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Governor Sued for Removing Mail-In Ballot Drop Boxes

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There’s controversy in Texas because Governor Greg Abbott wanted to prevent voter fraud and ordered that ballots had to be returned to a single clerk’s office in every county. This means there would be only one location per county where mail-in ballots could be dropped off rather than put in the mail.

Voting rights advocates are screaming that being unable to drop off ballots in boxes instead of mailing them constitutes “voter suppression,” so they’re suing Abbott to force him to put the boxes back.

Who would this inconvenience? The usual suspects: old people, handicapped people, and minorities. No one has yet explained why mail-in ballots simply can’t be mailed, but I’m sure there’s a very good reason.

Washington Post:

“The impact of this eleventh-hour decisions is momentous, targets Texas’ most vulnerable voters — older voters, and voters with disabilities — and results in wild variations in access to absentee voting drop-off locations depending on the county a voter resides in,” the lawsuit stated. “It also results in predictable disproportionate impacts on minority communities . . . already hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis.”

(Read more from “Governor Sued for Removing Mail-In Ballot Drop Boxes” HERE)

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Students Destroy Memorial for Unborn Babies, Threaten Conservative Pro-Life Leader (VIDEO)

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Students vandalized a display intended to memorialize aborted babies on the campus of the University of North Texas (UNT) on Wednesday and also sent threatening texts to the leader of the conservative student group that put it up.

Members of the UNT chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT), a group that has existed in some form since 1980, received permission to place 1,000 small pink flags around the Denton, Texas, campus to commemorate unborn lives lost since Roe v. Wade, according to The Spectator USA. Each flag represented approximately 60,000 babies.

The chapter’s president, Kelly Neidert, told The Spectator that the flags were accompanied with various signs that said “abortion is murder,” “unborn lives matter,” and “overturn Roe v. Wade,” in part a reference to the looming battle to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

According to social media posts obtained by The Spectator, liberal students took aim at the memorial before it was even in place, mocking it and making a “capture the flag” game out of ripping down the exhibit erected by those whom they deemed “sexist, transphobic, all around horrid.” According to video captured by YCT, several students plucked the signs and removed the flags, including one girl carrying a soda. . .

Other screenshots obtained by The Spectator showed that Twitter users sent abusive and threatening messages to YCT and even Neidert herself, including one that told her to kill herself and another that said in part, “Personally, my code of conduct dictates that hexes should be cast unless the most heinous crimes are committed (rape, murder, etc). But who I am to tell other witches how to practice their craft?”

[Warning: video contains explicit language.]

(Read more from “Students Destroy Memorial for Unborn Babies, Threaten Conservative Pro-Life Leader” HERE)

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School Under Fire After One of Its Teachers Lists Kyle Rittenhouse as a Choice for a Modern Hero (VIDEO)

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A Texas school is facing criticism after one of its teacher’s assignments listed Kyle Rittenhouse as a “hero for the modern age.” . . .

According to Newsweek, students at W.T. White High School in Dallas were directed to complete the assignment, which named Rittenhouse — alongside people such as César Chávez, George Floyd, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, and Joseph D. Rosenbaum, one of the people Rittenhouse purportedly killed — as subjects of an assignment titled “Hero for the Modern Age.”

Part one of the assignment directed students to choose a “hero” from the list and write a half-page biography about the subject.

Part two of the assignment directed students to write a page-long essay on the individual from the list who best demonstrates their “concept of a hero.” . . .

A spokesperson for the Dallas Independent School District told the outlet, “An unapproved assignment posted in Google Classroom yesterday has been brought to our attention.”

(Read more from “School Under Fire After One of Its Teachers Lists Kyle Rittenhouse as a Choice for a Modern Hero” HERE)

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This Texas City Voted to Defund Police

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The Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA) created billboards warning visitors that they would be entering Austin at their own risk. The billboards sit along I-35 and were created after the Austin City Council voted to defund the police. . .

“This reckless act, a political stunt by the city council pandering to the radical left, will do nothing but endanger the people of Austin,” the organization said in a statement posted to Facebook. “As the largest police association in Texas, it is our duty and responsibility to stand up for the brave men and woman of the APD, as well as the other law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction within the city limits which will have less of APDs resources to depend on, and to raise public awareness of the dangers of defunding not just Austin, but any city across the U.S.” . . .

