Free Republic

States can impose their own stiff penalties on illegal immigrants and others who steal identities to get jobs, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, upholding Arizona’s law and dealing a setback to immigrant rights advocates. The decision is yet another victory for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and more broadly for Arizona, which has been a pioneer in trying to find ways to punish illegal immigrants, stepping into a void left by the Bush and Obama administrations. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there are still some questions about how police and prosecutors use the identity theft laws,...

“I got cheated!” After Donald Trump received nearly twice the votes of Ted Cruz at Saturday’s Arizona Republican convention, the Texas senator walked away with a significant majority of the delegates from that state, KTAR reported. Cruz took nearly all the state’s 28 at-large delegates and basically split the 27 selected by congressional district. Former Gov. Jan Brewer, a Trump supporter, was livid as the results were announced, indicating that she’d lost her first election in 35 years. Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/05/01/gov-jan-brewer-furious-after-what-cruz-is-able-to-pull-off-in-arizona-a-state-he-lost-to-trump-335367#ixzz47WOcx8ME

Marco Rubio won’t be endorsing Ted Cruz during the Republican presidential primary, but he’s likely to back the Texas senator at a contested convention — if it gets that far… Rubio has already helped Cruz by renting him his fundraising list, calling him “the only conservative left in the race,” withdrawing his name from the primary ballot in select states so as not to siphon votes from Cruz and petitioning to hang on to some of the 171 delegates he won to keep them from going to Donald Trump… “Marco wants Donald to lose. If he thought his endorsement would...

Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 379 likely Republican Primary voters in Indiana. The poll was conducted from April 28th to the 29th and has a margin of error of ± 5% at a 95% confidence level. The total may not round to 100% because of rounding. The polls were conducted using live telephone calls to landlines and mobile phone numbers of registered voters in Indiana and weighted by anticipated voting demographics.

Donald Trump won the New Hampshire presidential primary in February, but Republican Party officials are planning to block his delegates from places on the rules and platform committees at the July national convention, according to NHPR. The slots would go to delegates that were assigned to Marco Rubio, Jeb Busch, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz, even though Trump won 35 percent of the vote, according to a report in Politico. The committee assignments were released in a blind-carbon-copied email from the New Hampshire Republican Party's executive director, Ross Berry, according to a story in The Guardian. A source in the...

The mainstream media has succeeded in covering up Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and it appears her supporters couldn’t care less about the corruption. While it seems unlikely that Clinton will be hauled away in handcuffs anytime soon, a new filing by the Justice Department contains a phrase that suggests a criminal prosecution is being planned for the Democratic presidential frontrunner. From The Federalist Papers: In the ongoing battle to get access to the e-mails that Hillary sent, or received or tried to destroy, the Justice Department has been forced to respond or explain why certain emails must remain classified. When...

Tens of thousands of immigrants seeking citizenship as immigration is key campaign issue. MIAMI (AP) — Tens of thousands of immigrants are applying for U.S. citizenship in a year when immigration is at the center in this year's presidential campaign. Many immigration advocates say fear of Donald Trump becoming president is motivating many longtime immigrants to apply for citizenship, so they can vote. On a recent Saturday morning in South Florida, 50-year-old Edgar Ospina (oh-SPEE'-nah) stood in a long line to take the first step

Indianapolis (CNN)South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is predicting "another 9/11" if Donald Trump is elected president. In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Graham said the Republican Party is in the midst of a "civil war" and called Trump's foreign policy positions dangerous. He pointed to former House Speaker John Boehner's comments about his friendly relationship with Trump, and Boehner's dismissal of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's chief Republican presidential rival, as "Lucifer in the flesh."

Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah who served in the Obama administration, thinks the GOP should stop fighting. “We’ve had enough intraparty fighting. Now’s the time to stitch together a winning coalition,” Huntsman said, according to Politico. “And it’s been clear almost from the beginning that Donald Trump has the ability to assemble a nontraditional bloc of supporters,” he added. “The ability to cut across traditional party boundaries — like ’80, ’92 and 2008 — will be key, and Trump is much better positioned to achieve that.” Huntsman was U.S. Ambassador to China under President Obama. His 2012...

