Free Republic

The largest and most significant collection of Roman waxed writing tablets is providing an intriguing glimpse into life in early Roman London. More than 400 wooden tablets were unearthed by archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) during excavations at the site of the Bloomberg company’s new European headquarters. Roman London (called Londinium) was founded around A.D. 50, and the recovered texts, written by ordinary residents, record various names, as well as events and transactions that took place during the settlement’s first few decades.

"Vinegar Hill," starring Mary-Louise Parker and Tom Skerritt, will be the first to air on May 24. Based on the novel by A. Manette Ansay, the movie centers on a schoolteacher (Parker) and her husband (Skerritt), who move in with his dysfunctional parents when the family falls on hard times. Tony Award-winning actress Betty Buckley will portray Skerritt's mother.

HOUSTON — Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal apologized Friday for hurting his family, friends and co-workers when e-mails were released detailing his affectionate relationship with his secretary. The documents, which surfaced as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Harris County Sheriff's Office, were posted online by the federal clerk's office before a judge resealed them Thursday. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt said he had only intended to make public Rosenthal's request that the notes sent from his county e-mail address be kept confidential. Earlier this week, Rosenthal called the disclosure "bare knuckle politics" engineered by Lloyd...

You may have one at home right now: a gun. Would you use it to stop someone who’s stealing from you or from your neighbor? It’s what happened earlier this month in Pasadena, but using deadly force can have repercussions that could cost you far more than whatever it was the thieves were after.

AUSTIN — When Texas transportation officials talk about bridges these days, they don't necessarily mean steel spans and concrete girders. Instead, they are being taught how to "bridge" from off-message questions to their own talking points in a toll-road campaign. "You will often be asked questions that don't get to the points you wish to make or that you don't wish to answer," says a "radio interview techniques" section of Texas Department of Transportation documents released under the Public Information Act. "You can use bridging to turn the question to your points." One useful phrase, suggests the document — prepared...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots. The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government,...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the largest Republican vote-getter in the 2006 congressional elections and the most popular Republican in Texas, said yesterday she would consider an offer to run for vice president next year. "If our party's nominee called me and said we are putting everything in the grid, and we think you are the best person, would I say no? I can't imagine that I would say no," she said. "Would I seek it or do something to promote it? Absolutely not," she told editors and reporters of The Washington Times at a meeting at the newspaper. -------------------------------------- She...

AUSTIN – Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is siding with a conservative group that is suing state leaders – including her – and accusing them of spending more taxpayer money than the state constitution allows. Mrs. Strayhorn, who is running against Gov. Rick Perry, is among the defendants listed in a lawsuit filed last month by Citizens for Lowering Our Unfair Taxes, a Houston-based group. Others include Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick. Mr. Perry is not named in the lawsuit. -SNIP- The comptroller agrees that "the voters meant something when they voted in 1979 to cap spending,"...

AUSTIN - The state's biennial spending limit is an artificial gauge of the economy that allows unconstitutional and excessive spending on state agencies and programs, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a conservative taxpayer watchdog group. The constitution requires that the state budget not exceed economic growth. The Legislative Budget Board determines that limit before each regular legislative session, based on personal income of all Texans. The limit for the current budget was set at about $56 billion. But the group Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes is arguing that personal income gives an inflated measure of the economy and...

C.L.O.U.T ANNOUNCES LAWSUIT AGAINST LT. GOV., SPEAKER, COMPTROLLER Taxpayer group asks court to enforce constitutional spending limits AUSTIN, Texas – Edd Hendee, executive director of taxpayer-watchdog group CLOUT: Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes announced today that he has lawsuit aimed at requiring Texas state government to comply with the spending limits already written into the Texas constitution. “Regardless of your political affiliation or public policy agenda, all of us can agree that Texas government needs to operate within the framework of the state constitution,” Hendee said. “That isn’t happening. Instead, we have a clear constitutional provision that is routinely ignored,...

