Free Republic

Republican Greg Abbott says he grieves for Democrat Wendy Davis after his gubernatorial opponent revealed that she once had an abortion upon learning that the fetus had a severe brain abnormality. Abbott said Saturday in a statement that “the unspeakable pain of losing a child is beyond tragic for any parent.” He said he grieves for the Davis family and the loss of life. Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, discloses the abortion for the first time in her new memoir, Forgetting to Be Afraid. She had become pregnant in 1996 but had the abortion after doctors told her...

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who rose to prominence after her filibuster of Texas’ anti-abortion legislation, reveals in a new campaign memoir that she terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons in the 1990s, including one in which the fetus had developed a severe brain abnormality. In the book, “Forgetting to Be Afraid,” Davis writes that she had an abortion in 1996 after an exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides. She also describes ending an earlier ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. It...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced today his intent to file the Expatriate Terrorist Act (E.T.A.) of 2014 as soon as the Senate is called back into session on Monday, September 8th. “Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured,” said Sen. Cruz. “There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to...

It’s back to school time and last week as I dropped my daughter Caroline off at her first day of first grade, I remembered the excitement that a new school year brings.I wanted to give a message to our students: seize the opportunities that come with each academic year. Whether you’re starting kindergarten or finishing college, it’s an opportunity: an opportunity to work hard, attain new skills, and discover talents.While some of you may not enjoy those multiplication tables, others might find the reading assignments to be drudgery, still others may have difficult jobs and obligations after class, or live...

COLLEGE STATION - The last thing Sergeant Travis Lacox and Investigator Andy Murph would want is to be called heroes.But that's what Senator Ted Cruz called them during a ceremony to honor them for what happened two years ago.Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann was attempting to serve an eviction notice on August 13, 2012.Thomas Caffall came out shooting. He killed Bachmann and a bystander, and injured three others ... before Murph and Lacox took him down, ending a deadly 45 minute standoff."There's no gift we can give that can match that act of valor," Senator Cruz said."We are proud for...

AUSTIN — Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis reveals in a new campaign memoir that she terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons in the 1990s, including one where the fetus had developed a severe brain abnormality. Davis writes in Forgetting to be Afraid that she had an abortion after an exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides. The Associated Press purchased an early copy of the book, which hits stores Tuesday.

High-level intelligence officials and federal law enforcement are saying that terrorist attacks might be "imminent" for Texas cities and towns located near the U.S.-Mexico border as it's believed the jihadists are already operating in a Mexican border town. The unnamed officials told Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, that there's good reason to believe Islamic State terrorists are operating in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, and are planning to use the border to gain entry into the U.S. to carry out their attacks. Juarez is located just over 8 miles from El Paso, and is a hotbed for...

The recent increase in security at a key Army base near a Mexican border city where Islamic terrorists are confirmed to be operating and planning an attack on the United States indicates that the facility is a target, according to senior military experts contacted by Judicial Watch.Last week JW reported that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is working in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to...

HOUSTON — The final two men arrested in connection with the March 2014 discovery of more than 100 illegal aliens in a Houston-area stash house were ordered to federal prison Thursday. The sentences were announced by U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, Southern District of Texas, and Brian Moskowitz, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Houston. The investigation was conducted by HSI, with assistance from the Houston Police Department. The following five men from Michoacan, Mexico, who pleaded guilty just one month after their March arrests,were convicted of conspiring to harbor and...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced in a press release on September 2 that it had “reached an agreement” with Culinaire International, a Houston, Texas-based catering and restaurant management company, resolving a claim that Culinaire had engaged in “citizenship discrimination” during the work eligibility verification process. DOJ said that the company’s policies were in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). “Employers cannot discriminate against workers by requiring them to produce more documents than necessary in the employment eligibility verification and reverification processes,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Molly Moran, speaking for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, was quoted as...

The business group that has been pushing for amnesty but that has often backed Republican candidates is throwing its support behind Democrats in several key House races this cycle... the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will have endorsed four Democratic candidates in the House races by the end of the week. Wednesday the Chamber endorsed California Democratic Rep. Scott Peters, a vulnerable freshman facing reelection against Republican challenger Carl DeMaio. ... Georgia Democratic Rep. John Barrow is also slated to receive the Chamber’s official endorsement at an event on Friday... Other Democratic House members receiving the Chamber’s endorsement this year to...

