Free Republic

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Democratic dominance in presidential elections has been the norm for decades throughout much of the country's union-strong industrial Great Lakes region. The GOP presidential candidate is mounting strong challenges to Democratic rival Barack Obama in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and eyeing Minnesota — four states that have thwarted Republicans in at least four straight elections. The Arizona senator is also fighting to hang on to Ohio, a bellwether that President Bush won twice. They are home to large numbers of blue-collar whites, whom Obama has struggled to win over; senior citizens, who polls show tilt toward...

What's for supper? I'm guessing the animal protein in the center of the plate tonight is one of these four-letter words: beef, lamb, pork, fowl, fish, veal or, on hunters' tables, deer. But is anybody serving goat? Some day soon you might. Goat is on its way to becoming a common menu option. Another red meat. Goat is beloved by Latino, Middle Eastern and Italian cooks but is not well known to most Americans. Those who haven't grown up with goat on the table may turn up their noses, imagining a smelly, scruffy animal, a lower-class member of barnyard society....

O Brother, Where Art Thou? One of Hillary Clinton's brothers and some Pennsylvania Democrats who backed her presidential bid socialized Monday with a top adviser to Republican John McCain. The Scranton Times-Tribune reports Tony Rodham attended a gathering hosted by political consultant Jamie Brazil, a longtime friend of the Clintons. Brazil is a paid national director of the Citizens for McCain coalition. Also there, McCain top economic adviser Carly Fiorina. The other guests included an attorney who coordinated Clinton's presidential campaign in northeast Pennsylvania during the primary election, and the sister of Scranton Democratic Mayor Chris Doherty. Under Wraps The...

Hmmm. You know how everyone's been talking about how Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain was gonna name his vice presidential running mate at a big rally in Dayton, Ohio on Aug. 29, the day after Barack Obama's acceptance speech to 70,000 of his closest friends in that Denver stadium?That still seems likely. But now comes word that McCain advance people have approached a minor league baseball stadium in southwestern Pennsylvania about hosting a rally for the Arizona senator the day after the Ohio rally. That would be the Saturday of Labor Day weekend before the GOP convention opens in...

Foot Soldiers and Generals PART ONE: The Foot Soldiers Well, you did it. A few weeks ago, we reported the incredible 2nd Quarter grassroots contributions totaling $637,137 compared to Congressman Murtha’s $113,155. A fluke? A few months of accidental luck? Well, the July totals tell a different story. Because of your continued vigilance and sacrificial support, we’ve now raised an additional $400,000 in the month of July! That’s right, $400,000 in July alone. Here’s the quick math. The first and second quarter totals combined shattered the $900,000 mark. When you add in July’s contributions, the new total is $1.3 million...

Sen. John McCain has pulled a nickel ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in the Reuters/Zogby poll, marking the first time the Arizona Senator has taken any lead in this monthly poll. The poll conducted last Thursday through Saturday came on the heels of the Russian invasion of Georgia -- the same time period that Obama vacationed in Hawaii, giving McCain the advantage of reinforcing his foreign policy positions.

Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell told PolitikerPA, a political Web site, that "Early on, I said I would cast my ballot for Sen. Clinton, I'm going to cast my ballot for her, and then the moment I cast my vote, I'm going to continue to enthusiastically support Sen. Obama. It's going to be a good release for all of us." Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo confirmed to the Tribune-Review via email Rendell's statement with this response: "He (Rendell) will vote for Senator Clinton on the first ballot as part of his commitment as a pledged delegate. He will then support Sen. Obama...

Wolf Blitzer for one apparently doesn't think Tom Ridge's pro-choice position should disqualify him as John McCain's VP pick. The former Pennsylvania congressman and governor was a guest on this afternoon's Situation Room, and Blitzer began by playing a clip of Rush Limbaugh urging McCain not to pick a pro-choice running mate, saying it would "obliterate all the progress that he experienced" at the Saddleback forum. Ridge surmised that "Rush and everybody else hopefully can see that there's a clear choice regardless of the vice-presidential candidate. A choice that says that John McCain is needed now as president of the...

Point Marion, Pa. (AP) -- An 85-year-old woman boldly went for her gun and busted a would-be burglar inside her home, then forced him to call police while she kept him in her sights, police said. "I just walked right on past him to the bedroom and got my gun," Leda Smith said.

Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built near his Wind Gap home. The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left Plainfield Township last year, Neidlinger was ecstatic. He figured he'd wait for the next plan to come along and remembers thinking, ''What could be worse than Wal-Mart?'' Over the past year, Neidlinger says, he's gotten an answer: RPM Recycling -- the metal-shredding plant on the same land -- causes daily noise that sounds like a...

Carly Fiorina, the ousted Hewlett-Packard chief, makes her pitch in W-B. BILL O ’ BOYLE boboyle@timesleader.com WILKES-BARRE – Carly Fiorina believes Sen. John McCain is the best choice to be the next president of the United States, and Monday she said voters will cross party lines to choose who is best for the country. Carly Fiorina, the former CEO at Hewlett-Packard and a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, was in Wilkes-Barre on Monday. Fiorina, the ousted chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, signed on with the McCain campaign 18 months ago and is one of the few surrogates...

REST ASSURED, Philadelphia. Come Election Day, there will be street money. According to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the local Democratic Party chairman, Sen. Barack Obama's general-election presidential campaign in Philadelphia will be run different from his primary operation, which relied more on volunteers than on Democratic ward leaders and did not provide street money on Election Day. "We're not going to pay for votes or pay for turnout," Obama said before the Pennsylvania primary.

Only Sen. Barack Obama knows who he is going to pick for his vice president. Well, that is probably not exactly true. The two Davids’ (Axelrod and Plouffe) and wife Michelle probably know as well. The Drudge Report is suggesting that Obama's pick might become public as early as Tuesday, Aug. 19. In celebration of that event, Drudge is running a poll for readers to guess who that nominee will be, with Sen. Evan Bayh, Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. John Kerry, Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn and a wild card making the Drudge short...

The speculation began first with Hillary, then it was Clark, a strong flirtation with 'change' soul-mate Kaine flipped to an eye towards stability with Indiana's Bayh, but now all of that has shifted over to Biden -- Joe that is -- that outspoken senator from Delaware that hails from the same part of Pennsylvania as Hillary Clinton's family and makes C-SPAN so darn interesting.

June 28, 2008, was a defining moment in my life. It was the day I shot and killed a man in the defense of my life and the lives of others. We all have defining moments. They might not be as tragic as taking another man's life, but they are events that change the way we look at things -- or even, perhaps, how we live our lives. Before that muggy Saturday evening in June, I would have said my defining moments were many: graduating from high school; enlisting in the Army; getting married; having children; getting run over by...

BELLEVILLE, Pa. -- The folks in this picturesque mountain community with red barns and Amish buggies have been voting overwhelmingly Republican in national elections for decades. But tough economic times in Mifflin County and in rural areas all around the country have created possible openings for Democrat Barack Obama. President Bush won nearly 70 percent of the county's vote in both 2000 and 2004, but the standard of living here has declined steadily during his administration. The farm equipment factory that employed 500 workers here is closing. So is the milk plant. Farmers are facing skyrocketing feed and fertilizer costs,...

MANHEIM -- John McCain's last stop on a three-day swing across Pennsylvania provided clues as to how the Republican plans to beat Barack Obama in a battleground state the Democrat is favored to win.

In the town of Shenandoah, Penn., parishioners at a local church offered up prayers for peace - a peace that was broken the night of July 12, when Luis Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was beaten to death The crime shocked people in this small, Appalachian town, reports CBS News correspondent Seth Doane. A late night street fight punctuated by ethnic slurs ended in Ramirez's death. Four high school students, all on the football team, are charged in connection with the homicide. (...) the county's Hispanic population - up 65 percent since 2000 as a new wave of immigrants...

Murtha opponent visits Avonmore By Tom Yerace VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH Friday, August 15, 2008 Sitting at a circular table with a group of fellow senior citizens, Margie Smith eyed the man in the tan polo shirt standing across from her. "What was your name again?" Smith demanded. "Bill Russell," the man replied. Smith quickly followed by asking, "What are you running for again?" "Congress," a smiling Russell said. The 12th Congressional District seat to be exact, which means Russell, a Republican, will be answering those two questions a lot from now until Election Day. He's hoping that enough people will...

