Tag: Texas

Thousands of Non-Citizens Are Listed on U.S. Voter Rolls, Watchdog Warns

Just the News

Tens of thousands of non-citizens have tried or made it onto voter rolls across the U.S. over recent years, according to an election watchdog’s analysis of data from several states.

Non-citizen voters have been found on voter rolls in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Maricopa County, Ariz. In Georgia, there were non-citizens who attempted to register to vote but were placed in a pending status because there wasn’t evidence of their citizenship, so they didn’t make it onto the voter rolls.

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24 Republican Governors Commit to Help Texas Defend Its Border

The Center Square

Twenty-four Republican governors have responded to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for help to secure its border with Mexico.

“The federal government’s response handling the expiration of Title 42 has represented a complete failure of the Biden Administration,” the governors said in a joint statement, referring to the end of the public health authority, Title 42, which expired at midnight on May 11.

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Commentary: Can Texas Restore Nondiscrimination and Equal Opportunity to Higher Education?

Admin

Americans once said, “As California goes, so goes the nation.” Hopefully after this legislative session, Americans will say, “As Texas goes, so goes the nation.”

The Lone Star State’s leaders are fighting fiercely right now to restore non-discrimination and equal rights under the law. These are American values embedded in U.S. civil rights laws and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, but they’re no longer practiced—or enforced.

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More Than 100 Known, Suspected Terrorists Apprehended at Southern Border Fiscal Year to Date

The Center Square

An Afghan national on the federal Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) was apprehended attempting to enter the U.S. illegally near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego, California.

The TSDS is the federal government’s database that includes sensitive information about terrorist identities. It originated as a consolidated terrorist watch list “to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watch listed individuals,” CBP states.

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U.S. Air Force Abandoned a Social Experiment Designed to Graduate More Minority Pilots: Report

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The U.S. Air Force abandoned an experiment aimed at boosting pilot training graduation rates for women and minority pilots after the 2021 initiative failed to achieve the intended results and officers privately warned it could violate anti-discrimination policies, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As part of the larger military-wide effort to promote diversity in the service’s pilot ranks, the 19th Air Force command near San Antonio, Texas, “clustered” racial minorities and female trainees into one class, dubbed “America’s Class,” to find out if doing so would improve the pilots’ graduation rates. However, not only did the effort fail to boost minority and women candidates’ success rates, but officers involved say they were ordered to engage in potentially unlawful discrimination by excluding white males from the class, documents show.

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17 State Attorneys General Declare Support for Florida Trans Guidance

Michigan Star Staff

by Eric Lendrum   On April 7th, an amicus brief was filed in favor of Florida’s current ban on using state funds to support “transgender” treatments, with 17 state attorneys general voicing their support for the law. According to the Daily Caller, the brief’s filing was part of an ongoing legal…

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Music Spotlight: Jake Worthington

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Jake Worthington first wowed America in 2014 as a teen from LaPorte, Texas, when he became a finalist on NBC’s The Voice. Fast forward ten years, and the traditionally influenced country artist has put out a lot of music but is just now releasing his debut album.

He recently signed with Big Loud Records and fitted in perfectly with current country heavyweights like Hardy, Morgan Wallen, Larry Fleet, and Lauren Alaina.

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Six Army Bases to be Renamed from Original Confederate Names

Admin

The dates have been revealed for when six United States Army bases will officially have their names changed due to a far-left campaign to rename any installations bearing Confederate names.

According to Axios, the six bases in question are: Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Pickett, Virginia; Fort Rucker, Alabama; Fort Lee, Virginia; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The name changes come after Joe Biden created a federal Naming Commission, for the sole purpose of changing names of federal facilities, monuments, parks, and other territories that were originally named for Confederate figures; the campaign has been widely criticized as an effort to erase American history in the name of political correctness and “woke” racial justice politics.

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Trump Decries Weaponized Probes against Political Figures: ‘Worse than Ballot Stuffing’

Just the News

Former President Donald Trump is decrying the relentless investigations launched against him and his supporters, saying they are a form of political cheating worse than ballot stuffing.

