Free Republic

FORT WORTH -- Claudia Hidic was desperate for money. On June 24, the 17-year-old former Trinity High School student began hounding a 43-year-old Overton Park West resident for cash, selling him an HK .40-caliber pistol for $100 and giving him two laptops as collateral for an additional $100. She told him that she needed the money to get her boyfriend out of jail. The teen returned a few days later asking for $600, but the man refused to give it to her. As he drove home from his job in Dallas on the afternoon of June 28, the resident got...

What else is he hiding? Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s Senate campaign might have just crossed a line it should not have crossed. Who else would be behind the Lt. Governor’s taxpayer funded website for his Lieutenant Governor’s Office suddenly deleting the transcript of a speech proving David Dewhurst has been lying about his position on illegal aliens? The speech is . . . well . . . it is gone. Poof. Again, the website is taxpayer funded and the document suddenly no longer there directly contradicted Dewhurst’s present statements on immigration in the Senate campaign. Now, David Dewhurst adamantly...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Seven-year-old Heaven Sutton was selling cold drinks and candy at a street stand with her mother when she was shot to death, becoming the 253rd victim this year of Chicago's surging murder rate, police said on Thursday. Sutton and her mother, Ashake Banks, were about to close up their stand on Wednesday night when two men approached and began shooting. Heaven was shot in the chest, and a 19-year-old man standing nearby was wounded in the leg, police said. "This is not about crime. This is about values. Take your gang conflict away from a 7-year-old," Chicago...

June 26, 2012 A Statesman in Congress To the Members of the 112th Congress: This Friday marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Henry Clay (June 29, 1852). With only a few years excepted, Clay served in the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1803 until his death almost 50 years later. When he died, he was the most famous American of his day and received many, many eulogies. One of them came from a little-known, former one-term Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who eulogized Clay as "my beau ideal of a statesman." In calling Clay a "statesman,"...

America is in uncharted territory now that Citizens United has taken hold in the 2012 elections. It has some people questioning whether or not the United States of America is still a democracy. Since the Supreme Court declared corporations human beings (people) in the 2009 Citizens United case, more than U.S. elections have changed. Millionaires, corporations, and secret donor Super PACs are now allowed to spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the outcome of U.S. political campaigns. The majority of Citizens United funding is coming from conservative groups that are backing Republican candidates. With enough negative TV ads...

Metals and other commodities fell Thursday, led by a tumble of more than 5 percent in silver, as discouraging news about the economy kept piling up. Both precious and industrial metals fell. Silver priced for July delivery lost $1.55 to $26.839 per ounce. August gold slid $50.30, more than 3 percent, to $1,565.50 per ounce. Silver and gold often move in synch, but silver tends to fluctuate more because of its lower price.

Concerns grow about a global economic slowdown and a restructuring of the European Monetary Union Gold and silver started off the week by heading downward amid growing perceptions of a global economic slowdown and restructuring of the European Monetary Union (EMU).

Undaunted by a GOP primary that is effectively over, Rep. Ron Paul’s supporters are now working to take over state Republican parties and delegations to the Republican National Convention this summer. This weekend, Mr. Paul’s backers effectively captured the Alaska GOP, won the Louisiana caucuses and beat out delegates picked by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, the presumptive nominee’s home state.

If I Wanted America to Fail, I’d Ban Kids From Farm Work by Sarah Palin on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 11:27am · The Obama Administration is working on regulations that would prevent children from working on our own family farms. This is more overreach of the federal government with many negative consequences. And if you think the government’s new regs will stop at family farms, think again. My family is a commercial fishing family, and commercial fishing in Alaska is much like the family farm (but the year 'round farmers no doubt work harder than we do!). I guarantee...

Amid the crowded field of House candidates across the country in 2012, expect to hear a lot about Mia Love, a Republican who is an African American and a Mormon and who on Saturday defeated a handful of rivals to clinch the party nomination in the campaign for Utah's fourth congressional district. Love is preparing to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson. Victory in November would make her the first black Republican congresswoman in history. A Brooklyn-born Mormon convert, Love is a marathon-running mother of three and the daughter of Haitian immigrants who came to the United States with $10...

On Saturday, President Obama enjoyed his 94th round of golf since coming to the White House. If golf were his full-time job, that would be the equivalent of nearly three months spent on the greens. While he hit the links, Americans have suffered from high unemployment and a lingering economic malaise with little hope for a prosperous future.

