Free Republic

Here’s what he told the Texas Tribune yesterday, via Spiering. Skip to 41:30 of the clip below for the key bit. “I think this administration has probably reached the point of irreconcilable differences with regards to trust, particularly among Republicans,” Rubio explained during a conversation at a Texas Tribune event on Tuesday. Rubio pointed out that Obama’s abuse of executive power, particularly in the decision not to enforce immigration laws, was a crucial error. He characterized it as “extremely problematic” to any consensus. Rubio admitted that the comprehensive approach to immigration reform had failed, stating that in the current political...

A groundbreaking plan for a privately funded international port of entry linking San Diego directly to Tijuana’s A.L. Rodriguez International Airport appears to have cleared its final hurdle. It would allow departing airline passengers to park their cars in San Diego and walk across a bridge to board a plane in Tijuana. For arriving passengers, it would provide a U.S. Customs facility allowing them to circumvent lengthy border waits at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa. The project’s U.S. developer, Otay-Tijuana Venture, has agreed to build the Customs inspection facility and pay for staffing, said R. Gil Kerlikowske, newly named commissioner...

Vladimir Putin happily allowed the Kiev authorities to shoot a few pro-Russian demonstrators while keeping his military forces on ice across the border. I predicted (and am sticking to my story) that Russia will not seize more territory in Eastern Ukraine–not for the time being, in any case. Russia will stand back and watch Ukraine implode, the way Egypt did during the two years following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Before the Maidan coup, Putin was willing to sit on $15 billion in arrears to Gazprom and put up $18 billion in new money. Now he wants $35 billion in...

Pope Francis inspired Catholics across the world last year when he visited a juvenile detention center in Rome to celebrate Holy Thursday, and tenderly washed the feel of a young  Muslim woman. This year, he washed the feet disabled people in a ceremony that recalls Jesus' humble service and challenging message to the apostles--the "Servant of the servants" takes the path of radical sel-sacrifice that leads to the Cross. Last night, a Rome's  Don Gnocchi facility, which provides services for the elderly and disabled, Pope Francis celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper, and his homily  recalled Jesus'  striking actions: He did it this way out of love....

The thought of the Lone Star State slowly transforming into a blue state is frightening to many native Texans, who fear that transplants will inject their cities with the very policies they initially fled from. But not everyone buys the theory. "Most liberals from California would rather die than come here," Chuck DeVore, Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation told Breitbart Texas. "They perceive Texas as a Bible belt, gun toting, cowboy hat-wearing state. They think, 'If you can't surf, why would you go there?'" DeVore should know--he used to live in California and served as...

Oil and gas production has stalled on federal lands for the third year in a row under the Obama administration, despite booming energy production on private and state lands, according to a new government report. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) says that the share of oil and gas production coming from federal lands have plummeted from 2009 to 2013. Oil production on federal lands fell by 11 percent over this time period and natural gas production fell by 28 percent. Federal onshore oil production fell for the third year in a row, while offshore oil production increased slightly — just...

Here's why you should worry about living in a country where increasing numbers of people can live without working. Filing our tax returns last week, I deplored government having confiscated 29.7% (effective rate) of my and my wife's joint 2013 income (Federal, 21.7%; state and local, 8%). That seemed scarcely worse than medieval lords confiscating one-third of peasants' crops. Speaking of lords, both the President of the United States and the Mayor of New York (et uxores) paid 2013 income taxes at lower effective rates than mine and my wife's (20.4% for the President and a measly 8.3% for the...

The Obama administration has extended a key review period for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Fox News has learned, potentially pushing off a decision until after the midterm elections.

The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a rule that would, if implemented, guarantee that even more Americans who like their health insurance plans cannot keep them. Fixed indemnity plans, which pay insured customers a set amount towards medical expenses and are often cost-effective relative to more comprehensive health insurance, are popular forms of coverage, and potentially becoming more popular in the wake of Obamacare. Health insurance industry representatives say that fixed indemnity plans have been attracting more interest as many Americans look for a way to mitigate against the high deductibles applicable to many insurance policies available...

For the first time, one of the three Army Ranger platoon mates who fired at Pat Tillman speaks publicly about what happened that fateful day, ten years ago this week. OLYMPIA, Wash. -- In his first public statements about the death of Pat Tillman, the former NFL player turned Army Ranger, one of the fellow Rangers involved in the 2004 friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" he has lived for 10 years with the thought that he might have fired the fatal shots. "It is possible, in my mind, that I hit him," said Steven Elliott, who...

