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Atheist Group Threatens School Over “In God We Trust Play” but Texas Students Perform Anyway (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Cacey Butler, of Lindale, came to the Lindale Performing Arts Center to watch his fifth-grade son play George Washington and sing in the Lindale Intermediate School production of “In God We Trust” for the second time in a week on Wednesday night.

The district caught the attention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which sent a letter to school officials listing multiple places in the play’s script where speaking parts had students declaring God and Jesus as being Saviors and faith as a foundation of the United States of America.

The district responded by allowing the children to perform a modified version of the play, but local church groups and community members rallied behind the production to have it play in its entirety Wednesday night.

The First Baptist Church of Lindale rented the Lindale performing Arts Center on the high school campus so the show could go on.

“He said I’ll have this back to you in two hours ready to go,” Cox said. “I got it back in 45 minutes and attached to it, just like our Lord says for us, it said, ‘paid in full.’”

Read more from this story HERE.

Grandfather Shot in his Own Drive by Cops Responding to Neighbor’s Alarm System (+video)

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Photo Credit: Texas Department of Public Safety

A Texas man was gunned down in his own driveway by police officers yesterday morning after he came out of his house to check out a neighbor’s burglar alarm.

The death of 72-year-old Jerry Waller, shocked the quiet Fort Worth community, where six shots rang out just before 1am.

Mr Waller was reportedly awoke after a burglar alarm had gone off at a home across the street. He grabbed his .38 caliber handgun and went outside to investigate.

Police responding to the alarm instead went to Mr Waller’s home, where they encountered him in his driveway and near the garage.

Fort Worth Police Cpl Tracey Knight told reporters that the officers – both rookies who have been with the department for less than a year – ‘felt threatened’ by the elderly grandfather – and shot him.

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Hezbollah Member, Referred to as ‘God of Death,’ Arrested in Texas

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Photo Credit: euthman

In the defense’s version, Wissam Allouche was a former linguist for the U.S. Army who ran a gas station in Northeast San Antonio as he became an American citizen.

But to counterterrorism officials, Allouche, 44, belonged to Hezbollah, falsely claimed to be a U.S. special forces officer during visits to Fort Sam Houston, and even tried to hook up with women at the post, possibly to gain access to sensitive information.

The two pictures emerged during a bail hearing Wednesday for Allouche, whose own statements recorded by investigators or stated in interviews often were contradictory about his allegiances to Hezbollah.

Allouche was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force here last week after being indicted on charges of not disclosing, during his quest to obtain his U.S. citizenship, his membership in the Amal militia and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.

He’s also charged with not disclosing his prior membership in those groups when he applied for a security clearance with the Defense Department as he sought a contracting job.

Read more from this story HERE.

America’s Oldest Veteran to Spend Quiet Memorial Day at Texas Home

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Photo Credit: APFor his 107th Memorial Day, Richard Arvine Overton, who saw many of his fellow soldiers fall in the line of duty in World War II and even more die over the following decades, is planning a quiet day at the Texas home he built after returning home from World War II.

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Overton, who is believed to be the nation’s oldest veteran, told FoxNews.com he’ll likely spend the day on the porch of his East Austin home with a cigar nestled in his right hand, perhaps with a cup of whiskey-stiffened coffee nearby.

“I don’t know, some people might do something for me, but I’ll be glad just to sit down and rest,” the Army veteran said during a phone interview. “I’m no young man no more.”

Overton, who was born on May, 11, 1906, in Texas’ Bastrop County, has gotten used to being the center of attention of late. In addition to being formally recognized by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell on May 9, Overton traveled to Washington, D.C., on May 17 as part of Honor Flight, a nonprofit group that transports veterans free of charge to memorials dedicated to their service. Despite serving in the South Pacific from 1942 through 1945, including stops in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima to name a few, it was Overton’s first time in the nation’s capital.

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Safety Panel: ATF Blocking Access to Texas Fertilizer Plant Blast Site

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Photo Credit: Reuters Federal agents and the state fire marshal have effectively barred a federal safety panel from the site of a Texas fertilizer plant blast that killed 15 people and injured about 200 others, hampering its investigation, the panel’s chairman said.

In a May 17 letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Chemical Safety Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso asked the California Democrat to help the board obtain evidence under control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he contends is essential to the board’s investigation, the Waco Tribune-Herald and Austin American-Statesman reported.

