Free Republic

As government schools continue to show their commitment to promoting sex and gender ideology to children, Austin Independent School District is preparing to host its annual “Pride Week” pushing teachers and kids to “celebrate LGBTQIA+ students, staff and families.” Austin ISD said the event, set for March 18-23, will “highlight the district’s commitment to creating a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment.” According to the district’s website, each campus will receive a guide of suggested resources and activities staff can put on for students. Staff are advised to reach out to coordinators of their campus Genders and Sexualities Alliances (formerly known...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has responded to the dozens of bands who have pulled out of this year’s SXSW Festival in protest of its sponsorship deal with the U.S. Army. “Bye. Don’t come back,” Abbott wrote Tuesday in a post on X. “We are proud of the U.S. military in Texas. If you don’t like it, don’t come here.” Bands pull out of SXSW over U.S. Army sponsorship. Bye. Don’t come back. Austin remains the HQ for the Army Futures Command. San Antonio is Military City USA. We are proud of the U.S. military in Texas. If you don’t...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott hit out at musicians on Tuesday who are pulling out of the South by Southwest festival (SXSW) over the U.S. Army's sponsorship of the event, telling them "Don't come back" to the state. The internationally recognized event brings thousands of visitors to Austin each March, showcasing music, film and interactive media. This year's festival is running from March 8-16 and includes live panels and special events. However, it comes amid heightened tensions in the U.S. and around the world due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. is currently the foremost supplier of weapons to Israel,...

Is it a coincidence that McConnell is stepping down as Senate minority leader? On Feb. 12, 50-year-old Angela Chao was found dead in her Tesla that was submerged in a pond on private property in Blanco County, Texas, according to the incident report from fire department EMS personnel. Ms. Chao was the sixth and youngest daughter of Chinese-American shipping magnate James Si-Cheng Chao, who founded the New York-headquartered Foremost Group in 1964. She had been CEO of the company since 2018 and was a founding member of The Asian American Foundation. On Feb. 28, 82-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

A group of YouTube Music staff found out that they had been made redundant while speaking at a council meeting in Texas, urging councillors to support them in their efforts to get the Google-owned company to negotiate with their union. Google says they were contractors whose agreements have expired ..."Then, as he began to expand on that point, a colleague of Benedict's stepped forward to let him know that the entire team had been laid off. "

AUSTIN, TX — Early last December, a billionaire named Daniel Lubetzky, who had moved to Austin, Texas, from New York City during the pandemic, hosted a meeting of civic leaders and businesspeople in the city. The number one subject on everyone’s mind was Austin’s troubling crime rate. According to FBI crime statistics, as of October 2023, crime was higher in the Texas capital than the average number of murders, aggravated assaults, and robberies in the rest of Texas—and the nation. Violent crime, for instance, was nearly 40 percent higher in Austin than the national average. Meanwhile, since 2021, felonies were...

Workers contracted with YouTube Music made headlines this weekend for saying they’d been laid off in the middle of an Austin City Council meeting. A clip of last Thursday’s city council meeting shows Jack Benedict, a member of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA), appealing to the city council to pass a resolution in support of the workers. As he’s speaking, one of his coworkers, Katie Marschner, walks up and tells him: "Not to interrupt but they just laid us all off."

Austin, Texas residents are expressing outrage over police staffing shortages and longer 911-call response times in the aftermath of the city council's vote to defund the department in 2020. In February, a section of the city was notably left without a single police officer for a few hours on a Saturday due to the ongoing shortages. Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock, who called attention to the vacancy on X, told Fox News Digital that a steady decline in public safety has put the city on the "brink of disaster."

Lloyd Austin underwent an invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy for his prostate cancer. He was readmitted to the ICU ward of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center seven days later, on January 1st, due to complications caused by a severe infection. It appears he was septic. He concealed his inability to carry out his duties from Biden, Congress, the Pentagon, and his Deputy Secretary, Dr. Kathleen Hicks. On January 4th, finally becoming aware of Austin’s hospitalization, security adviser Jake Sullivan notified Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico. Even though Biden continued to back Austin, Austin was already...

