Free Republic

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...

Several corporate executives have joined forces with prominent local lawmakers, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and George Soros’ National Immigration Forum (NIF) to organize a campaign on Monday to target GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to get them to try to support amnesty. Those executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Boeing CEO and chairman Jim McNerney, Marriott hotels chairman and CEO Bill Marriott, NewsCorp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger. Ballmer, McNerney, Marriott, Murdoch, and Iger, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro form the...

Just days after Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was officially cleared to fly by U.S. regulators, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said the plane's 100-day grounding did not and will not have a significant financial impact on the Chicago-based aircraft maker. McNerney, speaking after Chicago-based Boeing's annual meeting at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago on Monday, said some fixes are "big and huge and others are less financially impactful."

McNerney was walking back to campus with Zach DeCicco from Main Street Brew House on South Main Street when they were approached near the rear of Lombardi’s Auto Service by as many as six males wanting to steal a cellphone, Stanek said.

The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion last year. Management is trying desperately to close post offices, consolidate operations and end Saturday delivery, but is meeting stiff bipartisan congressional resistance. Nobody wants to see the mail die, but the fact is, it is in a death spiral as we speak. At some point all of us are going to have to decide how much money to borrow from the Chinese to keep it alive. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, wrote a letter to postal managers today warning about plans to scale back a mail processing facility in Stockton and transfer the work...

McNerney takes his seat in 111th Congress; Harmer at orientation for new members -- Both 11th District Congressional candidates in the Nov. 2 General Election are now in Washington, D.C. Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton) returned to his congressional seat for the opening session yesterday of one week of deliberation before the Thanksgiving recess. He plans to return again after Thanksgiving for the final session of the 111th Congress. Also in Washington is McNerney's Republican challenger in the still-undecided 11th District race, David Harmer. Harmer attended the orientation for new members of Congress. "Since we don't yet know whether I'll become...

Two-term Democrat Congressman Jerry McNerney tried to put an end to the closely fought race for the California 11th Congressional District, but opponent David Harmer refuses to concede the battle. McNerney declared to a small gathering of supporters that "The votes are in, the results are clear. The voters of this district have chosen me to be their congressman for the next session." As of Thursday evening, McNerney led Republican David Harmer with an edge of 1,685 votes out of just over 230,000 counted.

For most of the country, the midterm elections ended last Tuesday when the final ballots were counted. However, the race in California’s 11th Congressional District remains a tight race between Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney and Republican challenger David Harmer. In a careful recount of the ballots, Harmer is currently trailing McNerney by just 2,000 votes, leaving no room for error. Bay Area tea party members have been serving as careful watchdogs over the process. One group, the Tri-Valley Patriots, caught an interesting snapshot which suggests some ballot counters may have a vested interest in keeping the Democrat in office:

Democratic Rep. Jim Costa has declared victory in his race against Republican challenger Andy Vidak. New vote tallies from Fresno County put Costa 1,200 votes ahead of Vidak — Costa was losing to Vidak Tuesday by 145 votes — and his campaign believes his lead will continue to increase as the final absentee ballots are counted. “This has been a hard-fought campaign. It appears that it is now over. I believe our 1,200-vote margin will not only stand up, but will increase as the remaining few ballots are counted,” Costa said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Waiting game in 11th District by Jon Mendelson / Tracy Press Tracy Press Nov 05, 2010 David Harmer (left) and Rep. Jerry McNerney are still unsure as to who will sit in the next Congress. Will Tracy next be represented in Congress by Jerry McNerney or David Harmer? It’s a question that might not be answered for weeks. That’s because even though the incumbent Democrat congressman led Republican challenger Harmer by 134 votes as of Thursday, according to the California Secretary of State, thousands of ballots remain uncounted. The 11th Congressional District spans four counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa...

In the gerrymander-gone-awry California 11th congressional district, sprawling across four counties from Gilroy to Lodi, incumbent Democrat Jerry McNerney is ahead 121 votes to GOP challenger David Harmer: McNerney 82,124 votes, 47.5% Harmer 82,003 votes 47.4% A third party spoiler, Tracy's David Christensen of the conservative American Independent Party, has 8,809 or 5.1% That's with all precincts reporting as of 5:41 a.m. It would appear that Harmer would have won had Christensen not been in the race.

In the gerrymander-gone-awry California 11th congressional district, sprawling across four counties from Gilroy to Lodi, incumbent Democrat Jerry McNerney is ahead 121 votes to GOP challenger David Harmer: McNerney 82,124 votes, 47.5% Harmer 82,003 votes 47.4% A third party spoiler, Tracy's David Christensen of the conservative American Independent Party, has 8,809 or 5.1% That's with all precincts reporting as of 5:41 a.m. It would appear that Harmer would have won had Christensen not been in the race. . . .

We'll see what happens here.

CA House 11: Republican challenger David Harmer in a tight race to oust Democrat incumbent Jerry McNerney.

I am sorry for the vanity but I got so angry last night and this morning I nearly retailiated. McNerney's people - I can't say who, most likely Liberals, Dems, Marxists, MoveOn.org and/or the Commies, took ALL of David Harmer's signs down all over Pleasanton. I wanted to go out at 2 AM and remove all of McNerney's signs, but decided, with my wife's advice, that doing what they do is utter hypocricy. Saul Alinsky would be proud of these maggot Leftists who justify the means to an end. Go Harmer!

To undecided voters deciding whether to re-elect Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, I have one question: What do you know about Republican candidate David Harmer? Are you aware that he favors privatizing Social Security, even after the Wall Street meltdown (no surprise, given his discredited deregulate-everything philosophy)? Or that he has spoken at a local Tea Party event? Or that he wrote in favor of abolishing public schools and returning education to “the way things worked through the first century of American nationhood” in an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, a position he has not backed away...

The nationally targeted 11th Congressional District is generating tens of thousands of dollars in campaign ads and mailers, which predictably contain a mix of truth, distortion and outright falsehoods.The biggest flap centers on GOP nominee David Harmer's 11-year-old treatise on the ills of public schools and his advocacy for school vouchers.Harmer, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, wrote in a 2000 newspaper opinion piece, "So long as the state constitution mandates free public schools, a voucher system (or refundable tuition tax credit) is the best we can do. To attain quantum leaps in educational quality and opportunity, however, we...

But as Bay Area commuters populated — and liberalized — the district’s new suburbs, Mr. McNerney appeared to be a symbol of its new complexion: moderate, mild-mannered and more concerned with local issues than national battles. That, however, was then. Today, many of those new suburbs sit in a region with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Since 2006, the district has lost more than 30,000 residents. And while unemployment statewide is more than 12 percent, the rate is more than twice that in several towns in the 11th. All of which is obvious to Mr. McNerney....

"McNerney has tried to chart a centrist course"

While the California races for governor and U.S. Senate are hot, the battle for a single House seat in the East Bay and Central Valley has turned into a bellwether for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hopes of retaining her Democratic majority. Both national political parties are pouring money into the contest between two-term incumbent Democrat and former windmill executive Rep. Jerry McNerney, 59 - who voted with Pelosi on the stimulus, the bank rescue, health care, and cap and trade - and Republican David Harmer, 48, a small-government conservative and son of a former California lieutenant governor under Ronald Reagan...