Free Republic

Austin, TX – During a Monday morning SWAT standoff at a North Austin hotel, a man was shot in the leg by the police. The victim is a suspect in a robbery that took place in Williamson County earlier. Dylan Polinski, 23-year-old, is the name of the victim being shot by the police. The police officials still haven’t identified the names of the officers on duty.

The Texas Department of Public Safety abruptly announced the closure of the state Capitol on Friday evening after uncovering new intelligence that intensified safety concerns and prompted the agency to further tighten up security. The closure affects the building and the Capitol grounds, which only reopened to the public this month after being closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and damage that officials said protesters did to state property during protests in May and June. The closure begins Saturday and continues through Wednesday. In a statement, DPS Director Col. Steve McCraw said that "the Texas Department of Public Safety is...

This is good to have for when the Communist Democrats try to tell us that the protest were peaceful, there were no riots, and absolutely no violence.

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists. Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg. The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure...

Legislation to place the Austin Police Department under state control has been drafted for lawmakers to consider in the coming January session, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday. The Republican governor wrote on Twitter Monday afternoon that the Legislative Council has sent “draft language” for a proposed law that would transfer control of the Austin Police Department (APD) to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) “just in time for Christmas.” “One way or another we will pass a law to keep Austin safe,” Abbott wrote. According to the draft obtained by KXAN-TV, the takeover would only apply to municipalities...

A Texas A&M Transportation Institute report recently ranked the segment of Interstate 35 that goes through Austin the most congested roadway in the state. This congestion is one of the reasons behind the I-35 Capital Express Project, a multiyear, multibillion-dollar transportation initiative that will add two non-tolled managed lanes in each direction along I-35 from U.S. Highway 290 East to State Highway 71/Ben White Boulevard. The project will also add flyovers at I-35 and U.S. 290. Discussions about the plan were central to last week’s Urban Transportation Commission meeting, which kicked off with a presentation by Austin Transportation Director Robert...

President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court asking them to examine three cases pertaining to the Pennsylvania presidential election. In it, they requested the court overturn three rulings made by the state Supreme Court, claiming they were unconstitutional and affected the rest of the nation. Here’s the press release:President Trump’s campaign today issued the following statement:“Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., President Trump’s campaign committee, today filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the US. Supreme Court to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court cases which illegally changed Pennsylvania’s mail balloting...

The scale of a sophisticated cyberattack on the U.S. government that was unearthed this week is much bigger than first anticipated. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a summary Thursday that the threat “poses a grave risk to the federal government.” It added that “state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations” are also at risk. CISA believes the attack began at least as early as March. Since then, multiple government agencies have reportedly been targeted by the hackers, with confirmation from the Energy and Commerce departments so far.

If we get the Dominion-SolarWinds MOAB, even John Roberts can’t cover it up Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be against us. By “us,” I mean the majority of American people who support President Trump and believe that the 2020 election was fraudulently manipulated to change the righteous results. But there’s hope that goes beyond the power the Chief Justice has. It’s more powerful than mainstream media, Big Tech, the Democratic Party, and cowardly Republicans on Capitol Hill. Technically, there are two things that are more powerful. The first is the “MOAB” – the Mother Of All Bombshells,...

In a stunning upset, Republican Mackenzie Kelly defeated Democrat incumbent Jimmy Flannigan in Austin’s District 6 runoff Tuesday. Kelly ran on a platform that includes restoring police department funding and ending the city’s permissive homeless camping ordinance. She won with 52% to Flannigan’s 48%, a margin of just about 700 votes overall. Kelly’s win, and Republican Jennifer Virden’s near-win in District 10, may signal a major shift in Austin voters’ thinking. The Democrat-dominated city was already up in arms over the homeless camping ordinance, which allows homeless people to camp just about anywhere they want all over the city (except...

