Free Republic

Congress has narrowly averted a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security for one week, setting up another funding showdown for next Friday. Hours before a midnight deadline, the House easily approved a one-week extension of the funding. It required two-thirds of members' support to pass. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reversed course later Friday night, instructing House Democrats to back the one-week measure.

Did people walk out when Jeb Bush started speaking at CPAC today in Maryand? Sure. Did he get heckled and booed at times during his q and a with conservative commentator Sean Hannity? Sure. Did Bush more than hold his own with an audience that was ready to embarrass him in front of every national reporter in the country? Yes. Bush was energetic -- maybe due at least in part to nervousness in facing a testy crowd -- and informed. He refused to back down -- particularly on immigration -- from positions that he knew would be unpopular with the...

Seeing some oohing and aahing online this afternoon among political media that Jeb didn’t pander to CPAC’s very conservative crowd on Common Core or immigration (“he stuck to his guns!”), but what would he have gained by doing that? Remember, for all the hype in 2012 that Romney was shifting to the center to run as a technocrat instead of as the culture warrior he ran as in 2008, he was still a fairly doctrinaire righty on most issues, the notable exception of RomneyCare aside. That’s what the “severely conservative” nonsense was all about in his CPAC speech three years...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — In a surprise speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) unloaded on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—systematically dismantling Bush’s push for amnesty and a massive increase in guest workers from around the world. “Right now, there are two conferences—one of them in public where candidates are out there having to speak and defend and answer questions on their views and on their positions on important issues facing America,” Sessions said to open up his remarks to the Breitbart News-sponsored meet-and-greet with CPAC activists. “Many people at this conference here and watching...

On the Mark Levin Show Thursday evening, Sue Paine of WCBM revealed that she was accidentally invited to take part in a White House Conference call about Obama’s ‘Executive Amnesty’ orders. What she heard on this call by officials in the White House and radical Amnesty planners was frightening. It is no less than an insidious plan to use American citizens own money to fund our own national suicide and demise. Sue revealed that the White House plans that these ‘New Americans’ will be subsidized by you and me, the taxpayer. That they will be given immediate access and priority...

The White House said Friday that President Obama will sign into law a short-term funding bill to avoid a midnight shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, a pledge that all but assures the funding fight over his deportation amnesty will last at least three more weeks. “The truth is, if the president is faced with the choice between the short-term extension and shutting down the Department of Homeland Security, he will sign the short-term extension,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said at the daily press briefing. The president’s willingness to accept the temporary funding being pushed by House Republicans...

An attorney for Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County is asking the judge who ordered federal bureaucrats not to implement President Obama’s amnesty-by-memo plan to order a hearing over the administration’s apparent refusal to abide by the order. Sen Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also raised the issue of compliance with the court order, too. “Violating an unambiguous federal court order by defying its instructions to cease and desist a particular activity would represent a significant breach of your authority, and would be an escalation in abuse of our separation of powers,” Cruz wrote to administration officials. “For a president and...

FREEP Needed - a FREEP is needed here to protest amnesty. Lewis Leftist Gutierrez is coming to Florida to raise hell. He is an Illinois "representative" so who is funding his travels? This center has been in the news previously. It was on the lists of places that were accepting illegal "children". It is my understanding that the center coaches and assists illegals in the navigation of obtaining government handouts. Gutierrez is listed as a valuable supporter.

Senate PASSES 'clean' bill funding DHS through end of Sept w/o immig riders, 68-31. Bill now goes to the House where its fate is uncertain.

With the Republican surrender on President Obama’s amnesty decree that I predicted over a month ago now taking shape, an appeal to duty may be futile. Nevertheless, it is still worth being blunt about this. The Beltway GOP’s retreat would be a profound dereliction of duty – specifically, the duty that Congress owes to the states.The federal government, very much including Republican lawmakers and conservative judges, has systematically disarmed the states of their capacity for self-defense. The power to defend one’s territory – including the power to remove aliens who have no legal right to be present – is...

If President Obama, who has warned ICE agents of consequences if they do their job, had a son, he might look like Jamiel Shaw Jr., a young African-American killed by an illegal alien who shouldn't have been here. Shaw was a Los Angeles high school star dreaming of a good life ahead when he was gunned down on March 2, 2008, while walking home. He was picked at random, police said, possibly as part of a gang loyalty test for the illegal alien who shot him. Charged with the crime was Pedro Espinoza, who'd been released just hours earlier from...

