Free Republic

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear an expedited appeal on a district court’s ruling that blocks President Obama’s executive amnesty. The appeals court is to hear arguments on April 17. SNIP The Justice Department appealed the decision to the higher court this month, seeking to allow the executive amnesty go forward. The state of Texas is leading the 26 states in its court fight against the executive orders. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stressed, following the Fifth Circuit’s date announcement, that it would continue to “vigorously oppose the president’s illegal amnesty plan in court.”

You could call him the Texas Reagan.Texas Senator Ted Cruz is announcing today that he is a candidate for president.The announcement will come in a speech at Liberty University, the famous Virginia school founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. There will be no “exploratory committee,” with Cruz moving straight to an announcement of candidacy. This will make the Texas son of a Cuban immigrant and one-time star of Harvard Law School the first officially declared candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.In a conversation with The American Spectator, Cruz made it plain that he intends to pursue a 21st-century...

It’s déjà vu all over again. In November, the multilateral negotiations aimed at curbing Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon stalled and failed to culminate in an agreement before the scheduled deadline. But Iran and the P5+1 were reportedly so close to an agreement that they just couldn’t let the talks collapse merely because an arbitrary dead had come and gone. All parties agreed to extend the talks until the end of March when all parties would have to agree on a framework for a final deal. They would have until the end of June to work out the...

Don't miss tonight's 'Hannity' when presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz sits down with Sean Hannity for an entire hour! Watch Cruz discuss his candidacy, why he has decided to run, the chaos in Yemen, ObamaCare and so much more. Tune in to 'Hannity' tonight at 10 for the must-see interview!

Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says that Israel’s government must match up ‘words with actions and policies,’ warns Netanyahu’s statements can’t be willed away WASHINGTON — White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough called for the end of Israel’s “50-year occupation” and doubled down on the Obama administration’s critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a warmly received speech to the lobbying group J Street in Washington Monday. Speaking to the dovish group’s national conference, McDonough became the latest in a series of Washington officials to highlight the administration’s displeasure with Netanyahu, while also talking up the permanence of US-Israel...

For liberals, opposition to Republicans is as much about defending President Barack Obama’s honor as it is in opposing the GOP’s policies. The left’s antipathy toward the GOP is shared by many in the political press, which spent the better part of the last two months defending the president’s patriotism, his devotion to the Christian faith, and examining the basis for charging 47 Republican senators with violating the Logan Act. The president’s good name, not his policies, moves the left to rise to his defense. It was this impulse that inspired the Democratic base and their allies in the media...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., on Monday is expected to announce he's running for president. However well he ends up doing in the Republican primaries, one thing is for sure — the development is terrible news for Sen. Rand Paul's presidential ambitions. Whatever small chance Paul had in the 2016 presidential race was premised on his ability to reach beyond the core supporters of his father's, by articulating a message that appealed to a broader coalition of Republicans. The biggest opportunity Paul had for growth was with Tea Party voters who would be drawn to his limited government message. The biggest...

GENEVA - The United States will not take the floor at the main U.N. human rights forum on Monday during the annual debate on violations committed in the Palestinian territories, a U.S. spokesman told Reuters. The move at the 47-member state forum where Washington unfailingly defends Israel, follows signals that the Obama administration is undertaking a "reassessment" of relations with Israel. The last time that Washington spoke under that stand-alone agenda item was in March 2013, U.N. records show. (This story corrects to removes word "unprecedented" in paragraph 2, adds new 3rd paragraph to clarify)

Obama's role during the Israeli elections was larger than reported, according to a pollster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. "What was not well reported in the American media is that President Obama and his allies were playing in the election to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu," John McLaughlin, a Republican strategist, said in an interview on John Catsimatidis's "The Cats Roundtable" radio show broadcast Sunday on AM 970 in New York. "There was money moving that included taxpayer U.S. dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions to...

SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who was Singapore’s first Prime Minister when the country gained Independence in 1965, has died on Monday (Mar 23) at the age of 91. "The Prime Minister is deeply grieved to announce the passing of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding Prime Minister of Singapore. Mr Lee passed away peacefully at the Singapore General Hospital today at 3.18am. He was 91," said the PMO. Arrangements for the public to pay respects and for the funeral proceedings will be announced later, it added. Mr Lee, who was born in 1923, formed the People’s Action Party in...

WASHINGTON — In a new online threat to American military personnel, the Islamic State has called on its members and sympathizers in the United States to kill 100 service members whose names, photos and purported addresses it posted on a website. The group said that the personnel had participated in efforts to defeat it in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. Defense Department and F.B.I. officials said that they were aware of the website and were investigating the posting. It does not appear that the information had been hacked from government servers. One Defense Department official, who was not authorized to...

Lee Kuan Yew, who dominated Singapore politics for more than half a century and transformed the former British outpost into a global trade and finance powerhouse, setting a template for emerging markets around the world, died Monday. He was 91 years old.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer received Saturday the full backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid chatter in Washington that replacing Dermer may be necessary to restore the working relationship with the Obama administration. In a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu reiterated what he had said at the AIPAC conference earlier this month that he “couldn’t be prouder to have Ron Dermer representing Israel in Washington.” “That is as true today as it was then,” the statement read. “The prime minister has full confidence in Ambassador Dermer, whose service to the people and State of Israel...

This week, the media’s reaction to the Israeli election seemed indistinguishable from the reaction of the Obama White House. Not only were journalists surprised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory on Tuesday (they apparently believed pre-election surveys showing his party trailing by 2 to 4 seats; they ended up winning by 6 seats), but they seemed distressed by the result. On Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News, fill-in anchor Lester Holt predicted the results “could destroy any chance of a peace plan.” Over on CBS that night, correspondent Barry Petersen fretted that because of Netanyahu’s victory, “peace will be hard....Not a lot of optimism...

Israel: Beware of Obama By Michael Goodwin First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet. He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast. Now he’s coming for Israel.

The U.S. has removed all remaining personnel from Yemen as Shiite rebels controlling the country’s capital called for others to join its battle against government forces. The State Department said in a statement it is removing personnel due to the “deteriorating security situation” in the country. The State Department also said it will continue to engage the Yemeni people and international community to support the country’s political transition. […] The U.N. Security Council has called for an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Yemen as well. The closed-door meeting is expected to take place Sunday. …

Day after Obama urges Iran to seize ‘historic opportunity,’ supreme leader says US seeks to create insecurity. Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord. Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the...

Cable and telecom industry lobbyists are launching an effort to convince lawmakers to support new legislation that replaces federal Internet regulations. 
After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its new regulations to treat the Web like a public utility, major companies are now sensing an opening to escape what they consider crushing net neutrality regulations. “The 400-page order really is starting, to us, a process on the hill,” said one telecommunications industry lobbyist who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the plans. “Our focus and our priority [is] to makes sure everyone understands what the FCC did,...

Nearly 400 British girls as young as eleven are believed to have been sexually exploited by Muslim rape gangs in Oxfordshire over the past 15 years, according to a chilling new report. It charges local officials with repeatedly ignoring the abuse due to a "culture of denial." The scale of the abuse in Oxfordshire, a county in southeast England, mirrors similarly shocking accounts of the sexual exploitation of white British girls by Muslim gangs in Bristol, Derby, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford, and implies that the problem is not isolated, but endemic. "Between acts of abuse sometimes stretching over a number...

A federal judge sharply scolded a Justice Department attorney at a hearing on President Obama's immigration executive actions, suggesting that the administration misled him on a key part of the program -- and that he fell for it, "like an idiot." The testy court hearing was held Thursday in Texas by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen. The judge suggested he could order sanctions against the administration if he finds they indeed misrepresented the facts.