Tag: Texas

State AGs Sue Three of the World’s Biggest Asset Managers for Allegedly Violating Antitrust Laws

Just the News
Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading 10 other GOP state attorneys general in a lawsuit against BlackRock, State Street Corporation and Vanguard Group, three of the largest asset managers worldwide, for allegedly violating antitrust laws.

The firms allegedly conspired to use anticompetitive trade practices to artificially constrict the coal market, according to Paxton’s office. They acquired substantial stockholdings in all significant, publicly held coal producers in the U.S., allowing them to have the power to control coal company policies. These asset managers pushed for reduced coal output by more than half by 2030.

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Texas Officers Apprehend Human Smugglers, Rescue Unaccompanied Children

The Center Square
Texas DPS rescues unaccompanied minor

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers continue to apprehend human smugglers and rescue unaccompanied minors at the border through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star.

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‘Take the Red Pill:’ Musk’s Support for Trump Follows Wave of Government Probes into His Companies

Just the News

As Elon Musk ramps up his $1 million-a-day support for Donald Trump, what appears to be a record of progressive harassment of his many companies may explain how the world’s richest man went all-in for Republicans.

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16 AGs Call on DHS to Verify Citizenship Information of Registered Voters

The Center Square
Vote Here Sign

Sixteen attorneys general, led by Ohio AG Dave Yost, called on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide voter registration information to states, particularly when it relates to citizenship status.

The AGs “raise grave concerns that by failing to work with States to verify voter registration information, your office has failed to discharge its duty ahead of a national election,” the letter to Mayorkas states.

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New York Times Poll: GOP Poised to Win Back the Senate

American Greatness

The latest polling suggests that the Republican Party is likely to retake control of the United States Senate in November, presenting further complications for the ruling Democratic Party regardless of the outcome of the presidential election.

As reported by Newsmax, the poll by the New York Times and Siena College focuses on three Senate races this year: Montana, Florida, and Texas. Despite Democratic efforts to take the former swing state of Florida or break through the traditionally red stronghold of Texas, both incumbents there are polling ahead of their challengers.

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Non-Citizens and Duplicate Ballots Discovered in a Dozen States Including D.C. Ahead of November Elections

Just the News
Processing Ballots

With the November election fewer than six weeks away, states and localities are cleaning up voter rolls and sending out ballots to voters. However, multiple jurisdictions are experiencing issues in preparation for Election Day.

As voters in some states have already begun the early and absentee voting process, several jurisdictions have recently found problems in the administrative process, such as non-citizens on voter rolls and duplicate ballots sent out to voters.

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Supreme Court’s Coming Term to Feature Cases on Child Sex Change Limits, Guns and Pornography

Daily Caller News Foundation
U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s coming term will include cases on child sex change limits, guns and pornography.

The 2024-2025 term will kick off when the justices hear their first case on October 7. To date, 28 petitions have been granted, with more cases to be added to the docket in the coming weeks.

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Investment Giants Leveraged Texas Universities’ Endowment Funds to Back Anti-Oil Agenda, Report Finds

Daily Caller News Foundation
UT Austin

Several asset managers leveraged two major Texas university systems’ endowment funds to advance anti-fossil fuel shareholder proposals in 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation (AAF).

BlackRock-owned Aperio Group, Cantillon, former Vice President Al Gore-chaired Generation Investment Management, GQG Partners and JP Morgan Asset Management collectively manage approximately $4 billion for The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) as of July, which handles the university systems’ endowments.

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Commentary: The Hidden Vote

Michigan Star Staff
Illegal Immigrants

Former President Donald Trump is slightly ahead in the polls and, as in 2016 and 2020, he is drawing massive crowds at his rallies. Some knowledgeable observers have even speculated that Trump could be on the verge of a landslide electoral college victory.

But, while our attention is being drawn to the polls, the campaigning, and the strategies of the presidential candidates, what about the taxpayer-funded electoral apparatus that has been created over the past four years by the Biden-Harris regime?

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Federal Appeals Court: Illegal Aliens Do Not Have Second Amendment Rights

American Greatness
Second Amendment

On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that illegal aliens do not have the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, due to the fact that they are not American citizens.

As reported by Fox News, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that federal law prohibiting illegal aliens from owning firearms is legal, as the Constitution does not apply to anyone who has entered the United States illegally.

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Commentary: ‘ZuckBucks’ Heads to Rural America in 2024

Daily Caller News Foundation

Money always finds a way. In the years following the 2020 election, dozens of states managed to ban private funding of elections. But even though Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly promised not to pour more of his money into your local election office, this year, the “Zuckbucks” team is recommitted to spreading cash wherever they legally can.

