Free Republic

With less than a week until primary election day, the three Republicans in the First Congressional District race are in a dead heat, a new poll shows. The Remington Research Group poll of 420 likely Republican voters has Andy Tobin with 30 percent of the votes, Adam Kwasman with 29 percent, and Gary Kiehne with 21 percent. The remaining 20 percent of voters said they still are undecided.

Why do I think Democrat pro-abortion congressional candidate James Woods is slimy? Aside from the fact Woods retaliated against a pro-life letter writing campaign by mailing condoms back to pro-lifers, he introduced his condom strategy on Facebook with “Got Wood(s)?” What person running for U.S. Congress goes gutter like that? Woods is also a card-carrying atheist, which may help explain his lack of decorum. Here’s the letter he sent with his condoms: Actually, condoms are not the route to go if one is trying to avoid pregnancy. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, condoms have an 18% failure rate, meaning...

My friends, my friends. Beep boop, beep boop.Republican Sen. John McCain can dance. At a Hamptons benefit which featured actor Jamie Foxx, McCain performed the robot and did it quite well as video from the New York Post’s Emily Smith shows. The Apollo in the Hamptons party at Ron Perelman’s East Hampton estate, which took place Saturday, was a benefit for the Apollo Theater. Here’s the video of McCain’s dance:

BULLHEAD CITY — There’s “no logic” to proposed new regulations on coal-fired power plants by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said Tyler Carlson, Mohave Electric Cooperative chief executive officer. Carlson spoke at the Bullhead Area Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon, held at Mohave Community College. MEC is not against clean air, Carlson said. “What we’re concerned about is the over-reach, the over-reaction, what we’re worried about is having rules and regulations that aren’t reasonable, that aren’t rational and that actually have collateral damage to them.” The rules changes would shut down coal production in Arizona, driving up the cost of...

More than a half-million acres of land across nine Western states is being proposed for designation as critical habitat for the yellow-billed cuckoo. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 546,335 acres of critical habitat is up for listing in 80 separate units in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The bird is a neotropical migrant that winters in South America and nests along rivers and streams in western North America. ... The Service is seeking information concerning the western yellow-billed cuckoo’s biology and habitat, threats to the species and current efforts to protect...

Courts in Arizona and California have delivered rulings in two separate divorce cases, legally recognizing transgender marriages, including that of the world's "first pregnant man." The Arizona Court of Appeals has allowed "Pregnant Man" Thomas Beatie, who was born female, to dissolve his Hawaiian marriage with another woman, while the California Superior Court has ruled that the marriage of Jake Miller, also known as Buck Angel, with Elayne Angel is valid. A lower court had refused to dissolve the marriage of Beatie, who later got his birth certificate amended under Hawaiian law, with Nancy J. Beatie due to Arizona's ban...

WASHINGTON—A handful of lawmakers are saying President Barack Obama must get congressional authorization for military action in Iraq, a vote that could exacerbate tensions between the branches and present members with a difficult vote just before the midterm elections. Mr. Obama's announcement of limited airstrikes last week aimed at slowing the advance of militants from the Islamic State toward the Kurdish city of Erbil initially triggered few complaints that he had usurped the power to declare war that Congress claims as its own. But with the president warning over the weekend that "I don't think we're going to solve this...

SIERRA VISTA — Residents are urged to be cautious after a local business reported being contacted by a suspected con artist seeking money for an alleged overdue electric bill. The business owner reported being called from a phone line with an 850 area code, originating out of the Florida Panhandle, when a man on the other line said they had only 30 minutes to pay or their electricity would be shut off, according to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is getting more active in Republican primary races as the August 26 election day approaches. Brewer will hold a fundraiser for Mark Brnovich tonight at a restaurant at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa. Brnovich — the former state gaming director — is challenging embattled Attorney General Tom Horne in the Republican primary. (SNIP) The outgoing governor has also endorsed former Mesa Mayor Scott Smith in the gubernatorial primary, and her camp and political groups are also lending help to Republican lawmakers who backed her Medicaid expansion last year. Part of that effort involves getting more...

Arizona State University football player Edward "Chip" Sarafin has come out as gay, according to Compete Magazine. In the magazine's August issue, the offensive linebacker said he told his teammates last spring. "It was really personal to me, and it benefited my peace of mind greatly," he said. Serafin told Compete, he told his teammates mostly for himself and because he wanted them to hear it from him instead of the college rumor mill.

