Free Republic

Thought you might want to see the red/blue divide in New Jersey, comparing the 2008 and 2009 elections. Red/Blue NJ, 2008 presidential Red/Blue NJ, 2009 gubernatorial

For the past decade a large coterie of pundits, prognosticators and their media camp followers have insisted that growth in America would be concentrated in places hip and cool, largely the bluish regions of the country. Since the onset of the recession, which has hit many once-thriving Sun Belt hot spots, this chorus has grown bolder. The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently identified the "Next Youth-Magnet Cities" as drawn from the old "hip and cool" collection of yore: Seattle, Portland, Washington, New York and Austin, Texas. It's not just the young who will flock to the blue meccas, but...

Jaycee Lee Dugard: Inside the secret world where she was kept captive for 18 years For 18 years, this was the chilling secret world where Jaycee Lee Dugard was held captive and gave birth to two daughters - fathered by her abductor. Philip Sherwell 29 Aug 2009 Chilling message hung on a tree Photo: NICK STERN / [Pic in URL] But the ramshackle sheds and tents dotted around the compound behind the home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido in the middle of a working-class Californian district are now yielding their squalid secrets. Extraordinary pictures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph allow...

The sustainable city of the future will rest on the revival of traditional institutions that have faded in many of today’s cities. Ellen Moncure and Joe Wong first met in school and then fell in love while living in the same dorm at the College of William and Mary. After graduation, they got married and, in 1999, moved to Washington, D.C., where they worked amid a large community of single and childless people. Like many in their late 20s, the couple began to seek something other than exciting careers and late-night outings with friends. “D.C. was terrific,” Moncure recalled over...

Millions once moved to California for its boundless promise, but time has not been kind to the Golden State. Twenty-five years ago, along with another young journalist, I coauthored a book called California, Inc. about our adopted home state. The book described “California’s rise to economic, political, and cultural ascendancy.” As relative newcomers at the time, we saw California as a place of limitless possibility. And over most of the next two decades, my coauthor, Paul Grabowicz, and I could feel comfortable that we were indeed predicting the future. But much has changed in recent years. And today our Golden...

This should be the moment the Blue Man basks in glory. An urbane president sits in the White House and a San Francisco liberal runs the House. But blue states are undergoing a meltdown. On the surface this should be the moment the Blue Man basks in glory. The most urbane president since John Kennedy sits in the White House. A San Francisco liberal runs the House of Representatives while the key committees are controlled by representatives of Boston, Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and the Bay Area—bastions of the gentry. Despite his famous no-blue-states-no-red-states-just-the-United-States statement, more than 90 percent of the...

Here’s a quick and dirty guess: Upper-middle-class families in blue states–those President Obama calls “the rich”–will soon be paying 20% more a year in state and federal taxes. If you pay $100,000 off of a $300,000 income now, look for $120,000 in a couple of years. Federal income taxes are going up, and deductions are going down. That much we know. What we don’t know yet–but I would bet money on it–is if the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare tax ceiling will be lifted from $102,000 to $150,000 or so. Taxes are headed up at the state and local level...

Well, it's done. The American people have elected, selected and stolen an election. The full force of socialism and Marxist dogma will now become part of every day American life.No need to remain in a state that has been going downhill for the past ten or twelve years. No need to listen to the liberal hate spewed by so many in Columbus. No need to continue to pay taxes to support the low-lifes who supported racist, Marxist and possibly a foreigner for President.I'm looking to move to real America. Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, here I come.And to George Bush, thank...

I just voted straight Republican ticket, including John McCain and Sarah Palin, in one of the bluest States in the Union. Some of you may be saying, "Why bother?" The fact of the matter is that my vote matters in this election more than other races in the past. Here is why: Imagine if John McCain wins the electoral college, but loses the popular vote. The ramifications of that happening, which is very possible, would be devastating. There really would be riots in the streets. People and the media would think McCain was an illegitimate President. That is why my...

Amazon.com has found a way to capitalize on one of the most interesting presidential elections in U.S. history. The Seattle-based retailer introduced an interactive map of the U.S. showing which states are "red" or "blue" based on their online book purchases. Although it's not meant to predict the next president, it suggests that the right's slant on the Obama-McCain matchup is more widely read than the left's. For now, 36 states are pink or red. Six are blue. And eight, including Washington and Oregon, are purple, meaning residents are virtually split in their political book purchases between Republican and Democratic...

