Free Republic

Illegal immigrant Jose Manuel Marino-Najera has filed suit against the US Border Patrol for dog bite injuries he sustained during his arrest. Marino-Najera was among a group of immigrants smuggling marijuana across the border. He is alleging that his human rights were violated. “Those border guards disobeyed their own President Obama,” Marino-Najera declared. “He says I have a right to go where I want. They should have given me food and water, not sicced their dogs on me.” Marino-Najera’s lawyer Susan Horschidt claims that “the trauma my client experienced has given him nightmares that have ruined his life. No amount...

If the Senate were high school and there was a superlative for "least popular member," Ted Cruz would win in a walk. The Texas Republican reaffirmed his status as the Senate's most reviled member -- among his peers -- over the weekend when he refused to allow the chamber to go out of session on Friday and return Monday to vote on the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending package. Instead, Cruz used procedural moves to force 10 straight hours of votes on Saturday as a way to protest President Obama's executive action on immigration. Cruz ultimately forced a "point of order"...

John Boehner and the rest of the GOP RINO establishment didn’t have enough Conservative votes to pass their $1.1 TRILLION budget. That’s because while these so-called “Republicans” criticized Obama’s amnesty in public, their budget completely funded it. More than 60 Republicans voted against the spending bill, forcing Boehner to get approximately 50 Democrats to vote for it. GOP leaders blocked any anti-amnesty amendments and allowed the bill to proceed without any mention of Obama’s amnesty. That means that newly “legalized” illegal aliens will begin receiving working papers and become eligible for Social Security and Medicare as soon as they come...

Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Enzi (R-WY) Flake (R-AZ) Graham (R-SC) Hatch (R-UT) Heller (R-NV) Johnson (R-WI) Kirk (R-IL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Toomey (R-PA) Wicker (R-MS) Not Voting Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)

The family of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in Arizona's Peck Canyon by Mexican bandits carrying weapons provided to them through Operation Fast and Furious, marked the four year anniversary of his murder yesterday. Photos posted on Facebook with a link to the Brian Terry Foundation page show Agent Terry's sister, Kelly Terry-Willis, visiting the very spot where he died on the night of December 14, 2010. "Today marks the four year anniversary of Brian Terry's death. Four years later, the family of Agent Terry still waits for answers to not only what happened that night, but the...

The powerful storm lashing Sacramento kept many people home last Thursday, but Rosario Aguilar was not among them. After eight years of living and driving unlawfully in California, the chance to get a legitimate license led him through sheets of rain to an information session held at a community services center tucked behind an Autozone on Fruitridge Road.

New evidence from the Pew Research Center reveals that Mexican Catholics who emigrate to the United States are considerably less religious than their counterparts who remain in Mexico. A hefty majority of US Hispanics are of Mexican descent (64%), according to US Census Bureau statistics, and about a third of Mexican Americans were born in Mexico and immigrated into the US. Mexican Americans, however, exhibit differences both in religious affiliation and in doctrinal belief as compared with Catholics living in Mexico. Though the Pew study does not explore the reasons Mexican Catholics leave the Church when emigrating to the US,...

In the span of four months, at least 94 children in 33 U.S. states have developed a devastating form of paralysis with symptoms similar to polio. Some require a ventilator to breathe. And some of the greatest government health minds in the country say they have no idea what’s causing it. At the same time, during the past four months, at least 12 children have died after falling ill with a respiratory virus called Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68). Again, federal health officials are at a loss to explain the origin of the epidemic. Are the mysterious outbreaks linked? The Centers for...

On Nov. 20, President Obama announced an executive action on immigration to provide temporary protection (“deferred action”) from deportation and permission to work for some parents of United States citizens and legal permanent residents. The order also expands the existing “DACA” program benefiting the so-called DREAMers — high achieving young people brought to the United States as children. These two programs could affect up to 5 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. The outcry from Republicans over Obama’s plans has been deafening. Congressional Republicans responded by holding a hearing to rail against the program. They’ve threatened a range...

