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Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria.

"It's clearly a population of concern, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a huge mistake to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been displaced from their homes there, unable to leave.

Senior officials leading the State Departments refugee efforts say the U.S. government has a long history of caring for the innocent victims of war.

Its not a matter of should we do it, its really a matter of how we do it, Larry Bartlett, the State Departments director of Refugee Admission for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, told ABC News. One of the fundamental principles of our country is that we care about others. We will help others.

Bartlett insisted every refugee is vetted through an intensive system, drawing on information and expertise from several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Defense Department.

We have a very slow process of moving refugees through our pipeline, and part of it is because of the security vetting component, Bartlett said.

Homeland security officials also testified Wednesday that any potential refugees from Syria would receive the most rigorous screening.

"Any tasking we're given ... will be as thorough as we can make it," said Francis Taylor, the head of the Department of Homeland Securitys intelligence office.

Yet thats not reassurance enough for McCaul and other leading Republicans, who recently penned a letter to National Security Advisor Susan Rice cautioning that the U.S. governments ability to screen refugees from Syria might not be sufficient.

The continued civil war and destabilization in Syria undeniably make it more difficult to acquire the information needed to conduct reliable threat assessments on specific refugees, they wrote in the letter two weeks ago.

With tens of thousands of Syrians joining groups in the region like the Islamic State, the U.S. government cannot allow the refugee process to become a backdoor for jihadists, they added.

At the hearing Wednesday, an FBI official also questioned whether the U.S. intelligence community with few assets on the ground in Syria and little insight into the country from elsewhere can provide authorities with the information they need to properly determine whether any refugee could pose a threat.

"You have to have information to vet, said FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach, who heads the bureaus counterterrorism division. Databases don't [have] the information on those individuals, and that's the concern.

Still, Rasmussen vowed the full weight of the U.S. intelligence community would be employed to "unearth" any concerning information about potential refugees. And Bartlett and other State Department officials say the U.S. is far from opening the flood gates.

Of the 7 million of Syrians seeking refuge, only about 500 have been let in the United States. Compare that with Syrias neighbor, Jordan, whose Foreign Minister recently said theyve let in over 80,000 Syrians -- a figure that represents nearly 21 percent of Jordans total population. Or compare it to the response to the Iraq war, with the U.S. admitting over 120,000 Iraqis.

So far Germany and Sweden are leading the charge when it comes to accepting Syrians. Germany has let in nearly 12,000 refugees, not including those who have sought asylum there.

Officials at the State Department were quick to report that overall the U.S. accepts more refugees than the rest of the world combined. Bartlett and others also say they expect the U.S. to steadily increase the number of Syrians it accepts as applications at the United Nations continue to pile up.

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Officials Fear Syrian Refugees Could Pose Threat to US ...

The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is one of the two major political parties in the U.S. State of Texas. It is affiliated with the United States Republican Party. The State Chairman is Steve Munisteri, a retired attorney and businessman from Houston, and the Vice-Chair is Amy Clark of Floresville. The RPT is headquartered in Downtown Austin. The RPT's mission is to promote a conservative philosophy of government by promoting conservative principles. The RPT is legally classified as a political action committee whose structure is determined by state law and by party rules not in conflict with state law.

The Republican Party developed dramatically in Texas during Reconstruction after constitutional amendments freeing the slaves and giving suffrage to black males, as blacks joined the party that had ensured the end of slavery. African-American leaders, frequently men of mixed race who had been free and educated before the war, provided leadership in extending education and work opportunities to blacks after the war. They supported establishment of a public school system for the first time. Men such as William Madison McDonald in Fort Worth, Norris Wright Cuney in Galveston, and Henry Clay Ferguson worked for the black community and the state.

In 1870, Edmund Davis was elected Governor, but was soundly defeated in 1874. In the year 1876, Republicans had made gradual gains in Texas, earning nearly one-third of the statewide vote and electing a small number of candidates to the State Legislature (including several African Americans). Democrats established legal racial segregation and disfranchisement.

After the Reconstruction era, the Republican Party of Texas gradually lost power, and after the turn of the century, the "Lily Whites" pushed blacks out of power. The Democrats passed disfranchising laws near the turn of the century requiring poll taxes be paid prior to voter registration; together with the party establishing white primaries, black voting dropped dramatically, from more than 100,000 statewide in the 1890s, to 5,000 in 1906.[1] Mexican Americans and poor whites were also adversely affected by such measures. For more than 100 years, the Republicans were a minority party in the state.

Between the departing of Robert B. Hawley from his second U.S. House term in 1901 and the seating of Bruce Alger in 1954, the sole Republican to represent Texas in Congress was Harry M. Wurzbach, who served in the U.S. House for most of the 1920s and left office in 1931.[2] The first Republican statewide primary was held in 1926, but drew only 15,239 voters. By contrast, the Democratic primary in the same year drew 821,234 voters, as disfranchisement was well established, and Texas was essentially a one-party, white-only voting state. Only two more Republican primaries were run in the next thirty-four years.[3]

In 1961, James A. Leonard, was the "first Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas to emphasize the Party's new intention to become a force in state government." "In the dead of night," he moved the Party Headquarters from Houston to Austin" and "mobilized the Party's meager resources to support the candidacy of a 36-year-old Associate Professor of Government, John Tower, to fill Lyndon Johnson's vacant US Senate Seat." James A. Leonard "was an architect to John Tower's breakthrough 1961 Senate victory claim to Lyndon Johnson's (US) seat..." " in the special election after Johnson had been elected as vice-president with John F. Kennedy on the Democratic ticket.[4]John Tower served in this position until his retirement in 1985.

African Americans had been mounting challenges to segregation and disfranchisement across the South to have their constitutional rights enforced. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, President Lyndon Johnson urged passage of the civil rights legislation he had supported. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In reaction across the South, conservative whites began to realign with the Republican Party, while African Americans overwhelmingly registered with the Democratic Party, which was helping enforce their rights.

In 1966, two Republicans were elected to the US House of Representatives, including future President George H.W. Bush, for the first time since Reconstruction. That same year, three Republicans were elected to the Texas House of Representatives, and the first Republican was elected to the Texas Senate in 39 years. By 1972, Texas Republicans increased their gains to 17 members of the Texas House and 3 members of the Texas Senate.[3]

The true turning point for Texas Republicans occurred in the May 1976 primary, when Ronald Reagan defeated Gerald Ford by a two-to-one margin in the state's presidential primary. According to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, due to Reagan's victory in the Texas primary, "the whole shape and nature of the state changed."[5]

104 years after the most recent previous Republican governor, Bill Clements eked out a narrow victory in November 1978. In 1984, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Phil Gramm led a GOP ticket that relied upon the RPT to provide a centralized network of communications. Throughout the rest of the decade, the total Republican vote continued to increase, and the party made large gains in both the state legislature and in local races.[3]

Since 1994, every statewide elected office has been held by a Republican. Both houses of the Texas Legislature feature Republican majorities. After the 2010 elections, Republicans held a super-majority of 101 Republican representatives in the 150-member body.[6] After the 2014 elections, majority is now 98 of 150 in the House. In the Texas Senate, Republicans hold 20 of 31 seats post-2014 after holding 19 for the previous six years. Both houses are officially organized on a bi-partisan basis, with both Republicans and Democrats holding committee chairs. At the federal level, the Texas Congressional delegation is composed of 24 Republicans and 12 Democrats; both of its US Senators are Republican. The last time Texas was carried by a Democratic presidential candidate was in 1976.

In its 2012 platform, the Republican Party of Texas rejected the teaching of "Higher Order Thinking Skills... critical thinking skills and similar programs," giving as a reason that this sort of teaching has "the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." Media ridicule led to a response from RPT Communications Director Chris Elam that the inclusion of the term "critical thinking skills" was an oversight which cannot be corrected until 2014, when the next state convention will occur.[7][8]

In a 2014 interview with YNN, executive director Beth Cubriel voiced her opposition to equal pay legislation and encouraged women to negotiate better for the pay they deserve instead of backing up court dockets and saying that "Men are better negotiators. I would encourage women instead of pursuing the courts for action to become better negotiators".[9]

On June 7, 2014 approximately 8,000 delegates to the Republican Party of Texas State Convention in Fort Worth, Texas voted to add a plank to the platform in support of reparative therapy for homosexuals. Shortly after the convention, Chairman Munsiteri said in an interview with Texas Public Radio that he was opposed to the plank and that its inclusion in the platform was due to a "parliamentary maneuver" that prevented debate on the plank before the platform as a whole was adopted and that there is no way in knowing if the plank is representative of the views of the majority of Texas Republicans.[10] Despite Chairman Munisteri's statement, the platform plank received strong support from delegates in the majority of Senate District conventions across the state and has been vigorously defended by previous state chair Cathie Adams [11] as well as several statewide grassroots organizations such as "Texas Values," the "Texas Republican Assembly," and the Eagle Forum.[12][13][14]

The full language of the reparative therapy plank is as follows:

Reparative Therapy- We recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy. [15][16][17][18][19][20]

The Republican Party of Texas controls all elected statewide offices, holds a 1912 majority in the Texas Senate, and a 9555 majority in the Texas House of Representatives. Republicans also hold both of the state's U.S. Senate seats and 24 of the state's 36 U.S. House seats.

