Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia Among 18 States Banning Social Media App TikTok from State Devices

Following South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem’s lead, nearly half of U.S. states have put restrictions on or banned the use of Chinese-based social media app TikTok.

At least 19 states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utha, Virginia and West Virginia.

Read the full story

Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority

Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.

Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.

Read the full story

First Migrant Bus to Arrive in Philadelphia on Wednesday from Texas

Texas is sending its first bus of illegal foreign nationals to the so-called sanctuary city of Philadelphia, Gov. Greg Abbott said. It’s scheduled to arrive at William H. Gray III 30th Street Station Wednesday morning.

“Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has long-celebrated and fought for sanctuary city status,” Abbott said in a statement, “making the city an ideal addition to Texas’ list of drop-off locations.”

Read the full story

Texas Governor Declares Invasion at Border, Invokes Constitutional Powers in Historic Action

Frustrated by an unending crisis fueled by drug and human trafficking at the southern border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared his state was under an invasion and invoked special powers granted under the U.S. and Texas constitutions.

Abbott’s decision came after three dozen counties in his state passed resolutions calling for the dramatic action. The Republican governor said the declaration allows him to send National Guard troops to the border, treat drug cartels as terrorist organization and to build his own border wall separate of the federal government.

Read the full story

Texas AG Paxton Investigating Zuckerberg-Funded Nonprofit for Alleged Partisan Electioneering Efforts in 2020

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) as part of an investigation his office launched to determine whether it “solicited donations under the pretext of protecting voters from Covid-19 while instead using the funds to support partisan electioneering efforts or election oversight roles normally left to state and local officials.”

CTCL, a self-described non-partisan nonprofit organization, according to the bios posted on its own website and other records, “is led by individuals with distinctly partisan backgrounds,” the AG’s office says. CTCL’s founder and executive director, for example, Tiana Epps-Johnson, was among a group of inaugural Obama Foundation Fellows who previously was the Election Administration director for a progressive grassroots organization, the New Organizing Institute. She also worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

Read the full story

Lake: Arizona ‘Will Show Texas How’ to Declare an Invasion

Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake reiterated her commitment to declare an invasion at the Arizona-Mexico border at a news conference on Friday. She said once she’s governor, “Arizona would show Texas how to do it.”

If elected, and after being sworn in, she said, “on day one, hour one,” she will declare an invasion. “We are going to declare an invasion initially and put everybody on notice that Arizona is taking control of their own border and ask the federal government to help and see if they’ll do it. Kind of don’t think they will.

Read the full story

Congressional Republicans Deploy Election Observers to Watch Tight Races, Investigate Irregularities

Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.

The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.

Read the full story

Music Spotlight: Erin Kinsey

NASHVILLE, Tennessee- Although she only vaguely remembers it, I met Erin Kinsey at a Writer’s Round in a side room at the Bavarian Bierhaus at Opry Mills in March of 2021 and we still weren’t sure if we should even be gathering.

Long before Kinsey officially launched her country music career, the Texas girl was already a full decade into it. Her parents had her in every sport, club, and extra-curricular activity they could think of. She played tennis, basketball, and soccer and even took piano lessons. They wanted to help her figure out what she loved. Their goal was to help her find a career born out of passion.

Read the full story

Three More Counties Want Texas to Declare Invasion at Southern Border; Total at 32

Three more counties are the latest to express support for Texas declaring an invasion at the southern border, bringing the total to 32.

The judge and county commissioners of Ector County, in the Permian Basin, signed a Declaration of Local State of Disaster on Sept. 27 stating the “health, safety, and welfare of Ector County residents are under an imminent threat of disaster from the unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.”

Read the full story

Report: NYC Wants to Relocate Migrants Bused in from Texas to Florida

New York City officials are thinking about flying illegal immigrants out of the Big Apple to Florida after officials in Texas bussed 11,000 border crossers to the sanctuary city, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.

