Free Republic

The North Texas Job Corps Center is part of the U.S. Department of Labor's national program, which helps train students for jobs.Layoffs at the North Texas Job Corps Center in McKinney will affect 300 positions a little more than a month after Dallas news station Fox 4 investigated allegations of abuse at the facility. The cuts were revealed in two letters to the Texas Workforce Commission filed under the The Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act. The notices said NTJCC expects to lay off 240 workers, while Fluor Federal Solutions will eliminate 79 jobs connected to the center. Layoffs are...

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples is raising objections to a school district pilot program that encourages kids to eat meatless lunches once a week. The pilot program at the Drippings Springs School District offers meat-free lunch options every Monday to students in its three elementary schools. Students can still eat meaty meals on Mondays, but must bring their lunches from home. Among the food items offered to students this Monday were a black-bean burrito, vegetarian chili with cornbread, baby carrots and sliced peaches. On past Mondays, students could choose cheese sandwiches, cheese ravioli, spinach salad and vegetarian soups. John Crowley,...

In an effort to prevent traitorous Americans from joining ISIS, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced legislation on Monday that would revoke their U.S. citizenships if they do. Speaking on the Senate floor this afternoon, he explained why such legislation is finally necessary. “ISIS is a study in oppression and brutality that is conducting ethnic cleansing against religious minorities in the region, that is targeting and persecuting Christians, and that is attempting to subject the local population to the strictest forms of Sharia Law,” he said. “And ISIS has gruesomely murdered U.S. civilians and, indeed, journalists on the public stage." Washington...

The Gulf Coast is driving a surge in U.S. exports of petroleum products as refineries run at near-record levels, according to recent reports. In June, the United States on average exported 3.7 million barrels per day of gasoline, distillate, jet fuel, petroleum coke and hydrocarbon gas liquids, according to the most recent data available. That’s an increase of 17 percent, or 543,000 barrels per day, from the same time last year, the Energy Information Administration said in a newly released analysis. Nearly three-quarters of that growth came from the Gulf Coast, where refineries remain “extremely competitive” against their global counterparts...

Israel is hoping to lure U.S. exploration and production companies to take advantage of its new offshore opportunities. So far, Houston’s Noble Energy is the only U.S. player there, after its discovery of major gas fields below the Mediterranean Sea. Reporter Rhiannon Meyers details how Israel is searching for inspiration and expertise in Texas. “Ultimately, Texas is the hub of the global oil and gas industry,” Joshua Beagelman, who is organizing the nation’s first international oil and gas conference in the fall, told her.

A Tulsa, Okla.,-based plumbers and pipe welders union is clearly flush with cash, as a dozen of their top officials made more than $200,000 last year, federal records show. Plumbers AFL-CIO Local Union 798 paid business manager Daniel Hendrix $280,000 and financial secretary/treasurer Wade Pilgreen $272,000 in fiscal 2013, according to disclosures the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. ... Hendrix said his pipe fitters make about $50 an hour and work at least a 60-hour a week plus expenses, and the union staff is compensated at a similar rate for their roughly 80-hour work weeks. A person...

Are even Wendy Davis' most ardent supporters detecting the handwriting on the wall? Seems like it. There was NOW president Terry O'Neill, on this evening's Ed Show, coming close to throwing in the towel. Said O'Neill: "this has always been very much an uphill battle." Translation: Davis is going down in her race for Governor of Texas. O'Neill's comment came in the context of a discussion of Davis' recent disclosure that she had, reportedly for health reasons, undergone two abortions. It does seem that Davis, down in the polls and with little left to lose, decided to double down on...

ARLINGTON, Texas – The swaths of red, San Francisco 49ers red, spread and leached through the stands at AT&T Stadium. It was all over the end zones. It dominated the third deck and standing room areas. It even scattered through the most expensive club seat sections. Red here. Red there. Red everywhere. It didn't just speak to the traveling might and national appeal of the Niners. It wasn't just about the power of a Super Bowl contender that would cruise to a 28-17 victory that was far more lopsided than the score suggests. It also said plenty about the willingness...

Federal officials are due to open a huge family detention centre in southern Texas that will house immigrant adults with children while they await deportation. The Texas Observer reports that federal officials are preparing to open the nation’s largest family detention centre, a 2,400-bed facility that will nearly double the current capacity to house immigrant families awaiting deportation. The centre will be developed on a sprawling 50-acre property near the town of Dilley, 70 miles south-west of San Antonio, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told the monthly magazine. :snip: Earlier this year, federal officials opened family detention centres in...