PHILADELPHIA -- Police were investigating a shooting in South Philadelphia Thursday. An 18-year-old man was shot in the head on the 1500 block of Federal Street. He was listed in critical condition, officials said. Officials said the man was shot when he tried to rob a locksmith. The owner of the locksmith store shot the man, who was armed with a gun, officials said. Police said they recovered the gun from the scene.

Congressman Urges State Dept. to Meet With Pennsylvania Firm, Saying Sanctions Could Sink ItRep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat known for delivering federal money to defense contractors in his district, is now going to bat for a constituent's company that was convicted last year of illegally exporting components of military equipment. Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, wrote State Department officials in late June urging them to meet with the president of Electro-Glass Products, a 50-employee company that was convicted in April 2007 of illegally exporting components of night-vision goggles to a company in India. The Mammoth,...

Sen. John McCain reminded Pennsylvanians Tuesday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama said the state's small-town voters "cling to guns and religion" because they are "bitter," a gaffe that possibly contributed to Mr. Obama's loss in the state primary and might haunt his general election campaign in this battleground. Mr. McCain told a town hall meeting that this state's voters are the "heartland," and "beam of hope and liberty for everyone in the world." His reprise of the "bitter" flap - an off-the-cuff remark made by Mr. Obama at a private fundraising event in San Francisco prior to...

Professor's Mooning Video Becomes Hit A video posted on YouTube Aug. 2 exposes the ugly side of competitive debate. And the backside of debate coach Bill Shanahan. At the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) quarterfinals last March, the Fort Hays State University assistant professor got into a screaming match with rival coach Shanara Reid-Brinkley from the University of Pittsburgh. The argument devolved into an ugly exchange of profanity and Shanahan pulled down his pants, mooning the audience.

The Democrats live and die by the ad hominem of racism. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20016813&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

Politicians often give long answers to short questions. Republican presidential candidate John McCain did the opposite Tuesday when a woman challenged his conservative fervor. Speaking to more than 2,000 people in York, McCain won deafening applause when he answered only "yes" to the woman, who read her statement from notes. "We conservatives believe that you dismissed our serious quest for responsible, limited government," she began. "In your quest for the presidency, we want to know if it is in you to become a passionate and forceful leader with a conservative agenda to fight the lure of socialistic programs promoted by...

John McCain's admission to the Weekly Standard's Steve Hayes ("Shayes" to friends) that he would consider the possibility of choosing a pro-choice running mate is rightly seen as a trial balloon to gauge reaction among conservative base voters to such a move. "I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party," McCain told Hayes. "And I also feel that -- and I'm not trying to equivocate here -- that Americans want us to work together. You know, [former Pennsylvania Governor] Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens...

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues to hold a narrow lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in Pennsylvania, edging his Republican rival by 5 points in the race for the state's 21 electoral votes, according to a new poll. The Franklin & Marshall College poll, released today, surveyed 641 registered voters from Aug. 4-Aug. 10. While Obama led 44 percent to 36 percent among all survey respondents, he led 46 percent to 41 percent among likely voters. With both candidates securing support from a large majority of their party's voters, Obama's lead, significantly, comes from the support of almost...

The host of MSNBC's nightly talk show, "Hardball," had to cancel his appearance yesterday at the Mon Valley YMCA due to a bout with pneumonia. But even a canceled appearance keeps alive the question of whether Chris Matthews plans to run in Pennsylvania for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate and challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in 2010. During his lunchtime address at the YMCA in Carroll, Washington County, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, offered only a vague hint about Mr. Matthews' intentions. He said Mr. Matthews has Type 2 diabetes, and he had hoped the Philadelphia-area native...

Parents Of Starved Teen Suing City OfficialsPHILADELPHIA (CBS3/AP) ― The parents charged along with city workers in the starvation death of a bedridden teenager have sued Philadelphia officials in her death. A prosecutor blasts Andrea and Daniel Kelly for trying to profit from their daughter's August 2006 death. Andrea Kelly is charged with murder in the death of her 14-year-old daughter, Danieal, who suffered from malnutrition and severe bedsores. The father, Daniel Kelly, is charged with endangerment. Kelly, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was found starved to death in a sweltering, filthy West Philadelphia home in August 2006. "It's absurd,...