Manuel Castro, NYC’s Commissioner of Immigration Affairs, said that most of the migrants are from Venezuela, and they want to go to the Sunshine State because it has a large community of Venezuelans.

Read the full story

A University of North Texas School Taught Four-Year-Olds Pronouns, Gender Identities in Class: Report

Texas mom Jennifer Cains told Campus Reform that she unenrolled her daughter from the University of North Texas (UNT) College of Education’s Center for Young Children (CYC) after learning that teachers were allegedly pushing gender theory and pronouns in a classroom full of four-year-olds.

The CYC is an “early childhood program within the College of Education” at UNT. The center describes itself as a “research-based, high-quality preschool program” used to give UNT’s college trainees experience and provide “care and education” for its young students.

Read the full story

Gov. Abbott Accelerates Busing of Foreign Nationals from Southern Border to New York City

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is accelerating the state’s busing to New York City of foreign nationals who’ve entered the U.S. through the southern border.

The majority coming in are believed to not have valid asylum claims, are bypassing federal immigration law, and instead of being deported are being released into the U.S. under new Biden administration policies, attorneys general who’ve sued the administration argue.

Read the full story

Texas Bans BlackRock for Anti-Oil Agenda

The state of Texas announced new restrictions on at least 10 finance firms that have declared an opposition to oil and other fossil fuels, since such a stance could “undermine” the Texas economy that depends heavily on such fuel sources.

The Daily Caller reports that the restrictions, announced by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Glenn Hegar, will prevent the companies in question from entering into most contracts with entities at the state or local level. The new policy is the result of a law passed in 2021 that requires the state government to limit its ties with anti-oil companies. As a result, the government requested information from over 100 companies to determine their stances on fossil fuels.

Read the full story

Commentary: The White House Is Creating a Texas-Border Patrol Standoff

The tragic results of the Biden Administration’s extremist immigration policies have become increasingly clear. By now there is abundant video evidence of large groups of foreign nationals wading across the Rio Grande, seeking shelter under highway overpasses, and walking through gaps in the unfinished border wall. These are the obvious results. 

Less obvious are the other potentially dangerous situations these policies create. This is not just about talking points for politicians to debate, but real-world situations where people can be injured or killed.

Read the full story

Federal Judge Blocks Biden’s Attempt to Override State Abortion Law

James Hendrix, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, temporarily blocked President Joe Biden’s attempt to force states to provide abortions in certain emergency situations in a Tuesday ruling, according to court documents.

Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide emergency medical aid in an attempt to override state abortion bans. Hendrix halted the guidance and temporarily blocked the HHS from enforcing its interpretation of EMTALA.

Read the full story

30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders

In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.

In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.

Read the full story

Video Shows Children in Texas Taking Oath to be ‘Martyrs’ for Iran’s Supreme Leader

Avideo of kids at an Islamic center in Houston, Texas pledging their allegiance to the supreme leader of Iran is setting off alarm bells among experts, who are warning this has all the signs of the Iranian regime’s global indoctrination efforts to spread its revolutionary ideology and recruit operatives abroad.

The viral video was initially posted to YouTube and Facebook last week by the Islamic Education Center of Houston (IEC), which organized the event calling on parents to bring children aged 4-14, according to its social media pages. The original video posts were later removed, but clips remain online.

Read the full story

Trump: ‘America Is on the Edge of an Abyss’

Donald Trump on Saturday delivered stinging rebukes of the Biden administration at the Dallas Conservative Political Action Conference, one of a continuing series of indications that the still-popular former president has set his sights on a return to the White House for 2024.

Trump during his speech declared that the U.S. “is being destroyed more from the inside than the out,” and that the country “is on the edge of an abyss, and our movement is the only force on earth that can save it.”

Read the full story

Three More States Are Poised to Ban Abortion Amid Court Battles

Idaho, Tennessee and Texas are moving to enact “trigger bans” restricting abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade June 24, ending the precedent which had banned states from restricting abortion throughout the first six months of pregnancy.

