Free Republic

A couple of years ago, a retired teacher who stays in close touch with history teachers across Texas told me something disturbing. Like most states, Texas has standardized testing. Unlike most states, Texas requires public school students to study Texas history in the 4th and 7th grades. Texas history is red in tooth and claw and full of big personalities and big ideas. Standardized testing is forcing teachers to drop about half of the second semester of Texas history to focus on U.S. history -- not to deepen students' understanding of American history, but to teach to the standardized tests....

A murder warrant for Aaron Dean, the Fort Worth officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson, tells what led up to the shooting from the perspective of her 8-year-old nephew, who was in the room with her when she was shot. The boy told a forensic interviewer that he and his aunt were playing video games together about 2:30 a.m. Saturday when she heard noises outside. She took her handgun from her purse and pointed it “toward the window” before she was shot, the nephew said, according to the arrest-warrant affidavit. The 8-year-old saw his aunt fall to the ground. Jefferson, 28,...

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas’ GOP House speaker sought help ousting members of his own party in 2020, called a female lawmaker “vile” and said President Donald Trump is “killing us” in pivotal races in a secretly recorded meeting with a conservative activist released Tuesday. House Speaker Dennis Bonnen also profanely disparaged another Democratic House member in the hourlong tape, which also reveals other political scheming and has thrown the GOP-controlled Legislature into disarray at a fragile moment when their majority is at stake. The tape has uncorked the biggest Texas political scandal in years. Democrats filed a lawsuit accusing Bonnen...

WHITESBORO, Tex. (KXII) - This Thursday President Trump will be in Dallas for a campaign rally. And Monday, a merchandise shop popped up in Whitesboro. The shop came all the way from Minneapolis, Minnesota where President Trump held a rally last Thursday. Jeremy Boyts doesn't work for the Trump campaign, but he saw a business opportunity arise. So for four years now, he's been traveling ahead of the president to sell Trump campaign gear, which is how he made his way to Texoma. "2020, he's gotta win it," said customer Mark Cromwell. Cromwell is a truck driver and stopped by...

Four federal prison inmates have been charged after law enforcement say they repeatedly escaped prison only to return each time with contraband. The men, 34-year-old Julian Lemus, Robert Young, 45, Leo Martinez, 25, and 35-year-old Silvstre Rico were nabbed by U.S. Marshals last week as they escaped from the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institute complex in Texas, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Marshals said that they began surveillance after “repeated reports” of prisoners continuing to escape and bring back contraband such as whiskey and cellphones into the complex, which houses both low- and medium-security inmates. “Investigators observed 4 males...

Amazon took the extraordinary step of laying out its positions on nearly every hot-button topic in the world in a web page that unveiled Thursday, bringing new clarity to the tech company’s public policy agenda. The page, which is simply titled “Our Positions,” states where the Seattle tech giant stands on eleven issues -- several of which have a direct impact on business in America.

A former Fort Worth police officer who resigned Monday after fatally shooting a black woman in her home has been booked in jail for murder, according to inmate records on the Tarrant County Correction Center website. Aaron Dean, who is white, fatally shot 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson early Saturday morning as she played video games with her nephew.

(CNN) — Tuesday night's CNN/The New York Times debate stage will feature a record 12 candidates. It could be the last debate appearance for up to 33% of them. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke are all in deep danger of not making November's debate. That means Tuesday may be the last chance fo those four to give their campaigns a realistic chance to have a measure of success. Fundraising and polling qualification thresholds have been bumped up once again for November's debate. Jumping...

Fort Worth police announced at a news conference Monday that the officer who shot and killed a woman in her home Saturday has resigned. Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus identified the officer as Aaron Dean, a man who has served about 18 months with the Fort Worth police. Kraus said he was going to fire the officer had he not resigned Monday morning. Kraus said a criminal investigation is ongoing and he expects to release an update by Tuesday. The FBI also has been briefed to investigate possible civil rights violations, he said.

The initial shock was so violent from the blown engine on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 that pilot Tammie Jo Shults thought there had been a midair collision. “We couldn’t see, we couldn’t breathe, and a piercing pain stabbed our ears, all while the aircraft snapped into a rapid roll and skidded hard to the left as the nose of the aircraft pitched over, initiating a dive toward the ground,” Shults wrote in her book “Nerves of Steel,” which was released Oct. 8. On Flight 1380 on April 17, 2018, from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Dallas Love Field, a fan...

