Free Republic

Democratic sources said Monday evening that veteran Congressman Luis Gutierrez will announce his retirement. He has been one of the more high-profile Latino politicians in the country, advocating forcefully for immigrant rights, since he became a U.S. representative 25 years ago.

NBC 5 has learned Congressman Luis Gutierrez will announce Tuesday he is not running for re-election after 24 years on Capitol Hill, sources say. Guitterez telephoned key democratic leaders late this afternoon to let them know of his plans. Calls to Guitterez tonight have not been returned. Already printing petitions Monday night-- to begin the process of getting signatures before next Monday's deadline -- is Cook County Commissioner Jesus Chuy Garcia. Ald. Carlos Ramirez Rosa is considering a congressional race. This will also leave an opening on the county board should Garcia opt for Guitterez's seat.

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro hopes his latest critically-acclaimed film can help repair what he calls a broken political system following President Donald Trump’s election. The director, whose Cold War fairy-tale drama The Shape of Water just won the coveted Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival, told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival this week that Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan was a callback to a time in 1960s America in which if you were “white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, it was a great time to be alive,” but not if you were “anything else.” “It’s...

An explosive confrontation erupted at San Diego’s Chicano Park Sunday afternoon as an angry mob of several hundred protested a pro-Donald Trump group’s decision to hold a ‘Patriot Picnic’ in the symbolic public space. According to the San Diego Union Tribune: The tense exchange happened as fewer than a dozen activists gathered for an event they called the Patriot Picnic. The group planned to eat lunch at the Barrio Logan park before taking a tour of the murals, said Roger Ogden, one of the organizers. Ogden…said an email campaign has been started to get the artwork removed from the public...

Julian Castro—the former San Antonio mayor who was President Barack Obama’s Housing and Urban Development secretary—may no longer be interested in running for office in Texas because he is eyeing a White House run in 2020, according to the Abilene Reporter-News. The paper reported on Saturday that though Castro is one of “the few bright lights among Texas Democrats, he is “signaling that he might be giving up on ever running for office in his native state.” Earlier this month, Castro created his “Opportunity First” political action committee, which, as the paper notes, led many to believe he is “positioning...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is investigating up to $6 billion in legal settlement money that the Obama administration steered toward progressive causes and allies in left-wing advocacy groups. A memo sent to US attorneys on July 28, published Friday by Breitbart news, ordered a review of a decade’s worth of payouts that Congressional Republicans have called a political slush fund. Former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch regularly arranged for major corporations to make large “donations” to left-leaning groups like UnidosUS — formerly the National Council of La Raza — and NeighborWorks America during settlement negotiations to end banking,...

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., thinks a new bill implementing a merit-based point system for foreigners seeking legal permanent status will never pass the Senate, even though it has President Trump's backing. "That bill's not going to pass," told CBS 4 in an interview Sunday. "I think the White House knows that you don't have 60 votes for that in the Senate."

The National Council of La Raza announced that it will change its name to UnidosUs, AP reports. President Janet Murguia described “La Raza” as an outdated term that did not resonate with its members. AP exclusively translates “Raza” as “the people” in its report. However, the term can also be interpreted as “the race,” which carries a suggestion of zero-sum ethnic conflict. According to the AP: The National Council of La Rafa announced that it will change its name to UnidosUs, AP reports. President Janet Murguia described “La Raza” as an outdated term that did not resonate with its members....

Man who sold gun used to shoot 2 cops released on $4,500 bond: sources Chicago 07/06/2017 Sam Charles @samjcharles | email A man who sources say sold an assault rifle to gang members — which was then used to shoot two Chicago Police officers last May — was released from federal custody on a $4,500 bond on Wednesday. Charles Williams was arrested and charged in federal court last week with possession of a firearm by a felon. On Wednesday, Magistrate Judge Young B. Kim ordered him released on $4,500, court records show. A law enforcement source told the Chicago Sun-Times...

A virtual “slush fund” of taxpayer money the Obama administration deployed to support private groups that advanced his agenda has been shut down by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions issued a memorandum June 7 to all U.S. attorneys and Justice Department leaders that put an end to the policy of requiring the department’s settlements with defendants, particularly corporations, to include donations to non-governmental organizations, Breitbart News reported. Among the recipients of the funds under Obama, was the radical National Council of La Raza, or “The Race,” which supports mass illegal immigration. In 2015, WND published a four-part series exposing the...