Biannually, in even-numbered years, delegates at the Texas GOP State Convention elect a man and a woman from each of the thirty-one State Senatorial districts to serve a two-year term on the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC). The State Republican Executive Committee along with the elected State Chair and State Vice Chair manage the affairs of the Republican Party of Texas between state conventions.[21]

The official college Republican Party of Texas' student wing is Texas College Republicans, which has over 35 chapters statewide.[22]

High School Republicans of Texas is the Republican Party of Texas' Official High School Republican Auxiliary with chapters in high schools and communities across Texas. For more information, visit their website at http://www.hsrtx.org.[23]

The Texas Federation of Republican Women (TFRW) is a volunteer women's organization that has "long-standing goals of education, training, participation in government, electing Republicans and encouraging Republican women to run for office". TFRW has 164 local clubs across Texas with over 10,000 members.[24]

The Texas Republican County Chairmen's Association (TRCCA) is composed of the elected chairman of the county Republican party organizations in Texas and operates to support and provide networking opportunities for elected Republican county chairmen in Texas.[25]

The Texas Young Republican Federation (TYRF) is an organization composed of Young Republican clubs across Texas which are open to registered voters who are between the ages of 18 and 40 years old. The TYRF goals are grassroots activism, leadership development, community service and club development.[26]

The Texas Federation for Republican Outreach is committed to increasing participation and affiliation of African-American voters within the Republican Party, and to increase the number of elected Republican African-American candidates in Texas.[27]

The Texas Republican Assembly is a grassroots volunteer organization dedicated to promoting and electing conservative Republican candidates in Texas. There are six charter clubs across Texas.[28]

The Republican National Hispanic Assembly has a chapter in Texas, whose mission is to increase participation and affiliation of Hispanic American voters within the Republican Party, and to increase the number of elected Republican Hispanic candidates in Texas.[29]

The Latino National Republican Coalition of Texas believes "in active civic engagement as a means to bridge the gap between the Hispanic Community and the GOP." There are five chapters throughout Texas.[30]

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Republican Party of Texas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

Its hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that theyll compensate for todays expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) Its a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for todays disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obamas Waterloo just as healthcare was Clintons in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clintons 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romneys Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise without weighing so heavily on small business without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the doughnut hole and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or more exactly with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

Ive been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say but what is equally true is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office Rushs listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So todays defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, its mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, its Waterloo all right: ours.

Follow David Frum on Twitter: @davidfrum

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Waterloo | FrumForum

HYR brings together 18-40 year old like-minded Republicans to network and equip young leaders with knowledge, resources, and skills to help build the future of the party. We work to grow and expand participation in the Harris County Republican party while assisting and learning from candidates, elected officials, and party leadership read more

Chris Busby President

Mac Flores Vice President

Sandi Steinbacher Political Director

James Rains Communications Diretor

John Baucum President Emeritus

The Houston Young Republicans gathered at Karbach Breweryto watch the secondprimetime GOP debate of 2015 on CNN, graciously hosted by read more

Only in the age of Obama and the militant Left would a candidate as obviously criminally corrupt, incompetent and unqualified read more

The Houston Young Republicans gathered at Luckys Pub in the Heights to watch the first, primetime GOP debate of 2015. read more

The Marijuana Policy in Houston and Beyond forum washeld at the Talento Bilinge de Houston,and washosted by the Houston Young read more

The SCOTUS decision in King v Burwell is like this: On the eve of the Super Bowl, the most respected read more

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Houston Young Republicans

Grassley Statement on President Obamas Executive Gun Control Proposal

WASHINGTON Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the following statement regarding President Obamas announcement to use executive authority to tighten firearms controls: Americas response to recent tragedies involving guns should include a thoughtful review of not only how, but also why they happened. It should explore responsible, effective solutions to underlying problems and []

DES MOINES Iowans will have an easier way to register to vote and update their registration information thanks to the new electronic voter registration system unveiledMondayby Secretary of State Paul Pate. The system is housed on the Iowa Department of Transportations website, available for use any time of day, and is accessible on any []

If you are into politics, there will be no better place to be for the next month than the state of Iowa. The holidays are over. The Hawkeye football season is over. We love college basketball, and while conference play is upon us, it doesnt get serious until March. For the next 30 days, the []

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness. Today, it is a great economic engine for our country.Millions of families rely on our farms and ranches for their well-being. Millions of our youth see it as their future, their []

Contrary to popular belief, the 2016 presidential campaign of Texas Senator Ted Cruz does not present socially conservative and evangelical voters their best chance to put one of their own in the White House. Instead, a Cruz presidency may usher in the total demise of social conservative movement in America. Last week, Politico released a []

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

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The Iowa Republican | News for Republicans, By Republicans