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<p>AUSTIN - Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick unveiled key portions of the upper chamber's education agenda on Tuesday, reviving proposals long unpopular with teacher groups that Patrick said would empower parents and help students leave poor-performing schools.</p> <p>"We'll be talking about school choice and pre-K at a later date," Patrick said at a morning press conference in the Capitol, flanked by members of the Senate Committee on Education. "But reforming education is more than a single shot. It is a comprehensive plan that takes in every area of the state, takes in every student, every parent and every teacher."</p>

Sheriff’s officials say when deputies got to the church, they found a charred wooden cross propped up against the church’s sign near the road. Investigators have collected evidence from the scene for submission and analysis. The predominantly black congregation, 200 members strong, has called Burnet home for nearly ten years. They meet out in the country on FM 2342 northeast of Kingsland. Pastor Willie L Monnet, Sr. founded the church in New Orleans, and was forced to relocate after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A Tea Party lawmaker erred last week when he filed a handwritten complaint against the judge who permitted Texas' first same-sex marriage. State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, a veteran groom with five marriages under his belt, called out the wrong judge and made a flawed assertion of Texas law

Nautical X Prize also-ran suffers further setback A group of retired NASA engineers looking to develop a spacegoing seaplane - or seagoing spaceplane - have suffered a setback, with a prototype craft reportedly exploding during tests at the weekend. The Advent space seaplane concept The Daily News of Galveston County in Texas reports that the explosion near Hitchcock, 40 miles from Houston, was loud enough to draw a lot of attention. The disaster was apparently investigated by the Hitchcock police and fire departments, the FBI, Homeland Security and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Click here to find...

Currently, 61 members of Congress have confirmed they will not attend the speech. Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) California Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — “I am disappointed Speaker Boehner chose to irresponsibly interject politics into what has long been a strong and bipartisan relationship between the United States and Israel. As President Obama has noted, it is inappropriate for a Head of State to address Congress just two weeks ahead of their election. I agree that Congress should not be used as a prop in Israeli election campaigns,...

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel told a large group on Capitol Hill on Monday that the threat of a nuclear Iran must be taken seriously and said it was important that Americans hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Wiesel was joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) in a jam-packed Senate auditorium for a discussion on the dangers of Iran and the rising tide of anti-Semitism across the globe. “To be Jewish in this world is to always be concerned,” explained Wiesel when asked about Iran. “When enemies make threats, take them seriously.”...

Fundamental Transformation of America: Getting rid of the country that exists, replacing it with a foreign new one The actual blueprint of the method of the madness of the Obama regime has been laid bare in White House plans to develop “A Country Within A country” of 15 Million “New Americans”, a story brought to light by Mark Levin’s interview with Susan Payne. “Citizens Will Be Cast Into the Shadows”, warns Susan Payne, a contributor to WCBM, Baltimore and Co-Host of the Pat McDonough Radio Show. (Independent Sentinel, February 28, 2015) Citizens about to be cast into the shadows is...

Duncanville, Texas mayor silences anti-camera councilman by having him arrested. The mayor of Duncanville, Texas had a member of the city council arrested last Tuesday for speaking out against the use of red light cameras during an official meeting. The incident took place during the discussion of whether the city should spend $59,000 to make street repairs. Mayor David Green recognized Councilman Paul Ford to speak on the contract item. "Thank you," Ford said. "I want to let you know that earlier this evening during briefing, Mayor Green threatened me that if he told me to stop talking and I...

Saudi Arabia and OPEC may have dropped oil prices to stifle production in the U.S. and other competing nations, but they didn’t drop it enough to stifle the U.S. oil and gas boom from fracking, a senior expert with McKinsey and Company said in Chicago. “If the Saudis think they’re going to put U.S. shale players out of business, they’re probably not, although there will be less drilling,” Joe Quoyeser told about 125 people, mostly graduate students, at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Energy Conference on Wednesday. ”But there are other elements of oil supply that are needed to balance the market...

