Free Republic

If elected to the White House, Mike Huckabee says he would use “all powers of the presidency to deny federal funding to sanctuary cities,” among other executive orders to stop illegal immigration. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor running for president, said he would “use my pen and my phone to follow the Constitution” and sign executive orders. That includes:

Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called for “a revolution of folks saying, ‘We want you to obey the law'” on immigration on Wednesday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity continues his streak as conservative king maker, as the network announced Thursday that he will have the first interview with Jeb Bush after his presidential campaign announcement next week. The former Florida governor is expected to announce his presidential campaign Monday in Florida. On Tuesday, Hannity will interview Bush. Bush will also appear on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" that same night. Bush campaign spokespeople confirmed that Bush will not hold any interviews Monday and that Hannity will be his first.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faulted his party Wednesday for its unwelcoming tone at times to minority voters. In a speech to a Latino Coalition small business conference, the potential Republican presidential contender also boasted about getting 51 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election as governor. Christie portrays himself as the kind of Republican who can attract females, blacks, Hispanics and other voters who are normally drawn to Democrats. …

Jeb Bush will have learned from this week's firestorm over his Iraq War comments, says Karl Rove, the Republican strategist who helped steer his brother to the White House. "He's a very smart guy. He's not a guy who needs the lesson taught to him twice," Rove told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie on Friday. -snip- Rove said he hasn't endorsed Bush — or any of the other Republican candidates who have formally declared their presidential bid. The the strategist said he was months away from making his decision. "I want everybody to get in as a candidate and then start showing...

Opposing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants is going “over the line,” according to former Florida Governor and likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush. In an interview that aired Monday on Fox News, Bush, who supported granting in-state tuition for illegal immigrants when he was governor, noted that Florida’s version of the DREAM Act was recently passed by a “conservative Republican legislature led by a very courageous Speaker of the House” and signed into law by Republican Governor Rick Scott. “I supported that,” he said. “If you’ve been here for an extended period of time, you have no nexus to the...

Likely Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham predicted Thursday that the GOP will lose the 2016 presidential election unless they win over Hispanic voters by supporting a “long, hard path to citizenship.” “If I were president of the United States, I would veto any bill that did not have a pathway to citizenship,” the South Carolina Republican told USA Today. “You would have a long, hard path to citizenship … but I want to create that path because I don’t like the idea of millions of people living in America for the rest of their lives being the hired help....

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — Ties between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, political allies for more than a decade, are fraying as the Republican presidential campaign picks up. In public, mentor Bush and protege Rubio have avoided criticizing each other since Rubio announced his candidacy. But Bush allies have started quietly spreading negative information about Rubio's record. Also, supporters of the two Miami politicians are drawing contrasts between Rubio, a 43-year-old son of Cuban immigrants, and 62-year-old Bush, a member of one of the nation's most powerful political dynasties. "Sparks are going to fly," said Al...

The Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF) has launched an effort to defeat Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), bashing him for failing to uphold the principles of a “true conservative” just hours after he announced his intention to run for reelection. “There are few Republicans who have betrayed our conservative principles more than John McCain,” SCF President Ken Cuccinelli said in an email to supporters Tuesday of the party's 2008 nominee for president. “John McCain lost his way a long time ago and it's time to replace him with a strong conservative leader who will support and defend the Constitution.” Cuccinelli’s email links...

[BIG SNIP] ".....Sen. Cruz is America’s last hope for a credible border. By that I mean a border that is controlled by the citizens of America, not the citizens of other countries. I mean a border that is controlled primarily for the benefit of citizens of America, not the citizens of other countries. I mean a border that is controlled by an American population that appreciates and welcomes immigrants, but only when they come here legally, and in numbers that are conducive to their assimilation into the American value system that is based on the principles expressed in our Declaration...

Senate GOP leadership is staying away from a proposal to ensure illegal immigrants don’t get tax break payouts from the government, with the party still smarting from a battle over Department of Homeland Security funding. Senior Republicans generally say they support the goals of the bill from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that seeks to keep immigrants protected from deportation by President Obama’s executive actions from claiming several years’ worth of earned income tax credits. But with the most recent immigration fight having just finished, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has said he’s still examining the...