What 'culture war'? At the conventions, they'll try to stir up red-blue divisions. But most Americans hold un-partisan views. By Dick Meyer August 27, 2008 As the nation's attention reluctantly turns to the political parties' conventions, with their scripted suspense and stage-managed sentiment, it is important to keep in mind that these are phony representations of American political life. But the slick video profiles, the teary appearance of a beloved party elder -- these are not what is most phony about the conventions. This gathering of America's civic tribes -- and the reporters who love them -- in separate cities...

An East Boston sicko is facing up to 25 years in state prison for stomping a neighborhood cat to death, lighting its carcass on fire and nearly burning down an apartment building into which he threw the torched tabby. Luigi Epifania, 25, will be sentenced Monday for last year’s death of “Nunu,” in what Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley called “a cruel and cowardly act.” A Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted Epifania yesterday of arson and killing a domestic animal, but that’s just the beginning of his troubles. He still faces trial on a separate charge of attempted murder for...

Without a doubt, all politically alert Americans are aware of the Red State, Blue State color scheme that's used to describe the voting patterns of various constituancies in the U.S. In it, Red states are conservative Republican, Blue States are liberal Democrat. There are some marginal states, which have become known as Purple States. But, on Free Republic, I've noticed some Freepers complain about the colors that are applied. I personally never felt strongly about it, but others seem to, and they have a point. The term became fixed into our conciousness on election night in 2000. The networks chose...

Has Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's chances of landing the coveted spot as Obama's Veep risen? According to stories at both The Politico and the Washington Post Kaine has risen to the level of serious contender, along with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. The WaPo story has close Kaine associates acknowledging that Kaine has told them that he has had "very serious" conversations with Obama about joining the ticket.

The Sen. Barack Obama campaign held a conference call this morning on one of the key battleground states in this race: Pennsylvania. Team O, led by Gov. Ed Rendell, stressed the importance of registering and winning over the one-million-plus, un-registered voters spread out over the Keystone State.

It's complicated. Pennsylvania is a "purple" state that must go Democrat blue instead of Republican red for Barack Obama to win the November election. John McCain does not need Pennsylvania to win the White House, but Obama sure does.

Just before and just after California's Feb. 5 presidential primary election, polls of voters indicated that Sen. John McCain would have a fighting chance to recapture a state that Republican presidential candidates had owned for decades after World War II, only to see it taken away by Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992. McCain trailed Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton by single digits in the January and February polls. As he locked down the GOP nomination, he visited the state frequently, both for fundraising and public appearances, and vowed to mount a full-fledged campaign here. "There are 53...

When asked about the state of the U.S. economy, Hillary Clinton first takes the opportunity to imply some similarity between John McCain and Herbert Hoover. At the same time, Senator McCain delivers a speech addressing, “Senator Obama's fantasy plan for making us safer." Meanwhile, Barack Obama compares Senator Clinton to Walter Mitty, in responding to her "mistake", in recounting her visit to Bosnia, as First Lady. I understand that these tactics are common, for providing political leverage but how do they help our nation? None of the three current Presidential Candidates mentioned are perfect but, though their approaches differ, I...

An army of star spouses and entertainers - propelled by a down-to-the-wire struggle for the trove of California's delegates - turned the final weekend before Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary into a fevered showdown between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The candidates themselves were stumping for votes in other Super Tuesday states Sunday, but neither campaign slowed efforts to seize victory in the nation's most populous state. "The symbolic nature of who carries California will ring throughout the nation," said pollster Mark DiCamillo. At Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus, California first lady Maria Shriver appeared alongside media mogul Oprah...

In the 2008 Virginia Senate race, the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Democrat Mark Warner leading Republican Jim Gilmore 53% to 38%. Both men are former governors of the state of Virginia.

Like every great sales pitch, Mitt Romney's case for Mitt Romney is low on the hard sell. At the Sheraton Hotel here one recent morning, the boasting is handled by a former governor of South Carolina, who opens this "Ask Mitt Anything" session with a precis of the candidate's career. This includes academic achievements (Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School "in four years!") and election as governor of Massachusetts in 2002, which is described in a tone befitting a miracle. "He ran for governor in the bluest state of all blue states," says James Edwards, "the bluest state you...