STAGE one of Saudi Arabia’s plan—or perhaps hope—to restructure the oil market is taking longer than expected. By refusing to rein in production while prices fell, the Saudis permitted a big surplus to grow and served notice on higher-cost rivals (Russia, Venezuela, American shale-oil producers) that they would not prop up other people’s profit margins at the expense of their own market share. That signal has been weakened by the growing amount of oil in storage, which is absorbing most of the glut. World oil stocks rose about 265m barrels last year and Société Générale, a French bank, reckons they...

<p>PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is telling an influential anti-tax group that he opposes Common Core education standards, putting him at odds with fellow presidential prospect Jeb Bush a day after Bush endorsed the standards to the same audience.</p>

Follow the money. It all ends up in the hands of a very few. Pearson Foundation is getting the contracts because of its partnership with the Bill Gates Foundation. Greed, secrecy, deceptions, and lies …. and to think Democrats accuse Republicans of the very things, while Democrats are the ones using government to get richer. The deceptions run very deep. It’s time for exposure.(The saga begins...) on one summer day in 2008, when Gene Wilhoit, director of a national group of state school chiefs, and David Coleman (known as the architect of Common Core), knowing they needed tens of millions...

Big Government Sucks.” That’s the slogan of the hordes of young people at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The lesson from this year’s CPAC was that if you wanted to win over this energetic crowd it behooved you to be succinct and rebellious — like that three-word slogan — when taking the stage. Chris Christie used tough talk. Scott Walker used down-home exuberance. Ted Cruz called out every party save for the Tea Party for talking the talk but not walking the walk. And they received tepid passing grades from CPAC’s most energetic demographic. Jeb Bush, however, missed the mark,...

A would-be Republican presidential nominee has changed his mind on marijuana. Sen. Ted Cruz said he supports Colorado’s state rights to keep marijuana legalized without federal interference during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity at Thursday’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). “I actually think this is a great embodiment of what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called ‘the laboratories of democracy,’” Cruz said. “If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that’s their prerogative. I personally don’t agree with it, but that’s their right.” Cruz’s comments at CPAC bring him in line with...

On Thursday, several likely 2016 Republican presidential contenders filed in to the Conservative Political Action Conference to make their pitches to activists on the right. Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina all touted their conservative credentials, in hopes of impressing the faithful. But the subtext of several appearances wasn't the hopefuls' strengths — but their weaknesses. Each of the likely candidates has at least one major flaw — and some have several. Their CPAC appearances provided a window into how they're trying to address those flaws. Some tried to show that the seeming problems with their candidacies...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) finished second in last year’s CPAC Straw Poll and delivered another wildly popular speech this year. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in a rousing and well-received speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, drew a proverbial line in the sand between true conservatives like himself and “squishy moderate” Republicans who may also decide to seek the party’s 2016 nomination. In a speech focused on the divides among the prospective 2016 candidates, the Tea Party populist threw bombs at Washington, at Hillary Clinton and, most frequently, at his fellow Republicans. “If you’re really a conservative, you’d be...

The battle for the Republican presidential nomination is beginning to really heat up. The latest log on the fire? Texas has decided to move its 2016 primary to March 1, making it the fifth state to cast votes. Traditionally, small states hold their primaries before the larger ones. This allows candidates to focus on persuading target groups of voters and gain momentum before facing the daunting challenge of wooing the masses. Texas is huge. At 270,000 square miles, a campaign will need a treasure trove of cash to finance television ads across 20 media markets. The presidential candidates are now...

“They are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps for people here.” (AUDIO-AT-LINK)Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the father of potential presidential candidate Rand Paul and a former presidential candidate himself, said the Congressional Black Caucus does not support war because they want that money for food stamps. “I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the Black Caucus and others did not—they are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps...

A full list of the Democrats who have confirmed they're missing the speech follows: SENATE - 4 members Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) HOUSE - 26 members Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) Rep. G.K. Butterfield (N.C.) Rep. Andre Carson (Ind.) Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.) Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.) Rep. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.) Rep. Donna Edwards (Md.) Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.) Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (Ill.) Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas) Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) Rep. John Lewis (Ga.)...

