Free Republic

While the administration struggles to move forward with its plan to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, the list of foreigners trying to get into the United States legally has surged to 4.4 million, over 100,000 more than last year, according to the State Department. Those on the list either have a family member who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder, sponsoring their entry, or an employer wants them. The list grew by 100,085 over last year. And more than a quarter of them, 1,323,978, are Mexican. ... unlike illegals slipping over the border, many of those on the...

Siluria Technologies’ new ethylene plant is a 4-story-tall maze of pipes and valves and pressure vessels. If it were a standalone plant it might be impressive. But this one is tucked in among dozens of giant petrochemical complexes along the Houston Ship Channel and situated within a larger polypropylene site operated by Brazilian chemicals giant Braskem So how does this facility stand out? Because it’s unique. All the rest of the world’s ethylene is made the old-fashioned way: by breaking apart larger hydrocarbons such as naphtha (sourced from crude oil) or ethane (found in natural gas). In contrast, Siluria’s technology...

Celanese Corp. is considering expanding its South Texas chemical plant to produce methanol, the company has announced. Building a methanol unit at the plant in Bishop near Corpus Christi would be the latest move by the Dallas-based chemical company to capitalize on an abundance of cheap U.S. shale gas. Celanese has been building a new methanol unit in Clear Lake, southeast of Houston under a joint venture with Mitsui & Co., one of Japan’s largest generally traded companies. The project, which should be finished by October, will have the capacity to produce 1.3 million tons of methanol per year. Made...

<p>Dallas Police are investigating a deadly dog attack that occurred Sunday afternoon.</p> <p>At approximately 4:54 p.m., officers responded to a call regarding an animal attack in the 6800 block of Beechnut Street.</p> <p>The homeowner was reportedly at home alone with his 2 month old son and a pet pit bull inside the residence.</p>

exas Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday that he would not support Loretta Lynch for attorney general and that the only "way to defeat ISIS is a simple and clear military objective. "We will destroy them," Cruz said of the Islamic State to cheers at the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H. [snip] "We need a commander-in chief who says the objective is not to weaken, not to degrade ISIS," Cruz said in answering a summit participant's question. "It is to utterly and completely destroy ISIS. [snip] Any decision on whether to use American combat troops should be "driven by the...

The New York Times is taking note of Senator Cruz’s suggestion that the Second Amendment was intended to “serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.” The Gray Lady calls it among the “ridiculous arguments against gun control.” It suggests the silliest such the idea is that the framers wanted to “preserve the possibility, or even encourage, the idea of armed rebellion against the government.” What arrests us about this note is the absence of any reference to Elbridge Gerry. Gerry was the representative from Massachusetts who, during the debate over the Second Amendment...

Cruz: "The Massacre of the Armenian, Assyrian, and other Christian People Should be Called what it is: Genocide" WASHINGTON--Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on April 18 marked the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide with a statement calling for the proper recognition of the massacre of Armenian, Assyrian, and other Christian peoples as genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Cruz's statement, addressed to the Armenian Church of Austin, was read on the south steps of the Texas State Capitol, during the Austin Peace March and Rally, an observance attended...

Sen. Ted Cruz made a Sunday campaign stop at a gun range in New Hampshire.

Ted Cruz gave another electrifying speech to a welcome crowd at the New Hampshire Republican Leadership Summit.

NASHUA, N.H.—Sen. Ted Cruz said America is craving new leadership during his speech at the First in the Nation Summit in New Hampshire today. The Texas Republican, who announced his presidential campaign last month, began his remarks by praising his rivals for the Republican nomination as “an incredible array of conservative leaders.” Later, he shared the story of his father who fled tyranny in Cuba for the “promise” of America. “That is the miracle of America,” said Cruz. “That no nation in the history of the world has allowed so many millions of people to come with nothing and achieve...

