Free Republic

It’s election time so that means Democrats rolls out one of its favorites weapons: the “Hispanic vote bogyman” threat. The script goes this way: The Democrat supporting Hispanics dictate a demand list to Republicans then watch them squirm and pander. To add some salsa to the threat they promise retaliation at the polls if Republicans dare to ignore them. This kind of knuckling under has never gone well for Republicans. Endless concessions and saying things like, “We’ll give your cousin amnesty. We’ll give your kids our kids’ college classroom seats – and throw in our jobs food stamps and ignore...

Frank Gaffney has written in FrontPage magazine an article that is much needed and long overdue: "A Troubling Influence," about the extensive ties that conservative activist Grover Norquist has with radical Islamic elements. This is a lengthy and exhaustively documented piece about a man who has stood as a singular obstruction to efforts to alert people to the gravity of the threat from radical Islam. All of it should be read carefully, but here are a few highlights: The association between Grover Norquist and Islamists appears to have started about five years ago, in 1998, when he became the founding...

The drop recorded in the last three months of 2011 may reflect the administration's plan to focus its deportation efforts by weighing discretionary factors, including whether the person is a veteran, came to the United States as a child or is a college student. The number of deportation cases filed by federal immigration officials dropped by nearly a third in the first three months of the fiscal year, according to a report by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. The drop recorded in the last three months of 2011 may reflect the Obama administration's plan to focus its deportation...

The e-mail from the Obama campaign found the right target: Dave Hunt, lifelong Democrat from Upper Manhattan and owner of an Irish saloon, had contributed to President Obama’s 2008 victory drive. Now, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, barackobama.com was peddling “O’Bama” T-shirts, playing on the president’s wee trace of Irish blood and his joke on a visit to Ireland last year that he had “come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way.” But Mr. Hunt, an owner of Coogan’s in Washington Heights, noted something wrong with the message on the T-shirt itself: below...

< snip > ..... If Republicans have an opening this year, it is with the white working class, a crowd the Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging for decades. Barack Obama did better than John Kerry or Al Gore with these voters, though even he earned just 43% of their vote. ..... < snip > ..... The white working class will make up as much as 55% of the vote in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. ..... < snip > ..... And so at the heart of the Santorum agenda are policies designed to give special handouts to the working class,...

On the heels of his decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney took the attacks on his private sector record used by GOP rivals and turned them against President Obama. Romney’s critics have accused him of destroying jobs in order to increase profits for his investment firm, Bain Capital, but speaking Wednesday on CBS, Romney said that what he did was no different from the Obama administration’s auto industry bailouts. “In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and...

Have you ever thought about that? How many times have you seen establishment types posit about how beautiful it would be to have a Romney/Rubio ticket? Even after Rubio has made it clear he isn't interested, I keep hearing it. It can be summed up in one word: Hispanic. The republicans have absolutely nothing in common with a conservative like Rubio, yet every time they mention his name, they always go off on a tangent about how he can win the hispanic vote. Because of his skin color?!?! Yep. The republicans are that superficial. It's that simple. They're in full...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, I knew that this was coming, but I would have never guessed where it's coming from. ... I'm not disappointed that it's coming from where it's coming from. I'm just a little surprised. I knew it was coming. Jealousy of Tim Tebow has surfaced in the National Football League. Brian, you're a big football aficionado. Tell me which quarterback has just expressed frustration and jealousy. You don't know yet, do you? So take a wild guess. Which quarterback has expressed frustration and jealousy over the coverage that Tebow is getting? (interruption) No. Not Aaron Rodgers. Not...

After the November 22 Republican debate in Washington, D.C., many conservatives took issue with Newt Gingrich's proposal to establish a system of local boards of review to assess the cases of illegal immigrants who have lived in the United States for twenty-five years. While his opponents on stage chose to focus on concerns that the plan would entrench a powerful new "magnet" for illegal aliens, others isolated the strangest aspect of Gingrich's proposal, which was his explicit description of such long-established illegal immigrants as "law-abiding citizens." How, people reasonably asked, can an illegal alien who has never been granted U.S....

.....“I’m not ashamed to talk about my faith,” he says in the first spot. “Some liberals say that faith is a sign of weakness. Well, they’re wrong.” In the second ad, titled “Strong,” Perry bravely comes out as a follower of Christ. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian,” he says, before vowing that “as President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion.” ......But most flagrant is Perry’s reference to “Obama’s war on religion” without evidence or explanation. He leaves the strong impression that it is Obama’s administration–instead of Supreme Court decisions from the 1960s–that took school-sanctioned prayer and...

