Free Republic

Democrats now will say anything to distance themselves from sanctuary city policies, even though they have supported these policies for years. In an exclusive CNN interview Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked about San Francisco's refusal to hand over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement seven-time convicted felon and five-time deportee Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. He stands accused in the fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle as she took an evening stroll on Pier 14 last week. (After telling a local TV station he shot Steinle by accident, Lopez-Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to murder.) Clinton answered, "The city made a mistake not...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Perhaps in fear that he didn’t have enough backers willing to show up on their own, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign organized to bus supporters to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to cheer during his appearance on stage and vote for him in the straw poll. The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin writes that Bush brought people in from Washington, D.C.: “Mr. Bush’s supporters organized caravans of his Washington backers to attend his speech, and they cheered whenever anyone else booed,” Martin wrote. Those same bused in cheerers also will likely be expected by Bush’s...

A top Chamber of Commerce official and a veteran Republican campaign finance lawyer who co-founded a pro-amnesty super PAC are advising former Florida governor Jeb Bush ahead of a likely 2016 presidential run. According to a Washington Post report, “Rob Engstrom, senior vice president and national political director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is providing assistance by taking a temporary leave from his post there to help Bush for several weeks.”

America could be on the threshold of its greatest century. With new drilling technologies, the United States will soon have an energy surplus. This means trillions of dollars in new wealth and a foreign policy not dominated by oil. .... But the bright future is at risk if the federal government continues on its arc of irresponsibility. America's government-spending addiction and its lackluster system of public education are the two greatest impediments to achieving the country's potential. I know conservatives have the solution. As governor of Florida, I balanced the state budget for eight years in a row while cutting...

In an interview, 36-year-old George P. Bush is as plain-spoken as his grandmother Barbara, who in his telling wears the pants in the Bush family. And while he says his father Jeb, the former governor of Florida, is sincere when he says he isn’t campaigning to join the Romney ticket, George P. also strongly suggests that his dad would say yes if asked: “If called upon to serve, he will,” he says flatly

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said Thursday that he found it “troubling” that the 2012 presidential candidates are “appealing to people’s fears and emotion” on the campaign trail, according to reports. Bush expressed concern about the type of rhetoric that the candidates were using, without getting specific or naming names. “I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective...

by John HillStand With ArizonaMore than 50,000 Americans have been killed by illegal aliens since 9/11.Think about that. More than 6,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since that same date. But nearly ten times that number have been killed right here at home as a consequence of the Federal government's failure to secure our borders and protect its citizens, in direct violation of the Constitution's Article IV Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application...

In a clip from his interview with WSJ's Simon Constable, Dr. Nouriel Roubini insists that it was the policies of George W. Bush that caused the current U.S. economic crisis.

I am getting sick and tired of people making and posting all these shallow ad hominem attacks on Sarah Palin. She threatens business as usual in Washington, period. The next time some so called"expert" in the media, ex Bush, ex Mccain establishment types attack someone like Palin , ask the question what part of her policy stances are they criticizing? The answer will always be the same NONE. Reason being, they know she sides with the American people on the major issues and if they were to be honest about why they come on these shows and write what they...

Like most Americans, I am a descendant of immigrants and a grateful beneficiary of the opportunities available to our nation's citizens. My grandparents emigrated from Mexico in the early 20th century seeking a better life, and they found it working in the fields and dairy farms of Texas. Diversity is one of the great strengths of the United States -- diversity fueled by the migration of ethnicities, cultures and ideas. Today, however, there is virtually universal agreement that our immigration process is broken. While security on our southern border has improved in the past decade, it remains inadequate in a...

Politico reports on Bush-era staffers who are condemning the latest rhetoric on ending birthright citizenship: The push by congressional Republicans to deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants has opened up a split in the GOP, with several former Bush administration officials warning that the party could lose its claim to one of its proudest legacies: the 14th Amendment. For Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) and other conservatives, the solution to what they regard as one of the greatest flaws of U.S. immigration policy is obvious: Amend the amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil regardless...

