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UT Regent Uncovered Waste, Fraud And Abuse…And Might Be Fired For It

Photo Credit: Wikimedia CommonsDays after taking office as a regent of the University of Texas, Wallace Hall began making discoveries that pointed toward considerable administrative wrongdoing, questionable admissions decisions and misuse of public funds.

Three years later, UT-Austin President Bill Powers and his friends in the Texas legislature are doing everything they can to silence Hall–and may take the unprecedented step of forcibly removing him from office.

As a pretext, administrators have claimed that Hall’s insatiable demand for UT records (he has requested that over 800,000 pages of documents be made public) hampered university operations.

“It’s time that there’s some action that has to be taken,” said Democratic Rep. Carol Alvarado, chair of the House transparency committee, in a statement to the Houston Chronicle.

Her committee is considering a move to impeach Hall, and has asked him to step down.

Read more from this story HERE.

High School Suspends Texas Teenager for Refusing to Stand for The Pledge of Allegiance

US FlagMason Michalec has said the Pledge of Allegiance since he was a young boy. The Needville High School student now says he doesn’t agree with the way the U.S. government is behaving and is now taking a stand – by not standing for the Pledge.

The high school sophomore spoke with KHOU.com that he loves his country, but doesn’t approve of how the U.S. government is acting.

“I’m really tired of our government taking advantage of us,” Michalec said. “I don’t agree with the NSA spying on us. And I don’t agree with any of those Internet laws.”

Read more from this story HERE.

US Appeals Court Upholds New Texas Abortion Rules

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal appeals court has upheld new abortion restrictions that shuttered many of the abortions clinics in Texas.

The New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit issued the ruling Thursday, overturning a lower court’s decision that the rules violated the U.S. Constitution and served no medical purpose.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Immigrants Released Into Texas to Ease Over-Crowding of Detention Centers

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Logan Churchwell.

U.S. Border Patrol agents, in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently disclosed the increasing practice of releasing “low threat” illegal immigrant detainees to address the over-crowding of immigration detention centers in south Texas, according to official confirmation of local reports.

One south Texas television station, KRGV, recently reported instances of women and minors claiming to have been recently released from immigration officials with “documents that allow [them] to travel anywhere in the United States.” Released individuals claimed their federal instructions stated they were not legally allowed to work and could be subject to further immigration hearings. The report claimed that most individuals interviewed and released were of Central and South American origins other than Mexico.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Border Patrol recently confirmed such anecdotal evidence to be part of a larger strategy to focus resources away from individuals “posing no threat to national security.”

“In an effort to maximize resources and focus on the uptick in apprehensions, RGV Border Patrol Sector has begun implementing several steps,” a Border Patrol statement read. “These efforts include, transporting detainees to other sectors within the South Texas Campaign AOR, temporary reassignment of agents from other sectors into RGV and temporarily issuing a notice to appear for immigration hearings to family units posing no threat to national security.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Sessions Report Demolishes Obama ‘Deporter In Chief’ Myth

By Matthew Boyle.

Fully 98 percent of individuals deported from the United States in 2013 were either criminals, apprehended while illegally crossing the border, or had been previously deported, according to a new analysis from Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

The three-page document, labeled a “Critical Alert” by the senator’s office, found three executive actions by President Barack Obama providing amnesty to groups of illegal aliens meant that virtually no one who did not meet other criteria beyond simply being in the country illegal was deported.

“The evidence reveals that the Administration has carried out a dramatic nullification of federal law,” Sessions said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Under the guise of setting ‘priorities’, the Administration has determined that almost anyone in the world who can enter the United States is free to illegally live, work and claim benefits here as long as they are not caught committing a felony or other serious crime.

Obama’s well-known executive action granted virtual amnesty to so-called DREAMers – individuals who claim to have entered the country as minors under their parents’ guidance.

Two are lesser known executive actions include an Aug. 23, 2013, DHS directive “expanding that [summer 2012 executive DREAM Act] amnesty to illegal immigrant relatives of DREAM Act beneficiaries” and a Dec. 21, 2012, DHS directive “reinforcing that almost all immigration offenses were unenforceable absent a separate criminal conviction.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Texas: More than 100 People Found in Suspected ‘Stash House’

Photo Credit: Cody Duty/Houston ChronicleThe phone call to police was a plea to help save a family held by smugglers. But when authorities raided the south Harris County home which they believed held the woman and children Wednesday, they found 110 people imprisoned in a packed, rancid “stash house” where smugglers had locked them away pending payment for their freedom.

A tipster had told authorities the night before that he was being extorted by smugglers, and feared for the safety of relatives from Central America. The tipster had said that a coyote drop of the mother, her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son was supposed to have taken place Tuesday on Houston’s north side, but it didn’t happen and they were missing.

Police have not explained what led them to the Almeda School Road house, where they set up surveillance Wednesday morning. At 10 a.m., they stopped two men in a vehicle leaving the house. Three more suspected smugglers were arrested after they tried to flee, Houston Police Department spokesman John Cannon said.

But their biggest discovery came when authorities opened another door to the house, and encountered a “sea of people coming at the officers as they entered,” Cannon said.

Federal agents, along with police, sheriff’s deputies and constables, found them packed into the home, sitting on each others’ laps, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Principal Fired Over ‘Speak English’…

Photo Credit: Mark Stevens / Creative Commons The Hempstead school board won’t renew the contract of a principal who instructed her students not to speak Spanish, in a rapidly-evolving district where more than half of the students, like many Texas schools, are now Hispanic.

Hempstead Middle School Principal Amy Lacey was placed on paid administrative leave in December after reportedly announcing, via intercom, that students were not to speak Spanish on the school’s campus. The Hispanic population of the rural area, roughly 50 miles northwest of Houston, is growing quickly, and Latino advocates say that it’s important to allow Spanish in public schools.

“When you start banning aspects of ethnicity or cultural identity,” says Augustin Pinedo, director of the League of United Latin American Citizens Region 18, “it sends the message that the child is not wanted: ‘We don’t want your color. We don’t want your kind.’ They then tend to drop out early.”

Such fast growth is pervasive in Texas, says Steve Murdock, a professor at Rice University and director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas. Half of all Texas public-school students are now Hispanic, he notes. “When you look at issues related to education in Texas, to a great extent, you’re looking at the education of Hispanic children.”

Similar growth patterns, he says, hold true for the rest of the United States: “It’s not just Texas.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Perry: ‘Time for a Little Rebellion’

Texas governor Rick Perry broke through as a serious presidential hopeful Friday with a spirited speech to a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Perry brought the audience to its feet with a call to bring the successful conservative policies of red state governors to the national level.

Perry took jabs at targets including New York, California, and the Department of Education, noting that common-sense governance has been absent not only from blue states but from Washington, D.C.

“It’s time for a little rebellion on the battlefield of ideas,” the Texas governor said, paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson.

Read more this story HERE.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: The Tone From This President Is Troubling (+video)

Photo Credit: YouTubeTRANSCRIPT-provided by YouTube

I don’t mind telling you I was a bit troubled today by the tone of the president.

When you have governors – and we all compete against each other. We are the laboratories of innovation and for the President the United States to look Democrat and Republican governors in the eye and to say “I do not trust you to make decisions in your state about issues of education, about transportation infrastructure…”

That is really troubling, particularly when you’re seeing states be what has really performed over the course of the last 4 to 5 years he has been the President of the United States.

This discussion on energy policy. The president on one hand wants to take credit for more energy being discovered in the United States but, it’s his policies… it’s the EPA that is being pushed to close the door on extended energy policy in this country that could secure America for decades going forward.

That’s being put in jeopardy by this administration so you’re hearing very at cross-purpose messages from this president.

Read more this story HERE.

Texas City Working To Turn Sewer Water Into Tap Water (+video)

Photo Credit: Titanas/flickrDrastic times call for drastic measures. But what would it take for you to drink tap water that had been recycled straight from the sewer?

The concept sounds crazy but it could happen soon in one North Texas city. Wichita Falls is two hours outside of Dallas. Three years ago 88-percent of Texas was under exceptional drought conditions – that’s the worst classification of drought. Today there are just two small areas that still have that designation and the city of Wichita Falls is in one of them.

You need drive no further than nearby Lake Arrowhead to see how bad the drought is. The lake is one of the main water sources for the town, but it’s only at about 27-percent capacity. Boat docks stand 10 to 15 feet above dry land and the nearest water is hundreds of feet away. The lake bed is littered with dead fish and shells. When the wind blows you’re reminded of a dustbowl.

Every time the water in the lake drops, officials in Wichita Falls consider enacting more severe water restrictions. Through conservation efforts, city water usage dropped from between 45 and 50 million gallons of water each day before the drought, to 12 million gallons a day now. But the water savings still aren’t enough.

“This reuse system will put five million gallons [of water] back in the distribution system a day,” explained Mayor Glenn Barham. “So, it saves us taking five million gallons out of the lake.”

Read more this story HERE.

The First, Legal Gay Marriage In Texas? (+video)

Photo Credit: WNDJudge Carl Ginsberg presided over two ceremonies its participants believe are the first, legal gay marriage in Texas.

Two couples said their “I-do’s” and all four people consider themselves female. But one member of each couple has had their gender changed surgically from male to female.

“On all of my information, it still says male,” said Ashely Boucher. “So, legally I’m still male in the state of Texas. My presentation would suggest otherwise. But my documentation says that I can marry Genevieve no questions asked.

“If you were born male and became female through being transgendered or having a gender reassignment surgery, they consider you to be biologically male,” said UTA political science professor Thomas Marshall.

The couples struggled to find clerks and judges who would cooperate with the marriages trying as many as 17 courts according to one of the participants, Genevieve Jonte.

Read more from this story HERE.