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U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Block Texas Abortion Law

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Photo Credit: APA split U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to block implementation of a new abortion law in Texas that already has prompted a dozen clinics in the state to stop performing the procedure.

The provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility in case women have complications.

The court was split 5-4, with the conservative wing of the court in the majority. The four liberal justices said they would have overturned the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals October 31 ruling that allowed the law to take effect.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by two of his conservative colleagues, wrote an opinion explaining the rationale in favor of leaving the appeals court decision intact.

Scalia criticized the four dissenters, saying that their suggested outcome would “flout core principles of federalism by mandating postponement of a state law without asserting that the law is even probably unconstitutional.”

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Texas Law Professor Tells Symposium: Time ‘To Repeal and Replace Second Amendment’

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Photo Credit: AFP Speaking in a gun violence symposium at University of Connecticut’s School of Law, Texas A&M law professor Mary Margaret Penrose said it’s time “to repeal and replace [the] Second Amendment.”

Penrose said this after expressing her frustration with the fact that President Obama has failed to pass more gun control in the eleven months since the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary.

According to a Connecticut news blog, Penrose said gun laws should be decided on a per-state basis, versus the overarching rules and laws that result from the current amendment…

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Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Most of Texas’ Abortion Restrictions

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Photo Credit: AP/Eric GayA federal appeals court issued a ruling Thursday reinstating most of Texas’ controversial new abortions restrictions, just three days after a federal judge ruled they were unconstitutional.

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. The panel issued the ruling after District Judge Lee Yeakel said the provision serves no medical purpose.

The panel’s decision means as least 12 clinics won’t be able to perform the procedure starting as soon as Friday. In its 20-page ruling, it acknowledged that the provision “may increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions.”

However, the panel said that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that having “the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate” a law that serves a valid purpose, “one not designed to strike at the right itself.”

The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel’s order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.

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Obamacare showdown in Texas

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Photo Credit: APThe ground war over Obamacare — the one that will determine whether people sign up — will be won and lost in places like Texas.

If Obamacare fails in the Lone Star State — that is, if a significant portion of the 6.1 million uninsured Texans don’t or can’t enroll — then the White House could miss its national enrollment targets, the new health insurance exchanges could falter and insurance rates could spike.

Obamacare could be unsustainable.

And that’s exactly what leading Texas politicians like Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Ted Cruz would like to see happen. With the political leaders’ “hell no” approach to Obamacare, Texas may not seem like a health law battleground. But the demographics — a huge, hard-to-reach uninsured population — mean it’s a make-or-break state for making the law work.

Advocates are banking on the idea that a grass-roots push in more liberal, urban areas of Texas, plus the demand among the uninsured to get health coverage, will overcome the state’s institutional opposition and deliver on the promise of Obamacare.

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Texas Town Experiences Ending of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ in Real Life as Spiders Take to the Skies (+video)

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Photo Credit: Kevin Hamm via Facebook

Photo Credit: Kevin Hamm via Facebook

At the end of E.B. White’s classic children’s book “Charlotte’s Web,” the spider with the title name dies and her offspring send their silk threads into the sky, taking off from the barn and leaving the pig Wilber with only three of Charlotte’s children as companions.

This arachnid experience, known as “ballooning,” is exactly what a Texas town witnessed this week, seeing the white strands floating through the air and landing on buildings and cars.

“I thought it was weird; I’d never seen it before,” Myrna Olivas told KTVT-TV. “It just landed on my head and it left again.”

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Three Men ‘Illegally’ Arrested for Openly Carrying Civil War Era ‘Black Powder’ Pistols in Texas (+videos)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Three people were reportedly arrested on Friday for openly carrying Civil War-era pistols during a pro-gun protest outside the Texas Capitol. Gun rights activists tell TheBlaze the arrests were unlawful as it is legal in Texas to openly carry a pre-1899 antique firearm.