In an interview with ABC News, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, predicted his party would reclaim the Democratic-controlled Senate in November, but he declined to endorse current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as the party leader should there be a transfer of power in the upper chamber of Congress.. . . . .But when asked if he would endorse McConnell — currently embroiled in a tight race for his Kentucky Senate seat — as Senate majority leader, the Texas Republican said that is a decision that would be made “when the time is right.”“Well, that will be a decision for...

McALLEN — Hidalgo County voters will elect a new top lawman this November, replacing a former sheriff who was sentenced to five years in prison following a public corruption scandal. Guadalupe “Lupe” Treviño, a Democrat, was convicted in July on a federal conspiracy charge after he admitted taking cash from a drug trafficker, but his party's leaders are confident the seat won't go to Al Perez, a Republican candidate with three decades of law enforcement experience. Analysts say that's because candidates with anything but a "D" by their names are few and far between in the Lower Rio Grande Valley...

"...The PICO National Network’s Campaign for Citizenship, one of the country’s largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network, also expressed disappointment in Obama’s reported decision. “The odds of us being let down by President Obama were high,” said Eddie Carmona, the group’s campaign manager. “The president and the Senate Democrats have made it very clear that undocumented immigrants and Latinos are simply viewed as political pawns.”....

Republican Greg Abbott says he grieves for Democrat Wendy Davis after his gubernatorial opponent revealed that she once had an abortion upon learning that the fetus had a severe brain abnormality. Abbott said Saturday in a statement that “the unspeakable pain of losing a child is beyond tragic for any parent.” He said he grieves for the Davis family and the loss of life. Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, discloses the abortion for the first time in her new memoir, Forgetting to Be Afraid. She had become pregnant in 1996 but had the abortion after doctors told her...

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who rose to prominence after her filibuster of Texas’ anti-abortion legislation, reveals in a new campaign memoir that she terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons in the 1990s, including one in which the fetus had developed a severe brain abnormality. In the book, “Forgetting to Be Afraid,” Davis writes that she had an abortion in 1996 after an exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides. She also describes ending an earlier ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. It...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced today his intent to file the Expatriate Terrorist Act (E.T.A.) of 2014 as soon as the Senate is called back into session on Monday, September 8th. “Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured,” said Sen. Cruz. “There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to...

It’s back to school time and last week as I dropped my daughter Caroline off at her first day of first grade, I remembered the excitement that a new school year brings.I wanted to give a message to our students: seize the opportunities that come with each academic year. Whether you’re starting kindergarten or finishing college, it’s an opportunity: an opportunity to work hard, attain new skills, and discover talents.While some of you may not enjoy those multiplication tables, others might find the reading assignments to be drudgery, still others may have difficult jobs and obligations after class, or live...

COLLEGE STATION - The last thing Sergeant Travis Lacox and Investigator Andy Murph would want is to be called heroes.But that's what Senator Ted Cruz called them during a ceremony to honor them for what happened two years ago.Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann was attempting to serve an eviction notice on August 13, 2012.Thomas Caffall came out shooting. He killed Bachmann and a bystander, and injured three others ... before Murph and Lacox took him down, ending a deadly 45 minute standoff."There's no gift we can give that can match that act of valor," Senator Cruz said."We are proud for...

AUSTIN — Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis reveals in a new campaign memoir that she terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons in the 1990s, including one where the fetus had developed a severe brain abnormality. Davis writes in Forgetting to be Afraid that she had an abortion after an exam revealed that the brain of the fetus had developed in complete separation on the right and left sides. The Associated Press purchased an early copy of the book, which hits stores Tuesday.

High-level intelligence officials and federal law enforcement are saying that terrorist attacks might be "imminent" for Texas cities and towns located near the U.S.-Mexico border as it's believed the jihadists are already operating in a Mexican border town. The unnamed officials told Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, that there's good reason to believe Islamic State terrorists are operating in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, and are planning to use the border to gain entry into the U.S. to carry out their attacks. Juarez is located just over 8 miles from El Paso, and is a hotbed for...

The recent increase in security at a key Army base near a Mexican border city where Islamic terrorists are confirmed to be operating and planning an attack on the United States indicates that the facility is a target, according to senior military experts contacted by Judicial Watch.Last week JW reported that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is working in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to...