Free Republic

McALLEN, Oct. 13 - More than 400 people of faith attended a conference on immigration reform hosted by Valley Interfaith on Wednesday. The conference saw the unveiling of a new statement on the issue by Texas bishops representing numerous denominations. Among those participating were the Most Reverend Daniel Flores, Bishop, Diocese of Brownsville, the The Rt. Rev. David Reed, Bishop Suffragan, Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, the Reverend Dr. Ray Tiemann, Bishop, Southwestern Texas Synod, ELCA, the Reverend James Dorff, Bishop, San Antonio Episcopal Area United Methodist Church, and the Reverend Kelly Allen, Chair, Task Force on Immigration, Mission Presbytery,...

We are not the problem, we are part of the solution… NEW POLL SHOWS BORDER RESIDENTS FEEL SAFE According to the poll, commissioned by the Border Network for Human Rights, a community organization in El Paso, Texas, and conducted by the Reuel Group, 86.5% of border residents said they feel safe walking or driving in their neighborhood during their regular daily activities. Almost 70% said they felt their border neighborhood was as safe as most U.S. neighborhoods and 67% said they felt safe living in their border community. The poll was conducted on 1,222 border residents in three Arizona border...

Members of the Harlandale Independent School District's board of trustees followed in the footsteps of the San Antonio City Council in passing a resolution opposing Arizona's immigration law Monday night. Anthony Alcoser, Harlandale's board president, recommended that the item be placed on the board's agenda after the City Council passed a similar resolution 8-3 last month. At their regular meeting Monday, school board members unanimously passed the resolution. Alcoser said the few members of the public who spoke on the topic Monday night were largely supportive of Harlandale's resolution. State Reps. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, and Leo Berman, R-Tyler, have said...

In a vote that split three North Side council members from their colleagues, the City Council on Thursday approved a resolution that denounces Arizona's controversial immigration law and sends a message to lawmakers that San Antonio won't tolerate attempts to pass a similar bill in Texas next year. The council's 8-3 vote came after several hours of public input and council debate. Council members John Clamp, Elisa Chan and Reed Williams voted against the resolution. The vast majority of the 45 people who spoke favored the resolution, and some said they believed it could be stronger. A handful of residents...

Obama tells Kyl in private Oval Office meeting: I won’t secure border b/c then Republicans will have no reason to support “comprehensive immigration reform.” On June 18, 2010, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen....

May 25, 2010 Arizona and Our National Self-Abasement When the president of Mexico condemned Arizona’s immigration law, Democrats thrilled to his disparagement of their countrymen. The Arizona immigration law has become the occasion for a sorry exercise in national self-abasement. When Mexican president Felipe Calderón addressed a joint session of Congress last week, he rapped Arizonans — ignorantly and unfairly — for using “racial profiling as the basis for law enforcement.” If Democrats felt any residual reflex to stand up for their fellow Americans in Arizona, who are grappling with a hellish problem partly caused by the misgovernment of the...

Someone on Twitter told me you can see Pelosi wearing one here. Problem one: There’s not nearly enough detail to tell for sure. Problem two: Er, since when do Arizona protest bracelets exist? I hadn’t heard a word about them, and surely top Democrats wouldn’t be so stupid as to adorn themselves with actual badges of how out of touch they are with popular opinion about immigration. But guess what. As part of his general boycott of Arizona — which includes his refusal to fly through Phoenix on his weekly trips to and from Washington — Baca, D-Rialto, is distributing...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama Wednesday deployed the full pomp of a White House state dinner for only the second time, honoring Mexico's President Felipe Calderon with a sumptuous menu and elaborate decor. The White House was also road testing unspecified extra security measures, after the inaugural Obama state dinner last year for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was marred when a socialite couple gatecrashed the festivities. Key members of the US-Mexico community were expected among 200 guests at the glamorous black-tie gala evening at the White House, as well as actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Eva Longoria, and Mexican...

Wachovia bank executives have admitted that the banking giant laundered millions of dollars for Mexican drug lords between 2003 and 2008, prosecutors announced in Miami this afternoon. The bank has promised to pay $160 million in fines and penalties and to set up new safeguards within a year to prevent drug money from coming through the bank. If it fails in that effort, Wachovia could face criminal charges, says Jeffrey Sloman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District. "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," Sloman said at a...

