Free Republic

SAN ANTONIO -- A man was shot to death after an apparent burglary late Sunday. The shooting happened on the 5,200 block of Northwest Trails just before 11:00 p.m. Police were called after a man's body was found in a grassy area on the side of the road. The 26-year-old had been shot and killed after police say he burglarized a home off Timber Laurel earlier in the night. Investigators told News 4 WOAI the homeowner recognized the man who kicked in his door, and he and his brother were able to track the intruder down a few blocks away....

One-third of Travis Elementary School pupil missed school Thursday because of a mysterious illness, leaving Houston ISD and city officials scrambling to diagnose the cause. They suspect a virus is behind the fevers, headaches and stomachaches that sidelined 242 children, including about 80 percent of the third grade at the Heights neighborhood school. That’s a sharp increase from the 86 students who stayed home sick Wednesday, when educators were forced to cancel an extensive third-grade field trip. “I felt like really bad,” said 8-year-old Luke Morrison, who was too sick to attempt the much-anticipated trip. “I just was scared. I...

A Texas lawmaker wants to further push state sovereignty from the federal government. Rep. Leo Berman, a former Arlington mayor pro tem, has filed a bill to make guns, ammunition and gun parts that are made, sold and kept in Texas free from federal regulation. That would exempt them from federal gun registration, dealer licensing rules and buyer background checks. State laws would still apply. "This does two things," said Berman, a Tyler Republican. "It tests our sovereignty in relationship to the federal government, and it would attract new small gun manufacturers to the state to manufacture certain types of...

A citizen with a “concealed-carry” handgun license shot out a tire on a car full of fleeing shoplifters, then followed them in his own vehicle Wednesday morning, helping Azle police apprehend four people who were subsequently charged with robbery. Police officers from at least three agencies caught up with everyone in a neighborhood behind Allsup’s convenience store off Highway 199 west of Azle. Four accused shoplifters had been spotted by employees of Albertsons grocery store and were attempting a getaway with less than $50 worth of miscellaneous items when they were spotted by a citizen in the parking lot. The...

A Catholic state legislator in Texas has introduced shocking new legislation that would effectively reduce infanticide to a fineable offense for the first 12 months of a baby's life. The bill states that if a mother kills her own child within the child's first 12 months of life due to past partum depression, the murder would be downgraded and punishable by relatively short jail stay and/or a fine. The bill, according to the House Committee Report, would amend the Penal Code relating to the punishment stage of a trial in which a defendant is guilty of causing the death of...

Cowboys training bubble with team inside collapese during storm. Several injuries...Breaking now...

The state’s largest farm organization is in favor of legislation that would terminate the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in both name and concept. Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke expressed support for HB 11 by State Rep. David McQuade Leibowitz (D-San Antonio), which repeals the authority for the establishment and operation of the massive transportation project. “We hope you will agree with us that it is finally time to kill the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Dierschke testified before the House Transportation Committee on April 21. Although the farm organization recognizes the need to build and maintain Texas’ infrastructure, Dierschke said Texas Farm Bureau...

This is the latest 60 second video from Priests for Life.

Cowards killed Marcus Luttrell's dog, Dasy. *snip* One of suspects remains at large — there is a warrant for his arrest. Have you seen Michael Edmonds? If you have any information about his whereabouts, please call the Texas Rangers in Huntsville, Texas at: (936) 435-0152 and ask for Sgt. Steven Jeter.

Blustery weather that rolled across Texas on Thursday apparently downed power lines, sparking a fire that destroyed about 34 homes in a small town near Lake Corpus Christi, authorities said. One volunteer firefighter was burned and two other people suffered minor injuries in the afternoon fire that burned 175 acres in Lagarto in southern Live Oak County, the Texas Forest Service said. A spokeswoman at the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office said not all of the homes that burned were occupied. Three shelters were set up, and the Coastal Bend-Texas Chapter of the American Red Cross had set up a...

During an emotional moment at the Dallas Women's Museum, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison praised Hillary Rodham Clinton for "keeping a confident face" during the 2008 presidential campaign when "you were getting so many disappointments." "You were completely devastated and you never let it show on your face," Hutchison said during the forum. "That character is why you are secretary of state today."

