Free Republic

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has no plans to resign following disclosures to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he misled Congress on widespread National Security Agency electronic surveillance of Americans. “DNI Clapper explained his response in the letter to Chairman [Dianne] Feinstein [(D., Calif.)] and apologized for the misunderstanding,” said Michael Birmingham, spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Clapper “values the decades-long stellar relationship he has with Congress and remains focused on leading the intelligence community,” Birmingham told the Free Beacon in a statement Monday.

As an overhaul of immigration laws shifts to the House, a right-leaning group is launching a new television ad campaign Monday that will call on House lawmakers -- and, implicitly, resistant Republicans -- to support the Senate-passed “border surge” as part of “conservative immigration reform." The ad seeks to influence rank-and-file lawmakers as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) convenes Republicans behind closed doors to assess how the GOP majority will respond to the bipartisan Senate bill.

Former President George W. Bush wants Republicans to consider immigration on its own merits, not just as a party saving piece of legislation, he said during an interview on ABC's This Week. "Sometimes, it takes time for some of these complex issues to evolve. And it looks like immigration, you know, has a chance to pass," Bush said.

The NSA has a “brand new” technology that enables one billion cell phone calls a day to be redirected into its data hoards and stored, according to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who said that a new leak of Snowden’s documents was ‘coming soon.’ Calling it part of a “globalized system to destroy all privacy,” and the enduring creation of a climate of fear, Greenwald outlined the capabilities of the NSA to store every single call while having“the capability to listen to them at any time,” while speaking via Skype to the Socialism Conference in Chicago, on Friday. Greenwald was the...

Tell me, Governor Bush, what does Ambassador Stevens get for making the ultimate sacrifice? How about Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty? Will the families of the dead be present for Hillary's award? I am sure they will have a few words about Hillary's skill, courage, and dedication in supporting those who serve our country and put their lives on the line. Since when does letting Americans die and then lying about it deserve a medal? In the cesspool where corrupt politicians like Hillary and Jeb hang out, the more you mess up, the more you get rewarded! Recently,...

Jeb Bush will present Hillary Clinton with the 2013 Liberty Medal this fall in Philadelphia. It could be an awkward encounter for the two, both of whom are mentioned as 2016 presidential nominees for their respective parties. Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, is chairman of the National Constitution Center, which is giving Clinton the award in honor of her career in public service and her advocacy efforts on behalf of women. The former secretary of State is considered the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the next presidential election, but has made no political moves since leaving the...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is still nursing presidential aspirations, despite Republican unease about the “comprehensive immigration reform” he whole-heartedly supports, after losing an argument with himself and immediately backpedaling from a book he had only just published. Bush chose to deal with this unease by attacking the uneasy, referring to them as “chirpers” in a CBN interview following his appearance before the Faith and Freedom Coalition. ”I will be able to, I think, manage my way through all the ‘chirpers’ out there,” he said, apparently playing off Senator John McCain’s reference to his conservative colleagues Ted Cruz, Rand Paul,...

While National Security Agency’s harvesting of telephone data is often defended as a necessary component of post-9/11 national security, old court documents claim the spy agency was putting such a program into place months before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In court papers filed during his 2007 insider trading trial, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio claimed that Denver-based Qwest was denied lucrative NSA contracts he believed to be worth $50-$100 million, after Nacchio refused to involve Qwest in a secret NSA program that he thought would be illegal. Subsequent reporting at the time revealed that it was a domestic...

Making an argument for overhauling the nation's immigration system Friday to a crowd of conservative activists, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush claimed immigrants were "more fertile" and thus a great benefit to American society. His remark appeared to be an inarticulate reference to immigrants' fertility rates, which data show are higher than native-born Americans. "Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans over the last 20 years. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity,"

Republicans considering running for president over the past six years have been delivering red meat to the base at conservative confabs. But Jeb Bush Friday did not fit the mold. The former Florida governor, mulling a 2016 bid, followed the retiring firebrand Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) at the Faith and Freedom Coalition. But while Bachmann and the other speakers here, including Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) -- the 2012 vice-presidential nominee -- treaded familiar turf by railing against government and President Barack Obama, Bush didn’t go there. “I won’t be pointing out the failures of the Obama administration,” Bush said to...

Not much is truly known about where House Speaker John Boehner stands on immigration reform. He says he wants it done, but has barely waded into the policy. But in a closed meeting with his closest Capitol Hill allies — a group informally known as Team Boehner — he’s giving more clues. Rubio talked about the Senate Gang of Eight immigration bill, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Boehner didn’t heavily weigh in on the legislation, but the fact that he would welcome Rubio in to talk about the bill. shows that the speaker is actively gaming out the...

Former president George W. Bush’s popularity is ticking up. For the first time since 2005, Americans’ opinions of him are more positive than negative. A Gallup poll released Wednesday found 49 percent of Americans view him favorably and 46 percent unfavorably. Mr. Bush has chosen to remain largely out of the public eye since leaving the White House. He told CNN last year that “Eight years was awesome, and I was famous and I was powerful but I have no desire for fame and power any more.” When Bush left office in January 2009, he had a 40 percent favorable...

In 2007, John McCain’s “comprehensive” immigrant-legalization bill failed after opponents flooded the Senate with calls, shutting down the switchboard. Despite considerable press hype, the bill didn’t even muster a majority on the crucial cloture vote. It won’t be that easy this time. For one thing, they have a better switchboard, I’m told. For another, the Republican consultants–e.g. Gillespie, Rove–who helped Mitt Romney lose the 2012 election have taken their own failure as an excuse to push what they’ve wanted all along–a business-pleasing immigration policy guaranteeing a supply of inexpensive labor from abroad and a stream of campaign donations to pay...

Documents Reveal that ‘Dreamers’ Order Opened Door to Relatives of Illegal Immigrants, “Inundating” Border Towns with Petitions for AdmissionJudicial Watch announced today that documents obtained recently through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) abandoned required background checks late last year, adopting, instead, costly “lean and lite” procedures in effort to keep up with the flood of amnesty applications spurred by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) directive, which grants illegal aliens a two-year deferment from deportation. Acting on a tip from a whistleblower...

House Speaker John Boehner today called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a “traitor” who put Americans at risk by releasing classified information to the media. “He’s a traitor,” the highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives said in an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “The disclosure of this information puts Americans ... continued here

House Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday flatly ruled out chances of the House passing the Senate’s immigration bill, saying his chamber will debate its own bill instead. Mr. Boehner and his top GOP lieutenants issued a joint statement that seemed designed to tamp down some of the momentum behind the Senaate bill, which emerged from a Senate committee on a bipartisan 13-5 vote earlier this week, and to stake out a House GOP position

"We’ve had probably five or six lunches with a bunch of Republican senators standing and looking at Rand and Mike and me and yelling at us at the top of their lungs. I mean really upset. And they said, ‘Look, why did you do this? As a result of this I go home and constituents are yelling at me that I gotta stand on principal.” I’m really not making that up. I don’t even bother to argue with them… But, here was their argument. They said, ‘Before you did this the politics on this were all great. The Dems were...

Alex Conant @AlexConant: "We haven't had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery". Mind you, he isn’t talking only about illegal immigrants. He’s talking about any non-citizen who lives in this country permanently, including millions of Green Card holders. And by implication: Conn Carroll @conncarroll: For those of you keeping score at home, Rubio spokesman @AlexConant just compared all Schumer-Rubio opponents to slave owners If this is Team Rubio’s strategy for winning over conservatives, good luck with that.

Washington, Apr. 19 (ANI): Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said President Barack Obama gave a 'superb' speech at a memorial service honoring the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

House Republicans are moving quickly on a new bill to strengthen ObamaCare's temporary insurance plan for people with pre-existing conditions.... The Obama administration announced earlier this year that it would suspend enrollment in the PCIP, citing cost concerns. GOP lawmakers have since mounted a push to transfer money from the law's public and preventive health fund — disparaged as a "slush" fund by Republicans — to reopen the PCIP's enrollment.