Free Republic

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Last Thursday, I left work about 5 p.m. and drove to the San Jose Convention Center to hear Donald Trump speak. I’ve been voting for conservative candidates for 15 years and a registered Republican since 2015. Now that the general election is underway, I believe Trump is the best candidate to fix our country’s many problems, and I believe he’s going to be the next commander in chief. So I was excited to hear him, and to show my support. Walking into the rally with a friend, I was a little wary: Trump’s speech to the...

Reuters -TEGUCIGALPA - Honduran officials on Wednesday called for U.S. aid to Central America to reduce violence that has fueled a surge of child migration to the United States, with the foreign minister calling for a "mini-Marshall plan" to attack the broader underlying problems. Honduran President Juan Hernandez said Washington should help Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras fight gangs with a plan similar to U.S. anti-drug programs in Colombia and Mexico, as well as funds to lift growth in the impoverished region. :snip: Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero told the conference efforts to step up security at the U.S. border...

(snip) Woods said McCain would be more helpful if the White House reached out to him, but "they haven't talked to him at all."McCain also voted no Saturday on the Dream Act, which would have granted citizenship to thousands of foreign-born college students. He initially sponsored the legislation. Gullett said McCain constantly faced voters on the campaign trail last year asking about border security and that affected his stance. His communications director, Brooke Buchanan, explained that on immigration, McCain believes the border needs to be secured above all else, citing the increasing border violence over the last four years. "His...

Latino leaders in Nevada and around the country are floating the idea of breaking traditional ties with the Democratic Party and creating a grass-roots independent movement tentatively called the Tequila Party. According to Delen Goldberg at the Las Vegas Sun, the leaders want to pressure the Democratic Party to deliver on Latinos' priorities much in the same way the tea party has done with the GOP over the past few years. Robert de Posada, the former GOP operative behind this fall's controversial "Don't Vote" ads aimed at Latinos in Nevada and California, tells The Lookout that he has heard "rumblings"...

I watched The O'Reilly Factor last night and he had our old friend Juan Hernandez on. O'Reilly was calling El Presidente de Mexico Calderon a hypocrite for condemning Americans as "racists" for building a border fence, while Calderon and Mexico is improving their existing border fence with Guatemala. Is Mexico racist?

As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics. In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.

Hayworth faced ethical scrutiny during his unsuccessful reelection campaign for his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose Native-American clients contributed $100,000 to his campaigns. He is still paying off legal debt that he accumulated preparing for a possible federal investigation in connection with the Abramoff scandal.

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

I just saw YET ANOTHER news clip from..... I dunno, human events. The source doesn't matter. What's happening? Amnesty. Who's involved? Of course, McCain. I just cannot figure it out. I can't. Why? If he gets amnesty passed, that by far overshadows every heroic/patriotic action he's ever done in his life. Why would he do this?

When it comes to immigration, it seems the chaos on the border is exceeded only by the chaos in Washington. That is especially curious since Members of Congress are usually famous for being able to read which way the political wind is blowing. In this case, however, it appears they would be well served to commit to reading the results of a recent, reputable bi-partisan national survey of voter attitudes on immigration. What its findings show is not at all startling, and is indeed testimony to the common sense of US Americans. With solutions to border, immigration, and guest worker...

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Arizona Senator John McCain is adopting a major 2008 campaign slogan for a new political action committee designed to support not only his own planned re-election run in two years, but help him put his stamp on the rebuilding of the Republican Party. The formation of the “Country First” PAC is to be announced Wednesday, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. One of the sources called it the “first official step” of the GOP Senator’s re-election campaign. McCain made it clear not long after losing the presidential election that he intended to seek re-election to the Senate...

Removing All Doubt Obama Would Cede Southwest to Mexico American Patrol Report -- December 19 "We are all Americans, whether you are legalized or not" Anyone who still doubts that Barack Obama is determined to grant de-facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens should explain to the rest of us why he picked Hilda Solis to be Secretary of Labor. A long-time supporter of la Reconquista, the Mexican takeover of the American Southwest, Solis is also a leader in the movement to silence Americans who speaks out against the invasion, specifically Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. At a...