There will be a Tea Party in Arlington, TX on April 15 from 4:30 P.M. till 7:30 P.M.. The Tea Party is being held at Southern Recipies Grill at 2715 Collins Street, Arlington, TX 76006. Meet on back patio and bring your signs. The owner requests we use the far back parking lot and there is additional parking close by. Go to www.arlington.blogspot.com for details. This is a total grassroots, last minute effort so please join us regular citizens to show our disgust with Congress and the direction this country is taking. This is no time for complaceny. Be there...

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PORTLAND — A former Washington state Transportation Department engineer yesterday has found himself, his imam and his mosque swept into an unfolding investigation by Portland's joint terrorism force led by the FBI. Farid Adlouni, a civil engineer and U.S. citizen who once worked out of the Vancouver office, was profiled in The Oregonian newspaper yesterday as a man with business ties to a top Osama bin Laden aide and who has attracted FBI scrutiny. Adlouni, 38, yesterday said he had "done nothing wrong." The imam, Mohammad Abdirahman Kariye, also a U.S. citizen, was recently charged with two felony counts of...

Walked over to Juarez Mexico this morning...took some clips of the many soldiers deployed on the streets...they are everywhere. Thought fellow freeper might like to see a compilation of clips so I uploaded to youtube....if you click the [HD] box you can watch it in nearly the original quality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFNM4VM236E

The public will finally get an opportunity to speak about federal stimulus funding. A state legislative committee will conduct a field hearing Saturday morning in Arlington to take public testimony about the American Recovery and Investment Act. In Texas cities and counties, some officials see the federal funds as a jump-start for long-overdue purchases, but others worry that the one-time of use of federal funds will create unforeseen expenses down the road. "Pretty much across the board, people are concerned about the strings," said state Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller and a member of the House Select Committee on Federal Economic...

The Gulf Cartel in Mexico has now been deemed the biggest terroristic threat in the United States, including in North Texas. In recent months, there have been no kidnappings or deaths related to the Gulf Cartel in North Texas, authorities say. However, a large task force recently arrested dozens of cartel members and confiscated millions in cash, drugs and weapons. The Gulf Cartel has been called one of the most dangerous groups in the world, and authorities said they have waged a war to control all the drugs coming into the U.S. from Mexico. "They are fighting back with the...

George Orwell, call your office !If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then city mayors follow a very close second.  In fact, it occurs to me they may be the spiritual offspring of the aforementioned liaisons.  Whenever there is loose change or unclaimed dollar bills laying around, mayors can smell them a mile away and if a Sugar Daddy offers free cash, they never stop to question what the vigorish might be.  The urban emperors, suburban commissars, the hack and the highbrow, the Republican and Democrat, the apolitical and amoral, the exurban apparatchiks all assemble to line dance down Pennsylvania Avenue like ladies of the...

LUBBOCK, Texas: A hacked electronic highway sign in northern Texas carried a warning not seen much since the American Revolution. On Friday, the sign briefly flashed: "OMG The British R coming. They R watching you." KCBD-TV reported the electronic sign was in a construction area in southwest Lubbock.

Several of the GOP's most prominent governors blasted the stimulus plan making its way through Congress Thursday, urging Senate Republicans to resist passing the bill and taking aim at what they called unnecessary spending in the package. "The legislation currently being considered includes excess spending and impedes states' abilities to manage their own programs," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. "I will oppose any stimulus package that increases states' costs and taxes, or results in federal control over state-administered programs. Barbour concluded: "The best stimulus package is one that includes tax cuts and real job creation initiatives that can have an...

Police in Houston, Texas put pressure on a Rice University professor to alter negative data compiled while studying Houston's red light camera program, according to documents released in a lawsuit against the city. Houston Mayor Bill White had selected Urban Politics Professor Robert Stein to create a report on the engineering safety performance of the first fifty automated ticketing machines installed (view study released in December). Stein represented an ideal choice because his wife, Marty, is employed by the city of Houston as a top aide to the mayor. In a November 2007 email, White emphasized his personal interest in...

