Free Republic

Invitees : Karen Hughes, Hunter Hunt, Ray Hunt, Kay Bailey Hutchison,Harriet Miers, Holly Kuzmich, Mark Langdale, Mike Meece, James C Oberwetter, Jeanne L Phillips, Karl Rove, Joe Strauss.

AUSTIN, TX — Ronnie Earle, who served as Travis County district attorney for more than three decades, died Sunday after a long illness. Earle was 78 years old.

Since this week’s surprise announcement that Nikki Haley would depart by year’s end, everyone wants to know who’ll replace America’s UN ambassador — who was first dismissed, then hated, then feared and eventually appreciated, heck, even loved (at least by some). The answer, obviously, is up to the never-predictable President Trump, so most names bandied about are speculative, with many driven by wishful thinking. So here’s a wish: Christopher Burnham. Never heard of him? You may soon. Sure, there are other worthy candidates; Washington reporters come up with new ones daily. The much-advertised front-runner, former Deputy National Security Adviser Dina...

President Trump was on the stump for Republican candidates in Mississippi last night...... Trump said that a vote for Cindy Hyde-Smith is a vote for him, but many in the crowd at the rally wore red T-shirts saying "Trump Voters for Chris McDaniel" in support of the conservative state senator..... President Trump also made a comment about Saudi Arabia at the Mississippi rally...... Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said that the United States can blockade Russian energy production to prevent its export..... And the United States Ambassador to NATO, former Republican Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, says that a...

MAXWELL, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill includes a little-known provision that guts the major provisions of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This provision -- buried on page 123 of Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act - contradicts the Secure Fence Act’s specific mandate of a double-layer fence covering 854 miles of the U.S-Mexico border. Grassfire.org has been tracking this provision which was first introduced quietly by Sen. Hutchison this summer as S.Amdt. 2466 to H.R. 2368 (the DHS appropriations bill). “The Hutchison amendment gives DHS virtually total discretion over how and where the fence is built,” says...

Steve Elliott, the president of Grassfire, says he still wants to know, “Where’s the fence?” Elliott, in a telephone interview, told WND an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget would gut the already-approved Secure Fence Act, which was adopted with the promise hundreds of miles of physical fencing would help secure the U.S. border with Mexico. But the budget bill now in a conference committee contains the Hutchinson amendment, and Elliott says it simply would drop the requirement for the security project. “After the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** fencewhatfence.jpg Fence?...

Let me be the first to write this political obituary. I met Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for the first time in 1991, when we invited the then-Treasurer of Texas (a position that the voters retired soon after Kay was elected to the Senate) to speak to a student organization at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). She was, and is, a very gracious person who seemed in (slightly) over her head. When I asked Kay about the Texas Constitution’s Legislative Budget Board (LBB) and how it is supposed to arrest growth in state government, she made it clear that...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry in next year’s gubernatorial primary is leaving her would-be Senate successors perplexed on how to handle their campaign finances. SNIP Already at least four Republicans are running and raising money: former Secretary of State Roger Williams, Texas Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams and state Senate President Florence Shapiro. But the most aggressive campaign organization is being built by the Democratic mayor of Houston, Bill White, who raised $1.8 million over the past three months and has $2.1 million in the bank. snip The complicating factor is...

Cornyn ready for challenges, including housing New senator gets eye-opener on prices, discusses priorities 11/15/2002 By DAVID JACKSON / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - Texas' newest senator says he is eager to get to work on national security and confirming judges, but first he needs an office and a house. Congressional leaders haven't assigned workspace to John Cornyn and other freshman lawmakers, and he and his wife are finding Washington's real estate market steep, the state attorney general said Thursday in his first news conference as senator-elect. "Even for a fairly modest hovel here in the district, it's...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! Fence? What fence?...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

Senator Hutchison cool to SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch; concerns remain about Obama NASA policy June 5, 8:25 AMHouston Space News ExaminerMark Whittington Falcon 9 Courtesy NASA The near universal acclaim that SpaceX has acquired for the successful launch of the first Falcon 9 is not shared within the United States Congress, which is still skeptical of many aspects of the Obama space plan, which includes reliance on companies like SpaceX for Earth to Low Earth Orbit transportation. The reaction illustrates for all the technical triumph that SpaceX has accomplished with the Falcon 9 launch, it still faces political problems. Typical...

Clear Lake, TX – The Clear Lake Tea Party (CLTP) in conjunction with the Alliance of Constitutional Patriots, and several other area Tea Party groups held the first ever job interview for the U.S. Senate. The venue for the event was the Bayou Theater on the University of Houston’s Clear Lake Campus. The event was also streamed online so people could watch from the comfort of their home or office. There are sixteen potential Republican or Libertarian candidates seeking to replace the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison in the U.S. Senate. Event organizers said that invitations were extended to all candidates...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry should not count on the support of his state’s seniority senator (and his 2010 Republican gubernatorial rival) if he decides to run for president. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Dallas, told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell today that she is looking for a Republican candidate with private-sector experience as her choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination. ....With the nation facing record deficits and ballooning debt, Hutchison said that real-life experience running a business would be a major asset in the White House — unlike the “academics” and politicians she said populate the Obama administration. “I do hope we...

The movement to draft Tommy Lee Jones to run as a Democrat to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison is most likely doomed to failure, but a new poll shows Jones might be a viable candidate. Public Policy Polling released its survey today on the 2012 Senate race, and it shows Jones with the best favorable/unfavorable combo among possible candidates. It also shows he is within range of two Republican candidates, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, in head-to-head matchups. Dewhurst beats him 43-39 percent, and Leppert by only 38-37. "A Jones candidacy is probably a pipe dream...

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is hopeful that his bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank will move through the Senate this year. The bill could be the best shot for those seeking to boost transportation, energy and water infrastructure investment in a Congress focused on “rapacious” spending cuts, Kerry said. The Kerry bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), would create an independent, nonprofit bank that would leverage private investment into infrastructure projects. The bill was introduced in March.

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) today led a bipartisan group of senators in introducing the Ensuring Pay for Our Military Act of 2011, S. 724, to assure that military personnel continue to be paid in the event of a government shutdown. The lawmakers urged efforts to prevent a shutdown of government operations, but stressed that a contingency plan must be in place for our service men and women.

Former President George H.W. Bush will endorse Republican Roger Williams this afternoon for the U.S. Senate seat that Kay Bailey Hutchison now holds. The race to succeed Hutchison, who is not seeking re-election, has drawn interest from a number of Republicans, including railroad commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is also considering a run. Roger Williams is a Weatherford car dealer and former Texas secretary of state who was a major Republican donor before he was a candidate. The Bush endorsement could give his campaign a nice boost, particularly since the field is crowded and...