Free Republic

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake jetted to San Antonio, Texas, to deliver a speech last night to the national convention of the Young Democrats of America, a group closely tied to the Democratic National Committee. Rawlings-Blake denounced the Republican Party for its positions on immigration reform and other issues in what was described as “a great keynote speech” on the YDA’s twitter feed. The frequency of the mayor’s absences from Baltimore have accelerated since her appointment in January as secretary of the DNC and her parallel rise within the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors. Frequent Flyer Since late May, she he has...

http://xrepublic.tv/node/4874 The Katy Texas city council is reminded of who they work for. http://cityofkaty.com/ City of Katy asks Neighbors to turn in Neighbors

One of the state's top lobbyists says sources are telling him that State Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Ft. Worth) who is a sudden national figure in Democratic ranks due to her 11 hour filibuster to kill a late term abortion bill, has decided to run or governor in 2014, 1200 WOAI news reports. "If she does run, I think it will probably be the most exciting race for Democrats since Ann Richards in 1990," Harold Cook, who is a democratic strategist, told 1200 WOAI news. Davis has said that she will run for either governor or re-election to the state senate...

Police Chief Jim Vanover said the homeowner took action to prevent the would-be burglars from entering his home. “When we arrived and talked to him, he told us someone had knocked on his door and broken the window in the door trying to get inside,” Vanover said. “He fired a 22 rifle through the door and the suspects left the scene.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety reinstated a state trooper on Friday that it fired for conducting a roadside cavity search during a traffic stop for speeding. DPS Director Steve McCraw said he was rehiring Trooper Jennie Bui after a grand jury chose not to indict her for the incident in Brazoria County that has triggered a lawsuit by the two women involved. [Snip] McCraw said the she will be suspended for 60 days and undergo additional training. He added that he was requiring all state police officers to re-familiarize themselves with the department policy on strip searches and body...

Acceptance of natural gas as a consumer motor fuel has a long road ahead, even if Texans soon will be able to travel it in a gas-powered version of their favorite vehicle – a Ford F-150 pickup. Concerns about a lack of refueling stations, higher up-front costs and limited availability of the vehicles themselves mean that customers will probably not be rushing to buy natural gas trucks or cars any time soon. Still, a bi-fuel option on 2014 models of the top-selling F-150 – which will let the trucks run on natural gas or gasoline – along with changes in...

EDINBURG — As she saw her 15-year-old grandson escorted in handcuffs and shackles into a courtroom Friday

Planned Parenthood Pays Hefty Settlement in Texas Medicaid Fraud Case The New American 10 August 2013 Planned Parenthood's Gulf Coast, Texas franchise has settled a whistleblower lawsuit for a hefty $4.3 million over allegations of Medicaid fraud.

The Talk Shows August 11th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Steve King, R-Iowa; Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Anu Bhagwati, executive director, Service Women's Action Network.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Reps. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., and Peter King, R-N.Y.; Michael Hayden, a former head of the CIA and the National Security Agency.THIS WEEK (ABC): Edward Snowden's father, Lon; Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Donald Trump.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN):...

Oil and gas companies in remote locations require power — and a lot of it — long before the electric grid can reach them. Now companies that provide temporary power are in growth mode across South Texas as the region’s infrastructure catches up to the industrial demands of the Eagle Ford Shale drilling boom. Among the companies adding locations is Scotland-based Aggreko, a global company with operations in Texas, including Houston. It recently opened a service center and maintenance yard in Three Rivers to serve the Eagle Ford with generators and equipment such as chillers, cooling towers and refinery-grade heat...

So what say we conduct the experiment that could – and I emphasize could here – finally settle the question once and for all. Let’s just nominate somebody who has welded on all three legs of the stool and leaves not a sliver of daylight for the squishiness question. A nominee who will state without ambiguity that we’re going to bomb the crap out of anyone who is actively working against our interests. One who flatly proclaims that there will be no abortions for anyone and new Supreme Court justices will be inclined to overturn Roe v Wade. They will...

