Free Republic

MADISON — The two titans of Wisconsin's highly watched GOP Senate race are each claiming victory in the campaign money chase. And each has a case to make, depending on how you crunch the numbers. Meanwhile, an also-ran is bowing out of the race, leaving three to contend for the GOP nomination to replace long-serving U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Democrat, who is retiring. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson on Monday announced his campaign had raised north of $656,000 in the last three months of 2011. The candidate has about $540,000 in cash on hand, according to a campaign news release....

Sometimes it's hard to figure out who the real Tommy Thompson is. There's the Thompson who chided state employee unions this month for complaining about Gov. Scott Walker's proposals to increase the amount workers pay for pensions and health care. "He says to the unions and the bosses, 'We're going to ask you to help.' Oh, isn't that tough? Awwww," Thompson said sarcastically at the Walker rally on Jan. 21. "We're going to say we would like you to pay 5% of your retirement. Now you tell me what's wrong with that. And you tell me, is that a crime?"...

Harrisburg residents sounded off on Mayor Linda Thompson Thursday night for asking them to pay their real estate taxes and mortgages on time when she doesn’t do the same herself. About 150 people packed the Midtown Scholar Bookstore for the debt crisis forum organized by the community group Harrisburg Hope. “What’s the deal mayor? You’re defaulting on your loan when you say we shouldn’t default on our loans,” asked Michael L. Clouser, a resident of the city’s uptown section. “And you’re delinquent on your taxes. What’s going on?”

Study Says Gingrich Amnesty Bigger Than '86 Blanket Amnesty -- Gingrich Seems to Reject 'Attrition Through Enforcement'

......Days after I got into the presidential race in 2007, I was greeted with a website, “PhoneyFred.org,” described in the media at the time as an “anti Fred Thompson smear site.” You couldn’t really tell who was behind it, but we learned of it from the Democratic National Committee, which made ample use of it. We assumed that they had created it. However, a reporter at the Washington Post (of all people) decided to find out who was behind the site. After a lot of effort, she traced it to an executive of TTS Strategies, a South Carolina consulting firm...

(Reuters) - Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Monday he planned to join the increasingly crowded race for the Wisconsin senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Herb Kohl.

One week after the last of the nine recall elections in Wisconsin were held and Republicans clung to their majority in the state senate, there are strong signs Republican strength in the Badger State is on the rise. Not only has the long-planned Democratic attempt to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker run out of steam, but the odds have risen dramatically on a Republican pickup of the seat of retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl in 2012. After more than $40 million spent by both sides in the nationally watched recall contests long considered the “dress rehearsal” for a January...

Popular-vote pact picks up steam A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan. *snip* Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s...

US government refuses to pay damages for Ferrari F50 destroyed during an FBI joy ride. The US Department of Justice is deploying all of its legal muscle to avoid paying the price after an FBI agent destroyed an exotic car during a joy ride. After nearly two years of trying to recover the money owed by the government, Motors Insurance Company filed a lawsuit against the government seeking the full $750,000 value of the wrecked 1995 Ferrari F50. The vehicle originally had been stolen in 2003 from a Ferrari dealer in Pennsylvania. Motors paid the $630,000 insurance claim, giving the...

Democrat Russ Feingold leads Republican Tommy Thompson in a hypothetical U.S. Senate matchup in a new Wisconsin survey by Public Policy Polling. You can find the firm’s analysis here, with matchups of other potential candidates on both sides. Feingold and Thompson are easily the best-known of all the political figures in the survey. Wisconsin will have an open Senate seat next year, due to Democrat Herb Kohl’s planned retirement. In the statewide poll of 1,636 voters taken May 19-22, Feingold leads former Gov. Thompson 52% to 42%. Feingold leads other Republicans (Mark Neumann, J.B. Van Hollen and Jeff Fitzgerald) by...

Complete title: Democrat Congressman: Drug Cartel Violence in U.S. Has Decreased; Only 29 People Murdered in San Diego in 2010 (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that while violence caused by Mexican drug cartels has increased in Mexico, it has decreased on the United States side of the border, “despite dire predictions.” “In recent years, violence in Mexico has reached an all-time high; however, despite dire predictions, statistics and concrete evidence show that the violence has not spilled over into the United States,” Thompson said at a House hearing on the...

