Free Republic

President Obama's bid for fast track trade authority along with a huge Asian trade deal fell into further trouble Sunday night when a key Republican senator charged that the deals open the door to more immigration and let the administration make future changes without congressional approval. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions delivered the bruising blow when he raised five questions about the Trade Promotion Authority speeding through Congress and the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal that TPA would help push. "The president has circumvented Congress on immigration with serial regularity. But the TPA would yield new power to the executive to...

Report: Robots replacing human workers at faster pace Robots aren't just for corporate Goliaths -- now even the little guy on Main Street is adopting them. The goal: to boost sales and productivity. But at what cost? Take Sam Kraus, a Hungarian immigrant who founded what became Skyline Windows in 1921. In the early days, the tinsmith traveled around with a small cart to do his roofing and waterproofing work by hand. Fast-forward to today, and the fourth-generation business based in New York City's South Bronx has left the pushcart era far behind. Skyline, which has evolved into a custom...

"............The LIBRE effort, which backers plan to expand into more presidential battleground states over the next several months, has alarmed many Democrats.They are making friends and trying to convince you that the Democratic agenda is bad,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the research and polling firm Latino Decisions. He said the group hands out ideological material, collects names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers, and is “laying the foundation for Republican candidates to emphasize the same messages.”Barreto says those behind LIBRE are “playing the long game” and don’t really have to win Republican votes, but rather raise doubts about Democrats to...

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin's Scott Walker has emerged as a force in the 2016 White House contest. It's a position two other Republican governors from the Midwest, lesser known but similarly ambitious, undoubtedly would like to be in. Like Walker, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan have strong resumes and political successes in states where the GOP often struggles. They offer a distinct form of pragmatic politics that differs sharply from that of their combative counterpart in Wisconsin. Kasich has taken steps toward a presidential bid, emboldened by the absence of a clear front-runner and by warm reviews...

Many people who take a hard line on immigration will be quick to tell you that it's only illegal immigration they oppose. The rule of law must be upheld, they argue, and amnesty only rewards lawbreakers. Immigration boosters, including me, have always suspected that this professed concern for the law masks a deeper opposition to all immigration. Now Wisconsin Governor and potential presidential candidate Scott Walker has given ammo to the skeptics. In an interview with Glenn Beck, he strongly implied that he wants to limit legal immigration, in order to protect American jobs: In terms of legal immigration…the next...

Republican insiders in early-voting states say a crucial battle is emerging in the 2016 presidential race between Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, competing to establish themselves as the party’s “bridge” candidate who can appeal to both the establishment and grass-roots activists.As it has become increasingly apparent that they are key rivals, the men have started taking regular,subtle but unmistakable,shots at one another. Walker talks about the need to nominate someone who is not from Washington and implicitly compares Rubio to Barack Obama. Rubio suggests that there is “no way” a governor like Walker is prepared to deal with global crises...

Via the Weekly Standard, he’s not saying anything here that he hasn’t said before. He supports immigration reform, but not comprehensive immigration reform — only a piecemeal security-first approach will work, the same view now taken by Marco Rubio. But Cruz fans who haven’t paid attention to him on this issue may assume, incorrectly but understandably, that he naturally takes the most conservative position that an electable Republican presidential candidate can take. Not so: It’s Scott Walker(!) who’s staked out the right side of the field by demanding that American wages be a variable when considering target numbers for legal...

April 2015 is the month that conservative populism broke out and reached the major leagues of American politics. On April 15, the editors of the New York Times felt compelled to denounce a Washington Post op-ed by Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), in which he called for reduced immigration to help raise the wages of American workers. The Times editors were particularly miffed that “Mr. Sessions accuses the financial and political ‘elite’ of a conspiracy to keep wages down through immigration” (“elite” is put in sneer quotes, as if there were no elite). What is important to note is not...

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits tumbled to a 15-year low last week and consumer spending rose in March, signs the economy was regaining momentum after stumbling badly in the first quarter. The economic outlook was brightened further by another report on Thursday showing a solid increase in wages in the first quarter, which should keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates this year. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 for the week ended April 25, the lowest reading since April 2000, the Labor Department said....

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has poached Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s "most prominent pro-Israel backer," The Washington Free Beacon reports. Rich Roberts, a major Republican donor who Politico described as "a kingmaker among ultra-Orthodox Jews" in his home state of New Jersey, had been a benefactor to Paul, even paying for the senator’s 2013 trip to Israel. But Roberts is now throwing his support to Walker, who has not yet declared his candidacy, though it’s expected, because he believes the Wisconsin governor is more electable. "I like Rand Paul a lot, our relationship goes back now about three or four years,"...