As the U.S. transitions out of a petroleum economy, oil-rich Texas is emerging as something of a surprise leader in biofuel research. If the country’s quintessential oil state sees promise in biofuels, that stands as a powerful indicator that the national market is ready, too, even in the case of algae biofuel, which has been greeted with derision in some circles. One main driver of Texas’s vanguard position in the biofuel field has been Texas A&M University, the premier public education and research institution. The school’s AgriLife department has firmly established itself in the forefront of algae biofuel development despite...

Seems like after the crash yesterday the "Popular Keywords" all changed in the top right of the screen and were replaced with some that are completely bogus such as "tothemanorborn"???? I use this handy feature to quickly get to groups of tagged articles. Some of the missing ones that have been there for years are "palin" and "sarahpalin", santorum is new, and some of the others but a few old good ones like "banglist" are still there. Weird...

(SCOTTSDALE, AZ) - An unarmed Arizona grandfather was blasted in the head this week by a police officer who killed the man because he "thought" he had a weapon. This was the particular officer's sixth fatal shooting in the line of duty, it happened Tuesday night in Scottsdale, "There were at least three officers in position to engage the suspect. At least one of the officers thought he saw something in the suspect's hands," Scottsdale Police Sgt. Mark Clark told Arizona's KPNX.

If you’re an independent voter or Democrat who is getting a bit tired of the Internet powerhouse Drudge Report’s political positioning of news items and/or have been turned off by some of its big news scoops that didn’t quite pan out in terms of the HUGE HEADLINES (the ones that have simply vanished off the site with no explanation) there are alternatives. Or, if you’re a Drudge fan and like that format and are looking for others that you can visit and get a news summary at a quick glance there are some excellent alternatives. Even if you ARE a...

Where are the attacks on this blatant disregard for the rule of law? All I seem to hear is the equivalent of, "Ewwww...thats not right, he shouldn't have done that." Seriously...that's it? http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?postid=273766 says Speaker Boehner called the appointment an “extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab” Extraordinary??? That is the strongest word you could come up with??? Imagine the outrage Pelosi and Reid would have had and the choice words they would have used for an opposition President? Why is Rick Perry, Newt, Santorum, Ron Paul and Bachmann not jumping on this golden opportunity and screaming it from the roof...

Park Ranger Margaret Anderson, a mother of two who was married to another ranger at the park, was shot about 10:30 a.m. Sunday after setting up a roadblock to stop a car that was fleeing another officer. A man who was being sought in the shooting of four people at a New Year's party in South King County early Sunday is suspected in the fatal shooting of a park ranger in Mount Rainier National Park later in the morning. ....Searchers flew over the park Sunday night in a plane with infrared equipment that picks up signs of body heat. Meanwhile,...

Congress is obligated by statute to pass a budget by October 1 of each year; yet, as of December 22, 2011, it has been 967 days since the Senate last passed a budget (April 29, 2009)!!! Lawmakers have abdicated their duty by funding the government through multiple, consecutive short-term continuing resolutions. In a May 23, 2011 article in The Washington Examiner, Majority Leader Reid is quoted as saying, “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” The Examiner article also quotes Chairman Conrad regarding...

The Associated PressAUSTIN, Texas — Dec. 18, 2011Another attempt to redraw political districts in Texas brings yet another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of politicians are anxiously waiting to see if the nine judges in Washington will give them a fighting chance to keep or win a seat in the Texas House, Texas Senate or Congress. With dozens of incumbents retiring, the stakes are high and who ends up winning depends largely on what the final district maps look like.One proposed map guarantees Republican dominance for the next 10 years. The other would likely give Democrats a...

Newt Gingrich’s record disturbing to home state gun owners Georgia gun owners long aware of Newt’s anti-gun record Kennesaw, GA – The 6,000 members and supporters of the premier grassroots gun rights group in Georgia, Georgia Gun Owners, began buzzing the phone lines of the Newt 2012 Iowa campaign headquarters (515-468-9225) demanding Mr. Gingrich apologize to gun owners for his more than two-decade history of supporting gun control. “Georgia Gun Owners knows Newt’s history of gun control. He represented parts of our state for 20 years. He’s been playing both sides of the gun issue as long as we can...