Free Republic

<p>Presumably, a proposal being developed in Texas right now won’t be necessary should its petition on the White House website to secede from the union be successful.</p> <p>But if not, the Lone Star state apparently wants to be prepared to challenge whatever it views as a federal encroachment on the rights of the state, or its citizens.</p>

After a day of testimony from witnesses for the city of Rowlett, Judge Ken Molberg will see for himself whether safety improvements at the Garland Public Shooting Range are enough to protect a neighborhood more than a mile downrange. The city and residents who have had a problem with rifle bullets on their property and the owners of the gun range returned to Dallas’ 95th District Court on Thursday to settle a request for a temporary injunction to shut the rifle portion of the range down. Early in the proceedings, Rowlett City Attorney David Berman challenged Molberg to visit the...

The San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has released a new report that examines gun laws and violence in all 50 states. The report, titled “Gun Laws Matter 2012: Understanding the Link Between Weak Laws and Gun Violence,” looks at the relationship between state gun laws and gun violence — as well as assigning a grade to each state based on the strength or weakness of these laws. Texas’ grade: F. In fact, the Lone Star State was one of 21 states that received an F in the report. The center takes issue with the fact that Texas...

Three hours west of Washington, D.C., U.S. Route 50 emerges from the West Virginia forest in a gentle curve. On the south side of the highway rises an enormous natural gas drilling rig. To its left and slightly behind it is a gas separation plant under construction. This is the “wet gas” portion of the Marcellus shale-gas play that underlies Appalachia. The separation plant will divide the wet gas into propane, pentane, butane and the like. In front of the rig and closest to the highway is a kind of filling station with color-coded fittings instead of hoses on the...

HUNTSVILLE -- Proclaiming his innocence to the end, a 46-year-old Houston man was executed Thursday for the fatal stabbing of a 3-year-old boy and the child's teenage cousin who told police his first name in her dying breaths 24 years ago. Preston Hughes III, 46, insisted that police planted evidence and coerced his confessions to the September 1988 slayings of Shandra Charles, 15, and her cousin Marcell Taylor. Hughes' mother and sister were among those witnessing his lethal injection.

CBS 7 has just learned that at least 20 people have been transported and Midland Memorial has gone Code 1 meaning all emergency hospital personal must report to the hospital UPDATE 5:12 ***Eyewitnesses tell CBS7 the trailer was carrying the veterans ****

The petition has received more than 5,000 votes out of 25,000 needed for a White House response.

By Paul McDougall InformationWeek November 15, 2012 11:37 AM Texas Instruments said it will lay off about 1,700 workers, or about 5% of its total workforce, as part of a restructuring that will see it exit the market for mobile chips that power smartphones and tablets, including Amazon's Kindle Fire. The company said it would instead focus its OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) business on embedded systems that power business tools and other products that don't evolve as rapidly as mobile gadgets.

CNN's Gary Tuchman heads to King County, Texas, where President Obama won only five votes. Video at link.

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A suspect is dead after a cell phone store owner shot him during an attempted robbery. Houston police say shortly after 6pm Wednesday, the suspect entered the Criket store on South Loop West near Almeda and displayed a gun. The owner came from the back with his own gun and shot the suspect at least twice. The suspect then fled to a getaway vehicle.

Four women are facing criminal charges after one of them allegedly received $1,500 dollars to smuggle two children and take them to Houston. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Lizeth De Leon, Herlinda Martinez, Janell Martinez and Juanita Martinez on Sunday.

Bordertown Laredo will not be back for a second season. But Laredo will be featured on the majority of the national geographic hit, Border Wars, which will premiere Wednesday night. Border Wars is back and the city of Laredo is set to be featured on seven of the ten episodes this season. You can expect some changes from what was seen on Bordertown Laredo. "The difference between Bordertown and Border Wars is one, Bordertown consistently concentrated on Laredo PD, Border Wars actually expands a little bit and bring in U.S. Border Patrol, Customs, other law enforcement agencies, and Laredo PD...

I umpire for a softball association in North Texas and I happened to be umpiring a game in which a sponsored team with all employees from McAfee were playing. I happened to be talking to one of the players who mentioned that he was looking for new work. I said " You work for Mcafee right?" His reply: "Negative. They just laid off close to 2000 workers and most of my team were part of the layoffs." I seemed partially skeptical due to the fact that news similar to this is popping up everday on layoffs and I figured 2000...

The more than 25,000 Sunshine Patriots who signed the petition to have Texas secede from the United States might get a response from the White House. Yahoo News: ***** Looks like the Obama administration may have to respond to a petition seeking the green light for Texas to secede from the United States-one of 20 such requests filed on the official White House website since Election Day. At the time of the writing of this post, the Texas secession petition had garnered 25,318 signatures-above the White House's self-imposed rules for requiring a reply. (A "Recount the election!" petition filed Nov....

Thanks to a cut in taxpayer funding, the Planned Parenthood abortion business has announced it will close one of its abortion clinics, that operates in Abilene, Texas.Planned Parenthood of West Central Texas announced it is closing the Abilene clinic, which gives out the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has claimed the lives of dozens of women and injured thousands more, on November 9. Women will be sent to the nearby San Angelo Heath Center, which provides women with legitimate medical care and not abortions. “We share the concern of community members about what the long term consequences of Texas’...

At the close of 2011, Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for the year 2012. In it are what some constitutional experts consider to be some of the greatest constitutional violations in American history. At issue are sections 1021 and 1022 which, in essence, create a new power for the federal government to “indefinitely detain” – without due process – any person. Indefinitely. That’s little different than kidnapping. In response, there’s been a bit of a firestorm from people across the political spectrum. Local communities in Colorado sent out the first warning shots, passing resolutions and ordinances rejecting...

DALLAS -- Wingspan Portfolio Advisors, a Carrollton-based loan servicing company, will layoff more than a quarter of its workforce at the end of the year. Wingspan issued a Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) letter on Nov. 5 to the Texas Workforce Commission informing them all 459 employees at the Dallas location will be terminated effective December 31, 2012. The business is "an award-winning diversified servicing company" and "offers a wide-range of services to assist the mortgage industry in virtually every aspect of delinquent loan servicing," according to the company's website. The site says the company has nearly 1,700...

(CHRISTIANPOST) — A Texas megachurch pastor recently claimed that President Barack Obama’s re-election victory would lead to the rise of the Antichrist. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, made remarks on Sunday before the election that should Obama win, his victory would lead to the reign of the Antichrist. “I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he’s not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes,”...

APIn Ryan Lizza's story in this week's The New Yorker, Texas' newly-elected Republican Senator Ted Cruz worries about the changing electoral landscape --- and how it could get even less favorable for the GOP in coming years.  Cruz provides what must be a truly terrifying thought for the Republican Party:"In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat," he said. "If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We...

Drew Rosenberg became a victim of San Francisco's sanctuary-city policies Nov. 16, 2010. The second-year law student was riding his motorcycle in rush-hour traffic, when a car driven by an unlicensed driver made a left turn and hit him. That evening, Don Rosenberg of Westlake Village, Calif., received the phone call every parent dreads. His precious son was dead. Then another nightmare unfolded. As Rosenberg investigated driver Roberto Galo's background, he discovered that San Francisco's sanctuary-city policies have served as an enabler for dangerous drivers. Rosenberg sees his son's death as highly preventable. Five months earlier, San Francisco police stopped...