The Dem Congressmen Boycotting Netanyahu are the Same Old Hamas SupportersPosted By Daniel Greenfield On February 26, 2015 @ 6:02 pm In The Point | 12 Comments There are a lot of stories about the Dem members of Congress boycotting Netanyahu’s speech. But most of the names on the list are longtime opponents of the Jewish State.The boycott lists consists of two groups. Congressional Black Caucus members who are offended on Obama’s behalf and can smell racism anywhere.The other consists of opponents of Israel.It’s instructive to compare the list of boycotters to the 54 members of Congress who signed...

A top Texas law enforcement agency says border security organizations have apprehended several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations crossing the southern border in recent years, and while a surge of officers to the border has slowed the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants, it’s costing the state tens of millions of dollars. In a report to Texas elected officials, the state Department of Public Safety says border security agencies have arrested several Somali immigrants crossing the southern border who are known members of al-Shabab, the terrorist group that launched a deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya,...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/pedestrians-shot-killed-texas-shooting-attacks/story?id=29241155 Police in Texas are searching for a gunman believed to have randomly attacked five people in the past week, including one who later died. The attacks happened in Houston and nearby Missouri City, Texas, and involved pedestrians walking alone, police said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds a book about Texas school laws as he delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, in Austin, Texas. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott told ABC News the “rule of law” trumps “compassion” for undocumented immigrants.

The budding Cruz 2016 campaign is adding some fund-raising muscle, with the Texas GOP finance chairman joining the effort. Hal Lambert, a Fort Worth money manager who has served three years as the state party’s top fund-raiser, said Tuesday that he is stepping down to help Sen. Ted Cruz if he runs for president. Lambert supported the 2012 presidential campaign of then-Gov. Rick Perry, who – like Cruz – has been spending lots of time with Republican activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where early contests are critical stops on the way to the White House. “It’s not...

It seemed like a typical congressional meeting for the Republic of Texas. Senators and the president gathered in the center of a Bryan, Texas, meeting hall, surrounded by public onlookers, to debate issues of the national currency, develop international relations and celebrate the birthday of one of their oldest members. But this wasn't 1836, and this would be no ordinary legislative conference. Minutes into the meeting a man among the onlookers stood and moved to open the hall door, letting in an armed and armored force of the Bryan Police Department, the Brazos County Sheriff's Office, the Kerr County Sheriff's...

...when there was a Texas drought that hurt the crops of farmers there, Congress allotted $10,000 to buy seed grain to help them recover. But [President Grover] Cleveland vetoed the expenditure and explained why like this:I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think,...

Watch our interview with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from tonight’s ON THE RECORD and weigh in.

<p>A Texas jury finds former Marine Chad Littlefield guilty of murdering famed Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle.</p>

Earlier, we alerted you to HB 195, a “constitutional carry” bill that allows all law-abiding citizens in the state to carry as a matter of right -- without having to submit to any obnoxious background checks or waiting periods. The bill is stuck in committee, as is its Senate counterpart, SB 342. But the beauty of HB 195/SB 342 is that they would actually accomplish BOTH objectives -- establishing constitutional carry for BOTH open and concealed carry. ACTION: (1) Urge your state Representative and Senator to cosponsor and support HB 195 and SB 342. By clicking on the link here,...

'At what point is the lawlessness simply too much?' Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Tuesday opened the throttle on his effort to torpedo President Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, tweeting his opposition and writing in Politico that her “radical positions� are more than alarming.WND has reported concerns about Lynch’s key role in the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute the banking giant HSBC for laundering funds for Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently conducted a two-hour session with HSBC whistleblower John Cruz in its investigation of Lynch’s...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is warning that Republicans who support Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch are complicit in what he sees as President Obama’s lawless action on immigration.While current Attorney General Eric Holder has drawn the ire of many conservatives, including Cruz, the freshman senator argues in a new op-ed that Lynch won’t have any noticeable difference in enforcing Obama’s policies, which he believes break the law.“Holder’s lawless behavior occurred after he was confirmed. It is altogether different for the Senate to confirm a nominee who tells us ahead of time she will ignore the law,” Cruz writes in a...

