Free Republic

Following in the well-worn footsteps of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns, this week the Council on Foreign Relations released a memo urging the Obama administration to disregard the will of the American people and Congress and unilaterally enact a series of gun controls. Entitled, A Strategy to Reduce Gun Trafficking and Violence in the Americas, and written by CFR Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Julia F. Sweig, the memo pins the ills of Central and South America on U.S. gun owners and urges the president to curb our rights to...

Charlotte’s revulsion over Huma Abedin’s calculated “stand by your man” routine is surely right. Still, it is amazing, as we speculate about Ms. Abedin’s political future, that the elephant in the room goes unnoticed, or at least studiously unmentioned. Sorry to interrupt the Best Enabler of a Sociopath Award ceremony but, to recap, Ms. Abedin worked for many years at a journal that promotes Islamic-supremacist ideology that was founded by a top al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef ran the Rabita Trust, a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under American law. Ms. Abedin and Naseef overlapped at the Journal of...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said it would be "foolish" to write of Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-Fla.) presidential chances, despite the hit absorbed by the Florida lawmaker from conservatives upset with his championing of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Rubio and McCain served as two of the primary GOP negotiators in the Senate's "Gang of Eight," which crafted the upper chamber's bipartisan reform bill. “I think it’s just foolish,” McCain told The Arizona Republic in an interview Friday. “I’m not endorsing anyone, but I can tell you Marco Rubio is an articulate spokesperson for what conservatives believe in, in principle. And...

Arizona Sen. John McCain says his home state should review its "stand-your-ground" law in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. The Republican senator said he trusted the jury's judgment in the case, but added Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that the law "may be something that needs to be reviewed." Does he think that applies to Arizona? "Yes, I do and I’m confident that members of the Arizona legislature will," McCain said. He said he did not share Sen. Ted Cruz's view that President Obama's remarks on "stand-your-ground" laws...

Dear fri­ends, thank you for invi­ting me to Los Ange­les. I always like coming to the Uni­ted Sta­tes. There are many things that I admire Ame­ri­cans for. One of them is that they are unas­ha­medly patrio­tic. The Ame­ri­can Free­dom Associa­tion has asked me to speak to you about the future of Europe. Europe is in a ter­rible state. Bit by bit, Euro­pean countries are los­ing their natio­nal sover­eignty. The eco­nomy is in sham­b­les. Isla­mic immi­grants riot and ter­ro­rize the many locals. And when people’s throats are slit in the stre­ets, while the mur­de­rers shout “Allahu Akbar,” the aut­hori­ties appease the...

Later this month, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is slated to visit New York to stump for an immigration bill as part of the bipartisan Becoming America tour. Among Cantor’s stops: Ellis Island, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the African Burial Ground National Monument. Canter, among other Congressmen, is scheduled to speak at a naturalization and dine with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The African Burial Ground National Monument was discovered in 1991 while building a federal office building; as the website describes it, “From about the 1690s until 1794, both free and enslaved Africans were buried...

Boehner: 'Vast majority' of House GOP wants to act on immigration; Pelosi points to support from 'Bible folks' After months of being told to hurry up on immigration, it's time to wait. House Republicans said they plan to act, but not in haste, after huddling in a closed-door meeting to discuss how to proceed on an immigration bill. While the chamber intends to proceed on immigration, Speaker John Boehner reiterated on Thursday that the House would not take up the Senate immigration bill that passed last month with bipartisan support. Several House Republicans offered their perspectives on the issue during...

Would I vote for Rubio? I can’t imagine ever doing so in a Republican presidential primary or a Senate primary where there is a credible alternative. (The general election is an entirely different matter). My opposition isn’t based solely on Rubio’s immigration stance, although this is by far the most consequential issue he has handled during his three years in Washington, so that it’s reasonable for those of us who strongly oppose his amnesty legislation to vote against him on this basis alone. The other big problem is trust. Just three years ago, Rubio ran for the Senate as an...

Let's do a little thought exercise here. Imagine that some force was flooding an indigenous people's lands with millions of unassimilable foreigners, and it was understood that this influx would irretrievably change that land's culture and replace the population. What would anthropologists call this phenomenon? Cultural genocide comes to mind. Of course, in America we call it "immigration policy." Now, when King Edward I "Longshanks" said about dominating the Scots in the film Braveheart, "If we can't get them out, we'll breed them out," it was to be expected from an enemy of Scotland. And how should we characterize America's...

