Free Republic

Atlanta has one more month and one more election to go before it chooses the city's next mayor: Councilwoman Mary Norwood and former state Sen. Kasim Reed will face each other in a runoff Dec. 1. With 100 percent of the vote counted, Norwood led the race with 45 percent. She maintained a comfortable margin throughout the vote counting Tuesday night but was unable to muster the 50 percent required to put the race away. Reed finished a strong second, with 37 percent, and City Council President Lisa Borders faded to a distant third with 14 percent in the eight-way...

Off-year elections can be notoriously unreliable as predictors of the future, but as a window on how the political landscape may have changed in the year since President Obama won the White House, Tuesday's Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey delivered clear warnings for the Democrats. Neither gubernatorial election amounted to a referendum on the president, but the changing shape of the electorates in both states and the shifts among key constituencies revealed cracks in the Obama 2008 coalition and demonstrated that, at this point, Republicans have the more energized constituency heading into next year's midterm elections. The most...

Former Israeli double agent shot dead near Putin's office Shabtai Kalmanovich, a former Israeli double agent who penetrated Golda Meir's government on behalf of the KGB, has been shot dead in Moscow. By Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem Published: 7:00AM GMT 03 Nov 2009 Kalmanovich, who later became a prominent businessman and allegedly had links with the Russian mafia, died after an unidentified gunman fired at least 20 shots into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Mr Kalmanovich's driver was seriously wounded in the incident. /snip After becoming an Israeli citizen, he joined the Israeli Labour Party, was...

Israel's military intelligence chief has warned that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have successfully tested an Iranian rocket that can reach Tel Aviv, the Jewish state's largest urban conurbation. That adds a new urgency to Israel's efforts to develop an effective defensive system capable of shooting down short-range rockets that, if the warning by Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin is correct, are becoming a strategic threat. Yadlin says the rocket has a range of 37 miles, 8 miles longer He did not identify the Iranian system, but there have been reports that Iran has been seeking to smuggle Fajr-5 (Dawn)...

<p>DENVER – The Colorado ski town of Breckenridge has voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.</p> <p>Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote.</p>

Up shot of article (my snap translation):--Obama in a painful situation, because just one year ago, he took these states. Now, tonight, they fell to the Republicans.--It seems that with the election of the 2 Republicans and defeat of Obama, his prized "Health Care" program is in jeopardy.--The results show the sentiment of the American People in those states toward Obama and is a reflection of what might be expected a year from now in the 2010 midterm elections.--Obama had quite a year in Virginia (in 2008), which did not go for a Democrat for President in 44 years, and...

Polls in Ohio and Kentucky are now closed. Go here for the latest results as they come in. Pike County, Ky. Lawrence County, Ohio Ohio Amendments Meigs County, Ohio Athens County, Ohio Scioto County, Ohio Gallia County, Ohio Vinton County, Ohio Jackson County, Ohio �

Jacksie King was an elderly grandmother who lived in a small Illinois house on dead-end Gaty Avenue since her youth. At 87, she mostly stayed at home and enjoyed frequent visits from her daughter. Her life changed one December night when an unidentified intruder cut her phone lines, pried the security bars off her window and invaded her home. After severely beating her, the man robbed her house and escaped. The case was never solved. Two months later, King awoke to the sound of an intruder breaking through her storm door at 2 a.m. As before, the bars were pried...

BREAKING

NBC reverses Bloomberg call Wow: This is looking to be a very long night for the billionaire-incumben-frontrunner in New York. With more than a third of the votes in, it's a one-point race. NBC called it for Bloomberg -- but just reversed that call. The New York Times continues to indicate that Bloomberg has won.

TRENTON, N.J. – Republican Chris Christie has defeated Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey. With 71 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Christie had 50 percent of the vote to Corzine's 44 percent. Christie, a 47-year-old former federal prosecutor, became the first member of his party in a dozen years to win a statewide contest in heavily Democratic New Jersey. The Republican victory deals a blow to President Barack Obama as he readies for next year's midterm elections. Obama campaigned heavily for Corzine.

A New Jersey hospital is denying accusations that ACORN workers have been inside collecting absentee ballots for the state's gubernatorial race. East Orange General Hospital CEO Kevin Slavin said Tuesday that "all proper protocols" were followed as part of its program to allow patients to vote via absentee ballot, and that no third-party groups were signing up patients. "Other than the specifically designated and trained staff to hand out and collect these ballots, no advocacy groups were authorized nor allowed access to the hospital to hand out absentee ballots to patients as has been recently reported in unsubstantiated blogs and...