Recall that in late 2020, Zuckerberg directed his charitable arm to pass $350 million through an obscure nonprofit called the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) to fund large and small election offices around the nation. Some politically important counties received millions of dollars while others did not. As of today, 28 states have since banned the practice. Despite the bans, the CTCL’s work continues. In fact, the bans guide cash along new paths of least resistance.

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Bipartisan Bill Introduced to Better Monitor Terror Threats on Foreign Mobile Apps Like TikTok

Just the News
Rep. August Pfluger and Rep. Jimmy Panetta (composite image)

Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., introduced a bill to “conduct annual assessments on terrorism threats to the United States posed by terrorist organizations utilizing foreign cloud-based mobile or desktop messaging applications, and for other purposes.”

Pfluger said that cloud-based technology has given “terrorist groups even more tools to use in their pursuit of deadly chaos” more than 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.

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Biden Administration Gives Up on Texas Border Suit, Ordered to Finish Wall

The Center Square
Border Wall

Texas has won another lawsuit against the Biden administration, this time one that requires it to finish building the border wall.

The ruling was issued May 29, with a 60-day window for appeal. Because the Biden administration didn’t appeal by July 29, the court’s order remains in full effect.

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Federal Court Rules Texas Can Keep Its Floating Border Barriers in Place

Michigan Star Staff
Texas Floating Border Barrier

The Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Texas will be able to continue using its floating barriers in the Rio Grande river in order to deter illegal immigrant crossings.

Last June Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the installment of the floating line of buoys as he signed a series of border security bills, giving the state $5.1 billion in funding as it continues to be at the epicenter of the border crisis.

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Commentary: The Second Amendment Is More Crucial than Ever After Attempt to Kill Trump

Michigan Star Staff
Man training at gun range

A 20-year-old man with a rifle, perched atop a nearby roof, fired several rounds July 13 at Donald Trump as the former president spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and wounding at least two others.

As we know now, one round nicked Trump’s right ear and he avoided a serious wound or death with a fortuitous head turn that moved him out of the bullet’s path at the last second.

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Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Dies at 74-Years-Old

Michigan Star Staff
Sheila Jackson Lee

Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died Friday evening at 74-years-old, according to an announcement from her office.

In a statement published on the late Texas lawmaker’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account, Lee’s office announced the passing and acknowledged her work within the state. While it is unclear what the cause of death was, Lee revealed in early June she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

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Ted Cruz Unveils Bill Nixing Biden Regulation That’s Hamstringing Oil Development to Protect Tiny Lizard

Michigan Star Staff
Ted Cruz

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a new bill to nix the Biden administration’s protections for a lizard species that critics argue will restrict oil and gas development.

Cruz unveiled his Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill to walk back the Biden administration’s decision to protect the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, a species that is indigenous to parts of New Mexico and western Texas, under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Cruz and other critics of the designation have asserted that the lizard’s protections are more likely intended to complicate oil and gas development in the Permian Basin, an oil- and gas-rich region of western Texas and New Mexico.

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Oklahoma Becomes Latest State in Court over Illegal Immigration, Arguing It’s a State Issue

Just the News
Oklahoma Atty Gen. Gentner Drummond

Oklahoma is the most recent state facing a legal battle with the Biden administration on the issue of illegal immigration, with a federal judge blocking legislation that would make entering the country illegally a state crime. 

Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156 makes it a crime to be in Oklahoma without legal status. The legislation was signed into law on April 30, but was blocked by a federal judge in June after the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against the state. 

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Former Uvalde School Police Chief, Other Officer Indicted over Slow Response to 2022 Mass Shooting

Just the News

Two former Uvalde school police officers on Thursday for the slow law enforcement response to the 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday.

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Commentary: Juneteenth Usurped the Emancipation Proclamation

Zachery Schmidt
Carol Swain

How did Juneteenth, once just a regional celebration, become a federal holiday instead of the far more significant Emancipation Proclamation? The latter freed over 3 million slaves, including the ones in Galveston, Texas that didn’t know of their freedom. Let’s walk through some of the facts of the latter’s superiority over the former before grappling with the politics of our times.

President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It never became a federal holiday despite the wishes of some organizations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), presented a proposal in 2014 seeking to establish “A National Holiday Commemorating Emancipation of the Slaves” for the “history and story” to be “properly researched and archived for the American People. It acknowledged the importance of the document for all Americans and sought for the holiday to be celebrated on January 1 of each year as a Jubilee. The NAACP resolution was presented during the Obama Administration. It was written before the word “slaves” was swapped for “enslaved peoples.”

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Democratic Candidate and Biden Appointee Accused of Creating Fake Racist Attacks Against Himself

Just the News
Taral Patel

Taral Patel, a Democratic candidate for Fort Bend, Texas, precinct commissioner and a Biden administration appointee, is accused of using fake online accounts to post racist messages about himself and then publicly accusing Republicans of being responsible for it.