Trump assailed the chronic investigations he has faced for seven years during his first rally of the 2024 campaign season in Waco, Texas on Saturday night, and then in a subsequent post on his Truth Social platform.

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States Push for Harsher Fentanyl Penalties amid Uptick in Overdose Deaths

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Several states are advocating for harsher fentanyl penalties as overdose deaths surge in the U.S.

Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Texas, West Virginia and South Carolina have all pushed to increase the length of sentences for fentanyl dealers, according to the Associated Press. Fentanyl is largely responsible for the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths that occurred in 2021 up from 93,331 drug overdose deaths in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Texas Announces State Takeover of Houston Independent School District

The Center Square

The state of Texas intends to take control of the Houston Independent School District, citing poor academic accountability, violations of the law and the expiration of an injunction that had previously prevented the state from acting, state officials said Wednesday.

The Texas Education Agency said it would name a new district superintendent and suspend the district’s board of trustees. This is the latest in a yearslong fight between the state and the district of about 200,000 students over poor academic performance and the behavior of trustees.

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Texas Case Could End Access to ‘Dangerous’ Abortion-Inducing Drug Nationwide

Susan Berry, PhD

A federal judge heard oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that could end availability of abortion-inducing drug mifepristone throughout the nation.

The case was brought against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November by Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a coalition of pro-life OB/GYNS, pediatricians, and other Christian healthcare providers, who are seeking a preliminary injunction to require the FDA to either withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug while the lawsuit continues.

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Border: 205,000 Apprehensions, Gotaways in February as Gotaways Increase in West

The Center Square

More than 205,000 foreign nationals were apprehended or reported as gotaways after illegally entering the southwest border in February, according to preliminary data obtained by The Center Square from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The agent provided the information on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation; it only includes Border Patrol data and excludes Office of Field Operations data.

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Texas Sheriff: We’re Experiencing ‘Silent Invasion’ of Military Age Men

The Center Square

What’s happening at the southern U.S. border with Mexico is in fact an invasion, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe says.

“We’re experiencing a silent invasion of military age men,” Coe told The Center Square when describing what his deputies have been increasingly facing over the past two years.

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Texas, Michigan Officials Say They Weren’t Warned Before Receiving Contaminated Ohio Soil, Water

Just the News

Officials in Texas and Michigan said they were not informed before their states received shipments of contaminated water and soil from East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailed with toxic chemicals and caused a public health and environmental crisis earlier this month.

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Review of 2020 Election Continues as Texas, Pennsylvania Counties Find Ballot Total Discrepancies

Just the News

An audit of the 2020 election found a discrepancy of nearly 600 absentee votes in a Texas county, while a hand recount in a Pennsylvania county found a far smaller disparity, as more states seek to implement election reviews.

In Smith County, Texas, an audit of the 2020 election showed 584 more absentee voters than absentee ballots, according to KLTV, a local ABC News affiliate. Seven county races were within the 584-vote margin of error, including council races and propositional elections. The audit also found five different totals for absentee ballots.

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DHS Chief Mayorkas Insists Border is Closed as Biden Tours El Paso

The Center Square

Ahead of President Biden’s first trip to the southern border on Sunday in El Paso, Texas, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again said the U.S. southern border is closed.

His comments came despite thousands of illegal border crossers pouring into the city, filling the airport, sidewalks, homeless shelters. Over the past few days, many were bused out of town and otherwise cleared out ahead of the president’s visit.

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Half of the US No Longer Requires a Permit for Concealed Carry

Admin

Half of the states in the U.S. no longer require residents to hold a concealed carry permit to carry firearms in public after Alabama, Indiana, Georgia and Ohio passed laws in 2022 removing permit requirements.

On Monday, Alabama began enforcing its permitless carry law, becoming the 25th state to do so, while Indiana, Georgia and Ohio also passed laws this year allowing residents to concealed carry firearms without a permit. Over the last two years 10 states have moved to permitless carry, including Utah, Montana, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas.