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, laid out his case against Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to be the next U.S. attorney general, in a new piece in which he says senators will be approving “lawlessness� if they confirm her.He cited answers he deemed insufficient during Ms. Lynch’s confirmation process on issues like how she would be different from Attorney General Eric Holder and whether she supported Mr. Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration.“No senator who takes his or her oath of office seriously should vote to confirm such a nominee,� he wrote in Politico. “And Senate Republicans have all the...

The budding Cruz 2016 campaign is adding some fund-raising muscle, with the Texas GOP finance chairman joining the effort. Hal Lambert, a Fort Worth money manager who has served three years as the state party’s top fund-raiser, said Tuesday that he is stepping down to help Sen. Ted Cruz if he runs for president. Lambert supported the 2012 presidential campaign of then-Gov. Rick Perry, who – like Cruz – has been spending lots of time with Republican activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where early contests are critical stops on the way to the White House. “It’s not...

Santa Cruz County officials are asking the public to help identify the person who stuffed two dogs, a mother and her puppy, into sandbags and threw them from a moving car, killing the younger dog.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not a fan of his Democratic colleagues' "disturbing" unwillingness to criticize President Barack Obama's executive actions that protected undocumented immigrants from deportation. "It's very interesting. Democratic senators privately will admit all sorts of things," Cruz mused during a Newsmax TV interview published Monday. "But it's really disturbing: Democratic senators have been unwilling to stand up to this president, really on almost anything." Cruz, a likely 2016 presidential contender, compared this alleged slavishness to Obama to how Republicans reacted when one of their own, former President Richard Nixon, was in the middle of the 1972 Watergate...

President Obama’s pick for the replacement for Eric Holder as Attorney General is Loretta Lynch, the current United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Senate Republicans have become decidedly cool to the idea of confirming her. Indeed, Monday Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an opponent of most Obama policies, announced on Monday that he would oppose her confirmation.Cruz suggested that Lynch would be worse than Holder, who has come under criticism for his partisan, political approach to enforcing the law. “Unfortunately Mrs Lynch, through the course of the entire hearing,...

Ted Cruz never punts because he’s too busy staying on offense. Cruz never allows the media to control the narrative he forces them to follow his narrative. I think the best example of this was a while back when Cruz was on Meet The Press with Chuck Schumer. Gregory wanted Cruz to come out one way or another about the recent NRA ads talking about Obama’s children. Remember that?

Sen. Ted Cruz warned the administration Wednesday that it needs to stop even planning for an eventual amnesty for illegal immigrants, saying a federal judge’s broad injunction means it would be illegal for the Homeland Security Department to spend any money on President Obama’s immigration plans.The Texas Republican also said Judge Andrew S. Hanen’s ruling late Monday undercuts the basis of Senate Democrats’ ongoing filibuster to block homeland security spending, which the president’s allies have launched to try to defend the White House’s immigration policies.The warning to Mr. Obama to stop spending money on the amnesty opens the door for...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has erased U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s strong lead among Texas Republicans in the volatile and still-developing race for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. Cruz’s 25 percentage-point lead over Walker in October has vanished: The Texan won the support of 20 percent of the state’s registered voters to Walker’s 19 percent — a statistical tie. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and author Ben Carson were tied at 9 percent, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was next at 8 percent. “Scott Walker is clearly breathing some of the...

Monday on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he will not be voting for President Barack Obama’s attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch. “Unfortunately Mrs Lynch, through the course of the entire hearing, refused to acknowledge a single limit on the president’s authority under the Constitution,” Cruz said. “When I asked her in what ways she would differ from Eric Holder, she said no ways whatsoever.” When the junior Texas senator was asked if Lynch would be worse than Eric Holder, Cruz answered “Yes I think she would be materially worse.”

