Free Republic

It’s amazing what people will say online. A North Carolina Democrat named Jim Turner posted on his Facebook page that he has voted FOUR times already and will vote again on election day. Once he did that it was picked up by @BradMarston on twitter and has traveled like a bullet around the blogosphere:

School fight may wound Perry in '06 Thursday, May 20, 2004 In the recent 28-day special session called by Gov. Rick Perry, the only consensus was that no one liked the governor's plan — long on sin taxes and short on new money for schools. Even several Republican legislators marvel at how Perry has angered people and groups across the state. Some think the special session was just for show, and to set legislators up to take the blame for failure to revamp school finance and lower property taxes. The public is apparently cooling on the governor as well. In...

America has made progress on the war on terror, but the Bush administration's course on Iraq didn't make it any easier, U.S. Rep. Jim Turner told some 100 St. Mary's law students Friday. Turner, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said the country needs a three-pronged approach to the war on terror: attack terrorists, protect against terrorist attacks, and prevent the rise of future terrorists. But taking that approach requires the country to rebuild the goodwill of the global coalition "squandered" since the U.S. declared war on Iraq. "This global coalition against Saddam Hussein's regime...

Redistricting doesn't stop Democrats Thursday, January 22, 2004 The re-redistricting bomb that U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay dropped on white Texas Democrats in Congress was huge. However, all but two have filed for re-election anyway. Wouldn't it be ironic if several won? Ralph Hall of Rockwall switched to the Republicans, whom he'd been with for years in all but the initial after his name, anyway. And Jim Turner of Crockett decided not to run again. With $1 million in his campaign bank, he says he might run for governor or the U.S. Senate in 2006. But the main Democrats targeted...

WASHINGTON – Rep. Jim Turner's retirement is the first in a series of blows House Democrats can expect this year. The East Texan's decision to avoid a hopeless re-election contest will leave the party without its leading voice on homeland security. But it also represents a major step toward a GOP goal in redistricting – pushing the Democratic Party to the left by forcing out its most effective moderate voices. Rockwall Rep. Ralph Hall's defection to the GOP this month broke a 130-year Democratic hold on the Texas delegation to Congress, creating a 16-16 tie. With just four more casualties...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A moderate Republican senator who holds a crucial swing vote for President Bush's $726 billion tax cut package on Tuesday questioned whether Congress should act on it before any potential war with Iraq. "I'm beginning to question whether we should wait until after the war with Iraq, evaluate the economy, evaluate our spending needs and priorities, and then decide whether or not an economic growth plan makes sense," Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told reporters. She is one of a group of moderate Senate Republicans and Democrats, worried about the impact of Bush's tax cut on long-term...