A yellow school bus overflowing with more than 3 tons of marijuana was found parked on the shoulder of U.S. 59 on Saturday. "It's an uncommon occurrence," said Maria Guadalupe Garza, a Texas Department of Public Safety lieutenant. "We don't see that amount of marijuana very often." Garza said that at about 8:30 a.m., a DPS trooper spotted the school bus on highway's shoulder, about four miles outside Laredo city limits. The trooper pulled up behind the bus, which was headed toward Laredo, and exited his vehicle to see if everything was OK, said Garza, of DPS' narcotics division. As...

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - According to the Texas Department of Transportation, 98% of all DWI arrests stem from the person driving a car, truck, or motocycle. But that last 2% can leave the door wide open, as the Nacogdoches Police Department found out late Monday night. "It is one of those things that you kind of stop and chuckle," said NPD Information Officer Segeant Greg Sowell. But it was no laughing matter, Nacogdoches police had to hit the law books for an unusual incident. Late Monday night, Gerald Herbert Jr., was arrested for driving while intoxicated. But he was not...

A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 blowout has apologized to the losing school, calling the game "shameful and an embarrassment."

It was the storm of the century - the 20th century.  Before Katrina became shorthand for nature's fury, there was the unnamed hurricane of 1900 that nearly wiped Galveston, Tex., off the map. An estimated 6,000 people were killed when the Category 4 storm packing 135 mph winds made landfall on Sept. 8, 1900, making it the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.  Now it could get whacked again by Hurricane Ike.LIVE TRACKER: FOLLOW IKE'S PATH In 1900, Galveston, located on a flat island off the Texas coast, was a boom town with 42,000 residents. It was then the biggest...

Two years ago, lawmakers went to war with Gov. Rick Perry over his push to privatize Texas toll roads, but their efforts to stop the idea largely failed. As they return Tuesday to launch the 2009 legislative session, lawmakers will be faced with a choice of either raising taxes – which both Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst have called a bad idea – or giving private companies a greater role in paying for, and operating, a fast-expanding network of toll roads. The two-year moratorium on private road deals that passed in 2007 slowed but didn't kill Perry's plan to...

Pro Israel Rallies (Jan 2009)"Fundamentalism no, human rights yes!” -  ...pro-Israel rally in Poland. EuropeNews January 10 2009. „Fundamentalism no, human rights yes! ... Oslo: Anti-Israel demonstration turns ugly ...http://europenews.dk/en/node/18162Pro-Israel groups demonstrate in Germany against Hamas - Summary ... - 11 Jan 2009 ... Frankfurt - Thousands of people attended demonstrations organized by pro-Israel groups in several German cities on Sunday against the ...http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/249951,pro-israel-groups-demonstrate-in-germany-against-hama s--summary.htmlThousands attend pro-Israel rallies in U.K. and Germany - Haaretz ...11 Jan 2009 ... Thousands attend pro-Israel rallies in UK and Germany-News and commentary ... !! it is an anti israel demonstration, stop twisting truth ...http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEng.jhtml?itemNo=1054494&contrassID=1&subContrassI...

CNN) -- Robbie Tolan sits in a Houston, Texas, hospital bed with a bullet from a police officer's gun lodged in his liver. ------------------cut----------------------- "There's no doubt in my mind that if these had been white kids this does not happen," said David Berg, Tolan's attorney. It was 2 a.m. on December 31 when Tolan and his cousin, Anthony Cooper, were confronted in the driveway of their home by Bellaire, Texas, police officers. Police officials say the officers suspected the two young men were driving a stolen car. --------------------------cut---------------------- As they walked up the driveway to their home, Anthony Cooper...

The Texas Department of Transportation made an announcement Tuesday that sounded like bad news for South Texas, but isn’t — its multibillion-dollar state infrastructure plan known as the Trans-Texas Corridor is dead. The key part of the plan for South Texas, known as I-69, is not. The state’s $180 billion plan, announced seven years ago, called for thousands of miles of 1,200-foot-wide traffic facilities to include toll roads for vehicles, rail for passengers and freight, and technology and power infrastructure such as fiber optic lines. Tuesday’s announcement by Texas Department of Transportation executive director Amadeo Saenz was a reaction to...

