, fearing deportation, job loss, or being separated from family for living in the district's 29 communities illegally. Their presence has helped place Massachusetts among the top 14 states with high numbers of unlawful immigrants, reaching between 150,000 and 250,000 people, according to the...

(The headline of the column deals with Marty Meehan & Romney, but the second part deserves notice) Stand-up guy Sometimes, Sen. John Kerry’s timing is just abysmal. Speaking to a group of graduates at UMass-Dartmouth this week, Kerry predicted that troubled pop tart Lindsay Lohan could one day be president. “A lot can happen in 10 years. In 10 years, we will have a real people’s president: President Lindsay Lohan,” Kerry reportedly joked. Of course, just hours later Lohan was pinched for allegedly being drunk behind the wheel and pics of the passed-out diva were splashed across Web sites and...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Leading pro-life groups are renewing their call for supporters to contact their elected officials about a provision in a lobbying reform bill that would hurt their ability to keep citizens informed about important pro-life topics on Capitol Hill. They say abortion advocates would benefit if the provision is approved. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, would establish, for the first time, federal regulatory authority over efforts aimed at motivating citizens to communicate with their elected representatives about bills pending in Congress. Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, says his amendment targets grassroots lobbying but...

MANASSAS, Va., May 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement by GrassrootsFreedom.com and Mark Fitzgibbons regarding grassroots legislation, H.R. 2093 introduced May 1 by Congressman Marty Meehan (news, bio, voting record), and expected to be debated in the House May 15: "Now that we've finally seen Congressman Meehan's grassroots bill, H.R. 2093, we know that its proponents were selling the public and Congress a bill of goods. They said: The bill would close a 'Jack Abramoff loophole.' Fact: Neither Jack Abramoff nor the kick-backs to him under the 'Gimme- Five' scandal would have been disclosed under H.R. 2093. They...

Departing U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan of Lowell is a politician aptly described as “cute,” as they say at the State House. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the closest synonyms are probably “slick” or “sneaky.” And Marty Meehan is definitely sneaky. Case in point: an expensive four-color mailing Marty sent out to constituents in December inviting them to a global warming “TOWN MEETING” last December at the school he’s about to take over, UMass-Lowell. The “special guest” was then Gov.-elect Deval Patrick. It was a nice opportunity for Marty to bond, as it were, with Deval, whom the former Tom...

The Fifth Congressional District of Massachusetts will soon elect a new U.S. representative, and today voters in the Merrimack Valley have only one question on their minds: “How much of a pension is that @#$%&*! Marty Meehan going to get?” The answer: $38,000 a year, at age 62, which is 12 years away. U.S. Rep. Marty “Midas” Meehan is about to become the chancellor of UMass-Lowell, which should be good for just under $300,000 a year, plus whatever pension comes behind it. Which raises yet another burning question. Can Marty, the former state hack, “buy back” his years in the...

BOSTON -- U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan was selected Tuesday to be chancellor of his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, a school spokesman said. UMass President Jack Wilson informed Meehan that he's the top pick, and the two sides began contract negotiations with the goal of striking a deal so that the Lowell Democrat's name can be presented for approval to the university's trustees at a meeting Wednesday, the spokesman said. "I'm extremely excited about the opportunity to make UMass-Lowell one of the best universities in the country," Meehan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press....

THE REAL story always wins out. After weeks of denying that he was interested in the UMass Lowell chancellor's job, Rep. Marty Meehan finally fessed up last week, and was interviewed by the 21-member Search Committee on Friday. The 50-year-old congressman handles the sharp focus of the press better than many pols, but in recent days he delivered his denials with atypical vehemence. Bending over backwards to prove his point, Meehan asked: How can I leave with the Democrats now in control of the House? How can I leave when I'm now chairman of a high-profile subcommittee of the Armed...

