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No, you won't be able to keep your insurance if you like it.... Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit...

The recent cases of a right-to-life extremist accused of killing an abortion doctor in Kansas and an elderly white supremacist accused in the fatal shooting of a Holocaust museum guard in Washington, D.C., match warnings in the report. It concluded individuals with white supremacist views, acting as so-called lone wolves, pose the most significant domestic terrorism threat because they are difficult for law enforcement to detect before they commit crimes. Right-wing extremism is not a liberal figment of the imagination. As the DHS report and recent incidents make clear, it is a growing threat and a valid concern for federal...

For the second straight week, 37% of likely voters say the United States is heading in the right direction. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 55% believe the nation is heading down the wrong track. That’s down from 57% last week. While both numbers have remained fairly consistent over the past few weeks, the percentage who say the nation is heading in the right direction is up 10 points from the week Barack Obama was inaugurated as President in January and up 16 points from the week he was elected in November. Sixty-five percent (65%) of Democratic...

The Department of Justice on Tuesday said the state of Georgia's system cannot check driver’s license information and Social Security numbers to prove that prospective voters are U.S. citizens. Georgia’s voters have an entirely different perspective. Rasmussen Reports polling conducted during Election 2008 found that 77% said prospective voters should first be required to show a legal photo ID first. Georgia’s voters also held that view two years earlier despite a state judge’s ruling that a new law requiring a photo ID at the polls was a violation of the state constitution. Nationally, three-out-of-four U.S. voters (76%) said a person...

Obama's liberal philosophy dictates that when the news is bad, shoot the messenger. The newest data from Arbitron, the company charged with measuring the size of radio audiences, suggests that listenership to hip hop, inner city, and minority radio has been overstated in the past and that the popularity of conservative talk radio has been under-reported. This conclusion - ideologically inconvenient for Obama - comes from the company's decision to dispense with the Stone Age way it has been measuring radio audiences - by hand written diaries based on listener memory - with modern machines which automatically record what the...

FBI is advising law enforcement officers across the country that a Texas cell of Los Zetas — an increasingly powerful arm of the Mexican Gulf Cartel drug trafficking syndicate — has acquired a secluded ranch where it trains its members to “neutralize” competitors in the United States.

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas -- School districts in Texas near San Antonio have begun to shut down because of fears of swine flu, San Antonio's KSAT-TV reported. Both the Comal and New Braunfels independent school districts announced on their respective Web sites and phone system they will close their campuses. The closures will last until May 11. The decision includes all private schools in the county, as well as any after-school or extra-curricular activities. Parents in the area also reported that day care facilities were also shutting down. The announcement for the Comal ISD came after the recommendation of the Comal...

Should Obama Control the Internet? A new bill would give the President emergency authority to halt web traffic and access private data. Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency? Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians. The Cybersecurity Act...

Secession talk was just the beginning as he prepares to host forum on Obama Darling of the Tea Party conservatives, a bad whiff of the Old South, or Gov. Who? “This was a throwback to the Old South, a South that was out of the mainstream and viewed as something of an embarrassment. You think of people like George Wallace when you think of the claim of states’ rights. I don’t think that’s the image that modern Texas wants,” Sabato said.

AUSTIN — Teacher and school employee criminal histories for anything other than the most violent and sex-driven crimes would be kept from the public under legislation that received tentative approval from the Texas House on Thursday. The measure, sought by teacher groups, received preliminary approval from the House on a non-recorded voice vote.

Texas led the nation as the source of known weapons smuggled into Mexico with 40 percent of the total, or 4,800 firearms in 2008 — a year in which a record number of confiscated weapons were traced to U.S. retailers. The number of firearms — 12,073 — is more than double that in the previous two years combined, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reported. The 2008 figure brings the total number of guns confirmed as having been bought in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico to 22,848 since 2005. California was the No. 2 source with...

As part of its Islamic-based business model, Guidance Residential featured a recitation from the Quran by Noorulhuda Khalid, 10, during a recent gathering for prospective borrowers at the Mezban Curry and Grill restaurant in Houston. Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponFor five years after moving to Houston, Pakistani immigrant Abdul-Jabbar Khan rented an apartment even though he had saved enough money to make a down payment on a house.

Fredericksburg, Texas, population 10,500 (2005 census) Huge turnout for a small town. What this post can't convey is the support from all the truckers passing through with full-volume air horns of support. One had to hear it to understand. The estimated Tea Party crowd was 500 people. The Marketplaz was filled to the brim as speaker after speaker entertained the crowd of democrats, independents, and republicans. Even Thomas Jefferson showed up and reminded the crowd of the responsibilities of each and every American. Thomas Jefferson & Mayor of Fredericksburg, TexasThe court house crowd...the overflow crowd stayed at the Marketplaz.

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to...

But the most troubling, irresponsible one of all is a bill to allow concealed weapons on college campuses. Authored by Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, it seems to have enough support to pass the House. In the Senate, 13 of the 31 members have promised their support for an identical bill authored by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio.

ROCHESTER, Pa. -- On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That's when the trouble started. A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church's kitchen, spied the desserts. After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn't be sold.

Gun control advocates said if a man who complained about not getting enough in unemployment benefits could afford enough ammunition to repeatedly practice shooting and go into his killing zone with a satchel of bullets around his neck, new ways are needed to stem gun violence, including raising the price of ammunition.

WASHINGTON — Tinkering with Earth’s climate to chill runaway global warming — a radical idea once dismissed out of hand — is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president’s new science adviser said Wednesday.

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

AUSTIN — Texans would be allowed to stow their guns and ammo inside their locked cars or trucks while at work and parked on employer property under a controversial bill passed Wednesday by the state Senate. The Senate voted 31-0 to prohibit employers from enforcing restrictions against employees possessing a legally owned handgun or ammunition inside a locked vehicle while in a company parking lot. Firearms and ammo must be stored out of sight.