Free Republic

The city of Galveston and Galveston County have been accused of negligence in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of a child and a man who drowned along the Houston Ship Channel nearly two years ago. Filed in the 10th Judicial District court in Galveston, the lawsuit claims the city and county were “grossly negligent” for not having warning signs or taking other safety measures to prevent the deaths of Cesar Barrios Jr., 6, and Herschel Hix Jr., 53. The city’s legal department declined to comment. However, Don Glywasky, an attorney in the county’s legal department, said what...

AUSTIN -- A federal grand jury indicted former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales and a longtime friend Thursday for allegedly trying to defraud the state of hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees in the state's anti-tobacco lawsuit. The panel also charged Morales with illegally using political funds to help purchase a $775,000 house and of filing false income tax returns for 1998. "This is a case of an elected official charged with abusing the public trust," said U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who announced the indictments. Morales was charged with 12 counts of mail fraud, conspiracy, filing a false...

There is only one nuclear power in the Middle East: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that refuses to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that stands in defiance of more than 60 United Nations resolutions: Israel. There is only one country in the Middle East that invaded and continues to occupy land belonging to its neighbors: Israel. I am not setting out to bash Israel, but...

After winning a judgment of more than $5,000 but seeing Home Depot balk at paying, Virgil Zoth finally found a way to get the giant retailer's attention. Flanked by constable's deputies, the Deer Park resident walked into his local Home Depot earlier this month and seized nine John Deere riding lawnmowers. Now the Atlanta-based corporation is ready to write him a check. Zoth says he'll believe it when the money's in his hands. "They lied before," he said Thursday. His long struggle with the company, which offers itself as a do-it-yourselfers Mecca, began last summer when he bought wall-to-wall carpet...

Any tax cut without an equivalent spending cut is a con job. Whatever money the tax cut provides will have to be paid back with interest. The government doesn't grow money on trees. What it spends it has to get by taxing us or by borrowing from that great fraud, the Federal Reserve System. President George W. Bush, the alleged conservative, has gone from a government surplus to a government deficit and intends to go right on creating an ever-larger annual deficit while at the same time making no effort whatsoever to reduce the national debt. In the long run,...

President Bush seems to be hinting that he hopes someone will shoot Saddam Hussein or that Saddam will decide to retire. All things are possible, but Saddam isn't the retiring type, and he certainly did not reach age 65 in his job by being an easy target. More than a decade ago, I wrote that the first George Bush had inadvertently provided Saddam with guaranteed protection against a coup. By making war on the Iraqi people and by so obviously being in the pocket of the Israelis, the United States assured that any Iraqi who tried to replace Saddam would...

Hubris Should Be Avoided A dangerous amount of hubris seems to be settling over Washington like fallout from a bomb. Hubris, of course, is the combination of arrogance and unwarranted assumptions. Recently, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said our "victory" in Afghanistan proves that we are the "most militarily powerful country in the history of the world." That's hubris, not to mention ignorance of matters both military and historical. We didn't fight in Afghanistan. We bribed warlords to do the fighting. We just bombed light infantry troops who had no air defense using advanced weapons. The outcome was no surprise and...

The American republic died at Appomattox in 1865, replaced by a national government that has gradually evolved into an empire in a permanent state of war. Most of us don't pay much attention to such stuff as history and perspective. Certainly the news media don't. Nevertheless, there are consequences of living in a war state, both to our own individual freedom and to our pocketbooks. This past week, President Bush made a big deal about signing a military authorization bill with a $30 billion increase. Here we are, 12 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and without a...

It goes without saying that liberals hate the free market, big business, even democracy when the voters disagree with them. If truth were known, they hate the human race — at least that part of it which is not them. Darn those human beings for not living their lives according to the liberal prescription. A sales pitch, masquerading as a book review, in The New York Times shows the liberal biases perfectly. The book was written by a New York Times reporter about the sport utility vehicle and was reviewed by a college professor who teaches journalism. Both show their...

Paul Begala, the Democratic Party's chief wit, came up with a good line the other day. Commenting on the fact that Iraq had gassed its own people more than a decade ago, invaded Kuwait 12 years ago and attempted to kill George Bush's daddy nine years ago, he said, "President Bush must watch the History Channel and think he's watching Headline News." There is truth in his wit. The state of Iraq has done nothing in the past nine years that would in any way justify the United States in making war against it. The president's sudden interest in enforcing...

