Free Republic

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) compares smoking tobacco with smoking lettuce.

Many Arizona conservatives would like nothing more than to see Sen. John McCain knocked off in a Republican primary. But few of them think Chris Simcox, the controversial founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps who recently announced he would challenge McCain, is a serious threat to do it. Despite Simcox’s high-profile leadership on illegal immigration on the state’s southern border — a potent issue in the state’s Republican primary — party insiders say the 48-year-old former grade school teacher carries a heavy load of personal baggage and faces ample skepticism from rank-and-file Republican voters. “I’m very unhappy with Sen....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama honored his vanquished Republican rival John McCain on Monday, describing the Arizona senator as an "American hero" while the Democrat prepared to assume the office that both men fought bitterly to attain. Obama and McCain clashed repeatedly on the campaign trail over foreign and domestic policy in sometimes heated exchanges that occasionally veered into the personal. But Obama made clear that period had passed even as he predicted the two would not always get along in the future. "John is not known to bite his tongue and if I'm screwing up, he's going to...

BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK WASHINGTON — Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn? It was just one...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, have you thought back to the 2008 election? Have you asked yourself who was responsible for that loss? Have you asked yourself who really should shoulder the blame and the burden for the defeat of Senator McCain? A lot of people have been speculating this, a lot of postmortems on the election. Let's go to the BBC. BBC World Service, host Stephen Sackur spoke with former McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and asked Rick Davis on whose shoulders rests the burden of the McCain defeat. DAVIS: We didn't successfully reach out to them. I mean, but...

Less than two weeks from the inauguration that he hoped would usher in his own presidential administration, Senator John McCain announced the formation of a new political action committee that will work to promote Republican causes. Borrowing a slogan from his campaign, Mr. McCain is calling the committee, “Country First,” and it is likely to help lay the foundation for his 2010 re-election bid. In an e-mail message to supporters on Wednesday, Mr. McCain described it as a “grassroots organization” that would take up the challenge of defining “our Republican ideals and message” and support G.O.P. candidates. “With your help...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Arizona Sen. John McCain, back in his home state, says he looks forward to working with President-elect Obama on the country's economic ills. McCain, talking Tuesday to the Tucson Citizen's editorial board, said the incoming president will be setting the nation's legislative agenda, and he's not sure where immigration reform falls among Obama's top priorities. But McCain said it's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Having blown his presidential bid, John “Lettuce” McCain is back in his former job: toady to Democrats. True to his old pandering form, he went on This Week recently to denounce fellow Republicans for criticizing the way the Moonbat Messiah has mishandled the Governor Blago revelations.

After Barack Obama mentioned arugula in a speech, he was incessantly mocked as an elitist. Years ago, another Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, was accused as being out of touch with the average person when he admitted liking Belgian endive. Frankly, I always wondered why Americans overwhelmingly prefer to see their politicians gobble up greasy fast-food hamburgers and hot dogs served with deep fried potatoes. From a nutrition aspect, these attitudes display a lack of awareness of the value of greens. The result is reflected in problems plaguing the diet in America and much of the Western world. Basically, vegetables...

NOTE: why can't prisoners pick our lettuce? Let them earn money. They can use that money to pay for their prison cell and food. They can save some of it for when they get out. Some might worry that they could escape. Okay, put on an ankle bracelet with GPS tracking capability, and have it sound an alarm when it gets a certain distance away from the guards watching them. This could be a win-win. Illegals sent home so that they are not continuing to destroy our schools and infrastructure would be great. Add to it that prisoners would...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It’s not every day a presidential hopeful sends Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff a head of lettuce, but that’s what Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, is doing Wednesday to show his disagreement with Chertoff’s recent comments on how failure of passing immigration reform might affect the agricultural industry. Tancredo says he disagrees with recent comments Chertoff made that suggested if the immigration bill fails, the agricultural industry will suffer. To prove his point he is sending Chertoff a head of lettuce, a fruit basket, and a card saying, “much, much more where this comes from.” “The administration has...

U.S. Senator John McCain is offering $50.00 an hour to anyone willing to stay in Yuma for 1 year and pick lettuce. Here are his numbers. They will ask you for your name address and phone number. 241 Russell Senate Ofc. Bldg. United States Senate , Washington DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2235 Fax: (202) 228-2862 Phoenix 5353 North 16th Street Suite 105 Phoenix, Arizona 85016 Phone: (602) 952-2410 Fax: (602) 952-8702 Tempe 4703 S. Lakeshore Drive Suite 1 Tempe, Arizona 85282 Phone: (480) 897-6289 Fax: (480) 897-8389 Tucson 407 W. Congress Street Suite 103 Tucson, Arizona 85701 Phone: (520) 670-6334...

Thank you George Bush. America will now finally be your America. The America that you have declared. It is what built America. Yes, Bush, you are right - AMERICA: A Nation Built on Lettuce. I am so happy to have all this lettuce. Boxes and boxes of it. So much cheap lettuce, and there are so many things I can do with this lettuce. I can make a hat out of it. For you. A sombrero. Thank you George Bush. You know, lettuce is sort of a bush, too. A powerless serf class from Mexico, this is what will make...

