Free Republic

Average citizen Jake Freivald lives in West Orange, New Jersey and is the owner of the web domain, westorange.info. It is a bare bones site that provides basic information about his town, and thereÂ’s probably no chance in heck that anyone who would happen to visit might confuse it with the official West Orange website that looks like this. Again, look at JakeÂ’s website and then look at the townshipÂ’s site and ask yourself if youÂ’d ever think that the former could be confused with the latter.Apparently someone in the West Orange government believes that JakeÂ’s website is actually causing...

The FBI saw enough merit in a reputed Mafia captain’s tip to once again break out the digging equipment in search of the elusive remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, last seen alive when he left for lunch with two mobsters 38 years ago. Federal agents brought excavation equipment Monday to a field in suburban Detroit where Tony Zerilli said Hoffa’s remains were buried. Zerilli, 85, told Detroit television station WDIV in February that he knew the location of the remains. …

As Congress debates an overhaul to the federal immigration system, New Jersey lawmakers again took up controversial legislation today that would allow students living in the country illegally to pay in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges. The bill, dubbed the “Tuition Equality Act,” was approved by the state Assembly Budget Committee after a lengthy hearing in Trenton. The crowd in the chamber, which included immigrant students who have been pushing for the change for years, cheered as the committee moved the bill.

Eight eager and well-trained canines – joined by their human partners – entered the ranks of the MTA Police Department’s Canine Unit at a graduation ceremony held on Friday, June 14, 2013, in Grand Central Terminal. The canines, who are roughly 1½ years old and are German Shepherds or German Shepherd/Belgian Shepherd mixes, completed an intensive 14-week course with their human partners in which they learned all aspects of explosives detection, recognition and handling. The MTA K-9 Unit is believed to be the largest such force in the nation, with 50 canines in service. “The MTA PD canines are one...

GOP Golden Boy Chris Christie is going to run in 2016, and he might not even do so as a Republican. Seriously. So, will he challenge the highly beatable Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination? Maybe. But all signs point to the whalelike New Jersey governor floating himself as a middleman, neither right nor left — the Chosen One to solve all the discord in the nation’s capital: The Independent. Sound insane? Well, the man who clearly can’t control his base impulses (he’s fat) doesn’t know where he fits into the 2016 scheme. (Get it? “Where he fits in”?)...

Republicans are "in a demographic death spiral" and will fail in their effort to win the presidency if the party blocks an immigration overhaul, a leading GOP senator said Sunday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who helped write a bipartisan immigration bill under debate in the Senate, said conservatives who are trying to block the measure will doom the party and all but guarantee a Democrat will remain in the White House after 2016's election. A Democrat also involved in developing the proposal, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, went a step further and predicted "there'll never be...

A new poll released today shows Gov. Chris Christie with a 40 percentage point lead over his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono, the Press of Atlantic City reports.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declined an invitation to attend a major gathering of social conservatives this week in Washington, opting instead to make a high-profile appearance at a forum organized by former President Bill Clinton in Chicago. Christie's decision was hardly a bombshell: Up for re-election in November in a Democratic-leaning state, the governor can hardly afford to be seen courting Christian conservatives and sharing a stage with divisive figures like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain. But his absence was a sore point for many conservative activists who traveled to the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" conference...

During a fawning report on Hillary Clinton's "first time kicking off the Clinton Global Initiative" on Friday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Peter Alexander also cheered the "double feature" of Clinton and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaking at the event: "Today it is Bill Clinton who could soon be advising his wife's next presidential bid, giving her possible rival Chris Christie the reins for a major platform to showcase his own leadership skills." Continuing to hype Christie hobnobbing with Democrats, Alexander declared: "Chris Christie, the Jersey-shore-reopening, carnival-playing presidential pal is the former President's guest of honor, speaking this afternoon,...