One day after the Senate passed its immigration reform bill, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin warned the House on Friday to not betray working class Americans by passing a bill that will lower wages and raise unemployment without securing the borders. "Now we turn to watch the House. If they bless this new 'bi-partisan' hyper-partisan devastating plan for amnesty, we’ll know that both private political parties have finally turned their backs on us," Palin wrote in a Facebook post that also urged Americans to read the Breitbart News piece that detailed the importance of the working class vote. "It will...

Schumer predicts mass demonstrations if House blocks path to citizenship By Alexander Bolton - 06/23/13 10:00 AM ET A senior Democratic senator predicted Sunday there could be massive demonstrations in Washington if House Republicans try to block a bill to grant legal status to millions of immigrants. Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the Senate immigration reform bill, said House Republicans would likely spark massive civil rights rallies if they try to quash measures to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country. “This has the potential of becoming the next major civil...

Capitol Hill police are trying to block activists attending Wednesday's "Audit the IRS" rally from also attending a nearly day-long press conference on immigration, hosted by Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert. The IRS rally is on the west side of the Capitol, while the immigration event is on the east side. Organizers for the IRS event were told by Hill police that "your people" can only assemble on the west side. Organizers were told to remove the activists from the immigration event. Capitol Hill police left a voicemail for Kevin Mooneyhan, Deputy Executive Director of Tea Party Patriots, saying...

Former Rep. Allen West open to Senate primary challenge against Rubio By Justin Sink - 06/19/13 08:34 AM ET Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that he may mount a primary challenge to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in their state's 2016 U.S. Senate primary. West told station WMAL that he could run for Senate "if I see people that are not taking our country down the right path, if I see people that are not standing up for the right type of principles, and putting their own party politics before what is best for the United States of America."...

“Pushing back hard” turned out to have been a big mistake. In response, Lizza has released a partial transcript of his interview, showing that Rubio’s aide’s comments weren’t as bad as depicted. They were worse. Here’s an excerpt: Ryan Lizza: Well, their argument is, what, that they have American workers for these jobs, they don’t need this program. Rubio Aide 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the problems you have with this, “Oh there’s American workers who are unemployed.” There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every...

Making an argument for overhauling the nation's immigration system Friday to a crowd of conservative activists, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush claimed immigrants were "more fertile" and thus a great benefit to American society. His remark appeared to be an inarticulate reference to immigrants' fertility rates, which data show are higher than native-born Americans. "Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans over the last 20 years. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity,"

Republicans considering running for president over the past six years have been delivering red meat to the base at conservative confabs. But Jeb Bush Friday did not fit the mold. The former Florida governor, mulling a 2016 bid, followed the retiring firebrand Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) at the Faith and Freedom Coalition. But while Bachmann and the other speakers here, including Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) -- the 2012 vice-presidential nominee -- treaded familiar turf by railing against government and President Barack Obama, Bush didn’t go there. “I won’t be pointing out the failures of the Obama administration,” Bush said to...

What do I say now? ¿Qué le digo ahora?- On Monday, a majority of Senate Republicans voted to continue debate of the disastrous 'Gang of Eight' amnesty bill, surprising many when the vote easily cleared the required 60 threshold, 82-15. The reason many Republicans trust that a bill they haven't even read will "secure the border first" is because Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has assured them it would - endlessly. He even wen't on a record-tying FIVE Sunday news shows to assert this (and a avalanche of other lies), and assured audiences he would never back a bill that did not...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We go to immigration. In a remarkable turn of events, all eight Gang of Eight members voted to table the Grassley amendment, to have control of the border for six months before the amnesty kicks in. And, by the way, don't call it amnesty. It isn't amnesty. That's the latest claim from the powers that be. The Grassley amendment to the Gang of Eight bill simply said we would gain control of the border for six months before any other aspect of the bill -- which is exactly what we were told was supported from the get-go....

The Bilderbergs have met June 6-9, 2013 at the Grove Hotel in Watford. The secretive society of ministers, CEOs, financiers, heads of state, journalists, and politicians are hiding behind the Great Wall of Watford, “a concrete-and-wire security fence encircling the hotel.” Shell, BP, Goldman’s Sachs, Google, and Amazon chairpersons, vice-chairmen, and directors, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, and other invitees were protected by anti-terrorism zones, identity checkpoints, and no-parking signs in the vicinity of the venue. The locals showed little concern about the content of the conference or the fact that elite powers shape the world without any...

