Free Republic

Ted Cruz offered rare and most likely tongue-in-cheek praise to his ideological rival, Jeb Bush, for his "candor" in not backing down from his more moderate positions on immigration and Common Core. Cruz, who has looked to position himself as the furthest-right candidate in the field, said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that he appreciated that Bush, who may be the GOP's furthest to the left, was not changing his positions. "There are candidates in the field who attempt to change their position to do better in primaries, and Jeb Bush has demonstrated a remarkable candor defending positions,"...

It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from California's labor code. Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship. The changes have occurred with relatively little political...

I say: Privatize everything. Regulations forbid buying and selling organs, so the market cannot operate. Desperate patients must wait and hope someone gives an organ out of sheer generosity, that someone dies at just the right time, and that hospital administrators bump their case to the top of the list. In the United States, 100,000 people are on waiting lists for kidneys. Kidneys make up 80 percent of the organ shortage. We have two kidneys but need only one. Donors could save many lives, but not enough choose to donate. By contrast, in Iran, there’s often a waiting line of...

Donald Trump’s Amnesty by THE EDITORS August 10, 2015 That Donald Trump has said something incoherent is not remarkable. But even for a campaign that has largely substituted adjectives for ideas, Trump’s recent incoherent comments on immigration were remarkable, coming as they do from a candidate who has made immigration the keystone of his platform. His intellectual failure is instructive, and the other candidates should learn from it. Trump’s original proposal was to build a wall and force the government of Mexico to pay for it. The latter half of that proposition is too silly to merit much criticism and...

Presidential candidate and former Gov. Jeb Bush got into some hot water recently over his past work with a foundation run by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for its funding of Planned Parenthood. What went unnoticed, however, was that Bush worked with Bloomberg as he gave millions to environmental groups to take down the coal industry. Bush, who’s looking to win the Republican presidential nomination, served as a founding director of the Bloomberg Family Foundation — now called Bloomberg Philanthropies — from 2010 through 2014. During Bush’s second year with the organization, Bloomberg donated $50 million to the...

Jeb Bush’s most famous, or infamous, remark of the campaign season was that a Republican candidate must be willing to “lose the primary” in order to win the general election. For the most part, Bush has campaigned like he meant what he said: He’s defended his positions on immigration reform and Common Core, though they’re unpopular with much of the Republican base, and he angered conservatives on Capitol Hill by pushing for a confirmation vote on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which some were trying to hold up at the time. But in the week leading up to the first Republican...

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said Monday that adult illegal immigrants should not receive a path to citizenship under an immigration fix, but said she is open to giving their children citizenship. Mrs. Fiorina, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, also said she could support giving those who “have come here illegally and stayed here illegally” legal status. “I think legal status is a possibility for sure,” Mrs. Fiorina said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think their children maybe can become citizens.”

Rand Paul recently attacked Donald Trump as a “consummate insider”– an enemy of the Tea Party who “buys and sells politicians”. Paul neglected to mention that he himself was purchased by the Chamber of Commerce in 2014 for the explicit purpose of defeating conservatives. (SNIP) First, Rand Paul compared opponents of amnesty to Nazis Then he became BFFs with Kirsten Gillibrand Then he became BFFs with Harry Reid Then he became BFFs with Chuck Schumer Then he became BFFs with the Chamber of Lobbyists Then he became BFFs with Mitch McConnell Then he stabbed Ted Cruz in the back Then...

From Limbaugh, Savage, Ingraham, Hannity, Mark Levin and even Alex Jones do nothing but impartial reporting of the Trump campaign. Where does Medved and that other RINO fit in the ratings? There aren't enough Fox News viewers or Fox News loyalists to bring down Trump. Most of these Debate viewers aren't voting in the primaries. Who will gain the most from Erickson's demise in his regular radio slot?

<p>Last week, John McCain slandered conservatives (whom he had previously referred to as “wackobirds” and “xenophobes”) as “crazies”.</p> <p>Thus far, McCain has refused to apologize for remarks many consider offensive.</p> <p>I am most bothered by the near gleefulness of some that the early facts were wrong…I have been flooded with emails and comments on social media to the effect of…”Will you admit you were wrong?” That bothers me most of all.</p>

Why the next seven weeks? Because fiscal year 2015 ends on September 30th and the settlers in the US State Department and in their contracting agencies want to hit the Obama target of 70,000 for the year and they have (as of July 31), 18,470 more to go! Actually that 70,000 figure that Obama announced in his Presidential Determination Letter to Congress last September is meant to be a ceiling, not a goal that they necessarily have to hit. However, since the contractors are paid by the head and they have salaries and office overhead to pay, they always try...