Dear Friends, Today a friend who sacrificed much in the effort to lead our great country suspended his campaign. I want to wish Herman Cain, his wife Gloria, and the entire Cain Family the very best and God’s blessings as they move forward. Herman Cain’s appeal was that of a Washington Outsider – someone not beholden to the entrenched Beltway interests, and who hasn’t spent his life cutting deals at the expense of conservative principles. As the race goes forward, with the Iowa Caucuses 32 days away, I am truly the only Washington Outsider left in the race. I haven’t...

<p>Newt Gingrich called for a middle path on immigration reform – implying a limited amnesty – as he made his presidential campaign pitch to the Republican-friendly Hispanic 100 on Thursday at the Newport Beach’s Balboa Bay Club.</p> <p>“Both sides are wrong,” he said to the 300 gathered at group’s annual black-tie gala. “Those who say, ‘Kick everybody out’ – they’re wrong. Those who say, ‘Give amnesty to everyone’ – they’re wrong.</p>

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been pressuring the National Park Service to locate sites related to the histories of women and minorities, particularly Latinos, which could be added to the National Register of Historic Places or otherwise preserved as parks or properties. According to the Washington Post: With the nation's Latino population booming and now the country's largest minority group, the Obama administration's top Hispanic official is concerned that the federal government is not giving enough attention to Hispanic history and culture. Salazar bemoaned the paucity of such locations: Less than three percent of all the national landmarks that we have...

U.S. President Barack Obama was set to release Jonathan Pollard but his vice president thwarted the move, The New York Times has reported. According to the report, Vice President Joe Biden met last week with 15 rabbis in Boca Raton, Florida, when he was asked by one of them why Pollard, who was convicted in 1986, was still in prison. In response to the question Biden said, “President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time.’” He added, “If it were up to me, he would...

Rick Perry can't get out of his own way. During the presidential debates, he has reviled three immigration issues that Republicans hold dear: passing mandatory E-Verify legislation, rejecting federal and state versions of the DREAM Act, and building a border fence.

Legislation meant to reduce the number of vehicles impounded at sobriety checkpoints was sent to the governor late Thursday night. The bill would bar counties from conducting combined sobriety and vehicle inspection checkpoints. Supporters of the measure, Assembly Bill 1389, say that checkpoints are used as a revenue-generating tool for local government and that they unduly harm sober but low-income or undocumented drivers. The impounding of vehicles at checkpoints when drivers have no valid California license hits undocumented residents particularly hard, . . .

Jamie Peachey One of the goddesses in the "green Chakra room" at Phoenix Goddess Temple ​Phoenix Goddess Temple, the "sexual healing" church featured in the New Times' story Sacred Sexuality in February, was raided by Phoenix police officers Wednesday. Sixteen people -- five men and eleven women -- were detained for questioning. Among those arrested was temple practitioner Wayne Clayton, who is one of 12 people being indicted on grand jury charges including illegal control of enterprise, maintaining a house of prostitution, and receiving the earnings of a prostitute. Phoenix police sergeant Steve Martos confirmed that officers served a search...

Obama's Jobs Package May Include School Renovations And A Tax Break For Hiring The president's proposal would mean construction work and an incentive for businesses to add employees. It's expected to come with a plan to reduce federal budget deficits. By Peter Nicholas, Christi Parsons and James Oliphant, Washington Bureau August 17, 2011 Reporting from Washington and Alpha, Ill.— The jobs package that President Obama plans to unveil shortly after Labor Day could include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of dilapidated public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people...

The number of Hispanic voters nationally and in New Mexico is growing at a faster pace than any other ethnic group, and that could spell trouble for the Republican party over the next 10 years, a political analyst with a business advocacy group said Tuesday. “Republicans are in trouble with Hispanics,” said Michael Davis, the Washington, D.C.-based vice president for political programs of the Business and Industry PAC. The party’s stance on immigration may not be bad policy, David said, “but the tone and language is extremely harsh and it drives away Hispanics.” Either party can improve its chances of...

And, now, the group Americans for Rick Perry reports it has raised a fair amount of money in a short amount of time. Bob Schuman, a senior strategist for Americans for Rick Perry, said Thursday that the group is expanding its fundraising operation outside of Texas to include Miami, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The group can accept unlimited donations but, under federal law, can't strategize with Perry himself.