Free Republic

A man wanted in the 1984 killing of a Florida woman has been arrested in California nearly four decades later, authorities said Thursday. Detectives from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office were traveling to San Diego County to interview Donald Michael Santini, who was being held in jail following his arrest Wednesday, the sheriff's office said in a statement. crop-wood.jpg Cynthia Ruth Wood HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE Santini had been on the run since June 1984, when Florida authorities obtained an arrest warrant linking him to the strangling death of 33-year-old Cynthia Ruth Wood of Bradenton, located south of Tampa. Wood's...

A federal judge found the federal government should not be forced to stop construction on the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in California despite claims human remains were bulldozed over. U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia, a Barack Obama appointee... hearing Thursday in a challenge brought by the La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians. The tribe claims President Donald Trump and the federal government have failed to meet tribal consultation requirements regarding border wall construction, which cuts through Kumeyaay land in San Diego... The tribe and the federal government are at odds over whether the type of notices, given...

More than a year behind schedule, the massive project to add toll lanes to 11 miles of MoPac Expressway is now costing the government agency overseeing construction some of its savings. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is dipping into its cash reserves to repay some of the $230 million it owes to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The agency said once the rest of the toll lanes open — which is now projected to happen June 15, per the Statesman — the revenue collected will solve such cash flow problems. The tolls are expected...

A Mexican teenager who pleaded guilty to killing Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas last year was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison. Christian Daniel Castro Alvarez, 17, was sentenced in federal court in downtown San Diego. About 100 Border Patrol agents in green uniforms filled the courtroom and lined the hallway outside to observe the court proceeding. Rosas, 30, was killed July 23 while on patrol near Shockey Truck Trail in Campo. About 9 p.m. that night, he was heard on his radio saying that he was tracking a group of illegal immigrants near the fence that marks the...

Texas politicians who support toll roads won't have Sal Costello to kick them around anymore. Costello and his family moved to a small town in Southern Illinois this summer. He announced it on his blog Sunday, quietly, an adverb seldom associated with Costello in the past. Costello, if you're new around here or have forgotten, was a Southwest Austin graphics designer who in 2004 made a warp-speed trip from obscurity to notoriety after politicians pushed through a plan to build seven more toll roads. The plan included putting tolls on three roads that were already under construction using nothing but...

Williamson County Republican reshaped Austin area's transportation system State Rep. Mike Krusee, a Williamson County Republican who reshaped the Austin area's transportation system and, with Gov. Rick Perry, turned Texas toward a toll-centric approach to highway building, will not seek re-election next year. Krusee, 48, is not leaving the public stage right away. He will serve out his term, which runs through January 2009; will continue serving on national panels on transportation and urban planning; and could return to a statewide post after he retires from the Legislature. Talk around the Capitol is that Krusee, who has served in the...

Those persuasion skills were key to Ms. Kolkhorst marshaling support for a partial two-year moratorium on private toll roads. The bill could get lawmakers' final blessing today. The Brenham Republican has emerged as a central figure in the Legislature's efforts to slow down the privatization of Texas roads. She has persuaded nearly all of her 149 House colleagues to back the moratorium, which excludes most North Texas toll projects. Ms. Kolkhorst, 42, has parlayed a blend of persistence, fearlessness, smarts and country charm into a more visible role in Austin. In addition to leading the toll road freeze, she has...

Notice the number of people and buildings on the Mexico side, and how close they come to the border. The double fence is the double fence built by Duncan Hunter.Notice the Mexican Trucks lined up to come to the US. The double fence gives way to the old wall, and then no fence. The man in the blue is a Minuteman. In one picture, you can see on lone border patrol vehicle.

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The state auditor's office on Monday challenged the validity of more than half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation and cautioned that the estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion, based on 2004 figures, has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

CAMPO, Calif. — Five miles past the paved road, up on a hill of no name, lives a one-eyed man with a one-eyed cat.