Even as health care reform twists in the wind, immigration policy looms as the next big political debate — and Hispanics and Jews are moving to the forefront in a burgeoning political alliance. The next three months are seen as critical in the fight for immigration reform, but the weakening of the Democrats’ grip on Congress with the recent loss of a key Massachusetts Senate seat does not bode well for the passage of reform legislation. The Jewish-Latino alliance on immigration issues builds on the heritage and experience of the Jewish community and on the enthusiasm and urgent needs of...

Obamacare May Target Gun Owners Jillian Bandes Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Who might be the next victim of Obamacare? Gun owners. Government health care reform "will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database…that can preclude you from owning firearms,” said Gun Owners of America, in an email notification to their members, shortly before the health care debate on Saturday. GOA said that diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorders or other mental illnesses could be a reason the government uses to charge you more for health insurance under the public plan, or as part of co-op regulations....

The situation in Iran is not letting up. We've got people in jail, protestors being shot to death, a fraudulent election in the hands of a regime on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon. All of this and the best that our White House Press Secretary can come up with is the fact that Barack Obama ... the leader of the free world ... has been "moved" by the protests in Iran. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98VTF400&show_article=1&catnum=3P Moved? Moved? Well I'm so glad he's moved. People are fighting for their freedom, and Obama is moved. That's just so special. I'm moved that he's...

President Obama was accused yesterday of being "timid and passive" in his response towards the turmoil in Iran where, Republicans claim, protesters are crying out for America to show moral leadership. Although he used his strongest words yet over the weekend, when a written statement called on the Iranian Government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people, Mr Obama has so far declined to pronounce on the fairness of the election and is facing growing criticism at home. Senator John McCain, who was defeated in America’s own presidential election last November, said yesterday that Mr Obama...

In this week’s New York Times opinion pages, John Kerry articulates the rationale perhaps underlying President Obama’s reluctance to speak out boldly in support of the uprising in Iran. Kerry’s piece reveals the sickness inherent in his foreign policy perspective. Kerry’s argument boils down to depriving the Iranian leadership of its ability to use words of support for the Iranian people’s protest for freedom against U.S. interests. Kerry concludes, of course, that by staying “tepid,” Obama is appropriately balancing U.S. interests in maintaining Iranian leadership goodwill so that proper negotiations over their nuclear weapons program can eventually proceed. Many liberal...

President Obama's first response to the protests in Iran was silence, followed by a cautious, almost neutral stance designed to avoid "meddling" in Iranian affairs. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's initially neutral response to the crisis following the Philippine election of 1986, and of George H.W. Bush's initially neutral response to the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Both Reagan and Bush were able to abandon their mistaken neutrality in time to make a difference. It's not too late for Obama to do the same.

With Iran on a razor’s edge after a week of swelling protests, the Obama administration has fended off pressure from both parties to respond more forcefully to the disputed election there. But if Iranian authorities carry out their latest threat of a more sweeping crackdown, the White House would reconsider its carefully calibrated tone, officials said Friday. Administration officials said events this weekend in Tehran — when demonstrators plan to rally in defiance of the authorities — would be a telling indicator of whether President Obama will join European leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill in more harshly condemning the...

Protesters hit the streets demanding freedom and fair elections. A repressive government strikes back and denounces the dissidents as unpatriotic subversives. Change, even revolution, is in the air. Partisans of liberalism and progressivism should be natural allies of those trying to overturn the existing order. Progressives stand for democracy, equality and freedom, or they stand for nothing. In principle, it's conservatives who preach prudence. But there is a tension in the progressive worldview, because the left usually stands for restraint in foreign policy. It typically prefers negotiation to war, advises caution in the use of American power and recoils at...

Centrist House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are working together privately on healthcare reform. The talks have been so secretive and politically sensitive that some members interviewed by The Hill refused to name other legislators involved in the bipartisan effort. Members of the centrist GOP “Tuesday Group,” the New Democrat Coalition and the 52-member Blue Dog Coalition have been discussing both the policies and politics of moving their middle-of-the-road ideas in a body of Congress usually dominated by liberal or conservative ideology. Those centrist factions are wary of the proposals their respective leaders will introduce this month. Blue...

In cities across the country, U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, a member of the Hispanic Caucus in the House of Representatives, is pimping for yet another full-blown amnesty for illegal aliens. ‘Family re-unification’ is the latest public relations ploy being used in an attempt to convince citizens and government officials that the plight of illegal aliens is somehow the responsibility of the United States. This amnesty would reunite deported illegal aliens with their so-called ‘anchor babies’ on American soil. There is no impediment to family reunification in the parents’ country of origin. In the legislative queue in the U.S. Congress are...