BERLIN - The Mossad espionage agency used Trojan Horse programs to gather intelligence about a nuclear facility in Syria that the Israel Defense Forces destroyed in 2007, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported yesterday. According to the magazine, Mossad agents planted the malware on the computer of a Syrian official while he was staying in London, at a hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Kensington. The program copied details about Syria's illicit nuclear program and sent them directly to the Mossad agents' computers, the report said. Israel's raid on the al-Kabir site in Syria's eastern desert on September 6, 2007...

Junk Science: The oracle of climate disaster has a new book out on global warming that should be on the fiction list. He asks us to commit economic suicide while he rakes in millions from his green investments. 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis," Al Gore's sequel to his 2006 tome "An Inconvenient Truth," came out Tuesday. Printed on recycled paper using low-VOC (volatile organic compound) ink, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller and on the desk of every attendee at next month's climate change conference in Copenhagen. In a press release announcing the book, the Oscar-...

Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the Virginia governor’s race last night just a year after the state went overwhelmingly for President Obama and the Democrats. Unofficial results showed the former state attorney general defeated his Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds. The state had a Republican governor for the past eight years. The Virginia race and the contest for governor of New Jersey are viewed as the first referendum on Mr Obama and the Democratic Congress before the 2010 mid-term elections. A year ago, Mr Obama became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry Virginia in a presidential race. This time...

Washington (CNN) – President Obama is not planning to watch Tuesday nights election returns, Obama aides Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod tell CNN. Obama is more likely to watch Tuesday night's Chicago Bulls game than any political coverage, according to Axelrod. The president's senior staff have also decided not to hold a watch party to keep an eye on election returns as they come in.

Last week, I had the opportunity to address over forty members of the United States Congress with the goal to encourage their recognition of the importance of engaging the Iranian people and their ongoing struggle for human rights and democracy. I began my remarks by asking, "If the U.S. is to continue to assert engagement as the path forward in the case of Iran, whom precisely should the engagement be with?" The answer: the "Green Movement" of the Iranian people. If the U.S. supports the Iranian people in their struggle for democracy -- for human rights and liberties -- it...

Here's the list, per a release from Rep. Mike Pence's office. My personal favorite -- #108, the "Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators." Personally, I kind of like Gov. Jindal's program for the treatment of child sexual abuse perpetrators. I am curious, though, as to what Pelosi has in mind. Maybe Republicans ought to move to strike the "and perpetrators" part of that program? * * Excerpt: 1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61) 2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62) 3. Grant program for State health access...

<p>WASHINGTON – Republican Bob McDonnell opened a lead in early counting in Virginia's governor's race Tuesday as independent voters swung behind the GOP and fled Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, a reversal from a year ago when they catapulted President Barack Obama to the White House.</p>

DIAMOND BAR, Calif. — A cluster of brush fires erupted along the fringes of suburban neighborhoods in eastern Los Angeles County on Tuesday. Helicopters and SuperScooper airplanes roared low over homes to drop loads of water on the flames in hilly terrain just outside back yards. Lines of widely separated flame moved across rolling grasslands. Weather appeared to be on firefighters' side, with little wind evident. County Fire Inspector Steve Zermeno said reports of five to eight separate fires near State Route 60 came in about 11:45. The area is about 25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. About 150...

Democrats have blown so many deadlines for getting health reform done this year that insiders are increasingly skeptical they can finish by year’s end — and some even suggest the effort might slip to a new deadline, before the State of the Union address. The discussions are an acknowledgment that with only two months left in the year, Democrats are still a long way from sending a bill to the president’s desk. The House could take up reform on the floor as early as this week, with a good shot at passing something by Veterans Day. But in the Senate,...

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New Jersey Democrats have admitted that a series of robocalls on behalf of third party candidate for governor Chris Daggett were paid for by the Democratic State Committee - final proof that Daggett has been a spoiler for Republican Chris Christie all along. Matt Friedman of Politiker New Jersey writes: A Democratic spokeswoman says the party's chairman, Joe Cryan, was not aware of the robocalls when he denied that the state committee had anything to do with them yesterday afternoon. Cryan, who told PolitickerNJ.com yesterday afternoon that the Democratic State Committee had "absolutely" nothing to do with the call, could...