Apparently the “chilling effect” of Justice Department leak investigations on communications between government officials and the press has not been so chilling after all. It certainly did not deter former CIA employee and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who has admitted that he is the principal source of recent leaks to The Post and the Guardian revealing top-secret NSA programs tracking terrorist communications. The exposure of the PRISM program under which the NSA monitors foreign terrorists on the Internet, as well as the leak of a top-secret court order requiring Verizon to share calling data with the government, are...

In a Spanish-language interview Sunday with the network Univision, Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading Republican on the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform group, made his strongest statement yet that legalization of the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants must happen before any new border security or internal enforcement measures are in place, and will in no way be conditional on any security requirements. “Let’s be clear,” Rubio said. “Nobody is talking about preventing the legalization...

Sen. Marco Rubio said the government surveillance programs that leapt back into the news this week are subject to "intense congressional oversight," and represent a difficult balance of privacy issues and national security interests. He also suggested they are here to stay. "Much of what that program involves is classified," Rubio said in an interview Thursday with Florida reporters, referring to the report about NSA phone monitoring. "I'll tell you that program is part of intense congressional oversight. It's a program members are aware of and they get to review from time to time and see how it's being applied."...

That's the heading on the first page of the court order obtained theGuardian. Top Secret is one of the highest levels of security classification in the U.S. government; the other initials indicate that this is "special intelligence," aka "signals intelligence," one of the most closely guarded capabilities of the U.S. intelligence community, and that it should not shown to any foreigners. Ironically and disturbingly, a British newspaper obtained this document. ... I have no idea who this intelligence officer is, but he (or she) has committed a serious crime by the unauthorized disclosure of such sensitive information. He needs to...

(A billboard on I-75 in Ocala) An anti-immigration reform group has put up a billboard on I-75 in Ocala attacking Sen. Marco Rubio for promoting "amnesty." "When 20 million American citizens and legal workers are unemployed or desperately trying to find full time jobs it is both callous and irresponsible for Florida Senator Marco to sponsor an immigration bill that will flood the labor market with 33 million foreign workers over the next ten years," said Jack Oliver of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement. Oliver is citing a study prepared for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who has been the leading...

The bill created in secret by the Gang of Eight is an outrageous betrayal of American workers, both high-skilled and low-skilled. Claiming it is bipartisan, the drafters were Democrats and globalist Republicans. Economics 101 teaches that prices of products and wages go up when there is a shortage and go down when there is an ample supply of whatever. But funny thing, a consortium of billionaire oligarchs and high paid lobbyists have defied those axioms by rejecting U.S. STEM college graduates (science, technology, engineering or math) and then crying about shortages. Half of American STEM graduates are not currently hired...

The Obama administration has warned British officials that if the UK leaves Europe it will exclude itself from a US-EU trade and investment partnership potentially worth hundreds of billions of pounds a year, and that it was very unlikely that Washington would make a separate deal with Britain.

We have not forgotten the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill that was killed in the face of intense outrage from the American people. Since then, we have seen a communist administration, under Barack Obama (or whatever his name is), assume power in the United States, and among the myriad of impeachable crimes and malfeasance of his administration, we have seen an explosion of lawlessness from the feds in regard to the illegal alien invasion of our country. This administration has engaged in criminal conduct by granting amnesty through presidential edict to certain illegal aliens. It has refused to police and secure...

Cesar Conda is Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff. He recently made his Tweets private (protected) so the general public can’t read them. Cesar Conda has been pushing amnesty for illegals on Twitter and else as Marco Rubio’s PR agent. Conda, who is an immigration lawyer, went to work for George Soros before becoming Rubio’s Chief of Staff. Cesar Conda worked on the editorial advisory board of George Soros magazine, The International Economy Magazine. Cesar Conda had been spinning lies about the amnesty bill about how illegal wouldn’t get welfare, wait more than 10 years for citizenship, etc. Those lies have...

