Free Republic

“All we're saying is we're not going to deport you," was the big lie President Barack Obama used when he announced his executive action on immigration. Despite being repeated time and again by politicians and the media during the DHS funding debate to describe the president’s action, it’s still a lie. To quote an analysis of the President’s speech published by Associated Press within hours, “THE FACTS: He's saying, and doing, more than that. The changes also will make those covered eligible for work permits, allowing them to be employed in the country legally and compete with citizens and legal...

Is a conservative schism forming over support for Scott Walker’s probable presidential candidacy? Thanks to outspoken recent support from Rush Limbaugh, the Wisconsin governor has seen his potential nomination prospects soar as conservatives look for a strong alternative to the more moderate Jeb Bush. That led to Beltway chatter about Walker’s new ascendancy and a Drudge Report poll showing him trouncing all others. Forty-four percent of Drudge readers who participated backed him, followed by 13% for Senator Ted Cruz, 12% for Senator Rand Paul and just four percent for Bush. Nearly 450,000 voted. Politico has continued to track Rush’s sustained...

On Tuesday, three Republican Senators joined three Democrats to introduce legislation that would expand the number of guest-workers for the tech industry even though there is a surplus of American high-tech workers. The Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would also enable companies to hire an unlimited number of workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering and math, which critics have said would turn some universities into diploma factories for foreign students. Currently, the first 20,000...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush called on Congress to pass bipartisan comprehensive amnesty legislation after President Barack Obama unilaterally granted nearly five million illegal immigrants executive amnesty on Thursday.

So the Senate Democrats just defeated the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline by 1 vote. Sitting duck Mary Landrieu — the soon-to-be former senator from Louisiana — begged her Democratic colleagues to vote for the energy-and-job-creating project but, no, the Fauxcahontas Elizabeth Warren “Green” wing of the party chose leftist sanctimoniousness over practicality. Here’s the thing about energy: we need as much of it as we can get as cheaply as possible. Are you worried about “the environment,” “peak oil,” etc.? Then you should be an aivd supporter of fracking, the Keystone pipeline, and any other means of extracting fossil...

A top Senate Democrat lent credibility to conservative efforts to block President Obama’s pending administrative amnesty, explaining that Congress has the authority to withhold funding for presidential initiatives. “It happens all the time,” retiring Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) told National Review Online while walking through the Capitol Thursday evening. Levin emphasized the distinction between shutting down the government, as happened last year, and refusing to appropriate money for something. “That’s not uncommon that there’s amendments saying ‘none of the funds in this appropriation bill may be spent for’ — fill in the blank,” Levin said. Republican lawmakers are debating...

Welcome to the Modern Progressive Art of Debate--A Political Storm in an Outhouse One of the most regrettable—and perhaps wholly inevitable elements of today’s life in the West is the wretched mission of liberals to eradicate any trace of intellectual disagreement with their convictions. In every conceivable arena, any non-conformist theories against progressive shibboleths—such as the current war over global warming—receive the most disrespectful and wholesale trashing. The emotional tenor is sheer disgust and fury, while those in intellectual opposition are held in the same esteem as a brain-dead fetal piglet. This politicized environment utterly discards courtesy or politeness in...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Citigroup exec Carlos Gutierrez gave immigration reform firepower last year when they lent their money or names to the cause. But roughly two months before Election Day, the three groups the business titans helped launch are all but silent on the campaign trail. None of the three has purchased airtime for ads on immigration reform this fall. Their virtual absence comes as Senate Republican candidates in battleground states are launching attack ads against Democrats accusing them of supporting “amnesty,” leaving pro-immigration reform candidates even more vulnerable and immigration reform even less likely...

(VIDEO's at Site:) When he ran for president, Presidential candidate Sen. Obama promised to roll back President George W. Bush’s use of executive power: I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the constitution very seriously. The biggest problem that we’re facing right now has to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America. (Sen. Obama at a Townhall in Lancaster, PA, March 31, 2008) Obama ran for president...

It is no surprise that young people are enamored of communism. Their teachers have been indoctrinating them for years into the utopia of “social justice,” “environmental justice,” the “evil” middle class, and the spectacular equality for all as envisioned by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Communism is “cool” in the land where wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt is a hypocritical political statement made while enjoying capitalist amenities. But we expect them to mature eventually and give up the absurdity that communism has not succeeded because the wrong people were in charge.