Terry Louis Holcomb, 44, identified as a Huntsville-area pastor, and Scott Douglas Smith, 50, a military veteran from San Antonio, and Gary Hayes, a quadriplegic, were reportedly arrested by state troopers in Austin and charged with disorderly conduct, which is defined, by law, as an action with a firearm “calculated to alarm.”

However, witnesses say the men, one of which was in a wheelchair, had their “black powder” pistols holstered and weren’t causing alarm in any way. More than a dozen other gun-rights activists openly carrying rifles walked free.

Under Texas law, a gun manufactured before 1899 isn’t even considered a “firearm,” therefore not subject to open carry laws…


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School District Opts Out Of Federal Lunch Program – Kids Refuse to Eat Food

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Photo Credit: CBS

Photo Credit: CBS

At least one North Texas school district has turned up its nose at the new federal lunch program. Many schools report kids refused to eat the healthier meals that are supposed to be packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Carroll Independent School District has dropped out for a year. Nutrition Services Director Mary Brunig says the requirements are too restrictive. “You have to follow exactly what is in this meal pattern, if you are the national school lunch program.”

Brunig says as a result, a lot of food wound up in the trash.

“With the new program in place, the new meal pattern, our participation started to drop. And the other thing was there was food waste. Children were not eating the food,” she said. “If the children aren’t eating the food, there’s no nutrition.”

Brunig says the district plans to create its own healthy meals without federal restrictions.

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Texas Rodeo to Feature Obama Clown

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Texas rodeo isn’t shying away from controversy — instead, they are doing the opposite and promoting an appearance of a rodeo clown wearing a mask of President Obama this weekend.

“You’ve heard about the controversy surrounding the Obama clown in Missouri,” read an announcement from the Mesquite Rodeo, according to the Dallas Observer.

“This weekend, an Obama clown is a special guest star as the Mesquie Rodeo puts on the grand finale to its 2013 season with non-stop action you will only find in the aptly named ‘Rodeo Capital of Texas,’” the announcement added.

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Texas Councilwoman Under Fire After Secret Recording of Her Slamming Homosexuality as “Disgusting” is Leaked to Media (+video)

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Photo Credit: San Antonio Express-News

Photo Credit: San Antonio Express-News

LGBT activists are calling for the resignation of a Texas city councilwoman after a secret recording capturing her making several anti-gay remarks was leaked to the media late Thursday night.

Gathering on the steps of City Hall on Friday afternoon, angered activists said comments made by council member Elisa Chan were hurtful and clamored for her immediate resignation, according to the Current.

“I was sad—after our talks, to know what was really in her heart…[And that sadness] turned to anger,” Dan Graney, co-chair of the Community Alliance for a United San Antonio reportedly said. “Now, she really needs to step down from council.”

On Thursday night, the San Antonio Express-News published on their website a secret recording of Chan revealing her views on homosexuality. The recording, which captures the council member calling gay individuals “disgusting,” in a May 21 meeting, was provided to the local news outlet by one of her now former aides.

“She’s let down so much of her constituency, we hope she’d resign,” a reportedly emotional Lauryn Farris, president of San Antonio Gender Association and a board member of the Transgender Education Network of Texas-Alamo Region, said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Texas Man Shoots His Abductors

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Photo Credit: SkleyAuthorities say a Houston-area man turned the tables on two bank robbery suspects who had abducted him and his wife by pulling a gun on the unsuspecting duo and shooting them both, killing one of them.

The suspects apparently knew that the woman worked at the First National Bank of Eagle Lake in Columbus, and they abducted her and her husband at gunpoint at their residence north of the city on Thursday and drove them back to the bank, Columbus County Sheriff’s Sgt. Andrew Weido told Houston television station KHOU.

The suspects forced the woman to taken an undisclosed amount of money from the bank, then forced the husband to drive them in his truck down Highway 71, Weido said. It was then that the husband grabbed a gun that was in the truck and fired at the suspects, he said.

Officers who responded to a 911 call found both suspects lying on the ground near the truck suffering from gunshot wounds.

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