Free Republic

Although one would not know it by reading immigration policy debates, money paid to middlemen, mostly Americans, plays a major role in the whole process. If one seeks to manage, or at least nudge, events in immigration it is useful to visualize the financial transactions involving the non-migratory actors in the field, the people and institutions that shape migration but do not migrate themselves. As I see it, there are seven groups of such players, three of whom are motivated by personal financial considerations, three of whom are not, and one in between, where the institutions gain funds when there...

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Former first lady Laura Bush praised the performance of her husband's successor Monday, breaking with many Republicans in telling CNN that she thinks President Obama is doing a good job under tough circumstances.

What's with all the pro-Chicom nonsense on FR today?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is firing back at her grandson's teenaged father, Levi Johnston, for comments he made on TV about the circumstances surrounding his son's conception. On an episode of "The Tyra Banks Show" to air Monday, Johnston, 18, claims that Gov. Palin did not think that he and her daughter Bristol were being abstinent when they were together. "Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show," Palin's rep tells People.com. "We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion...

<p>Senate Democrats are expected to win over just enough Republicans to move forward on a controversial $410 billion spending bill....</p> <p>But it may come as no surprise that almost all of the Republican senators who are either expected to support the bill or are considering supporting the bill have billions of dollars worth of earmarks in the package.....</p>

Almost as if to undo all the good vibes with the grassroots that the House GOP gained in staying united against Obama's Trillion-Dollar Turd, at least two GOP Congressmen are now touting the benefits of the massive pork-laden spending bill.

Any Republican Congressman or Senator who votes for any form of Marxist enabling Porkulus is a traitor who deserves to be run out of office!! In days gone by, they would've been tarred, feathered and run out of Washington on a rail!! Porkulus is nothing more than a bloodless coup attempt by the America-hating Marxist, B. Hussein Obama. Massive government spending is not freedom. Government control of industry is not freedom. Government attempting to control the economy is not freedom. Not capitalism. This is socialism, fascism, Marxism. Centralized control. Nationalization of banking. Government control of banking, finance, manufacturing, production, transportation,...

Barely Bipartisan But a Senate Stimulus Deal is Done Sat Feb 7 The U.S. Senate looks to be on track to pass a bill that sounds almost exactly like what President Barack Obama asked for last month. The measure - now heralded as $780 billion, down from $890 billion - will include about 40% in tax cuts and more than 80% of the spending will flood the faltering economy within the next 18 months. But with just three Republican votes, the bill falls well short of the bipartisan goal Obama worked hard to achieve. The final cost of the bill...

(sigh) Time to bend over and grab the Vaseline.

There has been much talk of the 8 year BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) from the left but I think it's time we admitted there are DS's on the right and we have to look no further than our own backyard here at FR to find the most glaring example, McCain Derangement Syndrome. McCain wasn't my preferred candidate. In fact, I'd have to go all the way back to Reagan to find my own preferred candidate victorious. But you never get everything you want in politics so many times you have to work with you got and make the best of...

This is a must see video. Colin Powell and Condi Rice were traded in the "racial draft" to Whites

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesman of Neturei Karta International, issued the following statement on the eve of the arrival of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It has been our honor and privilege to meet with President Ahmadinejad, as well as other Iranian leaders, several times in the past. In addition we have had the pleasure of visiting Iran on different occasions. At each encounter with the Iranian leadership, we have emphasized to them that, despite media hysteria and the statements of some misinformed Jews, we have found the Iranian people and their leaders to be friendly and respectful." "Likewise, although...

It occurs to this poster - for the election of 2008 each of the parties - has fallen under the control of the caricatures, each is accused of by the other: Democrats, really are becoming the far-left bug eyed Marxists, they're accused of being by Republicans. Republicans, really are beholden to a few big businesses, to which they pledge open borders and so-called "free trade".

The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the president himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country. A troubled currency and financial system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington...

For years, William Zammer Jr. has relied on 100 seasonal foreign employees to turn down beds, boil lobsters and serve cocktails at the restaurants, golf course and inn he owns on Cape Cod and in nearby Plymouth. This summer, however, the foreign workers will not be returning, and Mr. Zammer, like other seasonal employers across the nation, is scrambling to find replacements. “It’s a major crisis,� he said. “We’re very short on work force. We’ll be looking at opening a little later, closing a little earlier, looking at how we do our menus.� Mr. Zammer is caught up in a...

The movement to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham with a fiercer opponent of illegal immigration gained strength on Monday when Columbia native Buddy Witherspoon brought his campaign for the Republican nomination to Hilton Head Island. Witherspoon is a dentist and three-time elector in the electoral college and a representative at the Republican National Committee since 1996. He espouses traditionally conservative positions against abortion, gay marriage, gun control and higher taxes. But the key issue of the campaign -- and one that has many in South Carolina looking for a replacement for Graham -- is immigration. Opponents accuse Graham and other senators...

