Free Republic

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference next month, despite a snub from the group last year and the ongoing controversy over the George Washington Bridge closures. Christie has accepted an invitation to address CPAC, POLITICO confirmed Monday.

The Koch Brothers think-tank, Americans for Prosperity, handed down a warning to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for not rejecting provisions in the ACA to submit health insurance exchange plans ahead of the health law’s full implementation. Republicans were already furious with Christie for praising President Obama’s rapid response to the super-storm Sandy that ravaged parts of the East Coast last week, and now the Koch Brothers are pressuring him to reject a New Jersey exchange bill to rebuff the ACA’s requirement before a November 16 cutoff date for states to set up health insurance exchanges. If states fail to...

Paramus, N.J. (AP) -- It sounds like another New Jersey joke. Except it's not funny if you actually live here. For the privilege of living in perhaps the nation's most-maligned state, New Jerseyans pay the highest property taxes in America. That overriding issue — not President Barack Obama, health care or the economy — could cost Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine his job on Election Day. The former Wall Street whiz, who has failed to solve the Garden State's tax woes amid a deep economic decline, is locked in a tight race with Republican Chris Christie, a corruption-busting former federal prosecutor...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them. Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank...

This is a firearms podcast that I listen to. They actually were able to have a short interview with Shaneen Allen -a single Mother who's being railroaded by the New Jersey DA and a judge. WeLikeShooting interview

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's sister has been arrested for allegedly threatening to bomb a New York City woman. Police say Ailina Tsarnaeva, 24, made the threat via telephone Monday and turned herself in earlier today. She is charged with aggravated harassment targeting a woman from Harlem. Police say the North Bergen, New Jersey, resident is due in court September 30.

After a man in his 60s was beaten by a group of teenagers in Pat­erson on Wednesday night, a city councilman said it looked like an example of a supposedly trending national game called “knockout.” Fears that the game, blamed for at least one death in New Jersey, had taken root locally were fanned earlier in the week when a lone assailant randomly punched three people in separate incidents in Hackensack. On Thursday, authorities said neither case appeared to fit the criteria to be called the knockout game, which they said typically involves a group of people approaching a victim...

On Tuesday August 12, Marc Leibowitz alerted Homeland Security that a black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) was hanging on a house in Garwood, New Jersey. As a former Israeli paratrooper he understood the importance of reporting suspicious activity. The black flag that was hanging in New Jersey is an indisputable identifier of jihadist terrorist groups including al-Qaeda. It is one of several variations of the ‘Black Flags of Jihad’. It is a variant design of the Black Standard Al-Raya flag a.k.a. The Black Banner, Banner of the Eagle and The Banner. The white writing...

John and Scott have commented on the indictment of Gov. Rick Perry. As they note, it fits a pattern of politically motivated indictments of prominent Texas Republicans. The Perry indictment also fits a pattern of harassment via the legal process of prominent Republican governors: Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, and now Perry. What do these four have in common? Why, they all are (or were) potentially viable candidates for the national office. Invocation of the legal process against Christie may well be warranted. (So too with Bob McDonnell, whom I didn’t include in my list because, although once vaguely...

Slip of the tongue? Yesterday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Hillary Clinton spoke about what she would do about licensing illegal immigrants when she is president again. Watch:

Jeff Bell was a reform conservative before it was cool. He’s spent his career arguing with a risk-averse Republican establishment. He pushed Ronald Reagan to embrace the supply-side doctrine of tax cuts before deficit reduction. He spent the 1990s warning the GOP that its tax policy favored investment capital over human capital, corporate interests over working families. He designed a family-friendly flat tax that reduced payroll taxes, increased the child tax credit, taxed capital gains and regular income at the same rate, and ended business expensing. Payroll tax relief and a generous child tax credit are elements of today’s reform...

A Marine veteran says he was denied entry into a Six Flags theme park in New Jersey after being told that the shirt he was wearing would offend people. Mario Alejandro, 33, had been given the shirt (shown above) for Father's Day and he was attempting to take his family to Six Flags Great Adventure last weekend for a child's birthday party. Proceeds from the Fourth of July-themed shirt go to the Marine Reconnaissance Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports recon Marines and their families. Alejandro served four years in the Marines, including at the start of the Iraq war. He is classified...

Politicians often are very shrewd investors — with their own money. If Al Gore wanted to move his money around in cash, he’d need a fleet of forklifts. But they’re rotten investors with your money. President Barack Obama had his Solyndra, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie has his casino, Revel, the multibillion-dollar Atlantic City boondoggle that, having declared bankruptcy — twice — just announced that it will be closing its doors and putting its 3,100 employees out of work. Thanks to Governor Christie and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the taxpayers of New Jersey are quasi-partners in this...

TRENTON — For the second time in two years, Gov. Chris Christie has vetoed a bill that would have banned the dumping of fracking waste in New Jersey. Environmentalists and lawmakers from both parties had championed the measure, which would have prohibited companies from treating, discharging, disposing, and storing waste from hydraulic fracturing — the controversial practice of pumping water, sand, and chemicals deep underground to harvest natural gas. Though an increase in fracking in recent years has caused U.S. energy production to spike, critics worry that the practice could pollute drinking water supplies. And while fracking doesn't happen in...

Gov. Chris Christie trails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among New Jersey voters surveyed in a poll about the 2016 presidential race. The Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows Clinton leading the Republican governor 50 to 42 percent. Both are considering 2016 runs but haven't committed.

“Obama has decimated the freakin’ Constitution, so I don’t give a damn. If he doesn’t follow the Constitution, we don’t have to.” So who made this claim? Some crazy guy drunk on beer? Nope. More like an on-duty New Jersey cop drunk on power. As you can see in this video (and after the jump) he was not at all reticent about making this claim. Pretty shocking stuff and the video is now going viral on the Web. However, don't check for it at NJ.Com which covers New Jersey news in such detail that you can do a county by...

It took five years of pouring our money down a drain to finally prove to New Jersey liberals that it is not a smart idea to give laptops to seventh, eighth and ninth grade students to take home and use as they wish. It is amazing but true that people who work with children of middle school age don’t understand that kids will be… well kids, and they will generally not respect what is given to them by government. Five years ago the school system in Hoboken New Jersey gave out government (read taxpayer paid for) laptops to children who...

<p>Like most progressives, Bill de Blasio is a champion of public financing for political campaigns. And with good reason.</p> <p>For all his railing against the evil of big money in politics, he’s been quick to take advantage of big fat donations to fuel his agenda — provided they come in a way that doesn’t require him to leave his fingerprints on them.</p>

An investigation is underway after a vat of eggnog flavoring exploded Saturday night in Totowa, New Jersey, injuring two workers. The sudden blast ripped through three stories of Pharmachem Laboratories on 15 Adams Drive. "I felt my house actually shake from the explosion, and that's about a mile away," said Totowa Fire Marshal Allen Del Vecchio