Free Republic

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – After concerns about Listeria contamination, Blue Bell Ice Cream has voluntarily recalled ALL of its products currently on the market. The recall includes ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet and frozen snacks made at all of its facilities. A press release from the Brenham, Texas-based company say the products “have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.” In the statement Blue Bell CEO and president Paul Kruse said, “We’re committed to doing the...

A dramatic change is in store for Austin’s skyline, as plans move forward on what now has become a 58-story tower that would be the city’s tallest building and the largest residential tower west of the Mississippi River. The tower, named the Independent, would rise 685 feet on downtown’s southwestern edge, eclipsing the Austonian condominium high-rise in downtown Austin by two feet and two stories. The Independent would bring 370 new luxury condominiums to market, priced from the mid-$300,000s to more than $3 million, the developer said. The project features a contemporary, tiered design by its architect, Austin-based Rhode:Partners. The...

A bill being debated in the Texas Legislature that would severely limit local municipalities' power to regulate oil and natural gas drilling moved one step closer to becoming law Monday. In a 125-20 vote, the Republican-dominated Texas House of Representatives approved on third reading H.B. 40. The legislation would "expressly pre-empt local ordinances that ban or limit oil and gas operations," including hydraulic fracturing. The bill will now move to the state Senate, which, like the House, is Republican-controlled. If passed by both houses of the legislature it will move to the desk of Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has...

Magellan Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: MMP) and TransCanada Corp. (NYSE: TRP) have entered into a joint development agreement to pursue a project to connect TransCanada's Houston tank terminal to Magellan's East Houston terminal. The project would include the construction of a 9-mile, 24-inch-diameter pipeline, in which Magellan and TransCanada would have a 50/50 ownership interest. The project would give TransCanada's Keystone and Marketlink shippers access to Magellan's Houston and Texas City, Texas, crude oil distribution system. Michael Mears, Magellan's president and CEO, commented that this connection would provide its customers with additional supply options for the Houston Gulf Coast refining...

Good morning Austin: I had a story in Saturday’s paper on the startling fact that, with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, two of the first three announced candidates for the Republican presidential nomination for president are Hispanic. In other words, if America elects its first Latino president in 2016, that president would almost certainly be a Republican. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, at best there could be a Hispanic candidate for vice president, with most of the speculation concentrated on Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who is now serving as President Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development....

The fight over ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion escalated Monday, as Texas’s Republican governor backed a lawsuit from Florida against the Obama administration. "When the federal government exceeds its constitutional authority, the States must take action,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “[I] commend Governor Rick Scott’s decision to take legal action to protect these important constitutional principles.” Last week, Scott announced he would sue the Obama administration over what he called an effort to illegally force Florida into expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. “It is appalling that President Obama would cut off federal healthcare dollars to Florida...

Wal-Mart closures have citizens concerned. Jade Helm 15 is set to kick off in seven states this summer, sending Special Operations forces from all four main branches of the military onto civilian soil to conduct hostile take-over training – and civil-rights advocates are sounding the alarms. ... The looming Jade Helm exercise, set for July 15 through Sept. 15, labels Texas and Utah as hostile areas. Global Research also reported the military says New Mexico “isn’t much friendlier.” Other states participating: California, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. Some of the social media commentary so far: “The Pentagon’s ‘Operations Jade Helm 15′:...

Legislation to set standards for cities that wish to regulate the oil and gas drilling within their city limits passed the Texas House Friday with more than two-thirds approval. House Bill 40 heads to the Texas Senate Monday, where, if it can sustain the momentum that’s carried it this far, could soon become law. And that’s got some special interests groups in a tizzy. “If some Austin lawmakers are successful, oil and gas drilling could be coming to a school, playground of daycare center near you,” wrote Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas in an opinion piece published in the...

Jeb Bush on Friday in New Hampshire called for the U.S. "to work with the rest of the world to negotiate a way to reduce carbon emissions.” The remarks at a "Politics & Eggs" event brought praise from billionaire Tom Steyer's group NextGen Climate, which has spent millions in recent elections blasting Republicans on climate change. "Jeb Bush demonstrated leadership today on the issue of climate change—distancing himself from the other Republican presidential hopefuls and demonstrating why climate change doesn’t have to be a partisan issue," the group said in an email to reporters. "Today in New Hampshire, Bush expressed...

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...