Kentucky is one place in America where a tea-party firebrand and a Republican from the governance wing amicably meet.For two Republican senators from the same state, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell could not be more mismatched. Senator Paul is a man in a hurry, with presidential stars in his eyes after a mere four years of serving Kentucky in Washington. The loquacious libertarian is a darling of young conservatives – a relaxed jeans-and-boots kind of guy. Senator McConnell, after three patient decades in office, has finally reached his dream job of Senate majority leader. A man of few words, he’s...

Which Republican presidential candidates support amnesty? I have analyzed all the major Republican presidential candidates (except Ben Carson and Rick Sanctorum, who are long shots, and Donald Trump, who has undocumented hair). I have found that all the major presidential candidates support amnesty for illegal aliens, except for one. Can you guess which one? Jeb Bush: Jeb, as we all know, supports amnesty for illegal aliens, and he's proud of it. If he were running in Honduras, I would vote for him in a minute. Marco Rubio: Marco Rubio co-authored a bill that would have given amnesty to illegal aliens....

In 1919, Rudyard Kipling wrote in The Gods of the Copybook Headings, “As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man / That…the Sow returns to her Mire / And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.” Likewise, it appears that conservatives return to their disastrous past policies. In outlining his foreign policy plans for America, Jeb Bush recently stated, “I love my father and my brother…But I am my own man – and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences.” He went on to say, “I...

A new study released Tuesday indicates that Latinos will play an ever increasing role in the future of job growth in the United States. Latinos will account for more than 40 percent of growth in the next five years and more than 75 percent between 2020 and 2034 – an increase of 11 million jobs out of an economy-wide gain of 14 million, according to an analysis done by the economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight. A number of reasons will account for the rise of Latinos in the workplace, but some major factors will be a Hispanic population growth...

A top Jeb Bush ally said that Jeb Bush will not back down on his support for comprehensive amnesty legislation and is willing to win or lose the GOP nomination based on the issue. On Thursday, Clint Bolick, who co-wrote Immigration Wars with the former Florida governor, said Bush “is either going to win or lose with a mandate on immigration.” “He’s not going to shift his position on this,”Bolick told MSNBC’s Jose Diaz Balart. “He believes in this with his absolute heart and soul.”

Days after a federal judge issued an injunction against President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) urged Senate Republicans to abandon their defunding efforts and pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill. “We have to fund Homeland Security,” Rubio reportedly said on Wednesday, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We can’t let Homeland Security shut down.” He reportedly “noted that Obama has threatened to veto any bill that would reverse his executive actions on immigration, including the measure to pay for Homeland Security” and “the Senate doesn’t have enough votes to pass the bill that ties the two...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush may find out that Wall Street money will not buy him the love of GOP primary voters like it does mainstream media elites who are rushing to cast him as the 2016 frontrunner. As soon as Mitt Romney announced that he would not make a third White House run, the mainstream press immediately anointed Bush as the clear Republican 2016 frontrunner. They made their pronouncements even though Bush had not yet proven with his speeches that he can be a successful candidate in the digital age and neither had the best ground game nor the...

Our Townhall cousin Conn Carroll was way ahead of the game on this, warning back in December that handing out Social Security numbers to illegals under Obama’s new executive amnesty was a momentous development. Illegals are already eligible for some tax credits, he noted at the time, but the real money is in the Earned Income Tax Credit, which can add up to thousands of dollars for low earners with multiple children. Illegals can’t get the EITC, though, because the law requires a Social Security number to apply and they don’t have Social Security numbers. Until now. So they’ll be...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is to deliver what aides call an “optimistic, conservative vision for the future” in his first unpaid speech since declaring his interest in a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. […] Wednesday’s speech is the first in a series of stops his aides call his “Right to Rise” tour, borrowing from his economic mantra and the name of the political action committee he formed in December. Bush’s speech, aides said, is aimed at underscoring his desire to reinvigorate the middle class, which he argues has languished despite the ongoing economic recovery. Conservative economic policies,...