Free Republic

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who blamed illegal immigration Monday for Republican losses in major congressional races, has rejected Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta’s invitation to discuss the issue. “Sen. McCain truly appreciates your invitation and the valuable opportunity it represents,” Jo Black, a scheduling official in the presumptive Republican nominee’s presidential campaign, wrote in a letter to Barletta’s congressional campaign Wednesday. The letter cited “tremendous demands” on McCain’s time and a “large volume of similar requests.” Efforts to reach McCain’s campaign were unsuccessful. Last week, Barletta invited McCain and the Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to come...

(The Politico) "The hot-button issue of immigration doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon – at least not in Republican circles. On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, John McCain suggested that strong anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to two recent, high-profile GOP Congressional losses – of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who badly lost to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, and Jim Oberweis, who lost the heavily Republican seat of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert this month in a special election.

Aside the most obvious case -- his own -- John McCain cited two recent examples of GOP candidates taking a hard-line on immigration to no avail (And note the elbow thrown at a certain former colleague who came after McCain in the primary). My colleague Josh Kraushaar writes up McCain's comments: On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, John McCain suggested that strong anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to two recent, high-profile GOP Congressional losses – of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who badly lost to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, and Jim Oberweis, who lost the heavily Republican seat of former House Speaker...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HSgbeTegko There are other videos regarding this incident as well.

Relentlessly, angry American voices are asking, “Why is our government deliberately refusing to secure our borders?” We now understand. The truth is indeed ugly. While Congress talks the good talk on border security and immigration enforcement, they are actually in the business of aiding and abetting the invasion by Illegal Aliens and their offspring while pillaging our tax coffers for illegitimate purposes. We have been and continue to be betrayed by what can only be described as an intentional dereliction of duty and responsibility to the American people. It’s lunacy……it’s reality………it’s a giant magnet and it’s the largest Underground Welfare...

 DEMOCRATS WANT TO FUND ACORN, LA RAZA WITH STIMULUS BILL By Ed Morrissey The Democrats reacted in anger when Senate Republicans blocked their latest economic stimulus bill. Harry Reid said that bankers and lenders were high-fiving each other in hallways after the GOP torpedoed the bill, but perhaps a better explanation of Reid's disappointment comes from Bob Casey (D-PA). The beneficiaries of the bill turns out to be somewhat different than advertised:   Mr. CASEY: “We want to do a couple of things with this legislation, which we know is the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. Our Majority Leader,...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers. On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments. "The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I need to change...

Digger’s Realm did a terrific job compiling this clip reel of open borders zealot/McCain Hispanic outreach director Juan Hernandez’s greatest hits. He considers Canada, the U.S., and Mexico “a bloc, not one nation.” He puts “Mexico first.” He doesn’t believe there are any criminals among the 12-20 million illegal aliens he thinks should be legalized. He’s been saying all of this for a long time. The McCain campaign knew what it was getting. So should Republican voters: VIDEO at michellemalkin.com

What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico? What would Americans think, then, of a member of Congress who introduced legislation, not to improve health care in the United States, but to improve health care in Mexico? Even more unbelievable, the senator who sponsored the bill is not on the verge of being thrown out of office for this odious piece of legislation. No, the senator who introduced the bill, Senator John McCain of Arizona, is on the verge...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group on Thursday announced plans to hold its 2009 national convention in Chicago. The National Council of La Raza voted Oct. 20 to pull the conference from Kansas City because a woman on the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board was also a member the anti-illegal immigrant Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The member, Frances Semler, resigned from the parks board last month. La Raza believes the Minuteman organization is hostile to Hispanics. The group is known for its citizen patrols on the Mexican border and for picketing construction sites where...

The McCain campaign continues to perpetuate its Big Lie in the run-up to Super Tuesday. And thanks to MSM enablers and open-borders Republicans rooting for a McCain win, voters are swallowing the Big Lie. The Big Lie is that McCain can be trusted on immigration and border security .. You want straight talk? McCain’s tongue says he’s “listened and learned.” But his heart is with La Raza, the militantly ethnocentric, anti-immigration enforcement Hispanic lobbying group that honored him in 1999 and whose annual conference he keynoted in 2004. Go back and watch McCain on the Senate floor during the amnesty...