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Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia Among 18 States Banning Social Media App TikTok from State Devices

Admin

Following South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem’s lead, nearly half of U.S. states have put restrictions on or banned the use of Chinese-based social media app TikTok.

At least 19 states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utha, Virginia and West Virginia.

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Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority

Admin

Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.

Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.

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Texas Governor Declares Invasion at Border, Invokes Constitutional Powers in Historic Action

Just the News

Frustrated by an unending crisis fueled by drug and human trafficking at the southern border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared his state was under an invasion and invoked special powers granted under the U.S. and Texas constitutions.

Abbott’s decision came after three dozen counties in his state passed resolutions calling for the dramatic action. The Republican governor said the declaration allows him to send National Guard troops to the border, treat drug cartels as terrorist organization and to build his own border wall separate of the federal government.

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Nine Texas and Nebraska Cities Became ‘Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn’ on Election Day

Susan Berry, PhD

Four Texas cities and six villages in Nebraska voted on Election Day on ballot measures that would outlaw abortion within their jurisdictions.

Of the 10 ballot measures, only one was rejected by voters, reported Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative, at Live Action News.

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Texas AG Paxton Investigating Zuckerberg-Funded Nonprofit for Alleged Partisan Electioneering Efforts in 2020

The Center Square

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) as part of an investigation his office launched to determine whether it “solicited donations under the pretext of protecting voters from Covid-19 while instead using the funds to support partisan electioneering efforts or election oversight roles normally left to state and local officials.”

CTCL, a self-described non-partisan nonprofit organization, according to the bios posted on its own website and other records, “is led by individuals with distinctly partisan backgrounds,” the AG’s office says. CTCL’s founder and executive director, for example, Tiana Epps-Johnson, was among a group of inaugural Obama Foundation Fellows who previously was the Election Administration director for a progressive grassroots organization, the New Organizing Institute. She also worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

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Congressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities

Just the News

Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.

The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.

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Music Spotlight: Erin Kinsey

Bethany Bowman

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Although she only vaguely remembers it, I met Erin Kinsey at a Writer’s Round in a side room at the Bavarian Bierhaus at Opry Mills in March of 2021 and we still weren’t sure if we should even be gathering.

Long before Kinsey officially launched her country music career, the Texas girl was already a full decade into it. Her parents had her in every sport, club, and extra-curricular activity they could think of. She played tennis, basketball, and soccer and even took piano lessons. They wanted to help her figure out what she loved. Their goal was to help her find a career born out of passion.

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Three More Counties Want Texas to Declare Invasion at Southern Border; Total at 32

The Center Square

Three more counties are the latest to express support for Texas declaring an invasion at the southern border, bringing the total to 32.

The judge and county commissioners of Ector County, in the Permian Basin, signed a Declaration of Local State of Disaster on Sept. 27 stating the “health, safety, and welfare of Ector County residents are under an imminent threat of disaster from the unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.”

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Report: NYC Wants to Relocate Migrants Bused in from Texas to Florida

Michigan Star Staff

New York City officials are thinking about flying illegal immigrants out of the Big Apple to Florida after officials in Texas bussed 11,000 border crossers to the sanctuary city, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.

Manuel Castro, NYC’s Commissioner of Immigration Affairs, said that most of the migrants are from Venezuela, and they want to go to the Sunshine State because it has a large community of Venezuelans.

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Four More Texas Counties Declare Invasion at Southern Border, Bringing Total to 22

The Center Square

The judges and commissioners of four more Texas counties have declared an invasion at the southern border, bringing to 22 the number of counties that have done so.

Jasper, Madison, Throckmorton and Wichita counties are the latest to declare an invasion.

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A University of North Texas School Taught Four-Year-Olds Pronouns, Gender Identities in Class: Report

Admin

Texas mom Jennifer Cains told Campus Reform that she unenrolled her daughter from the University of North Texas (UNT) College of Education’s Center for Young Children (CYC) after learning that teachers were allegedly pushing gender theory and pronouns in a classroom full of four-year-olds.

The CYC is an “early childhood program within the College of Education” at UNT. The center describes itself as a “research-based, high-quality preschool program” used to give UNT’s college trainees experience and provide “care and education” for its young students.

