Free Republic

Federal authorities have closed U.S. park land in three Arizona counties along the Mexico border because it is no longer safe after the American territory was taken over by violent drug smuggling cartels as reported by FOX News.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers, including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends. The changes were welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the nation's immigration detention system. The 28 changes identified in the e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to “softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh carrot...

Four illegal immigrants who ran from police during a traffic stop were arrested Tuesday. But they were quickly released after federal immigration agents refused to pick them up for deportation.LENOIR CITY, Tenn. (WVLT) -- The jailhouse doors flew wide open Tuesday to four illegal aliens who ran from police during a traffic stop just one day earlier."It's frustrating to some degree, but there's also nothing we can really do about it," said Asst. Chief Jimmy Davis with Loudon County Sheriff's Office. The quad were among 10 suspected illegals enroute to Knoxville from Texas when their van was stopped along I-75...

Democrats on Thursday welcomed Mark Critz to their ranks after he dashed Republican hopes of capturing a Pennsylvania House seat seen as a possible bellwether for the midterms. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., swore in Critz after he won a special election to fill the final months of the late Rep. John Murtha's term. The longtime Murtha aide beat Republican Tim Burns on Tuesday. Both candidates will meet again this fall. "This moment is bittersweet for me," said Critz, recalling his former boss who died in February at age 77 from complications of gallbladder surgery. Murtha had held the seat...

No one has been more startled than this pollster that immigration has burst onto the scene as an issue more significant to most Americans than health care, financial bailouts and the economy. So maybe I'm a better pollster than prognosticator. But I do have enough horse sense to trace the trajectory of a new issue once it gets to be headline news. Arizona's new illegal-immigration law requires that state residents have on their persons proof of legal residency -- but now they can only be asked for this proof under carefully restricted circumstances. The law immediately ignited a firestorm of...

Authorities were searching today for dozens of people who fled a suspect stash house for illegal immigrants in north Houston after a shooting, police said. About 50 people are thought to have bolted overnight from the home near the intersection of Vashti and Karen after shots were fired, police said. About 10 people were apprehended

The city of Gilbert, Ariz., has ordered a group of seven adults to stop gathering for Bible studies in a private home because such meetings are forbidden by the city's zoning codes. The issue was brought to a head when city officials wrote a letter to a pastor and his wife informing them they had 10 days to quit having the meetings in their private home. . .

t’s so crazy it just. might. work. Graham, along with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), met with Obama to update him on their efforts to advance immigration reform legislation. During the meeting, Graham said he made it clear to the president that the already difficult task of passing immigration reform becomes even harder when reconciliation is in play. “I expressed, in no uncertain terms, my belief that immigration reform could come to a halt for the year if health care reconciliation goes forward. For more than a year, health care has sucked most of the energy out of the room. Using...

We elected you on a promise of hope and change. You've disappointed us. In 2010, we are taking the country back. Blue collar democrats, independents, and conservatives. We love our country. We are proud of our founders. And we will fight to protect our traditions. We don't want your revolution.

Organizers of the conservative Tea Party movement are forging plans to translate the anger that fueled nationwide anti-tax rallies and town hall protests into an electoral force that can boot incumbents in next year's midterm elections. Their targets range from big names like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to county assessors. The East Bay Freedom Fighters, a Tea Party group based in the Pleasanton area, is already vetting 43 Bay Area candidates, many of them first time office-seekers. Other branches in California are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would restrict the political...

Palin Derangement Syndrome was on full display Monday evening when HLN's Joy Behar invited the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan on to trash the former Governor of Alaska. At issue fully fifteen months after Sarah Palin was thrust into the limelight as John McCain's running mate was whether or not Trig is actually her son. Behar began the segment: "Sarah Palin may have been coy on the Oprah Show about a possible White House run in 2012. But new poll numbers show she`s a contender. Oy." This evoked laughter from crew members on the set. Behar then introduced her guest, and after...