Ohio is important state in presidential politics. Just ask Sen. John Kerry who might now be finishing up his first term in the White House had he won Ohio. So it’s worth noting that the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute has a survey which shows Democratic front runner Sen. Hillary Clinton leading former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front runner, by seven points, 47 percent to 40 percent. They were tied in an August poll done by the same organization. Her lead against former Sen. Fred Thompson was even greater at 12 points, 49 percent to 37 percent....

On an average Saturday morning, there are five blue Toyota Priuses in the parking lot of our synagogue. I know because my children count them, starting with ours. They could do this with any popular item they own, of course (not that they have too many chances in our late-adapting household). But their hybrid love made me cringe last week, when the New York Times ran a story about the success of the Prius (purchase required), and I saw myself in it. Why are Prius sales surging when other hybrids are slumping, the Times asked? Because buyers "want everyone to...

Giuliani leads GOP pack, but survey says he'd lose to Clinton or Obama. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani holds a strong lead among California Republicans likely to vote in the GOP presidential primary Feb. 5, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday.But the survey found Giuliani's chief opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, would fare better in California against the Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a potential November 2008 general election match-up.Each of the three Democratic top-tier candidates -- Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards -- held leads over either...

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times,...

For this reason, contrary to conventional wisdom, a victory by Rudy Giuliani would strengthen even the socially conservative agenda in the long run. As the new Fox Dynamics Poll shows, 65 percent of Americans would be “comfortable” with a Rudy Giuliani administration. Being comfortable is a major step in the right direction. Americans might actually listen to him when gives the State of the Union (without a teleprompter no less, as he usually speaks with note cards or does so extemporaneously). A Giuliani administration that would focus on fighting the Islamic Extremists, reducing the size and scope of government, handling...

I guess the results of this poll from Siena College shouldn't be surprising. In short, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton have big leads among registered voters in our great state. Rudy Giuliani having a 47-20 lead over John McCain is to be expected.

GENTLE PEOPLE WITH FLOWERS IN THEIR HAIR January 8, 2007 The San Francisco metropolitan area has a higher percentage of people who are regular drug users than any other major metropolitan area in the United States, a study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found. According to the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health 2002-05: Nearly 13 percent of San Francisco residents reported using some type of illicit drug, such as marijuana, cocaine or heroin, in the previous month; the national average is 8.1 percent. Other areas with drug-abuse rates higher than the national average included...

Slate’s media critic Jack Shafer reports on scholarly research about media bias by two University of Chicago economics professors, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro that analyzes Congressional floor speeches to link specific phrases to Republicans or Democrats based on frequency of use: "Prior to reading this paper I would have associated "reform" with Democraticspeak, but Republicans have so completely co-opted the word that it doesn't appear on the Dems' list in any form. ... As you might suspect, the Democrats own the word "cuts" in all its variations: "budget cuts," "Medicaid cuts," "bill cuts," "spending cuts," "cut food stamps,"...

The single most powerful factor in California's politics -- one that underlies its chronically dysfunctional government -- is the ever-widening division between Californians as a whole and those who vote. California's population is growing strongly, and with virtually all of that growth stemming from immigration and the state's economy continuing to mutate, it has become the globe's most complex society. Ironically, however, little of that complexity is reflected in the body politic, as last week's election confirmed anew. Ever-fewer Californians are voting, creating a widening gap between the characteristics and priorities of voters and those of the overall population. The...

U.S. Senate - Dianne Feinstein (D)* Governor - Arnold Schwarzenegger (R)* U.S. House of Representatives 1 Mike Thompson (D)* 6 Lynn Woolsey (D)* 7 George Miller (D)* 8 Nancy Pelosi (D)* 9 Barbara Lee (D)* 10 Ellen O. Tauscher (D) * 11 Jerry McNerney (D) 12 Tom Lantos (D)* 13 Fortney "Pete" Stark (D)* 14 Anna G. Eshoo (D)* 15 Mike Honda (D)* 16 Zoe Lofgren (D)* Statewide Offices Lieutenant Governor - John Garamendi (D) Secretary of State - Debra Bowen (D) Controller - John Chiang (D) Treasurer - Bill Lockyer (D) Attorney General - Jerry Brown (D) Insurance Commissioner...

