Free Republic

The Land of Lincoln (Illinois) is seeing epic flight from high taxes and a broken state pension system. We are seeing a tremendous migration shift to Texas and Florida. This migration is leading to a swelling of single-family housing permits in Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Phoenix AZ. We are seeing growth in smaller MSA such as San Angelo TX and Provo UT and uber slow growth in St Cloud MN and Modesto CA (home of Gallo Wines).

The Texas Legislature’s point man [Drew Darby] on transportation funding says Texas motorists need to understand that a higher gas tax would be a more 'open and transparent' way of dealing head on with the state's transportation crisis than the 'congestion tax' that motorists are currently paying every day. "I think we need to revert to pay as your go," State Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) told the San Antonio Mobility Coalition."Nine times members of the Legislature have raised the gasoline tax to pay for our transportation infrastructure, but that hasn't happened since 1991. Lawmakers over the past several years...

Texas court: State can take sect children to foster homes By: Associated Press Posted: 4/25/08 SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) - Dozens of mothers from a polygamist retreat were bused away from their children Thursday, their legal efforts to stay united rejected as Texas officials sort out their massive custody case. Two buses took the women from the San Angelo Coliseum, where they had been temporarily housed with their children. Texas officials were preparing to move the last of more than 400 children to group homes, shelters and residences, some hundreds of miles away, over the next few days. One woman...

Culture shock: Seized polygamous sect kids face tough adjustment The Associated Press Article Last Updated: 04/24/2008 07:32:33 AM MDT Posted: 7:33 AM- SAN ANGELO, Texas - The hundreds of children from a polygamist compound taken into state custody are on their way to group homes, shelters and residences, but experts and lawyers fear their transition may be much harder than it is for other foster children.     The 437 children taken from the compound in West Texas will be plunged into a culture radically different from the community where they and their families shunned the outside world as a hostile, contaminating...

A bulk purchase of disposable cell phones across The South Plains is turning into a federal investigation. Muleshoe authorities have questioned a man, who according to police reports, confesses to buying 60 pre-paid cell phones that might later be used to detonate bombs in the Middle East. The man reportedly bought the phones from stores like Dollar General, Family Dollar and even Wal-mart's across the region. Lubbock is included in the towns he confessed to buying the phones in. Again, in police reports he admits to a store manager the cell phones would eventually be used as bomb detonators in...

Alexander Enrique Hernandez arrived in San Angelo this week with a phone number and a court date he probably will not keep. The 20-year-old El Salvador native slipped across the U.S.-Mexican border near Eagle Pass on Monday. Almost immediately, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol arrested him, just another face among the 150 illegal aliens caught each day by the department's Del Rio sector. Instead of processing him on the border, however, agents shipped him to San Angelo, served him paperwork telling him to be in a federal immigration court next month, and dropped him off at the Concho...

SAN ANGELO -- Authorities have recovered the body of a missing Dyess Air Force Base airman from a stock tank on a West Texas ranch, his stepsister said. Staff Sgt. Michael Leslie Severance's body was found in 10 to 20 feet of water in a tank 15 miles northeast of San Angelo, Nicole Leighton said Monday. His body had been weighted with cinderblocks, and his death was ruled a homicide. Severance, 24, had been missing since Jan. 15. He lived in San Angelo but was assigned to Dyess in Abilene, about 90 miles to the northeast. Leighton said Air Force...

<p>Washington, DC, May. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued an order instructing its inspectors in Texas, where federal mad cow disease testing policies recently were violated, not to talk about the cattle disorder with outside parties, United Press International has learned.</p>

Local leaders fire away at redistricting By JOHN FUQUAY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL City and chamber officials said Friday that Austin legislators should take heed: Don't mess with West Texas. Lubbock Chamber of Commerce President Eddie Mc Bride made the comment at a news conference where he also noted that U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm, D-Abilene, was elected from a district that voted 67 percent Republican in November. "They want to pit Republicans against Democrats in districts that are already Republican," McBride said. In a plan approved by the state House, Lubbock and Midland/Odessa would be in separate congressional districts, and Lubbock would be...

Letter will air area stand on redistricting By JOHN FUQUAY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Representatives from seven area cities are expected to send a letter to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst today expressing their desire for West Texas congressional districts to remain unchanged. The action comes a day after a stormy redistricting session in the Senate, where one member abruptly walked out of a committee meeting where members were drafting a map of congressional districts. The letter to Dewhurst reiterates the position that mayors and chamber representatives expressed to him during a private meeting Monday in Austin. Lubbock Chamber of Commerce President Eddie McBride...

West Texans gain audience with Dewhurst Redistricting up for debate Click here to see the redistricting proposals By JOHN FUQUAY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told a group of West Texans on Monday that he believes the governor will call a second special session on redistricting if legislators reach an impasse on drawing new congressional districts. He also said Lubbock and Midland — currently in the same U.S. District 19 — appear headed for a split at the behest of state House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland. "The speaker's primary concern is that the ultimate bill contain a seat that can...

It's 2, maybe 3 a.m. and I'm in the passenger seat of Sam Lewis' old brown van as we hurtle toward Terlingua. We wander across the center stripe and back and back again - Sam's not near as worried about it as I am. Sensing my discomfort, Sam says, ''Oh, I just kind of aim this thing down the road.'' And he does, not steering as much as giving the steering wheel a slap every now and then when we appear to be on the verge of disaster. I'm reassured by the thought that Sam might have a few armadillos...