Powerline audio LINK [runs 9:00] Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) addressed the Freedom Club’s annual dinner in Minnesota. Walker made time between photos and the dinner for a Power Line interview. icon From Power Line’s John Hinderacker: How was his speech? It was terrific. I have wondered whether Walker would be dynamic enough to succeed on the national stage. His low-key style has served him well in Wisconsin, but would he be able to inspire national Republicans? I needn’t have worried. Walker spoke extemporaneously, without notes (or, needless to say, teleprompter), and from the heart. He got a thunderous reception from...

The Blue-City Model Baltimore shows how progressivism has failed urban America. April 28, 2015 You’re not supposed to say this in polite company, but what went up in flames in Baltimore Monday night was not merely a senior center, small businesses and police cars. Burning down was also the blue-city model of urban governance. Nothing excuses the violence of rampaging students or the failure of city officials to stop it before Maryland’s Governor called in the National Guard. But as order starts to return to the streets, and the usual political suspects lament the lack of economic prospects for the...

In 19.9 percent of American families in 2014, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), no one in the family worked. A family, as defined by the BLS, is a “group of two or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. In 2014, there were 80,889,000 families in the United States, and in 16,057,000 of those families, or 19.9 percent, no one had a job. The BLS designates a person as “employed” if “during the survey reference week” they “(a) did any work at all as paid employees; (b) worked in...

Via the Washington Times, this is worth blogging if only because, despite the field being ridiculously crowded, there are realistically only two or three guys who could win both Iowa and New Hampshire. Rand Paul could do it if the Ron Paul rEVOLution in both states turns out in droves, but he has yet to make a splash in early polls and he’ll face bruising attacks from the right before those states go to vote. Marco Rubio could do it but he’ll have to cobble together a plurality by clawing votes from other top-flight contenders across the spectrum — Bush,...

Scott Walker remains something of an enigma. Beyond the story of the Eagle Scout son of a Baptist preacher whose faith guides him, we’ve never gotten much of a glimmer of what drives him. It requires huge amounts of energy and long, exhausting days to attempt what Walker is doing — to run for president and campaign across the nation and make international political trips while still serving as governor — and that isn’t possible unless something very powerful is pushing you. But Walker always projects an icily calm persona, never revealing the least glimpse of any inner demons. A...

A new poll shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker sitting atop a handful of 2016 GOP contenders in the early presidential state of Iowa, notching a 10-point lead over his nearest rival. Mr. Walker, who has not yet officially declared his candidacy, was the choice of 23 percent of Republicans, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 13 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 12 percent, according to the survey released Tuesday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling......................"

Last Monday, Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor and a presumed GOP presidential hopeful, kicked the hornets' nest that is the immigration debate. He told Glenn Beck's radio show that America needs to "make decisions about a legal immigration system that's based on, first and foremost, protecting American workers and American wages," and that this concern should be "at the forefront of our discussion going forward." Walker's comments are significant because they're something of a reversal for him, but also because they break with the "legal-immigration-good, illegal-immigration-bad" orthodoxy of the GOP establishment. Lumping both forms of immigration together as equally questionable...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appears to have an early edge in Iowa. Craig Robinson, founder and editor of TheIowaRepublican.com, calls Walker the “clear frontrunner” following the weekend Faith and Freedom Coalition event in that state, which hosts the country’s first caucuses. A number of the potential GOP presidential candidates attended the summit and addressed an audience of Iowa voters. Sen. Marco Rubio delivered “one of the best-delivered speeches of the night,” Robinson writes. The political observer added that Sen. Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina got people talking. Fiorina “is going to be a surprise on caucus night if she keeps...

According to Gallup, only 7 percent of Americans want immigration levels to increase, while 86 percent either want them to remain at current levels (47 percent) or decrease (39 percent). With most current and prospective Republican presidential candidates tripping over each other to vie for that 7 percent, it would seem to be good politics for a candidate to break from the pack and speak for the other 86 percent essentially unopposed. That’s more of less what Scott Walker has done over the past week. Actually, Walker hasn’t even said that immigration levels should not be increased. He has merely...

The conservative movement’s leading media icons lined up to back Scott Walker after the media attempted to lynch him for talking tough on immigration.After being attacked...Walker stayed the course...“A couple years ago, when the unemployment rate was at incredibly high levels and labor participation was low, why would we want to flood the market with more workers?” he said. “So that would be a time when you would have arguably less. As the unemployment rate goes down and labor participation rates go up, the two have to go hand in hand. Then it could be conceivably more than we have...