IN: The Plastic Ono Band is a band formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 as a vehicle for their collaborative and solo projects. Lennon and Ono had begun a personal and artistic relationship in 1968, collaborating on several experimental releases. Following their marriage in 1969, they decided that all of their future endeavours would be credited to a conceptual and collaborative vehicle, Plastic Ono Band. The band would go on to feature a rotating lineup of many musicians, including Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, and Lennon's former Beatles bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

By the beginning of 1973, recording had begun in earnest on Ono's next album, Feeling the Space, featuring a new group of studio musicians. The newest incarnation of the Plastic Ono Band featured guitarist David Spinozza, keyboardist Ken Ascher, bassist Gordon Edwards, percussionists Arthur Jenkins and David Friedman, saxophonist Michael Brecker, pedal steel guitarist Sneaky Pete Kleinow, as well as regular contributor Jim Keltner. The album would be released in November.  Throughout 1973, Lennon and Ono's relationship became strained. By August, the two had begun a period of separation that Lennon called "The Lost Weekend". Lennon began the recording of his own album, Mind Games, using the same players as on Feeling the Space, dubbed "The Plastic U.F.Ono Band". Around the time of the album's release in November, Lennon moved to Los Angeles with new lover May Pang. In October, Lennon began the recording of an album of rock 'n' roll oldies (a contractual obligation due to a lawsuit). These featured many Plastic Ono Band regulars (including much of the "U.F.Ono Band", Klaus Voorman, and the return of Phil Spector to the production chair), but upon release in 1975 as Rock 'n' Roll, it was credited to Lennon alone.  The sessions for Rock 'n' Roll were extremely troubled, and the sessions were abandoned until a later date. In July 1974, Lennon returned to New York to record Walls and Bridges. The new "Plastic Ono Nuclear Band" featured both old and new faces, with Jim Keltner, Kenneth Ascher, and Arthur Jenkins continuing from Mind Games, the returns of Klaus Voorman, Nicky Hopkins, and Bobby Keys, and the addition of guitarists Jesse Ed Davis and Eddie Mottau. Recording was finished in August, and the album was released 26 September and 4 October in the US and UK respectively.  Walls and Bridges would prove to be the last release of new material by the Plastic Ono Band in the 1970s. Lennon subsequently returned to his marriage with Ono and retired from music following the birth of his son Sean. The compilation Shaved Fish was released in October 1975, Lennon's last release credited to the Plastic Ono Band. Upon his and Ono's return to music in 1980 for the album Double Fantasy, they played with an all-new group of studio musicians who were not billed as any variation of the Plastic Ono Band name. Lennon was shot and killed shortly after the release of the album.

What did that mean

OUT: but upon release in 1975 as Rock 'n' Roll, it was credited to Lennon alone.


IN: Francis "Frank" Hague, born in Jersey City, was the fourth of eight children to John D. and Margaret Hague (nee Fagen), immigrants from County Cavan, Ireland. He was raised in Jersey City's Second ward, an area known as The Horseshoe due to its shape which wrapped around a railroad loop. The ward was created when the Republican-controlled legislature gerrymandered a district within Jersey City in 1871 to concentrate and isolate Democratic, and mostly Catholic, votes. By age 14, Hague was expelled from school prior to completing the sixth grade for poor attendance and unacceptable behavior.

Hague's use of voter fraud is the stuff of legend. In 1937, for instance, Jersey City had 160,050 registered voters, but only 147,000 people who were at least 21 years old--the legal voting age.  In 1932, Governor Moore appointed a lawyer named Thomas J. Brogan, who had served as Hague's personal attorney in corruption hearings, to an associate Justice seat on the state's Supreme Court. Less than a year later Brogan was named as Chief Justice. In at least two instances of alleged voting fraud in the 1930s (Ferguson v. Brogan, 112 N.J.L. 471; Clee v. Moore, 119 N.J.L. 215; In re Clee, 119 N.J.L. 310), Brogan's court issued extraordinary rulings in favor of the Democratic machine, in one case asserting that the district superintendent of elections had no authority to open ballot boxes, and in another case ruling that the boxes could be opened, but no one had the right to look inside. Brogan also assigned himself to the Hudson County jurisdiction, thereby controlling the local grand jury process and squelching other election fraud cases.  Although Hague, like other political bosses of the time, was not above outright fraud at the polls, the keys to Hague's success were his matchless organizational skills and demand for complete loyalty from his subordinates. His command over the Democratic voters of Hudson County, a densely populated urban area in a state that was still mostly rural, made him a man to reckon with among state Democrats and Republicans alike. He was a close friend of Al Smith, the New York governor who would become the first Irish-American presidential candidate in 1928. In addition, Hague's support of Roosevelt for President was rewarded with a steady stream of perks that sustained Hague's organization throughout the Depression.

How was the fraud discovered?

OUT: