Free Republic

The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is also the CEO of Amazon, released an editorial this week blasting the enforcement of national immigration law as “cruel” and said U.S. businesses should not be deprived of employing illegal alien workers. In an editorial in the Washington Post, the editors wrote that the recent raids on seven Mississippi food processing plants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were “cruel” and “pointless” despite arresting and identifying 680 illegal workers, including more than 200 who had previous criminal records. About 300 of the illegal workers arrested were released that same...

Senior Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli said Monday he doesn't think President Trump sent the wrong message by giving his first prison commutation to a man who was one of the nation's largest employers of illegal immigrants. The acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a hardliner on immigration policy, said the Trump administration's message is one of toughness, not leniency, after raids this month of seven food processing plants in Mississippi resulted in 680 arrests. "I don't think so," Cuccinelli said, regarding whether the 2017 release of Sholom Rubashkin sent the wrong message. The former Iowa meatpacking executive...

Hundreds of the millions in the United States illegally are in the custody of.... 680 is the number of established by ICE of those originally arrested but now some 300 are freed.... "The same Democrat Party that has left places like Jackson, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston to suffer under the tyranny of violent criminals wants us to believe they have the solution to mass shootings" That's part of the latest message from 2020 Republican US Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore in Alabama who's also noting that many in the Republican Party seem to be moving in the direction...

Sanctuary districts, "zen" zones, SEL and communication with families are among initiatives providing immigrant students with safety and resources amid an anti-immigrant political climate. With massive U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids affecting Mississippi families yesterday, areas with large immigrant communities are going to be on high alert. Following the seven raids that resulted in 680 arrests, Southern Poverty Law Center Attorney Julia Solórzano, with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project, called the raids a part of an "ongoing war against immigrants," one that will have a significant effect on children in the school districts. "These sorts of raids terrorize workers...

MORTON, Miss. – U.S. immigration officials say raids at seven food processing plants in Mississippi resulted in 680 arrests. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Matthew Albence told The Associated Press that the arrest count from Wednesday’s raids may make it the largest workplace sting in more than a decade and probably the largest ever for a single state. Authorities say about 600 agents fanned out across the plants, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing. They targeted several companies. The raids happened in small towns near Jackson with a workforce made up largely of Latino immigrants. The...

LEXINGTON, Miss. (AP) - A prosecutor says a 33-year-old Mississippi man killed his 21-year-old pregnant girlfriend after finding out she was not going to give the baby up for adoption. [ Boyfriend charged with murdering 21-year-old pregnant woman gets case bound over to grand jury ] A judge ruled Friday there was enough evidence to keep murder and kidnapping charges against Terence Sample and hold him in jail while awaiting a trial even though Sample's lawyer said the state crime lab hasn't determined the cause of death for McKayla Winston. Winston was found dead in early July on a road...

FULL TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: Murdered Ole Miss student Ally Kostial, 21, was 'PREGNANT with accused killer's baby' and was shot shortly after she told him and refused when he demanded that she have an abortion Mississippi college student Ally Kostial was pregnant with her accused killer Brandon Theesfeld's child and told him the news shortly before she was murdered, close friends of the coed claim in exclusive interviews with DailyMailTV. One college student, who also attends the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss, told DailyMailTV: 'Her sorority sisters knew she was pregnant and that she had told Brandon. He was...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Building on a 2016 ban on city-funded travel to states with anti-LGBT laws, San Francisco officials Tuesday voted unanimously to extend that ban to states with restrictive abortion laws. “It will expand the existing ordinance to states that have waged war on our constitutionally protected right to an abortion,” San Francisco Supervisor Vallie Brown, who introduced the proposal, said at a board meeting Tuesday. Five states — Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi — passed laws this year that ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Missouri also enacted a law banning abortions after eight weeks,...

OXFORD, Mississippi, July 31, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Alexandria “Ally” Kostial was pregnant when she was murdered last week. Kostial was a business student at the University of Mississippi. Her college friends confirmed to the UK’s Daily Mail that the 21-year-old was pregnant with her accused killer’s child. The Daily Mail reported today that a fellow Ole Miss student told them: “Her sorority sisters knew she was pregnant and that she had told [accused killer] Brandon. He was really upset about it, that it would ruin his life and his future.” “He was really mad that she wouldn't get an abortion....

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. - Police are investigating a fatal shooting reported Tuesday morning at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi. A Walmart employee told WHBQ-TV workers were inside during the shooting. Officials confirmed 60 employees were in the store when the incident took place. Officials have not released what led to the shooting. Rasco told WHBQ-TV the suspected gunman was also shot twice. The suspect's condition was not immediately known. He was taken to Regional One Health Medical Center in Memphis for treatment of his injuries. A police officer was also injured in the shooting. The officer, who was not identified, was...

