Free Republic

A federal whistleblower lawsuit has been filed against Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, now known as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, charging the provider of abortion services with fraudulent Medicaid claims in the amount of nearly $6 million. The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), on behalf of former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson, accused Planned Parenthood of submitting over 87,000 "false, fraudulent, or ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” under Title XIX, in association with the Texas Women’s Health Program. The Medicaid claims, filed between 2007 and 2009, were valued at more than $5.7 million. The...

CorridorWatch, a Fayette County-based group that has been active in opposing the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, wants to go beyond the Sunset Advisory Commission’s recommended shakeup of state transportation leadership. The group, led by David and Linda Stall, recommends that TxDOT answer to an elected six-member board led by a chairman appointed by the governor. CorridorWatch makes it recommendation, along with various other reactions to the Sunset commission staff’s recent report on TxDOT, in written comments submitted as part of the sunset process. TxDOT, like all state agencies, “sunsets” after 12 years unless the Legislature acts to keep it alive. As...

A Piney Woods retreat that has hosted national church conferences on controversial issues, celebrated the consecration of bishops and provided summer memories for thousands of teens now faces another kind of challenge. The nearly two square miles of forest, hills, fields, lakes and buildings that make up Camp Allen Conference & Retreat Center, 15 miles southeast of Navasota, lie in a two-mile-wide strip listed in state documents as the preferred route for the planned Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. Proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, the corridor plan has drawn heated opposition at town hall meetings and public hearings throughout Southeast...

Trucks hauling everything from cars to produce use Southeast Texas roads to deliver their goods, and when a proposed Interstate 69/Trans Texas Corridor is completed, local drivers could see even more of them, local transportation officials said. The proposed I-69 corridor stretches from Michigan down to Texas. Once in Texas, the corridor goes about 650 miles from Texarkana to Brownsville and Laredo and includes separate lanes for cars and semis and areas for trains and utilities. It doesn't cut through Beaumont, but local arteries like U.S. 69 and Interstate 10 would connect to it. Travelers and truckers just need to...

BELLVILLE — In what is becoming a regular occurrence in Southeast Texas, more than 1,000 Austin County residents and interested outsiders jammed a county fairgrounds exhibit hall Monday night to let a panel of state transportation officials know that the Trans-Texas Corridor was not welcome here. State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, opened the public remarks to thunderous applause when she told the panel, "You all thought I was crazy in Austin when I said my people don't want it and I don't want it." The panel, which included Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Amadeo Saenz and Deputy Executive Director...

…Poe currently has the advantage in the District 2 race, Gonzales said, not only because the district leans Republican but also because President George Bush will be at the top of the Republican ticket. “President Bush is going to be popular and win this district by a comfortable margin,” Gonzales said. “It’s going to be difficult for Lampson to convince a large number of Bush voters to turn around and vote for a Democrat for Congress — not impossible, but it’s tough.” To win, Lampson needs to show voters that he is independent of the national Democratic Party and can...

Michael Kurth, a veteran, said he was opposed to the film Fahrenheit 9/11 based on its R rating and political partisanship. His son, Matthew, 17, said that he put his head on his desk and tried to sleep through it. "It bothered me," he said... Michael Ryals, principal of Pathways Learning Center, said he previewed part of the film before he allowed the teacher to show it in class Friday. "I didn't hear anything that was offensive to me," he told the Beaumont Enterprise in Saturday's editions, adding that he did not know of the R rating.