Free Republic

Officials still investigating cause of fire that destroyed voting devices A day after a fire destroyed virtually all of Harris County's electronic voting gear, officials were still determining the cause of the warehouse blaze and furiously exploring ways to accommodate voters come early November. Houston's fire marshal's office hasn't made a ruling on whether Friday's early-morning fire was accidental or deliberately set, said Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, who hopes to hear something on the cause early this week. "It would break my heart to think someone would do something like this to the election process," she said, adding that...

HIDALGO — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on Friday backed off his support of Congress taking up birthright citizenship after earlier joining prominent Republicans who have called for a review of the 14th Amendment. "It is going after a symptom rather than the cause of the problem in the first place," Cornyn said. Cornyn, the head of the GOP Senate campaign committee, softened his stance while visiting a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. He met with the Texas Border Coalition, a group of local mayors and business leaders focused on border security and traffic backlogs at ports that affect...

Perry, White trust Harris election officials, voters AUSTIN ­— State election officials said they will make sure Harris County gets enough voting machine replacements to pull off a smooth election, and neither major gubernatorial campaign plans major changes after a Friday morning fire consumed all of the county's 10,000 voting machines. Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade spoke with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and other county officials on Friday, pledging to provide whatever necessary help once they finish assessing the damage and equipment needs. "There is some time," Andrade spokesman Randall Dillard said. "It's not a good time, but...

SAN ANTONIO — Democrat Bill White said Friday that he will take the stage for a gubernatorial debate this fall sponsored by the state's largest newspapers and Austin public television station KLRU-TV. Republican Gov. Rick Perry made no commitment. On the day the Houston Chronicle and other debate sponsors formally invited the candidates to the Oct. 19 debate in Austin, Perry's campaign continued to say that he will not debate until White releases income tax returns from his years as deputy energy secretary in the mid-1990s. "We will be ready for a debate when Bill White releases his tax returns,"...

HUNTSVILLE – The legal saga that began several days after the horrifying murder of two teenage Houston girls in 1993 came to an end Tuesday night with the execution of Peter Anthony Cantu, a former gang leader who all but ordered the execution of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. Cantu did not make a final statement. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. The parents of Ertman and Pena, supported by other family members and friends, looked on as Cantu stared straight up toward the ceiling, taking one deep breath before he closed his eyes. He did not acknowledge the...

(CNN) -- President Obama and his family will travel to the Gulf Coast this weekend to support businesses that rely on tourists but have been devastated by the oil disaster. The family will leave Saturday morning for Panama City Beach, Florida. "Even as the president talks about what our next steps are in our response, obviously part of this will be highlighting the tremendous economic toll that has taken place," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters earlier this week.

AUSTIN — President Barack Obama mocked Republicans as devoid of new economic ideas at a Democratic fundraiser Monday, then pounded his message that education "is the economic issue of our time" before a cheering crowd at the University of Texas. "I mean, it would be one thing if having run the economy into the ground, having taken record surpluses and turned them into record deficits, if having presided over the meltdown of our financial system, that they had gone off into the desert for a while and reflected and said, 'Boy, we really screwed up,'" Obama said at the Democratic...

Young area women say they wear the hijab to be closer to God, although head covering has drawn criticism. Huda Kahlid was walking through the Rice University campus one night last year when she heard someone in a car scream, "Jihad!" The 21-year-old student didn't let the heckler upset her, knowing she was targeted because of her hijab. "It's all about God, so you don't let those things get to you," said Wardah Kahlid, 24, who remembers laughing with her younger sister about the encounter. Muslim women wear the scarf or cloth wrapping over their hair to be closer to...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry plans to greet President Barack Obama when Obama arrives for events in Austin on Monday, a governor's aide said. Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said on Friday the brief meeting will take place at the airport in Austin. She said Perry, a Republican, will try to express his concern to the Democratic president about the pressing need for more federal help along the Texas-Mexico border.

EDINBURG — Authorities in South Texas are investigating the suicide of a jail inmate who apparently killed himself by swallowing wet toilet paper. Police found Joel de la Rosa, 18, dead early Thursday in the jail in Edinburg, near the Texas-Mexico border. He had been taken into custody about three hours earlier on charges of drug possession and evading arrest.