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, thinks the panel’s hearings into terrorism are a fine idea but that the focus ought to be broadened to include “neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, anti-tax groups and others” because they represent as significant a threat as Islamic radicals — maybe even a bigger one. Thompson formally made the request in a letter to Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., on Feb. 1. In the letter he argues:

MADISON COUNTY, Ind. (WISH) - 72-year-old Dick Thompson isn't sure if he wants to fight or give up. "I want to get the hell out of here right now — too much hate," Thompson says one minute. "I think it's a bunch of bull," he says another, vowing to stay. Thompson faces eviction from his 38 acres in Madison County. The county lawyer tells 24-Hour News 8 it's because Thompson is breaking too many rules, laws and ordinances; Thompson has no water, no sewer and no electricity in his recreational trailer that he calls home. "I'm a country boy," explains...

Bloomberg reports that Springfield, MA-based gunmaker Smith & Wesson lost $37.2 million in the second financial quarter. The company racked-up $96.3 million in total net sales in Q2, down $13.4 million or 12.2% from Q2 2010. Drilling down to the trigger-related bits, Smith’s Firearm Division clocked in with net sales of $83.6 million, down $9.8 million or 10.5%, from last year’s Q2 net sales of $93.4 million. As you’d expect, CEO Michael F. Golden downplayed the news . . . “As overall purchasing of firearms moderated during the quarter compared with the record levels a year ago, total sales came...

This sleazy ad has been on cable news all day. Former presidential candidate and country bear Fred Thompson wants old people to get "Absolutely FREE," government-backed reverse mortgages. What do we know about this shady company Thompson is endorsing? ...Oh right, and they're government-backed! That's how investors get paid. (Fred Thompson, a true Fiscal Conservative, makes a big point of this "full government backup" in his terrible ad.) Reverse mortgages are available to homeowners who are 62 years old or older and own their homes outright or have a substantial amount of home equity, according to the HUD site. The...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.justice.gov/usao/mow/news2010/harrison.ind.htm JULY 9, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BLACK MARKET TRAVEL AGENTS 38 DEFENDANTS INDICTED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD LOCAL INVESTIGATION EXPOSES NATIONWIDE NETWORK THAT USED STOLEN IDENTITIES, CREDIT CARDS TO PURCHASE AIRLINE TICKETS KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that 38 defendants from across the United States have been charged in a series of indictments that allege an extensive network of black market travel agents who used the stolen identities of thousands of victims as part of a multi-million dollar fraud scheme...

BROOKLINE (WBZ) Olympic gold medalist Jenny Thompson was attacked in Brookline on Monday. Thompson, who won 12 medals in swimming in four Olympics, was riding her Vespa scooter just before 10 p.m. when she was approached by a car. According to a police report, "two dark-skinned black males, approximately 5'7"" got out of the car and approached Thompson. "I didn't register what was going on and I said 'Your lights are out.' And the guy was like , 'What about your lights?' and proceeded to punch me in the face… then pushed me down and tried to take my scooter,"...

Businessman Ron Johnson, endorsed at last weekend’s state Republican Convention, is now running virtually even against incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin’s race for the U.S. Senate. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Wisconsin shows Feingold with 46% support to Johnson’s 44%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) remain undecided. As he has in surveys since the beginning of the year, Feingold continues to fall just short of 50% regardless of which Republican he’s matched against. Incumbents who earn less than 50% of the vote at this stage of a campaign...

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) will not challenge Sen. Russ Feingold (D) for re-election this year, reports a Wisconsin media outlet. The Web site of Milwaukee radio station WTMJ said Wednesday morning that an unnamed source "who is close with Thompson's family" said "he believes Thompson's decision is not to run." Though Thompson is pushing back against the report, telling the Associated Press: "The only person who knows what I'm going to do is myself and I don't know what I'm going to do," a GOP source tells CQ Politics that Thompson will not run. Thompson, who served as governor...

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is said to be edging closer toward a race against Sen. Russ Feingold, leads the Democratic incumbent in a match-up by 45 percent to 33 percent with 14 percent preferring an independent or third party candidate and 7 percent undecided, according to a St. Norbert College Survey Center poll conducted March 23-31. The conservative Weekly Standard reported in late March that Thompson "has spent the past several weeks taking the steps any candidate must take in order to run for office -- he's evaluating staff, he's talking to fundraisers, and he's separating himself from...

It’s been a long and complicated process, but Americans are finally going to see some results from the protracted battle over health care reform. On March 21, the House passed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. With all of the partisan sniping and fear mongering, many have lost sight of the main goal of health care reform: to improve ordinary Americans’ access to quality, affordable health care. And this legislation is an historic, important step forward for our country that will have an immediate impact for all Americans. When the president signed this bill into law on...