Aspirants to the White House, both Democratic and Republican, have, as we all know, begun “announcing,” thus initiating, from a rationalist’s point of view, a media carnival featuring, on both sides, an array of supposedly God-fearing clowns and faith-mongering nitwits groveling before Evangelicals and nattering on about their belief in the Almighty and their certainty that if we just looked, we could find answers to many of our ills in the Good Book. The candidates will cloak their true agendas – serving the Lords of Wall Street far more zealously than Our Father who art (or really, art not) in...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday argued that finalizing any pact with Iran over its nuclear arms research would instantly produce one of the worst diplomatic deals of all time. “It is a historic mistake,” Cruz told listeners at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s First In the Nation leadership summit in Nashua, N.H. “Every year in Iran they celebrate ‘Death to America Day,’ ” the 2016 GOP presidential hopeful added. “If history teaches any principle, it is that if somebody says they want to kill you, believe them,” he concluded. Cruz argued that even a framework accord with Iran would...

A Texas veterinarian was fired after a Facebook photo showing her with her "first bow kill" -- a local cat -- went viral. Dr. Kristen Lindsey bragged online that she killed a "feral" cat in her neighborhood in Brenham. She posted a photo on Wednesday, which shows her holding up the dead cat by an arrow protruding from its head, according to KBTX.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz phoned in on Friday's broadcast of the Adam Carolla Show to discuss his candidacy, the IRS and taxes, big government, his father's America compared to our current America, Jeb Bush and more. ADAM CAROLLA: Thank you so much for calling in and thank you so much for wanting to eliminate the IRS. It's driving me nuts. SEN. TED CRUZ: Well, I tell you April 16th is a day when a whole lot of folks want to move into a simple flat tax and just padlock the IRS. I think that is a powerful populist...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said he believes that President Barack Obama’s first executive amnesty for so-called DREAMers—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—is “important” and he won’t reverse it himself if elected president. He delivered these remarks in a Spanish-language interview he gave to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. “I believe DACA is important. It can’t be terminated from one moment to the next, because there are already people benefiting from it,” Rubio said in Spanish on Ramos’s television program, according to an English translation provided by the media service Grabien. “But yes, it is going to...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — Ties between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, political allies for more than a decade, are fraying as the Republican presidential campaign picks up. In public, mentor Bush and protege Rubio have avoided criticizing each other since Rubio announced his candidacy. But Bush allies have started quietly spreading negative information about Rubio's record. Also, supporters of the two Miami politicians are drawing contrasts between Rubio, a 43-year-old son of Cuban immigrants, and 62-year-old Bush, a member of one of the nation's most powerful political dynasties. "Sparks are going to fly," said Al...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has a small lead over Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in a new national poll on the possible 2016 GOP presidential field. Mr. Bush is the choice of 13 percent of Republican voters in the Monmouth University poll, followed by Mr. Cruz and Mr. Walker at 11 percent apiece. Mr. Cruz officially launched a bid for the White House last month.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have forgotten a thing or two about the Al Gore presidential campaign he helped lead in 1988. In an interview with an Iowa radio station on Monday, the Republican presidential contender explained his role as the Gore campaign’s Texas chairman by saying that “this was Al Gore before he invented the Internet and got to be Mr. Global Warming.”

In an interview with an Iowa radio station on Monday, the Republican presidential contender explained his role as the Gore campaign’s Texas chairman by saying that “this was Al Gore before he invented the Internet and got to be Mr. Global Warming.” But in fact, global warming was already a significant theme for Gore in 1987 and 1988 — long before his activism led to several books, a Nobel Prize and a part in an Academy Award-winning film. It was also well before the right gave him the "Mr. Ozone" nickname and talk radio heaped endless mockery on the future...

Texas is poised to become the largest state in the U.S. to allow citizens to openly carry handguns, a change long sought by gun-rights activists. The Texas House of Representatives on Friday voted 96-35 to allow residents with concealed-handgun licenses to openly carry their guns in public in holsters. A similar open-carry measure passed the Texas Senate last month; the two open-carry bills must be squared before being sent to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has indicated support for the idea. In contrast to its reputation for being permissive on firearms, Texas is one of six states, including California, New...