As citizens' outrage over the torture memos heats up, and the US Congress is barraged with calls to appoint a special prosecutor, Americans may be about to commit an egregious miscarriage of justice. Republicans have now accused Democrats in Congress of having "blood on your hands too" in relation to the escalating calls to investigate. I would go further: not only do Congressional Democrats have blood on their hands – but so do we, the American people. And CIA agents may be about to be sacrificed to assuage their – and our – actual and associative guilt. The suddenly urgent...

The courtship of Senator Olympia Snowe started in December with a phone call from Joe Biden. The Vice President-elect made sure Snowe had his home telephone number in Delaware so she would know how to reach him on weekends. In the weeks that followed, the two traded memos back and forth about how an economic stimulus package should work. "I had an infinite number of ideas, because they had been stored up," says Snowe, a Maine Republican who never got that kind of treatment when her party controlled the White House. "Now somebody was listening." Snowe isn't the only GOP...

... Five weeks ago, after being targeted by gossip again, the chairman and chief executive of Lehman Brothers fired off a memo to his 25,000 staff worldwide....By the time many Lehman employees reached the end of Fuld’s memo, they concluded that he had just put the business up for sale. ...A sale mandate has been circulated regarding the invest-ment-management business, much of which is accounted for by Neuberger Berman, bought in 2003 for $2.6 billion.......now the biggest player on the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and most of the world’s other big bourses. In London, Fuld has spent millions since 2000...

American Accused of Spying for Iraq Faces Court    The hearing for a Maryland woman accused of acting as an unregistered agent for the Iraqi Intelligence Service began yesterday at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Ex-journalist and self-proclaimed anti-war activist Susan Lindauer, 48, was arrested in 2004 on charges of accepting $10,000 from the Iraqi government in 2002, according to the Center for Counterintelligence Web site.    A reporter and a professor who have known Lindauer since the early 90s testified at Lindauer's hearing today. They reported that she was close to individuals in intelligence circles.    She allegedly met...

Congressmen debate merits of border fence in public hearing at UTB-TSC Construction of the U.S.-Mexico border fence might only be a few weeks away, but in Washington, D.C., the barrier continues to be a hot button issue. The fence's significance - and its divisiveness - became clear on Monday, when eight congressmen and a number of local, state and national officials met at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College for a congressional field hearing. U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced the hearing, titled "Walls and Waivers," as a forum on the expedited construction of the border...

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- One frigid March morning last year, federal agents raided a factory in this old whaling town, arresting hundreds of illegal immigrants as they sewed vests and backpacks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most were shackled and sent to a detention center in Texas, where they faced rapid deportation unless they could post thousands of dollars in bail -- money they didn't have -- to buy time to mount a defense. Then, a mystery benefactor appeared. The anonymous donor ponied up more than $200,000 to spring 40 people from detention. The payments, which until now...

Slowly but surely Washington is acknowledging the high cost illegal immigration inflicts on local governments. The New York Times reports on a study by the University of Arizona and San Diego State University showing counties along the Mexican border spent $1.23 billion processing illegal immigrants through the justice system. Heritage research shows the cost of low skilled immigrants does not end there. In FY 2004, at the local and state level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes. The average low skill immigrant households imposed a fiscal burden on...

John McCain could officially wrap up the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, and he'll celebrate in Atlanta on Thursday. As the GOP establishment in Georgia begins to align behind the presumptive nominee, trouble still lingers among some conservative voters who doubt McCain's bona fides. Those skeptical voters ultimately could determine McCain's fate. Do they stay home? Do they vote Democrat instead? Tom Nesbitt is not sure what he's going to do. A retired postal worker from Turner County, the 66-year-old Republican voter said he's "disgusted" with his party in general and McCain in particular. "I have not yet decided whether I...

Some of them have been trying to gather support in the Rio Grande Valley. Others belong to nascent coalitions in small towns in Southwest Texas. Some don't live anywhere near the border but want to help out. The federal government's plan to erect physical barriers along various stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border has mobilized a hodge-podge opposition movement ranging from border mayors to immigrant advocacy groups and environmentalists. Yet there has been no unified front — opponents have been doing their own thing without coordinating with counterparts in other areas of the state and country. This weekend, a small but...