Former first lady Laura Bush has broken with her husband on the premier social issues of his administration and said she backs gay marriage and abortion. After more than eight years of silence on the controversial issues, Mrs. Bush said in an interview with CNN's Larry KingTuesday, that gay marriage and abortion were points of contention with her husband, former President George W. Bush. Mrs. Bush in recent weeks has been promoting her memoir "Spoken from the Heart," in which she writes about her life both before and after becoming first lady. In response to a question about gay marriage,...

A former White House speechwriter, Mark Thiessen, has jumped to the defense of his former boss, writing for the Washington Post that George W. Bush “established a conservative record without parallel.” Even by the loose standards of Washington, that is a jaw-dropping assertion. I’ve been explaining for years that Bush was a big-government advocate, even writing a column back in 2007 for the Washington Examiner pointing out that Clinton had a much better economic record from a free-market perspective. I also groused to the Wall Street Journal the following year about Bush’s dismal performance. “Bush doesn’t have a conservative legacy”...

Mad About Obamacare? Blame BushBy Philip Klein on 3.21.10 @ 11:27PM They did it. Despite an overwhelming public backlash and the likely political ramifications, Democrats cut deals and twisted arms and got the votes they needed, winning by a 219 to 212 margin. While the reconciliation process still remains, it’s a sideshow at this point. The United States is a presidential signature away from having national health care. Suffice it to say, as somebody who has spent the past year working to expose the devastating consequences of this legislation and who values individual liberty, this is a sad day....

Jeb Bush is finally endorsing in the big GOP primary, but it's not the primary we've been waiting for. Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) reelection campaign announced Wednesday that Bush will back him over former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.). We'll continue to wait and see whether Bush feels the need to weigh into the GOP primary in his home state. At this point, though, he'd really just be piling on by endorsing Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist. Here's Bush's statement: "As we continue to face tough challenges both at home and abroad, America needs leaders like Senator John McCain in the...

NAPLES — The Bush brothers packed the house at the Naples Grande Beach Resort. Former President George W. Bush and his brother Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, spoke Tuesday night as part of the Naples Town Hall Distinguished Speakers Series. They talked issues _ everything from health care and the Iraq war to budget deficits and Social Security reform. George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president, has stayed out of the spotlight, limiting his face-time in public since leaving the White House about a year ago. He and his brother – the state’s 43rd governor – addressed a...

Hayworth's support of Bush's big-government polices included voting for the No Child Left Behind Act; the paperwork- and red-tape-friendly (and business-unfriendly) Sarbanes-Oxley Act; the pork-laden 2005 highway bill that included the infamous "bridge to nowhere"; and, most expensive of all, a Medicare drug benefit that created more than $7 trillion in unfunded liabilities. What is more, his support for a monstrosity known as the 527 Reform Act, which was intended to close "loopholes" in McCain/Feingold, and which was arguably worse for conservatives than the original article.

This week the Senate grinches stole Christmas. The Obama Nation is getting Obamacare. It’s easy to blame the sixty Democrats, as the Wall Street Journal does, for "the worse bill ever." It solemnly declares: "These 60 Democrats are creating a future of epic increases in spending, taxes and command--and control regulation." True enough. But what's the root cause of this permanent disaster? Sorry, friends, but it’s not the Democrats, nor the American people who elected them. The real culprits are two Republicans who ran the show the previous eight years: George W. Bush and his "master political strategist" Karl Rove....

Activists are expressing disappointment with President Barack Obama’s plans for the Aids treatment programme in Africa, charging that he has fallen short of the achievements of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama pledged to increase Pepfar spending by $1b a year, but in his first budget, called for only $165m in new funds. Gregg Gonsalves, a leading US anti-Aids campaigner, warned an audience in New York last week, “I am about to say something shocking: I miss George W Bush.” “President Obama has all but failed to fulfil his commitments to wage an aggressive battle against global Aids,” a coalition...

George W. Bush's State of the Union address must have baffled anyone who voted for him based on his pledge to cut the size of government. That speech has been properly and efficiently pilloried by Joseph Stromberg, Alan Bock, and others. The speech was both Wilsonian and Clintonian, which is to say that it proposed a political solution for all human problems and backed this idea with a promise of massive increases in federal spending on just about everything. But should we really be so surprised? Contrary to popular myth, every Republican president since and including Herbert Hoover has increased...