Free Republic

Texas authorities have suspended a suburban Dallas notary for botching her role in Stormy Daniels’ agreement to stay silent about her alleged affair with President Donald Trump. The disciplinary action faults the Forney notary for not properly witnessing and documenting the porn star's’ signature on the agreement struck with Trump's personal attorney just days before the presidential election, according to records obtained Wednesday by The Dallas Morning News. But the Texas Secretary of State office said the notary’s sloppy work has no bearing on the legal validity of the hush-money deal, which is under intense scrutiny by U.S. prosecutors investigating...

A Pflugerville fugitive has been apprehended in Canada as he was attempting to flee to his home country of Nigeria, the U.S Marshals Service says. Olanrewaju Sodiq Fadairo, 28 is a Nigerian citizen who was a suspect in a sexual assault case. The U.S. Marshals Lone Star Fugitive Task Force coordinated with Canadian officials to extradite Fadairo from Montreal to Texas. The investigation into Fadairo began in October 2017, when it was learned that he was attempting to flee back to Nigeria. The Canadian government learned in August of that year that Fadairo had crossed the border into Canada. Fadairo...

City budget boosts spending for homelessness services The new city manager and City Council agree: The city needs more money to address the homelessness situation. The proposed Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget submitted by City Manager Spencer Cronk includes $3.1 million in new spending on homelessness-related services. That’s on top of the roughly $25 million of spending on such services that will continue from last year. Part of that proposed increase comes from the Watershed Protection Department, which has proposed hiring a contractor for an estimated $1 million over four years to clean up litter in creeks or drainage facilities that...

DALLAS - Following the shooting death of Botham Jean by the hands of Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger, multiple search warrants were executed at Jean’s apartment as part of the investigation. One of the warrants became a public record Thursday afternoon when it was returned to the judge who signed it. It was shortly after Jean’s funeral had ended. It listed several items found in Jean's apartment, including a small amount of marijuana.

The Texas State Board of Education appears to have decided the heroism of the Alamo is worth teaching to students after all. State politicians erupted in protest this month after a volunteer team of educators, looking for ways to “streamline” the state’s social studies curriculum, recommended scrubbing references to “all the heroic defenders” at the Alamo from classroom teaching plans. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, accused the panel of allowing the dictates of political correctness to run wild and demanded that Texans call the board to complain. Rep. Ted Poe showed up personally before the...

AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) -- Some Willie Nelson fans are seeing red after learning the country musician will be headlining a rally for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. Dozens of people weighed in on Willie's Facebook page Wednesday after he shared a story about the upcoming rally in Austin. While some people told Willie he needs to stay out of politics, others threw insults at the music legend. Still others applauded Willie's contribution to the 2018 campaign. The event is set for Sept. 29 at Austin's Auditorium Shores. Nelson is scheduled to perform alongside Joe Ely, Carrie Rodriguez, Tameca Jones and...

Four years ago a seemingly invincible US senator came within a percentage point of losing his seat in an unexpectedly close election. Mark Warner was pretty moderate as far as Democrats go, a good fit for a state, Virginia, that had drifted out of the Republican column in the last two presidential elections and just elected a full slate of Democratic statewide officials a year before. But midterms are when presidents and their parties get rebuked, and Warner, a telecom millionaire who had once been tipped as presidential contender, took his support for granted. The Republican, lobbyist Ed Gillespie, was...

Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) is hosting a private fundraising event in New York on Wednesday as he campaigns to unseat Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in November. According to the event invitation, first obtained by CNBC, the campaign fundraiser will take place at the Cutting Room, a concert venue in Manhattan. Andy Cohen, host of the Bravo's late night show "Watch What Happens," will also be in attendance. The fundraiser comes as O'Rourke's senate race against Cruz tightens. A CBS Dallas-Fort Worth/Dixie Strategies poll from Wednesday shows Cruz's margin at 46 to 42 percent, with 9 percent undecided and a...

HOUSTON (AP) — As U.S. Catholic leaders head to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis about a growing church abuse crisis, the cardinal leading the delegation has been accused by two people of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges. The two people told The Associated Press that they reported the priest and met with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. One of them says she was promised in a meeting with DiNardo, several years after she first reported abuse, that the priest would be removed from any...

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...