Russia has provoked outrage in Poland by simulating an air and sea attack on the country during military exercises. The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops. Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor"....

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010. Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others. But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and...

When Dede Scozzafava votes today, she will see her name on the Republican line for the 23rd Congressional District. She plans to pull the lever for her Democratic opponent, then take the rest of the day off to do laundry and take care of other chores she ignored in the last two months of debating and defending her candidacy. Scozzafava quit the race three days before the election and threw her support behind the Democrat, Bill Owens. Scozzafava had been elected as a pro-choice Republican to be mayor of Gouverneur and member of the New York state Assembly. Suddenly, she...

In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves. At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them. Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That's up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other newspapers owned by the Tribune Co. plan to cut back on use of the Associated Press (AP) next week to test whether they can do without content from the US news agency. The Chicago Tribune said the plan to "utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical" was aimed at determining whether the Tribune Co., which declared bankruptcy in December, can sever ties with the AP. The Chicago-based Tribune Co. has been looking for ways to cut costs and in October 2008 it gave the AP the...

Property Values Set to Fall 43% From Current Depressed Levels Michael David White November 02, 2009 Price Trends / WAR OF THE WORLDS: If you use a 20-year time horizon, and assume prices will return to the trend line, then our residential property bubble will bottom after values fall over 40% from current levels (see above (c) aka “(y) - (z)” aka “Loss Today to Bottom”). I make no predictions. I do watch numbers. The chart shows a catastrophe of falling real estate values loaded up on top of our current catastrophe in real estate values. No one would question...

CHICAGO (AP) - Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say. The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis. "Your neighbor may be...

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care. The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that...

In another era, it was Paul Revere red flagging patriots with the immortal words, “The British are coming!”. Until patriots arrive on Congress steps Thursday at noon, it’s “We the People are coming!” The courageous, Paul Revere like call to action is from bottom liner Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who wouldn’t let Democrats—who changed the locks on doors against the opposition—keep her from turning the tide on the countdown to Obamacare. Waiting on the Congress steps will be radio talk-show giant, bestselling Liberty & Tyranny author and beloved American folk hero Mark Levin along with “Midnight Cowboy”, “Obama-is-the-false-prophet” crusader Jon...

Republican House members will be joined by actor Jon Voight and nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin to host a “House Call on Congress” this Thursday. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has led the charge announcing the event last week. Bachmann spoke with HUMAN EVENTS yesterday about the effort to lobby members of Congress in person on their health care vote. “We’re billing this as an emergency house call on Congress. We want to bring all of the town halls of August here to Washington, D.C. because in two months, they’ve forgotten the message that the American people sent loud...

Cannot post article due to rules. Here is MY summary: Texas man gets $26,174 to fix roof and fence at his apartment building. Government claims 450 jobs saved. Police department in Plymouth Conn receives $15,355 for new computers. Government claims 108 jobs saved at this department of 22 cops. Southwest Georgia Community Action Council- recieves $1.3 million. Government claims 935 jobs saved (out of only 500 employees!) In reality, they used the money for a pay raise. Teach For America- received $2 million to help fund salaries for their 125 employees. Government claims 1425 jobs created or saved.

Israelis were given yet another reason to view US President Barack Obama with suspicion last week when he appointed former senator Chuck Hagel as the new head of his Intelligence Advisory Board. Hagel has long rubbed Israel and its supporters the wrong way, and last month he reiterated his antagonistic positions when addressing the liberal Jewish lobby group J-Street. Hagel told his audience that meeting Arab demands for a Palestinian state on ancient Jewish lands is "is central, not peripheral, to U.S. vital security interests in combating terrorism." Israel has for years been trying to impress upon Washington to not...

The Government Will Default On Its Debts Economics / Great Depression II Nov 02, 2009 - 08:01 AM By: Gary_North The governments of every major nation are going to default on their debts. There are two relevant questions: (1) How? (2) When?Establishments around the world all deny this. They have gained power and wealth by means of the expansion of government. They have justified their success by insisting that the government-business alliance is the only way to establish economic growth and economic security for the masses. This claim rests on a more fundamental claim, namely, that an unhampered free market...

