Free Republic

Opposition to President Trump's emergency border declaration is snowballing in the Senate, forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to scramble for a way to avoid a major embarrassment for the president. While McConnell has long viewed a resolution of disapproval backed by Democrats as likely to pass the Senate, support for the measure is growing. Some senators and aides say they think it could get as many as 15 Republican votes, which would put it in striking distance of a veto-proof majority. "Members of the Senate ought to have a real problem and not be flippant about allowing the president...

Republican. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky revealed this week that there are at least 10 Senate Republicans who will betray President Donald Trump and vote against his national emergency declaration. While speaking at the Southern Kentucky Lincoln Day Dinner late Saturday, Paul said that he couldn’t “vote to give extra-constitutional powers to the president.”

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he will back a resolution that blocks President Trump’s declaration of an emergency at the southern U.S. border, giving it the votes needed to pass but not enough to turn back a presidential veto. Mr. Paul, a Republican, announced his decision during a Saturday speech at Western Kentucky University, according to the Bowling Green Daily News. “I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Mr. Paul said. “We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away...

OXON HILL, Md. — The Koch political network for the first time plans to intervene in GOP primaries as part of a deliberate 2020 strategy to reverse years of essentially rubber-stamping the Republican Party in general elections. Disappointed with Republicans in Congress and occasionally at odds with President Trump, the coalition of political groups overseen by Charles Koch has been re-evaluating its engagement in federal campaigns. Playing in GOP primaries to elect more like-minded Republicans to the House and Senate is key tactical adjustment the network has agreed to, with a top Koch official confirming that incumbents could be targeted...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told state lawmakers Friday that he hasn’t made a decision on joining a Congressional resolution opposing President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the nation’s southern border. Lee objected to Trump’s use of executive authority to divert funding for the construction of a border wall. But he said he’s less concerned with that particular declaration than the underlying question of whether and when a president can sidestep Congress on government spending. “It’s probably not a good idea to give presidents that much power,” Lee said. Lee said while he supports the president’s goal of...

A man caught on body camera footage attempting to kill a California sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop this week had been deported three times before, but local officials had shielded him from ICE in recent years. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they had lodged four separate “detainer” requests asking local authorities to hold Javier Hernandez-Morales for pickup after he’d been booked for local charges at California jails. Each request was refused, leaving him out on the streets on Sunday, when he tried to kill Napa County Sheriff’s Deputy Riley Jarecki. “This incident may have been prevented if...

The man who was shot dead by a Napa County sheriff’s deputy after he fired at her point blank during a traffic stop was a Mexican national in the country illegally after being deported multiple times, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

These Republicans raise two questions: Why is there a Congress? And why are such Republicans receiving salaries?

When I was growing up my mom sagely told me, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” For the past several decades, where actual border security and effective immigration law enforcement are concerned, the political elites of both parties have consistently exclaimed, “No way!” Rather than devise strategies to effectively enforce our immigration laws, secure our borders and deter massive illegal immigration, our political leaders worked mightily to devise excuses and subterfuges to scam Americans by perpetrating Theft By Deception: The Immigration Con Game. Politicians from both parties have declared that since we cannot deport all of the illegal...

New York State managed to draw significant national media attention this week when Amazon decided to cancel its plan to open a new HQ in Queens. AOC, who apparently now runs the Democratic Party, immediately declared victory, having ensured that a caravan of tens of thousands of new, well-paying jobs wouldn’t invade the area. But as difficult as it may be to believe, that wasn’t the worst economic news New Yorkers had to face.The less reported story had to do with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to save the upstate region by investing in “green technology” companies, presumably also bringing...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) earned praise from “drug justice” advocates after criticizing a growing marijuana legalization and business model that is paving the way for white male investors to reap major profits after minorities spent decades in prisons for selling pot. She made her comments during a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing this week on banking services for the burgeoning cannabis industry as more states legalize the sale and use of marijuana. She suggested the growing industry was “compounding the racial wealth gap” by allowing wealthy white-dominated companies to gain a quick advantage in the industry. She complained that communities...