The pro-Amnesty lobbyists who helped craft the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill included two "slush funds" amounting to $150 million. Millions of dollars will go to groups like La Raza, Casa de Maryland, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The effort to secure the borders and reform immigration law is about to enter a crucial month at the end of which the fate of the bill will almost certainly be known. The bill as it emerged from the Gang of 8 can probably not pass the Senate and certainly wouldn’t pass the House, nor should it. But the Gang of 8 draft was only, as Senator Marco Rubio has said repeatedly said, “a starting point.” A policy and political disaster awaits if a bill emerges from the Senate that cannot generate enough momentum to get even an amended version...

'You’re a nice guy. That's a problem.  Nice guys are only popular in prison and in the Senate- and for similar reasons.' Today's Republican Party suffers from a paucity of those who can effectively communicate the conservative message. So what a shame I might not be able to vote for one of the few who DID possess that gift... WHAT on God's green Earth are you thinking, dude? Has it yet occurred that you're a DREAM prop for the Democrats here- the hispanic Republican who's marching lockstep with them on a bill that MANY of us see little good in? That...

Senator Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform proposal, has often challenged those who criticize the bill to come up with ways to improve it. And not just his fellow lawmakers; Rubio has opened a new page on his Senate website asking for help from the public. “Visit our website and submit your ideas to ‘Help Us Improve the Bill,’” says an announcement from Rubio’s office Friday. “Since the immigration legislation was introduced, Rubio has received over 1,100 suggestions for how to improve the bill. Rubio encourages the public to continue reviewing the bill...

Members of the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight have stressed that under their new immigration plan, currently illegal immigrants will have to wait more than a decade before achieving citizenship. Newly-legalized immigrants will be given a provisional status and “will have to stay in that status until at least ten years elapse and [border security] triggers are met,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told Fox News on April 14. “Then the only thing they get is a chance to apply for a green card via the legal immigration system.” The green card process would take additional years, meaning the road...

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2013 --/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Wednesday morning, April 24 at 9am, the African American Leadership Council will host a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to oppose the Senate Gang of Eight's 844-page plus, immigration bill. During the conference, the Council will call on the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), to protect black labor by opposing amnesty and halting efforts to double legal immigration levels, as required under the bill. Many black leaders have recognized the harm caused by large increases in immigration as the Senate bill entails. As the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights...

Alex Conant @AlexConant: "We haven't had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery". Mind you, he isn’t talking only about illegal immigrants. He’s talking about any non-citizen who lives in this country permanently, including millions of Green Card holders. And by implication: Conn Carroll @conncarroll: For those of you keeping score at home, Rubio spokesman @AlexConant just compared all Schumer-Rubio opponents to slave owners If this is Team Rubio’s strategy for winning over conservatives, good luck with that.

Both the process and the content of the current immigration bill violate America’s core principles and legacy of immigration, according to Heritage President Jim DeMint. “This whole process is not really American, to take a few people and go behind closed doors and then come out and suddenly have it on the floor of the Senate for debate,” said DeMint on “The Mike Huckabee Show” earlier this week. (Listen here) “Instead of incomprehensible, comprehensive bills that are thousands of pages, we need to take a step-by-step approach so people know what we’re doing, and with immigration, the obvious priority is...

Immigration bill calls for slew of regulations, new bureaucracy By Ben Goad and Kevin Bogardus - 04/18/13 05:00 AM ET The sweeping immigration reform bill unveiled Wednesday would bring a raft of new regulations and add more layers to the federal bureaucracy. The 844-page Senate bill calls for a dramatic expansion of the country’s worker verification system, an overhaul of visa programs and a new set of proposed regulations allowing undocumented workers to become “registered provisional immigrants.” The bill would establish penalty systems for employers and create protections for vulnerable immigrant workers in order to achieve the largest overhaul of...

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went on Laura Ingraham’s show today to discuss his 844-page immigration bill, only to be hit by questions about “Marco phones.” The Florida blog Shark Tank, run by Javier Manjarres, ran first with this odd story, which illustrates the problem of non-lawyers attempting to read and interpret legislation without the help of experts: According to the newly filed bill, immigrants who are allowed to enter the United States under a work visa, will be ‘granted’ a taxpayer funded cellular phone. Move over “Obama phone,” we present the new ‘Hola, Como Estas?!’ MarcoPhone. Manjarres was referring to...