Growing up, I was – as I assume you were – inundated with lists of “the benefits of citizenship.” The list was long and capped, naturally, by the fact the United States was the best, strongest, freest nation on the planet. Being an American was a source of pride. But is it still? Do the benefits of citizenship still outweigh the alternative? As progressives cheer the dissolution of our southern border and, by extension, our sovereignty, it’s worth looking at the benefits of non-citizenship illegal aliens now enjoy and comparing them to the responsibilities of citizenship. Most people don’t like...

"The heartlessness and nativist pandering that have broken America's immigration system must give way to providing proper food, clothing, shelter and medical care to the Central American children streaming into the country," so pronounced the editors of the New York Daily News. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. echoed the theme in his "Bordering on Heartless" column, noting that Glenn Beck has "come under fierce attack" for his proposal to bring food, water, teddy bears and soccer balls to the children stuck at the border. "It's one more sign," Dionne writes, "of how the crisis at the border has brought...

It took 5 1/2 years, but we’ve finally found a law President Obama is willing to enforce as written. It’s the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which passed unanimously in both houses of Congress when they were controlled by Democrats and signed by a Republican president, and was meant to protect victims of child sex trafficking. But the intent behind the law isn’t what the president is following; it’s the letter. Seems he’s put his magical pen and phone away for the time being. The New York Times describes it this way, “Originally pushed by a...

The cab driver taking me to the Washington Nationals baseball game on July 4 is from Bangladesh. I ask him how he got here. He said his father "won the immigration lottery" some years back, was admitted under U.S. immigration law and eventually became a citizen, as did his son. He is proud to be an American and said after he dropped me off he was going to a traditional Fourth of July party to celebrate America's independence. Those are the kinds of immigrants America should welcome. My driver -- I will call him "Yusef" (not his real name) says...

Gentlemen,” Herbert Hoover told visiting dignitaries in June of 1930, “you have come six weeks too late.” The Depression, he declared, was over. Sadly, for him and for the country, he wasn’t correct. Still, sometimes you do arrive too late and miss all the action. Take the group of immigration reform activists who crashed Rep. Eric Cantor’s “victory” party in June. “What do we want? Immigration reform! When do we want it? Now!” they chanted. Two problems: Cantor had, like Elvis, already left the building. And because of the primary results, the former House Majority Leader will be leaving Congress...

Top Senate Democrats are sick of waiting for the House to take up comprehensive immigration reform. If Republicans don’t act in July, President Obama will, they warn. After all, he still has a pen and phone, right? Via The Hill: "We're at the end of the line," Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said Thursday during a press briefing in the Capitol. "We're not bluffing by setting a legislative deadline for them to act. "Their first job is to govern," Menendez added, "and in the absence of governing, then you see executive actions." Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) piled on. Noting that...

One might think the websites of various federal agencies tasked with protecting America’s borders would be information resources about how the Obama Administration is handling the now crisis-level situation at the border. Curiously, however, the “newsroom” sections of websites for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Health and Human Services post no information about the Administration’s current policies or plans for dealing with the “surge” of illegal immigrants flooding across our border with Mexico. The reason for this deafening silence is clear to anyone following the Administration’s confusing and frequently contradictory...

Not since a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas knocked out undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 1990 has there been an upset like economics professor Dave Brat defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary in Virginia. You couldn't write a script like this for a movie and have it be believable. Congressman Eric Cantor, with all kinds of name recognition, and outspending his opponent by 5 million dollars to $100,000, lost 55 percent to 45 percent against somebody that virtually nobody ever heard of before. Polls, incidentally, had predicted that Cantor would defeat Brat 62 percent to...

Dude, I think we should take this deal. House Republicans must act on immigration. If they falsely believe Obama won't enforce it, then let's have the law take effect in 2017.— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) May 22, 2014 If Republicans don't trust President Obama to enforce a new immigration law, let's give them a chance to implement it under President Cruz.— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) May 22, 2014 If that sounds familiar, it’s because Chuck Schumer floated the same idea back in February, minus the trollishly sarcastic reference to President Cruz. It’s a clever way of calling Boehner’s bluff...

...From Democratic Party A new report by the nonpartisan research group Latino Decisions proves that the Obama administration's deportation policies are souring young Latino voters on the Democratic Party. According to the report, the high number of deportations approved by the Obama administration is causing young Latinos to view the Democrats as less welcoming and could potentially turn Latino voters against the Democratic Party. The Obama administration has deported nearly two-million undocumented immigrants, surpassing the rate of deportations under President George W. Bush. Some immigrants who have been deported in recent years have children in the United States, meaning many...