Free Republic

Rand Paul appeared on Mark Levin's radio show Tuesday evening to share his thoughts on the refugee crisis and the lack of vetting of Muslim refugees arriving in America. The conservative, libertarian senator had some other things to say, especially about Marco Rubio. Rubio has always supported an open-borders policy and was part of the Gang of 8, the group of senators that tried to pass amnesty for illegal aliens and would have opened the floodgates to Islamic refugees. Last week Senator Ted Cruz blasted Rubio, saying the Floridian had voted against every single amendment conservatives put forth to the...

Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 93% said, “America is about done with” his opponent GOP front-runner Donald Trump because he is a “buffoon who insults women and calls them ugly,” and that has “become pitiful.” Paul said, “I think America is about done with him. I think we are ready to move on. I sensed that in the debate. There was up a silliness and lack of seriousness on his part that I think America will be done with him. The debate I think will reshuffle the pack. And I think...

Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Northern California Republican who ran as a conservative to get the Republican Senate nomination in 2010, attacked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Wednesday, saying there was “no honor” in his fight to defund Obamacare. Fiorina made her remarks just days after she joined the American Conservative Union, an establishment organization on the right that supports comprehensive immigration reform. In an appearance on CNN’s The Lead, Fiorina blamed the government shutdown on Cruz and implied that Republicans would have been better off waiving the white flag from the beginning on eliminating Obamacare. -snip- Fiorina said she...

President Obama’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director tells lawmakers that no consequences are planned for sanctuary cities until Congress first passes “comprehensive immigration reform.” Sarah Saldaña testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on criminal alien violence. After hearing emotional testimony from families torn apart by illegal immigrant murderers, Republican members of Congress grilled two administration witnesses: Leon Rodriquez, Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Sarah Saldaña, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Both Rodriquez and Saldaña have been tasked with carrying out President Obama’s executive amnesty for so-called DREAMers, which includes work permits...

Steve Malzberg invited Rep. Steve King onto his Newsmax program on Friday to discuss issues ranging from the church shooting in Charleston, which King blamed on prescription medication, to undocumented immigrants, whom he said have killed “multiples of the victims of the September 11 attacks,” to Caitlyn Jenner, whom he said illustrates “how far this society has gone from rational thought.”

University graduates routinely show great emotion (spontaneous and sometimes scripted) as they stand in front of crowds to mark momentous occasions. Onlookers clap and cheer, hoot and holler, and then wait to see what the next student (or student body) will do. But one UC San Diego student's Mexican flag-waving exuberance has sparked a conversation that's transcended her brief moment Sunday. Indira Esparza, a 22-year-old undocumented student who moved to the U.S. when she was 2, proudly unfurled the green, white and red flag of Mexico as she walked across the stage.

While Texas spearheads a lawsuit to halt the Obama administration's executive action on immigration, several Texas lawmakers in Congress are launching their own efforts to block the president's plans to grant legal status to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill Tuesday that would bar the Department of Homeland Security from using immigration fees to fund the program. The senator's bill -- dubbed the Immigration Slush Fund Elimination Act -- would reserve the authority of Congress to fund the agency."The federal government should not be in the business of looting the wallets of those...

1. A constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College and substituting in its place a direct election of the president by popular vote. 2. A constitutional amendment abolishing the two term limit on the presidency. 3. A constitutional amendment mandating that 5% of GDP be spent on the Pentagon’s budget, with safeguards that the money actually be spent on soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and the equipment they need, and not on absurd “tack-ons” like “green energy” production for military bases. Rebuild the military and detach it from the GOP, and do so before a coup becomes a reality in the...

MOUNTAIN HOUSE (CBS13) — The community of Mountain House is days away from having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source. Anthony Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never thought it would come to this. “My wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water stored in my home,” he said. The upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a drop for the 15,000 residents to drink. “We’re out there looking...

There's a serious drought in California, largely the result of government action in saving fish species rather than building additional infrastructure.  Now government in that state has ordered severe restrictions on the use of outdoor sprinkling, causing most of the lawns and gardens in California to shrivel and die. But many of California's wealthy citizens don't think those restrictions apply to them.  They can afford the $800-a-month water bills and don't see a need to stop the sprinklers. One such community is Rancho Sante Fe, where residents increased their water usage by 9% following the announcement by Governor Jerry...

