Free Republic

Skip to 5:10 of the first clip below for the immigration bit from this morning’s interview with Mike Gallagher. Actual quote from Cruz about Rubio’s claim that the two are alike on immigration: That's like Obama saying my position is the same as his on Obamacare. That’s like Ayatollah Khamenei saying my position is the same as his on the Iranian nuclear deal. Rubio and the Ayatollah Khamenei, huh?Anyway. There are at least three broad differences between Rubio and Cruz on legalization. One: Cruz opposes a “legalization first” approach to reform, arguing correctly that that’s the same bait-and-switch that...

The 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill is the signature achievement of Marco Rubio's four years and ten months in the U.S. Senate. Yet in the first four Republican presidential debates, in which Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role, he has not been asked even once about the specifics of the legislation. Despite that omission, it seems likely that if Rubio continues to rise in the GOP race, someone, somewhere will pay attention to his most important accomplishment. The 1,197-page Gang of Eight bill is so far-reaching, and at the same time so detailed, that it provides...

With Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s comments about immigration Sunday, the top two Republicans in Congress have now declared dead the prospects of an overhaul before the 2016 elections. In the aftermath of 2012, when Latinos made up 10 percent of the electorate and President Barack Obama was re-elected resoundingly, Republican lawmakers and strategists predicted the GOP’s White House ambitions were directly tied to the passage of comprehensive immigration legislation. Many of those voices haven’t changed their tune. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the four “gang of eight” Republicans who successfully navigated an immigration overhaul through the Senate in 2013,...

Jeb Bush‘s campaign isn’t doing very well right now. The candidate himself has had to say this week that his own campaign is “not on life support.” The hosts of Fox News’ The Five tried to diagnose exactly what Bush is doing wrong (that now-infamous debate exchange with Marco Rubio certainly factored into it). Meghan McCain spoke up and said, “As the only person that’s been on a campaign that imploded and then came back from the dead… he needs to clean house with his staff!” Bollig pushed back on that being the problem, but McCain insisted that she knows...

Moderate Syrian ISIS guy explodes over Russian airstrikes, makes a video for John McCain (satire, not real translation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQZwXOb3_Q

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday blasted the Navy’s Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier program, saying its $4.7 billion cost overrun threatens to undermine the Navy’s aircraft carrier legacy. “We simply cannot afford to pay $12.9 billion for a single ship,” McCain wrote in an 18-page report. “The combined $4.7 billion in cost growth on these first two ships has already not only eroded the buying power for remaining ships in the Ford-class, as it leaves less available for well as other critical military capabilities.” The criticism comes in the form of McCain’s latest “America’s Most Wasted” report, a series...

CONWAY — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham hopes history will repeat itself in the Granite State. Graham, one of 16 presidential candidates seeking to become the Republican Party's nominee next year, is taking a page out of his good friend Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) campaign playbook by trying to connect with as many New Hampshire residents as possible. The three-term U.S. senator plans to hold more than 100 town hall meetings in the state, and as part of 12-day swing through New Hamphire will spend much of Wednesday in Conway. A town hall meeting is scheduled for 6:20 p.m. at...

On Monday, the Obama administration announced that President Obama would veto a defense authorization bill if it did not close down Guantanamo Bay. White House press secretary Josh Earnest explained that the House funding bill would be vetoed “principally because…of the irresponsible way that it funds our national defense priorities, but also because of the efforts to prevent the closure [of] the prison at Guantanamo Bay.” He added that Democrats would sustain Obama’s veto, and defense authorization would die.

Should Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina win the Oval Office, she wouldn’t be making any calls to her counterpart in Russia. “I wouldn’t speak to Vladmir Putin,” Fiorina said. She would, however, rebuild a missile defense program in Poland and conduct military exercises in the Baltic States. “I would guarantee you that after four or five or six months of that kind of behavior, Vladmir Putin will speak differently with the United States of America,” she said. “It’s how people behave. He’s a bully.” Fiorina, the only woman seeking the GOP nomination, is the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She ran...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John McCain criticized the response of President Barack Obama's administration to Russian military action in Syria, saying "everybody knows that Russia is winning." McCain, who has long promoted deploying U.S. ground forces to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, told Alhurra TV that Russia has established itself and become "the dominant player." "They have for the first time since 1973 played a major role in the Middle East, and they're achieving all of their objectives while we sit by and call it a quagmire or in the words of the secretary of defense, unprofessional," McCain said....