Members of the cultural right have called Juan Hernandez a "border obliteration activist," an "American traitor," and an "agent of the Mexican government." John McCain's presidential campaign called him something different: director of Hispanic outreach. For 14 months leading up to the election, the Fort Worth, Texas, native was a high-level volunteer at McCain '08 headquarters, where he attended daily senior staff meetings and advised the Arizona senator and his top lieutenants about how to appeal to Hispanic voters. Part of that strategy was highlighting McCain's record of championing comprehensive immigration reform. Meanwhile, down the hall, another portion of the...

Palin addresses issues on television interview Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin addressed issues yesterday relating to Latin America, including Hugo Chavez and illegal immigration, in her first interview with a Spanish-language network. The interview began with Univision anchor, Jorge Ramos asking Palin to clarify recent statements she and Republican Presidential candidate John McCain have made, characterising Senator Barack Obama’s tax proposals as “socialist”. Palin denied ever having called Obama a socialist directly. The interview quickly turned to US nemesis, leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has repeatedly claimed the US is planning to attack Venezuela. However,...

For years, Juan Hernandez was a familiar sight at Joe T. Garcia’s — strolling among diners and singing as a local troubadour. His work there led to singing at weddings and recording albums in Spanish and English. He earned enough money to pay for graduate school and learned lessons that would help him through the years, said his father, Francisco Hernandez Sr. "His years as a troubadour gave him so much time working with people," he said. "He learned to win the appreciation of people." That may have helped, as Juan Hernandez — a lightning rod because of his passionate...

Darned curious. The last time McCain was confronted about this, he professed not to know of any controversial statements made by Hernandez while cheerily pledging to “look into it.” Does this mean he’s looked into it and decided to keep him on, albeit gagged? Or is he still getting around to “looking into it”? Sure sounds like someone knows they have a Hernandez problem.

Whose idea was it to send John McCain down to Mexico the day before Independence Day and have him grovel for Latino votes south of the border by visiting the Basilica de Guadalupe–a famed Catholic shrine featuring the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which most Mexican politicians consider off-limits for campaigning? According to Frentes Politicos (hat tip - reader Edgar M.), the stunt was the brainchild of none other than McCain’s open-borders Hispanic outreach director and former Mexican cabinet official Juan Hernandez, who apparently survived the big campaign staff shake-up:

Whose idea was it to send John McCain down to Mexico the day before Independence Day and have him grovel for Latino votes south of the border by visiting the Basilica de Guadalupe–a famed Catholic shrine featuring the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which most Mexican politicians consider off-limits for campaigning? According to Frentes Politicos (hat tip - reader Edgar M.), the stunt was the brainchild of none other than McCain’s open-borders Hispanic outreach director and former Mexican cabinet official Juan Hernandez, who apparently survived the big campaign staff shake-up: I. El truco para la buena imagen fue idea...

“While the natural instincts of democracy lead the people to banish distinguished men from power,” Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “an instinct no less powerful leads distinguished men to shun careers in politics, in which it is so very difficult to remain entirely true to oneself or to advance without self-abasement.” Some 170 years and 36 presidents later, the choice presented to the American people at this year’s presidential election does not merely confirm the correctness of the Frenchman’s assessment; it amplifies his verdict in an absurd, almost surreal manner. Among America’s presidents—many of them impressive and some great,...

McCain’s lobbyist purge: All the foreign agents but one? By Michelle Malkin  •  May 19, 2008 01:32 PM Five McCain campaign staffers and volunteers have now been shown the door over their lobbying activities and/or status as foreign agents. WaPo reports on the latest: Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, resigned yesterday because of his lobbying ties, a campaign adviser said. This StoryHe is the fifth person to sever ties with the campaign amid a growing concern over whether lobbyists have too great an influence over the Republican nominee. Last week, campaign manager Rick Davis issued...