By far, the most significant story of the 2008 Republican primaries has been the unlikely candidacy of Mike Huckabee and his_single-handed_resuscitation of Christian conservatives as a force to be reckoned with in the Republican_Party. Yet, regardless of how he fares on Super_Tuesday_and_beyond, Mr. Huckabee will perhaps be best remembered as the man who, however unintentionally, helped persuade evangelicals to vote a Democrat into the White House in 2008 – and possibly in future races, as well. Since the 1970s, conventional_wisdom has held that evangelicals are driven by a single-minded_concern with defending "moral values," while mainline Protestants focus on issues of...

President Bush has maintained neutrality but privately expresses exasperation with Romney's hard-line stance on immigration......Bush is upset Romney changed his position at the expense of the president's immigration reform. Bush and McCain are not close, but he's grateful for McCain's support on Iraq and immigration. Florida Gov. Crist's unexpected late endorsement, which helped propel McCain to victory, was an unpleasant surprise to state Republican leaders. Crist had said he was not making an endorsement after shunning Giuliani's courtship and suggested that they also stay neutral. His support for McCain irked Republican activists who generally would have preferred former Romney. Romney...

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co-authoring the DREAM Act. The senator has demonstrated character by maintaining his position despite the hostile political climate.

McCain's love of amnesty will be a key issue. He supported amnesty in 2003 by name, proposed it in 2006 and 2007 without calling it amnesty, and says that anyone who says that he ever supported amnesty is a liar. He has insulted Americans who advocate border security and has cursed at the thought of building a border fence. The presence of Juan Hernandez in the background of the McCain campaign tells us that John McCain is as weak on border security now as he ever was. Dr. Juan Hernandez, a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, and past...

Usually the guy who’s ahead finds it within himself to be gracious to his competitors whereas the desperate runner-up goes negative and reaches for any stick. So it was peculiar to watch John McCain sneering and slicing his way through the debate with Mitt Romney at the Reagan library. When McCain was given up for dead last summer, he was witty and fun on the stump. Now that he is the frontrunner he is snarky and obnoxious. Dr. Freud, call your office. They say that John McCain harbors a particular dislike for Romney. And why would that be? Well, Romney...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A national Latino group said Thursday it is fighting back against what it considers to be "hate speech" that has emerged from the debate over immigration. National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia announced plans to pressure television network executives and candidates seeking their parties' presidential nominations to clamp down on such remarks. The group launched a Web site to counter the speech, www.wecanstopthehate.org, with clips of what it considers offensive comments on television as well as a tracking of hate crimes. "Hate groups and extremists have taken over the immigration debate in an unprecedented wave...

With John McCain’s victory in the Republican Primary in Florida, a lot of attention has come his way. The reaction of the pundits and the blogosphere has been all over the map. Some, such as Michael Medved, are enthusiastic about the candidate and his chances in the general election; others, such as Rush Limbaugh, are concerned that a McCain candidacy will spell the end of the Republican party as we know it. And with the cheering for and against him, so to have his past actions and policies come under scrutiny. Everything, from the Keating Five, to the Gang of...

It is often said that the best way to find out how a candidate would act in office if elected, is to see who he/she surrounds himself with. Money is another factor, what people and industries are backing the candidate. These answers should be an indicator of what to expect. Who is behind the man should gauge what kind of man he is. The great Richard Viguerie tells the story of how he and other conservatives had a “seat at the table” of the presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan for. His thinking was if Conservatives aren’t at...

Less then a week after saying he has heard the American people regarding illegal immigration and their opposition to the McCain-Kennedy Pro-Amnesty bill, John McCain would still SIGN THE BILL into law if he was President and it came across his desk: (VIDEO) This explains his receiving the endorsement of fellow Pro-Amnestians, Senator Mel Martinez, (who almost single-handedly bankrupted the RNC with his support of the bill), the NY Times, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and of the Mexico-first pro-amnesty open borders advocate Dr. Juan Hernandez. “My friends", let me give you some “straight talk", a vote for John McCain is...