“To date, the CSB has experienced significant obstacles that potentially compromise and delay our ability to complete the `comprehensive investigation’ that you have rightly demanded, and that we would very much like to produce,” he wrote to Boxer. The chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has said she planned to hold hearings into the April 17 West Fertilizer explosion.

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Texas Judge Says Lesbian Couple Can’t Cohabitate, Cites Morality Clause in Divorce Papers

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Photo Credit: Fibonacci BlueA judge has ruled that a North Texas lesbian couple can’t live together because of a morality clause in one of the women’s divorce papers.

The clause is common in divorce cases in Texas and other states. It prevents a divorced parent from having a romantic partner spend the night while children are in the home. If the couple marries, they can get out from under the legal provision — but that is not an option for gay couples in Texas, where such marriages aren’t recognized.

The Dallas Morning News (https://dallasne.ws/16MlSUQ ) reported that in a divorce hearing last month for Carolyn and Joshua Compton, Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. enforced the terms detailed in their 2011 divorce papers. He ordered Carolyn Compton’s partner, Page Price, to move out of the home they shared with the Comptons’ two daughters, ages 10 and 13. The judge gave Price 30 days to find another place to live.

Paul Key said his client, Joshua Compton, wanted the clause enforced for his kids’ benefit.

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True the Vote Founder Hounded by Obama’s IRS, OSHA and ATF (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTubeCatherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote has been harassed by seventeen separate visits from federal agencies since her efforts to start a national vote integrity organization, based in Texas.

She told Governor Huckabee this weekend that the the federal persecution included not just information requests from the IRS but also visits from OSHA, the FBI, and the ATF.

The IRS wanted to see very Facebook post, every tweet, and every place she’d spoken.

The FBI wanted to know the identity of those who were coming to the True the Vote meetings.

Even more outrageous, the ATF actually inspected her gun safe:

Texas Congressman’s Reelection Campaign Giving Away a Free Bushmaster AR15

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Photo Credit: US CongressWhile congressional gun control advocates and gun-rights supporters duke it out with words and parliamentary tactics, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman is showing off his Second Amendment fervor by doing what some consider unthinkable: giving away a Bushmaster AR-15rifle, the same weapon crazed murderer Adam Lanza carried to a Connecticut elementary school where he massacred nearly two dozen children.

Stockman, a congressional freshman whose campaign boasts on Twitter that he is ‘the most conservative Congressman in Texas,’ is angling for a second term.

His campaign – not his government office, spokesman Donny Ferguson told MailOnline – is offering the unusual prize to entrants who join his online mailing list.

Twitter erupted late Wednesday after the congressman announced the prize giveaway by tweeting: ‘Want to win a FREE AR-15? Congressman Steve Stockman is giving one away! … Grab this gun before Obama does!’

‘Here in the congressional office the response has been overwhelmingly positive,’ he said. ‘What Democrats have called in have been universally violent and mentally unstable.’

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Texas Judge Rules for Cheerleaders in Bible Banner Suit

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Photo Credit: APA judge ruled Wednesday that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.

But the ruling might not have settled the issue of whether the banners are protected free speech, according to an attorney for the cheerleaders’ school district.

State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”

The Kountze school district had initially said the banners could not be displayed after receiving a complaint about them in September from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation argued the banners violated the so-called First Amendment Establishment Clause that bars government — or publicly funded school districts in this case — from establishing or endorsing a religion.

Thomas ruled that the establishment clause does not prohibit the use of such religious-themed banners at school sporting events.

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Texas Senate Approves Bill Allowing Guns in Locked Cars on College Campuses

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Photo Credit: Andrew-HydeA bill that would allow Texas college students to keep handguns locked in their cars in college campus parking lots easily passed the state Senate on Tuesday.

The bill, OK’d in a bipartisan 27-4 vote, would override rules by several state colleges and universities that prohibit guns on campuses.

During the debate on the Senate floor, Democratic Sen. Jose Rodriguez of El Paso argued the bill would lead to allowing guns in college classrooms. He later told FoxNews.com, “I opposed the bill because, given today’s climate and the rise of crime on ours campuses, the last thing we need to do is pass a bill like this.”

Supporters say the measure isn’t a traditional concealed weapons bill because the legislation would restrict students to keeping their guns in a locked vehicle. But Rodriguez says that would do little to deter a determined shooter.

“You allow it in the glove compartment of your car in the college campus and if you have a disgruntled student who wants to take (his or her) anger out on the teacher or an administrator, what’s going to stop the student from walking to the car and getting it?” Rodriguez said.

Read more from this story HERE.