Free Republic

HOUSTON — Days after a top adviser to President Trump questioned Senator Ted Cruz’s chances of winning re-election, the Texas lawmaker casually stepped into the pinnacle of his hometown’s energy industry on Tuesday — the lobby of the Petroleum Club of Houston, on the 35th floor of a downtown skyscraper. Mr. Cruz shook hands while holding a cup of McDonald’s coffee. By the end of his remarks to the American Petroleum Institute, the audience rose for two standing ovations. It was not a campaign event, but it might as well have been: Mr. Cruz was relaxed and confident, eager to...

Generations of Texans have rightly drawn inspiration and strength from the heroes of the Alamo – the brave men who fought to the death to defend the battle-scarred mission in San Antonio in 1836 in the fight for Texas’ independence from Mexico. These freedom fighters are a symbol of valor for all Americans. It is bizarre, then, that an advisory group recommended to the Texas Board of Education that it remove the words “all the heroic defenders” from the state’s social studies curriculum describing the men who gave their lives at the Alamo. The Board of Education was holding a...

A Dallas police officer who fatally shot her neighbor in his apartment, claiming she mistook the unit for her own, told the authorities that the door was already ajar when she entered and that she shot him after he ignored verbal commands, according to court records released on Monday.The officer, Amber R. Guyger, 30, who has been charged with manslaughter, could face additional charges in a case that has led to accusations that the officer received preferential treatment and debate about whether race may have played a role in the deadly encounter between a white police officer and a black...

Beto O'Rourke is as Hispanic as Elizabeth Warren is Native-American. The Dem candidate for Senate from Texas is, in fact, a fourth-generation Irish American. But that doesn't stop Victoria DeFrancesco, on the faculty of the Department of Mexican-American and Latino Studies at UT-Austin, giving "Beto" the full Spanish pronunciation of his first name as a guest on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show this evening. View the video here.

The Houston Chronicle on Monday announced an investigation into the work of one of its former reporters after editors said they became aware in discrepancies over the accuracy of his work. The newspaper's executive editor, Nancy Barnes, wrote that another Houston Chronicle journalist raised questions about whether Austin, Texas, reporter Mike Ward made up quotes from non-existent people in one of his stories. "We ask that you trust us that we've done everything we can to ensure what we've told you is fair and accurate," Barnes said in her post. "For that reason, I want to be completely transparent with...

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) on Monday unveiled a package of three bills touted as a sequel to the 2017 GOP tax law. "Last year we said goodbye to America’s old, broken tax code," said Brady. "Under our new system, we’re seeing incredible job growth, bigger paychecks, and a tax code that works on behalf of families and American businesses. Now it’s the time to ensure we never let our tax code become so outdated again. We look forward to bringing these bills to the Committee soon.” The bills would make permanent some temporary aspects of...

The media aided abortion activists’ misrepresentation. CNN said Brett Kavanaugh referred to contraceptives as ‘abortion-inducing drugs.’ While he didn’t, some of them in fact are. Following a week of theater billed as confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, desperate Democrats turned to the media for help peddling yet another unwarranted attack on the Supreme Court nominee: that Kavanaugh believes birth control is abortion.The charge followed an exchange during Thursday’s hearing when Sen. Ted Cruz asked Kavanaugh, who has served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2006, to explain his dissent in the Priests for Life case. That case, as...

FULL TITLE: Exclusive – Mo Brooks: Likely 15M Illegal Aliens in U.S., Giving Blue States 20 Additional Congressional Seats Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) says the counting of illegal aliens when dividing up congressional seats and electoral college votes is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Brooks, along with the state of Alabama, are suing the federal government for their counting of illegal aliens, rather than citizens, in congressional apportionment and the dividing up of electoral college votes. In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot Channel’s Breitbart News Saturday, Brooks revealed that should the Congress continue...

Shh! One of the U.S. Senate candidates backed out of a scheduled debate but could we just forget about that and move on to other matters? That seems to be the reaction of the Texas Tribune to the news that the Democrat candidate in the Senate race to unseat incumbent Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke, backed out of a scheduled debate set for August 31. Since then, it has been treated as a rather minor matter by a periodical whose main shtick is Texas politics.