... how can they endorse a guy who routinely does violence to core principles of the Democratic Party? Christie favors the rich over the poor every time. He vetoed an income-tax hike on the top 1 percent and a modest increase in the minimum wage. He is an aggressive opponent of abortion rights who closed down six Planned Parenthood clinics. He pooh-poohs climate change, withdrew from the regional treaty to cut emissions, and depleted the state’s clean energy funds by a staggering $1 billion. He removed the only African-American justice on the state Supreme Court for no good reason. He...

A New Jersey police officer is being held on $1 million bail after he allegedly shot and killed a man in an apparent act of road rage while traveling with his family in Maryland. My FoxNY.com reports police say 40-year-old Joseph Walker, a sworn officer with the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey, shot and killed 36-year-old Joseph Harvey Jr. after an altercation on the shoulder of an interstate Saturday night. Officials in Maryland say they were told that a road rage incident had happened between the two vehicles before they pulled over. Harvey had one passenger in his...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker officially launches his campaign for the U.S. Senate this morning, but before he was even out of the gate, the attacks against him had begun. Hours after Booker’s aides leaked the news yesterday that he will run in the special Senate primary in August to replace U.S. Frank Lautenberg who died this week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a blast email attacking the mayor’s celebrity status. "It remains to be seen whether Cory Booker the candidate can match Cory Booker’s celebrity persona in this kind of race, since campaigning is so much different from...

The party has an outside chance of winning the five or six seats it needs to retake control, but needs to find top-tier recruits in several states and is running out of time to do so. ....Here are five states where the party needs to land strong candidates to broaden the battleground and have a hope of winning back the Senate. Michigan Iowa Montana Arkansas New Hampshire

In an email to supporters this afternoon, Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun control group formed by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, urged New Jersey governor Chris Christie to appoint an interim senator who supports background checks. "Senator [Frank] Lautenberg cannot be replaced," Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, wrote in the email under the subject line "Chris Christie's Big Decision." "However, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie must now select a successor. And he should pick one who supports expanding background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the deranged." Christie announced yesterday that he'll hold...

By now you’ve probably read about 1,000 versions of Chris Christie’s political obituary in the last six months, and will probably do so again in the next few months. The story is always roughly the same: Christie was already in peril in a Republican presidential primary, given his status as a relative moderate from the Northeast. Further complicating things, the Republican base believes that his effusive praise of Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy cost Mitt Romney the 2012... --snip-- In 2012, the New Jersey electorate was 44 percent Democrat, 30 percent Independent, and 26 percent Republican. In 2009 --...

Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday set an October special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat made vacant by Frank Lautenberg's death, a decision that gets voters the quickest possible say on who will represents them but also preserves Christie as the top attraction on November's ballot. The move means the state will have two statewide elections less than three weeks apart, a rare occurrence that's already drawing criticism. At a news conference, Christie didn't answer the big question of whom he'll appoint to the seat in the meantime, but he said he has a list of possibilities....

The death of Frank R. Lautenberg on Monday has left Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey with the kind of opportunity that politicians usually covet: the chance to give away a seat in the United States Senate. But the decision is fraught with pitfalls, none bigger than having to choose between improving his party’s fortunes in Washington and furthering his own political ambitions at home. Mr. Christie, a Republican, is up for re-election in November and hoping to secure a huge victory margin, which he could then use to accelerate his drive to present himself as a presidential candidate with...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Tuesday for a special election later this year to decide who will fill the seat of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, though he did not say whom he might appoint in the interim. The Republican governor, during a press conference in Trenton, said he wants to make sure New Jersey voters have a "voice and a choice" He set the primary for Aug. 13 and the general election for Oct. 16. The announcement ended some -- but not all -- of the speculation about Christie's handling of the open seat. Lautenberg, a Democrat and...

Veteran journalist Geraldo Rivera said Monday he’d “take the call” if New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wanted to appoint him to New Jersey’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, but acknowledged the chances of that seem slim. “I would definitely take the call,” Rivera said on the “Geraldo Rivera Radio Show.”