Sarah Palin may or may not run for president in 2012, but she is already the overwhelming favorite in the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck primaries. In a new Washington Post poll, Palin beats other GOP leaders on two questions: who best represents the party's core values, and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination battle were held today. But she has particular appeal to the loyal followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts in the country.

(watch video) Rev Manning was just visited by the CIA regarding his outspoken claims as to Obama's ineligibility to serve as POTUS in not producing not just his BC, but most of his professional and personal records.

I don't typically watch Oprah. But I won't miss Monday's interview with Sarah Palin. The appearance is supposed to be about Ms. Palin's new memoir, but a lot more will be riding on the encounter than book sales. After last year's brutal presidential campaign, Ms. Palin is now reintroducing herself to the American public. Nothing less than her future in American politics—and a possible run for the White House in 2012—hangs in the balance. Ms. Palin has two problems. The first is that she's become one of the most polarizing figures in the country. The second is that voters continue...

WASHINGTON – Ignoring a Republican boycott, Senate Democrats pushed a precedent-setting climate bill through a key committee Thursday. Rep. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, had delayed the crucial vote for days because of a Republican protest over whether the cost of the legislation had been fully examined. But the California Democrat moved quickly to pass the bill, which for the first time would set mandatory limits on heat-trapping gases, without any of the seven GOP senators on the panel present. The measure cleared the panel on a 11-1 vote. Boxer said the Republican demand...

Is the New IRS Wealth Squad Coming for You? Smart Money, Oct. 27, 2009 Being wealthy has its downsides, chief among them the higher risk of an IRS audit. Now, amid the continuing debate over whether the government is doing enough to combat financial fraud, comes news that gives the uber-wealthy – or maybe even the “merely” wealthy – yet another reason to fear Uncle Sam’s attention. In a speech before the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or AICPA, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced the recent formation of a new unit, dubbed Global High Wealth Industry Group, which will focus on the...

US officials are expected to announce plans that would allow illegal immigrants not considered a threat to be taken out of jails, reports say. The new policy would list immigrants according to the risk they may pose, the Wall Street Journal reports. Detainees who are not criminals could be kept in hotels and nursing homes, according to leaks of the plans. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to give details of the plans later. Her department is hoping to cut the costs of detaining immigrants, which stood at almost $2bn (£1.3bn) in 2008. It says alternatives like the hotels...

There's still no love lost between Supervisor Chris Daly and Mayor Gavin Newsom. Daly, making a guest appearance Monday at the Board of Supervisors' public safety committee to support Supervisor David Campos' amendment to the city's sanctuary ordinance, said Newsom should be "held accountable" for releasing a confidential legal memo that said Campos' amendment violated federal law and would invite a legal challenge to the entire sanctuary policy. Daly downplayed the memo, saying it outlines a worst-case scenario and "exaggerates the legal risk involved." But he also said Newsom had provided a road map to anyone looking to challenge the...

Sharp Rise In Chinese Arrests At U.S. Border At least 261 have been arrested this year trying to cross near Tucson. Illegal Chinese immigrants can be big money for smugglers. By Sebastian Rotella October 5, 2009 Reporting from Nogales, Ariz. - Amid an overall drop in arrests of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S-Mexico border, an intriguing anomaly has cast a new light on human smuggling: Authorities report an almost ten-fold spike in the number of Chinese people caught in the southern Arizona desert, the busiest smuggling corridor on the international line. The Border Patrol in the Tucson sector has arrested...

“The Revolt of the Admirals” is a name given to an episode that took place in the late 1940s in which several US Navy admirals and high-ranking civilian officials publicly disagreed with the president and the Secretary of Defense’s plans to disband the US Marine Corps and most of the US Navy and give their missions to the new US Air Force, which proposed preserving the peace strictly with its new strategic international bomber force of B-36 bombers carrying nuclear weapons (which were still huge, the average fission bomb weighing 10,000 pounds). This decision climaxed in 1949 when many officers,...