In a corner of the Shannon Rose Hill Cemetery, close to a chain-link fence that separates the living and the dead, a patch of ground has been worn free of grass by all who come to stare at one particular gravestone. With just a surname, the marker says it all: OSWALD. But in the half-century since a slight, sallow man named Lee Harvey Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy, so much continues to be said about the assassination that the various conspiracy devices and theories are nearly as familiar as the tragic event itself. The Magic Bullet theory. The Zapruder...

McALLEN — Organizers expect more than 100 gun owners to gather Saturday at the McAllen police station to protest the arrest of a gun rights activist who sought to photograph himself outside the Police Department with a rifle slung across his back. Zach William Horton, 37, had been traveling for work throughout the Rio Grande Valley, stopping at various police departments along the way and taking photographs outside them with his rifle. In McAllen, the effort landed him in jail. It’s a legal practice in Texas, which is an open carry state for rifles but not for handguns, said Robert...

Since Canadian born Ted Cruz has emerged on the scene in Washington as a future presidential candidate for 2016, attention has turned to whether he is Constitutionally eligible for Article 2 Section 1, the presidential qualification clause. This is what we know. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Many say that disqualifies him to be eligible for the presidency. Enter former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I came across an interview she did with Fox News's Chris Wallace in February of 2010. During the interview Wallace brought up the fact that...

Vice President Joe Biden is calling Democrats to action to stop grassroots conservatives from electing more Republicans in the mold of Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). In a fundraising letter for the Democratic National Committee, first reported by Ed Krayewski at Reason, Biden wrote told prospective donors that a “group of freshmen senators are running the show in the Republican Party” and played up the possibility of a government shutdown over ObamaCare.

A group of Woodland Park parents and educators want to get rid of the Common Core Academic Standards that are being implemented in Colorado Schools. Teller County Citizens Against Common Core Standards maintains the new academic guidelines aren't as good as the ones in place. It also argues that the system is unconstitutional because it takes local control away from school districts. It may lobby Woodland Park School District RE-2 and the state to drop out. "We want to get the word out. The standards were just a money carrot for the state to get federal money," ... Among other...

ROUND ROCK -- He never thought his visit with her Thursday, July 25 would be his last. “We got to sit down at McDonalds and have lunch and play for a while,” said Round Rock resident Joshua Hill. “She got a little 'Despicable Me 2' toy in her happy meal and she loved it. She kept climbing up in my lap and she fed me french fries.” But on Monday night, Hill’s daughter Alexandria, or Alex as they liked to call her, was rushed to a Rockdale hospital with severe head injuries, then flown to Scott and White Children’s Emergency...

The GOP division over whether to defund ObamaCare can be summarized in two quotes: This, from Texas senator Ted Cruz: "We can de-fund Obamacare if Republican leaders who tell their constituents they're conservative stand up and act like they're conservative." And in opposition, Ramesh Ponnuru: "[I]f Republicans stay firm in this demand [to defund Obamacare], the result will be either a government shutdown or a partial shutdown combined with a debt default. Either would be highly unpopular, and each party would blame the other. The public, however, would almost certainly blame Republicans. And which blame, according to Ponnuru and those...

Via the Examiner, a short but noteworthy clip insofar as it exposes a potential fault line between Cruz and Rand Paul. McCain lumps them together as “wacko birds� but I’m not so sure that’s true of Cruz on national-security issues. His alliance with Paul interests me because it strikes me as a personification of the uneasy libertarian/tea-party alliance. The groups overlap heavily on spending issues, and both are deeply suspicious of Obama’s expansion of government. The master stroke of Paul’s drone filibuster was that he found a sweet spot for both, making the philosophical case for due process while humiliating...

Well. So Ron Paul is picking up steam in Iowa. May even be a frontrunner. And here he is (beginning at 4:06 in the video) saying of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who leaked thousands of pages of classified U.S. government documents to Wikileaks, that Manning is a "true patriot" and a "political hero." I kid you not. Here’s the link to the video. Wait 'til Newt, Mitt, Rick, Rick, Michele, and Jon hear about this.

