Free Republic

The latest dust-up over President Barack Obama's health care-for-all mission — Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., angrily calling Obama a liar during a nationally televised speech — underscored conservatives' fears that illegal immigrants would benefit from efforts to expand coverage. Obama insisted that the legislation would not give government subsidies to the nation's millions of undocumented residents. But if immigrant-rich California is any indication, considerable numbers of undocumented immigrants participate in taxpayer-supported health plans. Although most federal benefit programs bar those who cannot prove their citizenship, California has been more generous than other states. Its taxpayers contribute more than $1 billion...

The Republican National Committee is asking a federal court to restore the ability of national parties to raise unlimited amounts of money and to spend it to help elect state-level candidates. The case focuses on hotly contested governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. The 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign financing law (PL 107-155) does not allow national parties to give money directly to state candidates. The RNC wants to change that so it can expressly back the party nominee for governor, advertise and send out mailings on behalf of state or local Republican candidates and make get-out-the-vote calls. The law also...

Think last year’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue package was beaucoup bucks to spend bailing out the nation’s floundering financial system? That’s chump change compared to what the overall price tag could be, a government watchdog says. The inspector general in charge of overseeing the Treasury Department’s bank-bailout program says the massive endeavor could end up costing taxpayers almost $24 trillion in a worst-case scenario. That’s more than six times President Obama’s proposed $3.55 trillion budget for 2010. Much of the bailout’s attention has focused on the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which Congress hurriedly passed...

PRAGUE — Europe’s leading human rights group began an investigation on Monday into Serb allegations that Serbian civilians were abducted in Kosovo during the Kosovo war of 1998-99 and taken to Albania, where their organs were extracted for sale before they were killed. The inquiry, by the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France, is being led by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, who previously investigated the existence of alleged secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons in Europe used to interrogate terrorist suspects. The Council said Mr. Marty would meet this week with leading war crimes officials and human rights groups...

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the violence that continues to plague our southern border region by Mexico’s well armed, well financed, and very determined drug cartels. Despite the increased efforts of President Calderon to stamp out these blood-thirsty and vicious drug cartels, violence has increased dramatically, claiming over 6,000 lives in Mexico last year alone. The murderers carrying out these crimes are as violent and dangerous as any in the world. Many have extensive military training and carry out their illegal activities with sophisticated tactical weapons and no regard for human life. Last week,...

"Does it sound campy to say I love gay men?” asks Meghan McCain, sipping an iced tea at the nouveau-chic Hotel Palomar in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle. Campy or not, the lovesick McCain has been ubiquitous this year, sallying forth on late-night TV -- Larry King Live, The Colbert Report, The Rachel Maddow Show -- to scold the Republican establishment for its social conservatism and stump for gay marriage. “If two people fall in love, they should have the option to get married just like I can,” she told Stephen Colbert, pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of a party that...

Meghan McCain—whom some have called the new face of the GOP—likes to call herself a “progressive Republican.” Her Twitter page is full of updates about her devotion to gay marriage: “Marriage equality will not fall to the wayside! I have faith one day there will be equality for everyone living in this country!” That’s fine, I don’t care whether or not she supports “marriage equality.” But as someone her age, I know that gay marriage is one of the causes that young people must embrace in order to gain admission to the liberal in-crowd—and I suspect that’s why she’s doing...

The campaign finance dream team of Sens. Russ Feingold and John McCain is reuniting to block President Barack Obama’s first appointment to the Federal Election Commission and to push him to shake up the embattled agency. In a surprising move that invokes memories of a bitter skirmish during Obama’s annihilation of McCain in last year’s presidential election, Feingold (D-Wis.) and McCain (R-Ariz.) have placed a hold on the FEC nomination of Democratic labor lawyer John Sullivan, POLITICO confirmed Tuesday. Their hold could reverberate in Congress, the White House, the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. In a statement issued in response...

The Court has held that Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205) will be reargued on Wednesday, September 9 at 10 a.m. The Court has issued the following written order: “The parties should address the following question: ‘For the disposition of this case, should the Court overrule either or both Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the part of McConnell v. FEC which addresses the facial validity of Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002?’

President Obama moved the goalposts on getting immigration reform accomplished, saying Thursday that he wants a bill he can sign either this year or early next year. Shortly after the president adjourned a meeting with a bipartisan group of members from both chambers, a number of senators and congressmen from both sides of the aisle demonstrated why next year might be aiming too high. The White House has said that the president would like to see something this year, but a number of skeptics have questioned whether Congress can or will take any floor action in 2009. Obama said he...

SNIPPET: "Police were nearby and took one suspect into custody while another was arrested after a getaway car was followed to a nearby trailer park."

Sen. John McCain started Father's Day on "Fox News Sunday," but he said he'll spend the rest of the day on the phone, chatting with his seven kids. The Arizona Republican said fathers need to give their kids "support, understanding -- and sometimes that support has to be a little tough love." He said that he often felt pressured to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both Navy men, and said that parents should give their children choices. "I hope that I'm a good father," McCain said.

After twice postponing a highly anticipated meeting between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders on immigration reform, the White House is under increasing pressure to get legislation done this year. Winning congressional approval of an immigration measure by December is a steep climb, with the economy, health care and energy higher on the president’s agenda. So far, Obama has promised only to begin the discussion at the summit set for next week. But if the president does not move quickly, he will suffer the same fate as his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who left office acknowledging that failure to...

The conference on the future of U.S. politics, convened at the American Enterprise Institute on Friday, has come and gone, leaving in its wake more bad news for the Republican Party. I know. You're asking: "So what else is new?" The GOP has been taking a beating in the public opinion polls of late. What makes this particular set of portends scary for Republicans is that the conferees were not studying mere polling snapshots. They were dealing with demography—long-term trends regarding various voting groups identified by age, race and geographic location. And in politics, demography is destiny. I'm going to...

Another tunnel apparently dug by drug smugglers has been found beneath the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz. Scioli said it’s the 63rd smuggling tunnel found beneath the border in the Nogales area since October 1995, and the 16th since last October.

Steve Hayes is getting lots of well deserved attention for his report at the Weekly Standard today about how the Obama/Holder Justice Department has quietly instructed the FBI to start giving Miranda warnings to captured alien combatant terrorists — the next logical move in the ongoing effort to move us away from a war approach and return us to the law-enforcement paradigm for dealing with international terrorism.

Al Qaeda eyes bio attack via Mexico border Seeks white militias as allies By Sara A. Carter Wednesday, June 3, 2009 U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland. The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia...

Elections have consequences. Like a stand-up comedian trying to push a catchphrase, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., kept coming back to that statement during an hour-long town hall gathering Tuesday in Marana. Whether it was efforts being made to turn around the economy, President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court or U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi's CIA allegations, McCain told the crowd of more than 200 people at the Marana Municipal Complex that today's America is a direct result of last November's voting. But rather than place all the blame on the ruling Democratic Party, McCain said Republicans were...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PEdYYv0ig

It is unnecessary for me to tell any of you reading this that the left has a stranglehold over both Hollywood and the mainstream media. It is axiomatic in today’s news world . . . . . that the “news” is delivered to your doorstep with a leftward slant. What are less well understood, however, are the lengths to which the government has gone to protect the left’s monopoly during the last decade and the complicity of the news media in that endeavor. The recent confrontation between General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt and an O’Reilly Factor producer at GE’s shareholder...