In small-town community centers, schools, churches and a vast city convention center, immigrant advocates are spreading the word about President Barack Obama's plan to give millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally a temporary reprieve. In Los Angeles, advocates are hosting an information session for as many as 10,000 people at the city's convention center Sunday. "After this big forum, we're going to have daily orientations. That is what we have to do in order to deal with the demand," said Angelica Salas.

It has been a busy few weeks in Washington lately, from the president's executive order on immigration to the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. (SNIP) Ayotte said she also believes the president's executive order on immigration last week was a mistake. "Right now, as someone who wants to solve this problem, I think it makes it more difficult to address the underlying immigration problem, and he should not have acted unilaterally," she said.

Last month Republicans won a wave election picking up a dozen seats in the House and nine seats in the Senate. Last week the Republicans ignored the will of the voters and voted in favor of President Obama’s budget initiatives. The country is overwhelmingly opposed to Obamacare, so the Republicans fully funded it without making any changes. The country is overwhelmingly opposed to amnesty, in particular the country is opposed to amnesty created by the executive branch alone. Rather than refuse to fund the President’s amnesty power grab, the Republicans are funding it completely. They’re even spending a billion dollars...

Late Saturday night, while few Americans were paying attention, the GOP establishment abrogated the last distinguishing factor that existed between the two parties. The GOP elites in the Senate joined Democrats in declaring our Constitution null and void. Not only were Senate Republicans planning to rubber stamp the Cromnibus/amnesty bill – the worst and most consequential single piece of legislation since Obamacare – they wanted to get it done without compelling Democrats to take a tough vote defending Obama’s illegal actions. After forcing the poor senators to work over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) finally leveraged Harry Reid into...

LOS ANGELES — They pushed strollers, tugged toddlers and streamed into the convention center in the heart of this city on Sunday, thousands of immigrants here illegally and anxious to find out if they could gain protection from deportation under executive actions by President Obama. The crowd, waiting in a long snaking line to check in, was drawn by an information session organized by advocacy groups offering people initial assessments to see if they meet the requirements to apply to stay in the country and work. The day became a kind of coming-out party for about 5,000 unauthorized immigrants, the...

It’s a question that will prove crucial next year when Mitch McConnell takes the reins of a new Senate: Just how big is the Ted Cruz caucus? Three votes on the “cromnibus” late Saturday night suggest it could be as large as 22 senators — a dangerously high number for McConnell — or as few as a handful. Let’s break down the three votes — on filibustering the $1.1 trillion package, on Cruz’s point of order aimed at targeting the president’s immigration action, and final passage. The high-water mark for the Texas Republican came on his point of order vote,...

~~snip~~

WASHINGTON (AP) — One colleague called the tactics of tea party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz on the $1.1 trillion spending bill a painful echo of last year's 16-day partial government shutdown. Another senator said it was a strategy without an end game. And that sniping came from Cruz's fellow Republicans. The 43-year-old Texas freshman in a hurry — he's considering a 2016 presidential run — infuriated several GOP colleagues with a last-minute attempt to force a vote on President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration. The move upended lawmakers' weekend plans and, more troubling for his party, gave Senate Majority Leader...

The approval comes one year after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law allowing certain undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates. In 2013, Christie and Democratic leaders reached a compromise to remove a clause in the bill that also would have offered the same undocumented immigrants state aid to help pay for their higher education.“We have the opportunity to allow all children in this state now to go to college and to go to college in an affordable manner. It provides opportunity and it makes New Jersey the kind of place that all of us want to...

Bloomberg is title and link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-13/senate-push-on-final-spending-bill-thwarted-by-disputes.html

Congress gave itself until Wednesday to pass a government funding bill after the two Republican senators whose efforts led to a government shutdown in 2013 disrupted legislation that would avert a shutdown. Unable to pass a massive spending bill that would keep the government funded for a year, the Senate on Saturday approved a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown at midnight. The maneuver came during a rare Saturday session after GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee demanded a vote Friday to defund President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, thwarting Senate leadership's hopes to pass a $1.1 trillion...