Commentary: The Second Amendment Is More Crucial than Ever After Attempt to Kill Trump

Man training at gun range

A 20-year-old man with a rifle, perched atop a nearby roof, fired several rounds July 13 at Donald Trump as the former president spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and wounding at least two others.

As we know now, one round nicked Trump’s right ear and he avoided a serious wound or death with a fortuitous head turn that moved him out of the bullet’s path at the last second.

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Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Dies at 74-Years-Old

Sheila Jackson Lee

Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died Friday evening at 74-years-old, according to an announcement from her office.

In a statement published on the late Texas lawmaker’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account, Lee’s office announced the passing and acknowledged her work within the state. While it is unclear what the cause of death was, Lee revealed in early June she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

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Ted Cruz Unveils Bill Nixing Biden Regulation That’s Hamstringing Oil Development to Protect Tiny Lizard

Ted Cruz

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a new bill to nix the Biden administration’s protections for a lizard species that critics argue will restrict oil and gas development.

Cruz unveiled his Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill to walk back the Biden administration’s decision to protect the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, a species that is indigenous to parts of New Mexico and western Texas, under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Cruz and other critics of the designation have asserted that the lizard’s protections are more likely intended to complicate oil and gas development in the Permian Basin, an oil- and gas-rich region of western Texas and New Mexico.

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Oklahoma Becomes Latest State in Court over Illegal Immigration, Arguing It’s a State Issue

Oklahoma Atty Gen. Gentner Drummond

Oklahoma is the most recent state facing a legal battle with the Biden administration on the issue of illegal immigration, with a federal judge blocking legislation that would make entering the country illegally a state crime. 

Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156 makes it a crime to be in Oklahoma without legal status. The legislation was signed into law on April 30, but was blocked by a federal judge in June after the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against the state. 

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Commentary: Juneteenth Usurped the Emancipation Proclamation

Carol Swain

How did Juneteenth, once just a regional celebration, become a federal holiday instead of the far more significant Emancipation Proclamation? The latter freed over 3 million slaves, including the ones in Galveston, Texas that didn’t know of their freedom. Let’s walk through some of the facts of the latter’s superiority over the former before grappling with the politics of our times.

President Abraham Lincoln issued The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It never became a federal holiday despite the wishes of some organizations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), presented a proposal in 2014 seeking to establish “A National Holiday Commemorating Emancipation of the Slaves” for the “history and story” to be “properly researched and archived for the American People. It acknowledged the importance of the document for all Americans and sought for the holiday to be celebrated on January 1 of each year as a Jubilee. The NAACP resolution was presented during the Obama Administration. It was written before the word “slaves” was swapped for “enslaved peoples.”

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Democratic Candidate and Biden Appointee Accused of Creating Fake Racist Attacks Against Himself

Taral Patel

Taral Patel, a Democratic candidate for Fort Bend, Texas, precinct commissioner and a Biden administration appointee, is accused of using fake online accounts to post racist messages about himself and then publicly accusing Republicans of being responsible for it.

Patel was arrested last week for the third-degree felony of online impersonation and the misdemeanor of misrepresenting his identity, court records show. He posted $22,500 in total for two bonds – one on each of the charges – and he surrendered his passport.

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Trump-Appointed Judge Halts Biden ATF Rule Changing Definition of ‘Firearms Dealer’

Gun Show

A Texas judge granted an injunction Tuesday against a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule that changes the definition of a “firearms dealer.”

The ATF rule broadens the definition of “engaged in business” to extend beyond merely a “gunsmith or pawnbroker.” Trump-appointed federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the plaintiffs had met the legal standards to be granted an injunction until the lawsuit is resolved.

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Texas, Montana Sue Biden over Rule Requiring States to Pay for ‘Gender Transition’

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (composite image)

Texas and Montana have sued the Biden administration over another federal rule change it implemented, this time over one that requires states to pay for “gender transition” procedures through their Medicaid programs.

It also requires health-care providers to perform such procedures in states where the practice has been banned, including in Montana and Texas. Their state legislatures passed bills their governors signed into law prohibiting “gender transition” procedures from being performed on minors in their states, among other restrictions.

