Free Republic

By the way, speaking of Texas, a major Democrat has bitten the dust. Here it is. A major upset. "In a major upset, longtime US Rep. Silvestre Reyes has lost the race for the Democratic nomination to retain his congressional seat in far West Texas. "Reyes lost narrowly to former El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke. Reyes appeared to be closing the gap," but he came up short at the end. He's 67 years old, first elected to Congress 1966, and he received a rare primary endorsement last month from none other than The One, Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm,...

Rep. Silvestre Reyes had endorsements from President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, but the long-time Democratic lawmaker nevertheless lost his Texas congressional seat in a tight primary Tuesday night.

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said that legislation introduced by Republicans to suspend President Barack Obama’s authority to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" in deciding which illegal aliens to deport shows that the Republican Party is “anti-minority.” He also said Republicans want to limit Obama’s authority because they don’t like him as president. VIDEO 1:12 minutes At a July 21 press conference on Capitol Hill, Reyes said, “What this legislation does is it takes away the discretion that is sorely needed by Customs and Border Protection -- by our president delegated down through the secretary of Homeland Security and Department...

From yesterday, Thursday, February 25, 2010:Intel bill pulled over controversial added interrogation provision "A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening [Feb 25, 2010] . House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations."... Intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) added the language, originally offered by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), to his manager’s amendment, which makes several changes to the bill...

The bloodshed in Ciudad Juarez being fueled by the drug war must have triggered a major alarm in Washington, D.C., this past weekend when the sister-in-law of a prominent U.S. Congressman was kidnapped while on a shopping excursion in the Mexican border town.

WASHINGTON — The Texas Department of Transportation, long viewed as hyperpartisan and arrogant by some members of the state's congressional delegation, has been trying to soften its image by reaching out to lawmakers of both parties in the nation's capital. But while state transportation officials are having some success in easing the personal animus, they still face a stiff challenge in selling their policy agenda to the state's elected officials in Washington. Many Texans on the Potomac cringe at the agency's embrace of toll roads, the controversies surrounding the Trans-Texas Corridor and TxDOT's resistance to many of the highway earmarks...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks. When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite." That is...

Inept Democrats face failure with poor start in Congress It’s a bad start, and the risk is that the Democrats are going to throw away their big chance. This week has brought comedy to their efforts, as the new Democrat head of a congressional committee on intelligence proved unable to tell Sunni from Shia, incorrectly maintained that al-Qaeda belonged to the second persuasion, and stumbled into paralysed silence when asked the same question about the Shia group Hezbollah. The bigger problem is the lack of Democrat strategy exposed by the past five weeks since the congressional elections — and above...

Virtual Fence = Virtual Corruption? Speaker Pelosi's post-Hastings fallback choice to head the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, voted against building the 700 mile border fence. He prefers a system of video surveillance cameras, apparently. And gee, it seems that his daughter works for a firm that won a government contract to provide such surveillance services! What's more, according to WaPo's John Mintz (who broke the story) the firm did a really bad job. TPM Muckraker summarizes:

Reyes Testimony Stirs Concern For EP Dems February 8, 2005 -- El Paso County Democrats say they are in disbelief after watching the testimony of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations. "What he was saying doesn't make any sense," said Carmen Duarte, County Chair for the Democratic Party in El Paso. Duarte says they are concerned Congressman Reyes is downplaying the seriousness of border incursions, including the January 23rd incident in Hudspeth County where Hudspeth Sheriff deputies were at a stand-off with Mexican militants during a drug smuggling operation along the Rio Grande. "He wasn't...

Reyes Testimony Stirs Concern For EP Dems February 8, 2005 -- El Paso County Democrats say they are in disbelief after watching the testimony of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations. "What he was saying doesn't make any sense," said Carmen Duarte, County Chair for the Democratic Party in El Paso. Duarte says they are concerned Congressman Reyes is downplaying the seriousness of border incursions, including the January 23rd incident in Hudspeth County where Hudspeth Sheriff deputies were at a stand-off with Mexican militants during a drug smuggling operation along the Rio Grande. "He wasn't...

Stenholm to attend Plainview fiesta U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm, D-Abilene, will be in Plainview on Sunday for Fiesta Campesina, a festival celebrating and honoring the hard work of laborers. The fiesta will be from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Broadway Park on the south side of Plainview. The free event will have Mexican food, ice cream, traditional Latino music and polka dancing. U.S. Reps. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, and Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, will join Stenholm to speak about education, family values and rural needs. The music group "Elida Reyna y su groupo Avante" and other local bands will provide...

A young woman is forced to leave her 7-month-old daughter behind as collateral while she tries to come up with money to pay migrant smugglers holding the baby's grandmother. A Mexican man watches helplessly as relatives and friends succumb to triple-digit heat after being led into an isolated stretch of desert by smugglers; 14 migrants die. Dozens of illegal immigrants are jammed into homes where they are often assaulted and extorted by the people they paid to bring them here. These examples of violence and misery highlight the consequences of the illegal immigrant trade that drives so much crime in...

EL PASO - A Defense Department plan to pull 450 National Guard troops away from inspection duties along the border is sparking an outcry among critics who fear it will lower the nation's defenses against terrorism.Some of the Guard troops have been on the job for more than 10 years and were trained to identify suspicious vehicles with hidden compartments that could conceal weapons. Under a plan approved in February by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the new customs agency will hire inspectors and train them to replace the Guard troops. "This proposal would pull out the National Guard...