Video at link, worth watching. A California lawman whose department is investigating the brutal rape and bludgeoning death of a 64-year-old Air Force veteran pointed the finger Friday at state and federal policies he said allowed the illegal immigrant suspect to roam the streets despite a lengthy arrest record. “I think this is a national issue - it starts with administration and their policies,” Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin said days after Marilyn Pharis died from injuries suffered in the July 24 attack. “You can draw a direct line to this governor and Legislature. “I am not remiss to...

Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly, and Bret Baier did not address many hot topics on immigration. Instead, the moderators went hard after Trump for his comments on illegal alien criminality and then, almost sarcastically, Wallace asked Rubio whether he thought that, “all of these illegals coming over are criminals?”

Having spent the past six weeks rhetorically slashing at his Republican rivals, it makes perfect sense that Donald Trump would eventually run out of targets and find himself in a war with the party’s media arm: Fox News. At the GOP primary debate Thursday night in Cleveland, Trump’s onstage clashes with the Fox moderators, and his postdebate complaints about the network’s treatment of him, were among the most talked-about story lines to emerge from the Quicken Loans Arena. What makes the confrontation all the more dramatic was that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has, until this point, been a...

A surge in serious crimes by illegal immigrants—many repeat offenders—who have been shielded by sanctuary laws isn’t stopping legislators in Massachusetts from quietly pushing for a measure that would protect undocumented aliens statewide. The move could not have come at a worse time, as the nation reels from a series of atrocious crimes committed by illegal aliens who long ago should have been deported. Instead, they were protected by sanctuary laws despite their criminal histories and illegal status in the U.S. A recent example is the gruesome July 4 San Francisco murder of a young woman by an illegal immigrant...

If you attend any Republican presidential campaign event these days, you are are but guaranteed to hear a voter ask this: “What would you do about illegal immigration?” Florida Senator Marco Rubio was the recipient of this particular, and particularly polite version of the question, and Rubio was ready. As co-sponsor of the most recent stab at major immigration bill, a plan that never got out of congress, Rubio knows this issue is fraught. So fraught, he told the crowd that day in Salem, that talking about creating a legal status for undocumented immigrants, before tackling border security, is impossible....

Controversial Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone is at again and this time he’s provoked Geraldo Rivera into threatening physical assault against him. The Fox News host promised to kick Stone’s “racist ass” today after Stone decided to pick a fight with CNN contributor Ana Navarro, a Latina, and former CNN contributor Roland Martin, an African-American, recently tweeting that both political pundits were “quota hires”: Rivera, a former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant, quickly jumped to the defense of Navarro and Martin and urged Trump to dump Stone, whom he described as a “thug” Stone quickly shot back, calling him “pathetic” and a...

The verdict was clear when Marco Rubio announced his presidential run with a well-received speech in Miami last April: There was a new member of the top tier in the Republican race. "The official 2016 GOP field gets its first real contender," wrote fivethirtyeight. "Marco Rubio is now a first-tier candidate," said Bloomberg's Mark Halperin. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson placed Rubio, along with Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, in "the first tier of plausibility." It got even better from there. In June, the Washington Post declared, "Marco Rubio is now at the top of the Republican presidential field."

One thing about Donald Trump, you don’t have to guess what he’s really thinking … if you can call it that. Republican-for-now presidential candidate Trump has set himself apart – and ahead in the polls – from the crowded field of GOP candidates with his candid tell-it-like-he-sees-it pronouncements, particularly regarding the hot-button issue of immigration – certainly a topic presidential contenders should address. There are an estimated more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and more than 451,000 deportation cases in U.S. immigration courts. After calling some Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, Trump has now proclaimed that all...

Rule Of Law: Two aliens have been appointed city commissioners in California, an unprecedented institutionalization of illegal immigration. But contrary to reports, the public's mad and red flags of corruption are up. In a page-one headline, the Los Angeles Times hailed the appointment of illegal immigrants to two Huntington Park, Calif., civic commissions as a milestone that "charts a bold path for immigrants." It was booster journalism at its worst, gushing about illegals gaining participatory "rights" in U.S. public life that had supposedly been unjustly denied them. It also stood in stark contrast with the multiple local press reports —...