Steve Stockman (Texas, 36th District) has responded to Ted Cruz’ challenge to House Republicans by filing a 19 point resolution to defund ObamaCare. Mr. Steve Stockman is not afraid of a fight. “I applaud the dozen Republican Senators who sent a letter to Majority Leader Reid explaining they will not vote for any continuing resolution that funds ObamaCare. But as Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have said, ‘The House must refuse to fund Obamacare’ because every appropriations bill originates in the House and the House is the only chamber that Republicans control. My resolution includes 19 whereas statements that...

In a recent development eerily resembling a combination of both George Orwell’s custodian surveillance-state novel “1984,” and Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” in which individuals simply refuse to participate under a corrupt system, a Texas based e-mail provider announced to its customers yesterday that it would terminate operations, rather than “become complicit in crimes against the American people.” The decision was abrupt, and surprised many. Industry insiders are speculating that Lavabit has not provided more details, as contact from the Federal Government may have included a so called, “gag order,” preventing Lavabit’s owner, Ladar Levison, from providing his clients with...

Former presidential candidate and Republican congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas, announced today that he was bringing his new Ron Paul Channel to the "freedom movement." “It’s going to be something like nothing you’ve ever seen before on mainstream media," said Paul in a promotional video, notes The Blaze. "I’m looking forward to it because it gives me the opportunity to do what I really love doing, and that is spreading the message of liberty.” RonPaulChannel.com states “When the Ron Paul Channel launches, we’ll take mainstream media by storm. No advertisers, no corporate agenda, just the truth delivered exclusively to subscribers like...

The Obama administration's decision to shutter nearly two dozen U.S. diplomatic posts on Sunday has given jihadists something to celebrate — a sense that America still sees them as a serious threat. Despite the plot being thwarted, many supporters of al-Qaida and other terror groups believe the very fact that President Barack Obama was forced to shutter embassies throughout the Middle East and Africa was a victory in itself, according to The New York Times. "God is great! America is in a condition of terror and fear from al-Qaida," wrote one jihadist in an online forum, according to the Times....

The growing scale of the oil and natural gas boom in Texas continues to stun most observers. We have discussed this phenomenon periodically (see prior pieces here and here) , but the newest developments are so off the charts that an update is warranted. We’ve pointed out a couple of times that Texas’s oil production represents roughly 30% of the total US output, an amazing statistic, especially considering that the percentage was below 15% just a few years ago. In May, that statistic became even more amazing, as Texas accounted for 34.5% of total US oil production, thanks to continued...

Sen. Eddie Lucio, the only Democrat in the Texas state senate to support the new law banning abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, says he’ll continue to push for a requirement for women to complete an adoption course before having an abortion. Lucio first proposed the measure in July. The Texas legislature is in a special third session due to failure to pass a transportation bill. If Lucio’s proposal isn’t added to the agenda, which it isn’t likely to be, he said he will refile his bill early in the 2015 session. In 2007, there were only 1,302 infant adoptions...

Jackson Lee Tweets Praise That Staffers Free From Health Care Exchange Requirement August 8, 2013 - 1:15 PM By Penny Starr (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) tweeted her approval Wednesday for the Obama administration’s decision that members of Congress will not have to join health care exchanges and their health care coverage will be subsidized by American taxpayers. “It’s official: Members of Congress and congressional staff will keep their health subsidies under Obamacare!” Jackson Lee tweeted on her official Twitter account. Jackson tweeted next: “And some staffers will not have to join the health exchanges at all.” The...

A series of shootings in the Dallas area killed at least four people and wounded four others, including at least two boys, but authorities said early Thursday that a suspect was in custody. Police were first called to a home in southwest Dallas around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday where they found four gunshot victims, two of whom had died, Dallas police Sgt. Warren Mitchell told media outlets. The suspect in that shooting fled to the nearby suburb of DeSoto, where he was involved in another shooting, Mitchell said. At the second location, four other people were shot at a home, and...

Autumn Manning, wife of Army Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning who was wounded in the Ft. Hood terror attack, is speaking out on Twitter. Manning claims that the Department of Defense has “slapped victims of violence with gag orders” and is preventing them to discuss denial of benefits and other developments in the wake of the attack.

