Free Republic

The most potent illustration that Republicans have shifted their attitudes on immigration came Tuesday morning when all GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an amendment from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to severely limit the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country. The committee’s overwhelming ‘No’ vote shows that the battle for Republicans’ souls on immigration has shifted away from groups that want to reduce the influx of foreigners, like the Heritage Foundation, NumbersUSA, and Fairness for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), toward free-market groups that applaud increased immigration, such as Americans for Tax Reform and the CATO Institute....

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, strongly suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to approve same-sex marriage this month, warned Thursday that liberals will use the victory to impose other restrictions on those opposed to gay weddings including churches, colleges and military chaplains."They seem tempted by the intolerant impulse to punish Americans," Lee said in a thoughtful speech at Hillsdale College's Kirby Center in Washington.Sen. Mike Lee. (AP Photo) Lee, of Utah, used the speech to preview legislation he is drafting to protect religious-affiliated schools and institutions that don't support same-sex marriage from federal attack if the court approves the...

Few Americans have much understanding of our Constitution any more. It’s seldom covered in school or college, and law students get a course called “constitutional law” that isn’t really about the document itself, but about the Supreme Court’s many decisions – decisions that often changed its intent. Worse still, although elected officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution, many vote for legislation that tramples all over it. One public official who takes the Constitution very seriously, however, is Utah’s junior senator, Mike Lee. In his new book Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America’s Founding Document, he makes...

Senate advocates for an overhaul of National Security Agency surveillance programs sound confident they have the votes to advance the USA Freedom Act. It’s just a matter of time. “I think we’ll get it passed on Sunday night,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told CNN Saturday, making a bullish prediction on the timing. “Now, by the rules of the Senate, with objections and so forth … the Patriot Act may very well expire Sunday night, but we’ve got to start moving forward here. We could have done this a week ago. And this is the nature of Washington, D.C., is always...

Rand Paul plans to force the expiration of the PATRIOT Act Sunday by refusing to allow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to expedite debate on a key surveillance bill. In a statement to POLITICO Saturday, Paul warned that he would not consent to any efforts to pass either an extension of current law or the USA Freedom Act, a reform bill passed overwhelmingly by the House earlier this month.

More than four years ago, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, the Patriot Sunsets Extension Act of 2011. Since that day, May 26, 2011, it’s been known that key provisions of our nation’s counterterrorism surveillance programs are set to expire this June 1. That is why Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and I worked diligently on a bipartisan and bicameral basis to produce the USA Freedom Act. As with any legislation, the USA Freedom Act is not perfect. It does end the bulk collection of phone records and other data by...

The forgotten history of the Fourth Amendment, and its relevance for reforming the Patriot Act The authorization for the Patriot Act will soon expire, and elected officials in Washington have been debating whether it should be renewed. There are those who believe this law, which was passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, should be renewed with no changes. Since the last time it was authorized, Americans have learned that certain provisions of this Act were being interpreted by the National Security Agency to give this agency authority to collect bulk metadata on the phone calls of every...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) applauds the passage of the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Thursday after a week of debate and consideration by both parties. Sen. Cruz introduced or cosponsored more than a dozen amendments that were successfully adopted by the committee. “Congress’ first priority is to provide for the national defense and ensure our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have everything they need to defend our freedom,” said Sen. Cruz. “I am grateful for the committee’s support for my amendments, including measures that will ensure...

The length to which ABC, its news division, and its parent company (Disney) have gone to protect and curry favor with the Clintons is almost impossible to grasp. To begin with, in 1996, ABC News hired George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton campaign and White House official. Within a few years he would become the ABC new division’s chief anchor and political reporter. Then, just today, we learn that ABC News and Stephanopoulos are involved in a massive conflict of interest — a $50,000 donation Stephanopoulos made to the Clinton Foundation. That’s right, the symbol of ABC News has an ongoing...

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz said today that ABC News anchor and former Clinton White House staffer George Stephanopoulos has no business moderating any 2016 presidential debates. Cruz was asked in the Senate hallway this afternoon whether Stephanopoulos should host any debates following today’s revelation that he gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation without it disclosing it while officially covering the organization for ABC News. “Of course not,” Cruz responded, according to a transcript provided to The Federalist by one of his campaign communications staffers. “Debates should not be moderated by partisan Democrats who are actively supporting one of...

