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EL PASO, TX (KTSM) — Many parents are scratching their heads over a 4th grade homework assignment handed out on Tuesday but not because they can't understand it. Parents of a group of students at Pasodale Elementary School are angry with a teacher for sending their children home with what they call an "inappropriate reading assignment." One parent says it was supposed to be an assignment done in class but when some of the kids didn't finish it in time, they took it home, and that's when their parents said they noticed something wasn't right. Ursula Silverstein said her 10...

The apparent murder of a Chinese-American man, along with three family members, at his home in Houston, Texas, this January was recently said by an established overseas Chinese newspaper to have some connection to the former Chinese security official Zhou Yongkang, who is at the center of an intense corruption investigation.

Net oil imports to the United States could plummet to zero by 2037 because of booming production in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale and North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, a branch of the Energy Department projected in a new report.

AUSTIN, TX, April 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new survey by a liberal polling firm is bad news for Wendy Davis, the Democratic would-be governor of Texas who rose to national prominence after filibustering a bill to restrict abortions in the state. Although Davis promotes herself proudly as a candidate who cares about “women’s issues” – a euphemism for legalized abortion-on-demand, or as the Davis team describes it, “expanding access to women’s health care” – it seems women in Texas aren’t interested in what she’s selling. According to Public Policy Polling, 46 percent of Texas women view Davis “unfavorably,” and...

Dan Patrick and Julian Castro Immigration Debate http://kut.org/post/rewatch-dan-patrick-and-julian-castro-immigration-debate BY MATT LARGEY 4/15/2014 KUT.ORG State Senator and GOP Lt. Governor candidate Dan Patrick faced off against San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro in a televised debate over immigration tonight at 6pm. The debate was moderated by the Texas Tribune's Evan Smith.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS—Last week conservative candidate Konni Burton kicked off her run-off campaign to clinch the Republican nomination for Senate District 10. It was standing-room-only at Stockyard Station's Stampede Room, with friends, family, the grassroots, and Senator Ted Cruz by her side. Breitbart Texas previously reported that Burton is the favored conservative in the Senate District that includes Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield, Colleyville and other areas of south and northeast Tarrant County. Tarrant County is one of the few urban conservative strongholds in the nation and it is the district currently represented by liberal state senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth).In the five-person Republican...

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Texas released a chilling video in the hopes that it will help lead to the identity of a suspect who crept through a couple’s home and loomed over their baby as he slept. The incident, which occurred on April 5, was captured by the homeowner’s security cameras situated throughout the home, including in the baby’s nursery.

Despite the controversy and complaints, Texas A&M is holding separate and special graduation ceremonies for LGBT students Wednesday evening. The "Lavender Graduation," as it's being called, will feature as its commencement speaker Phyllis Frye – the first transgender judge in the state and a Texas A&M alumna. Supporters haven't specifically stated the reason for the special ceremony, except that "new leadership" in the pro-LGBT resource center on campus [link caution] is making it possible this year – and that it is to "celebrate the accomplishments of graduating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and ally [LGBTQQIAA] students." Regardless of the...

PPP's newest Texas poll finds Republicans leading by double digits in all of the state's major races for 2014. In the Governor's race Greg Abbott's at 51% to 37% for Wendy Davis. ------snip----- There's been some thought that Democratic prospects might be better in the race for Lieutenant Governor but Leticia Van de Putte actually trails by slightly more than Davis, regardless of who her Republican opponent ends up being. Dan Patrick leads her by 16 points at 51/35. ------snip----- Although it hasn't really been on anyone's radar screen the likely US Senate match up between John Cornyn and David...

Via the Caller, pollster Kellyanne Conway surveys the state of the “war on women� in Texas: “Women get exhausted with women candidates who say they are pro-woman and then run on issues that real women don’t say are most important to them.�No worries. Wendy’s rolling out a plan for universal pre-K at a cool $750 million per year in taxpayer expense. That’ll show ‘em.The favorability numbers are even starker. Among women, Abbott scores 35/27 while Davis clocks in at … 32/46. That’s basically identical to her 33/48 favorability among men. She ran on her biography, and this is where it...

Latinos and immigration activists are warning of political peril for President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fall election unless the president acts boldly and soon to curb deportations and allow more immigrants to remain legally in the U.S. Many activists say Obama has been slow to grasp the emotions building within the Latino community as deportations near the 2 million mark for his administration and hopes for immigration legislation fade. With House Republicans unlikely to act on an overhaul, executive action by Obama is increasingly the activists’ only hope.“There is tremendous anger among core constituencies of the president and...

Housing markets have remained relatively weak in many areas of the U.S., with two notable exceptions: Washington, D.C. and Texas. Overwhelming evidence suggests that while the federal government, one of the nation's largest employers, is responsible for the ever-increasing housing demand in D.C.--the private marketplace is behind Texas' boom. The Lone Star State's pro-business environment, low taxes and reliable regulation have caused businesses to flock to the state. The result has been a bountiful job market, which draws individuals and families to Texas from around the world--many are eager to purchase homes upon arrival. Fresh statistics released by the federal...

April 15, 2014 Texas Front-Runner for Statewide Office Calls on Governor to Mobilize National Guard to Prevent BLM Takeover Sid Miller Campaign Sid Miller, the former Chair of the Texas House Homeland Security & Public Safety and Agriculture and Livestock Committees, and now the frontrunner in the Republican race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, said today that the Bureau of Land ManagementÂ’s decision to halt their forced removal of Cliven BundyÂ’s cattle in Nevada was only a temporary delay in the federal agencies attempt to violate the private property and water rights of Americana and warned Texans to remain vigilant against...

AUSTIN, TEXAS--A grand jury is expected to be called to investigate allegations that Texas Gov. Rick Perry abused his power when he vetoed funding for the Travis County District Attorney’s office as part of the state budget. The veto came after Perry urged the DA to resign following an April 2013 drunk-driving incident for which she pled guilty and served time in jail, according to the Dallas Morning News. KVUE-TV reported that Perry has hired a criminal defense lawyer.

The two men's presidential hopes rest on appeals to the right-wing grassroots—and those voters seem to prefer Cruz. MANCHESTER, N.H.—Rand Paul has been methodically planning his run for president. Now Ted Cruz could come along and spoil the whole thing. Both senators have a path to the Republican nomination that rests on the support of the Tea Party. And when forced to choose, that segment appears to prefer Cruz, whose speech to an activists' gathering here over the weekend was the more enthusiastically received of the two. Saturday's Freedom Summit, billed as an early audition for potential 2016 candidates,...

In what may have been his most significant foreign policy speech to date, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday positioned his Reaganesque foreign policy views between the hawkish Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) and what he described as the dovish Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY), while blasting President Barack Obama as a fool on the international stage. Speaking at the second annual Uninvited II national security forum across the street from the Conservative Political Action Convention, Cruz brutally mocked the Obama administration's description of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an "uncontested arrival." He called this yet another example of Obama's "tortured semantics" which...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) went after fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and President Barack Obama on This Week With George Stephanopoulos sunday morning, telling ABC’s Jonathan Karl that Obama’s “five years of weakness� had emboldened Putin and that the U.S. needed to defend its values across the globe, in contrast to Paul’s less-interventionist foreign policy. “I’m a big fan of Rand Paul,� Cruz said, “but I don’t agree with him on foreign policy. I think U.S. leadership is critical in the world. I agree with him that we should be very reluctant to deploy military force abroad. But...

<p>MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Ted Cruz says he’s optimistic about the country’s future.</p> <p>The health care law — well, that’s another story.</p> <p>The Texas senator — a possible 2016 presidential candidate — spoke before a group of conservatives in New Hampshire on Saturday.</p>

Sen. Ted Cruz said Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached if he doesn’t indict former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, who is linked to the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. Speaking on Sean Hannity’s radio program Thursday, the Texas Republican labeled Holder the “most partisan attorney general the country has ever had,” and added that Holder should be impeached for “defying Congress and the rule of law.” Cruz cited the attorney general’s refusal to indict anyone in the months since the inspector general found that conservative and Tea Party groups were singled out for tax purposes.

Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity Foundation held the inaugural “Freedom Summit” at the Executive Court Banquet Facility in Manchester, N.H. 26 minute video at the link

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz believes Senate Democrats are the ones who forced Kathleen Sebelius to step down as health and human services secretary.Cruz told NBC News that Democrats are worried that Republicans will take back the Senate because of Obamacare.“Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation is the latest indication of just what a disaster Obamacare is. Obamacare is the most disastrous, the most damaging piece of legislation in modern times,” Cruz told NBC News. “And I believe she resigned because Senate Democrats are scared.”Cruz told Fox News that Senate Democrats “demanded Kathleen Sebelius’ head.”“They are running scared because every one of...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that, if the mainstream media and Democrats are correct that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned because Obamacare succeeded, then every other Democrat should follow her out of the Obama administration.  Speaking at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, which was organized by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United, Cruz joined other potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders at the event the day after Sebelius left the administration after the disastrous Obamacare rollout.Cruz said that if people listen to Democrats or the mainstream press (Cruz apologized for repeating himself – to much laughter), "they will tell...

Count Ted Cruz among the unimpressed about the HHS claim that over seven million Americans enrolled in ObamaCare by the end of the open-enrollment deadline. Javier Manjarres conducted a short telephone interview with Sen. Cruz, pointing out an earlier story broken by talk radio host Drew Steele about notification letters from HHS of ObamaCare auto-enrollment and questioned whether those were part of the HHS calculations. Cruz called this part of the mystery around the “funny numbers� coming out of the Obama administration, and wondered how many of the 7.1 million were only partial sign-ups:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The...

SEE YOUTUBE RECORDING OF Sen. Cruz's SPEECH HEREIn a speech on the Senate floor last night, Sen. Ted Cruz lambasted legislation that tied aid to Ukraine with changes to how much the United States gives to the International Monetary Fund.“These IMF provisions, if passed into law, would dramatically expand the financial exposure of the United States of America, effectively doubling our contribution, expanding our exposure,� said the Texas Republican.“We should not be opening up the U.S. taxpayers to billions in additional financial liability without a debate on the merits,� Cruz added. “It shouldn’t be just tied to Ukranian aid and...

UBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Wichita Falls is so far behind on rainfall that city leaders are asking state regulators for permission to use treated toilet flushes as drinking water.

Taxpayers will pick up most of the $715-a-day cost of state hospital treatment for Ethan Couch who killed four people and injured two others in a drunken driving crash in June 2013 when he was 16. Couch, who turned 17 on Friday, was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to a list of charges including intoxication manslaughter. His attorneys argued that his wealthy parents coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility, a condition one witness called "affluenza." At the time, the teen’s parents said they would pay for mental health treatment at a private facility in California, which costs about...

Donald Trump said that “not only is Obamacare a disaster, it is the single greatest lie that I have ever witnessed. As far as immigration is concerned, Trump boasted that he is a builder and that he likes to build things. He said that, if he was in charge of America, “I would build a border fence like you have never seen before.”

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Republican presidential primary is up and running in New Hampshire, where conservative prospects lined up in Manchester Saturday for the first cattle call of the 2016 cycle. Speakers at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, which was sponsored by Citizens United and Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity, included Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, all of whom would be top tier presidential contenders should they run. Donald Trump also spoke. Huckabee seemed especially determined to show he could compete for conservative votes against politicians like Paul and Cruz, who have each...

The Red River is the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma…or is it? Byers, Texas along the Red River — The BLM stole 140 acres of the Tommy Henderson ranch thirty years ago. They took his land and paid him absolutely nothing. He sued and lost. Now the BLM is using that court case as precedent to do it again. The problem is, the land they want to seize is property that ranchers have a deed for and have paid taxes on for over a hundred years.The BLM claims that about 90,000 acres (116 miles along the Red River) have never...

Snow beginning tonight with BRIEF near blizzard conditions possible across the North Texas & Western Oklahoma Panhandles, according to Chris Morris with the National Weather Service in Amarillo, Texas Also hard freeze warnings in effect! – In mid April!

