Free Republic

Texas lawmakers added more than $6.5 billion new dollars to public education, allocating more total state funding to education than ever before. There’s a lot of interest in where all the money is going. The biggest recipients of education funding are public school districts, which receive financing from both state coffers and locally-collected taxes. But charter schools, public schools that are funded entirely by the state, will benefit, as well. Charter schools are given more autonomy in exchange for academic and innovative results. Because charter schools are another school option for many students, they help provide a crucial impact on...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) appears to be growing her share of support from black voters, who have been slow to warm to her campaign. A new poll from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found Warren in second place among black voters with 13 percent support, her best showing in any poll to date. That's up from 8 percent in the previous survey from July, although the 5-point swing is within the poll's margin of error. [Snip] Former Vice President Joe Biden still dominates the field with black voters, and he'll be the favorite to win the nomination unless...

According to Channel 13, 97.6% of the votes from Tuesday's elections have already been counted, Blue and White stands at 33 seats and Likud at 31 seats, with Blue and White leading by a narrow margin. It is important to note that these are still not the final results. Overnight, the committee was counting the near quarter of a million soldiers' votes cast by Israeli soldiers. The Central Election Committee (CEC) has been updating its website since the close of the polls at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. The last update was at 10:40 a.m. on Thursday: 4,354,991 votes had been...

Morning "The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Galatians 5:1 This "liberty" makes us free to heaven's charter--the Bible. Here is a choice passage, believer, "When thou passest through the rivers, I will be with thee." You are free to that. Here is another: "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee"; you are free to that. You are a welcome guest at the table of the promises. Scripture is a never-failing treasury filled with boundless stores of grace. It is the bank of heaven; you may draw from it...

A few years ago, I held the widespread belief that in the wild, humans were far more dangerous than bears. Humans are the top predator on the planet. They routinely prey on their own. Far more humans are killed by humans than by bears. The reality is more complex. As I researched bear attacks and the effectiveness of using handguns to stop those attacks, I found I was mistaken about the comparative danger of humans. Comparing how many people are killed by humans against how many are killed by bears is a misleading metric. There are hundreds of millions...

Today’s Cryptogram Courtesy of The Arkansas Gazette ZPYRMDKDL AKOV Y NVKSC KR TKDP, KT HMB NYD ZPYNV OVP NVKSC’R ZPYRMD AKOVMBO CPROZMHKDL HMBZ MAD. –EMVD IYRMD QZMAD You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time...

Today we feature Jimmie Dolan & His Texas Ramblers with the tune Tennessee Baby (1948). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

The Congressional Budget Office reported on Tuesday that, with one month to go, the federal deficit for fiscal year 2019 has already topped $1 trillion. As night follows day, Trump administration critics blamed the tax cuts. And once again, the data prove them wrong. The CBO report says that the federal deficit reached $1.067 by the end of August. That’s up $168 billion from the comparable period in fiscal year 2018. The deficit this year will be larger than the entire budget was in 1987. Where did the increase come from? Why, tax cuts, of course. But the report shows...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) What is it with leftist politicians and this blackface thing? – Was it just a really big deal among white lefties in the 1980s and 1990s to do blackface parties? Asking because, having never been a lefty, I would have never been invited to their shindigs (all you Millennials and Gen-Zers will have to google that reference). Anyways, leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now achieved the Ralph Northam and Hillary Clinton badge of honor, as a photo of him in full blackface (the fawning Canadian press is calling it “brownface”...

There has been a lot of talk about whether our law enforcement (and our military) would follow the orders of those like that furry fascist Beto to unleash a reign of terror upon innocent American citizens who the liberal elite’s unconstitutional gun decrees would turn into felons. Most of our heroic cops and warriors would hold true to their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But some pathetic worms would willingly, even eagerly betray their oaths and make war upon their own people. They need to know there will...

Cross file under “Vintage Open Skate photos” and “They Sure Don’t Write Newspaper Copy Like They Used To.” “WHEN A GUY has two gals for partners, who could ask for anything more? Bob Weber joins Sandy Topotski left and Gay Stoner in a gay number.”    You had me at “Gay Stoner.” Posted from: MOTUS A.D.

During a visit to the US-Mexico border wall, President Trump autographed one of the posts of the wall with a Sharpie. Video and online photos show Trump signing a section of the wall in Otay Mesa, California, following a press conference there. “At invitation of the construction personnel, Pres Trump pulls out a Sharpie and signs one of the posts of the border wall,” CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller said in a tweet. “Other officials follow suit.” Trump is hyping the completion of some sections of border wall during his 2020 re-election campaign.

Former national security adviser John Bolton didn't offer any praise of President Donald Trump in remarks at a private event Wednesday, but instead took aim at his former boss' policies on the world stage, according to an attendee. Bolton, who Trump fired earlier this month, made comments at an event hosted by the Gatestone Institute in New York that the attendee characterized to CNN as scathing in their criticism of Trump's approach to Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. Politico was first to report on Bolton's remarks. "Bolton didn't have anything positive to say about Trump," the attendee said.

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“The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.’ His disciples remembered that it was...

Left-wing billionaire and political donor George Soros wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Monday in which he praised President Donald Trump’s policies toward China. He then urged Congress to maintain the president’s firm stand against Chinese telecom giant Huawei – overriding the White House if necessary, should Huawei become a bargaining chip in the larger trade war. The leftist money man did not exactly shower Trump with praise in his op-ed. He portrayed Trump’s actions against China as the “greatest, and perhaps only, foreign policy accomplishment of the Trump administration.” Soros, 89, lauded Trump’s policy as “coherent...

Breitbart News reported that the memo largely mirrored Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) gun control bill and would require the issuance of a “bill of sale” and the preservation of a “chain of title” for gun sales that do not currently require government oversight. The Hill reports that Attorney General William Barr tried to talk Sen. Cruz into supporting the gun control, but Cruz would not.

More bettors at one British bookmaker are backing Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic Party's 2020 nominee than they are any of the candidates actually running in the race, giving her better odds of winning than Senator Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke, among others. At the bookmaker Ladbrokes, Clinton has seen enough backing by bettors to rise to the seventh favorite for the 2020 nomination at 20/1. Booker, a senator of New Jersey, is eighth at 33/1. O'Rourke, a former representative of Texas, is ninth at 50/1. "We're baffled, to be honest," Matthew Shaddick, head of political betting at Ladbrokes,...

September 6th & 7th. Today, our Framers put the finishing touches to Article II. At this moment, so very late in the summer, the fatigued Framers still faced a critical question, “which body of Congress shall elect the President in the event of no majoritarian winner of the EC?” Delegate Hugh Williamson (NC) suggested the entire Congress, voting by state, and not per capita. Sherman immediately cut in to motion the House of Representatives, instead of the Senate or the entire Congress voting by state delegations, one vote per state. It passed 10-1. Having established the workings of the EC...

Despite westerners being lectured by climate activists like Greta Thunberg, a study has found that around 90 per cent of plastic waste polluting earth’s oceans comes from Asia and Africa. During her U.S. tour, Thunberg cited “horrifying pictures of plastic in the oceans,” as one of the primary reasons why Americans should listen to her. However, researchers at Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research discovered that a small number of rivers account for the vast majority of plastic pollution and none of them are located in western countries. “The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88-95 percent of the global load into...