As Texas lawmakers convene in January for the next legislative session, their chief task will be to write a two-year budget. And the state's next comptroller will be charged with estimating how much revenue lawmakers can expect to work with. The responsibility has become a political minefield, particularly after Comptroller Susan Combs’ estimate ahead of the 2011 session drew criticism for underestimating tax revenue by several billion dollars. Combs’ office recently researched the accuracy of revenue estimates going back 40 years and found that, by one measure, other comptrollers’ estimates have landed farther from the actual number. Since 1942, the...

With an $860 million deal announced this week, Buckeye Partners is betting on condensate. Condensate, a type of light crude oil, has been flowing in increasing quantities from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas as technological advances boost production there. And with more condensate coming from the region — as well as the possibility that lightly refined condensate may be exempt from a U.S. ban on most crude oil exports — many midstream companies are looking at potential profit in getting the light oil from the South Texas wells to market. From 2009 to 2012, annual U.S. production of...

U.S. intelligence agencies last month reported that a group of 22 Yemeni-Americans were training in Houston to be seamen on oil tankers, raising terrorism concerns over the unusual activity. The Department of Homeland Security issued an Aug. 26 report from its National Terrorism Advisory System about the case. “Reporting revealed that 22 students of Middle Eastern descent from Michigan and California were enrolled in recent maritime training courses in Houston, TX to obtain training, licensing, and/or mariner ratings during calendar year 2014,” the report said. “All students were naturalized U.S. citizens from Yemen.”

Texas’s attorney general wants the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a five-year fight over specialty Confederate flag license plates. The plates were sponsored five years ago last month by the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a nonprofit group that describes itself as “neither political nor sectional” and “strives to honor and keep alive the memory of the Confederacy and the principles for which Confederates fought.” Supporters of such groups say they are simply celebrating those who fought for state’s rights, while critics say doing so ignores the involvement of those states in slavery. The specialty...

Apart from their recent college football successes and their former flashy and party-hard quarterback Johnny “Football” Manziel, Texas A&M University has had a different kind of success: a surprisingly rapid growth in its Christian ministry on-campus. The Breakaway Ministries holds a weekly worship and prayer service at the college’s basketball arena and special events center, the Reed Arena. From its launch with twelve students in a college dorm room in 1989 to nearly 12,000 weekly attendees today, it is impressive to learn about budding Christianity on a major college campus. breakaway ministries The director of Breakaway Ministries, Ben Stuart, was...

DALLAS, Texas -- It is like a Texas sampler platter of the 2014-15 Common Core offerings served up around the state -- Sadlier "Common Core Enriched Edition" Vocabulary, Springboard and Carnegie Math. There is even a kindergarten handout that defines the importance of the term "Common Core." Parents are up in arms. More so, they are worried. They have heard endlessly that there is no Common Core in Texas. It is the law. Yet, this is what is coming home in the backpacks. To her surprise, a Boerne Independent School District (ISD) parent pulled out the "6 Math Terms to Know...

The FBI is accusing Texas Democrats of using cocaine to buy votes and it’s all coming out in court. Political chicanery and vote-buying in Texas are as old as the state itself, and the latest episode to come to light features purchasing votes with cocaine, marijuana, money, cigarettes and beer, an on-going FBI investigationhas uncovered. Two political operatives of a Hidalgo County Commissioner’s campaign manager were charged on Thursday with vote-buying before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby, The Monitor reported. The arrests are the latest twist in an 18-month investigation focusing on the 2012 primary election for County Commissioner.

A man killed by police officers in Texas on Saturday was armed only with a pellet gun and was shot more than 80 times, leaving him with 'no face', family members said. The Laredo Police Department said it placed six officers who allegedly opened fire on Jose Walter Garza on administrative duties pending an internal investigation, media reported. The incident, much of which was recorded on a surveillance camera, took place outside a truck stop on Saturday at around 2 am.

In 1988, Republicans slammed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis over Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who attacked a man and sexually assaulted a woman compliments of Massachusetts’ weekend furlough program. This was used to paint Dukakis as soft on crime. Willie Horton 1988 Attack AdIt was a particularly nasty ad (I mean that in a good way)–and Democrats seem to be trying to do the same thing to Republicans in some of the 2014 elections. Trying to spin legal decisions in a way that portrays them as incompetent, soft on crime, and, at times; engaging in a war on women....