A brand new WarrenPiece1 video -- Go Mike! http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=1276

MIAMI- Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida has decided not to endorse Republican presidential hopeful Arizona Sen. John McCain. McCain was planning to campaign Monday in Miami with Martinez to help woo Hispanic voters,The Miami Herald reported Sunday. A factor in Martinez's decision to withhold his endorsement of McCain's candidacy is that he feels badly for McCain rival, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a Martinez supporter and had expected his backing in return, the newspaper reported. McCain supporters had been told by the campaign late last week that Martinez was coming to stump with the Arizona senator. But,...

Illegal Worker Hiring Sites Promote Racketeering by Bridget Geegan Blanton Mexico is notorious for corruption... ...and is nearly unresponsive to a persistent, staggering poverty suffered by millions of Mexicans. At the top of the Mexican power structure is an elitist, wealthy ruling class that vehemently resists even a modest level of taxation while supporting the status of Mexico as a nation dependent on American financial aid. Onerous taxation and big government is never a solution, but at the other extreme is the Mexican ruling class who has shunned any responsibility for the dire economic state of their country. In a...

Rep. Ron Paul told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" Sunday that the war was a mistake – the American Civil War. "Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war…. [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic," Paul said.

FREELAND – The founder of a Hazleton-based anti-illegal immigration group left for Iowa on Wednesday to join other activists to discredit GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee before the Iowa caucus. “We’re going to expose to Iowa voters that Mike Huckabee, who is currently leading in the Iowa polls, is … a fraud, and his record speaks volumes. He does not care about immigration reform, and basically, we need to go out there and get the word out,” Dan Smeriglio, president and founder of Voice of the People USA, said Wednesday at a press conference at the Veterans of Foreign Wars...

Editor’s Note: By participating in the historic Spanish-language debate on Univision, Republican candidates finally realized that they need Latino votes. But is it “too little, too late?" NAM editor Elena Shore monitors Spanish language media. The first Spanish-language Republican presidential candidate debate couldn’t have come at a better time for the GOP. Latino support for the Republican Party has dropped substantially when the Latino vote is more important than ever. The candidates’ jostling over who is tougher on immigration has alienated Latinos even further. Seven of the eight Republican presidential candidates showed up at the University of Miami Sunday with...

There is, in fact, a dime's worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Why, on immigration, the difference can get into real money. The Democratic candidates were sitting around a big table in a radio studio the other day participating in an altogether civil and restrained debate on National Public Radio. There were no rallying supporters in the room to rile partisan passions and agitate competitive energy. The long-form format by which only three topics were discussed, those being Iran, China and immigration, served thoughtfulness over rancor. The moderator asked the hopefuls if they believed they should...

New Iowa Leader Criticized by for Indecision on Federal Student Aid. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who backed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, hedged Sunday on whether illegal immigrants who have gone to school in the United States should become eligible for federal student aid such as Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans. "I'm not sure that I would support that," Huckabee told ABC News, "it was a different program in Arkansas." Huckabee's failure to take a clear position on federal student aid while appearing on ABC News' "This Week with George...

BLUFFTON, S.C. (AP) -- Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday he wouldn't try to change laws that make citizens of children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, noting that it's a matter determined by the Constitution. "That's a very delicate balance that's been arrived at, and I wouldn't change that," Giuliani said in response to a question while campaigning at Sun City Hilton Head, a sprawling retirement community down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.

Homeowners demonstrated outside Countrywide Financial offices Tuesday, demanding the mortgage giant help them avoid foreclosure. The Mabuhay Alliance, Greenlining Institute and Mexican American Political Association organized the afternoon rally that drew about 60 people in Santa Ana, about 35 miles south of Los Angeles. Similar demonstrations are planned in coming weeks. The groups want Countrywide to stop foreclosure proceedings on borrowers who are behind in payments and modify adjustable rate mortgage loans that are about to reset to higher payments. They are also asking executives at the company to donate money from bonuses toward a fund for at-risk borrowers. "These...