Patel was arrested last week for the third-degree felony of online impersonation and the misdemeanor of misrepresenting his identity, court records show. He posted $22,500 in total for two bonds – one on each of the charges – and he surrendered his passport.

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Trump-Appointed Judge Halts Biden ATF Rule Changing Definition of ‘Firearms Dealer’

Michigan Star Staff
Gun Show

A Texas judge granted an injunction Tuesday against a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule that changes the definition of a “firearms dealer.”

The ATF rule broadens the definition of “engaged in business” to extend beyond merely a “gunsmith or pawnbroker.” Trump-appointed federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the plaintiffs had met the legal standards to be granted an injunction until the lawsuit is resolved.

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Texas, Montana Sue Biden over Rule Requiring States to Pay for ‘Gender Transition’

The Center Square
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (composite image)

Texas and Montana have sued the Biden administration over another federal rule change it implemented, this time over one that requires states to pay for “gender transition” procedures through their Medicaid programs.

It also requires health-care providers to perform such procedures in states where the practice has been banned, including in Montana and Texas. Their state legislatures passed bills their governors signed into law prohibiting “gender transition” procedures from being performed on minors in their states, among other restrictions.

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Commentary: China’s Land Purchases in U.S. Spark Outcry for Federal Solution

Michigan Star Staff
Smithfield Foods factory farm

Over the past two years, nearly half the states in America acted to scrutinize purchases of land linked to China and other foreign adversaries. Concerns focus primarily on national security threats from China, and they’re well-founded.

The federal government has no idea how much real estate Chinese entities own in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture legally is required to track foreign ownership of agricultural land, but underestimates Chinese ownership by at least 50 percent.

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Biden and Red States Are on Immigration Collision Course Heading for Supreme Court

Michigan Star Staff
President Joe Biden in front of the Supreme Court building (composite image)

The Biden administration is currently waging a legal campaign against Republican-led states, arguing their laws that effectively restrict illegal immigration are unconstitutional.

The Department of Justice has so far filed lawsuits against three different states for enacting laws that largely empower police to enforce immigration rules. However, these state leaders, in the backdrop of an unprecedented border crisis, say they have no choice but to take up the issue themselves because the Biden administration won’t — and other Republican states may soon follow suit.

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Venezuelan Gang Members Arrested Thousands of Miles from Border

The Center Square
ICE arresting suspect

Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members are being arrested thousands of miles from the border after having illegally entered the U.S. in Texas.

The Venezuelan prison gang is well-known for orchestrating murders, bribery schemes and money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom money. In March, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Maria Elvira Salazar, both Florida Republicans, called on the president to officially designate Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.

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Commentary: Most U.S. Population Growth Last Year Occurred Outside of Largest Cities

RealClearWire

There are 124 cities with a population over 200,000 in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for last year, over 90 percent of the U.S. population growth last year took place outside of its 124 largest cities. About a third of those cities lost population last year.  The total growth in the population of cities with over 200,000 residents grew by .23 percent, less than half of what the U.S. grew last year.

Roughly a third of those that lost population were located in New York and California. The three largest cities in the U.S., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, all lost population again in 2023. Between the three cities, over 700,000 people have left since the 2020 census. New York is by far the biggest loser at 546,000. That is about 6.2 percent of its 2020 population.

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Reports: 2023 Was a Record Year for Natural Gas Consumption

The Center Square
Natural Gas Plant

2023 was a record year for domestic natural gas consumption, and its supply wouldn’t have been possible without record U.S. production, led by Texas, according to several reports.

Texas produced the equivalent of one-third of the natural gas consumed last year, with Texas producers breaking multiple records last year, The Center Square reported.

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Oklahoma Just Became the Latest State to Take Immigration Enforcement Into Its Own Hands

Michigan Star Staff
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt

Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed a sweeping immigration enforcement bill into law, making the Sooner State the latest to confront the border crisis through legislative action.

Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 4156 into law on Tuesday, one week after the Republican-controlled legislature sent it to his desk. The law, which is set to take effect on July 1, makes it illegal to reside in Oklahoma without legal authorization to be in the U.S.

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California Border Fentanyl Seizures Double as Texas Strengthens Border

The Center Square

California seized over one million fentanyl pills just last week, more than was seized in all of February, highlighting how much smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants has shifted to California since Texas strengthened its border.

In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom increased the California National Guard’s San Diego border region presence from 40 to 60 soldiers for narcotics operations.

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Illegal Alien Sex Offender Released Despite Detainer Request, ICE Says

Michigan Star Staff
Illegal alien sex offender in police custody

Connecticut law enforcement officials released an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes against a minor while ignoring a detainer request, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE agents apprehended a 27-year-old Ecuadorian national convicted of indecent assault and second degree assault of a Connecticut child earlier this month, the agency announced in a press release on Wednesday. The agency is faulting local officials for releasing the alien, despite an immigration detainer placed on him.

