Free Republic

WASHINGTON – Senior House aides say freshman Democratic lawmaker Parker Griffith of Alabama is switching to the Republican Party. -- Griffith is a radiation oncologist. His switch comes as Congress is trying to pass a much-contested health care bill. Democrats will still control the House by a substantial margin.

In this season given to tidings of comfort and joy, word has come that we New Yorkers are the sad sacks of the United States. This is something of a surprise. Sure, we complain a lot. Grumbling could qualify as the official state sport. But are we really the unhappiest of them all? It seems so, judging from a study by two economics professors, newly published in Science magazine. The academics — Andrew J. Oswald, of the University of Warwick in Britain, and Stephen Wu, of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. — examined piles of data, tossed them into a...

From General McChrystal to Hillary Clinton to Chelsea Handler, Meghan McCain names the men and women who made a difference this year—the good, the bad, and the nutty. This year has been full of people who let us down—from politics to entertainment to sports. (Is it too late for Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, and David Letterman to rent a ski condo for the holidays?) But not everyone has been a disappointment. There are plenty of folks who made the world a lot better, more interesting, and just plain fun in 2009 Here are people who made my year. (snip) Hillary...

SIERRA VISTA — “I’m here to help the kids who won’t have any toys,” said Anthony Nieuwenhuls, 10. He had a bag at the ready with a couple of hula hoops hung around his neck Sunday morning. He was just one of many kids, folks, firefighters and their families who turned out to pack or deliver the big, blue Santa sack to the homes of families who need a bit of help at Christmastime. “I’ve been helping since I was 6,” Nieuwenhuls said proudly. Annually for the past 38 years, the Sierra Vista and Fry fire departments have joined forces...

"I worked with him on many issues across party lines. There has never a major reform accomplished in the history of this country that hasn't been bipartisan, and he certainly, uh...all of the negotiations and efforts that I made with him, we never engaged in this kind of unsavory process of offering people different deals, which in the end cost people from other states lots of money and put burdens on them."

(snip) WALLACE: Some people are asking — and I know you know this because you read the papers; you're aware of what people say — "What's happened to John McCain?" You, for instance, were a big supporter of global warming legislation, and yet two of your closest friends in the Senate, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, came out with a provision and you said it was horrendous. And on many issues observers say that you have become this year more combative and more conservative. MCCAIN: I, unfortunately, have always been combative. Second of all, I'm having... WALLACE: Have you always...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) gave his challenger in the 2008 presidential election a stiff review Sunday as President Barack Obama nears completion of his first year in office. "[Obama] said there would be a change in the climate in Washington," McCain said. "There's been a change. It's more partisan. It's more bitterly divided than it's been." (snip) "At least under 'Hillarycare' they tried seriously to negotiate with Republicans," McCain said."There's been -- there has been no effort that I know of that -- serious across-the-table negotiations, such as I have engaged in with Democrats and with other administrations. And that...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain says he understands why Sarah Palin blacked out his name on a McCain campaign visor so she could avoid recognition while on vacation in Hawaii. The Arizona Republican made the comments about his 2008 running mate on "Fox News Sunday."

18 states allow for recall votes on US Senators. The 18 states allowing for recall are as follows: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. The Senate oath of office is: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well...

US Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) proposed reinstating the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that split commercial and investment banking to rein in Wall Street firms in response to the financial crisis. McCain and Cantwell join other lawmakers in Congress proposing to reinstate the 1933 law, repealed a decade ago by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that led to a rise in conglomerates including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America active in retail banking, insurance and proprietary trading. Legislation to reinstate the ban was introduced yesterday in the House. Under the Senate legislation, financial firms operating commercial banks and investment...

Sheriff Joe Arpaio - the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" in America - likes Christmas music, especially "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and anything by Alvin and the Chipmunks, and apparently he thinks the 8,000 inmates inside his Phoenix jail should, too. So it was with some glee that his Maricopa County office announced Thursday in a red-and-green press release that the "sixth and perhaps final lawsuit" brought by inmates to stop the sheriff from playing the holiday songs all day, every day, during the holidays had been dismissed in federal court. "We keep winning these lawsuits. Inmates should stop acting like the...