On the third-to-last day that Senator Frank Lautenberg ever voted in the Senate, he joined with 53 of his colleagues to support a compromise on new gun regulations. His vote wasn't enough. Now, Lautenberg's death makes the prospect of revisiting that issue — and a number of other Democratic priorities — substantially trickier. Take the gun legislation. The compromise proposal, which would have expanded background checks to include gun show and online sales, was part of a package that was postponed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after the failed vote. It's expected to come back before the Senate at...

Goodbye to my friend, my role model and the greatest public servant I know, New Jersey Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg, who died Monday at age 89. Goodbye to the last member of the Greatest Generation in the United States Senate and the last of the liberal lions. Goodbye to the man who is likely responsible for saving more lives than any other politician of his generation. In 2000, Lautenberg retired from the senate seat he loved so dearly and instantly regretted it. After all, this was the man who had authored laws that prevented tens of thousands of deaths from...

The death of Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey poses new complications for the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill as they try to push their agenda through a Senate where even a single vote can derail legislation. So crucial was Mr. Lautenberg’s reliably liberal vote in a Senate where his party held a 55-45 majoritythat Democratic leaders twice asked him in recent weeks to return to Washington to vote despite his failing health. He died Monday morning of complications from viral pneumonia. Just last month, Mr. Lautenberg, 89, made a special trip to the Capitol to supply...

Sen. Frank Lautenberg died this morning of viral pneumonia at age 89, his office said

Sports are based on the countermoonbat principle of competition. Unless the game is fixed, the athlete who performs best wins. This won’t last under rule by moonbats. As in so many areas, the liberal attack on sanity will be carried out largely through courts… [Ervin] Mears Jr. filed a federal lawsuit against a slew of parties — a track coach, principal, superintendent and school board among them — after his son, Mawusimensah Mears, was kicked off the Camden County (N.J.) Sterling Regional High varsity track team. The elder Mears claims that his son was bullied and harassed during his time...

New Jersey: Court Upholds Man Arrested For Visible Gun Case In Car New Jersey appellate court upholds five-year sentence for ex-cop who was driving with his legally owned guns. Readington TownshipMotorists driving through New Jersey can be subjected to a warrantless search if their luggage is similar in appearance to a gun case, an appellate court ruled last week. The Superior Court's Appellate Division upheld a five year prison sentence against Dustin S. Reininger, a former police officer who was in the process of moving from Maine to Texas when a Readington Township police officer recognized the cases in the...

Complete Headline: Scores of TGI Fridays in New Jersey 'busted for selling caramel-colored rubbing alcohol as top-shelf scotch' in statewide crackdown dubbed Operation Swill At one bar, a mixture that included rubbing alcohol and caramel coloring was sold as scotch. In another, premium liquor bottles were refilled with water - and apparently not even clean water at that. State officials provided those new details Thursday on raids they conducted a day earlier as part of a yearlong investigation dubbed Operation Swill. Twenty-nine New Jersey bars and restaurants, including 13 TGI Fridays, were accused of substituting cheap booze - or...

WASHINGTON - A Senate panel voted Tuesday to provide weapons to rebels battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first time lawmakers have endorsed the aggressive U.S. military step of arming the opposition. ... "The greatest humanitarian crisis in the world is unfolding in and around Syria," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the committee chief. ". . . The United States must play a role in tipping the scales toward opposition groups and working to build a free and democratic Syria." Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel's top Republican, implicitly criticized the Obama administration as he...

Paterson NJ has often been known as Paterstine due to the large Muslim settlements there and the connections to terrorism. Including the attacks of September 11. New Jersey’s Muslim settlements in Paterson and Jersey City have long been a security problem for New York City. And the collaboration of Jersey pols like Governor Christie and Bill Pascrell with Muslim terrorists is an ongoing problem. The raising of the terrorist flag over Paterson’s City Hall is another reminder of who really wields power in the state. The “Palestinian flag”, like everything else about the fake identity group deployed by a terrorist...

James Kaleda explains that the proposed NJ Gun Bills will not save any lives but will endanger them. He is ejected by Committee Chair Senator Norcross. This took place at the NJ Senate gun control hearings in Trenton on April 30, 2013.