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Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Announces Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis

Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas announced that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer Sunday.

Jackson Lee, who has been in office since 1995, made the announcement in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Texas representative did not elaborate on the severity of her diagnosis or course of treatment but said that her team of doctors had created the “best possible plan.”

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Commentary: China’s Land Purchases in U.S. Spark Outcry for Federal Solution

Smithfield Foods factory farm

Over the past two years, nearly half the states in America acted to scrutinize purchases of land linked to China and other foreign adversaries. Concerns focus primarily on national security threats from China, and they’re well-founded.

The federal government has no idea how much real estate Chinese entities own in the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture legally is required to track foreign ownership of agricultural land, but underestimates Chinese ownership by at least 50 percent.

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Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan Survives Primary Despite Backlash over Paxton Impeachment

Dade Phelan and Ken Paxton

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan was projected to win his primary on Tuesday night, defeating challenger David Covey in a closely watched runoff primary that centered around the state House’s impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Phelan was projected to win the primary in the state’s 21st district, with 50.7% of the vote to Covey’s 49.3%, according to the Associated Press. Phelan’s victory comes after he was forced into a runoff in March, according to WFAA, where he secured the second highest amount of votes, while Covey finished first. Covey’s popularity partly comes from the backing of former President Donald Trump, and Paxton.

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Biden and Red States Are on Immigration Collision Course Heading for Supreme Court

President Joe Biden in front of the Supreme Court building (composite image)

The Biden administration is currently waging a legal campaign against Republican-led states, arguing their laws that effectively restrict illegal immigration are unconstitutional.

The Department of Justice has so far filed lawsuits against three different states for enacting laws that largely empower police to enforce immigration rules. However, these state leaders, in the backdrop of an unprecedented border crisis, say they have no choice but to take up the issue themselves because the Biden administration won’t — and other Republican states may soon follow suit.

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Venezuelan Gang Members Arrested Thousands of Miles from Border

ICE arresting suspect

Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang members are being arrested thousands of miles from the border after having illegally entered the U.S. in Texas.

The Venezuelan prison gang is well-known for orchestrating murders, bribery schemes and money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, and kidnappings for ransom money. In March, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Maria Elvira Salazar, both Florida Republicans, called on the president to officially designate Tren de Aragua as a Transnational Criminal Organization.

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Commentary: Most U.S. Population Growth Last Year Occurred Outside of Largest Cities

There are 124 cities with a population over 200,000 in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for last year, over 90 percent of the U.S. population growth last year took place outside of its 124 largest cities. About a third of those cities lost population last year.  The total growth in the population of cities with over 200,000 residents grew by .23 percent, less than half of what the U.S. grew last year.

Roughly a third of those that lost population were located in New York and California. The three largest cities in the U.S., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, all lost population again in 2023. Between the three cities, over 700,000 people have left since the 2020 census. New York is by far the biggest loser at 546,000. That is about 6.2 percent of its 2020 population.

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Oklahoma Just Became the Latest State to Take Immigration Enforcement Into Its Own Hands

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt

Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed a sweeping immigration enforcement bill into law, making the Sooner State the latest to confront the border crisis through legislative action.

Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 4156 into law on Tuesday, one week after the Republican-controlled legislature sent it to his desk. The law, which is set to take effect on July 1, makes it illegal to reside in Oklahoma without legal authorization to be in the U.S.

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California Border Fentanyl Seizures Double as Texas Strengthens Border

California seized over one million fentanyl pills just last week, more than was seized in all of February, highlighting how much smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants has shifted to California since Texas strengthened its border.

In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom increased the California National Guard’s San Diego border region presence from 40 to 60 soldiers for narcotics operations.

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Illegal Alien Sex Offender Released Despite Detainer Request, ICE Says

Illegal alien sex offender in police custody

Connecticut law enforcement officials released an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes against a minor while ignoring a detainer request, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE agents apprehended a 27-year-old Ecuadorian national convicted of indecent assault and second degree assault of a Connecticut child earlier this month, the agency announced in a press release on Wednesday. The agency is faulting local officials for releasing the alien, despite an immigration detainer placed on him.