Farmers with rights to California water dating back more than a century will face sharp cutbacks, the first reduction in their water use since 1977, state officials announced Friday. The officials said that rights dating to 1903 would be restricted, and that such restrictions would grow as the summer months go on, with the state facing a prolonged drought that shows few signs of easing. “Demand in our key rivers systems are outstripping supply,” said Caren Trgovcich, the State Water Resources Control Board’s chief deputy director. “Other cuts may be imminent.” It is too early to know the practical impact...

In the summer of 2002, shortly before I was elected to Congress, I sat through an eye-opening meeting with representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council and several local environmental activist groups. Hoping to convince me to support various water restrictions, they argued that San Joaquin Valley farmers should stop growing alfalfa and cotton in order to save water — though they allowed that the planting of high-value crops such as almonds could continue. Then, as our discussion turned to the groups' overall vision for the San Joaquin Valley, they told me something astonishing:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —It's a television ad that runs just 30 seconds, but its implication that immigrants are draining resources during the California drought has critics contending its message is divisive and untrue. "I think those ads are disingenuous," said Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat from Bell Gardens. "They serve to further divide us as Californians."

<p>I offer another chronicle, a 14-hour tour of the skeleton I once knew as California.</p> <p>An acquaintance had also emailed and reminded me that not far away there was a mound of used drip hose on the roadside. That mess proved to be quite large, maybe 1,000 feet of corroded and ripped up plastic hose. I suppose no scavenger thinks it can be recycled. I promise to haul it away this week. One must be prompt: even a small pile attracts dumpers like honey to bees. They are an ingenious and industrious lot (sort of like the cunning and work ethic of those who planted IEDs during the Iraq War). My cousin’s pile across the road has grown to Mt. Rushmore proportions. Do freelance dumpers make good money promising to take away their neighborhood’s mattresses and trash without paying the $20 or so county dumping fee? And does their success depend on fools like me, who are expected to keep roadsides tidy by cleaning up past trash to make room for future refuse?</p>

Over the past year and a half, we've seen much in the way of speculation of what Obama is really up to, what his true agenda might be behind all the soothing and meretricious rhetoric. It was quite clear that "Obama" was a construct, a carefully manufactured image, as all politicians are to one extent or another. But Obama was an extreme example -- all image, most of it having little or no connection with any discernable substance. The gap between what he said and what he would then proceed to do was wide and glaring. This obvious and undeniable...

Breitbart Texas has learned that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter was shot down or forced to initiate an emergency landing in Laredo, Texas due to receiving gunfire from the Mexican side of the border

HOUSTON, Texas--Breitbart Texas has confirmed that on Thursday morning a Mexican military helicopter flew into the U.S. and shot at Border Patrol agents. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol provided Breitbart Texas with a statement that said, "At approximately 5:45 a.m. Thursday morning, a Mexican law enforcement helicopter crossed approximately 100 yards north into Arizona nearly 8 miles southwest of the Village of San Miguel on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation while on a law enforcement operation near the border. Two shots were fired from the helicopter but no injuries or damage to U.S. property were reported. The incident is currently...

Border Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border. KVOA-TV reports that Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico.

Last Tuesday, Sipsey Street Irregular Mike Vanderboegh (and also Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman) speculated on rumors that a drug trafficking syndicate's .50 caliber rifle that forced a Mexican military helicopter into an emergency landing was a "Project Gunwalker" gun. Mr. Vanderboegh was quoting CleanUpATF.org forum member who posts under the name "Epic Failure" (emphasis added): Wanna lay money on where the rifles came from? Word is that full blown panic is taking place in the hallways at 99 New York Avenue [BATFE headquarters in Washington D.C.]. Rumor is that a 50 was also seized. The recoveries of violence...

RIO DE JANEIRO – A police helicopter flying over an intense shootout between rival drug gangs in a Rio slum was hit by gunfire Saturday and crashed in a fiery explosion on a football field. Two officers were killed while the pilot and another officer on board suffered burns but managed to escape, a police spokesman said. Bullets flying from the Morro dos Macacos ("Monkey Hill" in Portuguese) slum in northern Rio de Janeiro hit the pilot in the leg as he hovered above the clash, causing him to lose control and crash, turning the helicopter into a blackened wreck.