Americans are a little less enthusiastic about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama this time around. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of adults say they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Obama if he was up for reelection right now. Forty-nine percent (49%) say they would be unlikely to vote for the president’s reelection. Thirty-four percent (34%) would be very likely to support Obama, while 40% say they would be not at all likely to do so. The question did not specify whom the president would be running against and also was...

Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses. The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist. The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by...

Watch the Full Program Online Warning: Graphic Language and violent imagery Viewer Discretion Advised. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/view/

Members of Congress are paying thousands of dollars a year from their campaign accounts to staffers who also have jobs in their official offices. At least 17 members of Congress have paid staff in their official office to do part-time campaign work on the side so far this year, according to a review of documents filed with the Federal Election Commission and the clerk of the House. Nine chiefs of staff have had their wages supplemented by their bosses for part-time work this year, including several who already make nearly as much as they can under House rules. The Speaker’s...

The Home Secretary admitted yesterday that the Government had made mistakes in its handling of immigration and had overreacted to the 7/7 bombings in London. In his first speech on the subject, Alan Johnson said that ministers had ignored immigration problems and the growing pressure on jobs and services in parts of Britain. Some communities had legitimate concerns because they had been particularly affected. (snip) Mr Johnson is the first Labour Home Secretary to admit mistakes on immigration. He said his predecessors had not addressed problems that led to huge backlogs of asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners. It emerged...

Opposition to the clerical dictatorship continues to grow, both from inside the leadership, and at the grassroots. An increasing number of senior clerics are openly criticizing the "Islamic Police State" that has become increasingly harsh in the way it suppresses real, or imagined, opposition. Many senior clerics are aghast at the growing corruption among the clerics who run the government, and the pretense of democracy, with elections rigged so that only pro-dictatorship candidates can even run. At the grassroots, most young Iranians are fed up with the dictatorship. It offers no jobs for the poor, and few opportunities for the...

The deal for the Chancery building in London’s Grosvenor Square with Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment was agreed by the US Ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman.

(IsraelNN.com) Jewish Republican party officials and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) are among several groups that have called on U.S. President Barack Obama to rescind his appointment of former senator Chuck Hagel as co-chairman of his Intelligence Advisory Board. Hagel made clear his attitude towards Israel when he spoke at the pro-Arab and self-proclaimed pro-Israel J Street lobby last week. He echoed President Obama’s previous statements that meeting the demand of the Palestinian Authority for a new Arab state within Israel’s current borders “is central, not peripheral, to U.S. vital security interests in combating terrorism.”

Hoffman's supporters stage big rallyDouglas L. Hoffman's first congressional campaign stop in Watertown had more campaign staff — three — than attendees. Three months later, the Conservative Party candidate in the 23rd Congressional District race was a bigger draw here than the vice president of the United States. Mr. Hoffman's raucous rally Monday at the Jefferson County Agricultural Society Exhibition Hall drew more than 300 and featured speeches by former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson and a soundtrack by country music star John Rich. Mr. Thompson, revered in conservative circles, wasted no time reminding the crowd of what was at stake...

WASHINGTON – What's all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats' push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent.

American voters go to the polls today to elect two powerful mayors, two state assemblies and two state governors, one of whom faced a possible lawsuit from the surviving members of Monty Python yesterday. The elections may prove anything but funny for the White House as the independents who swept Mr Obama to power a year ago record what will inevitably be seen as their first verdict on a presidency that promised change but has so far failed to deliver it at home or abroad. The stakes are highest in New Jersey, where the Democratic incumbent is tied in the...

Borrowing from Ron Paul, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson kicked off a "money bomb" today, and by his telling, it's going really well. As of 4 p.m., Grayson's Web site shows $433,000 has been collected, exceeding a stated goal of $400,000.

Last year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. (snip) Mr Gore had said that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is. "Do you think there is something wrong...

An early voting report from Virginia's 1st Congressional District, epicenter for today's expected GOP tsunami in the Old Dominion. I reside in York County, not far from Fort Eustis and the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center. The district is heavily Republican; John McCain got more than 60% of the vote here last year. Polls open in Virginia at 6 a.m. I arrived at my voting place (a local elementary school) at 6:45. The parking lot was 80% full at that hour, and more cars were arriving by the minute. The level activity seemed comparable to what I saw during the...