Free Republic

All the country’s visas for high-skilled workers were snatched up in the first week yet again this year, the government reported Thursday, signaling that companies’ voracious appetites for cheap foreign workers remains unabated despite intense criticism on the presidential campaign trail. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it received more than enough applications to claim the 85,000 visas available under the H-1B program this year and will once again hold a lottery to award the coveted permits. Technology companies, desperate for the workers, said reaching the cap just days after the April 1 application period began should spur Congress to...

What would your reaction be if you heard that Congress was set in 2007 to bestow ‘natural born’ citizenship on ALL anchor babies through their Immigration Reform legislation. (110th Congress) S. 1348Shocked? Outraged? Ambivalent?What if you heard that Congress was moving to change Immigration & Naturalization laws so the every child born overseas to 1 citizen parent & 1 foreign parent would forever be deemed a ‘natural born’ citizen. (101st Congress) H.R. 1380, (99th Congress) H.R. 2535, Shocked? Outraged? Ambivalent?What if Congress had a bill waiting to come out of committee in February of 2008 that would change the citizenship...

Senate Democrats on Wednesday couldn't agree that federal debt is a national security problem, in a hearing aimed at assessing the long-term strategic implications of the government's $19 trillion debt. "A realistic discussion about it, and accepting expert opinion that this debt that we have is not actually right now a threat to our country, is I think a more realistic and honorable way of talking to the American people about it," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. That surprised committee chairman Bob Corker, who concluded the hearing by describing such views...

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status? Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now. The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing "prosecutorial discretion."

Imagine a Republican leadership that actually harnessed public attention against some of Obama’s most unpopular policies, especially as it relates to national security? The Associated Press is reporting today that under a new expedited program to speed up resettlement, families will begin coming to the U.S. this week from Jordan. The first Syrian family to be resettled to the U.S. under its speeded-up "surge operation" departed to the United States Wednesday from the Jordanian capital, Amman: A resettlement surge center opened in Amman in February to meet President Barack Obama's target of resettling 10,000 Syrians to the United States by...

Let's not be coy. There's a certain population in this country that expects unlimited government handouts despite its piggish unwillingness to work. Don't tell me this is about their child-care responsibilities, or lack of access to transportation or education. Nonsense. These people simply don't want to work. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new welfare queens: your democratically elected U.S. legislators, the laziest, most do-nothing generation of federal politicians in decades. Sure, they talk a big game about work ethic and personal responsibility. With the stated goal of promoting personal responsibility, the House Republicans' 2017 budget proposes newly attaching work requirements...

Radical leftists pushing for an open borders agenda are attempting to destroy the ability of over 80 percent of our nation’s Border Patrol agents to speak out and sound the alarm to the public and to Congress. The Huffington Post reported that the open-borders extremist group, Not1More, is a “prominent immigrants rights group” and that they were behind an effort to have the AFL-CIO kick out the National Border Patrol Council from its ranks. Not1More derives its name from the idea that “not one more” illegal alien should be deported from the U.S. The attacks on Border Patrol agents ramped...

Cutthroat Republican interference with this presidential election might cause a lot of Americans to finally acknowledge that a congress composed of well-fed career politicians is not beneficial to the public In the 1960s, when flower children replaced American traditions with a “feel-good” counter-culture, their rallying cry was: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Now in their declining years, these elderly flower children must surely experience deja vu when they witness the antics of today’s post-pubertal do-gooders. Like the flower children, today’s young people are driven to correct what they perceive as society’s flaws. This is their “Rite of Passage”, the sociological...

The subpoenas are being moved almost as quickly as the baby parts after an abortion. The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives has announced the issuance of 12 new subpoenas in its ongoing investigation on the harvesting of fetal body parts, following the release of multiple undercover videos last year from the Center for Medical Progress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had previously requested the information, but says these subpoenas were sent “to organizations who have failed to fully cooperate with both requests for information and previous subpoenas.” A press release notes that groups have been uncooperative with...

"Rolling Plunder – How Scott Walker and Paul Ryan Plan To Sell Out Wisconsin, and the Voters are Oblivious…" Wise Up and Rise Up Wisconsin Well, given Paul Ryan’s full-throated endorsement and promotion for the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal (TPP), perhaps the Wisconsin working voter would like to see exactly what they have in mind for you. Remember, each of the aforementioned has also endorsed Senator Ted Cruz – who, not coincidentally, was the co-author of the Trade Promotion Authority bill (TPA) which was the vehicle to insure TPP’s passage. Rather than go through all of the tentacles, and difficult to...