Mr. Speaker, Political careers tend to end in one of three ways: defeat, death, or retirement. And despite the fervent and mostly noble exertions of my adversaries over the years, I rise today to bid farewell to this House under the happiest of the available options. I wish to begin the end of my congressional career by publicly thanking, for the last time as their representative, the people of the 22nd District of Texas. Everything I have ever been able to accomplish here, I owe and dedicate to them. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve them...

GOP embraces ex-outsider and his hard-line positions Tancredo still relishes defying his party leaders on border issue By GEBE MARTINEZ Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Tom Tancredo threw his head back and laughed the laughter of sweet vindication. The Colorado Republican congressman was recalling in a recent interview the 2004 Republican National Convention, when White House political strategist Karl Rove wouldn't tell him where the platform committee had assembled. Rove apparently wanted to prevent Tancredo from embarrassing President Bush by trying to add strong anti-immigration phrases as Bush was wooing Hispanic voters. Tancredo laughed again as he...

WASHINGTON - A Supreme Court decision allowing governments to seize property for economic development purposes has prompted an angry reaction in Congress, where lawmakers in both the House and Senate promoted legislation Thursday designed to mitigate the impact of the ruling. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, proposed legislation that would bar the federal government and local and state governments who receive federal funds from taking property for economic development use. "The protection of homes, small businesses, and other property rights against government seizure and other unreasonable government interference is a fundamental principle and core commitment of our nation's founders," according to...

Prosecutor in probe of DeLay PAC raises funds for other side Earle's speech on political corruption keys on the GOP leader, whom he likens to a bully By MICHAEL HEDGES Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman. A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to...

The left has come up with a target, and his name is Tom DeLay. He isn’t their first and won’t be their last, but for now he’s the Republican they hope to take down. They’ve tried in the past to do the same thing to others. Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and White House adviser Karl Rove have all been portrayed as ethically challenged and sleazy by the same folks who are now going after the House Republican leader from Texas. Trumped-up charges of illegality, paid ads and reports from ethics groups that are little more than fronts...

As the liberal offspring of conservative parents, I rarely find anything political over which to bond with my red-state family. I was therefore pleasantly surprised this week to learn that Tom DeLay's theatrics during the Terri Schiavo tragedy have, in addition to earning him a public slap from Dick Cheney, cost him the vote of my staunchly Republican father, a resident of the majority leader's suburban-Houston district. It seems Dad is so disgusted with DeLay's hysterical ranting about holding judges accountable for Schiavo's death that he's written his congressman off as "absurd," pronouncing, "I think he's lost it." Sadly, I...

AUSTIN - A week after Gov. Rick Perry's campaign tried to link one of his potential GOP primary rivals to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a 1993 letter emerged in which Perry called Clinton's efforts at health care reform "commendable." Perry's Republican allies circulated a videotape last week that has a shot of Clinton with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, at a nonpartisan event on historic preservation. The videotape played up a brief hug and air kiss between the women and featured then-first lady Clinton, now the Democratic senator from New York, saying she is "delighted that Kay is...

The Democratic Party's biggest contributors in Texas appear to have found a marquee-name candidate to rally behind for a statewide race at or near the top of the ticket in 2006. State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. The Republican comptroller during the past month raised tens of thousands of dollars from trial lawyers whose wealth and generosity is usually reserved for Democratic candidates. A big chunk of the cash she received from high-profile members of the plaintiffs' bar was contributed at an event hosted by Houston attorney John Eddie Williams - one of the five private lawyers hired to represent the...

A religious liberty watchdog group accused the Westover Hills Church of Christ in Austin on Friday of violating Internal Revenue Service rules by allowing the Legacy Political Action Committee to hold a fund-raiser in its sanctuary. Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the IRS Code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns. The group focuses on education on the separation of church and state. A member of Legacy PAC, which supports anti-abortion candidates, said the church had nothing to do with the event. "This was our event," Bill Crocker...