Free Republic

Utah Sen. Mike Lee plans to endorse Ted Cruz Thursday, making him the first U.S. senator to back the Texas senator's presidential bid, sources told POLITICO. In a blow to Marco Rubio, whose campaign is on life support as he seeks to avoid a knock-out blow in his home state Tuesday, Lee is expected to make the announcement in Rubio’s hometown of Miami ahead of Thursday night’s GOP debate.-snip-Lee is close with both senators, and he had resisted jumping into the race and potentially alienating one of them. He sat down with Rand Paul, Rubio and Cruz as the presidential...

Ted Cruz Retail Stop with Special Guest Senator Mike Lee Thursday Feb. 18th 3:00pm Mutts BBQ 1020 Powdersville Rd. Easley, SC 29640

Dear Colleagues: We need to fix our broken immigration system. We must secure our borders, enforce the laws on the books, improve the legal immigration system, and ensure we never again repeat the mistakes of the past. In 1986, the American people were promised that, in exchange for granting legal status to illegal immigrants, the border would be secured and the law enforced. Washington broke these promises. Unfortunately, the so-called "Gang of Eight" immigration bill, S. 744, repeats these past mistakes.During the Senate Judiciary Committee's consideration of S. 744, common-sense amendments offering real solutions were rejected. The bill's proponents repeatedly...

The Sheldon Adelson-backed group that is trying to outlaw online poker in America has brought on former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) to help lobby for the ban, according to reporting from The Hill. (SNIP) Graham’s legislation is co-sponsored by Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Dan Coats (R-IN), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

Sen. Mike Lee doesn't like it when GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump claims that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has no friends in the Senate. "It makes me mad when Trump says that," Lee told the Washington Examiner this week. "Ted Cruz is my friend, so if Mr. Trump or anyone else is saying Ted Cruz doesn't have any friends in the Senate, I can say unequivocally, that is not true. I am his friend and I don't regard myself as alone in that either." Lee in 2010 became the first Tea Party candidate to upset an incumbent GOP senator.Trump has...

If you use Facebook- and that's everyone who sees this post - then your relationship with Facebook will be redefined by the government if the ‪Omnibus‬ spending bill before the Senate is passed into law. Tomorrow we are scheduled to vote on a 2,000 page spending bill to fund the government through the end of next year. It was crafted in a back-room deal with almost no input from most members of Congress. Because of the "must-pass" nature of the bill, those in the room air-dropped controversial cybersecurity legislation into the bill, hoping no one would object. If this bill...

So where was the march for Tyshawn Lee? Where were the demonstrators barring access to stores in Chicago's premiere commercial district on the busiest shopping day of the year? Where was Rev. Jesse Jackson, joining his voice with a thousand other people demanding justice? Where were news media, beaming the images out to the world?

WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement Thursday in anticipation of Friday’s House vote on H.R. 3762:“On Friday the House of Representatives is set to vote on a reconciliation bill that repeals only parts of Obamacare. This simply isn’t good enough. Each of us campaigned on a promise to fully repeal Obamacare and a reconciliation bill is the best way to send such legislation to President Obama’s desk. If this bill cannot be amended so that it fully repeals Obamacare pursuant to Senate rules, we cannot support this bill. With...

"The polls do show that the American public right now favor a path to citizinship 74% to 23%"

WASHINGTON – Just days after publicly calling the majority leader a liar on the Senate floor, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has upped the stakes in his war on GOP brass by accusing Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of spearheading the effort to keep taxpayer funds going to Planned Parenthood.In a statement that mentioned “gruesome videos of senior officials of Planned Parenthood discussing the selling of body parts of unborn children,” Cruz blasted McConnell for blocking an amendment by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to defund the abortion provider.“These videos are horrifying, and yet it saddens me greatly that the Republican leader...

With tensions rising within his conference, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell summoned Republicans for a closed-door meeting Monday night for what was expected to be a fraught session. The meeting is expected to focus, in part, on a private email an aide to Sen. Mike Lee sent to conservative activists saying that a complicated Obamacare repeal procedural vote “should be scored” against any senator who opposes it. That means that it would be a counted as a mark against them among conservatives in their next election. Lee wants to invoke a rare Senate procedure in order to pass a repeal...

A 10-month-old baby is in intensive care after her uncle allegedly mixed her formula with alcohol, Dothan police said Friday. Dothan police charged Dontavian Lee McCree, 19, with felony torture child abuse after hospital staff discovered the baby had ingested alcohol. The Dothan Eagle reports the baby was admitted around 1:30 p.m. Thursday but her condition had improved by Friday. Police said McCree's sister left her daughter in his care while she went to work, but she noticed the baby was acting oddly when she returned. The baby was taken to the emergency room, where hospital staff called police. "There...

If I don't have time to read legislation before voting on it, my default vote is no. We received the highway bill today at 3:06 p.m., and it is over 1,000 pages long. Our first vote on this legislation is scheduled for 4:00 p.m.

"Even after repeated attempts by President Obama and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to reform our immigration laws, Republicans in Congress have blocked those efforts, unfortunately, leaving cities and local municipalities to act upon immigration issues that affect its residents. I will continue to work with the Obama Administration on Comprehensive Immigration Reform to ensure cities aren’t forced to make and enforce immigration law."

This will necessarily preclude everyone, including religious institutions, from upholding their beliefs about marriage on their private property.

Now is the time to talk about replacing the statue of Robert E. Lee, as iconic as it is controversial, from its perch at the center of Lee Circle, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced Wednesday (June 24) during a gathering held to highlight his racial reconciliation initiative. "Symbols really do matter," he said. "Symbols should reflect who we really are as a people. "We have never been a culture, in essence, that revered war rather than peace, division rather than unity." The slaying last week of nine black people in a historic Charleston, S.C., church at the hands of Dylann Roof,...

A reference to the gun violence that has left parts of Chicago feeling like a war zone to many residents, the word is believed to have been coined by local rappers years ago. But it is taking on another life as the working title of a new Spike Lee movie that is expected to be filmed here this summer. Local politicians have lined up against the title. Mr. Lee has been confronted by Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who told him in a meeting last month that he was “not happy” about the name.

Washington • The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Barack Obama appeared as speakers at the conference. Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he told film director Spike Lee that he's not happy the working title of Lee's upcoming motion picture is "Chiraq." The word suggests the city is as dangerous as the war zone in Iraq. "We had an honest, frank conversation," Emanuel said. Emanuel said he suggested the name would be offensive to the many good people who live in the Englewood neighborhood where the film takes place. The mayor says he thinks that the subject Lee told him his film would deal with - black-on-black violence - is an important topic that...

The surrender of Confederate Robert E. Lee to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 150 years ago Thursday was the definitive milestone of the end of the Civil War.