You’re Rep. Marty Meehan, and you were supposed to be in Miami today, basking in the Super Bowl XLI glow from YOUR New England Patriots. You had your reservations, dammit, but then something happened in Indianapolis, and now you’re back in Lowell. And on Friday in Boston you had a job interview - you, Marty Meehan, the congressman with the biggest campaign war chest of all 435 members of the House. Five million bucks. You’ve got so much cash they call you “Midas” Meehan, and now you’re interviewing for the job of chancellor of UMass-Lowell. When it comes to golden...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Give us your money or else. That's the threat from MoveOn.org, the ultra-liberal political blog, to U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan. For a week now, MoveOn.org's political extortionists have mounted an Internet campaign against Meehan because he refuses to accede to their wishes. They want Meehan to open his $4.9 million campaign war chest to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is trying to win back the House from Republicans. Meehan has resisted, and rightly so. But what began as playful politics has escalated into a nasty MoveOn.org shakedown.

Meehan leads US House with campaign funds Representative Martin T. Meehan has gained national exposure in recent years as a champion of efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics. Now, the Lowell Democrat is poised to achieve a new distinction: He is days away from becoming the only House member in the nation with a campaign war chest that tops $5 million, with an eye on a possible run for the Senate. some $2 million more than any of the other 434 House members, and $2.7 million more than any of the nine other representatives from Massachusetts.... With...

Congressman Marty Meehan of Massachusetts is a career politician. And like other career politicians he is a big fan of memory holes. You know, as in George Orwell's "1984," wherein Big Brother put inconvenient facts down the memory hole, not to be spoken or read or remembered. The Lowell Sun reports that Meehan's congressional staff, on taxpayer time, altered his biography on Wikipedia. That's the Internet website billed as the world's largest encyclopedia. Gone down the memory hole went this entry: "Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform. As part of that platform Meehan made...

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- sorry, that's Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold and Reps. Chris Shays and Marty Meehan, Congress' Dark Knights of Campaign-Finance Reform -- have a message for bloggers: They're not "out to get them." The scare quotes are theirs. In comments submitted to the Federal Election Commission last week, as the regulatory body seeks advice on how to apply the McCain-Feingold law to the Internet, the enemies of the First Amendment had to walk a fine line. On one side, the politicians in them wanted to genuflect to democracy, open debate and all the...

WASHINGTON - A group of congressional Democrats is asking President Bush (news - web sites) to dismiss a senior military intelligence officer who made church speeches that included inflammatory religious remarks while discussing the war on terrorism. In a letter to Bush released Thursday, Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., and 10 others said action in the matter of Lt. Gen. William Boykin is long overdue, and he must be removed from his post as deputy undersecretary for defense. A Pentagon (news - web sites) investigation concluded that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was...

Omega Letter Christian Intelligence Digest Ten Congress Members Call For Boykins' Removal They Were Appalled By His Mention Of GodCommentary on the NewsSaturday, September 04, 2004OL StaffTen members of Congress wrote a letter to President Bush stating that Lt. Gen. William Boykin should be dismissed as the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In case you don't remember, Boykin is the man in charge of hunting for Osama and was caught speaking to a church while in uniform. The letter states that Boykin has offended Muslims and he lacks objectivity. They seem to be overlooking the fact that it...

As a longtime investigative researcher and journalist, I knew that politics could be down and dirty, but I didn't expect (despite premonitions thereof), that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., would betray my son in the same manner that he had betrayed his fellow Swift Boat servicemen, and then all the American servicemen and women who served honorably in Vietnam so long ago. But I was wrong. I thought that he might have a little decency left in him, a decency that would spare the fighting men and women of Operation Iraqi Freedom from his demeaning smears and lies. Al Qaqaa, the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The McCain-Feingold law, which did more to change how American political campaigns are financed than any legislation since the 1970's, got its first real-world test in this year's election. And now its critics are more emphatic than ever in arguing that the law has fallen short of its goals, and even some supporters are calling for revisions. The 2002 law demolished the system that for more than a decade had allowed political parties to feed on unlimited soft-money contributions from companies, labor unions and donors. But what rose in its place remains the subject of fierce...

