Free Republic

As Texas lawmakers convene in January for the next legislative session, their chief task will be to write a two-year budget. And the state's next comptroller will be charged with estimating how much revenue lawmakers can expect to work with. The responsibility has become a political minefield, particularly after Comptroller Susan Combs’ estimate ahead of the 2011 session drew criticism for underestimating tax revenue by several billion dollars. Combs’ office recently researched the accuracy of revenue estimates going back 40 years and found that, by one measure, other comptrollers’ estimates have landed farther from the actual number. Since 1942, the...

With an $860 million deal announced this week, Buckeye Partners is betting on condensate. Condensate, a type of light crude oil, has been flowing in increasing quantities from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas as technological advances boost production there. And with more condensate coming from the region — as well as the possibility that lightly refined condensate may be exempt from a U.S. ban on most crude oil exports — many midstream companies are looking at potential profit in getting the light oil from the South Texas wells to market. From 2009 to 2012, annual U.S. production of...

U.S. intelligence agencies last month reported that a group of 22 Yemeni-Americans were training in Houston to be seamen on oil tankers, raising terrorism concerns over the unusual activity. The Department of Homeland Security issued an Aug. 26 report from its National Terrorism Advisory System about the case. “Reporting revealed that 22 students of Middle Eastern descent from Michigan and California were enrolled in recent maritime training courses in Houston, TX to obtain training, licensing, and/or mariner ratings during calendar year 2014,” the report said. “All students were naturalized U.S. citizens from Yemen.”

Texas’s attorney general wants the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a five-year fight over specialty Confederate flag license plates. The plates were sponsored five years ago last month by the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a nonprofit group that describes itself as “neither political nor sectional” and “strives to honor and keep alive the memory of the Confederacy and the principles for which Confederates fought.” Supporters of such groups say they are simply celebrating those who fought for state’s rights, while critics say doing so ignores the involvement of those states in slavery. The specialty...

Apart from their recent college football successes and their former flashy and party-hard quarterback Johnny “Football” Manziel, Texas A&M University has had a different kind of success: a surprisingly rapid growth in its Christian ministry on-campus. The Breakaway Ministries holds a weekly worship and prayer service at the college’s basketball arena and special events center, the Reed Arena. From its launch with twelve students in a college dorm room in 1989 to nearly 12,000 weekly attendees today, it is impressive to learn about budding Christianity on a major college campus. breakaway ministries The director of Breakaway Ministries, Ben Stuart, was...

DALLAS, Texas -- It is like a Texas sampler platter of the 2014-15 Common Core offerings served up around the state -- Sadlier "Common Core Enriched Edition" Vocabulary, Springboard and Carnegie Math. There is even a kindergarten handout that defines the importance of the term "Common Core." Parents are up in arms. More so, they are worried. They have heard endlessly that there is no Common Core in Texas. It is the law. Yet, this is what is coming home in the backpacks. To her surprise, a Boerne Independent School District (ISD) parent pulled out the "6 Math Terms to Know...

The FBI is accusing Texas Democrats of using cocaine to buy votes and it’s all coming out in court. Political chicanery and vote-buying in Texas are as old as the state itself, and the latest episode to come to light features purchasing votes with cocaine, marijuana, money, cigarettes and beer, an on-going FBI investigationhas uncovered. Two political operatives of a Hidalgo County Commissioner’s campaign manager were charged on Thursday with vote-buying before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby, The Monitor reported. The arrests are the latest twist in an 18-month investigation focusing on the 2012 primary election for County Commissioner.

A man killed by police officers in Texas on Saturday was armed only with a pellet gun and was shot more than 80 times, leaving him with 'no face', family members said. The Laredo Police Department said it placed six officers who allegedly opened fire on Jose Walter Garza on administrative duties pending an internal investigation, media reported. The incident, much of which was recorded on a surveillance camera, took place outside a truck stop on Saturday at around 2 am.

In 1988, Republicans slammed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis over Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who attacked a man and sexually assaulted a woman compliments of Massachusetts’ weekend furlough program. This was used to paint Dukakis as soft on crime. Willie Horton 1988 Attack AdIt was a particularly nasty ad (I mean that in a good way)–and Democrats seem to be trying to do the same thing to Republicans in some of the 2014 elections. Trying to spin legal decisions in a way that portrays them as incompetent, soft on crime, and, at times; engaging in a war on women....

Barbara Bush may be known as the quieter of the Bush twins, but when it comes to global health, she's anything but. At 32, the Yale graduate is co-founder and CEO of Global Health Corps, a nonprofit organization that pairs young volunteers — she calls them "fellows" — with health and development organizations. They work in countries like Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and even the United States, which is not immune from global health issues, Bush reminds us. In five years, the organization has recruited nearly 500 fellows and have sent another 128 off this July. We caught up with Bush...