Legendary singer Willie Nelson will be featured at a high-dollar fundraiser for Democratic governor nominee Wendy Davis. The event will be held April 27 in the Houston backyard of plaintiff’s lawyer Steve and Amber Mostyn, featuring barbecue, Nelson and — for those who stay overnight at the Hotel ZaZa — a campaign briefing on Monday morning.

Attorney General Eric Holder admitted Tuesday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was in the process of looking at the use of domestic drones. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, questioned Holder during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, asking the Attorney General if he believed if the Federal Aviation Administration or Congress should regulate of drone use. “Would you think that it would be better that Congress intervene and employ legislation safeguarding the Fourth Amendment, right of privacy basically on citizens or do you suggest as Attorney General that the FAA still control who gets a drone or not?”...

Two federal judges on the U.S. Sentencing Commission said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder stepped “outside the legal system” and exceeded the authority of the executive branch by sending “improper instruction” to federal prosecutors to reduce drug sentences before they were officially approved by either the commission or Congress. “I have been surprised at the attorney general’s steps taken to proceed with this reduction outside of the legal system set up and established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984,” Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, the commission’s vice chair, said during a public hearing in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building...

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Thursday that giving the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the United States a path to citizenship will result in an increase in Democrat voters and will spell doom for the Republican Party’s presidential aspirations. “[Illegal aliens are] not going to come out of Mexico and become Libertarians,” Stockman told CNSNews.com at an immigration radio town hall event on Thursday in Washington, D.C. “It’s not going to happen.” Stockman said his state is a bellwether for the future of the GOP if amnesty becomes the law of the land. “Being from Texas, I can assure...

A controversial proposal to build a massive underground pipeline to carry 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas has become the environmental issue of the summer, pitting developers and labor unions desperate for construction jobs against environmentalists and Native American tribes who fear the pipeline will spell environmental disaster. TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL project would consist of more than 1,700 miles of 36-inch-diameter pipe, about 327 miles of which would be in Canada while the rest would snake southward through the central United States. Because the pipeline would...

Say what you will about Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), but they know a train wreck when they see it. They also know when to separate themselves from the cranks and the losers on the right. Although both supported the shutdown and were heartily supported by tea party groups in their own Senate races, neither one has endorsed Matt Bevin in Kentucky, Milton Wolf in Kansas or Chris McDaniel in Mississippi. In fact, Cruz’s office confirms he hasn’t endorsed anyone in the primaries. There are a few important lessons here. First, neither one of these guys wants...

An arrest has been made in the murder of a San Antonio woman who was killed more than a decade ago. Lillita Moke's body was found in the basement of her Monte Vista home in March of 2000, after neighbors complained of a foul odor. Friday morning, immigration officials in Canada said they caught the man police say killed her. That man is Antonio Diaz Lisenber, who was Moke's gardener. According to CTV Vancouver, the Canadian Border Services Agency says they caught Lisenber when he applied for permanent residency. At a hearing in Vancouver earlier this week, the man claimed...

Texas A&M redshirt sophomore quarterback Johnny Manziel reportedly scored a 32 on the Wonderlic intelligence test, tops among the highest-ranked prospects at the position in the 2014 NFL Draft.

BYERS, Texas (RFD-TV) Most people think the border between Texas and Oklahoma is the Red River. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that, especially along the part of the river where Tommy Henderson and his family ranch. Henderson lost a lawsuit 30 years ago that moved part of the northern Texas border over a mile to the south. The Bureau of Land Management [BLM] took 140 acres of his property and didn’t pay him one cent. Now, they want to use his case as precedent to seize land along a 116-mile stretch of the river. “They’re wanting to take...

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that two militia members from Montana and one from Utah have arrived at Cliven Bundy’s ranch. “We need to be the barrier between the oppressed and the tyrants,” Ryan Payne of the West Mountain Rangers told the Review-Journal. “Expect to see a band of soldiers.” Payne said that militias from New Hampshire, Texas and Florida are likely to join and stand with Bundy and stay at his ranch. “They all tell me they are in the process of mobilizing as we speak,” Payne told the Review-Journal, adding that hundreds of militia members are expected. The...