A transgender man in Arizona who gave birth to three children after beginning to change from female to male can continue to pursue a divorce, a state appeals court said Wednesday in reversing a judge who refused to end the marriage. A three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Thomas Beatie's marriage to Nancy Beatie in Hawaii in 2003 is considered valid in Arizona and concluded it wasn't a same-sex union. Last year, a lower court judge denied the divorce request and ruled that Arizona's ban on same-sex marriages prevented the marriage from being recognized as valid.

Sunday in Tucson AZ, an illegal immigrant with no drivers license was pulled over for a routine traffic stop over an illegal right turn. However, that traffic stop led to police and Border Patrol officers being swarmed by a spontaneous protest

A pilot project at 25 Pima County polling places will have workers asking voters to scan their driver’s licenses with an iPad. The goal is to replace the signature roster books currently used at the polling places, Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson said. Poll workers will use the iPads to scan voters’ driver’s licenses and verify their identification. Voters will then sign their names on the iPad screens with their finger. The information scanned will be matched to data already contained in county databases that’s filled out when a person registers to vote, Nelson said. An Arizona driver’s license...

Now that the dust has settled and we know a little more about the prospect of Fort Huachuca losing 2,700 jobs, let’s look at the probability of that happening. As we now know, the 2,700 is part of the larger Army 2020 Force Structure Realignment, which considers huge reductions at nearly every installation due to the Budget Control Act of 2011 (including its sequestration provisions). We also know Army decision-makers haven’t yet decided where cuts will be made or whether Fort Huachuca will be affected at all. We know the numbers considered (such as the 2,700 at Fort Huachuca) are...

Large turnouts are expected at two upcoming public hearings on proposed changes to the Mexican wolf management plan, including expansion of the wolf-management areas in Arizona and New Mexico. The hearings, Aug. 11 in Pinetop, Ariz., and Aug. 13 in Truth or Consequences, N.M., will be the final opportunity for verbal testimony on proposed changes to management of the endangered Mexican gray wolf population in the two states. Public hearings last year in Albuquerque and Pinetop drew a total of around 1,000 people, most of whom were not allotted time to speak. ... The Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to...

FORT HUACHUCA — The post will conduct a nighttime training exercise with low-flying aircraft from 5 p.m. to midnight, Monday through Wednesday, announced Public Affairs Officer Angela Camara. Each evening will consist of helicopters transiting the Mustang Mountains near Whetstone, and crossing the post with activity between the South Range and Libby Army Airfield. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause for our neighbors,” said Garrison Commander Col. Thomas A. Boone, “Our ability to conduct these training missions in support of the National Defense Strategy keeps our soldiers trained for operations in every corner of the globe and keeps...

SIERRA VISTA — Up to 2,000 people living just outside the southeast edge of Sierra Vista have had their water contaminated by E. coli, the utility management company for the affected area announced Friday. Customers of the Eastslope Water Company are advised to boil their water for at least a minute before drinking it, said Keith Dojaquez, vice president and operations manager for Southwestern Utility Management, Inc., a Tucson-based company that manages the affected area as well as dozens of other water companies across the state. The motor to the contaminated well is out of service and needs to be...

FORT HUACHUCA — This morning, special FBI checks of vehicles entering the post were supposed to start, but the fort’s Public Affairs Officer Angela Camara said it will not happen. “At this time only the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency can connect to the Defense Manpower Data Center’s Identity Matching Engine for Statistics and Analysis,” she told the Herald/Review on Thursday. There are plans in the near future to implement, if not the same, a similar system on the fort to connect to the FBI’s criminal database to show if an arrest, felony or outstanding warrant involving...

Remember when in 2011 voices on the left from Keith Olbermann to Paul Krugman to the Huffington Post among many others suggested that Sarah Palin was at least partially to blame for the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords because Palin had put out a map of House seats with bullseyes depicting districts, including Giffords', that Republicans were targeting? Krugman for example wrung his hands over the "climate of hate" that Palin and others on the right were supposedly fomenting, and predicted growing political violence in the years ahead. So will those same leftists condemn the Daily Beast, which today featured...

Last week, conservative Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Doug Ducey in ArizonaÂ’s GOP gubernatorial primary: " The crisis at AmericaÂ’s border is a defining issue in the coming election, especially in Arizona. IÂ’m supporting Doug Ducey for Arizona governor because he is the best candidate to help secure the border, protect the people, and enforce the law. He has the most serious and credible plan to address the border crisis." (SNIP) The endorsement was considered a major coup for Ducey, who is distrusted by some Arizona conservatives. (SNIP) In the wake of CruzÂ’s endorsement, tweets posted early last year by DuceyÂ’s...