Back in 1994 the then-Minority Whip in Congress, Georgia Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich, along with his colleague, Texas Republican Richard Armey, crafted what was later called the “Contract with America.” What some at the time, especially Democrats, viewed initially as a political gimmick, but ultimately turned out to be a brilliant political tactic.The document detailed what Republicans promised to do if they were given control of Congress by the voters. In large part as a result of this written contract, for the first time in 40 years Republicans would indeed be given the majority in the lower house of government,...

Can we force Congress to accept Term Limits? And what is the appropriate method?

Larry Dawson, the gunman identified as the shooter in Washington, DC today, shouted that he was "a prophet of God" at the House of Representatives in October in a separate incident.

Moderate Republicans up for re-election will face pressure to pick a side as the general election draws near. Donald Trump looks increasingly likely to be the Republican nominee for the White House. As he gains momentum, Trump has won a series of endorsements from high-profile Republicans. Former presidential rivals Chris Christie and Ben Carson made the calculation that it’s better to be with Trump than against him, and so have a growing number of Republican members of Congress. For many Republican lawmakers facing re-election in competitive moderate or swing districts, however, the prospect of Trump at the top of the...

Members of the United States Congress have voiced their support for the Little Sisters of the Poor before their case is argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “We talk a lot about public service up here. Well, these are the people who live it,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said of the sisters on the House Floor on Tuesday, noting that they serve the poor in 31 countries. “They are the definition of public service.” On Wednesday, oral arguments for Zubik v. Burwell will take place at the Supreme Court. The case is a bundle of seven cases against...

Just because Apple and the FBI avoided an historic showdown in court this week over a previously issued court order for Apple to create a so-called “government OS” that bypasses normal iPhone security measures, that doesn’t mean the whole thing was tidily wrapped up.For one thing, no legislative precedent was set here – at the eleventh hour, the FBI said it thinks a mysterious outside party (which may have now been identified) will be able to help it get inside an iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino shooters – leaving the law enforcement agency free to pursue a...

PINSON, Ala. -- At 8 a.m. on a Saturday, the rumble of bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment was already audible in Ardell Turner's modest home in this rural hamlet north of Birmingham. Not far away, they once mined coal. Now state and local leaders are seeking prosperity through one of the nation's largest and priciest road projects. On planners' maps, the Northern Beltline will be a 52-mile, six-lane interstate that will effectively complete a loop around Birmingham, Alabama's largest city. More than a half-century after the Beltline's conception, work on a small segment began last year within a mile of...

Washington, D.C. — It was billed as an attempt to win new supporters from the ranks of congressional Republicans. But after Donald Trump convened a handful of lawmakers and a number of party luminaries for lunch on Monday, the sole attendee not already backing Trump’s candidacy emerged as uncommitted as he’d gone in. Held in D.C.’s high-powered Jones Day law firm, the confab was supposed to be a congressional outreach effort, but only one attendee — Senator Tom Cotton — was neutral on Trump’s candidacy. The others — including Senator Jeff Sessions and Representatives Chris Collins, Scott DesJarlais, Renee Ellmers,...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid could be deposed for ICE whistleblower Taylor Johnson’s new lawsuit because complaints from his office precipitated her ouster. Johnson’s attorney, Morris Fischer, told the Washington Gadfly that, “We will attempt to depose whoever is involved in this corruption up to and including Harry Reid. His fingerprints are all over the place.” The veteran law enforcement agent, who DHS fired in February after she rejected $100,000 in hush money, filed a Merit System Protection Board claim against the agency earlier this month. Johnson, a single mother of four, had a storied career until she ran afoul...

To watch the recent happenings on Capitol Hill, you would think this was just another typical presidential election year—a few bumps here and there, but no sign of a major shake-up, no indication voters were in revolt, nothing to suggest business as usual in Washington was perhaps falling out of fashion among the American public. What else explains the lackluster, uninspiring, and I would suggest, “sell-out your base” agenda of GOP congressional leadership? For example, the Senate GOP sold out its base on the issue of Common Core this week...... That’s right, despite the fact Congress passed a Budget Control...