Texas lawmakers will have $188.2 billion
available for the next budget after record-breaking
revenue growth
Posted By: Dreadnought, 1/10/2023 3:25:27 PM
Texas is projected to have $188.2 billion available in general revenue for funding the business of the state over the 2024-25 biennium — an unprecedented 26% increase from what lawmakers had during the last budget cycle, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said Monday in his biennial revenue estimate to state lawmakers and leaders. It’s far more money than legislators have ever had at their disposal, with an increase in available funds that dwarfs any previous jumps between cycles, thanks largely to a tax-collection windfall that left the state flush with cash, Hegar said. "The amount of projected revenues give the state a remarkable, a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, for historic actions in this
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On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) stated that the United States can’t take an unlimited number of asylum seekers, even though “there are many in my party who don’t want to admit that,” and the U.S. will have to limit the number of people it grants asylum to, encourage applicants to do so from their own country, “and then, frankly, turn those who don’t go through that process back around.”
Murphy stated, “[H]ere’s the question, the question is can we accept an unlimited number of asylum seekers? The answer is no. And so while there are many in my party who don’t want to admit that,
Walt Disney Co.'s board of directors has elected former Nike Chief Executive Mark Parker to be its next chairman, the company said Wednesday. The move comes as the company faces a proxy fight with an influential activist shareholder.
The change will take effect after the company's annual shareholder meeting. Parker, a Disney board director since 2016 and current executive chairman of Nike, will succeed Susan Arnold, a veteran business leader who is not standing for reelection due to Disney's 15-year term limit for board members. The date of the shareholder meeting has not been announced.
Parker's selection for the chairman position is the latest major leadership change for Disney
Jeff Beck, among the most innovative and certainly the most unpredictable of ’60s guitar heroes, died on Tuesday. He was 78.
“On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday,” reads a statement from his rep. “His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.” Beck recently completed a tour supporting his collaborative album with Johnny Depp, “18.” He received seven Grammys for instrumental performances, and an eighth for his 2009 work on Herbie Hancock’s “The Imagine Project.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been focused on “LGBTQI+” inclusivity and “gender-neutral” language under President Joe Biden — even as it has struggled to manage the nation’s commercial air traffic.
On Wednesday, the FAA ordered the first nationwide “ground stop” since Sep. 11, 2001, after a computer system failed overnight, grounding thousands of flights and throwing the country’s air traffic into chaos. It was the second crisis in as many months, after a winter storm snarled air travel during the holiday season. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg blamed Southwest Airlines, whose personnel management system caused company-wide cancelations that accounted for much of the nationwide disruption. But the FAA’s own systems
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric issued a statement Wednesday assuring the public that his agency has no intention of banning gas stoves after a commission official drew the ire of the cooking public by suggesting the appliances might be banned in the near future due to the alleged health threat they pose to Americans.
“Over the past several days, there has been a lot of attention paid to gas stove emissions and to the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” Hoehn-Saric wrote in an official statement released Wednesday. “To be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so."
The House Oversight Committee has asked former Twitter executives to testify at a hearing next month on the platform’s censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020.
At the time, Twitter banned the New York Post’s story on the laptop under its “hacked materials” policy.
Now, committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) has asked former Twitter officials Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth and James Baker to testify about the decision.
“On December 6, 2022, I wrote to you requesting your appearance at a Committee hearing during the 118th Congress. Your attendance is necessary because of your role in suppressing Americans’ access to information about the Biden family on Twitter
When the Biden administration renews the Covid public health emergency this week, it will mark the 11th time since the coronavirus arrived that the government declared its presence a national crisis.
It may also be the last.
Senior Biden officials are targeting an end to the emergency designation for Covid as soon as the spring, after debating doing so last summer and taking a pass, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. Should they do so, such a move would represent a major pivot point in the country’s battle with the pandemic.
The decision, which has not yet been finalized
Among the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.
John Lausch Jr., the US attorney in Chicago, has briefed Garland multiple times. No additional briefings are scheduled but would be conducted if necessary, a source said.
The Climate Is In Great Shape
9 replies
It doesn’t come as any surprise to regular Power Line readers that the politically and economically motivated climate hysteria with which we are constantly bombarded is false. This piece by Javier Vinós at Watts Up With That, titled “Good 2022 Climate News the MSM didn’t tell you,” does an excellent job of summing up the reality that is usually obscured.
As Vinos says, there has been mild warming during the last 40 years. But the rate of warming has been slowing down, not accelerating as the alarmists’ models predict:
[T]he good news that no one is telling us is that global warming is slowing down.
How damaging is the Biden classified documents story, really? Probably more than you think and more than liberals are willing to admit. The left-wing media may be trying to downplay it, but it seems that even the Biden White House realizes this is a politically damaging story.
How do we know? Well, it turns out that even though the discovery of the classified documents in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., was first reported on Monday, according to a report from the New York Times, “The documents found in Mr. Biden’s former office, which date to his time as vice president, were found
Unity? Majority of House Dems join all
House Republicans to form new China select committee 6 replies
House Republicans to form new China select committee 6 replies
I guess there are still some issues which cross party lines. I’m actually relieved to see it because this is an issue where we really can’t afford to be divided. Today Republicans and Democrats in the House joined forces to form a new select committee on China.
House Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday joined forces and voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new committee to examine U.S. strategic competition with China, after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared on the House floor that neither Republicans nor Democrats trust China anymore.
