Free Republic

Paul Ryan, the Republican congressman and former vice-presidential candidate best known for his war on spending, is emerging as his party's leading champion of immigration reform in the U.S. House of Representatives. With Senate passage of a sweeping immigration bill imminent, Ryan has been meeting with House conservatives to persuade them that reform of the immigration system, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, is an economic necessity and critical to fixing the nation's fiscal problems. Ryan, a potential 2016 presidential contender, sees himself as a "bridge builder" between immigration advocacy groups and reluctant Republicans, he said in an...

A grand jury declined to indict a bait camp owner who fatally shot a patron banned from the business. Robert Stanley Ott, 52, was no-billed in the Oct. 22 killing of Michael Wayne Hansen, 55, who was found dead in his pickup in the driveway of Ott’s Santa Fe home, Galveston County Criminal District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said in a Friday statement. After convening five times, the grand jury’s decision Thursday not to charge Ott came after instructions on offenses of murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and the use of deadly force in self-defense, Sistrunk said. During those meetings, the...