*VIDEO* Senator Ted Cruz Makes Surprise Visit To FreedomWorks Texas Summit

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*VIDEO* Senator Marco Rubio Discusses His Immigration Scheme On Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday

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Ed’s two cents worth:

With all due respect, Senator Rubio, why should the American citizenry believe that our federal government – or any liberal state government, for that matter – will actually enforce new immigration laws they disagree with when they aren’t enforcing the ones they object to right now?

As for a secure border fence, we were promised one of those years ago, and it still hasn’t materialized. Tell me, how can the feds be trusted to do the right thing tomorrow when they’ve allowed sanctuary cities to exist – in conspicuous violation of federal law – for so many years?

While elucidating your plan, you mentioned a new commission who’s ultimate administrative authority would be “triggered” into play if the Mexican border remains less than 90% secure after half a decade. Yet the Obama regime tells us that this border is more inviolable today than ever before, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Suppose the Democrats win the White House in 2016. Are we to just accept the word of another leftist-controlled Department of Homeland Security when it inevitably tells us that the border is suddenly and miraculously more than 90% secure? Do you not believe that such a DHS might lie to us in order to retain its authority in this respect?

Perhaps after the southern security fence we’ve already paid for is actually completed, and government officials and business owners are prosecuted en mass for blatantly defying our laws as pertains to illegal aliens, we can begin to talk about a new set of rules that deal with our remaining immigration problems. Is that not a reasonable proposition?

Whether you believe so or not, Senator, I can only hope you will eventually come to understand that the reason why few conservatives are getting behind your plan isn’t because your ideas are necessarily objectionable. It’s because true right-wingers like me don’t believe that most of your colleagues are honest people who will keep to their word on this issue. In short, we have no reason to think that our federal government will do this time around what it has failed utterly to do in the past, which is faithfully enforce its own immigration laws.

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Senator Ron Johnson Unveils ‘Victims Of Government’ Project (Video)

Sen. Johnson Unveils ‘Victims Of Government’ Project – Daily Caller

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday unveiled the first installment of a new project aimed at demonstrating how big government hurts average Americans.

“The root cause of our economic and fiscal problems is the size, the scope, and the cost of government – all the rules, all the regulations, and all the government intrusion into our lives,” Johnson said in a statement.

Johnson commenced his new “Victims of Government” project with a short film detailing the plight of Granite City, Ill. resident Steven Lathrop who spent more than 20 years attempting to comply with federal wetlands regulations to alleviate flooding in his neighborhood – only to end up in a mess of red tape, bureaucratic mistakes and eventual financial distress.

Watch:

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According to Johnson, Lathrop’s efforts to restore his flooded neighborhood resulted in threats of prosecution and hundreds of thousands of his dollars lost in restoration efforts and attempts to obtain a permit, landing him on the verge of bankruptcy – all because the area was considered a “wetland” under the Clean Water Act.

“What difference does government intrusion make? For Steve and his family, everything,” Johnson says in the short film about Lathrop’s struggle.

Johnson also released the text of a letter he and Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill sent to the Army Corps of Engineers Monday, looking for more information about the regulations in which Lathrop became tangled.

“Mr. Lathrop has attempted to comply with the EPA wetland regulations for the past 23 years. He applied to all the of the necessary permits and corrected a problem that the Corp itself has highlighted in eight studies,” the pair wrote in part to Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, the commanding general for the Army Corps of Engineers. “The lack of coordination at the Corps and injudicious application of wetland regulation has cost Mr. Lathrop and his family their life saving.”

“Hopefully shining a little light on this awful mess will lead to a resolution that allows Steve to get on with his life, and recover some of the investment that federal involvement has cost him,” Johnson added in a statement.

Johnson is encouraging other Americans to bring him their own stories of government overreach and burdensome regulations.

“Over-regulation consumes massive amounts of the people’s money, too often lacks common sense, has no heart, costs jobs and economic growth,” Johnson added.

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Senator Ted Cruz: Let’s See if Obama Is Willing To Shut Down The Government To Fund Obamacare

Cruz: Let’s See if Obama’s Willing To Shutdown Gov’t To Fund Obamacare – CNS

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced an amendment on Wednesday that would cut off all funds for Obamacare, a step he said Republicans should support and, if it were to pass in the House as well, could be sent to President Barack Obama to see if he’s “willing to try to shut the government down” over funding of the Affordable Care Act.