Republicans have reasons for optimism heading into this fall’s elections for governor. All three of this year's races -- in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi -- are being held in the South, a region where the party is already dominant. There’s at least one other factor playing in the GOP’s favor: party registration. Democrats may still have the lead in total voter registration in Kentucky and Louisiana, but Republicans are clearly gaining strength. (Mississippi doesn’t register voters by party.) Republicans are also gaining relative strength in some of the states expected to be competitive in the 2020 presidential election. Republicans have...

Citing the ongoing investigation, the sheriff’s office declined to release more details. “We want to thank the family of Alexandria for their patience and their trust,” the department said. Lafayette County sheriff’s deputies found Kostial’s body Saturday while they were on patrol near Sardis Lake, about 10 miles from the northern Mississippi campus, CNN affiliate KMOV reported. Her cause of death has not been released, according to CNN affiliate WMC. Mississippi Bureau of Investigation Capt. John Poulos confirmed to CNN that state investigators are assisting the sheriff’s office and referred additional questions about the case to county department. The University...

LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Miss. - An arrest has been made after an Ole Miss student's body was found in north Mississippi. Brandon A. Theesfeld, 21, from Texas has been arrested for the murder of Alexandria M Kostial, 21. The University of Mississippi told us Theesfeld was also a student at Ole Miss. His was a student with the School of Business Administration. Theesfeld has been suspended from the university. Investigators said Theesfeld will go before a circuit court judge on Tuesday morning for an initial appearance. During a routine patrol, officers found the body in Harmontown, Mississippi on Saturday near Sardis...

JACKSON, Miss. - Authorities say a candidate for the Mississippi state Legislature entered a medical clinic and shot his wife before shooting himself. Marshall County Sheriff Kenny Dickerson said that Carl Robinson entered Williams Medical Clinic in Potts Camp, Mississippi, and shot LaToya Thompson before fatally shooting himself around 10 a.m. Tuesday. "Witnesses reported seeing Robinson stomping outside the clinic before going inside the clinic. A .38-caliber hammerless Smith and Wesson pistol was found at the scene of the shooting," Dickerson told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Thompson died while waiting for a helicopter to transport her to a hospital,...

MARSHALL COUNTY, Miss. - Police are investigating a deadly double shooting involving a Mississippi state representative candidate at a Marshall County medical clinic. The shooting happened inside the Williams Medical Clinic in Potts Camp around 10 a.m. Tuesday. Officials said a man shot his wife and then shot himself. According to Coroner James Anderson, the victims were identified as Carl Robinson, 43, and Latoya Thompson, 33. Both victims were residents of Lamar. Three staff members tried to help Thompson after she was shot. According to Sheriff Kenny Dickerson with Marshall County, staff attempted to perform CPR on Thompson to resuscitate...

The senators who are most likely to reject President Trump's nominees are the very ones who want to challenge him in 2020. The Hill's review of two-and-a-half years of vote totals shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against more Trump nominees than any other senator. At the same time, Republicans voted virtually in lock step for Trump's nominees; the average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) -- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees. Trump's picks...

Washington (CNN)A Republican running for governor in Mississippi denied a female reporter's request to accompany him on a campaign trip unless she brought along a male colleague, insisting Wednesday that he did so because he "just wanted to keep things professional." The reporter, Larrison Campbell, wrote in Mississippi Today on Tuesday that the paper had asked to shadow each gubernatorial candidate seeking the GOP nomination "in an attempt to better inform readers." While two of the candidates agreed, state Rep. Robert Foster declined, explaining on a Mississippi talk radio show Wednesday that having a female reporter with him could create...

Mississippi closed all mainland beaches on the state's coastline during the Fourth of July weekend due to toxic bacteria sweeping the state's Gulf Coast. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has been closing beaches due to blue-green algae blooms since June. By Sunday, the spread of the noxious bacteria forced the department to close the state’s last open mainland beach.

The musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic rarely offer clarity about the state of legislation in Congress. But Weird Al’s 1984 hit “Eat it” (a parody on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”) was inadvertently invoked this past week to crystallize the conundrum facing House Democrats after the Senate approved a crucial border spending bill 84-8. House liberals were either going to hold out against the Senate measure in favor of their own – or accept the Senate bill. Amid these deliberations, former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, a veteran of such impasses, ambled by the Speaker’s Office late Wednesday afternoon as...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday again called on former Vice President Joe Biden to apologize for touting his relationships with segregationists, saying Biden’s former colleagues participated in a “disgusting system.” “It is one thing to work with people you have fundamental disagreements with, it’s another to kind of extol those relationships,” Sanders said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “You cannot be extolling people who really were part of a disgusting system.” “I think Joe owes the country an apology on that,” Sanders said, adding “Do I think Joe Biden is a racist? Absolutely not.” Biden sparked controversy last...