Many coastal New Jersey residents are resisting a $1 billion state plan to shield shore-front towns from storms with towering dunes and a mix of protective measures. As some cite fears the sand-replenishment projects would drag down their property values, about 1,800 landowners have declined to sign agreements to allow construction on their property, said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. The state Supreme Court last week heard arguments on a resident's lawsuit seeking more money for the agreement, known as an easement, and Gov. Chris Christie called dune opponents "knuckleheads."

Third place? We couldn’t do better than #&@$ing third place? New Jersey residents were beaten out by Ohio and Maryland in a survey ranking individuals most likely to drop swear words on a complete stranger during a phone conversation. On the flip side, analysis by the Marchex Institute found that Washington, Massachusetts and Arizona topped the list of state residents least likely to lose their cool. …

Then in one of the best displays of civil disobedience I’ve ever seen, the entire audience recited the pledge of allegiance, while most of the lawmakers remained seated. This is one to share. Patriotism is ALIVE in America.

The State Department, under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, created an arrangement for her longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin to work for private clients as a consultant while serving as a top adviser in the department. Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Ms. Abedin did not disclose the arrangement — or how much income she earned — on her financial report. It requires officials to make public any significant sources of income. The disclosure of the agreement that Ms. Abedin made with the State Department comes as her husband, former...

A hot mic at a May 9 New Jersey Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee hearing caught state senators mocking gun owners after the meeting ended. The Senators had just finished discussing new gun control legislation when the hearing adjourned. Then a conversation that "appears to be among Sens. Loretta Weinberg (D37), Sandra Cunningham (D31), Linda Greenstein (D14)," and an unidentified member of a senatorial staff, took place. It began by mocking gun owners for fearing confiscation and ends by talking of how gun owners say they want to keep guns out of the hands of "the bad guys," yet they...

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

Audio captured after a New Jersey Senate session on Thursday possibly features several Democrats mocking gun owners and talking about gun “confiscation,” Frank Jack Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, told TheBlaze on Friday. The hot-mic recording opens with what seems to be a female senator or staff member saying, “We need a bill that is going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.” Because of the low-quality of the audio, there is a possibility that she is saying something slightly different, however, the words “confiscate” are very clear. “They want to keep guns out of the hands of bad...

[Video] BREAKING: NJ State Senators Caught on Open Mic Saying They Need a Bill to CONFISCATE Guns.. You will need to turn speakers way up around the 0:15 mark to hear as they aren’t speaking directly into the mic. In the above vido we hear remarks by several NJ State Senators talking about guns after a session had ended. We can assume they didn’t know the mic was still recording. The discussion is as follows: “We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.” “They [gun owners] want to keep the guns out of the hands of the...

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on Monday introduced a bill that would provide arms to vetted rebel groups. Menendez’s legislation would give arms and military training to opposition groups that had been vetted, as well as provide $250 million for basic services and security in a post-Assad Syria. The bill also includes new sanctions against those providing arms or oil to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. Menendez’s bill comes as the Obama administration is reconsidering its opposition to providing arms to the Syrian rebels.

BRIDGETON — It started with kids looking across the street at a groundhog in the Bridgeton Midget Football parking lot on Saturday. They crossed the street to get a closer look. They had never seen a groundhog before. What they didn’t count on was the groundhog chasing them back across the street to where Bridgeton Little League was playing. Bedlam broke out.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is taking heat from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals after he killing a spider on his desk in front of a class of fourth graders. In a video titled, 'Governor Christie Saves School Children From Spider,' his fearless spider-swatting skills are witnessed to cheers from his daughter, Bridget’s classmates after it caused a commotion on his desk. He tells the children after delivering it a quick slap by his palm that it's just one of the many perks of being governor. 'Any bugs on your desk you're allowed to kill them...

