Free Republic

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has held a series of meetings in Washington with leading Democrats and Republicans on the issue of US immigration reform. Senior Republican Senator John McCain said he was still committed to a comprehensive deal. He said he hoped Congress would address the issue early next year. Senator McCain also said he was particularly anxious to resolve the difficulties facing up to 50,000 undocumented Irish in the US.

Been getting a ton of mail about my column of last week. My main point: "All the posturing about illegal immigrants is really an attack aimed at everybody whose name ends in 'ez.'"Snip....What really caught my attention was his link to a forum at FreeRepublic.com where my column was being, umm, discussed. One posting had the same bandito featured on Ralph's Mexifornia license (turns out it's the actor Alfonso Bedoya in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre") and said: "Borders? Borders? We don' need no steenking borders. We don't need no steekin' Roger Hernandez neither!"

On his radio talk show last Friday, dittohead in chief Rush Limbaugh was working himself into quite a lather. The subject? Immigration reform, specifically the controversial immigration bill now before the Senate -- or, as Limbaugh dubbed it, the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act. Though Limbaugh pummeled his usual targets on the left, complaining that the current immigration reform proposal was yet another Ted Kennedy-led scheme to destroy America, Limbaugh was also unsparing toward national Republicans: At the end of the day here, what we're talking about is the marginalization, if not the destruction, of the Republican Party. Look,...

BE HERE, OR BE NOWHERE!

BE HERE, OR BE NOWHERE!

BE HERE, OR BE NOWHERE!

BE HERE, OR BE NOWHERE!

The President of the United States, having noticed that the illegal-immigrant issue has rent asunder both the nation at large and his own core constituency, proposes now to dispatch 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, thereat to provide temporary backup to an overwhelmed Border Patrol in stanching the flow of interlopers currently interloping unchecked. Millions of Americans approve and applaud, as they surely will also cheer the rest of the border-tightening plans Bush outlined in prime time last night: a bigger civilian Border Patrol to allow the troops to resume other duties, security fences to seal the line,...

What's up with Walmart. I just came back from getting groceries there and when I got to up to the checkout area there was a large rack of caps on display and each one had a symbol of Mexico...flag, insignia, emblems etc... I was also entertained by a blaring PA system playing Tejano too, just like every Saturday morning that I go there to get groceries. I guess that Walmart wanted to sell out Americans to make money on Cinco De Mayo celebrations...the one that Mexicans celebrate here in America with more gusto than the 4th of July. I have...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Number of training hours lost at Barry M. Goldwater Marine Corps Range, Arizona, from dealing with incursions by illegal immigrants, 2004: more than 1,250 Number of training days this figure represents: more than 50 Source: National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2006, Report of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives on H.R. 1815, Report 109-089, 109th Congress, 1st Session, May 20, 2005, p. 309. Special thanks to William R. Hawkins, USBIC

How do prevent the stop-n-go jihad that is currently going on in London from happening here? Should we have an El Al if-you're-a-Muslim-you-don't-ride standard for our planes and trains? At the very least will those traveling on subways in this country have to carry their things in mesh, see-through carry bags like they do in many public high schools-- in reaction to Columbine-- in this Country? Clearly, their are many terror cells, native and foreign born , in this country. Monitoring mosques, forbidding muslims entry into certain engineering programs at our universities, massive deportations of problem muslims and ,gasp, a...

Canyon County Commissioner and anti-immigration pundit Robert Vasquez announced on June 10 his intention to run for Butch Otter's soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Congressional seat, joining a small handful of Republicans who have expressed interest in the position. The difference between Vasquez and these others is that he only speaks about a single issue: illegal aliens. Most recently, he strong-armed Canyon County into hiring a lawyer to pursue litigation of any businesses found to employ immigrants, although Vasquez prefers different terminology. As he told the Idaho Press-Tribune earlier this year, "That would be like saying Hitler's army marching into Poland was merely...

Since Bush's November victory, which brought GOP gains in the House, Senate and state capitals, confirming the Republican Party as "America's Party," Democrats have seemed adrift and despondent. Moderates and major contributors are reacting to the election of Howard Dean as party chair as conservative alumni might react to news that SDS had just taken over the campus of the alma mater. A word of counsel to the disconsolate: Suck it up. It is not all that bad. The Right spent years in deserts more barren than thee have ever known. When this writer went to work for Richard Nixon...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. New Delhi, Nov. 10 (NNN): America is likely to lose its overall lead in technology and innovation sector to Asian nations such as India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore, according to a top foreign policy expert. Adam Segal, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs that though American technical dominance remains solid, the globalisation of research and development is exerting considerable pressure on the American system. In addition to the increasing science and research and development budgets, India, China, South...

Democrats should face it: they are incompetent and Bush will be reelected. With less than two months to go before the election, John Kerry is yet to address a single important issue. William Rivers Pitt, who runs the liberal web site, "Truthout," vented his frustration by declaring the election the dumbest ever (Sept. 10). The entire election, thus far, Pitt says, has been about Republican and Democratic TV ads. Pitt lists the real issues that remain unaddressed before the electorate: a war based on intelligence manipulation and deception, the loss of jobs, health care’s rising cost and declining coverage, the...

Three masked gunmen shot and killed a Palestinian man they accused of collaborating with Israel in the center of town Thursday, witnesses and doctors said. Palestinian intelligence sources said the man was one of 334 prisoners released by Israel Wednesday, but this could not be immediately confirmed. Doctors identified him as Samer Sharour, in his early 20s, and said he was shot six times in the head and chest and was dead before an ambulance arrived on the scene. Witnesses said the three gunmen pushed the man into a car and drove to the center of town. Then, one of...

With Gov. Gray Davis facing recall, a budget $38 billion in deficit, and a bond rating dropped three notches by Standard & Poor's to near junk-bond status, the lowest of all 50 states, the Golden State is no more. Who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs? Certainly, Davis, who misled voters about the gravity of his budget crisis in 2002, and won re-election by demonizing his GOP rivals, deserves his 20 percent approval rating. But Gray Davis did not kill California. The United States government did. For what killed California as the golden land was massive and unrestricted...