“I think it’s the right position for Republicans to be taking,” Cruz told CNSNews.com. “And I think it would be exactly the right decision to then send it back to Harry Reid and President Obama and ask if Harry Reid and President Obama are willing to try to shut the government down in order to insist that Obamacare be fully funded now, even though it could well push us into a recession.”

“I think that is an important stand for principle that makes a difference in the lives of those who are struggling the most,” said the senator.

On Wednesday, Cruz introduced his de-fund Obamacare amendment to the continuing resolution (CR), which is a massive “must-pass” bill to keep the government funded for the rest of this fiscal year, from late March through the end of September.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House passed a $982-billion CR, but the GOP leadership set the rule and did not allow the must-pass CR to include language prohibiting funding for Obamacare or for de-funding the controversial Obamacare mandate that requires nearly all health plans to offer contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs without co-payments.

Though he said he does not expect his amendment to pass in the Senate, which is majority-Democrat, Cruz said it is “entirely beneficial” to have a conversation about the impact of Obamacare on economic growth.

He also encouraged House Republicans to “stand for principle” and force the president and the Senate to shut down the government over funding the health care law.

During a press conference on Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Cruz why the Republicans in the House did not attempt to defund the law.

“You just said this amendment isn’t likely to pass because the Republicans don’t control the Senate,” CNSNews.com asked. “But the Republicans control the House. And they decided to not try to defund Obamacare in the CR. Why do you think they didn’t put that in and do you think they should have?”

“Well, legislation can be an iterative process,” Cruz said. “And one of the benefits, I believe, of debating and voting on this amendment today is that if Republicans stand together – I hope we will – there is a very good chance the continuing resolution will be amended in the Senate in some way and sent back to the House.”

“So, the House is going to have another shot at this,” he said.

“And I would certainly be very encouraged if the House, when they get the continuing resolution back, made the decision to include precisely this amendment to defund Obamacare,” Cruz continued. “I think it’s the right position for Republicans to be taking.”

“And I think it would be exactly the right decision to then send it back to Harry Reid and President Obama and ask if Harry Reid and President Obama are willing to try to shut the government down in order to insist that Obamacare be fully funded now even though it could well push us into a recession,” he said.

“I think that is an important stand for principle that makes a difference in the lives of those who are struggling the most,” said Cruz.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), also at the press conference, said, “I would add, again to reiterate, this was the very first vote they took in the House of Representatives this year, in this Congress. And so it’s important that we make sure that we have a vote here [in the Senate] on that.”

“It’s not always easy for us in the minority to get votes that we think are important,” he said. “But it is easier for the minority in the Senate than it is in the House.”

“This is an opportunity that we have to make sure that this vote happens and it makes sense to have this vote now in connection with the CR,” Lee said.

House Republicans have symbolically voted to repeal Obamacare more than 30 times in legislation that does not need to pass. However, every time they have enacted legislation that must-pass to keep the government funded, they have declined to include language that would repeal all or any part of Obamacare or that would withhold funding for all or any part of Obamacare.

Last week, as CNSNews.com previously reported, when the Republican-controlled House took up the $982-billion continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through September, the legislation did include language prohibiting the administration from buying foreign-made ball bearings but it did not include language limiting the implementation of Obamacare.

The CR, for example, did not include language to prevent the administration from moving forward with a regulation that requires health-care plans to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs – a regulation that dozens of Christian organizations and businesses have sued the federal government to stop, arguing that it violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Cruz’s amendment to the CR is called the “Restore Growth First” amendment, and it currently has 13 senatorial co-sponsors, all of them Republicans.

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*LIVE STREAMING* Senator Rand Paul Filibusters Nominee For CIA Director John Brennan – 03/06/13

THIS EVENT HAS ENDED

Click on the image below to watch video of the filibuster on CSPAN.

Note: Senator Paul’s remarks begin at the 2.17.45 mark.

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*VIDEO* Senator Ted Cruz Schools Moronic Leftists On Gun Control

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*VIDEO* Senator Ted Cruz Decimates Chuck Hagel During Confirmation Hearing

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Dominican Prostitute: Democrat Senator Bob Menendez “Likes The Youngest And Newest Girls”

Dominican Prostitute: Democrat Senator Bob Menendez “Likes The Youngest And Newest Girls” – Weasel Zippers

Via TheDC:

In a little-noticed email published online Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a young Dominican woman wrote nine months ago that she slept with 59-year-old New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez at a series of sex parties organized by Dr. Salomon Melgen, a longtime Menendez campaign donor.