A new Quinnipiac poll comparing potential Democratic candidates for 2016 comes to a familiar conclusion: Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run, would absolutely dominate the competition. The poll has 65 percent of potential Democratic voters picking Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee in 2016. That's in line with multiple recent polls — including from Gallup, PPP, and PublicMind — showing Clinton as the overwhelming favorite in a Democratic primary. What's interesting about the Quinnipiac poll is that it conducted a separate survey in which Clinton was removed from the race. Which Democrats come out on top if Clinton decides...

MOUNT HOLLY, NJ (CBS) – A United States Army major and his wife are facing charges for the alleged abuse of their three adopted children, including one who died in May 2008. A 17-count indictment released Tuesday charges Army Maj. John Jackson, and his wife, Carolyn, with neglect, abuse, cruelty, and torture. The couple, who live in Mount Holly, are behind bars. From about August 2005 until April 23, 2010, Carolyn Jackson, 35, and John E. Jackson, 37, formerly of the Picatinny Arsenal Installation in Morris County, NJ reportedly abused the three juveniles by breaking their bones, denying them medical...

Authorities in New Jersey allege a Muslim man beheaded two Coptic Christians, burying their bodies and heads and hands in separate graves near Philadelphia, bringing the horror of the persecution of Christians in Islamic nations to the United States. According to New York’s WABC-TV, the Muslim was identified as Yusuf Ibrahim, 28. He was taken into custody after the bodies were found. The report said investigators alleged Ibrahim killed the victims then severed their heads and hands, and buried the remains in the back yard of a home in Buena Vista, N.J. The report said the victims were from the...

On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that including a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants in any comprehensive immigration bill would jeopardize the likelihood of the legislation passing. “I think if instead the bill includes elements that are deeply divisive--and I would note that I don’t think there is any issue in this entire debate that is more divisive than a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally--in my view, any bill that insists upon that jeopardizes the likelihood of passing any immigration reform bill,” Cruz said at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, according to CNS News....

2014 retirements: Dems heading for the hills By: Alexander Burns April 23, 2013 04:49 PM EDT Doesn’t anyone want to run for Senate in 2014? Midway through candidate recruitment season, the bad news for Democrats is this: They are watching a generation of talent leave the Senate and head for retirement. The less-bad news: So far, few marquee-name Republicans are interested in these seats either. When Montana Sen. Max Baucus called it quits on Tuesday, he became the latest in a long series of senior legislators to announce that they’ve had quite enough of life on the Hill. National Democrats...

April 23, 2013 New Congressional Quest: End Prison Phone Call Price Gouging Bridget Johnson The Congressional Black Caucus Working Group on Prison Telecomm Reform is protesting high call costs for phone-homers behind bars. The CBC group will hold a press conference with former inmates and family members “to expose the often exorbitant rates that prisoners and their families are being charged for telephone calls and to announce the CBC response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to resolve the issue after more than a decade of delay,” according to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D)...

Gov. Chris Christie unveiled gun control and violence prevention measures that are as comprehensive as they are ambitious. Christie acknowledges there is no way to prevent all violence in our society, but he says it is the job of government to question, to scrutinize and to demand more in an attempt to address the problem. The plan calls for expanding New Jersey’s already strict gun control laws, expanding government-funded mental health treatment, making it more difficult for kids buy or rent violent video games, requiring that would-be gun owners show government-issued IDs and bolstering penalties for gun-related crimes. “It’s hard...

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take: Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period -- the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action -- southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an...

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopts a resolution which stipulates that the U.S. will assist Israel in an attack against Iran. The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted on Tuesday a resolution which stipulates that the U.S. will assist Israel if it is forced to take action against Iran. The resolution, Senate Resolution 65, was introduced last month by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and was co-sponsored by 15 Senators, including Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York)...

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is holding up a vote in the U.S. Senate on a resolution honoring Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom who died last week after suffering a stroke, multiple sources tell The Daily Caller. While the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring Thatcher last week, Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, objects to some of the language proposed by Republicans in the Senate’s version, sources said. A copy of the proposed resolution, which would be offered by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, honors “the life, legacy, and example...