Free Republic

Deeply disturbed by the accounting of American deceit in Vietnam, he approached The New York Times. The disclosures that followed rocked the nation. Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who after experiencing a sobbing antiwar epiphany on a bathroom floor made the momentous decision in 1971 to disclose a secret history of American lies and deceit in Vietnam, what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at his home in Kensington, Calif. He was 92. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his wife and children said in a statement.

Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence Monday, March 17, 2003 WASHINGTON — Invoking the name of a Pentagon whistle-blower, a small group of retired, anti-war CIA officers are accusing the Bush administration of manipulating evidence against Iraq in order to push war while burying evidence that could show Iraq's compliance with U.N demands for disarmament. The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the...

AUSTIN — After months spent hashing out how to pay the $1.6 billion tab, North Texas' most pressing freeway need at long last gained the blessing of the Texas Transportation Commission at its Thursday meeting. The Texas Department of Transportation now has its governing body's approval to seek bids on 10.8 miles of Interstate 635 between Central Expressway and Interstate 30 — known as LBJ East to planners. A contract will be awarded in the summer of 2019, and construction is to finish in 2024. The result will be another free lane in each direction, continuous frontage roads that the...

Several key Central Texas highway projects — including expansions of U.S. 183 in North Austin, U.S. 290 in Southwest Austin and Interstate 35 through the heart of the area — are once again in limbo after Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last week staked out firm anti-toll positions. “Right now there’s a billion dollars worth of projects on hold, between 183 and Oak Hill,” said Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. The I-35 project, estimated to cost $8 billion to add toll lanes and other improvements from Round Rock to Buda, was...

I’m sure we’re all relieved to know that after the many media debacles in the last few election cycles, the cable news denizens have learned their lesson. This time around things are going to be different. Candidates will be treated fairly, with an opportunity to make their case before the American people while being subjected to rigorous examination of their actual record and their stated positions on the issues.Naw, I’m just kidding. Nothing has actually changed at all. And to lead off the two year parade of embarrassing media moments, MSNBC featured an interview with Texas Governor Rick Perry...

Internet old-timers - those of us over age 25 - remember a time when the web was called the Information Superhighway. The debate over net neutrality has us thinking about another sort of highway: the Trans-Texas Corridor. The TTC, a proposed 4,000-mile toll road, rail and utility project, died a death of a thousand cuts in 2010. First proposed as a much-needed infrastructure investment, the well-intentioned project grew into a monstrosity of politically connected contractors, private property concerns and conspiracy theories. The biggest blow to TTC was statewide opposition to granting Spanish-owned developer Cintra a 50-year, multibillion-dollar deal to control...

Over his eight years as Texas' farmer-in-chief, Perry oversaw a loan guarantee program with so many defaults that the state had to stop guaranteeing bank loans to startups in agribusiness and eventually bailed out the program with taxpayer money. The state auditor panned Perry's claims of creating jobs and criticized Perry and his fellow board members at the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority for not following their own lending guidelines. In some instances, the auditor said, Perry and the authority guaranteed loans to applicants with a negative net worth or too much debt. Citing growing debts, the auditor finally suggested that...

The governor’s 2012 rivals have latched onto his executive order mandating the HPV vaccine and his advocacy for in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, while little has been said about his unrealized 1,200-foot-wide toll road project that would have swallowed more than 500,000 acres of Texas farmland and wildlife habitats. But as the focus of debates increasingly turn toward President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda — a plan calling for a heavy dose of infrastructure investment — that may change. “Pay to play, cronyism — all those charges can be found right here in the Trans-Texas Corridor,” said Terri Hall, founder and...

The less the Trans-Texas Corridor is brought up during the Republican presidential primaries, the better for Rick Perry. Although it was officially killed in the most recent Texas legislative session, the proposed massive transportation and infrastructure project and ensuing debacle could still end up being a thorn in the governor's side as he preaches his anti-big government mantra on the campaign trail. As originally proposed and backed by Perry, the state of Texas would have taken more than 500,000 acres of private land to build the 1,200-foot-wide toll road. The majority of those acres were agricultural lands and wildlife habitats,...

Veterans for Rick Perry, a candidate committee under Federal Election Commission rules, today called upon Texas Governor Rick Perry to enter the race for President of the United States. "As a veteran with a solid record of supporting veterans and military issues in the State of Texas, we believe Governor Perry is the best person for the job of President," said Dan Shelley, Air Force veteran and founder of Veterans for Rick Perry. "We believe Governor Perry is uniquely qualified to lead our nation through the trials that lie ahead. He has demonstrated an ability to reduce government and keep...