PRCN-WPSU (2008-08-12) Senator John McCain has been taking a campaign swing through the Keystone State this week. On Monday, he made appearances in Harrisburg and Erie, and on Tuesday, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has scheduled appearances in Lancaster and York. Riding on his campaign bus through Harrisburg Monday, McCain discussed a wide range of issues with reporters. He focused largely on the economy, but as the fighting between the Republic of Georgia and Russia continued, McCain took a hard stance on Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, "I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old...

Science tried to purge other scientists who disagree with the establishment http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19904502&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

In a Changing Corner of Pa., a Glimpse of Obama's Age Problem LANCASTER, Pa. -- When Gene Rutherford, 65, tries to make sense of the meteoric rise of Barack Obama, and the rampant enthusiasm for him among younger Americans, he thinks of the local mall, where as director of operations he often deals with teenagers. "Kids today have been given everything they want, and don't have to work for it. They have no respect for authority," said Rutherford, standing at the bar at the Elks lodge here. "They'll make remarks right to the face of the [mall] cops. I get...

Ridge said he was proud of how McCain has handled the crisis unfolding in Georgia. ...“He has kept a cool head, taken calls from Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili -- and really behaved very presidential in his perspective of this crisis,” said Ridge as McCain shook hands with the crowd that gathered around him. “He has been to Georgia several times,” Ridge added. “He doesn’t need to look for it on a map.”

Sen. John McCain on Monday is campaigning through Pennsylvania with former governor and vice presidential contender Tom Ridge.

Russell team takes aim at Murtha’s House seat BY MIKE FAHERThe Tribune-Democrat August 09, 2008 11:39 pm — While Republican congressional candidate William Russell gave a television interview in an Upper Yoder Township backyard, campaign manager Peg Luksik worked a crowd of about 15 on a nearby porch.Her high-energy pitch included showing off several varieties of Russell T-shirts and urging supporters to each take two bumper stickers to better advertise the candidate while driving.“This really is a little-guy campaign,” she said. “Anything you can do, we certainly appreciate it. It does make a difference.”The campaign event last week, complete...

A longtime Western Pennsylvania politician once said, “You run with the top of the ticket when you can, and run away from it when you have to.” Which explains U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire’s short answer as to whether he will campaign in his district with Barack Obama: He’ll “consider it.” Altmire -– a previous skeptic of offshore drilling who now supports it, pitting him against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -– said it will depend on when the presumptive nominee comes to town and if their schedules mesh. “I am not going to avoid it,” he added.

The Morning Sun Posted Aug 10, 2008 @ 12:11 AM PITTSBURG — This is just a reminder, for all voters to remember the blurry pictures of your favorite Congressional Democrat running out of the House of Representatives recently, once again not allowing a vote on offshore drilling.  Our supposedly “most ethical congress in history”, with their staggering 9% approval rating, would rather get an early start for their weekend in the Hamptons, instead of doing the job that Americans voted them to do in 2006. I give the House Republicans the “Thumbs Up approval” for staying on the behalf...

The Uniontown Area School Board, as well as concerned citizens and parents, had an opportunity Wednesday to learn about Tasers that will be proposed in the school district and share their opinions on the subject. Even before Don Homer, the director of security for the school district, could show the proposed Tasers to be used and explain how they operate, those attending a special meeting voiced opposition. One resident, Mary Hackney, a teacher at Laurel Highlands School District for 35 years, said she had to break up many fights in her years but no incident required a Taser. "This is...

Victory for Free Speech in DeJohn v. Temple by Kelly Sarabyn August 4, 2008 The Third Circuit Court of Appeals filed an opinion today in DeJohn v. Temple University, et al. The opinion provides an eloquent defense of free speech rights on university campuses and concludes with an unambiguous finding that Temple's speech code is facially unconstitutional. Today's ruling is a great victory for Sergeant Christian DeJohn, the Temple master's student and member of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard who brought the challenge to Temple's speech code. Christian's willingness to take a stand for his First Amendment right to free...

SAEGERTOWN, Pa. - Authorities say a Pennsylvania man rammed his house with a semitrailer during a fight with his roommate and tried to run down police called to the scene...

