Free Republic

SOUNDING BOARD Now a fair, balanced liberal manifesto By BILL COULTER Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." — Barry Goldwater Some readers, at least two or three, have complained that the Chronicle's opinion pages do not adequately express the liberal view. They're either blind or aren't reading the paper closely enough. They overlook E.J. Dionne Jr., Paul Krugman, Helen Thomas, Marianne Means, Maureen Dowd and the other liberal commentators whose work frequently appears. Two weeks ago in this space, my friend and...

April 7, 2004, 12:08PM Soldier from Houston dies in Iraq two weeks into duty 21-year-old killed while fighting in Fallujah By LUCAS WALL Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle A 21-year-old Houston man stationed in Iraq less than two weeks died Friday during fighting with insurgents in Fallujah, his family said Saturday. U.S. Marine Pfc. Leroy Sandoval Jr. died of a gunshot wound while manning a machine gun for his unit, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. He's the 10th soldier from the Houston metropolitan area to die while on duty in Iraq, and the second Texan killed there in as many days....

After witnessing a weekend of self-congratulatory festivities marking the January 1st debut of Houston’s MetroRail transit system, the hometown newspaper’s editorial board could hardly contain its exuberance. “Viewed from any angle,” opined the Houston Chronicle, the kickoff celebrations were a sure “sign of good things to come.” To the board, itself a merciless campaigner for rail, the roughly 15,000 people in attendance suggested that a “large helping of crow” was in order for transit critics. Reports from Houston spread quickly causing the Arizona Republic’s editorial page to gloat “critics rail at light rail to no avail.” After all, what...

WASHINGTON -- Is America ready to be led by another Massachusetts senator, a former Navy war hero with the initials "JFK," a rich, Catholic Bostonian with patrician looks and a glamorous wife, a forward-looking Democrat with a challenge to countrymen to be a part of something larger than themselves? John Forbes Kerry, the three-term senator from Massachusetts, the much-decorated former gunboat captain in Vietnam, the aristocrat with the Boston brogue and the Mozambique-born heiress wife, thinks so. But don't suggest to Kerry that he represents a chance for Democrats to return to Camelot or that he is trying to trade...

HUNTSVILLE -- A former pizza delivery driver was executed today for the 1990 shooting death of a woman after robbing her and her husband of some inexpensive jewelry and less than $10. Kenneth Eugene Bruce first addressed the family of his victim, Helen Ayers, and then spoke to his family. "And to the family of Ms. Ayers, I would like to apologize for all the pain and suffering and that God give you closure," And I pray that he blesses you," he said. Turning to his family, Bruce told them he loved them. "I may not be with you in...

Talk-radio caller hurt in SUV accident Associated Press MIDDLE ISLAND, N.Y. - A woman who was on her cell phone discussing the Michael Jackson case on a radio call-in show was hurt when her sport utility vehicle -- stopped on the side of the road -- was hit from behind. Cheryl Picker was talking to WABC 770 morning show hosts Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby just before 9 a.m. Tuesday when the crash was heard on the radio. Kuby was heard saying, "Cheryl, are you OK? Cheryl? Cheryl?" Picker, 44, was taken to a hospital, where she was listed in...

A Metro light rail car and a sport utility vehicle collided downtown during the train's test run Wednesday night. Police said it was the first accident involving the city's new light rail system. The accident occurred about 8:30 p.m. when the driver of the Jeep Cherokee turned in front of the train at Main and Gray, Metro police said. "The lady in the truck, she made an illegal left turn," Metro police Sgt. Antonio Ford said. "She cut right in front of the train." KPRC-Channel 2 officials confirmed that Krista Marino, the station's health reporter, was driving the Jeep when...

FROM HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARTICLE: Light rail leading in survey By John Williams Metro's transit referendum holds a solid lead heading into Tuesday's election, and Houston mayoral candidate Bill White appears likely to make a runoff with Sylvester Turner or Orlando Sanchez, according to a Houston Chronicle/KHOU-TV poll. Despite a heavy advertising campaign that has been building opposition in recent weeks, the survey shows that 44 percent of respondents in the Metro service area support rail while 30 percent oppose it. In the race to replace term-limited Mayor Lee Brown, White has 35 percent support while Sanchez has 25 percent and...

Claiming to have acted solely in the public interest, Republicans in Austin devised congressional districts that will place almost half of all Texans, against the wishes of most, in a different congressional district. This is not the first time the good of one party's politicians has outweighed the will of the people. The compromise bill was fashioned in the absence of Gov. Rick Perry, who was in New York promoting Texas business and raising campaign funds. Since his presence had done so little to advance either public or party interest, little was lost through his absence. U.S. House Majority Leader...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- After rumors swept the ranks of Texas Senate runaways that arch-foe Tom DeLay had been in town, the Democrats swept their Marriott hotel rooms Wednesday for electronic bugs. They found no evidence of eavesdropping, but 11 Texas Democratic senators on the lam in Albuquerque took the possibility of cloak-and-dagger tactics at least somewhat seriously. "There have been some clicks and some things like that," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and a leader of the boycott of a special session on redistricting. She said staffers did not tell...

Republicans to rip apart Democrats' old offices By JOHN WILLIAMS Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Political Writer Republicans in Harris County have pounded their Democratic opponents time and time again at the ballot box during the past decade. Sunday, they intend to throw a grand old party to batter the Democrats' former headquarters in Midtown. Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill is asking local Republicans to bring sledgehammers and other implements of destruction to help level the building the Democrats vacated three months ago. "You bring the muscle, we'll bring the refreshments and we will have a party as we tear...

High drama and high-stakes politics put more than 50 Texas legislators on the lam from the law on Monday. Given the choice of being steamrollered on a Republican congressional redistricting plan or denying the state House of Representatives a quorum until a legislative deadline passes this week, 59 of the House's 62 Democrats surreptitiously slipped out of Austin, into hiding and onto quorumless, Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick's most-wanted list. It's not a bad strategy given the realities of the GOP juggernaut on the divisive and bad redistricting plan. Sometimes you have to be creative in your opposition and the...

From the dawn of their species, White House press secretaries have sought to cast their boss in a positive light. Perhaps not since Ron Zeigler made inoperative statements on behalf of Richard Nixon, however, has a press secretary exhibited such a brazen and cavalier disregard for the facts. Before President Bush rode a Navy jet onto the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, press secretary Ari Fleischer informed the world, inaccurately, that the carrier would be hundreds of miles offshore. That distance over water, Fleischer suggested, would be too long for the president to safely make the hop...

The following memo was accidentally posted on the Houston Chronicle website last Thursday morning for a couple of hours. It is an internal memo between the editorial page writers instructing a massive year long propaganda campaign to push a light rail referendum through next november. The memo was removed upon discovery but not before many people read it. The Houston Chronicle also printed a correction stating it had been accidentally posted, but not what it was about. This document is genuine and was copied from the Chronicle website in the hour or two it was online by somebody and has...