Trump ends Obama’s “slush fund” policy of illegally diverting settlement money from actual victims to Obama’s favorite left wing groups that had no legal claim to the money While working as a “community organizer,” Barack Obama filed lawsuits which forced banks to give mortgages to people with bad credit and low incomes. As a result, many of these people ended up defaulting on their mortgages. As their attorney, Obama collected $23,000 in legal fees for himself. Then in April 2013, during Obama’s second term as President, the Washington Post reported that President Obama was still pressuring banks “to make home...

An illegal immigrant student at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested “beating the s*** out of white people” Thursday. Juan Prieto, an English student at UC Berkeley, made the remark on Twitter two days after receiving Berkeley’s Robert J. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Undocumented Students.

A federal lawsuit brought by a so-called "Dreamer" deported to Mexico has been assigned to District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel — the jurist famously attacked by then-candidate Donald Trump over his "Mexican heritage" in a separate case involving Trump University. Judge Gonzalo Curiel US District Court Southern District of California Juan Manuel Montes, 23, filed a complaint Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, alleging that the government did not provide any documentation explaining the legality of sending him back to Mexico. The suit seeks documents related to his case. The case was assigned at...

<p>ANGELES (AP) - President Donald Trump's 50th anniversary of the White House's visit to California has become one of the main foci of resistance to the president's actions, demonstrating his opposition both to political and protest protests. streets.</p> <p>In the most populous state in the United States (nearly 40 million people), the vast majority voted for Democrats in the last presidential election (8.8 million voted for Hillary Clinton in front of 4.5 million trusted Republican Trump), one First sign that, in general, the Californians do not communicate with the ideas of the magnate in subjects like the migration or the climatic change.</p>

A Justice Department slush fund scheme under former resident Obama reportedly funneled billions of dollars to leftist activist groups in what Mike Huckabee said was “worse than a mafia shakedown.” ... The practice was widely abused under the Obama administration, with liberal groups like La Raza and the National Urban League receiving some of the slush fund money ... Virginia Congressman Robert Goodlatte and Sen. James Lankford, both Republicans, have sponsored legislation to end the practice, which investigators have found accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities

Last night, President Trump had very little to say to the Latino community, and what he did say wasn’t good. Clearly he has taken some of the criticism he has heard to heart. He did not shout during his speech or talk about “American carnage,” but spoke in a calm and gentle way. He made nods to the Democrats and talked about working in a bipartisan manner. Yet his moderated tone and soft overtures do not make the policies he champions any less harsh. They are still the same policies he has been touting since the beginning of his campaign,...

Texas Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro says Congress should draw up “articles of impeachment” against President Donald Trump over his executive order, which temporarily prohibits the arrival of Syrian refugees into the United States and halts entry of citizens from Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

Most Americans can see the blatant hypocrisy when left-wing ethno-centric groups, such as La Raza, attempt to smear President Trump and his 61 million supporters as racists, while they themselves claim to put "Latino people first" and are closely tied to anti-white racists (see my article for FPM on that issue here). Of course, these groups wouldn’t get away with their race-based policy agenda if our media and political elites applied scrutiny properly and equally. But independent and patriotic watchdogs like FPM may be having an effect. La Raza, for example, was recently forced to create a "myths-busting" page on their website, "settling" a number concerns raised about the group over the years. The gesture suggests the group is feeling pressure....

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced Thursday that a ballot initiative called “California Nation” has been approved by the state to begin collecting signatures to qualify for the 2018 ballot. The effort is supported by the “Yes California” campaign, an organization that enjoys the support of the Russian government and whose founder, Louis Marinelli, now lives in Russia.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump plans to name the former Texas governor Rick Perry as his secretary of energy. The selection of Mr. Perry to lead the energy agency would offer a rich irony: During a televised debate in 2011, when he was seeking the Republican nomination, Mr. Perry intended to list the Department of Energy among agencies he wanted to eliminate, but he could not remember its name.