In an open letter to the public in late July, several retired Border Patrol agents wrote on behalf of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers to warn that Mexican drug cartels are actively operating inside the United States spending millions every year to try to build their networks here. They argued that American politicians are protecting their activities as well. “Transnational criminal enterprises have annually invested millions of dollars to create and staff international drug and human smuggling networks inside the United States; thus it is no surprise that they continue to accelerate their efforts to get trusted...

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

Mr Mitchell was the embodiment of the American dream. His father was a poor Greek immigrant, a goatherd who later ran a shoeshine shop in Galveston, Texas. Mr Mitchell had to work his way through university, but graduated top of his class. He left a fortune of more than $2 billion and a Texas landscape studded with examples of his philanthropy: he was particularly generous to university research departments and to Galveston. Mr Mitchell was also the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit. He did not discover shale gas and oil: geological surveys had revealed them decades before he started. He...

The parade of bad GOP candidates since Reagan has one thing in common: they were all rich men with no skin in the game, for whom victory was optional. The Bushes of Connecticut and Texas, the McCains of Arizona and the Romneys of all over the place had no downside to an electoral loss; they were all just as well-off as they were before the start of their campaigns, and could return to their multiple homes with no sense of personal loss, just a little chagrin at letting the team down. By contrast, the Democrats have fielded a succession of...

The illegal immigrants, 28-year-old Alfredo Mondono-Fonseca and a 16-year-old Mexican citizen were attempting to cross the Falfurrias Checkpoint with two women and a child. Crystal Azua, her daughter and Erica Hernandez were inside the general area of the vehicle when they came to a stop at the checkpoint. A Border Patrol agent, checking the identities of the three visible passengers, recognized Azua for two previous immigrant smuggling convictions. Because he recognized her, the agent sent their car to the secondary inspection. That’s when agents discovered the 28-year-old and the 16-year-old in the trunk. Once inside for questioning, Azua admitted she...

For three days, Congressman Michael McCaul has been traveling across the Southwest border. He stopped in San Diego, Tucson and on Wednesday he shifting his focus to the Rio Grande Valley "We are seeing an increase in the crosses right here in the Rio Grande sector in fact over the last year I think its increased over 55 percent," McCaul said. Immigration reform is at the center of the debate. McCaul toured key areas of the Valley to discuss threats along the border. Spokesman for the U.S.Border Patrol Daniel Tirado said in May the Valley surpassed the number of illegal...

Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin launched a Facebook petition Tuesday to demand that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sign a letter by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowing to block legislation to keep the federal government open unless it defunds the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. “Over the past couple of days, Sen. McConnell has been asked repeatedly whether he will support Sen. Mike Lee’s effort to defund Obamacare before its implementation on October 1st, and each time, Sen. McConnell has refused to answer," Bevin said. "It is truly sad to see the minority leader of the U.S. Senate so...

TED CRUZ United States Senator for Texas Home PageAbout Ted Constituent ServicesIssues & LegislationPress RoomContact Ted Press Releases Press Release of Senator Cruz NEWSLETTER: The News with Sen. Cruz - August 6, 2013 Contact: press@cruz.senate.gov / (202) 228-7561 Tuesday, August 6, 2013 Greetings, Last week marked the one-year anniversary of my victory in the Texas Republican Primary for the United States Senate. That victory was made possible because a grassroots army of thousands of activists across Texas saw that the country was in trouble and stepped forward to fix it. Because of that amazing effort, I'm honored to fight...

Two former employees of a Dallas-area law firm are suing after the firm threw a Juneteenth party with fried chicken and Big Red among other alleged racial discrimination. The two black employees allege unlawful employment practices, racial discrimination and having to work in a racially hostile work environment at the firm of Eberstein & Witherite

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, who gained national attention after filibustering a ban on abortions at 20-weeks, said that abortion is "sacred ground," and there should be no restrictions at all placed upon it. She also said she is considering running for governor of Texas. "I'll seek common ground – we all must – but sometimes you have to take a stand on sacred ground," Davis said at a Monday press conference, according to Politico. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has similarly called the right to an abortion "sacred ground." When asked to name which legal limits on abortion...