It’s been my opinion for a while that Fred Thompson could be the only top-tier major-party candidate I could comfortably support in the general election. That’s because all the other top-tier candidates have more or less an open-borders policy, which they try to conceal with fool-the-yahoos rhetoric. The latest e-mail from NumbersUSA’s Roy Beck supports my view that Thompson stands out for his immigration views: I find myself overwhelmed with a sense of thanksgiving that – after three decades as a journalist observing reckless, thoughtless federal immigration policies attack the lives of the American people – I can clearly see...

Huckabee: Abortion Not States' Call Sunday, November 18, 2007 3:01 PM Article Font Size WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rejects letting states decide whether to allow abortions, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations. "It's the logic of the Civil War," Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. "If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong." "For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you...

OGDEN - It was a party to celebrate a wedding. It ended when gunfire rang out among a crowd of people. "People were either dropping to the ground, running toward the house or just running to get out of there," said Keri Garcia, a bridesmaid who was wounded in the Aug. 5 drive-by shooting. Two people died in the shooting. On Friday the accused gunman, Riqo Mariano Perea, 19, sat through a preliminary hearing where witnesses described the hail of bullets. At the end, a judge ordered Perea to stand trial on two counts of aggravated murder and two counts...

In politics, the surest path to irrelevance and powerlessness is to be taken for granted by one party and written off by another. That's the road Latinos are on, thanks to major blunders by the Republicans campaigning for president. In June, all but California's Duncan Hunter blew off an invitation to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In September, a debate on Spanish-language television had to be postponed after all but Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to commit. After taking criticism for the snub, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney have committed to taking part...

MEXICO CITY President Felipe Calderon decried Wednesday what he called "the growing harassment" of Mexicans in the United States and said his government will work to counter it by funding a media campaign to show migrant success stories. Mexican officials have expressed concern over a recent wave of immigration raids and a U.S. political climate perceived as anti-migrant. Calderon said U.S. presidential candidates were using migrants as "symbolic hostages" on the immigration issue. "I am especially worried about the growing harassment and frank persecution of Mexicans in the United States in recent days," Calderon said at a meeting of the...

<p>The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future.</p>

The USCCB Committee on Migration sent a delegation to the U.S./Mexico border region to study the plight of unaccompanied minors and human trafficking victims. The ever-growing problems with these populations are some of the gravest and many times most overlooked symptoms of the broken and out-dated immigration system currently employed by the United States. The delegation met with a broad cross-section of agencies and individuals involved with or knowledgeable of these populations to gain critical insights and to understand their needs. The delegation also met with Church officials, government officials, community-based organization, and other with important perspectives. Programs established to...

Hillary Clinton -- and the other Democrats running for president -- couldn't possibly have assumed that they would forever skate around the issue of illegal immigration. That notion came to an end in the most recent debate, when the New York senator badly slipped over a question about her state's controversial plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Did she think no one would ask? Democrats had better start dealing with this. Polls show a large majority of Americans, including Democrats, opposed to illegal immigration. They also find that most Americans favor some sort of amnesty for many illegals....

Voters oppose driver's licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin, a new Fox 5/Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll finds. As immigration politics explode into the presidential race, polls show Americans are taking a hard line on benefits for illegal aliens, including opposing driver's licenses and such taxpayer-funded benefits as scholarships at state colleges for illegal-alien students. The new poll found 77 percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver's licenses available to illegal aliens, while just 16 percent supported the idea. Licenses fared poorly across party lines, including near-blanket opposition among self-identified Republicans, at 88 percent. Among independents and...

October 2007 may turn out to be the month that immigration became a key issue in presidential politics. It hasn't been, at least in my lifetime. The Immigration Act of 1965, which turned out to open up America to mass immigration after four decades of restrictive laws, wasn't one of the Great Society issues Lyndon Johnson emphasized in 1964. The Immigration Act of 1986, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants but whose border and workplace provisions have never been effectively enforced, was a bipartisan measure unmentioned in the debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. There was no perceptible difference...

