Free Republic

  State lawmakers in Texas have passed legislation that permits public schools to display nativity scenes, menorahs, or Christmas trees, and allows students and school district staff to use greetings such as, “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah,” and “Happy Holidays.” According to Fox News in Austin, the legislation (HB 308), introduced by Rep. Dwayne Bohac (R-Houston) and dubbed “The Merry Christmas Bill,” received overwhelming approval in the state house, by a margin of 145-2, and was passed unanimously in the state senate, 29-0. The bill will now be sent to Gov. Rick Perry (R) for his signature. “I was a...

You know the rule by now: If the headline asks the question, the story most likely provides the less exciting/sensational/terrifying (in this case, definitely the third) answer. From the very Telegraph article that Drudge links to: Despite the increasingly belligerent rhetoric and new images emerging from the North Korean regime, analysts believe its missiles are not capable of striking targets as far away as the US mainland and are not, as yet, capable of delivering a nuclear payload. North Korea's state-media announced earlier today that Kim Jong-un has ordered his missile units on standby to strike the United States and...

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has warned a group of UN-affiliated “international election observers” that they could be subject to criminal prosecution if they breach state laws by being within 100 feet of polling place entrances.The US State Department issued a warning as well. No, not to the election observers — to Texas:International election observers planning to visit Texas polling places have “full immunity” from being arrested in the United States, the State Department said when discussing a letter from the Texas Attorney General.“I’m not going to get into any kind of hypothetical situations or predict where this is going...

International election observers planning to visit Texas polling places have “full immunity” from being arrested in the United States, the State Department said when discussing a letter from the Texas Attorney General. “I’m not going to get into any kind of hypothetical situations or predict where this is going to go other than to say we have every expectation that this will be worked out and to state the fact, which is that under U.S. law they are eligible for immunities,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. Reporters tried to get her to state explicitly that Texas could not arrest...

AUSTIN – State Attorney General Greg Abbott's admonition that international election observers – part of what the Texas Secretary of State's office called a long-standing exchange program to promote learning – could be criminally prosecuted if they overstep Texas law was deemed "unacceptable" by the group's director. The flap was prompted when Abbott wrote a letter to Ambassador Daan Everts at the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The Republican attorney general, in a press release announcing the letter, noted the group is "a United Nations partner." Some conservatives and...

Left-wing groups have gone to international organizations in the run up to this election, seeking to apply global governance to the United States. The results of this is that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, not the UN as is often reported) has announced it will send election observers, with the implication that Voter ID laws are a problem.Now, the reason they’re only investigating Republican-run areas is that Republicans would never run to the OSCE or anyone else to interfere with American elections. But that said, we must not let the OSCE observers think they are above...

An image that could easily be mistaken for coming out of St. Petersburg, Russia has emerged from Dallas, Texas, where a couple was arrested for attempting to obtain a marriage license. Details follow. Mark "Major" Jiminez and Beau Chandler were lead out of the Dallas County Clerk's Office on Thursday in handcuffs. The couple applied for a marriage license and refused to leave the office after being denied based on their sexual orientation. The Dallas Voice reports: Once in the license bureau on Thursday afternoon, Chandler and Jiminez filled out the paperwork. Chandler crossed out the word “bride” and wrote...

The Obama administration has turned down a request from Texas to run its Title X family planning program, funded with federal taxpayer dollars, without funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The adminsitration sent a letter to inform the Texas Health and Human Services Commission of its intent to deny a request to extend the Medicaid Women’s Health Program if Texas complies with its law banning contractors “that perform or promote elective abortions or affiliate with entities that perform or promote elective abortions.” Earlier this year, Texas yanked about $64 million in funding from Planned Parenthood and directed the funds to...

Texas is its own place. Known for oil, cowboys, cattle, and distinguished swagger, it is the kind of place to which newcomers adapt rather than one which bends for newcomers. Not surprising for a place that used to be its own country. Thus the oft’ spoken motto, “Don’t mess with Texas.” Yet Texas is a big place, and phrases like “remember the Alamo” and “Texas proud” resonate from Galveston beaches to Amarillo plains. And that’s a good thing, because right between those beaches and those plains, a fight is brewing that’s winnable, but which requires some backbone. Case in point:...