Look for a Climate Credit from the State of California on Your April Utility Bill This month your electricity bill will include a credit identified as the "California Climate Credit." Twice a year, in April and October, your household and millions of others throughout the state will receive this credit on your electricity bills. The Climate Credit is a payment to Californians from a program designed to fight climate change by limiting the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that our largest industries put into the atmosphere. This program is one of many developed as a result of landmark legislation called...

LAS VEGAS -- Supporters of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy say the Bureau of Land Management may have impounded his cattle because of recommendations the agency made last month to preserve Gold Butte land Bundy has used without paying federal grazing fees. The recommendations were included in a March 14 report -- just weeks before the roundup -- that addressed the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone northeast of Las Vegas. As part of a federal initiative to develop large-scale solar energy power plants in western states, the BLM began studying the potential harm these projects could do to surrounding environments. Recommendations...

About 80 people showed up at a meeting in Aspen on Thursday on whether the BLM should void 65 oil and gas leases in the region, including 25 in the Thompson Divide area. Two-thirds of the way through the meeting in the basement of the Pitkin County Library, every person who had spoke urged the 13 BLM officials in attendance to cancel the leases, which were first authorized in a 1993 environmental impact statement. “We’re very much in favor of voiding the leases, specifically within the Thompson Divide area,” said Rob Ittner, the chair of the Pitkin County Board of...

Recently Sen. Charles Schumer made a groundbreaking speech outlining a Democratic Party strategy aimed at the Tea Parties. For the first time, a major figure in the liberal political universe sought to both explain the Tea Parties’ appeal to tens of millions of adult Americas and to project a strategy to break the Tea Party base away from its leaders—at least in the context of election campaigns. Mr. Schumer’s was wrong in his description of the Tea Party movement, however, and his proposed strategy was little more than a campaign statement that would do little damage to the Tea Parties....

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has more than doubled his fundraising efforts in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2013, according to the Houston Chronicle. Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, raised $887,344 in the year's first three months while he only took in $363,760 during the same period in 2013 when he first arrived in the U.S. Senate as a tea party favorite set on changing the ways established GOP members work in Washington. The senator, who is in the midst of paying visits to the early presidential caucus and primary states of...

Every year since 1983, Hustler founder Larry Flynt has sent 535 copies of his monthly magazine to Capitol Hill – one edition for each member of Congress. Only members of the executive branch are exempt from Flynt’s routine mailing list. The magazine and its array of naked women, vulgar comics and articles ranging on topics from politics to sex, arrives in the mail in a plain manila envelope. It didn’t take long for Congress members to complain about receiving the adult magazine: they first complained about the mailings in 1984, prompting the U.S. Postal Service to ask the U.S. District...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is "hellbent" on passing amnesty legislation, and other GOP leaders are signaling to donors and lobbyists that they also want to pass legislation this Congress, even though attempting to do so would depress the GOP base and create divisions within the party ahead of 2014's midterm elections that could give Republicans control of Congress.

Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson said Thursday that Americans are "being played by those people who want to divide, conquer and control." "The trend you can see in our society is if you are pro-life, then you're anti-woman," Carson said at a town hall meeting entitled "Religion in America," sponsored by local news station CBS12 in West Palm Beach, Fla. "If you're pro-traditional marriage, then you're homophobic. If you're a white person — and you say something against a progressive black person, you’re a racist. "We have gotten to this point to where we just like to label people...

ATF Adding More NFA Branch Staff, Reducing Backlog, Re-Designing eForms System. Again.By Nick Leghorn on April 17, 2014 The Truth About Guns TTAG has just received the following email from the ATF about the current status of the National Firearms Act branch, the group responsible for approving the paperwork needed to own fun stuff like silencers and short barreled firearms in the United States. The long and the short of it is that they’ve hired yet more staff and they are finally making a dent in the backlog of paperwork, but it’s going to be a long slog ahead until...

The morning of April 15 had an indication that it would contain an historic moment. Sarah Kliff, formerly of the Washington Post Wonkblog and now with General Electric Vox, appeared to be finally breaking through her liberal coccoon. Yes, she tweeted  some actual Obamacare criticism of the administration over the suspicious changes in the way the Census Bureau measures the uninsured. Alas, it was not to be. With startling speed, Kliff got her "mind right" with a correctional tweet in less than an hour after a Ministry of Truth talk with an administration offical. Let us now go back to...