Free Republic

PHOENIX (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain framed the porousness of America's borders as both a national security concern and a human rights issue Sunday in the only scheduled general election debate in Arizona's U.S. Senate race. McCain noted politicians in Mexico have been targeted by the cartels that are smuggling drugs into the United States and that hundreds of illegal immigrants die in the desert every year trying to sneak into the country. "The brutality and the human rights abuses are beyond horrendous," McCain said.

REP. CONYERS TO FUNNYMAN: 'I'm asking you to leave the committee room completely, and submit your statement'... MORE... Rep. Lofgren steps in: 'Many are eager to hear his comments' ... Colbert mugs: 'I'm here at the invitation of the chairwoman, and if she would like me to remove myself from the hearing room I am happy to do so. I'm only here at her invitation'...

AMMAN, Jordan -- An animal rights activist has caused a stir in Jordan's capital by covering herself in lettuce in a quirky attempt to persuade Middle Eastern meat lovers to go vegetarian. Crowds quickly gathered to gawk at the lettuce lady, but police were not amused. Officers briefly arrested the Jordanian activist, Amina Tarek, and a colleague from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The pair stood in a square along one of Amman's trendiest streets and held a placard reading "Let vegetarianism grow on you." Tarek says she wanted Jordanians "to turn over a new leaf."

The Associated Press is reporting that the Salinas-based company Fresh Express is recalling some of its bagged lettuce because of a positive test for E. Coli. What the AP and others continue to ignore is any possible connection between the use of treated sewage sludge and municipal waste water on farms in the Salinas Valley. Certainly consumers would want to know if the food they are buying is being poisoned by cities looking for a cheap way to dispose of their sewage sludge.

"The last thing we want in this country is an individual like J.D. Hayworth in the Congress who is full of racism, will talk forever, and use every means to push his hate. So, in that sense, Senator McCain should beat him and beat him handily. Then, I think, turning back that type of person with the issue is being run against McCain — even with McCain on that side of the spectrum, will be a good sign for the future."

Romaine lettuce sold in 23 states and the District of Columbia may be contaminated with dangerous E. coli O145 bacteria and has been recalled. So far, 19 cases of E. coli O145 illness have been reported in Michigan, Ohio, and New York. Twelve people have been hospitalized, including three with life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) caused by the bacterium. Several lines of evidence -- including detection of bacteria in an unopened package of Freshway Foods shredded Romaine lettuce -- point to Freshway Foods wholesale Romaine lettuce products. Freshway Foods has recalled all products containing Romaine lettuce with a use-by date...

Coleman said he issued the order as a protest, following several other cities and organizations that are boycotting Arizona. "This law sets a dangerous example for the rest of the country," Coleman said in a press release. "It will create a culture where racial profiling is acceptable, and will create a dangerous wedge between police officers and the communities they serve."

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past....

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — U.S. Sen. John McCain says the race for the Republican nomination for the seat he currently holds should be about fixing the economy, not about political ideology.At a campaign rally in Tucson on Saturday, McCain enlisted one of the GOP's rising stars — Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. McCain is facing the toughest re-election campaign of his Senate career.

Please help. I plan to keep this thread alive until McCain loses the primary. Let's NAIL THAT RINO! Please help scout for headlines to bring here. I will ping people here once a week with choice headlines and links. [Since it's the OPPOSITE of high volume, several have already signed on.] If you would like to be on this once-a-week ping list, please let me know. Any helpful links will be appreciated. "The most recent online scores from the American Conservative Union are from 2008. In that year, John McCain scored 63 and had a lifetime average of 81.43. ......

(snip) On immigration: McCain stressed the importance of securing the border and establishing a legal temporary-worker program. Foreign workers could take jobs that Americans wouldn't want - such as agricultural jobs in Yuma that go begging - with the burden on employers to quit employing each person at the end of some specified time. Kyl faulted the administration for short-changing border enforcement. (snip)

When we conceived the RINO FREE AMERICA PROJECT ON FREE REPUBLIC, we envisioned Conservative activism that would send RINOs packing and replacing them with true Conservatives worthy of our support. NOW we need your help to defeat the biggest RINO of all. Many of us here on Free Republic have been cheering JD Hayworth on because John McCain is possibly the worst, (and most powerful,) RINO serving in the Senate today and he simply MUST be defeated lest he betray us again as he has so many times throughout his less than stellar tenure. While "the force" might be...

Presidential nominee in 2008 faces GOP primary fight. BY JOSEPH WEBER Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said in an interview Monday that his planned primary challenge to Sen. John McCain will portray the four-term incumbent as a not-so-conservative Republican who has "enabled" President Obama and his failed economic and security policies. "I'm giving Arizona Republicans a clear choice between a consistent, common-sense conservative . . . or someone who describes himself as a maverick but is a moderate," the outspoken Mr. Hayworth told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show. Mr. Hayworth, 51, quit his job Friday as...

(snip) Back inside, questions about border security and immigration, particularly a guest worker program like the old bracero program the U.S. had. A man asked the senator, "Why don't we have a bracero program?" "We need to have a temporary worker program particularly, even in these tough economic times, particularly in the agricultural sector," McCain answered.(snip)

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.

One of the enduring lies about illegal aliens is that they do the jobs Americans won’t do. This lie is designed to fool people into believing illegals are just harmless gardeners or drywall hangers who only want to work and fill a need in the labor market that would otherwise go wanting. Here’s some truth A recent USA Today article outlined the realities of our sorry employment situation and why efforts to find and deport illegal aliens are a very valuable job protecting step that has to be repeated again and again. It cites a Vanderbilt University study on Immigration...

Workers at McCain's vegetable factory in north west Tasmania are asking the company to be more respectful in its negotiations about their redundancies. Workers say they have received little detail nearly 10 days after McCain announced it would close the Smithton plant. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union is writing to the company to seek more information about exactly how many workers will lose their jobs when the factory closes next year.

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>