Republicans Demand To Read Legislation Before Voting On It WASHINGTON (AP) Republicans threatened to delay Senate business with a health care read-a-thon this weekend as Democrats searched for 60 votes to advance President Barack Obama's signature issue. A forecast of heavy snow added to the list of complications. At a news conference Friday in the Capitol, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accused Democrats of trying to ram the health care bill through with dozens of changes as yet unseen, and promised to do all they could to prevent it. "I think we've made it...

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) will deliver the weekly Republican address Saturday, December 19, 2009. WHO: U.S. Senator John McCain WHAT: Weekly Republican Address WHEN: Saturday, December 19, 2009, 6:00 a.m. ET

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) was in D.C. Thursday meeting with supporters of a possible primary challenge to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Hayworth, who lost his 5th district seat to Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) in 2006, told CQ-Roll Call he was "taking a very, very serious look" at the race but had made no decision. "We're just doing our due diligence," he said. Hayworth was spotted with House Minority Leader John Boehner Thursday but said it was not a scheduled meeting. "I just bumped into John," he explained. He declined to say with whom he formal meetings during his swing...

Mark Finelli is hoping to turn a 100-mile journey into thousands of dollars for injured troops. He and three fellow war veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are hiking 100 miles in their combat boots this week to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project, a national charity that supports injured service members and their families. The hikers, all graduate students at the University of Arizona, set out Monday on their Phoenix-to-Tucson trek. They expect to be back at the UA on Saturday. Finelli is a one-time Marine corporal who served in Iraq from mid-2006 to early 2007. A...

BEAVER -- The Beaver County Sheriff's Office has arrested three men suspected in a series of burglaries. According to the Spectrum, deputies said Luis M. Lopez, Andy F. Lopez, and Oren T. Hounchell admitted to varying levels of involvement in a series of break-ins at homes, stores and the Beaver City Library. They were also found in possession of an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. All three face multiple burglary and drug charges. Deputies discovered a set of footprints left in the snow after one of the home burglaries. They followed those footprints to the Hounchell's home. The...

PHOENIX -- A man who strangled to death an attacking bobcat said Wednesday he's seen his share of those animals near his quiet, secluded home, reported KPHO-TV in Phoenix. James Gruver, 61, lives about 10 miles north of Lake Pleasant, Ariz. He said the growling cat hiding under his trailer Monday afternoon was unlike any he'd ever seen. "I bent down and looked under the trailer, and right there about 5 feet from me, was this bobcat," Gruver said. A second later, the cat lunged. "I didn't even have time to snap my fingers, it happened so quick," Gruver said....

J.D. Hayworth yesterday took to the airwaves to pummel Grant Woods for filing a complaint with the FEC against the talk show host and potential Senate candidate. Woods alleged Hayworth is pulling in $540,000 a week in corporate in-kind contributions from KFYI/Clear Channel for using his show as a campaign platform. The response came in true talk show form as Hayworth called Woods an “ambulance chaser” who cashed in on a tobacco settlement lawsuit that was sold as a public health measure. “You’re even lower than some bacterial forms of algae, and that’s saying something,” Hayworth said, before chiding Woods...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

Sen. John McCain is known as a straight talker but he can dodge with the best of them. Asked if pal Charlie Crist's embrace of the stimulus was a political mistake, McCain demurred. "I don't know. I haven't kept up enough to really know about that. I can't judge other people," he told the Buzz. This comes from a guy who recently told Imus "hell no" he didn't support the stimulus. McCain said Marco Rubio is "mounting a serious threat," but quickly added, "I still think Charlie will win." The Arizona Republican and 2008 presidential nominee, who won Florida in...

Deputy Garrison Chaplain Lt. Col. Doug Wootten helps carry two of 106 bicycles that were purchased through the efforts of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Battalion on Fort Huachuca. (Ed Honda • Herald/Review) FORT HUACHUCA — For six years, those who are involved in the unmanned aerial systems program at the Black Tower area of the post have been purchasing and putting together trikes and bikes to be given to children of soldiers as Christmas presents. This year, the largest number of the two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles  — 106 of them — were presented to the Post Chaplain’s Outreach Ministries on...