..."I didn't major in math," said the Baptist preacher, "I majored in miracles." Good for Huck. Why should he drop out? For too long conservatives have suppressed their convictions or meekly submitted, so as not to oppose a Republican president or get out of step with the party leadership.... ...For his party's and his country's sake, as well as his own, Mike Huckabee should keep the conversation going. Because right now, his party is looking at Hillary, Obama -- or Bush's third term.

WASHINGTON — The continuing drama of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination should not diminish what John McCain has accomplished on the Republican side of this campaign. The senator from Arizona still has to finish off the challenges from Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, but after Tuesday's victories in such key states as California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Missouri, and a commanding lead in delegates, the question is when, not if, he will secure the nomination. What is more, he has emerged — despite all the negatives of the George Bush legacy — as a serious possibility...

Despite his loud crusading for illegal alien driver’s licenses, Sen. Barack Obama lost out to Hillary Clinton on the Latino vote tonight....So, where did all of Hillary’s Latino votes come from? Well, there’s another legacy of Bill Clinton’s administration that should not be forgotten: The corrupted, reckless Citizenship USA program. Rosemary Jenks of Numbers USA first blew the whistle on the subversion of the naturalization process, pushed by then-VP Al Gore in 1996: The preliminary results of the INS internal review of naturalization applications approved during CUSA, as presented to the Subcommittee by Assistant Attorney General for Administration Stephen Colgate...

Have GOP Voters forgotten that just a few months ago, John McCain stood hand-in-hand with liberal icon Ted Kennedy pushing for the largest amnesty for illegal aliens in American history? While Rasmussen polling showed that Americans following the legislation very closely opposed it 3 to 1 (69% to 23%), McCain ignored the massive public outcry! The angry calls rolling into the Senate offices, including John McCain's, were between 50 and 100 to 1 against McCain and Kennedy's bill. We know this because we stood outside his door counting calls received by his staff and because other Senators told us the...

TUSCALOOSA, ALA. -- Mike Huckabee has changed his mind and will sign an Alabama senator’s immigration pledge for presidential candidates - an effort to defeat the McCain-Kennedy proposal in the U.S. Senate. In Birmingham last week, Huckabee said he was almost ready to sign the pledge put forth by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., but was on the fence regarding one of its aspects. "Which one?" a reporter asked. Huckabee said it had to do with the 13th point of the 15-point pledge, one to “eliminate the visa lottery program and change current preference categories that guarantee automatic entry for aging...

PHOENIX -- The protesters gather every morning before dawn, monitoring the entrance to a fenced compound called the Macehualli Work Center. They are trying to shut the place down. They wave placards and take photos of anyone driving in to pick up the day laborers who congregate there. They want nothing less than to save America from what they call "the invasion."

Senator Mel Martinez (R-Fl) said: "I'm going to do my best to make sure a Democrat--- Republican wins in November."

The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin. I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection—the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right...

McCain was booed by a crowd while he was giving his thoughts on illegals what we should do with illegal immigrants. McCain contended there are “various things” we could do depending on how long the illegal has been here and what their “record” has been.

... there is indeed much to admire about Sen. John McCain ... this has not been the case with his disingenuous blustering on illegal immigration — particularly when his cosponsorship of mass-amnesty legislation with Sen. Edward Kennedy is raised... (snip) ...it doesn't give Mr. McCain the right to shut people up when they ask legitimate questions about his immigration record — which includes cosponsoring legislation to permit illegal aliens to pay lower in-state tuition rates denied to some students that are in the country legally, supporting Social Security benefits for illegals and voting against an amendment last year that would...

WASHINGTON — In an uncharacteristic display of public frustration with party colleagues, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Friday sharply criticized two Republican congressmen who had accused her of a stealth effort to derail the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Conservative blogs and pundits have attacked Hutchison ever since Reps. Peter King of New York and Duncan Hunter of California accused the Texas Republican of essentially repealing Congress' mandate to build 700 miles of fencing. "This was a midnight massacre," King said of an amendment Hutchison shepherded into law last month. "It was absolutely disgraceful." After being labeled "Panderer to the...

Mike Huckabee abandoned conservative governance long ago. As governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007, his record on economic issues was long and dismal. In the current campaign, he supports expensive, restrictive energy legislation, a misguided new national sales tax, and nanny-state notions like a federal smoking ban.