Bandera local farmers and rancher charge that the I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor Tier One Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has failed to meet important environmental standards. Barbara Mazurek, Bandera County Farm Bureau President says that these failures are indicative of the problems that exist with the entire Tran-Texas Corridor (TTC). “Because these environmental standards have not been met, the Texas Department of Transportation should seriously consider alternatives to its current model,” Mazurek said. According to Mazurek, there are three main reasons that the DEIS is flawed. • It limits its analysis to alternatives that fit the TTC “vision” of a multimodal...

AUSTIN, Texas — If anyone wondered whether Texas toll road rage had subsided or lawmakers' irritation at the Texas Department of Transportation had eased, those questions got answered a few days before Christmas: Not so much. Denouncing the massive transportation agency as dysfunctional and out of control, a group of lawmakers reviewing the department said it will be intensely debated in the legislative session that begins Jan. 13. "This is a big agency that is a mess," said Rep. Carl Isett, a Lubbock Republican and one of the leaders of the Sunset Advisory Commission that periodically examines state agencies. He...

President and Mrs. Bush returned to the White House today from Crawford TX where they spent part of the holidays.

The Texas Legislature is coming back Jan. 13, and change may be in the air. The Sunset Advisory Commission, by a narrow margin, recently voted to abolish the five-member commission that oversees the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoOT), and replace it with a single commissioner. This is but the latest in the continuing evolution of Texas state government. When legislators think an agency isn’t working right, the urges generally are to change the agency’s personnel; to change the agency’s structure; to combine it with some other agency; to investigate it; or to abolish it. Such it is with TxDOT. In...

Sorry for the vanity. I have finally decided to spend January 20th, 2009 at my local Veterans Cemetery saying a prayer for America, and the people that gave their lives to make her great. I hope others will join me at a memorial, or cemetery in your area. God bless our America.

County residents next week will have a chance to air concerns to state lawmakers and area leaders about Hurricane Ike recovery efforts. The committee on Hurricane Ike will meet at 10 a.m. Jan. 7 at the Galveston Island Convention Center, allowing the public to tell state lawmakers and area leaders what issues and obstacles they face almost four months after the storm struck Southeast Texas on Sept. 13, causing catastrophic flooding from storm surge and displacing thousands of people from their homes. The storm was the third most destructive to ever make landfall in the United States. The committee has...

KEMAH, Texas - A family of 15 spent their Christmas morning opening presents in a 14-by-60-foot trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, KPRC Local 2 reported. "Normally, we don't go real big, but we allowed them to because we haven't bought anything since the house flooded,"

While spots at the end of National Public Radio programming are usually met with little response, underwriting credits announcing support from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have had many listeners shaking their heads. "Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and the Department of Homeland Security," the announcer says, "offering E-Verify, confirming the legal working status of new hires. At D-H-S dot gov slash E-Verify." E-Verify plugs employers into government databases to check whether an individual is eligible to work in the United States. In the Rio Grande Valley, where listeners have witnessed the ongoing struggle between DHS and...

Confronted with a struggling transportation fund, lawmakers in Texas soon are expected to wage battle on various methods to help generate $14 billion for roads and bridges throughout the state. Another bill is intended to sideline the planned Trans-Texas Corridor. A report released this week from the Texas Department of Transportation says that the state will need to come up with $313 billion by 2030 for road and bridge maintenance and for congestion solutions. The report’s unveiling happened a couple of weeks before the Texas Legislature is set to convene its 2009 session. Lawmakers say they already were committed to...

McALLEN - So popular is the 7.62-caliber ammunition for AK-47 assault rifles that one store in this border city stacks shoebox-sized cases several feet high down half a row in the hunting section. Employees like Francisco Rodriguez, who works in the guns and ammo section of Academy Sports and Outdoors, tell stories about men piling shopping carts high with the $74 cases of 7.62-caliber rounds, as well as clearing shelves of 9 mm rounds and other ammunition for assault-style rifles. Several employees at other South Texas stores said customers routinely pay thousands in cash and wheel the stuff out, no...