Most at NYU say their vote has a price By: Lily Quateman - Washington Square News November 14, 2007 07:29 PM EST Two-thirds say they'll do it for a year's tuition. And for a few, even an iPod touch will do. That's what NYU students said they'd take in exchange for their right to vote in the next presidential election, a recent survey by an NYU journalism class found. Only 20 percent said they'd exchange their vote for an iPod touch. But 66 percent said they'd forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they'd give...

Mike Huckabee says he is the “conservative who is not mad at anybody,” but that doesn’t mean some people aren’t mad at him. As Huckabee has done better in the polls, criticism of him has increased. “The far left and the far right curse the ground on which I walk,” Huckabee told me Monday. “That is a great place to be. I am where far more of the country is.” Some fiscal conservatives are beginning to worry that Huckabee might actually do well in the caucuses and primaries — if not well enough to win the nomination, then well enough...

Charleston Daily Mail Secessionists from South and New England to meet The Associated Press Wednesday October 03, 2007 CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions -- New England and the South -- are sitting down to talk. Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully. That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence. "We believe that...

WASHINGTON -- With a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can legally be brought into the country. The effort, urgently underway at the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of illegal planters, pickers and middle managers crossing the border. "It is important for the farm sector to have...

In a press release issued, former Governor Mike Huckabee took issue with the Tancredo campaign's characterization of him as a pro-amnesty politician. Unfortunately for the Governor, the facts support the label. Fact #1. As Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee denounced an immigration bill (Arkansas Senate Bill 206) that "would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote and would have required state agencies to report suspected cases of people living in the country illegally." (Doug Thompson, "Immigration Bill un-christian..governor says"Arkansas News Bureau 1/28/05) Fact #2. As Governor, Mike Huckabee offered a proposal to give state funded scholarships and state...

With only a small fraction of the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico complete, California congressman and Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter is warning President Bush the construction mandated by the Secure Fence Act is falling drastically behind schedule. "Unless construction is promptly accelerated," Hunter wrote in a letter to Bush, "deadlines for the completion of fencing will not be met." Hunter's letter was written Monday to be delivered to the White House during the Security and Prosperity Partnership third annual summit that concluded Tuesday in Montebello, Quebec. His criticism that the Bush administration is making no significant progress...

Being Mike Huckabee By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, August 19, 2007 Whose yardstick do you use to measure the impact of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s second-place showing in the Iowa Straw Poll? The Democrats’. “If he had money, he would be our worst nightmare,” says Democrat strategist John Lapp. Lapp, who helped bring down Republicans in 2006 as executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said “the real threat of Mike Huckabee is that he is a happy warrior, a down-home guy comfortable in his own skin. Right-wing conservatism with a smile.”

In a sign of serious Republican disarray, Sen. Mel Martinez, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has just lambasted his party's two top presidential candidates over immigration positions which most Americans regard as reasonable. The junior senator from Florida is wrong on more than the substance. This is a case of Mr. Martinez putting his own personal views and his loyalty to President Bush above the serious responsibilities of his chairmanship... And he may have just undercut the man for whom Mr. Martinez's job requires a vigorous defense next year. The irony here is that Mr. Martinez did this...

ST. PETERSBURG - Sen. Mel Martinez, the head of the Republican National Committee, took a swipe Tuesday at the leading Republican presidential candidates for not offering solid solutions to America's immigration crisis. In his remarks, Martinez did not directly refer to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but he later suggested both candidates, who were critics of the controversial Senate immigration proposal, had mischaracterized the plan. He also urged audience members to pin down the Republican candidates on immigration when they come to St. Petersburg for the YouTube/CNN Republican presidential debate Nov. 28... Martinez's...

WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. (CNS) -- In late July, carloads of curious Catholics caravanned north from their church to a mosque in the next county. Three dozen Catholics who regularly attend Mass at the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement's Graymoor Spiritual Life Center in Garrison accepted a Muslim visitor's invitation to attend services at Masjid Al-Noor, his mosque in Wappingers Falls. Entering the two-story white frame building, the visitors placed their shoes alongside their host's on wire racks lining one wall of the foyer. The women, already modestly covered from chin to ankle, pulled on scarves to cover their hair. The...

Breda - The Dutch Roman Catholic bishop Tiny Muskens is urging the faithful of all religions to call God Allah in order to foster mutual understanding. The bishop of the city of Breda says God does not mind what he is called and points out that Allah is the Arabic word for God. The bishop, who is retiring in a few weeks, added he did not expect his ideas to find immediate acceptance. He expects it could take 100 or 200 years. Bishop Muskens has previously defied the Vatican by calling for the acceptance of married priests and the use...