One need look no further than my home state of Arizona to see the result of limp-wristed, nice-guy politicians who have abandoned conservative principles and how they will fare in the current political climate. Senior Sen. and former presidential candidate John McCain is in a battle for his political life as he faces re-election in November 2010. His anticipated competition, a former congressman turned radio talk-show host, J.D. Hayworth, is a mere two points behind McCain in a head-to-head Rasmussen poll for the upcoming primary. It is a statistical dead heat. So much for the power of incumbency. But why?...

Controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., is no stranger to hardball tactics, so he probably isn't fazed by being on the receiving end of rough politics. Still, that doesn't excuse the Obama administration's apparent ideological vendetta against him. By the (il)logic of the administration and its allies at the American Civil Liberties Union, Sheriff Arpaio should not set up a phone tip line to search for immigration violators, and he is not allowed to tell the public about federal immigration enforcement policies even if he is merely disputing demonstrable falsehoods told about him; yet the Justice Department can...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

(snip) MCCAIN: Let me say I have great admiration and respect for Senator Durbin... (snip) MCCAIN: Let me give you a couple of points of straight talk. I resent it enormously when Senator Reid comes to the floor and accuses Republicans or compares Republicans to those who fought against the abolition of slavery. He said that. That's -- that's unacceptable. As far as the president's commitments are concerned, he made that commitment to the American people, so he didn't tell the American people the truth when he was campaigning for president. How's that?(snip)

The SEIU needs more dues-paying members. The open-borders lobby needs something to do. Voila! Meet the new illegal alien shamnesty push ... The bill would torpedo the joint federal-local deportation program known as 287(g) and opposes beefing up our land borders with more Border Patrol agents or fencing. SEIU has been lobbying for illegal alien amnesty as a massive membership booster all year. In May, the Purple Shirts held a pro-illegal immigration rally from Malcolm X Park to the White House to put pressure on homeland security officials to call off workplace raids (not that Janet Napolitano needed any convincing):

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Vietnam's defence minister, making a rare visit to the United States, met Tuesday with a key US Senator who called ties between the two former war foes "very important." General Phung Quang Thanh met with Democratic Senator Jim Webb, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, and was to meet with Senator John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee's top Republican. "It is vitally important that the United States engage with Southeast Asia at all levels," Webb, a former Marine who served in the Vietnam war and visited Hanoi in August, said after his...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. is back on the job. A Window Rock judge issued a permanent injunction late Monday against a Tribal Council resolution that placed Shirley on leave, saying lawmakers acted outside of their authority in passing it, according to attorneys in the case. A council spokesman said an appeal is likely. The ruling came on the eve of an election in which Navajos will vote on reducing the number of tribal lawmakers from 88 to 24 and giving the president line-item veto authority. Lawmakers voted 48-22 in late October to place Shirley on administrative...

With the expected announcement of the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois, a Republican-driven hysteria is virtually guaranteed. That’s as empty as it is uninteresting. What’s interesting is whether the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee and national security elder statesman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), joins in the action. McCain, recall, has long advocated shuttering the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Back on the 2008 campaign trail, he said bluntly, “I believe we should close Guantanamo,” as the United States’ “great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want.” Spoken like a...

Link only, per FR copyright rules

Soundly beaten for the presidency a year ago, an unbowed Sen. John McCain has re-emerged as the happy GOP warrior against President Obama and the Democrats' health care reform agenda. FOXNews.com AP Soundly beaten for the presidency a year ago, an unbowed Sen. John McCain has re-emerged as the happy GOP warrior against President Obama and the Democrats' health care reform agenda. The Arizona Republican was also front and center over the weekend against wasteful Democratic spending on Capitol Hill. "I urge, no I don't urge, I demand the president of the United States veto this bill," he said on...

