Free Republic

At exactly 5 p.m. on March 13, 2007, just as I was preparing to leave my cubicle in Washington for the day, I got a phone call from the journalist Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers. To this day, I remember his exact words. 'One of your congressman’s constituents is being held in an Ethiopian intelligence service prison, and I think your former employer is neck-deep in this.' The congressman was Rush Holt, then a Democratic representative from New Jersey, for whom I worked for 10 years starting in 2004. The constituent was Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., who...

Just weeks before government scientist Bruce Ivins' suicide, a grand jury was convening on the third floor of the federal courthouse, near the U.S. Capitol, looking into the 2001 anthrax murders. Things weren't looking good for Ivins, the only suspect in the case. It was July 2008. His attorney, Paul F. Kemp, according to court documents reviewed by AOL News, had just filed court papers to become a death-penalty-certified attorney in the case -- a little-known fact. And the chief U.S. District judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, had approved the request. "I thought this was a precaution to take....

A top building trades union is launching a midterm-election assault on House Democrats who oppose construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. A letter distributed Friday by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) to the districts of 27 House Democrats calls for union members to make sure their representative "feels the power and the fury of LIUNA this November." Their crime: signing a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month urging him to reject Keystone, which would carry oil sands from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

Rep. Rush D. Holt, the New Jersey Democrat who last year lost a special-election primary to now-Sen. Cory Booker, announced Tuesday he will not seek re-election to a ninth term. Holt, a physicist-turned-congressman, is the third member of the New Jersey delegation to either resign or not seek re-election in 2014. His 12th District, which includes Trenton, is not competitive for Republicans. “There is no hidden motive for my decision,” Holt said in a statement to supporters. “As friends who have worked with me know, I have never thought that the primary purpose of my work was re-election and I...

January 15, 2014, 04:19 pm House easily passes $1T omnibus spending bill with 359-67 vote By Pete Kasperowicz and Erik Wasson Anne Wernikoff and Greg Nash The House on Wednesday easily approved a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill would fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2014 and let Congress avoid the risk of a shutdown until the end of September. Members voted 359-67 to pass the bill, which was opposed by 64 Republicans and three Democrats. The three Democrats who voted "no" were Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Rush Holt (N.J.), and Mike McIntyre (N.C.), a centrist Democrat who...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker officially launches his campaign for the U.S. Senate this morning, but before he was even out of the gate, the attacks against him had begun. Hours after Booker’s aides leaked the news yesterday that he will run in the special Senate primary in August to replace U.S. Frank Lautenberg who died this week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a blast email attacking the mayor’s celebrity status. "It remains to be seen whether Cory Booker the candidate can match Cory Booker’s celebrity persona in this kind of race, since campaigning is so much different from...

A resolution designating February 12, 2013, as Darwin Day, has been introduced into the United States House of Representatives.The proposed resolution would be a recognition of Charles Darwin as “a worthy symbol on which to celebrate the achievements of reason, science, and the advancement of human knowledge."The Darwin Day resolution was introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) on Jan. 22, 2013. Holt, one of the few members of Congress with a Ph.D. in a scientific field, is the sole sponsor of the bill. After its introduction, the resolution, H. Res. 41, was referred to the House Committee on Science, Space,...

Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.) is in for a close re-election battle, according to a Monmouth University poll released today. Holt, who has held the seat for 12 years, leads Republican challenger Scott Sipprelle 51 percent to 46 percent in the survey of 630 likely voters. This is the toughest political climate Holt has faced in a decade. Although he upset a Republican incumbent to win the seat in 1998 and fended off a tough challenge in 2000, the district was changed to include more Democrats. Since 2002, he has won re-election by comfortable margins. “This year … he...