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Biden Admin Used Border Wall Funds on ‘Environmental Planning,’ Government Watchdog Says

Joe Biden with CBP agents

The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”

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Commentary: ATF Rule Change Creates a Trap for the Unwary

A selection of modern firearms on a table

On Friday, the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the ATF issued new regulations that make it more difficult to comply with federal laws regulating gun dealing and background checks.

Since the 1930s, federal law has required gun dealers to be registered as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL). The requirements hinged on the meaning of “engaged in the business of” gun dealing. This language has always been ambiguous, and there has never been (even after the announcement of the new rules) a true “bright line” that distinguishes when one graduates from selling a few guns from one’s personal collection into full-fledged gun dealing.

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Illegals Instructed to Vote Biden for Border NGO to ‘Stay Open’

Group photo of Resource Center Matamoros staff

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

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Texas Republican Mike Olcott Corrects the Record After NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams Falsely Claims His Vanquished Opponent, Glenn Rogers, Is a Conservative

Olcott Phil Williams

Mike Olcott, a Republican who won last month’s primary election for Texas House District 60, invalidated News Channel 5’s Phil Williams’ claims that his opponent he defeated in the race, State Representative Glenn Rogers, was defeated by “billionaire” pro-school voucher “forces.”

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Texas Farmers Ask Judge to Block USDA from Doling Out Disaster Aid Based on Race or Gender

Texas Farmer in field

A group of white farmers in Texas is asking a federal judge to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using race, gender or other “socially disadvantaged” traits to determine who gets disaster and pandemic farm aid and how much, arguing the agency’s current administration of eight emergency funding programs is unconstitutionally discriminatory.

“When natural disasters strike, they don’t discriminate based on race and sex. Neither should the Department of Agriculture,” the group of farmers wrote in a court filing made public Monday.

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Commentary: Is ‘The Great Illusion’ in Ruins?

President Joe Biden

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

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Inflation, COVID-Era Spending Policies Result in Teacher Layoffs Nationwide

Teacher instructing students in classroom

School districts across the country are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and federal COVID-era funding running out after receiving windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.

The federal COVID-era subsidies were funded through ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grants administered by state education agencies. Financed through the CARES Act and supplemental appropriations, the grant funding expires Sept. 30.

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‘Operation Rainmaker’ Arrests Result in Dozens Charged in Alleged Cartel-Affiliated Drug-Trafficking Ring

Seized Drugs

Agents arrested 23 people in relation to a cartel-linked drug operation in Texas that dealt in cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and meth. 

The arrests came after a five-year investigation that started in 2019. Prosecutors said the drug ring operated in the Houston and Galveston areas and was under the control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

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Analysis: Data Shows Most Migrant Flights Landing in Gov. DeSantis’ Sunshine State

Illegal Immigrant Flights

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of U.S. international airports for which it has approved direct flights from abroad for certain inadmissible aliens. At least 386,000 migrants through February have been allowed to fly to interior U.S. airports as part of a legally dubious admissions program the administration launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to “reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully” over the southern border — by flying them over it directly into the interior and then releasing them on parole.

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More than 100 Sheriffs Express Support for Operation Lone Star

Sheriffs with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

More than 100 sheriffs in Texas expressed support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security effort, Operation Lone Star. They also are calling for the border crisis to be declared a “United States constitutional crisis and crimes against humanity.”

In a letter to the governor, the sheriffs “respectfully request that our Texas border be immediately secured by any lawful means.”

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Energy Secretary Insists Energy Stockpiles Will Be Refilled in 2024, but Experts are Skeptical

Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Monday that the nation’s energy stockpiles, which President Joe Biden depleted to its lowest level since the 1980s, will be refilled by the end of 2024.

“By the end of this year we will essentially be back to where we would have been absent the sales,” Granholm said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, according to AFP.

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Texas Schools Pull $8.5 Billion from BlackRock over ESG

Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey

The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) is pulling $8.5 billion from the investment firm BlackRock over its use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.

The board informed the investment firm that it was being terminated as the manager of the Navarro 1 Fund in a Tuesday letter, which it provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The divestment represents the largest from the private firm, according to Fox Business Network.