Retired Kansas policeman Ed Hayes lives a quiet life with his wife and pet poodles in a spacious suburban home near Kansas City, far from the main front line over illegal immigration along the U.S. border with Mexico. But over the last 18 months the 66-year-old grandfather has been drawn into the battle nonetheless, becoming active on a second front. He has joined many individuals, who, with state and municipal leaders, have given up waiting for federal action and are working to control illegal immigration themselves. The issue has become a priority not only for activists like Hayes but also...

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson roused himself from his torpor long enough last week to offer an "immigration plan" that is too impractical to ever become reality but isn't designed to. It is nothing more than red meat thrown to primary voters, providing further proof of how far we have come from the quaint conceit that presidential elections offered Americans an opportunity to debate the issues on their merits alone, free of fear-mongering and race-baiting. Illegal immigration is too complex an issue to be reduced to black or white, good or evil, friend or foe. In today's angry, frightened America,...

The ACLU of Nevada is concerned about recent media reports that it is "illegal" to fly foreign flags over the U.S. flag. While there is indeed a federal law regulating the display of the U.S. flag, that law is merely advisory and simply codifies standard government practice in displaying the American flag. Several federal courts have examined this law and held that the flag rules are not mandatory and cannot be enforced. Indeed, if the federal flag rules were mandatory, they would clearly violate the First Amendment, which protects every American's right to speak and express themselves, including their choice...

RENO, Nevada, Oct. 3, 2007 (NBC) -- A controversy over the proper display of the American flag came to a head Monday as cameras were rolling. It began when a store in Reno, Nevada hung a Mexican flag above an American flag. That's illegal. While a photographer from NBC affiliate KRNV was outside the business, an angry man claiming to be a veteran walked up to the flagpole and cut down both flags with a large knife. The owner of the business is an American citizen and said he didn't know what he was doing was against the law. He...

Bakersfield, Calif. (AP) -- A bid to make English the official language of this San Joaquin Valley city failed after much debate. The city council also shot down on Wednesday another proposal that would have made clear that Bakersfield is not a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, but it approved a resolution calling on the federal government to enact immigration reform. After the meeting, opponents of the English-only and the sanctuary resolutions praised the council for making the "morally correct" decision. . . . Famed labor leader Dolores Huerta, who spoke to city council members, called the defeated resolutions "hateful" and...

Friends, this is not a do-it-if-you-have-time request. This is the most urgent kind of request for your action Friday — and again Monday.... In the middle of actions on Defense next week, the open-borders Senators are going to attempt to attach three proposals that would give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and dramatically increase the importation of additional foreign labor for American jobs. Many of the Senators who helped us kill the Comprehensive Amnesty in June are indicating they are in favor of these preferences for illegal foreign workers and new foreign workers over American workers. We must keep...

Aztlan's bounty on Farah 12.21.03 Following an expose of the aims and history of the Aztlan Southwest U.S. independence movement, activists in the Mexican-American group targeted Joseph Farah by placing a "bounty" on him with an Internet wanted poster and referring to him as an "Arab terrorist." jose The attack comes on the heels of last week's report in G2B about the breakup of a Mexican Arab-smuggling ring and its implications in the security of the U.S. border. It was centered in Tijuana. Militant Islamic terrorists have come into the U.S. as students, tourists and business visitors. They have sneaked...

WASHINGTON — Lionel Sosa has been a proud Republican for years. He produced campaign commercials for the late Sen. John Tower, worked as a media consultant for Ronald Reagan and raised money for George W. Bush. But the harsh immigration rhetoric of some Republicans has driven the Floresville executive to question the direction of his party. "Anytime anybody says, 'We've got to get those people out of here, and we've got to build a wall to keep those Mexicans out,' it's going to come off as unfriendly, period," he said. "If (Republicans) don't pedal back on the rhetoric, they are...

LOS ANGELES - On the far fringes of the pro-immigration movement, some Hispanic activists openly yearn for the day when immigrants rise up and retake the American Southwest, more than 150 years after the U.S. annexed it. "If somebody steals your car, how much of it do you want back? Just the tires? The seats?" asks Olin Tezcatlipoca of the Los Angeles-based Mexica Movement.

I kid you not.Go see for yourself, to the link above, at US.GOV, the official website of the United States of America.Go to the right. Read the text closely. For oldertimer Freepers, get out your reading glasses.