Last night the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a rare Emergency Directive 21-01, in response to a KNOWN COMPROMISE involving SolarWinds Orion products. This was only the fifth Emergency Directive issued by CISA under the authorities granted by Congress in the Cybersecurity Act of 2015. CISA reported a breach of the SolarWinds Orion products. This Emergency Directive called on all federal civilian agencies to review their networks for indicators of compromise and disconnect or power down SolarWinds Orion products immediately.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk put his California houses on the market this year while he was sparring with state lawmakers over Covid-19 restrictions. He’s simultaneously been expanding operations in Texas and cozying up to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Now, several of his close friends and associates say that Musk has told them he’s planning to move to the Lone Star State. The people with knowledge of his plans asked not to be named because their conversations were private. Musk, the world’s second-wealthiest person behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is in Texas frequently already. He spends most of his time between Austin,...

Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler is claiming he’s no hypocrite for vacationing in Mexico while telling residents to stay home due to COVID-19. But his claim that the situation worsened only after he traveled is belied by releases from his own office. Adler, a Democrat, said in a video posted Wednesday night he’s sorry for setting a “bad example” by taking the trip, but that he actually complied with his own health guidance when he embarked for the beach at Cabo San Lucas. The mayor hosted a wedding for his daughter in Austin two days before he filmed his infamous...

In early November, as health officials warned of a impending COVID-19 spike, Austin Mayor Steve Adler hosted an outdoor wedding and reception with 20 guests for his daughter at a trendy hotel near downtown. The next morning, Adler and seven other wedding attendees boarded a private jet bound for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where they vacationed for a week at a family timeshare. One night into the trip, Adler addressed Austin residents in a Facebook video: “We need to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax. We are going to be looking really closely. …...

A Biden-Harris vehicle might have been at fault in the apparent incident with a Biden campaign bus and a so-called “Trump train” of the president’s supporters over the weekend in Texas. After researching the crash via online videos, the San Marcos Police Department (SMPD) said “the ‘at-fault vehicle’ may be the Biden-Harris staffer’s car, while the ‘victim’ appears to be one of the Trump vehicles,” reported KXAN News. “The at-fault vehicle may be the white SUV and the victim appears to be the black truck,” said a statement from SMPD, KXAN reported. “Calls to the driver of the white SUV...

WOW: Video proof shows the Biden campaign bus in Texas swerving lanes close into Trump supporters vehicles. https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1322845022799110144  

When the Biden bus on the road to Austin was surrounded by a flurry of Trump flag-waving supporters, leftist hysteria broke out. Texas is a state that loves humor and can laugh at itself. Just look at the names of some of its cities -- you can feel it in names like Corsicana, Indianola, Texarkana...nobody else's state has names like those. And of course, there's the phrase "Texas-sized" which bigger Alaska can only envy. Nobody says 'Alaska-sized.' But everyone knows 'Texas-sized.' It's humor in the hyperbole. So in comes the humor-challenged Joe Biden campaign from its basement to make a...

Austin has seen a spike in violent crime and officer retirements after the city council voted over the summer to immediately slash $20 million from the police department budget, becoming the first major Texas city to do so. In August, Austin City Council members voted unanimously to cut about $150 million, or roughly one-third, from its police department and allocate those funds to areas like violence prevention, housing and mental health services. Only about $21.5 million was immediately removed from the department's funding in part by canceling three upcoming cadet classes and slashing overtime expenses. "It is demoralizing for the...

Austin has long been the blue dot in Texas’ red sea. But that could change soon. The Travis County GOP Communications Director Andy Hogue says there’s every reason for citizens of Austin to be optimistic about Republican races this year. Hogue told PJ Media, “Democrats are donating to us in unprecedented numbers. We’ve never seen this before.” Hogue says that the local GOP recognizes regular donors but when new names started coming in, they started looking them up to see who they are. “We kept finding Democrats who have never donated before.”Two seats on the all-Democrat Austin City Council are...

Even as gun violence breaks records in New York City, Chicago, and Philly, the Democrats don’t have much to say about the epidemic of shootings or their pet cause, gun control. While activist Democrat prosecutors like Attorney General Letitia James have neglected to deal with the violence and are instead targeting the NRA, they aren’t really talking about gun control. Mass shootings are rarely mentioned anymore even though there are more of them than ever. A Washington D.C. mass shooting at a cookout last month that wounded 20 people was treated as another local crime story. And there are a...