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix police on Saturday released a man who told them he fatally shot another man in self-defense. Officer Luis Samudio says a 24-year-old man called police at about 3:15 a.m. to report a shooting at a northwest Phoenix apartment. Arriving officers found a 27-year-old man dead of gunshot wounds in the apartment. Samudio said the man told officers he shot the other man in self-defense. After being questioned, he was released pending further investigation. The names of the victim and the man who shot him were not released.

(snip) The Republican Party’s leadership vacuum has given Mr. McCain an opening, and he is charging through it, tacking right on some issues and loudly embroiling himself in battles with the White House and Democratic leaders over health care, stimulus spending, foreign policy and the style of the Obama presidency. He is more visible now than at any time since the end of his presidential campaign. “Let’s do what the president said last October a year ago,” Mr. McCain said the other day at one of what has become a geyser of appearances on the Senate floor, in Capitol hallways...

SIERRA VISTA — Honoring the nation’s dead veterans, especially during the holiday season, shows the love Americans have for those who have ensured freedom, a young member of the Air Force Civil Air Patrol said. Saturday was the annual Wreaths Across American event, in which green wreaths with a red ribbon were laid out in a number of cemeteries across the country, including at the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery. As in the past few, years members of Cochise Squadron 107 of the Civil Air Patrol were the leaders for the local event at the state-operated veterans’ cemetery. This year,...

Report From Gadget Dan During rainy day Friday (Dec.11, 2009), a few Border Watchers from the Campo,CA area, decided to leave the wet dirt roads near the Border, for the Border Patrol to monitor/watch in their four wheeled drive vehicles. A few of us moved Watch operations to I-8 and Sunrise Hwy. Right off the bat, (upon arriving), one of the Border Watcher's spotted a load vehicle on the East side of Sunrise Hwy., across from Old Hwy.80 (North side of I-8). The load vehicle had just completed a load up of suspected illegal Border Intruders, with one (Intruder), not...

Reporting from Phoenix - The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that. He launched one of his notorious "sweeps," in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally. "I wanted to show everybody it didn't make a difference," Arpaio said of the Obama administration's order. Arpaio calls himself "America's toughest...

Three U.S. banks in Florida, Arizona and Kansas failed on Friday, bringing the year's tally to 133 and taking a $250 million bite out of the federal deposit-insurance fund as the credit crunch claims more victims. Miami-based Republic Federal Bank was closed by regulators, and Boca Raton, Fla.-based 1st United Bank agreed to assume its deposits. Republic Federal Bank had $433 million in assets and $352.7 million in deposits as of Sept. 30, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Its failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $122.6 million. The bank failure is the 13th in the Sunshine State this...

Regulators have shut down banks in Florida, Arizona and Kansas, bringing to 133 the number of U.S. banks that have failed to hold up this year against the struggling economy and a cascade of loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday it took over Miami-based Republic Federal Bank, with $433 million in assets and $352.7 million in deposits. A bank based in Boca Raton, Fla., 1st United Bank, agreed to assume all the deposits and $267.1 million of the assets of the failed bank. The FDIC will retain the rest for eventual sale. In addition, the FDIC and...

Express-News OJINAGA, Mexico — A day after being caught in Arizona by the U.S. Border Patrol, a weary and disoriented Federico Vélez Vargas found himself a free man in Texas, hundreds of miles from his last point of reference. “I don't have any idea where I am. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have any money to go home,” Vargas, 37, said as he collected his thoughts in the Mexican immigration office at the international bridge. Around him, dozens of other Mexicans who also had just arrived from Arizona were eating sandwiches, pulling their belongings from...

After Lying Low in Wake of 2008 Presidential-Election Loss, Arizona Senator Mounts Opposition to Obama's Top Priority. BY NAFTALI BENDAVID & GREG HITT Sen. John McCain kept a relatively low profile for months after he lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama. Those days are over. In the health-care battle, the Arizona Republican has suddenly emerged as the John McCain of old -- a vigorous political combatant. He has publicly hammered Democratic proposals, engaged in heated exchanges on the Senate floor and lent his voice to automated telephone calls pressuring Democratic senators in Arkansas, Colorado and Nebraska on their...