Insults, injuries: Mass. man beaten at N.Y. stadium By Jessica Heslam Boston Herald Media Reporter Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - Updated: 04:29 AM EST While his helpless, pregnant wife watched in horror, a Woburn man says, he was viciously beaten outside the Buffalo Bills’ football stadium last week by a liquored-up mob of New York fans embittered after the Pats crushed their team. “I thought they were going to kill him,” a pregnant Diane Donaghey said yesterday of the booze-fueled ruffians who allegedly attacked her husband, Barry, 30. The couple filed a police report and have retained a lawyer. They...

. . . Party hearty:The state Republican Party is so emboldened by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's surge in the polls that it's turning its attention -- and money -- to the down-ticket races such as lieutenant governor and attorney general. The first beneficiary of the newfound GOP largesse was Tom McClintock, the conservative GOP nominee for lieutenant governor whom the new, more moderate Arnold seems to be avoiding like the plague. He got a GOP-paid TV ad slamming rival Democrat John Garamendi. Next up was attorney general candidate Chuck Poochigian, who got a radio ad labeling Democratic rival Jerry Brown...

EAST HARTFORD -- A Manchester Board of Education member is facing criminal charges, including driving under the influence and resisting officers, after his arrest outside the Venus Lounge, an East Hartford strip bar known for prostitution and drug activity, police said. John M. Rowe, a Democrat elected in November to a three-year term, refused to submit to sobriety tests and threatened recrimination to the officers during his June 2 arrest, police said. Rowe, 41, of 31 Gerard St., Manchester, was so inebriated that an officer had to hold him up to keep him from falling over during his arrest and...

POW! (How far should I go to protect my rights?) BAM! (What's my position on gay marriage?) ZING! (Look out for that embedded reporter!) In today's comic books, superheroes aren't just thinking about how to defeat the usual kryptonite-wielding villains. They're also tackling topics such as terrorism, war, and civil liberties as a heavy dose of 21st-century reality seeps into their alternate universe. In Civil War, a sprawling new Marvel series, superheroes like Spider-Man and Captain America must choose sides over whether the government should be allowed to register them. In a comic book called Ex Machina, a 9/11 hero-turned-mayor...

What a disturbing statistic: Between 2000 and 2004, about 183,000 more people left New York state than moved here from other states. If that isn't seen as a signal that something has to change in the way this state conducts its affairs, then no signal at all will be recognized. While New York was losing all those people in a mass exodus, Florida was gaining a like number. The repercussions of that kind of exchange are numerous, but the most important and crippling effect is economic. We are losing tax revenue. The loss of residents indicates a loss of jobs....

January 25, 2006 The urban angle It’s when you no longer know where your milk comes from, let alone where you got your opinions, that you have become over-urbanized. I note, with Allan Gregg, that the Conservatives did not win a single seat in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver -- our three largest cities. Let me enlarge on remarks I have made in many previous columns, applying the famous Red State/Blue State division in the U.S. to circumstances in Canada. I disagree with Mr Gregg that the inner urban constituencies should be assuaged. The future of Canada, as the U.S., is...

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga the man that runs the most successful political blog in America can't afford the Blue state of California: "So I'm getting a little frustrated with the Bay Area real estate market, and for the first time in years I'm casting about the rest of the nation to see if there's anywhere else where I could possibly live." How ironic,a guy who supports a party that promotes Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac,land-use restrictions,zoning,open space laws,and unions is unable to buy a house in the very Blue area of Northern California. All this from a guy who's got a law degree......

Massachusetts lost residents for the second year in a row, new federal Census estimates show, underscoring an accelerating population shift from the Northeast to the South and West that threatens to erode the state's political and economic clout. Only two other states, along with the District of Columbia, lost population from July 1, 2004, to July 1 of this year, according to US Census estimates released yesterday. The Bay State lost about 8,600 residents, or .1 percent of its population, according to the estimates. If the trend continues, specialists say, the state will face serious consequences: fewer seats in Congress,...

A hurricane exposes the poverty of America's inner cities, and the champions of big government make political hay out of it. Riots lay bare the underclass in Paris's suburbs, and the French are astounded that such a thing could exist in their country. Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and others seized on the New Orleans issue to blame the Bush administration for causing or exacerbating that city's poverty. This took an amazing amount of chutzpah, considering that New Orleans and Louisiana are longtime strongholds of their own political party. In fact, Democrats have long controlled almost all of America's...