“Year of meteors! Brooding year!” -Walt Whitman A remarkable astronomical event also occurred over the northeastern United States 153 years ago today on the night of July 20th, known as the Great Meteor Procession of 1860. And with it came a mystery of poetry, art and astronomy that was only recently solved in 2010. A meteor procession occurs when an incoming meteor breaks up upon reentry into our atmosphere at an oblique angle. The result can be a spectacular display, leaving a brilliant glowing train in its wake. Unlike early morning meteors that are more frequent and run into the...

Three members of a Mission family are facing criminal charges after allegedly going after their teenage daughter's boyfriend with a loaded rifle and a baseball bat. Mission police arrested Baldomero Cortes, his wife Ana Maria Cortes and their son Artemio Cortes on Sunday afternoon. Investigators told Action 4 News that the family did not approve of their 17-year-old daughter's 21-year-old boyfriend. Mission police said her brother Artemio went to the boyfriend's house on Rancho del Rey Street and smashed the windows with a baseball bat on Sunday. Artemio Cortes allegedly came back with his parents looking for the 17-year-old girl....

Texas executed by lethal injection on Wednesday a Mexican citizen who was convicted of bludgeoning a man to death and repeatedly raping the man's wife. Ramiro Hernandez, 44, was pronounced dead at 6:28 p.m. CDT at the Texas state death chamber in Huntsville after receiving a dose of lethal drugs, the Texas Department o Texas executes Mexican national for murder and rapef Criminal Justice said. Hernandez was the sixth convict executed in Texas this year and the 16th in the United States.

Today, U.S. Congressman Blake Farenthold (TX-27) attended a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Attorney General Eric Holder was the sole witness. Today marked the seventh time General Holder has testified before the Judiciary Committee since his confirmation in 2009. Congressman Farenthold did not question Holder during the hearing because he felt that, since the Attorney General has been held in contempt of Congress, it was not appropriate for him to appear before Congress as if nothing was wrong. Instead, Congressman Farenthold made the following remarks during his designated questioning round in today’s hearing:...

Today, three Republican U.S. Senators and one Representative who feel stymied on their investigation into the Benghazi, Libya Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks are calling for House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) to convene a Select Congressional Committee. “Segmenting the investigation will never get to the truth,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is holding a news conference on the effort today with Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC). There have been multiple hearings in the nearly 17 months since the terrorist attacks that killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The hearings, subpoenaed...

On April 1, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray was denied a second term, defeated in the primary by upstart city councilwoman Muriel Bowser. The beginning of the end came on March 10, when U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen struck a plea bargain with a wealthy businessman who confessed he'd spent $668,000 on an illegal "shadow campaign" to fund get-out-the-vote efforts that helped Gray win the mayoral office in 2010. So the corrupt mayor of America's most important city is thrown out. A political scandal? The same networks that were utterly breathless over the local story of Gov. Chris Christie's aides slowing traffic...

The US Senate has unanimously passed a bill barring known terrorists from entering the United States as ambassadors to the United Nations. The move came in response to the decision by Iran to appoint Hamid Aboutalebi, who participated in the 1979 hostage-taking of Americans in Tehran, as its UN ambassador. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf had called the decision "extremely troubling", and at least 29 Republican Senators had appealed to the Obama administration to deny Aboutalebi a visa to enter the US. One of those Senators was Ted Cruz (R-TX), who said he would not make do with a simple...

memorial service Wednesday at Fort Hood — the site of last week’s shooting rampage. The memorial is also the same day Obama will reportedly attend a Democratic fundraiser in Houston for House and Senate candidates. The Associated Press obtained an invitation to the April 9 event where tickets start at $16,200 a person and go up to $64,800 for a couple. Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are also expected to attend. The AP reports that the money raised at the fundraiser will go to

It's not likely the race for president in 2016 will pit former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol predicted. "I'm willing to go out on a limb," Kristol told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday. "I think there's no way there will be a Bush-Clinton race in 2016."

The Senate unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz Monday night, which would block known terrorists from getting visas to enter the United States as U.N. ambassadors. He thanked several senators by name on the Senate floor he said were “instrumental in the passage,” including Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and a very unlikely ally. Iran’s newest U.N. ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, was an active participant in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days in Tehran. He was appointed earlier this year by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Shchumer said in a statement...