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Texas ‘Kid-Friendly’ Drag Queen Grooming Event Protected by Armed ANTIFA Guards

Susan Berry, PhD

A restaurant in Roanoke, Texas, held a controversial “kid-friendly” drag queen grooming event Sunday during which children of all ages were invited to participate in the show that featured vulgarity and partial nudity, while ANTIFA members, armed with AR-15s, protected the event.

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Gov. Abbott Accelerates Busing of Foreign Nationals from Southern Border to New York City

The Center Square

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is accelerating the state’s busing to New York City of foreign nationals who’ve entered the U.S. through the southern border.

The majority coming in are believed to not have valid asylum claims, are bypassing federal immigration law, and instead of being deported are being released into the U.S. under new Biden administration policies, attorneys general who’ve sued the administration argue.

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Texas Bans BlackRock for Anti-Oil Agenda

Admin

The state of Texas announced new restrictions on at least 10 finance firms that have declared an opposition to oil and other fossil fuels, since such a stance could “undermine” the Texas economy that depends heavily on such fuel sources.

The Daily Caller reports that the restrictions, announced by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Glenn Hegar, will prevent the companies in question from entering into most contracts with entities at the state or local level. The new policy is the result of a law passed in 2021 that requires the state government to limit its ties with anti-oil companies. As a result, the government requested information from over 100 companies to determine their stances on fossil fuels.

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Commentary: The White House Is Creating a Texas-Border Patrol Standoff

Michigan Star Staff

The tragic results of the Biden Administration’s extremist immigration policies have become increasingly clear. By now there is abundant video evidence of large groups of foreign nationals wading across the Rio Grande, seeking shelter under highway overpasses, and walking through gaps in the unfinished border wall. These are the obvious results. 

Less obvious are the other potentially dangerous situations these policies create. This is not just about talking points for politicians to debate, but real-world situations where people can be injured or killed.

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Federal Judge Blocks Biden’s Attempt to Override State Abortion Law

Michigan Star Staff

James Hendrix, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s attempt to force states to provide abortions in certain emergency situations in a Tuesday ruling, according to court documents.

Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide emergency medical aid in an attempt to override state abortion bans. Hendrix halted the guidance and temporarily blocked the HHS from enforcing its interpretation of EMTALA.

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Federal Judge Questions Idaho Abortion Ban in Lawsuit Brought by Biden Administration: Updated

Susan Berry, PhD

UPDATE: Late Wednesday, Judge Lynn Winmill granted the Biden Department of Justice’s request for an injunction on Idaho’s abortion ban as it pertains to medical emergencies.

“The Court hereby restrains and enjoins the State of Idaho, including all of its officers, employees, and agents, from enforcing Idaho Code § 18-622(2)-(3) as applied to medical care required by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA),” Winmill wrote, adding the state is prohibited “from initiating any criminal prosecution against, attempting to suspend or revoke the professional license of, or seeking to impose any other form of liability on, any medical provider or hospital based on their performance of conduct that (1) is defined as an “abortion” under Idaho Code § 18-604(1), but that is necessary to avoid (i) “placing the health of” a pregnant patient “in serious jeopardy”; (ii) a “serious impairment to bodily functions” of the pregnant patient; or (iii) a “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part” of the pregnant patient.”

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30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders

Admin

In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.

In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.

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Trump: ‘America Is on the Edge of an Abyss’

Admin

Donald Trump on Saturday delivered stinging rebukes of the Biden administration at the Dallas Conservative Political Action Conference, one of a continuing series of indications that the still-popular former president has set his sights on a return to the White House for 2024.

Trump during his speech declared that the U.S. “is being destroyed more from the inside than the out,” and that the country “is on the edge of an abyss, and our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.”

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Video Shows Children in Texas Taking Oath to be ‘Martyrs’ for Iran’s Supreme Leader

Admin

Avideo of kids at an Islamic center in Houston, Texas pledging their allegiance to the supreme leader of Iran is setting off alarm bells among experts, who are warning this has all the signs of the Iranian regime’s global indoctrination efforts to spread its revolutionary ideology and recruit operatives abroad.

