Tex's Place

By Freedom Foundation As recently as two years ago, Pennsylvania’s Public School Employee Retirement System (PSERS) was among the  top 25 public pension funds  in the nation.  Every year, it sends out approximately $7 billion in retirement checks to  250,000 former school employees . In  FY 2020, PSERS collected  $3.2 billion from taxpayer-funded employer contributions, $400 million from school workers, and $3.4 billion in investment profits. Despite that huge infusion of money, however, the plan reported a  $40 billion deficit , and retirees had not seen a benefit increase in nine years. Meanwhile, according to The Inquirer, PSERS “is still paying lawyers to deal with the fallout of a scandal touched off by an exaggerated profit report and scrutinized land deals. More than  $6 million has been paid already , and ongoing litigation suggests an internal probe that coincided with investigations by federal authorities left some unanswered questio...

By Bonchie In a blow to the "ceasefire now" crowd, including clownishly antisemitic politicians like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Hamas leadership has let it be known that  they don't want a ceasefire. The  first indication  of that came on Thursday when Hamas carried out a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, leaving three dead and dozens injured. If that wasn't clear enough, though, Hamas' leader in Gaza  Yahya Sinwar let it be known on the same day that the October 7th attacks were just a rehearsal. #BREAKING : Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar in his first publicized statements since launching Al Aqsa Floods campaign: "The leaders of the Occupation should know, October 7th was just a rehearsal" pic.twitter.com/YBPNHiPdbK — Gaza Report - اخبار غزة (@gaza_report) November 30, 2023 Who could have possibly foreseen this? Well, your favorite political commentator did  provide this warning  a month ago. Hamas, which is the governing authority in Gaza, has no intere...

By Tyler Durden Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, “We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.”  - William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966) The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t believe it. It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale. For instance, it was recently revealed that the White House, relying on a set of privacy loopholes, has been sidestepping the Fourth Amendment by paying AT&T to allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access—without a warrant—the  phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime . T...

By WNDU TOKYO (AP) — Japan suspended flights by its Osprey aircraft Thursday, officials said, the day after a U.S. Air Force Osprey based in Japan crashed into the sea during a training mission. Tokyo says it has also asked the U.S. military to ground all Ospreys operating in Japan except for those searching for victims of the crash. A senior Defense Ministry official, Taro Yamato, told a parliamentary hearing that Japan has suspended flights of Ospreys beginning Thursday until details of the crash and safety are confirmed. The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight. Ministry officials said a planned training flight Thursday at the Metabaru army camp in the Saga prefecture in southern Japan was canceled as part of the grounding of all 14 Japanese-owned Ospreys deployed at Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force bases. Japanese officials say ...

By Chris Powell On Wednesday, former NFL defensive end Wallace Gilberry declared his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican, aiming to represent Alabama’s newly redrawn 2nd Congressional District. Gilberry’s campaign is driven by a strong opposition to President Joe Biden. Hailing from Bay Minette, Alabama, Gilberry spoke to  Fox News Digital  to express his desire to “fire” President Biden and challenge the influence of liberal Democrats over Black Americans as a voting group. The race for the congressional seat is competitive, with 13 Democrats and 8 Republicans, including Gilberry, vying for the position. “I’m running because  Joe Biden  and the liberal politicians have let down my community and failed Alabama. Folks here at home are hurting and too many politicians don’t understand that – I see it every day,” said Gilberry. “My mission is simple: we’ve got to fire Joe Biden, beat back the liberals who have ...

By Frank Bergman Thousands of American auto dealers have signed a letter to Joe Biden, urging the Democrat president to scrap his electric vehicle (EV) mandate. The group of 3,700 dealerships, which collectively sell every major brand of automakers in the United States, warn Biden that consumers are not interested in EVs. After initial interest in the expensive vehicles, consumers have gone cold on EVs for various reasons. In their letter to Biden, auto dealers warn that the president’s push to make two out of every three new cars sold by 2032 to be electric was highly unrealistic. The industry experts insist that the demand for electric vehicles is no longer there to justify the shift. They note that dealers across the country are no longer able to sell EVs due to the lack of consumer interest in the vehicles. However, they state that they are under pressure to stock EVs because of federal regulations. While there were good options for people wishing to buy  ele...

By Jeffrey A. Tucker The economy is great. Everyone is happy. Jobs are everywhere. Inflation is practically gone. Opportunity abounds. President Joe Biden deserves all the credit. If you say otherwise, you might find yourself censored. Cite all the data you want but you're contradicting a White House priority, which is essentially to lie to everyone until morale improves. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? A new Washington Post  story , co-authored by the infamous Taylor Lorenz, whom the paper can't fire without risking years of litigation, has explained that “The White House official said the administration is working with TikTok creators to tell positive stories of Biden’s economic stewardship, while also working with social media platforms to counter misinformation.” Do you see what’s happening here? The censorship that began with silencing information on the lab leak, extended to stifling opposition to lockdowns, grew wildly intense over vaccines, and has hit even iss...

By JAMES LYNCH House Republican lawmakers overseeing the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden informed Hunter Biden he will have to answer questions behind closed doors in addition to testifying publicly. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, the leaders of the impeachment inquiry, have all issued statements demanding Hunter Biden comply with the  Oversight Committee’s subpoena to appear for a deposition on Dec. 13. “No one is above the law – even if your last name is Biden. “Our committees will first interview and depose witnesses. “We then of course would welcome Hunter Biden to testify at a public hearing at a future date. “Democrats should have no concerns with first deposing and… pic.twitter.com/j8jIUtVwO7 — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) November 29, 2023 “Our committees will first interview and depose witnesses,”  Comer said  at a Republican  leadershi...

By NEWSMAX Elon Musk, addressing the mainstream media on Wednesday after an earlier post on X was dubbed antiemitic by many critics, apologized Wednesday for his “dumbest” ever social media iunteraction. At the same time, though, he blasted advertisers leaving his platform because of rising antisemitism on X. “I don’t want them to advertise,” he said at the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York. This, as  reported by CNN Business. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go [expletive] yourself. ... Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel” he added. CNN said this was a reference to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who spoke earlier at the summit. Earlier this month, several top brands paused advertising on X, known previously as Twitter. They did so on the heels of Musk’s seeming public embrace of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The companies included titans such as Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros...

By Tom Knighton Over the last handful of years, we’ve heard a lot about the weaponization of the federal government, including with agencies like the FBI. We saw a lot of evidence that the Bureau worked against President Donald Trump and isn’t really a good friend of the American people. I have no doubt there are agents who are stalwart defenders of the Constitution. Don’t get me wrong. Yet the Bureau as a whole has issues and we’ve seen a lot of discussion in the hall of Congress about those issues. Yet we need to remember that the issues with the FBI aren’t exactly new. Instead, they started quite a while back, they were just a tad more subtle then. The most obvious clue was something we’ve talked about before, but  came back up over at America’s 1st Freedom . While Americans are frequently confronted with stories centered on guns being used to take lives, few are aware that many more humans are likely saved by firearms every year. A key reason for this lack of understan...