If you’re a 2020 GOP primary voter who’s been holding out for a pro-abortion, pro-amnesty liberal who endorsed Barack Obama, praised Hillary Clinton and compared Donald Trump to the Nazis — Bill Weld’s your man! And if you’re Donald Trump, concerned that a primary challenge could cripple your re-election bid the same way it did for George H. W. Bush or Jimmy Carter, former Governor Weld really is your man. He’s the ideal candidate for Trump to run against. Weld, the Libertarian Party nominee for vice president in 2016, will be speaking at the Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford,...

Beto O'Rourke says he would 'absolutely' tear down Trump's wall, along with 600 miles of existing barriers at the US-Mexico border Beto O'Rourke denounced President Trump's proposed border wall in an interview Thursday after Congress passed a spending bill allocating $1.4B for it The former congressman from El Paso said: 'Absolutely, I'd take the wall down' He asserted that the 600 miles of barriers currently at the border haven't made America safer, but have led to the deaths of 4,000 migrants 'We have walled off their opportunity to legally petition for asylum' O'Rourke said Beto O'Rourke said that he would...

In the early hours of the morning, Congress delivered an absolute dud of a spending bill in order to keep the largely-useless federal government open at the expense of people who fund it. As noted by Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, the bill will hamper the ability for the Department of Homeland Security, and thus Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to remove illegal aliens from the United States. “None of the funds provided by this Act… may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, refer for a decision whether to initiate removal...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz may be able to avoid a 50-state scramble for presidential ballot access by seeking the Libertarian Party’s support. Members of the large national third party, which took more than 3 percent of the vote in 2016, are intrigued by Schultz and might be willing to give him the party nomination in 2020, meaning he would not have to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures as an independent. Schultz has branded himself a “centrist independent” as he teases a potential challenge to President Trump. But he has Libertarians swooning over his concern about the national debt...

The Democratic leadership may be trying to keep its distance from the hard Left’s comically absurd Green New Deal, but it has embraced the “Abolish ICE” agenda. The Washington Post report that Rich linked to makes clear that the Democratic budget negotiators, while shying away from simply guillotining the agency immediately, as their party’s Jacobins have demanded, have simply adopted a different approach to the same goal — starving ICE’s immigration-enforcement functions. Wall funding hasn’t even been a major issue in the ongoing talks because, as the Post put it, the “White House had begun to signal flexibility on that...

Are there any pro-America, pro-freedom democrats left? Everywhere I look I see democrats raving about full out socialism and open borders. With this coming election, looks like they're preparing for full frontal attacks on American sovereignty, capitalism, coal gas & oil, manufacturing & industry, our Judeo-Christianity heritage and freedom itself. It appears the democrats smell blood in the water and feel they've brainwashed enough fools and smuggled in enough alien voters and have perfected fraud and ballot harvesting to the point that they can win any election, so are pulling out all the stops. Capitalism-killing "Green" New Deals, open-borders, full...

Did the Roman Empire help to spread Christianity, and if so, in what ways? Pax Romana During the times of Christ and the Apostles, the Roman Empire was the dominant world power and they subjugated all nations which they conquered, but they also allowed them certain freedoms, like the freedom to worship in their own way. The mighty empire brought a domineering power to the world, but it also brought a peace that the world had not known for some time. It was called “Pax Romana,” which is Latin for Roman Peace and so the Romans brought a state of...

FULL TITLE: 15 UK Christian churches get threatening letters warning them to stop ALL services, or they will face Islamic bombings and stabbings Islamic law forbids Christians to make public display of their religion. Could that ha “‘Petrol bomb’ threats sent to churches and supermarkets,” BBC, January 16, 2019 (thanks to David): More than a dozen churches have been sent “threatening letters” bearing a West Midlands postmark, with one letter warning of a petrol bomb attack. West Midlands Police is investigating and said churches and supermarkets in the region and further afield had been targeted “over a period of months”....

Meantime for all of the disheartened, there are good reasons not to join the Democrats in their Open Borders death dance welcoming the end of a safe from drug and human trafficking America. According to the Black Caucus, Democrat House Leader Nancy Pelosi, who so arrogantly cancelled Tuesday’s scheduled State of the Union Address, should make the SOTU herself since she’s “running the country”. Before Pelosi goes running off to find Tony Bennett to lend his iconic voice to the historic event, or insists on a front row seat for her pal George Lucas, the Black Caucus should take a...