After being questioned by the Washington Free Beacon about large donations he made to the Clinton Foundation, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News disclosed to Politico that he had funneled $50,000 to the tax-exempt organization in 2013 and 2014. Stephanopoulos’s secret donations to the Clintons’ non-profit came while he was professionally covering the family for ABC News. And then, after he was busted by the Free Beacon, he decided to leak the news of his secret Clinton cash contributions to Politico in order to deny Free Beacon its scoop. Classy, huh? It gets even worse, though. It wasn’t just that...

That comes from Conn Carroll, formally White House correspondent for our sister site Townhall and currently communications director for the junior senator from Utah. ABC News’s Election 2016 coverage can tolerate a boycott by a single senator, even one as influential on the right as Lee. Can it tolerate a domino effect among the rest of the GOP field, where Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and the rest of the gang all feel compelled by pressure from conservatives to follow Lee’s lead?Actually, why would there need to be pressure from conservatives to make them boycott ABC? It’s in...

We have to view the powers of Congress and the 10th Amendment as sort of two sides of the same coin. The 10th Amendment says in effect that any power that’s not given to Congress is retained by the states or by the people. And so that begs the question: What powers are given to Congress? And if any of those powers in isolation or all of those powers hooked together are open-ended — if they’re limitless – then the Tenth Amendment means nothing. Now generally we don’t look at any provision of the Constitution with an eye toward saying...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul split with senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to vote for a healthcare bill Tuesday night that will add about half a trillion dollars to the national debt over the next several decades.Paul sided with the overwhelming majority of senators and representatives who voted for the bill, in a decision almost certain to come up in the primary race, where he is currently joined by Cruz and Rubio.The “doc-fix” bill solves a recurring problem in the way Medicare payments are made to doctors, extends a children’s health insurance program, and requires higher-income seniors to pay higher...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, expected to soon announce his candidacy for president, plans to steal Democrats' thunder and target income inequality by campaigning on a tax plan that he promises will "reward families with children while slashing levies on business and investment income but keeping a top rate personal income rate of 35 percent," according to Politico. Rubio’s plan, a joint effort with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, pares down tax brackets to just two — 15 percent and 35 percent, while also creating a new child tax credit worth $2,500 and eliminating the estate tax, Politico reports. For corporations, the...

Sen. Mike Lee would have quite the fight on his hands if he were to face off against former Rep. Jim Matheson in 2016. The latest UtahPolicy.com shows 48% of Utahns would support Lee while 42% would back Matheson. 10% are undecided. Matheson's electoral calculus has always been the same in heavily Republican Utah. Win a majority of Democrats, pick off some Republicans and get a majority of the independent vote. The survey shows Matheson would win 87% of Democrats, 20% of Republicans and 57% of independents. He would likely need to increase the numbers among Republican and independent voters...

RandPAC is trolling other potential GOP contenders early and often with the help of Google ads—and Chris Christie and Rick Perry just might be next. When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced in mid-December that he would “actively explore” running for the Republican presidential nomination, curious parties took to Google to learn more about him. While they were there, many of them were greeted by another politician’s name at the bottom of the page—one they hadn’t searched for. “Join a movement working to shrink government. Not grow it,” read one of the ads, placed by RandPAC, the political action committee...

Ted Cruz is set to announce is candidacy for President of the United States. Rand Paul is apparently going to announce early next month before going on a campaign tour. Until today technically the only candidate was Jeb Bush, who announced late last year his intentions. At the time everyone thought that Bush was going to force everyone else to declare their candidacy early. It doesn’t appear that has happened, Cruz and Paul have appeared in no rush to make a formal announcement. Scott Walker, perhaps the front runner in the race, still hasn’t formally announced his candidacy and there’s...

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida have released a blueprint for federal tax reform called “The Economic Growth and Family Fairness Tax Plan.” First, we should not embrace the language of progressive socialism in believing tax reform should have as a goal to advance “family fairness.” The plan should simply be entitled “The American Growth and Opportunity Plan.” That said, the Lee-Rubio plan is a great improvement over the current system. For the individual tax structure, the plan introduces a two-tier system to replace the current seven tax brackets. This plan moves America from a...

Talk about the Norfolk terrier tail wagging the Great Dane. If they are to have any hope of winning their party’s nomination, Republican presidential hopefuls better support ethanol mandates, Hawkeye State politicos told potential candidates at the recent Iowa Agricultural Summit in Des Moines. “Don’t mess with the RFS,” Republican Governor Terry Branstad warned, referring to Renewable Fuel Standards that require refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. “It is the Holy Grail, and I will defend it,” said Rep. Steve King, another Iowa Republican. It is vital for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing dangerous climate change...