(Read more from “This Texas City Voted to Defund Police” HERE)

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School District Assigns Students Project Likening Police to Slave Owners, KKK (VIDEO)

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School officials in Wylie, Texas, apologized Thursday for a cartoon students received as part of an assignment that compared police to the KKK and slave owners.

“This is abhorrent and disgusting, and only further widens the gap between police officers and the youth in our community,” Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) National Vice President Joe Gamaldi wrote in a tweet:

Wylie Independent School District (ISD) officials said a social studies teacher at Cooper Junior High included the cartoon in a lesson for about 400 students, according to Fox 4 News.

The lesson was reportedly intended to be about the Bill of Rights and the right to protest.

However, students were allegedly “instructed to recreate political cartoons depicting current events, including the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis,” according to NBC 5.

(Read more from “School District Assigns Students Project Likening Police to Slave Owners, KKK” HERE)

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Woman Claims Family Was Kicked off Flight Because Autistic Son Was Unable to Wear Mask

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A Texas mother says her family was refused service on a recent Southwest Airlines flight because her 3-year-old son with autism would not wear a face mask.

Alyssa Sadler planned to fly from Midland to Houston with her son and daughter, 1, on Monday when the alleged incident occurred, Click2Houston reports.

The flight initially left the gate, Sadler said, but soon returned after a crew member noticed that the boy would not keep the mask on. . .

“They’re going over the security safety features and all that, and the flight attendant walks by and tells me that he has to put a mask on,” she continued to KTRK. “So, I try to put the mask on him. He is 3 and has autism and sensory processing disorders, so he wouldn’t keep the mask on.” . . .

Sadler said the captain announced the reason for the early return over the loudspeaker, telling the plane that a noncompliant passenger refused to wear a facial covering. From there, Sadler said an escort helped remove her family’s luggage and that airline officials later wrote up her son for noncompliance to the carrier’s policy. (Read more from “Woman Claims Family Was Kicked off Flight Because Autistic Son Was Unable to Wear Mask” HERE)

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Supreme Court Sides With GOP Officials Over Mail-In Ballots; Barr: Voting by Mail Will Lead to Fraud, ‘Counterfeiting’

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By Fox News. The Supreme Court, for now, is staying out of a dispute over whether to allow greater mail-in voting in Texas because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The justices on Friday kept in place a lower court order blocking a request from state Democratic leaders to expand the mail option, at least while the case is being litigated.

“The application to vacate stay presented to [Justice Samuel Alito] and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the order said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “I do not disagree with the decision to refrain from addressing them for the first time here, in the context of an emergency application to vacate a stay of an injunction. But I hope that the Court of Appeals will consider the merits of the legal issues in this case well in advance of the November election.” . . .

In May, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans put on a hold the ruling after a federal judge in San Antonio ruled that Texas must give all 16 million registered voters in the state the option of voting by mail during the pandemic. (Read more from “Supreme Court Sides With GOP Officials Over Mail-In Ballots” HERE)

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Barr: Voting by Mail Will Lead to Fraud, ‘Counterfeiting’

By NBC News. . .In an interview with NPR, Barr was asked if he believes an election conducted mainly by mail can be secure.

“Personally, no. I mean, we just mailed out checks under this program. And what is it? I heard something like 20 percent or something were misdirected,” Barr said, referring to stimulus checks sent out by the federal government as part of a coronavirus relief package.

Barr said that he thinks the same thing can happen with mail-in ballots.

“I know things can happen like that,” he said. “Because I know people move, a very high percentage in the United States, people move all the time. And I also know that you can easily take things out of mailboxes.”

He added, “There’s so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed. I think it would be very bad. But one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting.” (Read more from “Barr: Voting by Mail Will Lead to Fraud, ‘Counterfeiting'” HERE)

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State of Texas Delivers Powerful Warning to Protesters Wishing to Destroy the Alamo

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The state of Texas delivered a stern warning to violent protesters who wish to destroy The Alamo, one of the Lone Star State’s most treasured historical sites. . .

In response, Texas land commissioner George P. Bush, son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, sent those wishing to destroy The Alamo a powerful message. . .

“My office is closely watching the social media posts and rumors from protesters who are threatening to come to The Alamo. Rest assured, we have already deployed, for several weeks and continue to do so, the Alamo Rangers in partnership with [San Antonio Police Department, The Department of Public Safety and The National Guard to protect this sacred site,” Bush said.

