Free Republic

Obama Skips Border Chaos, Will Fundraise in Austin with Director of Pro-Illegal Immigration Film President Barack Obama is refusing to visit the turbulent U.S.-Mexican border, where a flood of illegal immigrants continues to overwhelm the region. Instead, Obama will visit the home of Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez this week as part of a trio of Texas fundraisers. The Austin visit features tickets ranging in price from $5,000 to $32,400. The July 9 fundraiser also will feature actors Rosario Dawson, Danny Trejo and Jessica Alba. Both Trejo and Alba star in Rodriguez's ultra-violent Machete franchise. The first film in the series...

Director Robert Rodriguez’s spoof trailer for Machete was easily the best part of his and Quentin Tarantino’s failed attempt to return to those glorious days of early ‘70s exploitation flicks with 2007’s Grindhouse. And it made sense that the fan reaction would eventually result in a feature film the director has wanted to make since the mid-nineties. If nothing else, Rodriguez is as famous for delivering low-budget, high concept genre films as he is for directing them. He’s even better at marketing himself and his latest project, exploiting to the hilt an intriguing concept that, unfortunately, usually fails to pay...

Director Robert Rodriguez has big plans for his Danny Trejo-led "Machete," even calling it the "Latin James Bond." "This is the first Latin superhero in Hollywood cinema," he said on Tuesday. "People were saying when they saw the trailer, how come no one has done this

Drama unfolds as violent Robert Rodriguez film seeks tax break from Texas Should Texas taxpayers provide financial support for a violence-packed movie that plays off the tensions gripping the state and the nation in the raging debate over illegal immigration? That's an emerging question as a new movie from Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez generates controversy that's reaching all the way to Gov. Rick Perry's office at a time when the state faces massive financial problems and is embroiled in the immigration debate. Rodriguez is finishing up his latest film, Machete, about an assassin from Mexico working as a day laborer...

Dorothy Oxendine presides over American Gold Star Mothers Inc., a national organization of women whose sons and daughters have died in military service to the nation. (Photo by Mark Abraham) AMERICAN IDENTITY With the Iraq War, a New Generation of Gold Star Mothers BY DELIA M. RIOS More stories by Delia M. Rios WASHINGTON -- As Dorothy Oxendine knows, the most dreaded words a parent can hear are "We regret to inform you ..." She lost her only son, Pfc. Willie F. Oxendine III, to a land mine in Vietnam on May 30, 1968. His death at age 21...

Miyuki Cawley, the wife of U.S. Marine Staff Sgt James Cawley, holds the flag from her husband's casket in her lap during graveside services at the Roy City Cemetery Thursday, April 10, 2003 in Roy, Utah. Cawley died March 29, 2003 while serving in Iraq and also was a member of the Salt Lake City police force. Bishop Jaime Soto is shown Friday, April 11, 2003, at St. Joaquim Catholic Church in Costa Mesa, Calif., at the funeral of U.S. Marine Cpl. Jose A. Garibay, shown in foreground. Garibay was killed March 23, 2003, after encountering Iraqi troops near...

Names of the four US Marines who died in yesterday's helicopter crash: Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, of Waterville, Maine Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, of Bloomington, Ill. Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, of Houston, Texas Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Watersbey, 29, of Baltimore, Md. The Pentagon has just released the names of two more US Marines who were killed in Iraq. I'll post as soon as I find that.

ALONG ROUTE 8, Iraq -- The crew and the tank nicknamed ''Hermes'' disappeared just after midnight last Tuesday. It vanished, it seemed, in the dust and darkness just ahead of Marine Capt. Brendan Rodden. In his tank immediately behind, Rodden didn't realize the Hermes was gone until his unit had traveled five more miles -- after the column of M1A1 Abrams tanks from the 1st Tank Battalion turned away from an unfinished bridge and skirted west along the Euphrates River. They probably just got disoriented, Rodden thought, maybe mixed up with another unit. It was easy enough to get lost...