By Bruce Walker If Republicans could, surely they would nominate Ronald Reagan for president in 2012. As it appears increasingly likely that Republicans -- conservative Republicans -- will control Congress after the 2012 elections, the only missing element in the political equation is a strong, conservative president like Ronald Reagan. In the mix of possible candidates for 2012, there are some potentially promising people. Sarah Palin, rightly beloved by nearly all conservatives for her honesty, her advocacy, and her spunk, will figure into any list of candidates. Mitt Romney, who decently withdrew from the race before he lost in 2008,...

Today was Jeri's last day on the radio show; apparently 22 hours a day with me is enough. Go figure. #tcot #ftrs 02:30 PM Mar 1

YouTube - hughesforsenate's Channel

Here’s a perfect example of how, inside the conservative base, the Scott Brown campaign for Senate in Massachusetts has become a lower-key, more gun-shy version of the push for Doug Hoffman’s unlikely bid in NY-23. Way back on September 28, 2009, a month and a week before the election, former senator and radio host Fred Thompson became the first GOP celebrity to endorse Hoffman. He went all in with an open letter, a TV ad, and campaign appearances. Today, Thompson tweeted a message of support for Brown: “Scott Brown can win and be the vote to keep the dems and...

Memphis Daily News...Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate, has penned his memoir and given it a title that reflects his early days in small-town Tennessee. The 67-year-old former politician, actor and avuncular radio host who graduated from the University of Memphis titled his book “Notes from a Country Lawyer.” It’s scheduled for release in May. Amazon.com already is selling pre-orders of the book, the cover of which shows a smiling Thompson wearing a suit and seated on a brick front porch. The title is a label no doubt intended to hearken back to the days...

Chairman received donations from firms appearing at hearingAt a hearing in late March, the nation's credit card companies faced the threat of expensive new rules from an unlikely regulator: the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). The committee had never before dealt with credit card issues, but Thompson warned Visa, MasterCard and others that Congress might need to impose tighter security standards costing millions of dollars to protect customers from identity theft. Behind the scenes, some of Thompson's staff members sensed a different motive -- an attempt to pressure the companies into making political donations to...

So Senator Baucus is nominating his girlfriend for U.S. Attorney jobs, while she was on his staff: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30228.html While Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson is holding hearings to get money from the credit card industry (according to his own former staffer): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402256.html?hpid=topnews

Well he wouldn't be wasting our time in Scandinavia, Check out all the others parrots saying it's "real".

ALBANY — City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., weighing his options in the wake of a surprisingly close loss in the mayoral race, is seriously considering challenging Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in next year’s primary elections, according to people who have spoken to Mr. Thompson and his advisers. Challenging Senator Gillibrand is one of three options being mulled by Mr. Thompson and his advisers. He is also considering a run against the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, in the primaries, or returning to the private sector for now and running again for mayor in 2013. With the primary 10 months...

In recent months, at least three major newspapers have carried columns attempting to push Chief Justice John Roberts into voting to uphold a grossly unconstitutional federal law. But their cheap distortions and Chicken Little yammering will fail. The chief justice will do his job, and the country will be better off for it. On Sept. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court reheard arguments in the landmark campaign finance and free speech case, Citizens United v. FEC. At issue in this case is whether the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) could ban documentaries about candidates when Election Day is approaching. This...

Principle over party.

Don't worry Newt, you can probably have coffee with John Kerry or somebody when this is over. While Gingrich and a few other people on the Right keep trying to make the "A left-wing Republican is better than no Republican at all argument", Fred Thompson lent even more conservative street cred to Doug Hoffman's campaign by making an ad. Thompson gently knocked back Newt's condescension towards the party's real conservatives and further undermined Gingrich's claim that we're the ones who are out of touch. (video)

Fred to Newt: We're not 'deaf, dumb' By: Andy Barr October 27, 2009 07:20 PM EST Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson brushed back former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday over Gingrich’s warning that the Republican Party is wrong to thrown in its lot with the Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava, the GOP’s candidate, in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district. Gingrich has called the many prominent national Republicans – including Thompson – who have endorsed Hoffman over Scozzafava in recent days “misguided,” arguing they are making a “mistake” to back a third-party candidate...

It’s been a while since I’ve read an article so bent on convincing readers that sex trafficking is mere figment of the imagination of a bunch of over zealous feminist and religious crusaders, but in the article below we have a prime example of just such a “journalistic” endeavor. Given that Mr. Davies, the intrepid pursuer of journalist truth and excellence who wrote this aspersion, has gone to great length to cast us as Chicken Littles who cry, “The sky is falling!”