“We spent decades passing policies that welcomed China into the global system,” McCarthy said. “In return
The Pentagon is formally dropping a controversial COVID-19 vaccine mandate for troops, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
President Joe Biden signed a defense policy bill just before Christmas that included a provision cleared by the House and the Senate to repeal the administration’s military vaccine mandate. The National Defense Authorization Act terminated the COVID-19 vaccine for military members but did not reinstate those who were discharged or had their benefits cut for refusing the vaccine. Reinstatement has become a priority for some Republicans who said the strict mandate is among the reasons why military recruitment is at an all-time low.
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The University of Southern California (USC) Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work will no longer use the world “field” in its curriculum or its practices as part of its anti-racist framework, according to an email reportedly sent Monday.
The school reportedly stripped the word from use due to alleged ties to “anti-Black” and “anti-immigrant” rhetoric, according to the email sent by the Practicum Education Department to the campus community, faculty, staff and students. The school informed that the word “practicum” would be used instead to “ensure [its] use of inclusive language and practice.”
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric issued a statement Wednesday assuring the public that his agency has no intention of banning gas stoves after a commission official drew the ire of the cooking public by suggesting the appliances might be banned in the near future due to the alleged health threat they pose to Americans.
“Over the past several days, there has been a lot of attention paid to gas stove emissions and to the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” Hoehn-Saric wrote in an official statement released Wednesday. “To be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so."
Nearly a ton of taxpayer-provided food gets tossed in the trash every day at a massive Manhattan hotel being used to house migrants — because they’d rather secretly cook their own meals on dangerous hot plates, a whistleblowing worker has revealed.
Disturbing photos show garbage bags full of sandwiches and bagels awaiting disposal at the four-star Row NYC hotel near Times Square, where the city pays a daily rate as high as $500 per room, hotel employee Felipe Rodriguez told The Post. (Snip) Rodriguez added ruefully: “We are in an environment that is hostile, violent and not safe anymore.” The Row NYC is one of four
Jill Biden had three lesions removed on Wednesday during outpatient surgery at Walter Reed National Military Hospital - with at least two of them determined to be cancerous.
The first lady had gone in for a procedure to remove a lesion from above her right eye, which White House Dr. Kevin O'Connor said was confirmed to be basal cell carcinoma.
Doctors also excised a lesion from her left eyelid and sent it in for microscopic examination to determine if it was cancerous.
They also found a lesion on her chest, which appeared to be basal cell carcinoma, and doctors extracted. They later confirmed it was that type of skin cancer.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar said Tuesday that President Joe Biden, unlike former President Donald Trump, deserves the “benefit of the doubt” in regards to allegations he removed classified material to a non-secure location.
Biden’s personal attorneys said they stumbled across the documents while packing files in a private office and notified the National Archives and Records Administration, CNN reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.[Snip] The White House did not return a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.
Who's next? Six Democratic senators who
may retire ahead of a potentially brutal
2024 election 26 replies
may retire ahead of a potentially brutal
2024 election 26 replies
Several Senate Democrats may be considering retiring rather than facing a potentially bruising 2024 re-election campaign.
While Democrats performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, the 2024 election cycle — where Democrats will be defending seats in several battleground states — could have a far different outcome.
In what could be the first of many similar announcements, Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced last week she will not seek re-election in 2024. Stabenow's decision to conclude her decades-long Senate career in 2025 provides Republicans with a pickup opportunity.
Among the items from Joe Biden’s time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has received a preliminary report on the documents inquiry, a law enforcement source said, and now faces the critical decision on how to proceed, including whether to open a full-blown criminal investigation.
John Lausch Jr., the US attorney in Chicago, has briefed Garland multiple times. No additional briefings are scheduled but would be conducted if necessary, a source said.
Things just keep getting worse for Pete Buttigieg. After Southwest Airlines ruined many Americans’ holiday plans with mass cancelations, now a “glitch” is causing hundreds of flights to be canceled again.
Fortunately, a massive snowstorm meant that I wasn’t going anywhere over the holidays, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t grind my gears that for the umpteenth time the guy whose job it is to do something isn’t doing anything. Much like the establishment GOP tends to do when confronted with its failings, Pete fell back on a strongly worded Twitter statement.
He followed that up with a not-so-strongly worded letter to the airlines asking them to treat passengers like people
I remember being on a golf course talking politics and a friend “jokingly” called me a “breeder.” I have four kids; he’s chosen to forgo parenthood altogether.
After a moment of stunned silence, I realized two things: one, that there are plenty of folks who think that having children is evil, and two, that this person was not in fact my friend.
He’s not alone in his thinking though: a survey by Veolia, an environmental utility firm, reveals that a quarter of respondents described “not being at peace” due to global warming and said they were “giving up long-term projects such as having children.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said he is "not surprised" Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg "had no idea what happened" to cause the FAA debacle that led to grounded U.S. flights early Wednesday, telling "Fox & Friends" host Brian Kilmeade the cluelessness is "consistent" with Buttigieg's record in the role.
(snip)
REP. ANDY BIGGS: I'm not surprised. It's unpleasant that I have to say that. But I'm not surprised that he doesn't know anything because that's consistent with how he's handled any kind of question or issue that we've had in our transportation sector since he became secretary. But what's chilling about this today is the fact that this is happening. We've
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that he can not rule out that the FAA safety alert system computer outage causing thousands of fight delays Wednesday morning was a result of a domestic or foreign attack.
Mitchell said, “We have seen domestic attacks on other aspects of our critical infrastructure, power substations. Are we absolutely positive this was not the result of any nefarious activity, either domestic or foreign?”
Buttigieg said, “We’re not prepared to rule that out. There hasn’t been any indication of that. The FBI has spoken to this, and of course, FAA is looking at that as well as they work to see exactly what
Comments:
$33 billion (rounded) surplus.