SAN ANTONIO – KSAT’s discovery of hundreds of emails and text messages between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and an Austin-based criminal justice reform group has revealed just how much of an influence the group had on the DA. Earlier this week, KSAT obtained more than 200 pages of conversations between the firm’s founder, District Attorney Joe Gonzales and First Assistant District Attorney Christian Henrickson — many of which involve specific cases and policies. KSAT obtained the records through an open records request. The Wren Collective’s website states it is a strategic advising firm made up of former public...

The city of Austin, Texas, helped provide a guaranteed income of $1,000 a month to 135 households for a one-year period. According to a new report prepared by the Urban Institute, most of the money went toward housing. According to the report, nearly 60% of the money used in the UpTogether program was spent on housing, while 20% went to basic needs, 10% went to other bills, and the remainder was put into investments or given to help others.

Apple is undoubtedly one of the largest tech companies in the world. And with almost 37,000 of its 161,000 total employees working in California and its headquarters based in Silicon Valley, the tech giant had long been synonymous with the Golden State. However, Apple recently announced that an entire division based in San Diego will be shut down in April 2024. For those working there, they have two options: move to Austin, Texas, or be let go.

A disgruntled passenger was removed for farting excessively on an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Austin last week, it has been claimed. The early evening flight from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas was forced to return to its gate and delayed by 15 to 30 minutes, according to a passenger who was on the flight said. The Texas-based traveler wrote on Reddit: 'I was on a direct American flight from Phoenix to Austin and I was seated near the row where this situation occurred.' The Reddit poster described the...

When it was first reported on Saturday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been in the hospital since January 1, it was natural to assume that key figures in the Pentagon and the White House, for whatever reason, chose to keep his hospitalization a secret. What possible motive could there be for doing this? Who knows? It didn't make a lot of sense, but the Biden administration has an extensive record of covering up scandals, so it wasn't exactly out of character for the Biden administration to cover something up. The truth that has been coming out over the course...

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sounds off on the Biden administration's handling of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's hospitalization during a time of war ..

There is only one national command authority.The national command authority is the constitutionally mandated, congressionally required, DoD-directed unbroken chain of command from the president of the United States as our commander-in-chief to the secretary of Defense.Our entire Department of Defense — the brave men and women in uniform, rely on this chain of command every single day to execute the no-fail mission of protecting this great nation. There is no greater national security priority than maintaining its authority, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.Any SECDEF who is absent in his duties and fails to...

Email Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized since Jan. 1 for complications following a surgery to treat prostate cancer, officials at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center said Tuesday. The news of Austin’s treatment and condition came after a tortious week during which Austin was hospitalized, but the Pentagon refused to say why. Austin underwent the initial prostate cancer surgery on Dec. 25, during which he was under general anesthesia, according to doctors from Walter Reed. On Jan. 1, Austin experienced complications from the surgery including nausea and severe abdominal, hip and leg pain, which was later identified as...

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December and underwent a minimally invasive procedure to treat and cure it, according to a statement from Walter Reed National Military Center officials on Tuesday. "Secretary Austin recovered uneventfully from his surgery and returned home the next morning. [snipped out section quoting officials saying his prognosis is excellent] Austin was then admitted to Walter Reed on Jan. 1 "with complications from the December 22 procedure, including nausea with severe abdominal, hip, and leg pain," the officials said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said President Joe Biden “continues to have complete confidence” in Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even after he was admitted on January 1 to the intensive care unit — where he remains — but did not alert Biden of his condition until Thursday, January 4. A reporter asked Jean-Pierre, “Should the American people have confidence in Austin, given his lack of transparency?” Jean-Pierre then claimed that Austin had “taken responsibility” by issuing a statement on Saturday.

President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — the two officials with National Command Authority, or the authority to give military orders — were both out of office on New Year’s Day, raising questions as to who exactly would be in charge in the case of a military emergency. Biden began his vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, and headed back to Washington on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. He was scheduled to leave St. Croix around 5:45 p.m. Eastern. By then, his defense secretary had — unbeknownst to him — already been hospitalized since...