Honestly, are any of my Democratic friends even slightly bothered by President Obama's habitual and brazen lawlessness and what that could mean for our liberties? Does it bother them that he implemented two new administration programs to halt deportations and allow work permits for up to 5 million immigrants living illegally in the United States after clearly admitting he didn't have the constitutional authority to do so? Does it bother them that after having done so, despite his insincere promise, he has been openly defiant about the decision U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen made in favor of the states trying...

This isn't just about amnesty; it's about net neutrality, it's about bans on bullets, it's about the EPA shutting down power plants, its about using the IRS as a political goon squad. Its about a post-constitutional autocratic destruction of the American Republic. If the GOP doesn't stop Obama now, they never will.

Thanks to Whenifhow for FReepmailing me this: Here’s a video and article.. also below see the videos of Gowdy in congress and interview with Greta last night. 5:12 Minutes Rep Trey Gowdy: Democrats Will Regret Pres’ Exec Action On Immigration - America’s Newsroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqBVjhsiUyc Feb 26, 2015 Gowdy to Dems: In Future ‘You Will Beg’ to Have Law Enforced http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/02/26/gowdy-to-dems-in-future-you-will-beg-to-have-law-enforced/ In the opening statement below his microphone isn’t working for a few seconds, but he continues. Trey Gowdy BLASTS Obama’s illegal amnesty, tells illegals they will regret this abuse one day Trey Gowdy gave a great opening speech today blasting...

Voters in three critical swing states, Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, give their governors good job approval ratings and are strongly optimistic about the next three or four years in their states under their current governors, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Job approval ratings for U.S. Senators in the three states range from a better than 3-1 score for Iowa's Chuck Grassley to a lackluster grade for Colorado's Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. The Swing State Poll focuses on key states in the presidential election. (SNIP) Do you approve...

Funding for the department expires at midnight on Friday. ... Boehner doesn't appear to be going along with his Republican counterparts in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is looking to avert a shutdown by offering Democrats a clean funding bill for DHS. The speaker would not say whether he would back a Senate funding bill without provisions that would defund President Obama's executive actions on immigration. At one point, Boehner blew kisses at reporters after they asked whether he would. ... McConnell had attempted to push through a House-passed funding bill four times, but Senate Democrats blocked it...

To the disappointment of immigration-enforcement advocates, Judge Andrew S. Hanen last week rejected a key argument that Texas raised in its attempt to establish legal standing. Texas tried to show that Obama’s amnesty policies would lead to an increase of illegal aliens in the state and would strain state coffers as a consequence. To most Americans, amnesty leading to more illegal immigration is simple cause-and-effect logic (much like “increasing the labor supply leads to lower wages”). Our court system, however, doesn’t treat so-called speculative harms very well, no matter how inevitable they seem. Still, the open-borders lobby no doubt breathed...

Illegal immigrants who are able to obtain Social Security Numbers and work permits as a result of President Obama’s executive amnesty could claim tens of thousands of dollars in back tax benefits, a new Congressional Research Service memo obtained first by Breitbart News reveals. The report comes following the Internal Revenue Service’s confirmation that once illegal immigrants are granted Social Security Numbers — as a result of Obama’s executive actions — they will be able to file back tax returns and obtain up to four years of tax benefits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax...

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Obama's executive order that overrode existing immigration law. The result is more acrimony and chaos. It is a good time to remember that there are more than just two types of immigration -- legal and illegal. There also exist liberal and illiberal approaches to immigration. Take liberal immigration. It is governed by laws passed by Congress and signed and executed by the president. Nearly all Americans accept that no individual can pick and choose which federal statute he chooses to obey, depending on his own perceived self-interest. Liberal immigration would be entirely legal,...

Some bureaucrats could end up in prison for implementing President Obama’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens. Even if they don’t violate the brand-new court injunction, they are accountable under a special federal statute. It’s illegal to spend federal money on purposes never approved by Congress. Yet Mr. Obama has bureaucrats going full-speed ahead to create the mechanism that would process amnesty for millions, even while a court injunction requires that actual processing cannot yet begin. Preparations are proceeding “full-throttle,” according to Judicial Watch, which works to make government accountable. The group has uncovered details about some of the tens of...