The office of George W. Bush revealed the former president had heart surgery Tuesday morning. According to a press release, doctors discovered a blockage in an artery in Bush's heart during the former president's annual physical examination at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas. Bush agreed to have a stent placed to open the blockage and successfully completed the surgery Tuesday morning without complication at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Bush 43 underwent procedure this morning to put in stent to relieve artery blockage. Said to be in good spirits and set to go home Thursday.Correction: Bush 43 will be released from hospital tomorrow and back to normal schedule Thursday.

Former President George W. Bush underwent a procedure on Tuesday to have a stent inserted after a blockage was discovered in an artery, his spokesman said.

Matt McCall (R), For Congress: Texas - District 21 - Website- Issues Lamar Votes for Obama's NSA Snooping Vote Matt McCall July 26, 2013 Liberty is worth dying for, but Lamar Smith can’t even vote for it. This week he voted against basic fourth amendment freedoms and for a police state by refusing to cut NSA spying on innocent citizens. He sided with the Obama administration, and the Establishment to continue funding the NSA spying on citizens that are not even suspected of violating any law what so ever. We all seem to hate congress, but it is indeed difficult...

During a speech and press conference today, pro-abortion Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis said she would consider running for governor. The abortion activist also pulled a page from Nancy Pelosi’s playbook by calling defending late-term abortions “sacred ground.” “I’ll seek common ground – we all must – but sometimes you have to take a stand on sacred ground,” Davis said during her press conference — referring to her filibuster to stop a bill to ban abortions after five months. Reporters asked Davis if she supported any limits on abortions and she responded that she did not — saying she supports current...

During a speech and press conference today, pro-abortion Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis said she would consider running for governor. The abortion activist also pulled a page from Nancy Pelosi’s playbook by calling defending late-term abortions “sacred ground.�“I’ll seek common ground – we all must – but sometimes you have to take a stand on sacred ground,� Davis said during her press conference — referring to her filibuster to stop a bill to ban abortions after five months.Reporters asked Davis if she supported any limits on abortions and she responded that she did not — saying she supports current federal law.Davis...

When a friend asked Matt LeBow to repair a video camera, LeBow worked on it and then set it on the top of his refrigerator to let it run for a while to make sure it was filming properly. The unexpected footage it captured was shocking and led to the arrest of a man from Melvin, a small community west of Brady. The Brady police officer who investigated the crime was unavailable for comment. The video allegedly shows James Ray Pierce Jr., 35, coming into LeBow’s home, shooting his dog with a pellet gun, ripping boards off a wall and...

<p>NBC-DFW Channel 5 in Dallas just aired an exclusive bombshell report on Maj. Nidal Hasan that he receives a VIP military helicopter trip every day to and from the jail so he can use facilities to research and study resources on the military base. They also said that a special Sheriff has been hired to stand 12 hours a day watching Hasan at the jail when he is returned to his cell at the county jail.</p>

COLUMBUS, Texas -- Two bank robbery suspects were shot in Colorado County Thursday night by a man who said they kidnapped him and his wife, a bank employee. According to the Colorado County Sheriff’s Office, the couple had been held at gunpoint by the suspects inside their home just north of Columbus. They were then forced to drive to the First National Bank of Eagle Lake in Columbus. The suspects then forced the woman to take out an undisclosed amount of funds, investigators said. “We believe they had knowledge that she was an employee of the bank for them to...

Alex was living with foster parents after DFPS removed her from her parent’s home last November for “neglectful supervision.” Hill admits they were smoking pot when their daughter was asleep. “We never hurt our daughter. She was never sick, she was never in the hospital, and she never had any issues until she went into state care.” For two months, Alex was placed in a home that Hill says was dangerous. “She would come to visitation with bruises on her, and mold and mildew in her bag. It got to a point where I actually told CPS that they would...

Civil rights advocates and lawyers say recent cases involving Texas State Troopers conducting roadside cavity searches with little or no cause indicate 'some sort of standard practice'. In two recently publicized cases on opposite sides of the state, troopers have pulled over women for minor infractions - which the women often deny - and ended up conducting cavity searches. In both incidents, the troopers' dash-cam captures the women being probed in their private parts by a female trooper summoned to the scene by the initial male officers. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384030/Texas-State-Troopers-illegal-body-cavity-searches-indicate-kind-department-policy.html#ixzz2az2PFVVR Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook