Free Republic

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton got a chilly reception at the nation’s highest court this month, when his office argued against Texas ranchers who were seeking compensation from the state over a Fifth Amendment takings clause issue. The Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm, represented rancher Richie DeVillier in the litigation, who sued after his ranch was repeatedly flooded by a new median wall built by Texas officials along a highway just to the south of his property, which ended up functioning like a dam during hurricanes and other periods of heavy rain. The Fifth Amendment...

Rep. David Trone, D-Md., who was recently blasted for using a disparaging term for Black people during a House hearing, is officially the largest self-funded candidate of a Senate primary race in U.S. history. Trone contributed $18.5 million of his own money to his Maryland Senate campaign, Fox News confirmed. And he brought in a total of over $40 million, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). No candidate running in a Senate primary has contributed this amount in recorded Senate primary history. "David Trone has been crystal clear that he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to...

On a rainy Wednesday in Dallas, powerful Republican donors gathered at the home of billionaire Kelcy Warren to help save the political career of House Speaker Dade Phelan. The speaker of the House is considered a titan of Texas politics, wielding the power to shape legislation, appoint committee leaders and amass a robust campaign fund to spend on protecting incumbents and other allies. That power wasn’t enough to protect Phelan from a surprisingly strong challenge by David Covey, who rode support from former President Donald Trump to a top finish in the March primary and forced Phelan into a precarious...

In 1985, Harold Washington issued an executive order that relaxed federal immigration laws under then-President Ronald Reagan, whose administration “aggressively used [the] detention of Central Americans as a device to deter migration from that region, where violent civil wars had caused tens of thousands to flee,” according to University of California Davis law professor Kevin Davis. Since Aug. 31, 2022, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bussed or flown to Chicago nearly 40,000 individuals seeking asylum in an effort to use the welcoming aspects of Washington’s executive order as a political cudgel. On April 14, Mayor Johnson called out the...

The Supreme Court released opinions on Tuesday in two cases argued earlier this term, rendering favorable rulings for a veteran plaintiff seeking educational benefits and a Texas landowner in a takings dispute. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the first opinion of the day, a 7-2 decision that sided with veteran James Rudisill in his effort to take advantage of education benefits available under the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Rudisill served in the Army on three separate occasions between 2000 and 2011. The majority decision in Rudisill v. McDonough reversed a U.S. Court of Appeals for the...

Guatemala’s Attorney General is investigating ongoing criminal claims that a number of American tax payer funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating both inside and outside the United States are complicit in the ongoing trafficking, abuse and disappearance of children from its nation, according to an official Guatemalan letter obtained by this investigative columnist. The Guatemalan government is seeking full cooperation from the State of Texas, where the accusations of abuse have been reported, government officials told SaraACarter.com. A letter from Guatemalan Attorney General María Consuelo Porras was sent to Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday. Porras asked Paxton for immediate assistance...

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine. Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own. McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately,...

University of Texas which was laying off around 60 employees in order to belatedly comply with a state law prohibiting DEI. I say belatedly because the law in question took effect at the beginning of the year but it seems UT's first reaction wasn't to get rid of DEI offices and employees but instead to simply rebrand them. For instance, at the University of Texas the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement was renamed the Division of Campus and Community Engagement. But one of the authors of SB 17, the Texas DEI prohibition, caught wind of what was happening and...

Space X CEO Elon Musk and Argentinian President Javier Milei have met in Texas and spoke about working together to promote free markets and potential lithium projects. President Javier Milei’s chief spokesperson said that during their visit to Tesla’s Austin headquarters, the two talked about a range of issues, including the need to boost declining birth rates globally and the pursuit of technological advancement while upholding “liberty.” Musk has previously expressed his admiration for Milei’s unabashed support of private enterprise as well as his distaste for what he considers to be socialist excesses.

DALLAS - Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz has been found guilty of injecting dangerous drugs into IV bags at the Baylor Scott & White Surgicare in North Dallas. The 12-person jury returned guilty verdicts on all 10 counts. The jury reached the guilty verdict after about seven hours of deliberations. Ortiz was wearing a mask and showed no emotion as the verdict was read. There were 11 patients who suffered cardiac emergencies, and a fellow doctor, Dr. Melanie Kaspar, died from the IV bags. "There's no closure. My best friend is gone," said John Kaspar, Dr. Melanie Kaspar's widower, shortly after the...

