Free Republic

This fall, Republicans in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District have the chance to retire Leonard Boswell and take back a seat in the House.  Once believed to be a so-called “conservative Democrat,” Boswell’s liberal voting record demonstrates that his loyalties lie not with the good people of the Hawkeye State, but rather with Nancy Pelosi. Voting with his misguided party for Speaker Pelosi’s disastrous liberal agenda 98% of the time, Boswell’s record is unacceptable to his moderate constituents. Located in central-southeast Iowa, Iowa’s 3rd District covers all or part of twelve counties. This includes the Des Moines/Polk County area, where 60% of...

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s unemployment rate jumped to 11.1 percent in June, up from 10.8 percent in May and the first time in nearly 26 years that the rate has topped 11 percent. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released the rate on Friday, July 17. “Ohio’s labor market continued to weaken in June,” Douglas Lumpkin, ODJFS director, said in a press release. “Significant job losses in both the goods-producing and service-providing industries led to an increase in the unemployment rate to 11 .1 percent. The state’s nonfarm wage and salary employment decreased 33,000 over the month, from 5,133,200...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the best way to judge his economic stimulus plan in the next two years will be whether it creates or saves 3 million to 4 million jobs. And if the White House predictions are correct, no state will produce more jobs than California, which has been losing jobs faster than any other state. More than 10 percent of the jobs – 421,000 – are forecast to come from the Golden State, which has a 9.3 percent unemployment rate, the fourth-highest in the nation and California's highest in 15 years. The state's loss of 78,200...

What will be your first tipoff as to the final outcome of the election? Will it be the weather forcast a few days before the election? Will it be the reports of where voter turnout is the heaviest? How about the speed with which some of the first states will be called? What's your tell?

McCain Outperforming Bush in Ohio Bellwethers? I continue to hear from my source on the ground in Ohio, who is seeing results for McCain that are surprisingly good. He puts it, "in a key bellweather section of Ohio, McCain continues to show internals that are exceeding the national pollsters’ results. This portends a potentially larger McCain victory in Ohio than Bush had in 2004.” As for those national pollsters, note that Fox News/Rasmussen puts McCain up 2, NBC/Mason-Dixon puts McCain up 1 and Rasmussen had it a tie last week. My guy on the ground thinks this might mean that...

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley easily won the Republican primary contest last night against former state Supreme Court chief justice Roy S. Moore, once regarded as a formidable challenger because of his support from social conservatives who cheered his refusal to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building. Riley probably will face Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley, who in early returns in the Democratic primary was burying the comeback attempt of former governor Don Siegelman, who hoped to use a November contest against Riley to showcase his contention that his ongoing corruption trial is a political vendetta...

As the Koran-flushing-in-Cuba episode becomes old news, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has helpfully found a way to keep Koran desecration in the public eye. It does so – and I draw on MPAC's two press releases (here and here), plus reports from the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times – by promoting the story of one Azza Basarudin, who bought a copy of the Koran, Oxford University Press edition.A doctoral candidate at the University of California at Los Angeles specializing in Middle East studies, Basarudin ordered the volume in early May from Bellwether Books, a used book store...