AUSTIN — Legislators scrutinizing the embattled Texas Department of Transportation voted Tuesday to recommend replacing the existing five-member appointed transportation commission with a single commissioner. The Sunset Advisory Commission voted 7-5 for the recommendation, which would have to win approval in the full Legislature in the spring to take effect. Several senators on the sunset panel voted against the proposal, raising questions about whether the idea would make it through the Senate.

Fifteen-month-old Addison Bryan just got her first pair of shoes. Because of her disability, she can't walk in them. Another year could pass before Addison takes her first steps. But today at least 50 people will be walking for her, all supporting the hospital that has cared for her since birth. Jeff and Julie Bryan of Rockwall organized the team that's participating in today's Mayor's Race, a 5K fun run accompanying the Dallas White Rock Marathon. Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children is the marathon's primary beneficiary.

Arizona Sen. John McCain continued a call for national unity in his first speech since losing the presidential election. Though the Republican presidential nominee has made television appearances as recently as Thursday night, his remarks at the Texas Tech commencement ceremony Friday were part of his first address since his conciliation speech, Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said in his introduction. The senator's remarks to 350 Tech masters and doctoral graduates of a conservative campus in a conservative state echoed the call for cooperation he asked of his voters that night in November. Americans must argue and defend their vision for...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison filed papers today establishing an exploratory committee to run for Texas governor in 2010.

A citizens’ advisory committee appointed to advise the Texas Transportation Commission agrees with Texas Farm Bureau that the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) concept needs to be scrapped and new avenues explored to meet the Lone Star State's transportation needs, according to TFB President Kenneth Dierschke. “This advisory committee does not support the TTC concept,” A Citizens’ Report on the Current and Future Needs of the I-35 Corridor, issued Nov. 12, stated. “Instead we recommend a more inclusive solution that respects local communities and private property rights while addressing statewide and local transportation needs.” Dierschke said the state’s largest farm organization agrees...

As the printing presses for the bailouts run at full speed, those in power are no longer even pretending that the new giveaways will fix our problems. Now that we are used to rewarding failure with taxpayer-funded bailouts, we are being told that this is “just a start,” more funds will inevitably be needed for more industries, and that things would be much worse had we done nothing. The updated total bailout commitments add up to over $8 trillion now. This translates into a monetary base increase of 75 percent over the last two months. This money does not come...

I didn't vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary (I was a Mike Huckabee man), nor did I write him in on Election Day (I penciled in farmer-poet Wendell Berry). But no Texan this year did more good for conservatism and his country than the congressman from the coast. Lord knows there was no Republican in the 2008 campaign who talked straighter. Dr. Paul – he's a physician – never had a chance, of course. He is too peculiar in his opinions and doesn't know how to spin like a TV slick. What he had was ideas, integrity and...

Outgoing US President George W Bush plans to open a presidential library in Texas and found a Freedom Institute to promote democracy, his wife Laura Bush confirmed to Peru's El Comercio daily. "The President will build a library in Dallas, where we will move to, and a Freedom Institute," she said in an interview published on Sunday, as her husband wrapped up his participation in a weekend summit in Lima by Asia-Pacific leaders. "The institute will give us both the opportunity to work on issues that are very important to us," she said, according to the Spanish-language translation by 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...

Kemah Boardwalk partially reopens. The Boardwalk Bullet is up and running! Check it out!One of Kemah's greatest assets is its location on Galveston Bay. The Bay and Kemah waterfront draw visitors to Kemah from throughout the world. Hurricane Ike’s storm surge caused roughly $450 million in damage to Kemah homes, businesses and city infrastructure, this does not include the Kemah Boardwalk or Marina. Many restaurants and business have already re-opened and the Boardwalk is opening a few restaurants at a time should be in full swing well before spring break "Better than ever"!

A San Antonio lawmaker filed a bill that would repeal the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor. It’s not the first time he’s done so. In the 2007 legislative session, Rep. David Leibowitz filed an identical bill, but it languished in the House Transportation Committee without a hearing. Leibowitz spokesman Rob Borja said the legislation may have a better fate the second time around. At least four of the nine committee members will change this session, including the chairman. “Probably most important is there will be a new chairman, because the old chairman Mike Krusee wouldn’t let any bills...