The woke professor tearing up Baylor University continues his wild ride of unrestrained progressivism, recently interrupting church liturgy to unironically point out that the title of a centuries-old hymn is “sexist” for containing the word “brethren” and that he’s edited and moved around parts of it as to not cause offense. The last thing that I’ll mention is because I’m Episcopalian, I don’t like to interrupt liturgy. Liturgy is holy. It works when it’s together. We have a song that is 200 years old, which will be our opening hymn. I am well aware that the title Brethren We Have...

George W. Truett Theological Seminary, or ‘Truett’ for short, is a Texas-based seminary operated by Baylor University (The World’s largest Baptist university) and associated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. With nearly 400 students, they describe themselves as an “orthodox, evangelical school in the historic Baptist tradition” with a mission to “equip God-called people for gospel ministry in and alongside Christ’s Church by the power of the Holy Spirit.” We recently wrote about Baylor after Greg Garrett, their pro-choice, gay-affirming, trans-affirming professor of Literature and Culture who called a centuries-old hymn “sexist” for containing the word “brethren,” and after...

As a ninth-degree black belt, Diane Reeve Kirby is prepared to make any man who attacks her regret it. But she has no illusions about how far her 35 years of training will take her. "Typically a man is going to be bigger and stronger than a woman. And that's just a fact we have to live with," Kirby says. Likewise, women taking classes at Kirby's Action Self-Defense are quickly disabused of any Scarlett Johansson butt-kicking fantasies they may harbor. "What I teach is a one-shot deal," Kirby tells me as we sit in the kitchen of her Plano, Texas,...

A college football star's shocking death has sparked an outpouring of grief from his girlfriend, former teammates and coaches, as well as the surrounding Dallas area. Texas A&M-Commerce wide receiver Keith Miller III was found dead near campus on Thursday evening, according to a school press release. A cause of death has not been revealed and a police spokeswoman did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for further information. Miller is described as a father in a statement from Lions coach Clint Dolezel, although details about the 23-year-old's family life remains murky. He was apparently in a relationship with a...

This week my old newspaper The National Post is full of columns about "the death of the Canadian dream", if not the murder of said Canadian dream. Oh, I don't know. Say what you will about Canada, but it's the first country in the world to decree that its citizenry are entitled to both a penis and a vagina - and taxpayer-funded at that: An Ontario resident has successfully secured public funding for a specialized gender-affirming surgery argued to be "experimental" by the provincial health insurer following a years-long legal battle. The … … to the review board following an...

DALLAS – Thousands of guns sent off by North Texas local law enforcement agencies to be destroyed were first stripped of parts that were then sold online by a private company. Several police departments told the CBS News Texas I-Team they were unaware of this practice, even though it was stated in the contracts they signed with the company While the federal government does not regulate or require a license for businesses involved in firearm destruction, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recommends disposing firearms by destroying the entire weapon including all unregulated parts. An investigation by...

Social media users trashed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, after she turned her gaffe about the moon being "made of gases" into a slam of Republicans on social media Tuesday. Reacting to the backlash she received for telling school children that the moon is made of gases ahead of Monday’s eclipse, the lawmaker said that her Republican critics are hounding her because they have a "lust for stupidity." She gave a speech at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston on the day of the eclipse, telling an assembly of students, "Sometimes, you need to take the opportunity just to...

While Democrats and leftist alarmists decry conservatives for supposedly peddling "misinformation" about "the Science™" related to climate, COVID, and genders (there are two, FYI), their own Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas is out and about telling constituents some real whoppers about the solar eclipse.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee ( D-TX) once sat on the House Science Committee and the House Space Committee. But understanding astronomy seems to elude her. Jackson Lee attended an event at Booker T. Washington High School where the “Trust the Science” party member clearly does not understand the science. Jackson Lee explained to the crowd, “You have the energy of the moon at night.” What?

This is what happens when you teach nothing but racism in school, and leave out anything actually, you know, educational. >p> During an event in Houston just before the eclipse Monday morning, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told the audience gathered at the Mickey Leland Federal Building that the moon was made up “mostly of gasses” (it isn’t) and that it's "almost impossible to go near the sun" (we actually can't go near it at all) because it's a "mighty powerful heat" (you don't say!?). Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: It's "almost impossible to go near the sun," but the...