WASHINGTON - More wealthy donors are giving $1 million or more to partisan political organizations now than before a 2002 law took effect, aimed at removing big money from federal elections. The top giver is George Soros, the billionaire financier who jump-started pro-Democratic efforts to find a way to keep spending the unlimited checks the Democratic Party can no longer collect. Soros, who has given roughly $24 million to various groups opposing President Bush (news - web sites), said he donated so much to these so-called 527s to help the Democrats compete financially with Republicans. "I have to make the...

Kerry spokesperson Michael Meehan prematurely ended his appearance on Hannity & Colmes segment after Sean and Bush rep Nicolle Devenish "ganged up" on him. One e-mailer called it the "most blatant example of attack journalism that I've ever seen on TV:" "They wouldn't let him answer with anything besides a yes or a no." As the first of two planned segments concluded, Meehan said: "If you're not going to let me answer, then I'll just cede my time." He walked out during the commercial, while Devenlish stuck around for part two. FReepers loved it, of course...

WASHINGTON - A judge has struck down more than a dozen of the government's current rules on political fund raising with just weeks before Election Day, concluding federal regulators improperly weakened the nation's campaign finance law. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) to write new rules to govern key aspects of fund raising, including when candidates and outside parties can coordinate activities. The judge did not specifically address how candidates and political parties in the heat of current campaign should act in the absence of the rules. The law's main provisions, banning...

Commentary Campaign Finance Reform Muzzles Political Dissent By Rep. Ron Paul In a devastating blow to political speech, the Supreme Court recently upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill passed by Congress last year. The legislation will do nothing to curb special interest power or reduce corruption in Washington, but it will make it harder for average Americans to influence government. "Campaign finance reform" really means the bright-line standard of free speech has been replaced by a murky set of regulations and restrictions that will muzzle political dissent and protect incumbents. Justice Scalia correctly accuses the Court of supporting...

If American democracy is finally done in, the perpetrators will unlikely be Hitlerian figures whose strutting authoritarianism is plain to see, but a collection of well-meaning, schoolmarm-like activists who aim to restrict our freedoms for our own supposed good. They may well be members of Common Cause. You never figure an outfit like Common Cause to be a danger to the republic's must crucial principles, do you? But be vigilant: Common Cause is in the forefront of those cutting the First Amendment down to an imperceptible size. The group does not want anything blocking the way as government squelches free...

WASHINGTON -- Rules proposed by the Federal Election Commission to enforce the new campaign finance law would instead create loopholes in it, the law's sponsors say. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., told the FEC in written comments that its rules must be true to the law's intent to ban the use of "soft money" -- unlimited donations from labor unions, corporations and others -- in federal elections. "Throughout our fight for this reform law, skeptics regularly told us what we were doing would not reduce the impact that...

Campaign finance champion U.S. Rep. Martin T. Meehan yesterday sidestepped a proposal from his Republican challenger to cap his re-election spending at $600,000. ``It's sounds like an interesting idea and something we're going to take a look at,'' said Meehan spokesman Will Keyser. Meehan's opponent, Charles McCarthy, requested the spending limit in a letter to the incumbent Democrat, who has been widely lauded for his winning efforts at passing the campaign finance reform bill. The letter, which will be officially delivered to the Lowell Democrat from McCarthy this morning, proposes a limit of $600,000 through Election Day with no restraints...

<p>Democrats, facing the ban they supported on unregulated "soft" campaign money, have formed a fledgling "donor network" to take advantage of a loophole in the new law.</p> <p>The Progressive Donor Network held its inaugural strategy meeting in Washington two weeks ago. Its president and co-founder is political consultant Michael Lux, who was a top fund-raising official for the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and served as an aide in the Clinton White House.</p>

Senate is "debating" the upcoming cloture vote on Campaign Finance Reform. Vote is scheduled for 10 minutes before 1PM today. Senators Hutchison of Texas and McConnell of Kentucky have spoken on the opposing side so far. Senator Paul Wellstone now speaking FOR Campaign Finance Reform