After walking away with the majority of delegates in Wyoming and Colorado, Sen. Ted Cruz was on a roll. His knowledge of the “obscure, internecine” delegate fights gave him a tactical advantage over front-runner Donald Trump, which could end up deciding the Republican nomination for president. “This is how elections are won in America,” said Cruz. The Texas senator saw a silver lining to his declining polls as he heads into Tuesday’s critical Indiana primary. According to the National Review, “The political world was captivated – and Trump supporters were infuriated – by the Cruz campaign’s successful effort to elect...

Donald Trump won the Arizona Republican primary with 47% of the vote to second place Ted Cruz with 25%. But that didn’t stop the Cruz campaign and GOP elites from coming in and poaching all of the delegates at today’s state convention. The Cruz camp and GOP elites call this a “good ground game.” Even former Governor Jan Brewer, an outspoken Trump supporter, had her name removed from the online ballot and did not make the cut.

Ted Cruz has a net non-favorable rating amid Republican voters (Per Gallup) and the addition of Carly Fiorina has only worsened the condition of the Ted Cruz campaign. Per Gallup, Cruz now has a negative net favorability rating among Republicans.

[…] “In Indiana, Trump is positioned to corral all the [state’s 57] delegates, which will be a big prize toward winning the nomination outright,” says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “Clinton and Sanders are more likely to divide the delegate pool, which will do little to change the narrative on the Democratic side.” (link)

Those delegates are vital to Cruz’s quest to deny his rival the 1,237 delegates he’ll need on the first ballot in Cleveland. But as they’ve watched Cruz struggle to tread water in a primary increasingly dominated by Trump, many of them, wary of a bitter convention battle that could rend the party at its seams, are rethinking their commitment to the Texas senator. Of the ten North Dakota delegates on the Cruz slate reached by National Review, five express serious reservations about backing the Texas senator on that crucial first ballot...

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said on Sunday he would continue his campaign if he lost the critical Indiana primary on Tuesday. "If you don't win in Indiana under these circumstances, is this race over?" asked "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "Of course not," Cruz said. "It's going to be a battle to see who can earn a majority of the delegates elected by the people at the convention. And the reason Donald is so frantic to say the race is over ... is because Donald knows he cannot earn a majority of the delegates that were elected by...

<p>Republican front-runner Donald Trump holds a 15-point lead over Ted Cruz in Indiana, which holds its primary on Tuesday, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.</p> <p>Trump leads with 49% to Cruz’s 34%, while Ohio Governor John Kasich is behind both with 13%.</p>

Hundreds of supporters of a powerful Shia Muslim cleric camped outside parliament in Baghdad overnight a day after thousands stormed the Green Zone and entered the parliament building, prompting the declaration of a state of emergency. Hundreds of people gathered in protest at the failure of Iraqi MPs to convene for a vote to approve new ministers. The unrest comes after weeks of political turmoil in Baghdad over efforts by the prime minister Haider al-Abadi, to replace party-affiliated ministers with technocrats. MPs failed to reach a quorum to approve the measures on Saturday. On Saturday the protesters broke into the...

Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday that gay people are "probably" born that way, conceding that view during a testy exchange with a gay voter at a California event. Asked by Kelly Bryan, a gay 62-year-old man, during an event at the Commonwealth Club of California whether people are "born gay," Kasich first attempted to avoid answering the question. "I'm not gonna get into all the analysis of this or that," Kasich said at the San Francisco town hall. "I'm not gonna do that." But the questioner pressed again: "It's not analysis. Are people born gay?"...

Donald Trump holds a 15-point lead over Ted Cruz in the potentially decisive May 3 presidential primary race in Indiana, according to results from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. Trump gets support from 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters – followed by Cruz at 34 percent and John Kasich at 13 percent.

A Burlingame man wearing a red "Make America Great Again" ball cap decided to walk through a group of protesters outside the California GOP Convention in Burlingame.