According to the survey, which was released Monday, 28 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support Perry as their party's presidential nominee, with Romney at 21 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is at ten percent, with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who's making his third bid for the White House, former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, all at seven percent. The poll indicates that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is at four percent, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at three...

September 18, 2011 "We have had several Texas presidents, but none so deeply, intensely Texas as this guy would be." Man, Rick Perry is freaking out the New York Times. Gail Collins is all: You think of Rick Perry, you think of Texas. And more Texas. Perry the cowboy coyote-killer, the lord of the Texas job-creation machine, the g-dropping glad-hander with a “howdy” for every stranger in the room. He barely exists in the national mind outside of the Texas connection.And Maureen Dowd is all over the place talking about Perry with references to an obvious and old Hollywood movie....

UNITED NATIONS, July 8 (UPI) -- The Texas execution of a Mexican national puts the United States in violation of international law, the U.N. human rights chief said Friday. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said federations like the United States have a responsibility to ensure that individual states "respect the international responsibilities assumed by the country as a whole." ...."I am very disappointed that neither the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles nor the governor took steps open to them to prevent this breach of the U.S. obligations under international law from occurring," Pillay said.

GENEVA (AP) -- The U.N.'s top human rights official says the U.S. breached international law when it executed a Mexican citizen.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says the United States breached international law by executing a Mexican national. Navi Pillay, in a statement Friday, said he deeply regrets the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia, after a last-minute 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a stay of execution Thursday night. "The execution of Mr. Leal Garcia places the U.S. in breach of international law," said Pillay, who is currently on official mission in Mexico. "What the state of Texas has done in this case is imputable in law to the U.S. and engages the United States' international...

Obama And The U.N. Trying To Delay Texas’ Execution Of Humberto Leal John G. Winder, The Cypress Times July 4, 2011 Leal is a Mexican national who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 16-year old girl WASHINGTON, DC – The Obama administration has gone to the Supreme Court to seek a delay of the execution of convicted kidnapper, rapist and murderer Humberto Leal. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has written a letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry asking him to commute Leal’s death sentence. In 1994 Humberto Leal, a Mexican national, viciously abducted, raped and murdered 16-year old...

AUSTIN — The Department of Public Safety would be given the power to establish driver's license and insurance checkpoints along state roads as part of a broader border security bill introduced Thursday. The checkpoint provision is part of a bill that supporters say would crack down on drug cartels and human smuggling rings operating in Texas. It would require that every person booked into prison in Texas have their citizenship checked. It also would increase criminal penalties for gang and cartel members and increase fines for drug crimes. “We want to have a package that's focused on solving our unique...

In the war on terror, add a trucking service center in Texas to the front lines. On Thursday, the FBI arrested Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old Saudi student studying in Texas. The investigation began more than three weeks ago, on Feb. 1. A company flagged Aldawsari’s purchase of phenol, which can be used to make explosives. On that same day, Con-way (CNW) also alerted the agency after detecting a suspicious package in its Lubbock, Texas service center. Today the company issued a press release detailing its involvement in the investigation after it received the package: Based on training and experience,...

Lance Brown dissects and dismantles the Obama EPA's latest attack on the Lone Star State. Here’s some advice for the Environmental Protection Agency: Don’t mess with Texas.Furthermore, don’t mess with our nation’s most affordable and reliable forms of energy, either.After declaring greenhouse gases hazardous earlier this year, the EPA plans to use the Clean Air Act to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from emitters of all sizes beginning January 2011. The EPA’s plan has been widely criticized for being too burdensome and expensive, so the EPA attempted to downsize the plan with a “Tailoring Rule,” targeting only the largest emitters.In...

LA MARQUE — A 56-year-old woman fended off an armed attacker in a Walmart parking lot in La Marque, pulled a pistol and put at least one hole in the assailant's fleeing vehicle, La Marque police said today. The woman, whom police declined to name, struggled with a man trying to take her car shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, Detective Danielle Herman said in a written statement. The woman, a concealed handgun permit holder, managed to grab a pistol from the car console and pointed it at the man, who fled to a silver or gray SUV driven by an...

New Black Panthers come to protest Texan who shot 2 blacks burglarizing a neighbor's home - they were very unwelcome. Compelling video as their attempted speech making was shouted down.