What we call today "liberalism" was born in New England. In 1864, Orestes Brownson, a New Englander himself, wrote an essay contrasting Southern and Northern societies. His description of the New Englander describes exactly the modern liberal. "The New Englander," Brownson wrote, "has excellent points, but is restless in body and mind, always scheming, always in motion, never satisfied with what he has, and always seeking to make all the world like himself, or as uneasy as himself." This desire to make everyone like himself is a major characteristic of the modern liberal. This is what paradoxically leads him to...

You're tempted to say that those who live by exploited, cheap labor die by it. It's hard to feel any sympathy for Mexico's maquiladora program, which has been bleeding jobs — about 287,000 of them, according to an article in The New York Times. Most of them have gone to China, Thailand or Vietnam. The maquiladora program itself is one of the most insane ideas ever hatched in the halls of Washington, D.C. It encouraged American manufacturers to move their facilities to Mexico with the promise that they could ship the goods across the border duty-free. It has cost Americans...

A man shot to death his daughter's ex-boyfriend early Wednesday after the younger man apparently tried to break into the family's southeast Houston home, police said. The 18-year-old man was shot in the face and died later at Ben Taub Hospital. His name was not being released Wednesday evening. The case will be referred to a Harris County grand jury without charges, police said. The homeowner's daughter had been having problems with her former boyfriend, who had threatened her in the past, Houston Police Department investigators said. The family's home, in the 2100 block of Oak Creek Drive near Allendale,...

President George Bush more or less bet the ranch (his own prestige) on the recent election, and he won the pot. He deserves the credit for the Republicans doing what the Democrats didn't think they could do — hold on to their majority in the House and take control of the Senate. The margins of victory were slim in most cases, but in politics, unlike horseshoes, close doesn't count. The prizes and the power go to the candidates who get 50 percent of the turnout plus one vote. Besides raising $140 million for the Republican Party, President Bush, with his...

As you probably know, the CIA engineered the murder of a man and five companions in Yemen. A missile fired from one of our drones killed them. If indeed they were al-Qaida operatives, I have no sympathy for them. They have chosen to wage a campaign against us, and they are now casualties of that war. At the same time, I don't approve of the method used. The problem is that they are described as "suspected" al-Qaida. To execute suspects is to use the method of the death squad. It appeals to our childish sense of adventure, to our desire...

At the close of the War Between the States, President Abraham Lincoln visited the abandoned Confederate capital of Richmond, Va. He asked an Army band to play "Dixie," remarking that it had always been one of his favorite tunes. Question: If Abraham Lincoln could enjoy "Dixie" played by a Yankee Army band in the immediate aftermath of a bloody war, why can't high-school or college bands play the tune in the year 2002? "Dixie," after all, was just a show tune, and the lyrics have nothing to do with the war or with any of the issues that caused the...

Bow-and-arrow hunter kills man trying to steal his car By ROMA KHANNA Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle A would-be car thief died Friday after he was shot by the car's owner, a camouflage-clad hunter toting a bow and arrow, police said. The thief was moments from a clean getaway when the hunter happened upon his car, police said. The man told the hunter he had a gun and threatened to kill him, said Sgt. T.E. Kiser of the Harris County Sheriff's Department homicide division. The hunter drew his bow and shot at the man, hitting him in the hip and buttocks...

For some reason unknown to me, Iraq casts a strange spell on the members of the Bush family when they occupy the White House. It seems to corrupt them so that they resort to lies and elaborate deceptions as their frenzy for war grows feverish. The original Gulf War was based largely on lies. There was the outright lie that Iraqi soldiers had snatched Kuwaiti babies out of incubators to steal the incubators. The second big lie was the claim that Iraq was massing troops for an invasion of Saudi Arabia. Totally false. Now, another Bush is misleading the American...

Taco stand owner guns down robber Second suspect in attack gets away By MIKE GLENN Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Even though taco stand owner Roberto Quintero was badly beaten by two robbers who thought they had made a clean getaway, he still mustered enough strength to go outside, retrieve a gun from his truck and fatally shoot one of his attackers Monday. Police said two men pistol-whipped Quintero shortly before 4 p.m., just as he was about to open the mobile stand for the usually brisk afternoon rush-hour business at Irvington and Duff. They then ran outside. "The owner made...

Americans who value the Constitution should stand with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and oppose George Bush's attempted power grab in conjunction with establishing a Department of Homeland Security. The Bushies are trying to frame the debate as either protecting bureaucracy or providing security for Americans. In fact, the debate is about preventing an authoritarian president from sacrificing the Constitution in the name of providing security. Let me remind you that those who prefer security to freedom will lose both. Bush wants to be able to disregard labor contracts and civil-service rules, as well as move money within the department as...