William Russell is back on the campaign trail. The 12th Congressional District Republican candidate, who is attempting to unseat longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha, held his first Cambria County campaign event Wednesday. It was a modest affair on a back porch in Upper Yoder Township. But Russell said he is gaining momentum. “This campaign has heard from thousands of people over the past few weeks,” he said. Russell, who spent his career in the military and served in both Iraq wars, nearly saw his campaign end in February when a judge ruled that he had not gathered enough valid...

Professor Gary Friedman (left) and Alex Fridman, director of the Drexel Plasma Institute, demonstrate a plasma generator being tested for use in medicine. A few years ago, a researcher at Drexel University accidentally cut his finger and exposed it to plasma, a fourth state of matter created by ionizing gas. To everyone’s surprise, the blood from the cut coagulated. “We said, ‘OK, this is very interesting, maybe we can help somebody with this,’” said Gary Friedman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of surgery at Drexel, who was working with the researcher at the time....

This @%&# door won't close, it needs more &^%$#*!@ pork grease!!

Since Hardball host Chris Matthews is reportedly considering a Senate run against Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter in 2010, it gave Quinnipiac University a "thrill up their leg" to go ahead and poll the matchup. [...] As it turns out, despite his ubiquitous presence on election-night specials and on afternoon cable, the MSNBC talking head isn't that well-known among Keystone voters, as 55% say they don't know enough to have an impression of him. 28% have a favorable impression of their prodigal son, while 15% view him unfavorably.

By any reasonable measure, Barack Obama should be streets ahead of John McCain. The number of people identifying themselves as Republicans is steadily declining while the ranks of Democrats swell. Republican congressional leaders openly acknowledge that they are in danger of a shellacking in the House and Senate this November. The reasons are many and obvious. George W. Bush is an extraordinarily unpopular President. The population has turned against his war in Iraq and his hijacking of the Constitution in pursuit of terrorists. The economy is tanking as gas prices rise and housing values plummet. A Democratic landslide should be...

Forget Hardball. Dodgeball's more amusing . . . As we'll detail below, David Shuster literally laughed in the face of a senior Republican today, and earlier on MSNBC Andrea Mitchell blithely dismissed the McCain energy plan as unrealistic. But there was one point of light, you might say, on the network's afternoon coverage. When Shuster briefly held a Dem congresswoman's feet to the fire on the question of Obama's vote for the 2005 Bush energy bill, what ensued was one of the more hapless—and ergo entertaining—dodges of the political season. Shuster's guest was Allyson Schwartz, a Dem congresswoman from Pennsylvania....

Sunday morning. Front page. Huge color photo. Lots of ink. Your name. If you are thinking of running for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania, a blurb like this is hard to top. In this case, Central Pennsylvania residents awoke July 27 to see the familiar image of Hardball host Chris Matthews beaming out at them from the front page of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Washington Post of the state capital area. The headline in the story by the Patriot-News's ace Washington bureau correspondent Brett Lieberman was titled "PRIMETIME PLAYER?" The question mark was appropriate. According to Lieberman, Matthews recently...

The Heartland supersized Sen. John McCain last night at a ginormous motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D. While no one shouted "Free Bird" to McCain while he was speaking -- a pop culture homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd whose 2008 version of the band is playing at the rally -- the Republican presumptive nominee did call attention to the larger than normal size of his crowd: "As you may know, not long ago, a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day."

<p>They come wearing motorcycle leather and business suits. They sport crew cuts and ponytails, some wearing long un-trimmed beards, others clean shaven. They park their Harley’s, Gold Wings, and three wheelers in rows flying the Stars and Strips and the black POW/MIA flags. Many bear scars and tattoos commemorating their service in Vietnam .</p>

August 04, 2008 Murtha's reckoning Thomas Lifson Rep. John Murtha's disgrace in denouncing the Marines of the Haditha incident is not going to fade away gently into the night. William Russell, has returned from a tour of duty in the military and is running against him. His campaign has produced this video featuring Darryl Sharratt, the father of one of the Marines accused by Murtha of being a "cold-blooded killer." His son Justin Sharratt has subsequently been fully vindicated, and all charges dropped. Darryl Sharratt's video does not have the produiction values of a normal campaign commercial, but in his...