“That Senator also likes the youngest and newest girls,” the woman wrote on April 21, 2002, according to an English translation provided to The Daily Caller by a native Spanish speaker.

“In the beginning he seemed so serious, because he never spoke to anyone, but he is just like the others and has just about the same tastes as the doctor, very refined. I think they were taking us more often to get us checked [medically] because of him.”

Keep reading…

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Democrat Senator Under Federal Investigation For Sleeping With Underage Dominican Prostitutes

Emails Show FBI Investigating Sen. Bob Menendez For Sleeping With Underage Dominican Prostitutes – Daily Caller

Documents published online for the first time Thursday indicate that the FBI opened an inquiry into New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez on August 1, 2012, focusing on repeated trips he took to the Dominican Republic with longtime campaign contributor and Miami eye doctor Salomon Melgen. TheDC reported in November that Menendez purchased the service of prostitutes in that Caribbean nation at a series of alcohol-fueled sex parties.

The documents, which The Daily Caller had obtained hours earlier from an anonymous source, also indicate that Carrie Levine, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was alerted on April 9, 2012 to Menendez’s habit of paying for sex while outside the United States.

ABC News senior investigative producer Rhonda Schwartz was aware as early as May 2, 2012, the documents show, when Levine wrote a source in the Dominican Republic to say that she had “shared your allegations, but not your identities, with a respected, trusted journalist with whom we have worked on other stories.”

In another email two days later, Levine identified that journalist as one who “works for ABC News.” By May 16, Schwartz was emailing Levine’s original source with questions.

Information made available to Schwartz and Levine at that time included allegations that some of Menendez’s prostitutes were as young as 16. The source also alleged that Sen. Menendez was taking “non-authorized trips” to the Dominican Republic, suggesting that he may have been evading Senate Ethics committee rules covering disclosures when third parties pay for a senator’s travel. (RELATED: NRSC says Menendez may have broken Senate ethics rules, federal campaign finance laws)

Those rules require senators to secure approval from the committee before allowing a private person or company to provide transportation or lodging related to official business. But the Senate’s “gift rule database,” available online, contains nothing related to a Menendez visit to the Dominican Republic.

The rules also allow senators to accept free lodging or travel as gifts from friends. Those transactions must also be documented on an annual financial disclosure report, and approved in advance by Senate Ethics committee if the value is more than $335. Menendez’s disclosures since the mid-1990s, when he was a member of the House of Representatives, include no mention of such gifts.

On Sept. 11, 2012, the documents indicate, the same source who provided information to Levine and Schwartz also sent an FBI Special Agent in Miami what he described as “the testimony of one of the girls.”

“I have in my possession the original written in her own hand,” the source wrote. “She’s 19 now, but took part in private parties with Senator Menendez being only 16.”

x was published online along with the other Menendez-related documents on Thursday.

With an interviewer asking her to identify a photograph of Menendez, the unnamed woman replies, “I don’t need to look again. I’m quite sure this is Bob Menendez, the friend of Salomon Melgen I had sexual relations with. I had sexual relations with him several times and I can’t forget his face.”

“I actually met him as Bob,” she says in the transcript. “Then I knew who he was, that he’s a Senator in the United States and that his name is Bob Menendez.”

Asked how often she had sex with the senator, she replies, “In 2009 I saw Bob three times at least. The first one in February, and then in May and June. I recall his visit in June so well because that month was my 17th birthday. Then we met twice one in May 2010 and then in December 2011… I was underage when I met him. But I can’t say for sure whether he knew it or not.”

She is identified in the transcript as “young participant #2.”

The age of consent in the Dominican Republic is 18. The PROTECT Act, a U.S. law passed in 2003, made it a federal crime for Americans to engage in sex for money with anyone under 18, even in countries where the age of consent is lower.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan told TheDC on Thursday evening that her organization shared the allegations it received with federal law enforcement.

“On July 17, 2012, CREW sent letters to the Department of Justice and the FBI requesting an investigation into this matter,” Sloan said in an email. She said one letter was addressed to “[t]he Director of the Washington Field Office.”

A message left for that office’s Acting Assistant Director in Charge, Debra Evans Smith, was not returned.

But CREW has not mentioned Sen. Menendez on its website or in press releases since July 2011, and the group has not identified the New Jersey Democrat as a lawmaker with ethical shortcomings.

