Free Republic

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio —Seventy-six days until the primary election, and another chance to win them over. Christina Hagan’s heels click on the floor of the small-town community center. “Does anyone have a flag pin?” she asks, realizing that she left hers on an outfit she wore to a chili cook-off, or a meeting with a mayor, or all the times she went door-knocking to say, “I don’t want to bug you too much, but I’m running for Congress.” More than 400 women — a record number — are expected to run for Congress this year, and 29-year-old Hagan is part of...

CPAC 2007 Registration is now Open CPAC Early Bird Registration Deadline Fast Approaching Register today for the largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country! The 34th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will be held on March 1-3, 2007, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. Join Invited Speakers & Panelists Vice President Dick Cheney – Ann Coulter – Gov. Mike Huckabee – Sean Hannity – Michelle Malkin – Senator Bill Frist – David Horowitz – Wayne LaPierre – David Keene – Newt Gingrich – and many more! CPAC will feature book signings by the nation's leading...

Ohio's troubled economy and corruption scandals have given Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland a persistent advantage over Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in the race for Governor here. Strickland maintains a double-digit advantage. As Election Day draws closer, though, his margin has declined by seven points. According to our new poll he now leads Blackwell 52% to 40% (see crosstabs). In mid-September the Democrat enjoyed a nineteen-point lead of 54% to 35%.

Anyone else hear that if there is going to be a SCOTUS retirment it will happen tomorrow. That makes sense giving that the last cases will be announced tomorrow, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and I think a few others. Also, if anyone else is up for random speculation on who will retire and who will replace. I'll go with Stevens retires, Karen Williams replaces. Mods, sorry if this is a useless vanity.

The Browns looked in their own back yard to bolster the team on a frenzied first day of free agency. They signed two-time Pro Bowl guard/center LeCharles Bentley of St. Ignatius and Ohio State, and receiver Joe Jurevicius of Mentor's Lake Catholic High - and were finalizing a deal for punter Dave Zastudil of Bay Village, who visited Saturday and had dinner with team officials. They also signed former Falcons left tackle Kevin Shaffer to replace L.J. Shelton. "We definitely wanted to jump out early, and we feel like we helped ourselves, especially on the offensive line," said Browns General...

Just days ahead of the filing deadline for the Ohio governor's election, federal officials are launching an investigation into a "pay to profit" scandal that could knock a leading Republican candidate out of the race and spark a broader probe threatening the state's entire GOP establishment. Two Akron-area lawyers claim they lost state contracts because they did not contribute to Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's campaign. As WorldNetDaily reported, in a complicated "pay to profit" scheme, the Ohio Republican Party has been charged with handing out state contracts on a "no-bid basis" to individuals and firms who made campaign contributions....

Eric Fingerhut is canceling his quixotic bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against the anointed candidate, Ted Strickland. Also, Paul Hackett (D-Barking Moonbatville) cancelled his appearance on Hardboiled with Chris Matthews, fueling speculation that he will drop his primary challenge to Sherrod "Stalin" Brown and instead take another crack at the congressional seat now held by Jean Schmidt. This sets up a Brown v. DeWine race in the fall. DeWine is probably grateful because if Hackett had been his opponent, Hackett may have gotten NRA support. Look for the NRA to stay neutral on this one. Source for the (drop...

The attractive new substitute teacher at Strongsville High School proposed a novel incentive to her class of special-education students: Improve your grades and win a dinner date with the teacher. No one says the contest was fixed, but the winner was the 17-year-old captain of the football team, Steven Bradigan. Dinner at the Dairy Queen was nothing special, but what happened afterwards was enough to melt his ice cream. In the car in the parking lot at Westfield SouthPark mall, Bradigan said the 36-year-old teacher, Christine Scarlett, wrapped her arms around him and tried to kiss him. "I said, 'Whoa!'...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I got to play a little audio sound bite for you here. This is from Reliable Sources yesterday on CNN. Howard Kurtz is talking to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote, "Are Men Really Necessary?" and Howard's question was this: "When you write something about George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld and some of your critics out there decide to take you on, whether it's Rush Limbaugh or Friedman or David Brooks or anybody else, do you feel it's done in a more personal way than if you were Tom Friedman or...

Let me start today by writing about the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. To borrow and adapt a phrase, I know John Roberts; John Roberts is a friend (all right, an acquaintance) of mine. And Sam Alito is no John Roberts. What is the difference? Roberts respects Congress and its constitutional primacy; Alito shows serious signs that he does not. Some time ago, Jeffrey Rosen, a superb legal scholar, pointed out Alito’s dissent in a 1996 decision upholding the constitutionality of a law that banned the possession of machine guns. We are not talking handguns, rifles or...

(With apologies to John Lennon) This is Alitomas And what has been done? Old hearings are over And a new one just begun. And so this is Altiomas I hope you have fun... The pundits and pubbies The old and the young A very merry Alitomas Confim before the New Year He isn’t a Souter We’ve nothing to fear It goes to the Senate For weak and for strong For Dems and for RINOs The chamber is so wrong And so happy Alitomas For Coulter and for Frum And for 'bots of all stripes Against the Left we'll all fight...

OK, it's been a bad week. We all know it. We all know why. We are at eachother's throats. This thread is not to discuss that. It's for happiness so post things that make you happy like kittens, puppies, fluffy clouds, whatever.

The Left and the European Left in particular, have got President George W. Bush all wrong. The derisively call President Bush a cowboy. Now, how they could consider a John Wayne character a bad thing I have no idea but it is simply inaccurate despite the ranch. Nor is President Bush a modern day Dirty Harry eviscerating the Left. Do you really think that Dirty Harry would let write Ted Kennedy write the education bill? Heck, do you think Dirty Harry would even have an education bill? I’m fairly certain he’d leave it up to the states and ask them...

(COLUMBUS, October 5, 2005) Complete results of the October 3 Wall Street Journal Online Zogby Interactive Poll show Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is the only GOP candidate winning head-to-head match-ups against the two leading Democrat challengers. While Blackwell beat Rep. Ted Strickland and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, Republican challengers Auditor Betty Montgomery and Attorney General Jim Petro lost similar head to head match-ups by wide margins. Blackwell beat both Coleman (44.4% to 43%) and Strickland (44.5% to 43.4%). Petro lost to Coleman 41% to 36.6% (loss of 4.4%) and Strickland 41.7% to 35.3% (loss of 6.4%). Montgomery lost...

Since the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court has been issuing decisions contrary to the generally held values of Americans, imposing a "modish, untested philosophical notions and extreme libertarianism that would have left the [Constitution's] Framers aghast," Edith Jones, a judge on the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, told a packed room Jan. 28 in a speech sponsored by The Federalist Society. This series of decisions has done "more to jeopardize than sustain" the future of American society, which she said stands "as the most successful and long-lived experiment in self-government and human freedom in history."...

Judge Roberts's chief strategic objective in his confirmation hearing was to secure the support of Chairman Specter — a vocal supporter of Roe v. Wade — without losing the support of conservative Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is a testament to Roberts's skills as an advocate that his remarks at his confirmation hearing on abortion and stare decisis have been understood by Specter and many other supporters of Roe as suggesting that he would not vote to overrule Roe. What seems not to have been noticed is that Roberts in fact deftly repudiated Specter's notion that Roe is...

Vatican, Aug. 31 (CWNews.com) - Vatican officials have confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) met with the controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo on August 27. Although the meeting was not intended to be publicized, friends of Fallaci leaked news of the writer's meeting with the Pontiff, and the Vatican verified the reports. Fallaci has been an outspoken critic of immigration trends in Europe, saying that the demographic trend amounts to an "Islamic invasion." She currently faces charges in Italian courts for allegedly insulting the Islamic faith. Fallaci, who suffers from cancer,...

was watching Meet the Press today. I watch this junk so you don't have to, by the way. Mario Cuomo was debating Douglas Kmiec, professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University. In Mario's closing statements the former governor said: Cuomo: What does human life mean? It means consciousness. When does that occur? When does viability occur? Roe against Wade says 24 weeks, but that's old, old medical evidence. 1973 is the decision; evidence was from 1950. Why don't you measure that again? If viability is now, let's say, 20 weeks instead of 24, that's a lot of abortions that will...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT There was a breakfast meeting at the White House today, and the president came out and discussed it. His meeting was with -- Let's see, who did he meet? -- Arlen Specter, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy and Bill Frist. Yeah. So he met with Specter, Leahy, Frist and Senator Harry Reid about the current vacancy and what might be an up-coming one. Just to set this up: last week, the president sort of smacked down some conservatives for daring to suggest that the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, would be an unacceptable Supreme Court nominee because of substantive issues....

Kohbar Towers. What, me worry? The Embassy in Tanzania. What, me worry? The Embassy in Kenya. What me worry? The U.S.S Cole. What, me worry? Oklahoma City? Blame talk radio aka Rush Limbaugh. "I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said during the inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, organized by the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan think tank. So Hillary, when you are looking for a president who embodies the philosophy of Alfred E. Newman make an appointment and see your husband, if you can find him.