<p>CAMPO, Calif. — Five miles past the paved road, up on a hill of no name, lives a one-eyed man with a one-eyed cat.</p> <p>They sleep in a van parked against the patchwork fence that lines the border with Mexico. He is solitary, lean, trying to hold back a tidal wave of humanity. The cat is overweight.</p>

Quite a few things happening down Campo way lately. In the past week we have had the following scenarios befalling us: We have had a "double header" drive by shooting incident Kingfish and Max were involved in this series of shootings. There was the tracking and capture of an escaped prisoner from the Campo Youth Detention Facility in Campo this morning. Suspect was apprehended by B.P. agents around 6:00AM. this morning around 100 yards to the West of my stationed post. 5- Last evening around 7:00PM a truck on the Mexican side of the Border was observed dropping off 5...

Minutewomen and Minutemen would like to invite you to join us this Sunday, April 23 at Campo, Ca - site of the April border watch. Please read the MMSOP* at the end of this email. DONATIONS for our MINUTEMEN! There is a small, core group of dedicated, full-time Minutemen at Campo - we would ask you to bring items to donate to these patriots - AA batteries or canned goods (that can be eaten straight from the container on the line). We will have container and hope to fill it. RALLY We will stage a flag-waving rally/march RIGHT ALONG THE...

Get ready. TTC-35 is coming. Though Michael Behrens wouldn't use those words, not exactly, and he'd probably cringe to realize it, that's the impression he left at the end of an hour and a half of questioning Thursday. "Something is going to have to be built somewhere," the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation said after meeting in Cameron with a group of reporters from several rural newspapers. There was touch of resignation in his voice when he said it. The Trans Texas Corridor is a proposed multi-lane transportation network designed to carry passenger, freight, rail and utilities....

CAMPO – As the sun set, Roy Wood looked out of place patrolling a dirt road a few steps north of a rusty fence that separates the United States from Mexico. The clean-shaven English-as-a-second-language instructor wore a T-shirt tucked in clean blue jeans, a pistol strapped to a belt. Many of the hundreds who make up the self-appointed civilian patrols monitoring the border to deter smuggling of people and drugs are unemployed or underemployed ex-military men who have long resented Mexicans who come to the United States illegally and, in their view, compete for jobs, crowd hospitals and schools and...

Hey, all, Watch Lou Dobbs tonight! In SoCal Lou Dobbs is on twice, once at 3 p.m., then again at 8 p.m. In the 3 p.m. show they had video shot in Campo over the weekend. The OBL are asking that CNN fire Lou Dobbs, and the FCC take action against CNN. Rule #1: Don't beat up the CNN reporter and his cameraman.

U.S. border volunteers on the rise, clashes feared By Tim Gaynor CAMPO, California (Reuters) - U.S. civilian patrols out to spot illegal immigrants from Mexico and angry pro-immigrant activists could be headed for a bloody showdown on the U.S.-Mexico border, police say. The stage was set in April when hundreds of Minuteman Project volunteers, some of them armed, began tracking immigrants on the Arizona border, upsetting Mexico's 10-million-strong community in the United States. Tensions rose last week when the Texas chapter of the Brown Berets, a Mexican-American group that was allied to the revolutionary U.S. Black Panther Party in...

In Washington tonight, a bold new effort to solve our nation's border crisis. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma today introduced what they called a landmark immigration reform bill. It's called the Real Guest Act, which would raise border security by adding the number of Border Patrol agents on duty. The legislation would also help U.S. businesses verify their employees are in this country legally. It would penalize employers that knowingly hire illegal aliens. The bill would eventually create a temporary guest worker program, but only after our border has been secured. Congressman Tancredo says the...

State comptroller, after audit, says they have conflicts of interest By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, March 09, 2005 Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, in an audit released today, called for the resignation of two Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority board members, claiming that conflicts created by their business holdings "should have prevented their appointment in the first place." Strayhorn singled out board Chairman Robert Tesch, a Cedar Park developer appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, and Johanna Zmud, an Austin transportation consultant named by the Travis County Commissioners Court. The audit raises questions about Tesch's ownership of 254 acres within...

Remember the Boston Tea Party? Get ready for the AUSTIN TOLL PARTY. Bumper stickers in Austin read: "AustinTollParty.com Stop The Double Tax Toll Plan". A billboard near the 8th-street downtown exit from I-35 echos the theme. Go to website: http://www.austintollparty.com to get the details. There you will see a map outlining the plan to make all of Austin's EXISTING commuter highways part of a toll road system. The filthy rascals started building toll booths before the plan was "officially" approved by CAMPO. We have uncovered evidence of conflict of interest on part of some appointed politicans on the CAMPO board....