The viral video was initially posted to YouTube and Facebook last week by the Islamic Education Center of Houston (IEC), which organized the event calling on parents to bring children aged 4-14, according to its social media pages. The original video posts were later removed, but clips remain online.

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Three More States Are Poised to Ban Abortion Amid Court Battles

Admin

Idaho, Tennessee and Texas are moving to enact “trigger bans” restricting abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade June 24, ending the precedent which had banned states from restricting abortion throughout the first six months of pregnancy.

The bans in these three states will take effect 30 days after the Supreme Court officially transmitted its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association July 26, according to The Hill. Another 10 states had trigger bans go into effect after elected officials enacted them, and trigger abortion bans went into effect immediately after the court overturned Roe in three other states.

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Texas Offers $30 Million More to Local Law Enforcement for Border Security Efforts

The Center Square

An additional $30 million in Operation Lone Star (OLS) grant money is available to Texas cities and counties to enhance border security operations, the governor’s Public Safety Office (PSO) announced.

The announcement came two days after six county judges and sheriffs asked the governor to declare an invasion at the southern border, and to do more to help them thwart illegal activity in their counties after experiencing a surge of drug and human smuggling and other criminal activity resulting from the Biden administration’s border policies.

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CBP Chief Tries to Reassure the Rank-and-File as Agency Levels Charges Against ‘Whipgate’ Agents

Admin

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Chris Magnus promised discontented rank-and-file officials that the agency would always support them despite pursuing charges against agents involved in the now-debunked “whipgate” incident, an internal email obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation showed.

When CBP personnel “do the right thing,” the agency “will always stand behind you,” Magnus wrote in the email before announcing the results of the investigation into the September incident that took place in Del Rio, Texas. During the incident, Border Patrol agents used reins to steer their horses and maneuver around migrants entering the United Sates at the Rio Grande, which prompted some Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates to falsely claim the agents whipped migrants.

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No Judge Has Ever Declared Invasion Before in U.S. History: Cuccinelli

Michigan Star Staff

U.S. judges declaring an invasion at the southern border hasn’t occurred before until this week, Ken Cuccinelli, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director and deputy secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said.

On Tuesday, four county judges in Texas declared an invasion citing Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. They called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”

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Texas GOP Adopts New Platform: Biden ‘Was Not Legitimately Elected’

Admin

The Texas Republican Party has adopted a new platform, rejecting the certification of the 2020 presidential election results and declaring “that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”

The 40-page platform was adopted by the state GOP in Houston over the weekend for its biennial convention, The Hill reported.

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Report: World’s First Trillionaires Could Be from Texas

The Center Square

The world’s first trillionaires could be from Texas, according to a new analysis of the 30 richest people in the world.

A new report published by the software company Tipalti Approve estimates that newly relocated Texas resident, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024. Houston native and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell could become a trillionaire by 2033.

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DeSantis: Texas Should Be Sending Illegal Immigrants Back to Mexico

The Center Square
Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says Texas shouldn’t be allowing illegal immigrants to enter the state, echoing sentiments conservative Texans have been arguing for over a year.

“What Texas needs to do is just send them [illegal immigrants] back across the border,” Gov. DeSantis said at a recent press conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. “Who cares what the Feds are saying. They aren’t doing their job.

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Caterpillar Announces Relocation of Global Headquarters from Illinois to Texas

Susan Berry, PhD

Construction and mining equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. announced Tuesday it will move its global headquarters from its current location in Deerfield, Illinois, to the company’s existing office in Irving, Texas.

“We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” said Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby in a press release. 

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Videos Show Small Children Dancing with Drag Queens, Giving Them Money at Gay Pride Event

Admin

Shocking footage has emerged online of a drag queen show for children that took place at a gay bar in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday.

The newly-opened “Mr. Misster” hosted a “Drag the Kids to Pride” event where scantily clad drag queens gyrated in front of young children, and invited them to join them on stage.

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