The head of the Republican Women of Otero County refused to resign after calling Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a "Muslim socialist."

Otero County GOP chairwoman Sassy Tinling says that when Marcia Stirman refused to quit, the rest of the board of the Republican Women's group gave Stirman their resignations.

Tinling also says the county GOP executive committee disassociated itself from the GOP women's group.

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It should also be noted that it doesn't matter what is shown on the screen when a voter votes on one of these god-awful devices which will be used by approximately one-third of American voters this year. The fact is that it's strictly impossible to confirm that any vote ever cast during an election on any Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machine was ever recorded accurately for any candidate or initiative on the ballot, as per the voter's intent.

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For weeks Republican leaders have warned that widely reported problems with fake voter registrations could result in a flood of phony votes in pivotal states.

But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred.

“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse.”

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The Bush administration is rejecting FBI pleas for more agents to investigate crimes that helped trigger the global financial meltdown, bureau sources said this week.

Bush's proposed budget calls for increasing FBI funding in 2009 by $451 million, to $7.1 billion. That includes funding 280 additional agents for national security programs, but adding none for criminal programs.

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