Free Republic

Texas' voter ID law that was twice blocked over findings of discrimination can stay in effect for the 2018 elections, a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday. It was the second major ruling over voting rights in the U.S. this week after an Arkansas judge on Thursday blocked that state's voter ID measure as unconstitutional. But in a 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the Texas law that critics have slammed as one of the toughest voter ID measures in the nation was seen as a suitable replacement for the original 2011 law that...

Migrants seeking asylum at the southern border must ask for asylum in the safe countries they transit, says Homeland Defense Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “Individuals of the ‘caravan’ seeking asylum or other similar claims should seek protections in the first safe country they enter, including Mexico,” Nielsen said in an April 25 statement. The statement spotlights the administration’s legal defenses against the roughly 1,000 caravan migrants trying to get through the legal loopholes in the border wall. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used similar language in an April 23 statement about the caravan migrants, saying “these individuals—and their smugglers—ignored the willingness of...

President Donald Trump told supporters at a speech on Saturday that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this fall. Trump was speaking in Washington Township, Michigan, at the same time that the White House correspondents' dinner was taking place back in Washington, DC, with some lawmakers and current and former members of his administration in attendance. During his remarks, he alluded to the appropriations deadline at the end of September. "We have to have borders, and we have to have them fast," he said. "And we need security. We...

Nearly two out of three American voters say they support President Trump’s plan to reduce overall legal immigration levels in the United States, whereby currently more than 1.5 million legal immigrants arrive annually. In a new poll by Harvard-Harris polling, about 66 percent of voters — or nearly two out of three — said they support a plan by the Trump administration to almost cut legal immigration in half by ending the process known as “chain migration,” as well as the Diversity Visa Lottery, and building a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The deal would couple the wage-boosting relief...

About 20 volunteer U.S. lawyers gave legal workshops Friday just across the border into Mexico to Central American asylum seekers who traveled in a "caravan". The migrants plan to head to the border on Sunday, setting up a showdown with the Trump administration — which has warned that some could face detention, prosecution and deportation. As Sunday's showdown at the busy Tijuana-San Diego border crossing neared, Amnesty International hoisted a billboard promoting the right to asylum in the U.S. on a truck in Tijuana that drove around the city.

Former attorney general feels previous president signaled then-FBI director to let Hillary 'off' the hook to protect himself Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey accused James Comey of exonerating 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after former President Barack Obama warned the then-FBI director to “let her off” the hook. Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in May 2017, led the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business as secretary of state. During an interview Friday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Mukasey said Obama wanted Comey to let Clinton “off” the hook because...

Trump announced Monday he has directed the Department of Homeland Security to block large groups of migrants who have begun to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border and apply for asylum as refugees from Central America. "Despite the Democrat inspired laws on Sanctuary Cities and the Border being so bad and one sided, I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It is a disgrace. We are the only Country in the World so naive! WALL," Trump tweeted Monday morning. Trump also said negotiations over a new North American Free...

President Trump said Monday he has “instructed” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen not to allow “large caravans of people” into the U.S. as a group of Central American migrants starts to reach the border, calling the situation a “disgrace.” “Despite the Democrat inspired laws on Sanctuary Cities and the Border being so bad and one sided, I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It is a disgrace. We are the only Country in the World so naïve! WALL,” Trump tweeted early Monday. The president’s directive came as a...

A new California pro-LGBTQ bill that would ban the sale or distribution of materials related to “conversion therapy” easily passed the state’s assembly on Thursday.CBS News affiliate KOVR reported the final tally was 50-14. Assembly Bill 2943 now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate.The bill would make it an unlawful business practice to engage in any “transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer” aimed at “sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.” Goods would include any books or written materials, while services would encompass counseling individuals seeking to address same-sex...

The first migrants from a caravan that sparked the ire of President Donald Trump have started arriving at the US-Mexico border and asking for asylum, advocates say. About 50 Central Americans have arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, according to Juventud 2000, an organization that assists migrants in that border city. Of those, about 10 have turned themselves in to US authorities at the border. Others are waiting for a larger contingent from the caravan to arrive before they head north, Juventud 2000 Director Jose Maria Garcia Lara said.

The Democratic Party has never been more reliant on the support of upper-middle-class voters than it is today. And the economic fortunes of affluent Americans - and those of the typical working-class household - have rarely been more disparate. These twin developments have inspired much commentary about the class tensions beneath Team Blue’s “big tent”. There is little doubt that it would be easier to advance radical economic reform in an America where politics was sharply polarized along class lines, and working people of all races were concentrated in a single partisan coalition. It is absolutely true that a liberal...