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Biden Admin Used Border Wall Funds on ‘Environmental Planning,’ Government Watchdog Says

Michigan Star Staff
Joe Biden with CBP agents

The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”

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Commentary: ATF Rule Change Creates a Trap for the Unwary

Michigan Star Staff
A selection of modern firearms on a table

On Friday, the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the ATF issued new regulations that make it more difficult to comply with federal laws regulating gun dealing and background checks.

Since the 1930s, federal law has required gun dealers to be registered as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL). The requirements hinged on the meaning of “engaged in the business of” gun dealing. This language has always been ambiguous, and there has never been (even after the announcement of the new rules) a true “bright line” that distinguishes when one graduates from selling a few guns from one’s personal collection into full-fledged gun dealing.

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Majority of Voters Polled Believe U.S. is Being Invaded at Southern Border

The Center Square
CBP Officer chasing illegal border crossers

The majority of American voters polled believe the U.S. is being invaded at the southern border. 

The findings come after Texas counties have led the national conversation on invasion, introducing the term and making the case for Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense. 

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Illegals Instructed to Vote Biden for Border NGO to ‘Stay Open’

Michigan Star Staff
Group photo of Resource Center Matamoros staff

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

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Texas Farmers Ask Judge to Block USDA from Doling Out Disaster Aid Based on Race or Gender

Just the News
Texas Farmer in field

A group of white farmers in Texas is asking a federal judge to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using race, gender or other “socially disadvantaged” traits to determine who gets disaster and pandemic farm aid and how much, arguing the agency’s current administration of eight emergency funding programs is unconstitutionally discriminatory.

“When natural disasters strike, they don’t discriminate based on race and sex. Neither should the Department of Agriculture,” the group of farmers wrote in a court filing made public Monday.

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Commentary: Is ‘The Great Illusion’ in Ruins?

Michigan Star Staff
President Joe Biden

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

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Inflation, COVID-Era Spending Policies Result in Teacher Layoffs Nationwide

The Center Square
Teacher instructing students in classroom

School districts across the country are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and federal COVID-era funding running out after receiving windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.

The federal COVID-era subsidies were funded through ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grants administered by state education agencies. Financed through the CARES Act and supplemental appropriations, the grant funding expires Sept. 30.

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Chinese Nationals Illegally Entering U.S. in Record Numbers Since 2021

The Center Square

The number of Chinese nationals illegally entering the U.S. – primarily single, military age men – has skyrocketed under the Biden administration.

Of the more than 140,000 Chinese who’ve illegally entered the country since fiscal 2021, one recently was apprehended at a Marine Corps base at the southwest border.

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‘Operation Rainmaker’ Arrests Result in Dozens Charged in Alleged Cartel-Affiliated Drug-Trafficking Ring

The Center Square
Seized Drugs

Agents arrested 23 people in relation to a cartel-linked drug operation in Texas that dealt in cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and meth. 

The arrests came after a five-year investigation that started in 2019. Prosecutors said the drug ring operated in the Houston and Galveston areas and was under the control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

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Analysis: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’ Sunshine State

Admin

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of U.S. international airports for which it has approved direct flights from abroad for certain inadmissible aliens. At least 386,000 migrants through February have been allowed to fly to interior U.S. airports as part of a legally dubious admissions program the administration launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully” over the southern border — by flying them over it directly into the interior and then releasing them on parole.

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More than 100 Sheriffs Express Support for Operation Lone Star

The Center Square
Sheriffs with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

More than 100 sheriffs in Texas expressed support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort, Operation Lone Star. They also are calling for the border crisis to be declared a “United States constitutional crisis and crimes against humanity.”

In a letter to the governor, the sheriffs “respectfully request that our Texas border be immediately secured by any lawful means.”

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Energy Secretary Insists Energy Stockpiles Will Be Refilled in 2024, but Experts are Skeptical

Just the News
Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Monday that the nation’s energy stockpiles, which President Joe Biden depleted to its lowest level since the 1980s, will be refilled by the end of 2024.

“By the end of this year we will essentially be back to where we would have been absent the sales,” Granholm said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, according to AFP.

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Texas Schools Pull $8.5 Billion from BlackRock over ESG

Michigan Star Staff
Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey

The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) is pulling $8.5 billion from the investment firm BlackRock over its use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.

The board informed the investment firm that it was being terminated as the manager of the Navarro 1 Fund in a Tuesday letter, which it provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The divestment represents the largest from the private firm, according to Fox Business Network.

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Conservatives Hope Supreme Court’s Initial Ruling on Texas Immigration Law Inspires Other States

Just the News

A preliminary Supreme Court ruling that allowed Texas to begin enforcing a state law empowering local police to arrest and deport illegal aliens if the federal government doesn’t should inspire other states to follow suit, prominent conservatives tell Just the News.

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