Free Republic

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York on Wednesday morning, using the discussion to urge Trump to reconsider his positions on immigration. During his 45-minute meeting with the president-elect in his personal office high above Manhattan in Trump Tower, Emanuel hand-delivered a letter from the mayors of some of the nation's largest cities urging Trump to continue protections offered to young immigrants instituted under President Barack Obama's administration. The two-page letter asked Trump to continue Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the provision that protects young, so-called Dreamers who came to the country before the age...

Apple's primary assembly partner, Foxconn, will soon invest in expanding its U.S. operations, the latter company said on Wednesday, apparently following in the steps of a similar SoftBank announcement. "While the scope of the potential investment has not been determined, we will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant U.S. officials," Foxconn explained in a statement to Bloomberg. "Those plans would be made based on mutually-agreed terms." Although Foxconn didn't provide specifics, a document held up by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son after meeting with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump allegedly...

I believe Donald Trump's meteoric and sustained rise is a direct result of Obama's largely successful campaign to fundamentally transform America and the establishment Republicans' unwillingness to fight back. Grassroots conservatives have wanted someone to stand up to Obama and stand up for our nation -- and they are sick and tired of Beltway politicians and pundits alike patronizingly assuring them that nothing extraordinary is occurring and to calm down. "We'll take care of it after we're re-elected." Sure. Yes, some of these establishment, moderate or, if you prefer, unexcitable types have finally come around, belatedly acknowledging Obama's intentions but...

Surging Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz is laying out what would be the most aggressive first day in office ever for a new president, starting with the elimination of "every single illegal and unconstitutional" executive action taken by President Obama.In an epilogue to his father Rafael Cruz's upcoming autobiography, the Texas senator also said that he would rip up Obama's controversial deal with Iran, open an investigation into Planned Parenthood's abortion practice, end the IRS's "persecution of religious liberty," and shift the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem."All of that is on day one. It is an example of...

DES MOINES | Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz's campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first-in-the-nation caucus state has ever witnessed.Because of that grassroots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say.Cruz, a tea party firebrand and first-term U.S. senator from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has overtaken longtime front-runner Donald...

During a weekend campaign stop in south Alabama, Republican senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said he had "three words" for people questioning whether the southern border can be secured: "Secretary Jeff Sessions." "We are going to deport criminal illegal aliens, we are going to pass Kate's Law [mandatory minimum sentences for illegal immigrants who are deported but later return to the U.S.], we are going to end welfare benefits for those here illegally," Cruz told a raucous crowd of over 1,300 Alabamians. "For anyone who wonders, 'Can we really secure the border?' I've got three words for you: Secretary...

Ted Cruz can see himself on a collision course with Marco Rubio, barreling toward a head-to-head battle with his fellow senator for the Republican nomination , that is, if Rubio can deliver on his end of the deal. In a wide-ranging interview here Thursday, Cruz predicted that the GOP race will boil down to the familiar dynamic of an establishment favorite squaring off against a conservative challenger after they claim victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, respectively. "I believe I will be that conservative candidate," Cruz says. "I don't know who the moderate candidate will be." The Texas senator says...

The paper's conservative editorial board says he's disingenuous and demagogic. The senator says the paper is shilling for Marco Rubio. When tea party upstart Ted Cruz began his ascent in 2012, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board saw enough promise to hint at a new era of GOP reform politics.But it didn't take long for the influential opinion page to sour on the Texas senator. Within months after Cruz was sworn in to office, the Journal was castigating him for his tone and tactics - along with his naked pursuit of the presidency just months after joining the Senate -...

Sen. Jeff Sessions gave a full-throated defense of Sen. Ted Cruz at an event Friday in Daphne, Alabama. Cruz is facing attacks from Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and others over technical issues regarding amendments to a 2013 immigation reform bill which never passed. "People need to remember this, because this election is going to decide, the crowd who pushed that bill," Sessions said. "Will they be in the White House, and allowed to push their agenda, or will we have somebody else?" ... "In 2013 they spent a billion and a half dollars to promote this legislation, the political consultants,...

The office of Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, sent out a press release Wednesday pushing five amendments he filed to the bill, which generally tightens enforcement and provides a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Cruz's amendments seek to further tighten border security, streamline the legal immigration process, deny public benefits to those here illegally, reform the high-skilled worker visa program and prohibit a path to citizenship for the undocumented. "The amendments filed today to strengthen border security and reform our legal immigration system will not only bring meaningful, effective improvements to our immigration system, but also...

Donald Trump is at 36 percent in a recent poll, and Philip Bump at the Washington Post has a piece up about why that is important. But here's the thing: the poll is not very important at all, for many reasons. 1) It's a national poll — there's no such thing as a national primary. National polls are helpful very early in the primary season. In 2008, 59 days out, Rudy Giuliani was easily in first place nationwide, with double-digit leads on McCain, Romney and Huckabee. He went nowhere. In 2012, Cain was the leader nationally, but Romney was the...

At the Republican Presidential debate earlier this week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz did something unusual for a politician -- he gave a straightforward answer to a question. Yes, Cruz made clear, if the Bank of America was on the brink, he would let it fail. That answer made perfect sense to millions of Americans who are tired of politicians doing special favors for their well-connected friends on Wall Street. But doing such favors is what Washington politics is all about. That reality was highlighted by Neil Barofsky, who served as the Special Inspector General for the TARP bailouts. His book...