Bisbee Deputy Police Chief Ed Holly has resigned in the wake of an investigation that uncovered a long list of violations that include harassment, misuse of police equipment and lying to his superiors and investigators. City officials were set to fire Holly, 58, but he resigned during a meeting this week with Bisbee officials where he could have pleaded his case, said City Manager Stephen Pauken. Holly had been with the Bisbee Police Department for 27 years, he said. Violations found during the Cochise County Sheriff's Office investigation include: • Holly used his Bisbee police vehicle to take his girlfriend...

State and university employees could wind up with IOUs in their pay envelopes instead of checks in February if the planned sale of state buildings hits a snag, state Treasurer Dean Martin warned Monday. And that could leave worker with a piece of paper that won’t help them buy food for their families, pay the mortgage or heat their homes.

Link only, per FR copyright rules

Barack Obama began his presidency with an open hand toward the man he had just defeated in a race that was at times bitter. "There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain," said Obama at an inauguration-eve tribute dinner to his former foe. But in the year since that evening of comity and collegiality, McCain has emerged as one of the leading critics of the new president. On foreign policy, his traditional area of expertise, and domestic affairs, where McCain has shown new passion, the 72-year-old Arizonan is making it...

According to the conventional wisdom after last year's presidential election, Barack Obama's victory proved that a number of once-reliably red states -- Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado among them -- were turning blue, perhaps permanently. Even here in Arizona, Obama gave Republican favorite son John McCain a run for his money, and the 2008 election handed a majority of the state's congressional districts to Democrats. The home of Barry Goldwater might not have been truly blue, but it was shading purple. That was then. Now, with Democrats pushing an agenda of stimulus, cap and trade, and health care reform --...

The federal government's border fence has been called the Tortilla Curtain. But in the swamp of border politics, there's a more effective barrier at play, one that filters ideas rather than people. It explains why most Americans still don't fully understand the disaster on our southern border. This tortilla curtain is propped up by much of the major media, activist groups and cheap-labor-addicted businesses, big and small. They're all spinning us, for their own reasons. But the list includes the feds, too.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R) -- two of conservatives' favorite anti-illegal immigration firebrands and potential 2010 candidates for statewide office in Arizona -- have teamed up to raise more than $100,000 as part of a holiday party being held Dec. 5. A recent poll from Rasmussen Reports showed Arpaio leading all comers in the Arizona governor's race, while Hayworth is in a statistical tie with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in a hypothetical primary match-up. Both men have been coy about their intentions but any sort of electoral alliance between the two would strike fear...

A new tipline targets Sheriff Joe Arpaio The tip line, 1-877-613-2137, is in both English and Spanish. By KFYI News (KFYI News) The U.S. Department of Justice has set up a tip-line as part of its investigation of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The tip line, 1-877-613-2137, is in both English and Spanish and asks those with information about the sheriff’s department to leave their names and numbers. The USDOJ is investigating Arpaio and his deputies regarding possible civil rights violations related to crime sweeps, traffic stops and immigration raids.

McCain to ACORN/SEIU activists for "comprehensive immigration reform" aka amnesty for illegal aliens, Miami-Dade Comm. College, Miami, Fl., on 20 Feb. 2006: "What makes America special is what's in this room tonight." McCain at ACORN/SEIU rally in South Florida, 2006 20 Feb. 2006 coverage from WFOR-TV CBS Channel 4 Miami, Fl.

Phoenix -- Arizona politics has been buzzing in the last couple of weeks since a Rasmussen poll suggested that Republican Sen. John McCain might be vulnerable in a primary fight against a more conservative challenger. The poll, released November 20, showed McCain ahead of potential opponent J.D. Hayworth, the radio host and former congressman, by just two points -- a 45 percent to 43 percent margin. Yes, McCain -- the longtime incumbent and recent presidential candidate -- is a mere two points ahead of a challenger who isn't even a challenger yet. I talked to Hayworth recently, and he is...