CREW publishes an “Under Investigation” report which it says is “a list of Congress members likely under investigation by the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the House Ethics Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, the Office of Congressional Ethics, and in some cases, the Federal Election Commission.”

No senators’ names appear in the report, last updated January 8, 2013. Spokesman Dave Merchant did not respond when asked why CREW did not publicly report the allegations against Menendez in 2012, seven months before Menendez won re-election.

The 58-page dossier on Menendez includes several emails to and from Schwartz at ABC. In one, she wrote to the Dominican Republic source on June 22, 2012 saying that the Menendez story was “a high priority and I’m working on it at my end.” ABC, however, never produced a news report on Menendez’s Dominican escapades during the 2012 election year.

“I’m not going to say anything,” Schwartz told TheDC when reached via phone Thursday. “I’m not confirming anything.”

Schwartz referred questions to ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider, who did not respond to an email seeking comment.

TheDC’s Nov. 1 exposé included videotaped interviews with two women who said through a translator that Menendez paid them for sex at an elite Dominican resort. An attorney representing both women told TheDC that they were both of legal age. Both women said they were promised $500 to sleep with Sen. Menendez, but that they were paid on $100 apiece.

Prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic, but ethics rules prohibit U.S. government officials from engaging in behavior that is illegal in the U.S. since it could open them up to blackmail, compromising their ability to serve in government.

Eleven U.S. Secret Service agents became embroiled in a prostitution scandal in the South American nation of Colombia in early April 2012. Government officials at the time cited exposure to blackmail as one reason the Department of Homeland Security would not tolerate Secret Service agents who paid for sex while on assignment overseas.

That scandal broke within days of when a person using the name “Peter Williams” first contacted CREW about Sen. Menendez. He was an American citizen, he said, with both direct and second-hand knowledge of what Menendez and Melgen were doing – and with whom.

Melgen has donated at least $14,700 directly to Menendez’s various political campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Nov. 1 that Melgen “has contributed at least $700,000 to Majority PAC, a Super PAC dedicated to Democrat candidates for Senate and founded by a former aide to Sen. Harry Reid.”

He also appears to have supplemented those donations by allowing Menendez to travel, free of charge, on his private jet during numerous trips between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

The online documents published Thursday on a makeshift WordPress blog include texts of emails, screen-capture images of emails displayed on a Yahoo! account, names of Menendez’s purported prostitutes, and three locations where his pay-for-play trysts are supposed to have taken place.

One, the luxurious Casa de Campo resort, is adjacent to a private airfield Melgen used at least eight times in 2012, according to flight records for his Canadair CL-600 Challenger aircraft that TheDC obtained through FlightAware by tracking the tail number of the aircraft. One of those trips occurred during Easter weekend, when the women interviewed for TheDC’s Nov. 1 story both said they were paid to have sex with Menendez.

Another location is described in the documents as a “private yacht docked at Casa de Campo’s Marina.” (RELATED: Dominican government official says Menendez a frequent guest at “sex, hookers and drinking” parties)

A spokeswoman for Sen. Menendez did not reply to emails and phone messages seeking comment about how many times has he visited the Dominican Republic since taking office; whether he has ever paid for the services of underage prostitutes; whether his use of Melgen’s private jet was related to his campaign or to his official Senate duties; whether his campaign reported travel perks and other in-kind gifts from Melgen in Federal Election Commission reports; whether he is aware of an FBI investigation into his activities; and whether the Senate Ethics committee has contacted him about his trips to the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican source of the documents that are the subject of this article emailed them to TheDC from an Internet address in Mexico. It is unclear whether this is the same person who first tipped off CREW’s Levine about Sen. Menendez, and appears to have communicated later with Schwartz at ABC News, and with the FBI.

The tipster attempted to lodge a complaint with the Senate Ethics committee in the same April 9, 2012 email he sent Levine, but he misspelled the name of the committee’s deputy staff director, Annette Gillis, in her email address. The email did reach Levine, but there is no evidence the committee was informed. Committee staff director John Sassman would not speak on the record when TheDC reached him Thursday evening.

Multiple FBI sources also declined to confirm on the record that Sen. Menendez is under investigation, including Miami-based Special Agents Regino Chavez and Michael Leverock.

“The FBI has no comment… I have nothing further to add,” said Leverock, who coordinates media for the FBI’s Miami Field Office.

Chavez is the agent who appears to have communicated repeatedly with the “Peter Williams” source, whose emails form the bulk of the dossier that went online Thursday.