Mike Bloomberg has indicated to associates in recent weeks that Joe Biden’s recent struggles are making him rethink his decision to stay out of the 2020 Democratic primary, according to people familiar with the discussions. “Bloomberg is in if Biden is out,” says one source. Biden has not indicated any desire to drop out any time soon. Bloomberg could be in for a showdown with Elizabeth Warren, whether he runs or not, as he has been one of her biggest critics on the Democratic side. “I think it’s something he wants. He has not been shy about that,” one of...

He says this will include historically black colleges and mosques Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke doubled down on his proposal to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that do not support same-sex marriage. The former Texas congressman reiterated his support for punitive tax measures against churches or affiliated services that believe marriage is between a man and a woman, a position he introduced at CNN's Equality Town Hall on Thursday evening. NBC host Geoff Bennett asked O'Rourke how he would implement this plan given that the government "can't just dole out punishments on theological grounds." "You are free to...

Economist Paul Krugman, the longtime defender of global free trade and a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement, now admits that globalization has failed American workers. In a column for Bloomberg titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” Krugman admits that the economic consensus for free trade that has prevailed for decades has failed to recognize how globalization has skyrocketed inequality for America’s working and middle class workers. Krugman, though, writes that he and his fellow free trade economists “had no way to know” that globalization of the American economy or a surge in trade deficits “were...

A healthy foods concept has selected Houston as its next spot to bring its salad-making robot — aptly named Sally. The Salad Station, a Louisiana-based restaurant group, has partnered with California-based Chowbotics to bring salad-making vending machines to Houstonians. Chowbotics invented Sally, which serves customizable, made-to-order salads, snacks, breakfast bowls, and grain bowls. Scott Henderson, founder and president of The Salad Station, tells InnovationMap that the discussion with Chowbotics about being the company's operational manager started in 2018. "In seven states, from Texas to Florida, The Salad Station does operations for Sally the robot," says Henderson. "We both have a...

Breaking News: A deal reached in Ecuador tonight between President Lenin Moreno and opposition leaders of indigenous groups..... A relative calm on the littered streets of Quito, Ecuador with military forces and police.... Its been a weekend of subdued protest in Hong Kong, but China's president offered up tough remarks on a visit to Nepal...... Extra police deployed in Catalonia amid concern over the verdicts for 12 leaders of the region.... The Turkish president speaking in Istanbul rejecting any offers of mediation with Kurdish side...... Another significant development related to Syria is the agreement between the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces...

Whites tend to vote Republican, while nonwhites tend to vote Democrat. This proved true in the 2016 election, when Trump carried white voters by 20 percent, while Hillary Clinton won 74 percent of nonwhite voters. With the number of Latinos living in the United States nearly doubling since 2000, it is not difficult to see why Texas could soon follow California, Colorado, and Nevada into the Democratic camp in the next 20 years. Using the 2000 census and the 2010 census along with 2018 data, the electoral reality becomes more clear. The population of those under 18 will be majority...

The Republican Party is set to win a large majority of all future close presidential elections, even contests in which they lose the popular vote, according to a recent study. GOP candidates for president can expect to be victorious in 65 percent of future presidential elections and University of Texas at Austin researchers analyzed why "inversions" — where the popular vote winner loses the overall election — has happened twice since 2000. The study authors found that the Electoral College's winner-take-all approach favors Republicans and has pushed them to victories in 2000 and 2016. The researchers concluded that inversions will...

On Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said it was not appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask China to investigate 2020 presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden regarding his business ties. Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: So China’s a- a surveillance state. Is it appropriate for President Trump to be saying– CRUZ: Yeah. BRENNAN: –China should look into the Biden family? Is that appropriate? CRUZ: I- look, of course not. Elections in the U.S. should be decided by- by Americans and it’s not the business of- of foreign...

Senator Ted Cruz joins Margaret Brennan from Hong Kong to discuss China's retaliation against the NBA and the impeachment inquiry into the president.

A white Fort Worth officer fatally shot a black woman inside her home early Saturday after police were called to the house to do a welfare check, according to police and the neighbor who called them. The woman who was killed was Atatiana Jefferson, 28, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. Police released a statement Saturday afternoon saying officers responded at 2:25 a.m. to a report the front door of a home was open in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue. James Smith, who called a non-emergency police number, said he saw the doors were open and...