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-06/will-conservative-hardliners-break-the-rino-spell-in-2016-

Sen. John McCain on Sunday blamed the airstrike that killed 22 people in an Afghan hospital run by the medical charity Doctors without Borders on the “fog of war” and the Obama administration’s withdraw of U.S. troops from the war zone. “We call it fog of war, unfortunately. And it’s a tragedy, and our thoughts and prayers go out to them,” Mr. McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot in the Vietnam War who now chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said that the tragedy likely would have been avoided if U.S. troops...

Sen. John McCain says that GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump doesn't understand the problems posed by Russia's new role in the Syrian conflict. "I don't think he understands very well the situation. And he's entitled to his opinion," the Arizona Republican said Sunday in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." McCain was pushing back against Trump's assertion last week that the United States should let ISIS and Syria's army fight -- and let Russia worry about ISIS there. Trump's comment came as Russia launched air strikes in the region. "Do we want to keep slaughtering...

Clueless Carly Fiorina Would Create A NO-FLY Zone To Protect Non-ISIS Terrorist Groups Who Are Slaughtering Christians In Syria. Carly Fiorina says she would consider shooting down Russian fighter jets if necessary…the same Russian fighter jets that are trying to protect Assad, the Syrian leader who has kept his Christian population safe from Muslim terrorists all these years…until ISIS and the Obama-backed Free Syrian Rebels started trying to take him down. These non-ISIS “rebels” whom Carly Fiorina calls “allies” are actually al-Qaeda linked groups like al-Nusra, or the now virtually defunct Free Syrian Army, down to 5 or 6 fighters,...

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For years, Republicans have criticised Barack Obama for not doing more to stop the brutalities carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and to fight Isis. But what they think Obama should do and what the long-term solution might be remained hazy. -snip- Republican rising star Carly Fiorina had already called on the US to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria to protect US-backed rebel fighters, as had Jeb Bush in unequivocal terms. On Friday, another Republican presidential contender joined their camp: “You enter that no-fly zone, you enter at your own peril,” said Governor John Kasich. “No more...

Russian Defense officials reported its air force carried out 18 airstrikes this Thursday. They also destroyed a “terrorist” training camp. Russian Su-34 warplanes attacked and destroyed an Islamic State group command center and training camp Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported. The center is located in Maarat an Numan.

WWIII over CIA backed rebels? No thanks. We needed a President and Secretary of State who could stymie Russia on the diplomatic front. We needed a President who was up to the task of managing the world stage. We needed a Commander in Chief who would be either feared or respected by our allies and enemies alike. We don't have that. Instead, we're faced with Middle Eastern chaos, a rapidly expanding global terrorist force, and a refugee crisis that is spreading to every corner of the globe. The President's response has, so far, consisted of a feckless UN speech and...

It’s campaign season again, and entrenched establishment RINO Senator John McCain, 79 . . . is trying to sound like a conservative again, even having the gall to attend the Values Voter Summit, attended by the type of conservatives McCain often refers to as “crazies” and “wacko birds,” in the nation’s capitol over the weekend. [snip] One of John McCain’s primary opponents, small businessman, radio host, and FAIRtax champion Alex Meluskey, a political newcomer who is running an insurgent grassroots campaign against the entrenched RINO, shot back at McCain’s unwillingness to fight to stop the “human trafficking racket” of Planned...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said the U.S. “must be prepared” to shoot down Russian jets in Syria, if that’s what it takes to protect U.S.-backed rebels fighting Assad. “I believe we must tell the Russians that we will conduct, we will secure a no-fly zone around anti-Assad rebel forces that we’re supporting,” Fiorina said on Fox News Wednesday night. “Does that mean we might use force against Russian jets?” host Sean Hannity asked. “Well, hopefully not,” Fiorina replied. “Hopefully, if we are signaling clearly to the Russians our intention, it will not come to that. But if it does...