They're back, the out-of-state media types who want to know who this guy is, this presidential candidate out of Hope, Ark. This year the subject is Michael Dale Huckabee, who's not just a highly effective preacher but a populist. He has a knack for reducing complex issues to simple terms. There's a species of Republican true believers in Arkansas who've always suspected his bona fides as an honest-to-goodness fiscal conservative and social reactionary. Much the same anti-Huckabee line is now being repeated by the high-powered Club for Growth, which has launched an all-out effort to dub the Huck just another...

The health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a "health care" system, not a "health" system. We don't need universal health care mandated by federal edict or funded through ever-higher taxes. We do need to get serious about preventive health care instead of chasing more and more dollars to treat chronic disease, which currently gobbles up 80% of our health care costs, and yet is often avoidable. The result is that we'll be able to deliver better care where and when it's needed. I advocate policies that will encourage the private sector...

Ed Rollins is my new hero. It was nice to see him turn the tables on Chris Wallace and put that pompous man in his place. The treatment Fox News and "conservative" celebrities like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham & Sean Hannity have given to Mike Huckabee is deserving of shame and infamy. Britt Hume is the one who truly disappoints me. I truly thought he would be above joining in the subtle mockery, condescension and propagation of distorted “facts” on this honorable man. Frankly, I would not at all be surprised if this so-called “blogger” whom Chris Wall claims “overheard”...

AUSTIN — There aren't many college students whose grasp of their classwork can make an immediate and profound difference in someone's life. But at the University of Texas law school, students selected to work in an immigration clinic often defend clients who can't afford to lose their case. "It was hands-down the most rewarding experience of my life. I felt like I had someone's life in my hands," recalls Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, a 27-year-old Austin native and UT law school senior. "There are asylum seekers who are fleeing real danger in their countries, and if they were returned, I didn't have...

It might help the drought that so few flowers are left to water in Atlanta, so many having been thrown at Jane Fonda to celebrate her 70th birthday.The AJC predictably gave her glowing coverage, with only the mention that Fonda has to deal with criticism by Vietnam veterans. Here is one Vietnam veteran who is bothered far more by how the media portray her than by Fonda herself.Now that the threat of communism is gone, the Cold War stand against it is sometimes ridiculed, likened to looking for boogeymen under the bed. Fonda's own affinity for communism is brushed aside...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A developer of luxury lake condominiums was sentenced Monday to probation for not paying taxes on his construction workers, including some who were illegal immigrants. Under a plea deal, Michael Schlup avoided prison by agreeing to pay more than $815,000 in back taxes, $140,000 in fines and $24,873 in court costs to the state and the Camden County prosecutor's office. He also has been banned from conducting business in Missouri. Schlup pleaded guilty in June to 14 counts of failing to withhold or submit payroll taxes to the state. Attorney General Jay Nixon contends Schlup used...

The investigation of men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix led Wednesday to a guilty plea in a very different sort of case. Cherry Hill municipal court clerk Debra H. Benecke admitted fixing two traffic tickets for one of the suspects. "She made a dumb decision to try to help out someone who really couldn't help himself," her lawyer, Scott Schweiger, said in an interview. Benecke pleaded guilty to tampering with public records. Benecke, who worked for the courts for 14 years, faces probation when she is sentenced on Feb. 1. The 49-year-old is also barred from...

Operators given probation for conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants BROWNSVILLE — Federal officials seized $540,000 from four Harlingen motel owners after they were sentenced to probation for conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants, an official said Friday. Rakeshkumar Bhakta, 40, and wife Alka Bhakta, 35, owners of the Hudson House motel, and Kamleshkumar Bhakta, 32, and wife Falguniben Bhakta, 30, owners of the Country Side Inn motel, forfeited a total of $540,000 in equity from their businesses, said Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Antonio. U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle ordered the owners...

Banks are seeing an untapped resource in providing home loans to undocumented U.S. residentsThe banking industry is opening its doors to a controversial new market: illegal immigrants.

Republicans need all the votes they can get next November if they are to have any hope of retaining the White House and winning back control of Congress. But one group of voters – among whom the GOP has gained considerable ground over the last few elections – now seems about to slip away, perhaps permanently. Hispanic voters are poised to turn several red states blue come 2008, virtually guaranteeing a Democratic presidential victory and a pickup in congressional seats as well, according to a new analysis of Hispanic voting behavior. "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino...