Free Republic

Who is Vernice Guthrie, and where was she at 11 a.m. West Africa Time on Friday, Aug. 26, 2011? On that day, terrorist group Boko Haram carried out a suicide bombing at the main UN building in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 24 persons and injuring more than 100. Since then Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and other lawmakers have three times during hearings asked State Department officials whether Americans were in that building. Three times those officials have hedged. Now, Boko Haram’s rise has led to the deaths of thousands of Nigerians, the destruction of hundreds of churches, and the kidnapping this...

TOPEKA, KS -- Greg Orman’s deceptive campaign hit another low Wednesday by announcing a bogus list of Kansas endorsements—some of which are current and long-time supporters of Pat Roberts. In a Topeka press conference, Orman claimed support from Traditional Republicans for Common Sense. Yet, on that list are former Third District U.S. Represenative Jan Meyers, former State Sen. Bob Marshall of Ft. Scott, and former Kansas Rep. John Golden of Goodland, all of whom are strong supporters of Senator Roberts. Roberts’ executive campaign manager Leroy Towns said it is likely there are many others on the list who do not...

Republican Gov. Rick Scott has opened up a 5-point lead over Democratic rival Charlie Crist as a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/UF Bob Graham Center poll finds Florida voters mostly optimistic about the state's economic direction but decidedly sour on their gubernatorial choices.....

The coming midterm elections – just weeks away – may yet prove to be the most important in the history of the United States, and of the world. There is a chance – it cannot yet be put any higher than that – that the GOP may recapture control of the Senate. The future of civilization itself may depend upon its succeeding. The threat is real – so real that even to vote “Democrat” comes close to being treason. Lest that statement should sound too extreme, let me explain.

...Obama arrives in Milwaukee Monday for a rally at Laborfest. Five-thousand people are expected at the Summerfest grounds for the ticketed event. On Saturday the Milwaukee Labor Council handed out tickets to union members and their family..... Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke will meet privately with Obama on Monday. Campaign spokesperson Joe Zepecki said in a statement, “Because the President’s Monday visit to Milwaukee is for an official White House event and not a campaign event, her participation in the public portion of events would not be appropriate.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest took great lengths to explain why President Obama’s comment about having no strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. “I don't want to put the cart before the horse,” Obama said during his press conference yesterday. “We don't have a strategy yet.”

.....How does the former Republican governor make history by getting elected governor again as a Democrat? The plan essentially boils down to matching Sink's performance — the former chief financial officer lost to Scott by 1.2 percentage points, less than 62,000 votes — and then, through sophisticated computer modelling, analytics and voter targeting, to modestly improve on her showing among various voter groups that make up Florida's complicated electoral mosaic. "We know the universe we have to turn out," said Omar Khan, Crist's campaign manager and one of many Obama campaign veterans helping Crist. "Every decision we make and everything...

JUST DAYS AFTER THE PRIMARY SOME BARE-KNUCKLE, HARD HITTING ADS ARE ALREADY HITTING THE AIRWAVES IN THE GOVERNOR'S RACE. ONE OF THOSE ADS FROM THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PARTY BLASTS DEMOCRATIC CHARLIE CRIST FOR HIS ONE CLOSE TIES TO CONVICTED PONZI SCHEMER SCOTT ROTH TEEN.

....victories, and the real contest — the general election — begins now. Though Crist won the primary easily, the numbers weren’t all positive for his camp. He received 622,986 votes, 211,408 fewer than Scott got in his Republican primary. Overall, more than 114,000 more Republicans than Democrats cast ballots statewide....

Republican Scott Brown has closed a 12-point gap in the monthly WMUR/Granite State poll, and has pulled into a statistical dead heat with incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen for the New Hampshire US Senate seat. Shaheen leads Brown 46 percent to 44 percent...

Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich wants Alaskans to know he is one of them and an independent voice against President Barack Obama. So he's opening campaign offices in far-flung places like a coin-operated laundry in Dillingham...

A poll from the Florida Chamber Political Institute (FCPI) unveiled on Monday shows Gov. Rick Scott has taken the lead over former Gov. Charlie Crist. Despite having spent most of his political life as a Republican, Crist is the favorite to win the Democratic primary next week. Scott takes 44 percent in the poll of likely voters while Crist garners 41 percent. Scott’s lead expands when Libertarian Adrian Wyllie is added into the mix. In that scenario, Scott takes 41 percent, Crist gets 35 percent and Wyllie takes 4 percent. “While top concerns for voters remain jobs and the economy,...

Senate hopeful Scott Brown again got help from a former Republican presidential nominee, as Sen. John McCain spoke to a crowd of GOP faithful at a town hall meeting Monday.

WASHINGTON—A handful of lawmakers are saying President Barack Obama must get congressional authorization for military action in Iraq, a vote that could exacerbate tensions between the branches and present members with a difficult vote just before the midterm elections. Mr. Obama's announcement of limited airstrikes last week aimed at slowing the advance of militants from the Islamic State toward the Kurdish city of Erbil initially triggered few complaints that he had usurped the power to declare war that Congress claims as its own. But with the president warning over the weekend that "I don't think we're going to solve this...

An electrifying midterm rallying cry on a slow summer news day. Boehner, incidentally, isn’t one of the crappy-asses, she says. She doesn’t name names there, but she’s been known to diverge from grassroots conservatives in these matters before.What would happen, though, if Boehner turned around and made a deal with Harry Reid on amnesty in September? One of the goals of Obama’s looming power grab over legalization is to scare Republican leaders with the thought that Latino voters will be so grateful, they’ll break even harder for Democrats in 2016. The only countermeasure, Dems would have you believe, is...

a Pew Research Center report released today shows that a new wave of Puerto Ricans leaving their island's severe economic woes has been finding its way to Central Florida and rapidly changing the ethnic and political makeup of the country's largest swing state. Florida, which has played a crucial role in the past two presidential elections, has 29 electoral votes that could play a crucial role in the 2016 presidential race.

A 40-year political career came to a close after Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie lost his bid for a second term in a stunning primary-election defeat by a fellow Democrat and state senator who defied party leadership to challenge the incumbent. A second intraparty fight for U.S. Senate was too close to call. State Sen. David Ige, once seen as an underdog, cruised to a decisive 35 percentage point win in Saturday's primary after being dramatically outspent by Abercrombie, who also had high-profile endorsements including President Barack Obama. Ige said his win "proves that people power can be money power, especially...

Ask voters in North Carolina’s Research Triangle what November’s midterm elections are about and one will tell you drones. A second will say closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet another, the middle-class squeeze. At a Sunday school classroom in Ypsilanti, Mich., voters are concerned about deteriorating roads, teen sex parties, truancy in schools and violent crime. Six hundred miles west at a Republican campaign office in Urbandale, Iowa, people fear that America is on an irreversible decline — like Germany after World War I, as one man predicted. Across Colorado, voters are thinking about a whole other set...

...Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor turned independent turned Democrat, was endorsed by SAVE, the gay rights group based in Miami-Dade County. The gay and lesbian community has become an important element of the Democratic Party’s coalition.

....Scott leads 45 percent to 43 percent while 8 percent support other candidates and 4 percent remain undecided. In the last Survey USA/WFLA poll, Crist led 46 percent to 40 percent. The poll of 576 likely voters was taken from July 31-Aug. 4 ..