Free Republic

Casar will be among the most progressive members of Congress ever to serve from Texas. During his tenure on the City Council, he was best known for supporting cuts to the police department and his fight against the encampment bans that had translated into homeless citizens living in tents in public parks and under Interstate 35 bridges. He had the backing of prominent progressives like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but also the support of prominent locals like Austin Mayor Steve Adler and former state Sen. Wendy Davis. Rodriguez, seen as his most competitive rival, warned...

As the nation tires of quarantines, boredom and loneliness, the same politicians who find glee in slapping wrists and dooming small businesses regularly break the rules, in letter and in spirit, when they want to. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, dining maskless and indoors with lobbyists at the tony French Laundry restaurant the same week he warned against Thanksgiving gatherings. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, having her hair done and joining in a riotous Joe Biden victory celebration in violation of her own restrictions — then having the gall to call her actions “essential ­activities.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, unmasked at a...

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...

A little less than a week ago, blue Austin made itself a laughingstock across the rest of Texas. The all-Democrat city council and its left-wing Mayor Steve Adler voted unanimously to chop $150 million out of the city’s $434 million dollar budget. That’s a cut of one-third. Austin did this as the WSJ revealed that the fast-growing city of about a million leads the nation in the percentage increase of homicides in 2020. Yes, its rate of increase is worse even than New York and Chicago. Austin recently billed itself as safe. It can no longer honestly say that it...

Austin Texas Police Chief Brian Manley 26 July, 2020    Link to video A little before 10 p.m. in Austin Texas, on 25 July, 2020,  a crowd of activists/protestors/agitators were apparently illegally walking/marching in the street in Austin, Texas. One of the participants, Garrett Foster, 28 was carrying an AK47 style rifle.  At least one other person in the mob was armed. While there are many lights on in the city, it is at night, not daylight. A vehicle turned the corner onto Congress Avenue, encountering the street blocked by numerous persons. The vehicle horn was honked. Multiple people...

Austin’s city council voted this afternoon to slash $11.3 million from the city’s police budget. Note the tone in this piece, which is supposed to be a news story from local station KVUE: The proposed budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year of $4.2 billion – the same size as last year’s – adjusts to new fiscal constraints and community expectations, with focused investments in core programs and City infrastructure, according to the city manager’s office. The proposed $1.1 billion general fund budget supports re-imagining public safety through a reallocation of police funding to health, housing, and other critical social services....

The "progressive," so to speak, vision of politics and public life envisions tighter and tighter government control over economic life, along with looser and looser controls over human behavior. I think you'd refer to the overall design as a paradox: a clash of methods and objectives. Elizabeth Warren wants corporations subjected to unprecedented government oversight. Austin's and San Francisco's ruling classes favor, for the homeless, just about all the freedom you could imagine to use the public streets as a bedroom or restroom, in the name of, I don't know ... liberty? Liberty for those who avail themselves of these...

Since Austin's liberal policy on homeless camping went into effect on July 1, the big question is how much of an impact would it really have? Was the issue overblown? Would Austin residents see homeless camps pop up all over town or not? And would Austin, woke and weird capital that it is, object to it all?The results are in and growing. And if Los Angeles is any guide, they are urgent. Mayor Steve Adler recently traveled to L.A. to "learn" how to handle homelessness from the Democrat-run city. Austin and L.A. both have permissive camping policies.Well, L.A. now has...

Mayor Steve Adler revealed the contents of a letter that'll be placed on the moon in about 40 days. It's part of the Arch Mission Foundation's goal to archive all human knowledge in space. The letter was on Space X's Falcon Rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral this week. Adler included Kerbey Lane's highly-coveted secret queso recipe. He said the challenge of eating queso in zero gravity is, "one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win." He also said maybe next time- they'll remember the chips. Also on the...

Near the end of his over hour-long speech, Adler went off script for a moment to remind those in the city his stance on immigrants coming to Austin. “In this community, they should feel welcome and safe,” said Adler. Prior to that, he said last year Austin accepted 600 refugees from Iran, Syria and Afghanistan; most of them women and children. He anticipated another over 600 refugees in the city this year, and said almost one in four Austinites weren’t born in the U.S.