She talks to Cavuto.

It was the most lukewarm and indirect of endorsements, delivered in the conditional tense, and coming from a presidential spokesman, no less. But for William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic nominee for mayor, the surprising comments Friday made by Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s press secretary, that Mr. Obama would support “the Democratic nominee” was tantamount to a life preserver in his uphill battle to unseat Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. --snip-- The comments prompted Mr. Thompson, the city comptroller, to quickly issue a statement titled “Yes We Can in New York City: President Barack Obama Supports Bill Thompson for Mayor.” And...

UCLA Science Lab Students Watched In Horror As Male Classmate Slashed Female Student's Throat Spencer Weiner, Anthony Pesce, Andrew Blankstein and Larry Gordon Los Angeles Times Staff Writers October 8, 2009 Students in the UCLA science lab described the horrifying moments this afternoon when a male classmate slashed the throat of a female student, who was critically injured. One student who was inside the lab when the attack occurred shortly after noon told The Times that he looked up as the assailant appeared to repeatedly punch the victim. Then the man calmly turned and walked away as the victim lay...

For years, many of us in the blogosphere have argued that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, violates the fundamental Constitutional exercise of free speech, especially in politics, which the founders expressly intended to protect. The Supreme Court failed in its duty to protect the First Amendment when it had the chance, as did George W. Bush when he signed the legislation into law. Finally, a federal appellate court has recognized the insult to the Constitution that the BCRA represents: A federal appeals court overturned hard-fought campaign finance reform regulations in a ruling on Friday that will...

Six Democratic members of Congress enjoyed a Caribbean junket sponsored by Citigroup after Congress had approved the $700 billion bailout of financial services firms in October. The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for a formal review of the Citigroup’s sponsorship of the trip by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and five others. The NLPC says the trip violated House rules. The purported purpose of the Nov. 6-9 junket was to attend the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference on the island of...

So here we were in 2007 worrying about who would take the Reagan "mantle of conservatism" forward. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and others were already in the race to become the next GOP nominee for president. And you know what? Conservatives were freaking out! Was this really the crop we had to choose from? None of these guys, with the exception of maybe Duncan Hunter or to an extent Ron Paul, really understood what conservatism was. Then a grassroots draft campaign was initiated to bring someone into the race that really understood...

An illegal immigrant from Ghana was driving a tractor-trailer that rear-ended a car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Westmoreland County on Thursday, killing a Honduran diplomat. Trade specialist Nuria Ortiz Navarro, 31, a passenger in the back seat of a 1996 Volkswagen Jetta driven by her brother-in-law, was pronounced dead at the scene by Deputy Coroner F. Christopher O'Leath, according to state police in New Stanton... The truck driver, Sam P. Thompson, 32, of Gaithersburg, Md., an employee of Transcare Systems Inc., of Bowie, Md., was arraigned on multiple criminal charges, including homicide by vehicle, following vehicles too closely, driving...

The New Culture of CorruptionDemocrats step up their corruption game By ROBERT A. GEORGE Updated 7:45 PM EDT, Fri, Jun 26, 2009 New joke going around Washington: "Republicans hike the Appalachian Trail; Democrats hike your taxes. Either way, someone's getting screwed." As, the old saying goes -- some of the truest things are said in jest. Washington Republicans -- more in the minority than they have been in decades -- are somewhat haplessly hoping that the Democrats mess up their own policies, rather than figure out how to stop them themselves. So, in the meantime, they keep themselves busy by...

NEW HAVEN — SNIPPET: "Thompson was charged over the weekend with the June 6 carjacking at Church and Chapel streets and is under investigation for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail over the fence at the Yale power plant at 18 Tower Parkway June 7. He told Detective Wayne Bullock that Allah instructed him how to “melt down” the plant, according to documents filed in court Monday. It didn’t cause any damage." SNIPPET: "Police recovered the stolen Nissan Sentra. After Thompson’s confession, bomb technicians spent hours in a wooded grove near the Kimberly Avenue bridge after he claimed he had buried...

Fred Thompson's trophy wife speaks out.

Coming up NOW at 4:15 eastern on Cavuto: Jeri Thompson talks about Sarah Palin. Check it out on www.blinkotv.com

He talks with Neil Cavuto.

Life on Mars: Former presidential candidate Fred Thompson appears in this 1973-set crime drama as Police Chief Harry Woolf. http://www.star-telegram.com

Click here for the video from the cruise. (NRO's post election cruise)