As he steered his Straight Talk Express across the United States in recent weeks, Republican Sen. John McCain has tried to stay a-head of the immigration issue. But Friday the immigration issue delivered 36 or so heads to his Phoenix office — heads of lettuce, that is. McCain has been getting skewered in the media for comments earlier this month to a union group in Washington, D.C., that immigrants are taking jobs no one else wants, and offered them $50 an hour to pick lettuce in the Arizona sun for a summer, suggesting they couldn't do it. The senator didn't...

The American left loves to chant "no blood for oil." But those same liberals would eagerly sacrifice American interests in the name of . . . a cheaper Caesar salad. Take this morning's report on CNN which came at about 7:35 am EDT. Entitled "Farm-Fresh Problems," the segment, narrated by CNN's Chris Lawrence, focused on the lack of illegal immigrant labor to harvest California's fruit and vegetable crops. CNN REPORTER CHRIS LAWRENCE: California harvests about half the nation's fruits and vegetables and every summer, farmers need half-a-million workers to pick those crops. But the crackdown on illegal immigrants is keeping...

WHAT IS THE NEW BUSH PLAN? Our sources say that was the new Bush plan that Sen. Isakson (R-GA) was outlining on Fox & Friends on Friday. Without identifying it with the White House, Isakson said this is what is needed: Lots of enforcement that may have to go into effect before any amnesty is offered. (But one Senator told us that he has been given no details to suggest that the amnesty would actually have to wait for enforcement to be implemented.) The 12 million illegal aliens would get at least a temporary amnesty to allow them to remain...

A decorated Arizona veteran back from Iraq is fighting for his life. His injuries are not from war, but allegedly at the hands of a neighbor. Army Spc. Jason Okon was stabbed in his front yard Feb. 2. In a news conference Tuesday, Elizabeth Okon said she saw her husband get stabbed. She said the suspect, Armando Martinez, lives down the street from them. Okon said Martinez was standing by the couple's front yard and she asked her husband to see what the man wanted. "The man lifted up a knife and proceeded through a metal gate that’s in my...

Lettuce has been identified as the most likely source of an E. coli outbreak linked to Taco Bell.

Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning on fresh spinach grown in California's Salinas Valley, a popular brand of lettuce grown there has been recalled over concerns about E. coli contamination.

Lettuce from California's Salinas Valley recalled over E. coli concerns By RACHEL KONRAD (Associated Press Writer) October 08, 2006 4:41 PM EDT SAN FRANCISCO - Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning on fresh spinach grown in California's Salinas Valley, a popular brand of lettuce grown there has been recalled over concerns about E. coli contamination. The lettuce does not appear to have caused any illnesses, Salinas-based Nunes Co. Inc. said in a statement. The company initiated a voluntary recall Sunday of green leaf lettuce purchased last week under the Foxy brand name. Foxy...

Put me out of business, please. Opinion-Editorial By William Marler March 1, 2006 On March 1, 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued additional Guidelines “for the Safe Production of Fresh-Cut Fruits and Vegetables.” This seems to have been prompted by the August 2005 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections of some thirty people, including children, who ate DOLE bagged, pre-washed lettuce. At least 245,000 bags of lettuce were recalled across the country. In that outbreak alone, eight were hospitalized, and one child developed acute kidney failure, all from eating bagged, "pre-washed" lettuce. However, this is not the first...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. John McCain threatened on Tuesday to cut short a speech to union leaders who booed his immigration views and later challenged his statements on organized labor and the Iraq war. "If you like, I will leave," McCain told the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department, pivoting briefly from the lectern. He returned to the microphone after the crowd quieted. "OK, then please give me the courtesy I would give you." It was a contentious session that tested McCain's commitment to the straight-talking image he honed during his failed 2000 presidential bid. An underdog six years ago,...

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona. Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain's job offer. "I'll take it!" one man shouted. McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. "You can't do it, my friends." Some in the crowd said they didn't appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

Health officials on Thursday identified lettuce as the likely source for a hepatitis A outbreak in Los Angeles County and urged residents to thoroughly wash the vegetable before eating it. At least 60 people have fallen ill from the virus in Los Angeles County over the last three months. Officials are concerned because the outbreak comes after years of declining hepatitis A cases, but they have been unable to link the outbreak to a particular farm or type of lettuce. There were at least two outbreaks: one in a downtown Los Angeles restaurant in September that affected 13; the other...

First of all, thanks to the five people who have each pledged $100 a piece in addition to my $10,000 offering. Therefore, anyone who can reasonably recreate the CBS memos on equipment available in early 1972 will be receiving at least $10,500.

WASHINGTON (AP) - John Kerry has concluded that federal law bars him from tapping any of his wife's vast Heinz investment fortune for his presidential campaign, removing an arsenal of cash that some Democrats hoped he could use to counter President Bush's fund-raising prowess. Teresa Heinz Kerry's holdings have been estimated at $550 million or more, putting her among the 400 richest Americans on Forbes magazine's list last year. Federal campaign law stipulates that assets solely under the control of Heinz Kerry, including those reported on Kerry's recent Senate disclosure form, can't be used for the Massachusetts Democrat's presidential campaign,...

<p>U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on Monday called on the federal government to investigate perchlorate contamination in produce following the release of a study that found elevated levels of the toxic rocket fuel component in some winter lettuce grown in the United States.</p>