...I saw "Capote" on a recent Saturday evening, and got more than I bargained for. The film is built around Gerald Clarke's 1988 biography and "In Cold Blood"--Capote's "non-fiction novel" about the brutal murders, by drifters Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, of the four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kan., in 1959... This is not a Hollywood message movie like George Clooney's Edward R. Murrow film, waving warnings about McCarthyism. One can take from "Capote" what one wishes, and what I took away was how far the distance was in 1959 from New York's Upper East Side to...

California's housing boom appears to be peaking, and the resultant slowdown is expected to produce "weak growth" in the state's economy during the next two years and a possible recession by the end of 2007. That's the view of economists at UCLA Anderson Forecast, which plans to release its widely watched quarterly outlook this morning. "There are some signs that the housing party is ending," said Christopher Thornberg, senior economist at the University of California, Los Angeles group and author of its California forecast. Thornberg points to an almost doubling of homes on the market in the past six months,...

TRENTON, Sept. 15 - The joke has long been that dead people vote in Hudson County, New Jersey's legendary enclave of machine politics. But now the joke may be on New Jersey, according to a new analysis of voter records by the state's Republican Party. Comparing information from county voter registration lists, Social Security death records and other public information, Republican officials announced on Thursday that 4,755 people who were listed as deceased appear to have voted in the 2004 general election. Another 4,397 people who were registered to vote in more than one county appeared to have voted twice,...

Dear Red States...  We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.  In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.  To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.  We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.  We get Intel,...

It is strange how the media can play tricks on you. I don't know how this happened, but all of a sudden, GOP states are being called red states. I think we should give red back to the left, it is a color that suits them. One can only wonder if the media was conscious of the connection between the left and the color red when they decided to make red the color for the GOP. This is not like it is some kind scred tradition, it is something that was made up for the 2000 presidential election and should...

CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed on Friday legislation that requires background checks on potential firearms buyers at gun shows, closing a loophole police and others contend has been exploited by gangs and other illegal buyers. Background checks are already required for people buying guns at licensed stores to ensure they don't have a criminal record that would bar them from possessing firearms. The new law, which applies to unlicensed dealers, has long been sought by gun-control advocates and police. "Today is a step in the right direction," Blagojevich said. "It's a step for sane and commonsense gun laws, gun...

In her best ''I’m-a-liberal-first-even-though-I’m-trying-to-fool-the-red-state-rednecks-that-I’m-not'' mode, Sen. Hillary Clinton tried to vanquish two of her colleagues on Monday. Although it will be very hard to come up with anything beyond the continuing ''Dean-Screams'' or Durbin’s ''I hate the military guards at Gitmo (but I’ll apologize so that I get away with it)'' songs, Hillary is still working on it. Speaking at the initial Aspen Ideas Festival (organized by the Aspen Institute--billed as a ''non-partisan'' think tank--which in Dem-speak means liberal or leftist), Sen. Clinton said of President Bush: ''I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington.'' I...

Saturday, May 28, 2005 Baldacci's 'favorability' at 29 percent By CLARKE CANFIELD, Associated Press ©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.   E-mail this story to a friend   GOVERNOR'S APPROVAL RATING One year ago: 54 percent Last fall: 61 percent This month: 43 percent A telephone survey that tracks what Mainers think of their political leaders has given Gov. John Baldacci a favorability rating of 29 percent, half that of Maine's two U.S. senators and lower than that of President Bush. Eighteen months before Baldacci seeks a second term,...

Friday, May 27, 2005 Executives give state's economy failing grade By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Portland Press Herald Writer Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend Maine business executives have a dour view of the economy, the business climate and the state's ability to tackle economic problems, a new study of senior managers in the state has found. "The results are not very encouraging," said Verne Kennedy, whose Florida-based Market Research Insight company conducted the survey of 502 business leaders for the Maine Economic Research Institute. "From the employers' perspective, they're giving the economy an...

Give Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley credit for enthusiasm. On Monday, he and three colleagues introduced a bill to repeal the hated Alternative Minimum Tax, well before President Bush's tax reform commission reports its findings in late July. For readers unaware because they're lucky enough to live in low-tax states, the AMT is the parallel tax system designed some 35 years ago by Democrats to make sure the rich can't exploit too many loopholes. But because it isn't indexed for inflation it is sweeping up more and more middle-class taxpayers, especially in New York, California and other liberal states....