en. Ted Cruz has a narrow edge over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in a new survey on 2016 GOP hopefuls in Texas. Twenty percent prefer Mr. Cruz in a would-be 2016 GOP presidential primary match-up, and 19 percent prefer Mr. Walker in a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. The numbers present a rapid rise for Mr. Walker, who was at 2 percent to Mr. Cruz’s 27 percent a few months ago. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson were next at 9 percent apiece, followed by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who had been in second...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker appears to be on a roll. After coming out on top at last month's Iowa Freedom Summit — a surprise to many — Walker is now in a dead heat with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Lone Star state, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Walker has stripped Cruz of the 25 percentage-point lead he had in October, The Texas Tribune reports, with the two now in a statistical tie. Cruz had the support of 20 percent of Texas registered voters; Walker had 19 percent. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ben...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, will hold his first hearings on "U.S. Human Exploration Goals and Commercial Space Competitiveness” next week, according to a Thursday story In Space Policy Online. Among the eclectic group of former astronauts, business leaders, and academics that will constitute the witness list will be Apollo moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. The hearings will also serve as an opportunity for Cruz to flesh out his views on the future of the American space program. Cruz has previously stated his desire to return NASA to its core function of...

As he continues to the test the waters for a potential 2016 bid for the White House, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas made his pitch Friday night to the Republican Party of Duval County, one of the state’s largest local parties.Sprinkled throughout his remarks was a common theme that most potential GOP presidential nominees have focused on: Obamacare.“In 2017, a Republican president in the White House will sign legislation repealing Obamacare,� he said.Cruz has built a national reputation as a firebrand conservative not afraid to mix it up with the establishment in his own party. In 2013, he grabbed...

In an interview for Newsmax TV, released on Monday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) accused President Obama of turning America into a monarchy. He also condemned Congressional Democrats for being “partisan rubber stamps for a lawless president”. While that style of blustering rhetoric is not unusual for the Republican Senator, he also went a step further by comparing President Obama to corrupt former President Nixon. Trying to draw parallels to Nixon’s lawless abuse of power during the Watergate scandal, Cruz complained: We’ve had presidents in the past who have abused power. But when that has happened: When Richard Nixon abused...

An Islamic tribunal, launched in Dallas last year to settle civil disputes among the growing Muslim population, is drawing quarrels over its use of Shariah law. Opponents fear it would open the door to extreme practices and corporal punishment linked to Shariah law in certain Muslim-majority countries. Still others argue it would replace the U.S. Constitution. But organizers say the panel of arbitrators issues nonbinding decisions on matters such as business disputes and religious divorces. They note its parallels with Jewish rabbinical courts and Catholic tribunals. The very word “Shariah” invokes backlash from those who don’t understand it and use...

"We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CBS's "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer on Sunday. "Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized. And so we have an ongoing problem on the border that Congress must step up and solve." (All told in fiscal year 2014, U.S immigration officials removed 213,719 individuals apprehended while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.) Schieffer reminded Abbott that there...

The new space subcommittee chairman thinks the Obama administration has the agency overly focused on climate change at the expense of exploring the cosmos. If Ted Cruz is NASA's Grim Reaper, he doesn't talk like it. To hear the new chairman of the Senate's Space, Science, and Competitiveness Subcommittee talk about NASA is to hear none of the budget-slashing zeal that comes out when he talks about, say, the IRS. Instead, he talks at length about putting more Americans in space and sending them farther than ever before. He gushes about the agency that has "excited the spirits of every...

To the four clean-cut college freshman out on a double date, it had seemed like a typical McDonald's: spanking clean, well-lighted, and safe. It was in a good neighborhood too, right next to Texas A&M University in College Station -- a campus known for its friendly atmosphere and official down-home greeting: “howdy” Shortly after 2 a.m that Sunday, they pulled into the parking lot of so-called “University McDonald's” – and beheld a scene unlike anything portrayed in all those wholesome McDonald's television commercials. Before them, hundreds of young black males were loitering about, some without shirts. Other local residents --...

The federal court ruling that placed a temporary halt to President Obama’s plans to grant amnesty to four million illegal aliens by executive fiat has emboldened Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, according to a Wednesday story in the Washington Times. Cruz suggested that even administration moves to prepare for the mass amnesty in anticipation of an eventual favorable outcome in the courts is in violation of the ruling. In Cruz’s view, the Department of Homeland Security must stop spending money forthwith toward such efforts.Cruz also artfully suggested that the basis of the Democratic filibuster of the DHS spending bill that prevents...