Notorious street-gang MS-13 has reportedly ordered its members to “take out” police officers in New York; hoping to send a strong message to authorities following a serious crackdown on the group throughout the region. According to the New York Post, the NYPD is on high-alert after a confidential informant told police that gang members were given a green light to murder local police officers; particularly in the nearby town of Hempstead on Long Island. “The police have been making too many arrests and it’s time to take the streets back and take out (shoot) a cop like we do in...

A Fresno State professor who called the late Barbara Bush “racist” soon after her death Tuesday, and said she was glad “the witch is dead,” continues to face fallout as donors mull ceasing donations to the institution. Randa Jarrar, an English professor at the school (also known as California State University at Fresno), sparked outrage Tuesday just hours after the former first lady died at age 92, writing a number of tweets attacking Bush and the family. “Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal. F*** outta here with...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico ranked as the nation’s fastest-growing state for wind-energy construction last year, according to a new report from the American Wind Energy Association. The state added enough new turbines to produce 571 megawatts of electricity, growing installed capacity by 51 percent to 1.68 gigawatts, according to the association’s 2017 annual market report, released this morning in Santa Fe. That’s enough electricity to power about 422,000 average U.S. homes every year. And New Mexico could maintain front-running status for another couple of years, with 1.7 GW of new wind construction projects now in the pipelines for installation...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The boom in New Mexico’s oil patch is pumping up state revenue and economic development in Lea and Eddy counties, but it’s also raising many red flags for environmental organizations. Activists say the unprecedented level of investment and activity flooding into southeastern New Mexico, which elevated the state last year to third-largest oil producer in the nation, foreshadows long-term environmental problems unless balanced development plans and firm regulations are in place to protect natural resources. That includes better control of methane emissions, plus efforts to protect water, vegetation and wildlife against overzealous development and industrial accidents such...

Hundreds of small, independent producers might soon be swallowed up by today’s unprecedented oil and gas boom in southeastern New Mexico. As industry titans like ExxonMobil and Concho Resources pump billions of dollars into previously untapped sections of New Mexico’s century-old oil patch, the state’s small- and medium-sized producers are struggling on the margins to keep running aging wells based on outdated technology. Those companies, which have flourished for decades in New Mexico’s side of the Permian Basin, don’t have the resources to invest in the modern drilling technology needed to dig into the oil-rich, hard shale-rock formations where the...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Many were horrified on Tuesday upon learning an Albuquerque woman was killed after being partially pulled out of a plane when a nearby window was smashed by debris from an exploding engine. “Two words: extremely rare,” said Alan Diehl, a former air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Air Force, of incidents involving passengers being pulled from planes in flight. But on Nov. 3, 1973, a similar scenario unfolded on a flight over southwest New Mexico heading from Houston to Las Vegas, Nev. Then, a Texas man died after he...

A cowboy and a firefighter were among the heroes who pulled a New Mexico mom back into their airplane after an explosion tore a hole in the cabin and sucked the woman partway out, according to reports. The Boeing 737 carrying Southwest Airlines’ Flight 1380 suffered the catastrophic engine failure at about 32,000 feet up, an hour into its LaGuardia-to-Dallas trip, forcing an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport. Mother-of-two Jennifer Riordan was pulled partway out of the plane when shrapnel shattered her window and the cabin began to depressurize, sucking her partway out of the plane. That’s when a...

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to support the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California over laws that the state passed last year to limit its role in immigration enforcement. The county will file an amicus brief at the first available opportunity, likely on appeal, said Kristin Gaspar, supervisor for District 3 and chairwoman of the board. “We’re talking about people who are crossing the border illegally, coming into this county and committing a crime and them being let loose probably to commit another crime,” said Dianne Jacobs, supervisor for District 2. “That creates a public safety issue...

From criticizing President Donald Trump for congratulating Vladimir Putin on his re-election in March, to saying earlier this month that Trump’s comments about withdrawing from Syria “emboldened” Bashar al-Assad, Arizona Senator John McCain in recent weeks has continued to uphold his reputation as one of the Republican Party’s most vocal critics of the president. But what was perhaps McCain’s most dramatic gesture of dissent against President Trump to date came at 1:30 a.m. on July 28, 2017. In the opening scene from the new FRONTLINE documentary McCain, which traces the Republican Party’s evolution across McCain’s political career, and how President...