...Day's story is a revealing way for McCain to open his book, for the success of the decision is far from obvious. In the very long run, it proved right—Day lived through the war, was an inspiring figure for McCain and others in captivity and ultimately came home to his family—but it was a very long run indeed. The lesson McCain takes from Day's experience is that you make the best call you can given the facts of the moment, and then you take your chances, come what may. Sometimes things work out sooner, sometimes later, sometimes never—and in the...

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship. The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year. "We can still show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border," McCain said in a statement,...

Somebody may be pouting at the White House over the collapse of the comprehensive amnesty legislation. For seven years, the Bush administration has been unable or unwilling to enforce the immigration laws, leading to an out-of-control deluge of illegal aliens across the nation's Southern border. Suddenly, the feds are about to do what they said couldn't be done. They've been winking at employers who shrug at the widespread custom of taking prospective employees at their word that the Social Security card they offer is genuine, even when the employers suspect it is not and sometimes even when they know it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to provide an additional $3 billion in emergency spending to beef up border security after lawmakers failed earlier this month to enact broader immigration reforms. The Senate voted 89-1 to add the money to a homeland security spending bill for next year currently being debated. Republican sponsors said the money could help lay the groundwork for a broader immigration overhaul that could address the status of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. "It will make it easier to go to the next step," said Sen....

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, an architect of the Democratic campaign that regained control of the House last year, says his party will not attempt comprehensive immigration reform until at least the second term of a prospective Democratic president. The congressman's statement was reported by a Hispanic activist and confirmed by Mr. Emanuel. "Congressman Rahm Emanuel said to me two weeks ago, there is no way this legislation is happening in the Democratic House, in the Democratic Senate, in the Democratic presidency, in the first term," Juan Salgado, board chairman of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told...

Attempts by cities or other governments to sidestep federal policy and make their own provisions for illegal aliens won't get any attention from the White House, spokesman Tony Snow says. He said such efforts are not under the president's "purview." Snow was responding today to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House. He asked about the president's reaction to local governments making their own decisions regarding immigration policy. "Reuters reports that New Haven, Conn., will begin issuing to illegal aliens city ID cards to allow them access to city programs and to open bank accounts. My...

WASHINGTON - These are tough times for Mel Martinez. In the past month, the Republican U.S. senator from Orlando has seen the collapse of an immigration-reform bill he helped craft. As chairman of the Republican National Committee, he has struggled to defend an unpopular president and an increasingly unpopular war, even as party fundraising lags. And now a new Quinnipiac University poll shows him plunging to new lows in his home state. Indeed, more Florida voters -- 38 percent -- said they disapproved of Martinez's performance than the 36 percent who said they approved of it. It's clear that fallout...

ALL THE BIG questions for 2008 are on the Democratic side: Can Hillary Clinton show her humanity? Does Obama have enough experience? Will Edwards find a cheaper barber? But there is one big question that has hardly been asked at all, mostly because it threatens to upset the narrative of the best election in decades: Do Republicans have any chance whatsoever of winning the White House in 2008? Given the extraordinary unpopularity of the Bush administration, isn't the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she ultimately is, going to be a shoo-in? The simple answer is that it doesn't look good...

The world outside the newspaper publishing industry and the McCain for President Campaign Headquarters pretty much agrees that the Senate Immigration Fiasco put John McCain’s White House aspirations in the hurt locker. The media will tell us otherwise. They see the world as the world is not and broadcast that misinformation far and wide. The Inside the Beltway version of McCain’s demise blames his catastrophic decline on his support of the Iraq Surge. If a politician says too many nice things about a general who won Senate confirmation by over 80 votes, that campaign is clearly headed for the toilet...

Before he falls out of the top tier of GOP White House hopefuls, chief advisers to Sen. John McCain are urging him to quit his day job and become a full-time presidential candidate. "Just resign," one says he told McCain. "Show you're all in." Advisers say being a senator is a drag. He doesn't have enough time to campaign and raise money. Worse: The issues he has to vote on, like immigration reform, are killers. If McCain takes that advice, here's the game plan. "Pick three issues conservatives care about and nail them," says one adviser, "and attack [Sen.] Hillary...