SAN DIEGO — Spike Lee screened some of his new HBO documentary that includes a look at the massive BP Gulf oil spill and says no one from the oil giant is speaking to him. The director showed about 90 minutes of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise" at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in San Diego on Saturday. The film is a follow-up to "When the Levees Broke" about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Former Mexican drug lord Osiel Cardenas Guillen is out of hiding for the first time in nearly four years, having reported to a U.S. medium-security prison to serve a comparatively comfortable sentence negotiated by his attorneys. Unlike some other major drug cartel figures, Cardenas avoided the harshness of the tomb-like Supermax in Colorado, where inmates are locked in cells and rarely see the sun. Instead, records posted Wednesday show he is checked in at the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, where he can walk the razor-wire-surrounded facility to go to meals, the library or recreation time. Up until now, he had...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Laredo lawyer Marina Garcia Marmolejo to be a federal judge in the U.S. Southern Judicial District of Texas. Marmolejo is the second candidate nominated by Obama for two open federal judicial seats in Laredo. The president also selected U.S. magistrate Judge Diana Saldaña for appointment earlier this month. ~Snip~ Marmolejo was recommended to the White House for appointment by Texas congressional Democrats on May 13, said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, chairman of the state's Democratic congressional delegation.

Why would a conservative activists site ban a conservative activist? This question remains largely unanswered. Conservative Examiner has been summarily banned by Free Republic. For over a year I have been posting Conservative Examiner articles at the Free Republic conservative networking forum. From the very start I found the site to be admirable due to their clear goals of conservative activism--to advocate for the conservative cause and to work toward reclaiming our government, through the electoral process, from those who appear to have little regard for the Constitution.

BP began burning crude on a vessel in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, a day after an unplanned fire on a different vessel briefly stalled its collection of oil from a gushing well on the seafloor a mile below. The new burn system adds capacity in BP's race to contain more of the 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day escaping the blown-out Macondo well. A drillship, the Discoverer Enterprise, has been collecting about 15,000 barrels per day since early this month. The drillship only collected about 10,000 barrels on Tuesday, though, because a lightning strike started a small fire...

WASHINGTON — An unmanned aerial vehicle made its first surveillance flight this week along the U.S.-Mexico border in West Texas and began gathering intelligence for federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, officials said Friday. Texas lawmakers said the beginning of UVA, or “drone,” flights over the border region advances state security as violence continues in Mexico due to warring drug cartels. Second drone sought “By putting eyes in the sky along the Rio Grande, we will gather real-time intelligence,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. The Department of Homeland Security told lawmakers about the flight.

I have a question for our resident Free Republic firearms experts. Several years ago I purchased a Mosin Nagant M-44 Carbine at a gun show. (Винтовка Мосина 7.62 x 54R) I like it. I have never fired it. Why? I don't trust the ammunition. I have several boxes (unmarked) of what the vendor at the gun show CLAIMED was 7.62 x 54R. Trouble is, the base of the casings are NOT stamped with the caliber. What they have stamped there is 21 and 87. My camera is not good enough to pick this up well, but you get the idea:...

A man was wounded in a shootout with police after officers arrested a woman suspected of prostitution during a sting operation at a southwest Houston motel Thursday night. The shooting occurred at a motel in the 2900 block of West Sam Houston Parkway, near Westheimer, about 9:30 p.m, authorities said. The wounded man, whose name has not been released, was rushed to Southwest Memorial Hospital. His condition is unknown, but police said he had non-life-threatening wounds. Charges are expected to be filed against the man.

On Wednesday, a Mexican flag meant to celebrate Cinco de Mayo went missing from Klein Collins High School in Spring. Administrators later learned a student tore it down and threw it in the trash. Then sophomore Nick Morris went on a local conservative talk radio show to complain he had been suspended. Now, the boy's interview with KTRH host Michael Berry has gone viral and inflamed conservatives. Frazzled high school administrators are struggling to keep up with an onslaught of angry e-mails and phone calls complaining that the school is partial to Mexico.

South Houston police are searching for people who jumped from a pickup truck and ran away after an officer attempted to stop the driver for speeding this morning. The officer tried to pull over the truck on Winkler near Old Galveston Road, said South Houston Police Department Chief Herbert Gilbert. But the driver refused to stop, turned off the road and ploughed into a nearby ditch. Gilbert said that then seven to 10 people — some who had been beneath a tarp on the pickup's bed — scrambled out of the truck and ran away.