Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Joe Biden will close out Texas Democrats' virtual convention next month that was moved online over fears of the coronavirus. The announcement Thursday rounds out an unusual slate of big names that Texas Democrats have rounded up for their state convention. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will also speak at the weeklong event via video. Democrats are redoubling efforts in Texas this year after gaining ground in the nation's biggest red state in 2018. A major target for them is the Texas House, where Democrats need...

For 64 days, Kevin Smith had shut down the Liberty Tree Tavern to comply with government orders. Now he was cleaning and disinfecting and removing stools to cut seating by three-quarters as he prepared to reopen the bar. Plexiglass screens had gone up at the supermarket checkout. His neighbors in Elgin, Texas, were still wearing masks outside, even after it was no longer mandated by the county. He did not think such a response was necessary, he said, and he wanted to push back. "Sorry, no mask allowed," read the poster taped to the front door of his bar Friday....

A bar owner in Elgin, Texas, has decided that wearing a mask inside his bar should be prohibited, but his reasoning is pretty solid. According to KXAN, co-founder of the Liberty Tree Tavern, Kevin Smith, has told customers that if they believe they need to be wearing a mask then they don’t need to be at a bar, they need to be staying home. “Due to our concern for our citizens, if they feel the need to wear a mask, then they should probably stay home until it’s safe,” reads the sign on the front. Smith told KXAN that he’s...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man is charged with providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group, including attempting to buy multiple weapons and scouting potential targets for an attack in the Tampa Bay area, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. A criminal complaint charges Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a potential 20-year prison term. **SNIP** According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari scouted a number of targets in the Tampa Bay region, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field...

Former Texas Rep. Sam Johnson, a military pilot who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before serving more than two decades in Congress, died Wednesday at age 89. The conservative Republican, who lived in the northern Dallas suburb of Plano, died at a Plano hospital of natural causes unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak, said his former spokesman, Ray Sullivan. Johnson flew nearly 100 combat missions in Korea and Vietnam. He was flying a bombing mission in 1966 when he was shot down and wounded. He was imprisoned in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" for nearly seven years, mostly...

I was waiting in line to get the oil changed and I got out of my car without a mask and a lady(mid 50's) wearing a mask gave me the meanest look. I think she took a picture of my license plate.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas officials fighting to block widespread mail-in voting during the pandemic claimed victory after the state's highest court ruled Wednesday that a lack of immunity to the coronavirus doesn't qualify someone to cast a ballot by mail. The decision was unanimous by the Texas Supreme Court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, including one who revealed last week that she had tested positive for COVID-19. Texas generally limits mail balloting only to voters who are over 65 years old or have a disability. Justice Eva Guzman wrote the court was unified in the conclusion that...

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Republicans haven’t abandoned the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina yet, but if they do, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a Democrat, said he’s hoping the GOP wouldn’t bring their national convention to Dallas. “No disrespect to any group, it’s just we cannot afford to have thousands of people coming from all over the U.S. to Dallas right now,” said Judge Jenkins.But Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a Republican, said the county has large stadiums that could hold the tens of thousands of delegates safely because they’d have room to practice social distancing. “The AT&T Stadium and...

Fort Worth arson investigators are looking for the man they say walked into a hotel lobby and set the clerk on fire Sunday night. Investigators shared surveillance video from the hotel on the 3700 block of Tanacross Drive and said it showed a man walk into the hotel and threaten to burn the clerk alive if he didn't turn over the cash. The man then squirted a liquid through a small hole in the office's protective glass, covering the front desk, floor and splashing on the clerk. Moments later, after the clerk picked up the telephone, the man then used...

Two of America’s largest states saw the fewest fatalities with COVID-19 this week since March. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters Tuesday that the state recorded just 73 deaths linked to the new disease over the past 24 hours. “In this absurd new reality, that is good news. Any other time and place when we lose 73 New Yorkers, it’s tragic,” Cuomo said. “It’s tragic now, but relative to where we’ve been, we’re on the other side of the curve, and that is the lowest number that we’ve had.” The daily deaths with COVID-19 peaked in New York at...

Citizen journalist Colleen Vera has discovered evidence of what appears to be a massive voter fraud ring operating in the state of Texas involving mail-in voting and Democrat political campaigns. Evidence presented below includes a video of a Democrat campaign surrogate harvesting mail ballots from a nursing home, audio of a Democrat campaign worker admitting to harvesting ballots from a nursing home, and mail-in ballots from Harris County that all have the same handwriting and envelope process.

An accused terrorist who allegedly opened fire on United States Navy personnel in Corpus Christi, Texas, was able to secure American citizenship through a little-known immigration loophole, a former intelligence agent states. Adam Alsahli, a 20-year-old naturalized American citizen, has been identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the alleged terrorist who attempted to speed through a gate at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (NASCC) on May 21. The FBI says Alsahli shot at a female sailor who was then able to prevent him from getting onto the NASCC base by raising a vehicle barrier. At that...

It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway. In the summer of 2018, at a conference on low-dimensional topology and geometry, Lisa Piccirillo heard about a nice little math problem. It seemed like a good testing ground for some techniques she had been developing as a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin. “I didn’t allow myself to work on it during the day,” she said, “because I didn’t consider it to be real math. I thought it was,...

Allen West, the former Florida congressman and recent candidate to chair the Texas Republican Party, was injured in a motorcycle accident just outside Waco on Saturday, according to numerous posts on social media. “Please pray for Allen West," Dr. Angela Graham-West, his wife, posted on Facebook early Saturday evening. She wrote that he was in the emergency room after his motorcycle was hit outside Waco. “On my way to hospital now.” An update on West’s Facebook page Sunday morning said he was recovering and in stable condition. The crash left him with a concussion, several fractured bones and multiple lacerations....

This Memorial Day Weekend a total of 55 Las Cruces Community Business Leaders and Citizens have a special message to share this holiday weekend amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democrat Beto O’Rourke Tried to get the upper hand late Friday, mocking the gradual reopening of the Texas economy from coronavirus shutdowns as “Dangerous, dumb and weak.” But at least two Texas Republicans weren’t having it. U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz each fired back at O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso who failed to unseat Cruz in 2018 and then ran an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

Former U.S. Congressman and Texas Republican Chairman candidate Allen West was injured in a motorcycle accident Saturday, his team said in a tweet. Allen West ✔ @AllenWest Team West here. We are getting more information about this, but right now, we just ask for your prayers and positivity. As we get more information, we will provide updates. #PrayersForAllenhttps://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanCoffeeCornerWithAngela/posts/2977196032361168 … The tweet linked to a Facebook status posted by Dr. Angela Graham-West, who said he was in the emergency room and was injured outside of Waco. (SNIP. George P. Bush asked for prayers)

Three large Southern states that moved aggressively to reopen amid the coronavirus crisis have seen new cases and deaths largely hold steady since then — despite several controversies over some of their data. In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp bucked the White House and local officials to lift a stay-at-home order on April 24, the state reported 862 cases on Thursday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That was less than the 946 new cases counted on Wednesday, but helped spur a slight rise in a seven-day rolling average that’s been basically trending downward since the start of the Peach State’s...

Some Karen is concerned of people having fun.

The suspect who was shot dead as he carried out Thursday's 'terrorism-related' attack on a Texas naval air base has been identified by the FBI as a 20-year-old Syrian-born college student. According to investigators, Adam Salim Alsahli opened fire at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in an attack that wounded one sailor, a member of the base security force, but no one other than the assailant was killed. A group that monitors online activity of jihadists has since claimed that Alsahli voiced support for hardline Islamic clerics on social media prior to the thwarted attack.