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Border Crisis: Water Scarcity Forces Texas’ Last Sugar Mill to Close

Sugar Cane Farmer

The border crisis has taken on many forms in Texas, from crime to fentanyl poisonings to farmers and ranchers losing their livelihoods.

Another casualty of the border crisis is the U.S. State Department’s failure to hold accountable Mexican government authorities to a 1944 Treaty of Utilization of Waters, resulting in Texas’ last sugar mill shut down, the industry contends. The Rio Grande Valley is bracing for an expected initial $100 million in economic losses as a result.

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Super Tuesday Election Problems: Ballot Scanners, Voter Check-Ins, Wrong Redistricting Information

Vote Line

Numerous election issues occurred in multiple counties throughout the U.S. on Super Tuesday – from malfunctioning ballot scanners to voters having problems checking in at polling stations and being directed to the wrong station.

Counties in Alabama, California, Texas and Utah all experienced problems, resulting in some voters leaving polling sites without casting a ballot.

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Federal Judge Blocks Texas Law That Would Allow Law Enforcement to Arrest Illegal Migrants

Illegal Immigrants

A federal judge blocked a Texas law Thursday that allows local police to arrest migrants who cross into the state illegally.

U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra, a Reagan appointee, said in a 114-page ruling that the law, SB 4, “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.” He issued a preliminary injunction preventing the law from taking effect while the case proceeds, finding Texas was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and noting the government would “suffer grave irreparable harm” if the law took effect.

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A Nation Enriched by Legal Immigrants Now Buckles from Weight of Illegal Border Crossers and their Crimes

A nursing student bludgeoned to death near a tranquil Georgia college campus. A developmentally disabled person raped in Boston. A mother and son killed in a head-on crash in Colorado. New York’s finest assaulted in the heralded Times Square.

The roll-call of victims violated by Joe Biden’s border policies is rising as fast as the hotel and welfare tabs for sanctuary cities, thrusting an American society that long revered its immigrant heritage into a crisis of epic proportions driven by more than 8 million illegal border crossers since the 46th president took office.

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U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty Travels to the U.S.-Mexico Border

Senator Bill Hagerty at Southern Border

Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday with Tennessee sheriffs and mayors to meet with law enforcement and property owners.

“I’m back at the southern border here in Texas,” Hagerty said in a video message posted to X. “We’re just in the outskirts of Eagle Pass right now. I brought another delegation of sheriffs and mayors and law enforcement from Tennessee just like I did two years ago. What we’re seeing is even worse than it was two year ago.”

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Greg Abbott: Texas Set to Build More Border Wall than Trump

Greg Abbott

On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) claimed that the state of Texas is on track to build more wall along the southern border than was constructed during President Donald Trump’s first term.

As the New York Post reports, Abbott made his remarks during a press conference in Shelby Park, the territory that Texas state authorities seized from the Border Patrol and other federal agencies following Abbott’s declaration of an invasion.

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Border Czar Banks: Texas’ Successful Efforts Push Illegal Entry West

Texas State 'Border Czar' Mike Banks

by Bethany Blankley   One year in as Texas’ “border czar,” Mike Banks says the state has been so successful at blocking illegal entry that cartel activity has been pushed west into Democratic-led states that aren’t implementing similar tactics that Texas has. Banks spoke with The Center Square in an exclusive interview after reaching the one-year mark in his new role on Jan. 30. Gov. Greg Abbott tapped him for the role within 24 hours of his retirement from U.S. Border Patrol, creating his position to oversee and augment border security efforts already underway through Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star. Abbott created the state “border czar” role after President Joe Biden declared Vice President Kamala Harris “border czar,” saying she’d be overseeing border security operations. Harris has been absent from the border, even denying there is a crisis. Abbott has argued Banks has done more in one day than Harris did in the years she’s held the title. Banks was “the perfect choice” to be Texas’ first-ever border czar, Abbott argues, because of his 23 years of Border Patrol experience serving in three states and Washington, D.C., under four presidents. He’s “seen firsthand the struggles of ranchers and…

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