Attorney General Greg Abbott on Tuesday said he supports keeping the state-funded unit of prosecutors investigating public corruption that Gov. Rick Perry vetoed, a move that later led to a felony indictment. Speaking after a campaign event, the Republican candidate for governor said he believed it was important for state lawmakers to have "a watchdog with prosecutorial authority." "And I believe that when the sun sets on the next session, we will still have a Public Integrity Unit," Abbott said in a brief interview.

Michael Sam is flying into Dallas on Tuesday night and will take a physical for the Cowboys on Wednesday, a source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter. If Sam passes his physical, the Cowboys intend to sign him to their practice squad, the source said.

A conservative group has filed a criminal complaint against state Sen. John Whitmire, accusing him of coercion in an exchange of text messages with University of Houston President Renu Khator that was published in the Houston Chronicle. In the Aug. 16 conversation, Whitmire told Khator he would "stop dead and pass leg (legislation)" unless she killed a plan to require freshmen to live on campus. Khator agreed to withdraw the proposal and asked Whitmire to forgive her. The complaint, filed Aug. 29 with Travis County's Public Integrity Unit by the Conservative Action Fund, cites the exchange. The unit investigates claims...

With recent waves of Central Americans seeking to reach the U.S., human smuggling along the Texas border has, at least for the moment, become more lucrative than smuggling illicit drugs for criminal organizations such as the Gulf and Zetas cartels, according to two U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. agents tracking the money flow as part of the anti-smuggling Operation Coyote say that in just over six months, human smuggling has generated nearly $50 million, mostly in the area around the Mexican border city of Reynosa. The revenue has helped sustain the Gulf cartel during a bloody internal split, the officials said....

As a feisty state senator with pink sneakers and a fist in the air, Wendy Davis captured both the love and the ire of America last year when she pulled an 11-hour filibuster of anti-abortion measures in the Texas Capitol. But after using that star power to win her party's nomination for governor, Davis is still struggling to take a lead over Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, and some say party confidence in her race is waning. "I think the frustration in some Democratic circles is that, despite her star power and substantial war chest, she has not been able...

Federal and state regulators have cleared the way for Formosa Plastics Corp. to begin construction on a $2 billion expansion of its petrochemical complex in Point Comfort. The approvals come two years after the private U.S. affiliate of the Taiwan-based industrial company announced plans to build new units and expand its capacity on 372 acres within its existing 1,600-acre site 120 miles southwest of Houston near Port Lavaca. It’s the fourth expansion since the Point Comfort plant went online in 1983. The Environmental Protection Agency issued final greenhouse gas permits and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality greenlighted the environmental...

The impact of higher oil and gas activity, fueled by a run-up in crude prices, continued to flow into the general economies of Midland and Odessa in July. Karr Ingham, the Amarillo economist who prepares the Midland-Odessa Regional Economic Index for Midland Development Corp. and Security Bank, said the July index is 6.2 percent higher than the previous July. This is a higher increase than June, which was 5.8 percent above June 2013 levels. Ingham said the increased momentum comes at a time when the Midland-Odessa economy had been reporting shrinking growth rates. “It’s not like we were really seeing...

The U.S. Coast Guard has lost track of a Kurdish tanker carrying $100 million in disputed oil off the coast of Texas, the Independent reports. Headed for Galveston, the United Kalavyrvta was anchored at least 60 miles off-shore when it vanished from radar screens. The ship's haul fell under legal dispute when Iraq filed a lawsuit in U.S. courts, urging American officials to grab the ship's oil in Galveston because it belongs to Iraq, not the Kurdish National Government.

Late Sunday night, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed an emergency request with a federal appeals court to uphold a pro-life law credited with closing multiple abortion clinics and cutting abortions 13 percent, saving an estimated 9,900 babies from abortion. The legislation, House Bill 2 (HB2), requires abortion facilities to meet the same safety standards of other Ambulatory Surgical Centers in the state, ensures that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital, and bans painful late abortions on fully formed babies. texas9bThe admitting privileges portion of the law was the portion responsible for closing abortion clinics and, because so...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — University of Texas Police are investigating the use of a drone over Darrell K. Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium Saturday night during the Longhorns’ home opener. KXAN’s cameras spotted the drone flying above the stadium. The drone had red and green lights on it. It also had a camera. We weren’t the only ones who spotted it. Police did too. During the second half of the game, officers found the operator of the drone, made him land it and then took the man into custody. The department told KXAN the man was a UT student, and he...