Jul 20, 2011 — Will the Texas governor elbow his way into the crowded presidential race? Longtime Perry watcher Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune talks about why he thinks Perry will run and what kind of candidate he'd be. [snip] We spoke with the Texas Tribune's Evan Smith about the man he has followed since the early 1990s. A former editor of Texas Monthly magazine, Smith says he's convinced Perry will make a run at the White House, and tells us why other Republican hopefuls should be worried.

Should Rick Perry conclude that voter discontent has left him an opening to enter the presidential race, the Texas governor would be among the Republican field's most conservative candidates. Rick Perry rejects the idea of global warming and the theory of evolution, arguing for natural climate variations and intelligent design of the universe. He branded Social Security and other New Deal safety net programmes "the second big step in the march of socialism," according to a book published last year. The "first step" was a national income tax, which he has said stands alongside the direct election of US senators...

Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry leads Barack Obama 45 percent to 42 percent among North Carolina voters in a potential presidential matchup, according to a new poll released by the Civitas Institute. Republican (81 percent Perry - 8 percent Obama) and Democratic voter (17 percent Perry - 69 percent Obama) support falls along party lines between the potential candidates. Unaffiliated voters, the fastest growing voter segment in the state, would choose Perry over Obama by a 53 percent to 32 percent margin.

Gov. Rick Perry's political stock has soared in recent months as he has traveled the country touting a decade of fiscal restraint in Texas under his leadership. Last month, Perry made Texas history by signing a two-year state budget that cuts overall spending for the first time in over 40 years. Perry has long promoted the state's fiscal record as a model for the country and a key to why Texas has weathered the recession better than most other states. He has opposed new taxes and been vehemently anti-Washington, and his message is drawing interest among Republican primary voters nationwide....

Is Rick Perry Running? ‘Absolutely,’ Says Texas Monthly Editor July 15, 2011 1:56 PM ABC News’ Rick Klein (@rickklein) reports: Look for another entry into the Republican field: Texas Gov. Rick Perry is poised to jump into the race for the presidency in the coming weeks, Texas Monthly senior executive editor Paul Burka told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today. “Absolutely. He's running,” Burka said. “He's been talking about it with his family -- his family's behind him. His friends are behind him. And I really think this something that came -- that started in 2010 when he was running...

As he weighs whether to jump into the 2012 Republican presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been dialing GOP establishment bigwigs across the country. In phone calls that sometimes stretch more than a half hour, Perry asks the same questions: Is the door open for a new candidate? And how wide is it open? Perry is finding that a vast reservoir of the Republican Party establishment — broadly defined to include elected officials, donors, strategists and activists whose support fuels presidential campaigns — is so far untapped, according to interviews conducted Monday and Tuesday with 19 major donors, strategists...

According to the New York Times’ David Brooks, Republican hardliners against tax increases are turning the GOP into a “psychological protest” rather than a “normal political party.” Brooks is upset that after having forced Democrats to come far closer to their position on taxes and spending in order to cut a deal to extend the national debt ceiling, there is little chance the House majority will embrace what he considers to be “the deal of the century.” To Brooks, the Democrats’ offer on the debt ceiling is the “Mother of All No-Brainers,” and his anger at the GOP’s insistence that...

Once again, Gov. Rick Perry’s former liaison to the Legislature is working for the Spanish company that won the rights to develop the $7 billion Trans-Texas Corridor. Lobbyist Dan Shelley worked for the firm as a consultant just before he went to the governor’s office, a connection first revealed in 2004. State officials denied any connection between that circumstance and the decision, three months later, to award Cintra the huge highway contract. Now, Mr. Shelley has left the governor’s office, and he and his daughter have large contracts to lobby for the road builder. This week, Mr. Shelley had planned...

If Rick Perry does mount a successful bid for the U.S. presidency, it will be interesting to see whether he can translate his past and present criticisms of the federal government into concrete changes to the sprawling bureaucracy. Perry has yet to say he will or won’t toss his hat into the Republican race for the right to square off against President Barack Obama in 2012. He is, however, making all the moves of a potential candidate testing the waters. Insiders are mixed on the odds. Some say he’s definitely in; others put the odds at 50-50. But the mere...

Rick Perry has started calling Iowa Republicans and a former RNC finance chairman is helping to convene a meeting of national donors later this month in Austin to discuss financing a potential 2012 campaign — signs that the Texas governor and his allies are stepping up their exploratory efforts. The developments come as Perry is being watched by a string of donors, early-state voters and elites who say they're disenchanted, and in search of a stronger candidate. Continue Reading Republican activist Joni Scotter told POLITICO she got a surprise phone call this afternoon from Perry, asking about the political landscape...