Another FBI source, speaking on background, would not deny the report – telling TheDC only that the FBI typically would not publicly confirm an investigation that focused on a sitting U.S. senator.

Special Agent Chavez appears to have been first briefed on the case between July 17, the date CREW says it made its FBI referral, and August 1, 2012, the date of the first email from Chavez to Williams that was included in the online dossier.

Williams responded Aug. 25, focusing on the young ages of the girls involved.

“My main concern is the protection of my sources’ identities,” he wrote. “They are, as you may know, young prostitutes involved in those activities with senator Menendez and his friend Dr. Salomon Melgen.”

He also asked for the FBI’s help to ensure “that some social institution would assist these minors involved in their reinsertion to society.”

“About the girls, you may have the information I passed to CREW with some of their names. Not all the participants in those private parties are aware that some of the girls sharing [sex] with them are underage; others were minors some time ago, being already part of this circle. My point is that not knowing that, does not exempt them from their responsibility.”

Through Sept. 12, the documents indicate, Chavez investigated Williams’ claims and determined that they were sound.

“As far as the information you have provided, we have been able to confirm most of it,” Chavez’s Sept. 12 email reads. “We know that you are providing accurate information… We are on the right track but we do need to meet in person. I would not like for the information you have to get stale and lose the opportunity to bring the people who abused these young ladies to justice.”

In an email dated 10 days later, Williams produced the names of four women, all of them over 18, who he said participated in the Menendez sex parties at Casa de Campo. Those four were not among the women TheDC interviewed for the Nov. 1 story.

Two days after that story was published, the documents show, Williams emailed Chavez to say that the videotaped interviews were consistent with what he knew about the prostitutes Sen. Menendez frequented in the Dominican Republic.

“I can’t say I have any doubts about the truthfulness of their testimonies,” he wrote on Nov. 3, while emphasizing that his interest was primarily centered on the underage girls involved.

“My purpose is to do justice to the minors sexually involved with Senator Menendez and not to play politics,” he wrote.

By Nov. 24, Williams was claiming to “have in my hands additional evidences of Senator Menendez’s participation in activities with underage and young prostitutes.”

The emails indicate that as Christmas neared, Williams was reluctant to meet Chavez in person. A similar pattern developed quickly between Williams at CREW, where Carrie Levine pressed him for details and asked for phone meetings but got neither.

Much of the online dossier is unconfirmed and may ultimately be unconfirmable. But an additional source, unrelated to the documents, confirmed to TheDC on Thursday that ABC News was working on the Menendez story as late as mid-October.

The emails in the dossier themselves do not establish that “Peter Williams” is male or female, American or foreigner, well-intentioned or nefarious. They also do not, by themselves, prove Menendez engaged in illegal or unethical conduct.

But the existence of an FBI investigation is consistent with what TheDC learned in November from the women who spoke on camera about the senator.

A retired FBI agent speaking on background said Thursday night that it was unlikely such an investigation would be handled by a single case agent. But he said that since most of Melgen’s flights to La Romana International Airport in the Dominican Republic originated in Palm Beach, Fla., the Miami Field Office was the logical FBI office to handle the case.

He would not speculate, however, on whether any inquiry into Menendez’s trips abroad was likely to have been completed, and the file closed, nearly six months later. It would depend, he said, on the believability of witnesses and their willingness to cooperate.

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Senator Reid Blocks Ban On $4 Billion Illegal Immigrant Tax Credit Loophole

Senator Reid Blocks Ban On $4 Billion Illegal Immigrant Tax Credit Loophole – Big Government

A bill that would close an IRS tax credit loophole that allows the IRS to funnel over $4 billion to illegal immigrants is being held up by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

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Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, has been vocal in his disdain for the blatant misuse of taxpayer monies:

I’m disappointed that the Majority Leader objected to our effort today to prevent billions in tax credits from being wrongly sent to illegal immigrants claiming they have dependents, many of whom do not live in the US. This should not be a partisan issue: it is wrong for the government to use Americans’ tax dollars to directly subsidize illegality, especially at a time when our nation is spending so much money we don’t have.

The $4 billion wasted on the illegal immigrant tax credit loophole is “roughly the same amount the President proposes to raise annually by instituting the new Warren Buffett Tax,” says Sen. Sessions. The Alabama senator also notes that it’s the amount needed to fund the shortfall in the highway bill and nearly all of the student loan bill.

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