Note: This is the Whitehouse channel on YouTube. # Video: "Celebrating Ramadan at the White House" Video Description - Quote: Free Download | whitehouse | August 13, 2010 The President hosts an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan in the State Dining Room. Category: News & Politics Tags: • Ramadan Iftar Dinner President Barack Obama Muslim Islam Download this video for offline viewing. Public Domain. Download High Quality MP4 Learn more

Democrat Representative Rush Holt from New Jersey's 12th Congressional District ripped a microphone from the hands of a woman constituent at a town hall meeting a few days ago, denying her right to speak further. The town hall in question occurred this past Monday in a Marlboro, New Jersey, middle school. When constituent Rhoda Chodosh got up to ask her question concerning healthcare and also voice opposition to the kind of socialized healthcare that Obamacare is all about, what did she get for her right to be involved in her local community? Bully Democrat Representative Rush Holt ripped the microphone...

Keith Ellison, widely hailed as America's first Muslim congressman, could more accurately be described as CAIR and Hamas' man in Congress. Congressman Ellison has been a regular presence at CAIR fundraisers and at pro-Hamas rallies in the United States. As a former member of Farrakhan's Nation of Islam , Ellison has enough anti-semitic and Islamist credentials to satisfy anyone, and had expressed openly anti-semitic beliefs in the past. Since Ellison got his start with CAIR , his attempt to provide support for Hamas is completely unsurprising. Both Hamas and CAIR are projects of the Muslim Brotherhood, which also helped...

God, I’ve got a headache. I just got back from the Townhall Meeting with Rush Holt, and as promised I’ve started drinking. A lot. I need to. And maybe you will too if these things go through. The meeting was scheduled to start at 7pm, so like a good anal-retentive type I got there at 4:30…and I was about the 20th person on line.

House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe A congressional panel will ask the National Security Agency's internal watchdog to investigate whether the super-secret spy agency eavesdropped without warrants on a Muslim scholar and later hid that evidence in a 2005 terror prosecution that got him a life sentence.The House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and the judge overseeing the case want the NSA's inspector general to find out if the government failed to disclose evidence that might have cleared the name of a Northern Virginia spiritual leader Ali al-Timimi, Rep. Rush Holt (D- New Jersey) told the New York Times.That...

(Washington, D.C.) – The following is a statement from Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) in reaction to today’s announcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that it had agreed to pay former Army biowarfare expert Dr. Steven Hatfill $5.8 million in a settlement related to the FBI’s previously naming Hatfill a “person of interest” in the investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks on the United States. The attacks originated from a postal box in Holt’s central New Jersey congressional district, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of many of his constituents: “As today’s settlement announcement confirms, this case was botched from...

Rush Holt (D-NJ), along with calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, since according to him, we are doing no good, and aside from questioning the voting of our troops says something else stupid: We should have given security assurance to Hezballah - they only had guns because of mean old nasty Israel! Here is what he said to the East Brunswick Sentinel (11/2/06 by Chris Gaetano) "We have been making no effort to get the international community and the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah, and of course the reason they are armed, they say, is they fear invasion from...

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) says that America needs to get the troops out of Iraq right now and develop more diplomatic ties, and that alternative energy sources must be found before it's too late. The former rocket scientist from Hopewell is currently campaigning to defend the seat that he won in the House of Representatives in 1998. According to Holt, the war in Iraq, and how the U.S. can carefully extricate itself from it, is the most pressing issue in the country at the moment. According to Holt, the country needs to immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq,...

NJ Congressman Rush Holt has a fine reputation as a physicist,but is apparently not too good at mailing letters. Well, maybe he's better at "ambush politics" than the average physicist !

WASHINGTON - The FBI denied Thursday that it ever overestimated the potency of the anthrax spores used in mailings that killed five people in 2001. The bureau also rejected a request for a classified briefing on the case from Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. Citing media reports, Holt said Wednesday that the FBI should have determined in days, not years, that the anthrax was less sophisticated than initially believed. Shortly after the attacks, media reports said the spores contained additives and had been subjected to sophisticated milling — both techniques used in anthrax-based weapons — to make them more lethal. Earlier...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department and the special counsel investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity pressed Congress to block legislation that would compel the administration to turn over documents related to the case, the department said in a letter released on Thursday. The Justice Department, in a letter dated September 14, said special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald had advised that producing documents and holding hearings would interfere with his investigation. The letter was sent to the House Intelligence Committee's Republican chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan. Congressional Democrats have so far failed in their attempts to pass legislation...