After GOP lawmakers helped defeat two separate immigration bills last month, Patricia Stout began to wonder how much longer she could keep voting Republican. "It breaks my heart," said Stout, who was born in Mexico but arrived in San Antonio and earned her citizenship more than three decades ago. "I am questioning my further involvement in the party. I fear my days with it are coming to an end." http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA070907.01A.Hispanic_Voter.346b840.html

Home isn't always so sweet for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, thanks to a small but vocal group of conservatives who feel the Arizona senator deserted them long ago. Critics in the Grand Canyon state have been angry since McCain first ran for president in 2000 and cast himself as a middle-of-the-road alternative to President Bush. Related Stories The Note: Can a Broke Candidate Recapture the Magic? Top Politics stories Clintons and Romneys Collide in IowaBush Defends War in Fourth of July SpeechInconvenient Truth? Al Gore's Son Arrested Again on Drug Charges They feel abandoned on a host of concerns...

Phoenix - Arizona leads the nation in population growth. More illegal immigrants cross its border than any other in the United States. Now, in an apparent backlash to those trends, the state is leading the charge to halt illegal immigration by cracking down on employers. Its new law effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty. A business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license.

Graham Statement on Immigration Reform Bill WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement on the Senate immigration bill.“Several months ago, I met with President Bush at the White House to discuss our out-of-control problems with illegal immigration.  He asked me if I would help him push immigration reform through Congress and I gave him my word I would.  I support President Bush and admire his leadership.  I will be forever grateful for his work to try and solve this difficult problem.“President Bush and I made it clear we would not compromise on our guiding principle...

What a Waste. Steve Sailer said it all. [L]et's stop and think about what an enormous waste of six years it has been for the President, aided and abetted by the almost the entire American Establishment, to pursue his delusion of imposing his immigration obsession on the citizenry. Even leaving aside how much better the immigration situation would be if Bush had followed his oath and simply enforced the damn laws, imagine what he would have been able to accomplish legislatively in other areas without wasting time, energy, and political capital on a losing proposition like this. Well, why...

Dear Michael, In a few short days, President Bush will celebrate his 61st Birthday. Don't miss out on this opportunity to wish the President a Happy Birthday by signing the RNC's eCard today. To make this an extra special birthday on July 6, Mrs. Bush will be presenting our President with this birthday wish from supporters like you. To be included in this unique celebration, please click here. And if you can, I hope you will consider celebrating President Bush's birthday with a gift our entire Party can share. Your secure online donation of $61 (or whatever you can afford)...

In a classic application of bottom-up management denizens of small towns let their elected representatives in Washington D.C. know exactly how they expected them to handle the compromised immigration compromise bill that neither secured our borders, nor was any more enforceable than previous legislation it was meant to "fix."Earlier waves of immigrants – legal and illegal – flocked to CA, , FL, IL, NJ, NY and TX ("gateway" states) but have been dispersing across a wider swath of the U.S. since 2000. The foreign-born, non-English speaking populations of DE, GA, IN, NE, NV and SC have exploded, say demographers, with...

Immigration bill's demise not a reason to cheer Our view: Senate's failure to act will not make our borders any safer, or make the 12 million illegal residents go away Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.01.2007 By the end of last week, every politician who could get to a phone or a computer was eager to let the world know how disappointed he or she was over the death of the immigration bill. Those were the people, like Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who had made a valiant but unsuccessful effort to create an immigration bill that would lure hard-liners from the...

Sen. John McCain, once assumed to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, announced disappointing second quarter fund-raising figures on Monday and will be cutting staff in an effort to stay afloat.

Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is in deep trouble with hard-core conservative members of his own party because of his support of President Bush's presumably failed immigration reform package. Some even are threatening to run a candidate against him in next June's GOP primary. So far, no one has stepped forward. "Lindsey will get an opponent," predicted Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen, a Republican activist. "The only question is will the candidate be any one of stature." (snip) Robert Botsch, a University of South Carolina-Aiken professor, said if Graham has a problem it's likely to be in the...

On the morning the immigration bill died — again — the ideological Washington Times exposed a supposed plot on Page One: A photo of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the liberal Democrat from New York, conspiring with a Republican “traitor” from South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham, to put something over on the American people. In reality, they could have been checking a takeout menu. That Thursday morning, however, Schumer and Graham were in agreement that the Senate should keep talking and voting on revising laws on illegal immigration. To the conservative media, Schumer and Graham symbolized the enemy. Hours later, the...

John McCain’s faltering presidential campaign yesterday appeared down - if not yet out - as a cash crisis forced him to cut his staff numbers by more than a third. The Republican senator, once considered the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination, released figures showing he had raised just $11.2 million in the last three months. Aides acknowledged he would now fall far short of his target income of $100 million this year and it is believed he now has just $2 million cash-in-hand to pay for a top-heavy campaign organisation which once numbered 150 staff members. The financial difficulties...

I asked one of the few conservative Republican senators who stuck with President Bush on immigration to assess how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell handled the issue. Asking not to be quoted by name, he replied: "If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty." Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version that he supported. He abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of Senate debate. Although I never before had seen a Senate party...