Washington (CNN)Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told supporters at a rally on Saturday that Democrats wanted to make Texas like California and listed off a few things as stereotypical staples of the blue state. "We are seeing tens of millions of dollars flooding into the state of Texas from liberals all over the country who desperately want to turn the state of Texas blue," Cruz said. "They want us to be just like California, right down to tofu and silicon and dyed hair." Cruz added that his wife, Heidi Cruz, was "a California vegetarian." "She's wonderful, but I brought her...

VENICE, Italy—Two years ago, the Venice Film Festival hosted the world premiere of Hacksaw Ridge, a World War II drama directed by Mel Gibson. The film marked Gibson’s first turn behind the camera in a decade, since he’d drunkenly slurred “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” pleaded guilty to battering his then-partner Oksana Grigorieva, and was caught on audio saying she was “asking” to be “raped by a pack of n****rs.” Despite never demonstrating much in the way of genuine contrition, he was treated to a prolonged standing ovation on the Lido—the opening salvo of...

A long-anticipated plan to enforce the largely ignored public charge provisions of the nation’s immigration laws that require prospective immigrants and visa holders to be able to support themselves without relying on government aid could be unveiled by the Trump administration as soon as this month. A source close to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rulemaking process who requested anonymity said that proposed regulations will be published this fall, and likely this month, defining the phrase “public charge” under Section 212(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The upcoming change was previously reported in the media, but usually...

**SNIP** The 27-year-old Democratic candidate for the New York Senate has come unstuck in recent days after she was outed as a former Republican and accused of faking her hardscrabble immigrant backstory. Now, DailyMail.com can reveal the extent of her deception with a series of images documenting Salazar's privileged upbringing in the upmarket Florida enclave of Jupiter, where her family built their own four-bedroom home, owned boats, a jet ski and rubbed shoulders with celebrities. It can also be revealed for the first time that Salazar's Colombian father, a commercial and cargo pilot who became a naturalized US citizen years...

President Donald Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, expressed confidence to Republican donors Saturday that the party would overcome a Democratic “movement of hate” in November, but he acknowledged Republicans could lose races where they have nominated candidates who are not seen as “likable” enough, like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

A panel advising the State Board of Education on what seventh-graders should learn in their social studies courses has urged deleting the label "heroic" from a curriculum standard about the Alamo's defenders.---snip---The panel said "heroic" was a "value-charged word."---snip---Current seventh-grade social studies curriculum standards include the "siege of the Alamo and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there." The advisory committee recommended cutting the phrase "and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there."---snip---Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the recommendation was made in response to complaints that curriculum standards are too...

Mayor Mike Rawlings said Saturday that he’s sure justice will be served for Botham Shem Jean. Jean, 26, was killed in his own apartment on Thursday night by an off-duty, uniformed Dallas Police officer who said she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own when she got off work at about 10 p.m. Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall said yesterday “at my request, we are in the process of obtaining a warrant based on the circumstances we have now.” She later added the warrant would be for manslaughter.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he's considering using military resources to finish construction of his long-promised border wall instead of relying on Congress to fund the project through the Homeland Security Department's budget. He also wouldn't eliminate the possibility of a government shutdown if Democrats continue to confound his efforts to appropriate money for the project on the U.S.-Mexico border. 'We have two options,' he told DailyMail.com aboard Air Force One as he flew from Billings, Montana to Fargo, North Dakota. 'We have military, we have homeland security.' He was asked specifically about using the Army Corps of Engineers...

A Dallas police officer who fatally shot her neighbor and later explained she had mistaken his apartment for hers will be charged with manslaughter, the police chief said Friday.

Joseph Randle was arrested early Friday morning in Wichita, Kansas, and charged with rape, the latest run-in with authorities for the former Cowboys running back. Online records show Randle, 26, was booked into the Sedgwick County Jail at 3:43 a.m. and charged with rape and a probation violation. There was no bond listed for either charge. The Wichita Eagle noted Randle was sentenced to five years' probation in June after being found guilty of aggravated burglary, aggravated battery, criminal threat and marijuana possession. That conviction stemmed from a 2016 incident in which Randle intentionally backed into three people with his...

A Dallas police officer returning home from work shot and killed a neighbor on Thursday after she mistook his apartment for her own, police said. The Dallas Police Department said in a news release on Friday the officer had arrived at her apartment complex in uniform after working a shift. She called dispatch to report the shooting and told responding officers she believed the victim’s apartment was her own when she entered it. It was not immediately clear how the officer got inside the apartment or what led to the shooting. "I won't go into that information right now," Sgt....