“My message to the protesters is simple: Don’t mess with The Alamo,” Bush added. (Read more from “State of Texas Delivers Powerful Warning to Protesters Wishing to Destroy the Alamo” HERE)

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Report: Texas Naval Base Jihadi Secured U.S. Citizenship Despite Living in Syria

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An accused terrorist who allegedly opened fire on United States Navy personnel in Corpus Christi, Texas, was able to secure American citizenship through a little-known immigration loophole, a former intelligence agent states. . .

The Center for Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman, a former intelligence agent, reports that Alsahi was able to secure American citizenship through a little-known immigration loophole that depended on his father’s naturalized citizenship:

Adam Alsahli, 20 at the time of his death Thursday, was already a U.S. citizen when he moved from the Middle East to Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2014 with his mother (and likely several siblings) at the height of the Syrian civil war, by virtue of his father’s American citizenship, according to two sources familiar with the family’s immigration status. The attacker’s 75-year-old father, Salim Alsahli, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984, the sources told CIS, and subsequently seems to have sired a family back in Syria that included Adam Alsahli’s birth in 1999. [Emphasis added]

Although his children and their mother were born in and resided in the Middle East, the father’s U.S. citizenship conferred U.S. citizenship on Adam Alsahli, since he properly registered a declaration at a U.S. embassy or consulate office overseas. That apparently happened with Adam Alsahli because by the age of three, in the year 2002, [Alsahli] was granted an American passport that was repeatedly renewed over the years, sources said. [Emphasis added]

In 2014, at the height of the civil war inside Syria, Adam and at least his mother moved to the United States. The mother is currently a legal permanent resident who has a pending application for U.S. citizenship, the sources said. [Emphasis added]

(Read more from “Report: Texas Naval Base Jihadi Secured U.S. Citizenship Despite Living in Syria” HERE)

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3 Things to Know About Dallas Salon Owner Jailed, Then Released

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The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of a Dallas hair salon owner who had been jailed for contempt of court after refusing to keep her business closed due to coronavirus pandemic.

1) She was jailed for violating the stay-at-home order.

Shelley Luther was sent to the Dallas County jail “after keeping her salon open in defiance of state restrictions,” according to KXAS-TV, the NBC affiliate in Dallas, which reported that “Luther refused to apologize for repeatedly flouting the order, leading [a Dallas County judge] to find her in contempt of court and sentence her to a week behind bars” and fine her $7,000.

2) Prominent Texas lawmakers defended her.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement that jailing Luther, owner of Salon A La Mode, was going too far.

“Throwing Texans in jail who have had their businesses shut down through no fault of their own is nonsensical, and I will not allow it to happen,” Abbott said in a statement. “That is why I am modifying my executive orders to ensure confinement is not a punishment for violating an order.”

Abbott’s March executive order mandated that salons and other nonessential businesses close.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted Wednesday that throwing the salon owner in jail was inappropriate.

“Shelley Luther should immediately be released from jail,” Paxton said. “Locking her up is a misguided abuse of power, especially considering Dallas County released real criminals to “protect them from COVID-19.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also voiced his disapproval of Luther’s jail sentence on Tuesday, tweeting, “7 days in jail for cutting hair?? This is NUTS. And government officials don’t get to order citizens to apologize to them for daring to earn a living.”

Prior to Luther’s release, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tweeted Wednesday that he would pay Luther’s $7,000 fine, and even offered to take her place in jail.

“7 days in jail, no bail, and a $7K fine is outrageous,” Patrick wrote. “No surprise Texans are responding. I’m covering the $7K fine she had to pay, and I volunteer to be placed under House Arrest so she can go to work and feed her kids.”

Dallas’ CBS affiliate reported Wednesday that Patrick made good on his promise to pay her fine.

3) Luther defended her actions.

The salon owner defended her actions, saying she refused to keep her business closed only out of the need to care for her family.

“Feeding my kids is not selfish,” Luther told state District Court Judge Eric Moye. “If you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision, but I am not going to shut the salon.”

John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email that Luther’s punishment was unreasonable.

“It seems clear that the judge went overboard in sending Ms. Luther—who is obviously feeling desperate about her financial situation—to jail for several days and imposing a substantial fine, especially at a time in which serious offenders are being released from jail because of the threat of contracting coronavirus while incarcerated,” Malcolm said, adding:

That having been said, if the governor did not want judges to enforce his pandemic-related edicts with the threat of incarcerating people who violated them, then he probably should have said so upfront.

(For more from the author of “3 Things to Know About Dallas Salon Owner Jailed, Then Released” please click HERE)

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