According to the newly filed bill, immigrants who are allowed to enter the United States under a work visa, will be ‘granted’ a cellular phone. Move over “Obama phone,” we present the new ‘Hola, Como Estas?!’ MarcoPhone. Here is the actual mention of the free phones in the bill- SEC. 1107. ACCESS TO EMERGENCY PERSONNEL. (a) SOUTHWEST BORDER REGION EMERGENCY COM-MUNICATIONS GRANTS.— The Secretary, in consultation with the governors of the States in the Southwest Border region, shall establish a 2-year grant program, to be administered by the Secretary, to improve emergency communications in the Southwest ELIGIBILITY FOR GRANTS.—An individual...

Hillary Clinton is clearly running for president in 2016, Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington said, but she’s overworking herself and needs to rest. Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Huffington said the former secretary of state should have taken more time off before making two speeches this week. … Huffington fears that Clinton is sending women a bad message; that the only way they can succeed is by driving themselves into the ground. …

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday expressed opposition to possible GOP efforts to filibuster a Senate gun-control measure, saying he did not “understand” the move to block debate. “I don’t understand it,” said McCain on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The purpose of the United States Senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand.” “What are we afraid of? Why would we not want… if this issue is as important as all of us think it is, why not take it to one of the world’s greatest deliberative bodies… A number of GOP...

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio announced on Thursday night that he would support a continuing resolution—a spending bill that would keep the government funded through the fiscal year—but only if it strips funding from the Democratic health care law that passed in 2009. Rubio made the announcement during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, saying he will vote for an amendment to the continuing resolution that defunds the Affordable Care Act. But if that doesn't pass, Rubio said, he won't support the final spending package. (With Democrats in control of the Senate, any move to defund the health care...

Why don’t John McCain and Lindsey Graham just get a room or something. As soon as I heard that Lindsey Graham didn’t like filibuster, I knew that McCain would be soon to follow with the same garbage. Just like clockwork:

“The chatter is he's up to something,” says one Florida operative. If Jeb Bush decides to convert his media tour into a presidential bid in a couple years, he won't have to look far for a campaign staff: The well-funded education foundation he runs out his office in a Miami hotel is stacked with former political operatives, a large communications team, and a rapidly growing staff whose work stretches into 40 states. It is common practice for undeclared presidential candidates to build a campaign infrastructure under the guise of a political action committee, but Bush appears to be laying the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama announced his nominees to lead a new U.S. push to tackle climate change on Monday, choosing an air quality expert to run the Environmental Protection Agency and a nuclear physicist to head the Department of Energy. In a widely expected move, Obama selected agency veteran Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator and scientist Ernest Moniz from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to take over for Steven Chu as Energy secretary. Obama also announced his choice to lead the White House budget office - Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Walmart Foundation,...

The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would "regret" printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday. The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to Politico Wednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps. Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference next Monday, it has been confirmed. His speech comes just ahead of President Obama's anticipated visit to Israel later in the month and amid renewed concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The 2013 conference, which will be held March 3-5, in Washington, D.C., will also feature addresses by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, House of Representatives, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), House of Representatives Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD),...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will deliver the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address on Feb. 12. Rubio's response will be delivered in both English and Spanish, according to Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office. "Marco Rubio is one of our party’s most dynamic and inspiring leaders. He carries our party’s banner of freedom, opportunity and prosperity in a way few others can. His family’s story is a testament to the promise and greatness of America," Boehner said in a statement on Wednesday. "He’ll deliver a GOP address that speaks from the heart to the hopes and dreams...

Graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2007, Alexandra Mealer J.D./M.B.A. ’16 wanted a career path that would challenge her intellect. She became a specialist in defusing bombs. “As opposed to other things that were more about how strong you are, this was about how smart you are,” says Mealer, who, as an Army captain, spent 14 months in Afghanistan, first as a platoon leader in Kandahar, then as a company commander in Bagram responsible for 600 soldiers and civilian contractors. “You’re trying to take things apart, having to make quick decisions as safely as possible.” There...

White House Wavers on Hagel, Considers Others for Defense By Michael Hirsh | National Journal – 5 hrs ago Besieged by criticism from right and left, and considerable skepticism from his former Senate colleagues, Chuck Hagel appears to be following the path of Susan Rice as a trial-balloon nominee who finds himself quickly losing altitude in Washington. And as happened with Rice, the White House is now signaling that it may soon puncture Hagel's hopes. Just as occurred with Rice, the U.N. ambassador whose prospective nomination as secretary of State—leaked to the media—flamed out in the face of widespread criticism...