The bans in these three states will take effect 30 days after the Supreme Court officially transmitted its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association July 26, according to The Hill. Another 10 states had trigger bans go into effect after elected officials enacted them, and trigger abortion bans went into effect immediately after the court overturned Roe in three other states.

Read the full story

Arizona Latina and Former Phoenix Suns Executive Moves Up Court in Run for Congress

If 2022 will be remembered for anything in politics, it will most likely go down in history books as the year of the Republican Latina.

Earlier this year Mayra Flores made national headlines when she won a special election in Texas’s 34th district to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, making her the first Mexican born Latina to serve in U.S. Congress. The win also made her only the second Republican in history to represent the Rio Grande Valley.

Two other Latina Texan Republicans, Cassy Garcia in Laredo and Monica De La Cruz in McAllen are also running in congressional races in communities near the Mexican border. The combined power of Flores, Garcia and De La Cruz have prompted conservatives to call them the “triple threat.”

Read the full story

Tennessee Joins Arizona and 10 Other AGs in Lawsuit Aimed to Cleanse Federal Regulations Hampering Washing Machines, Dishwashers

Twelve attorneys general filed an opening brief Friday in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for changes made this year to energy and water efficiency standards for dishwashers and washing machines.

“These arbitrary washing machine regulations are unlawful, ineffective, and absolutely ridiculous,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, co-leader of a suit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals against the DOE and Secretary Jennifer Granholm, said in a statement. “They should be hung out to dry as soon as possible.”

Read the full story

Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Urges Gov. Ducey to Declare an Invasion on the ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ Border

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion in February declaring that Arizona has the constitutional authority to declare an invasion on its border with Mexico, but since Gov. Doug Ducey has not done so, Brnovich is now urging him to. In a letter sent to Ducey on July 6, Brnovich, who is now running for U.S. Senate, laid out the reasons why.

“This horrible situation is a ticking time bomb,” Brnovich said. “It’s just a question of when, and not if, the unspeakable will occur.” He went on, “[W]e have every indication that the border crisis will continue to escalate. If there is more that we as a state can and should do, it can be pursued with your declaration of an ‘invasion’ at our southern border.”

Read the full story

Texas Offers $30 Million More to Local Law Enforcement for Border Security Efforts

An additional $30 million in Operation Lone Star (OLS) grant money is available to Texas cities and counties to enhance border security operations, the governor’s Public Safety Office (PSO) announced.

The announcement came two days after six county judges and sheriffs asked the governor to declare an invasion at the southern border, and to do more to help them thwart illegal activity in their counties after experiencing a surge of drug and human smuggling and other criminal activity resulting from the Biden administration’s border policies.

Read the full story

CBP Chief Tries to Reassure the Rank-and-File as Agency Levels Charges Against ‘Whipgate’ Agents

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Chris Magnus promised discontented rank-and-file officials that the agency would always support them despite pursuing charges against agents involved in the now-debunked “whipgate” incident, an internal email obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation showed.

When CBP personnel “do the right thing,” the agency “will always stand behind you,” Magnus wrote in the email before announcing the results of the investigation into the September incident that took place in Del Rio, Texas. During the incident, Border Patrol agents used reins to steer their horses and maneuver around migrants entering the United Sates at the Rio Grande, which prompted some Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates to falsely claim the agents whipped migrants.

Read the full story

No Judge Has Ever Declared Invasion Before in U.S. History: Cuccinelli

U.S. judges declaring an invasion at the southern border hasn’t occurred before until this week, Ken Cuccinelli, former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director and deputy secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said.

On Tuesday, four county judges in Texas declared an invasion citing Article 4, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. They called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”

Read the full story

State Senator Leach Spearheading Effort to Ban Arizona Children from Drag Shows

The Arizona State Senate GOP spoke with The Arizona Sun Times via email about planned legislation that aims to prevent children from attending drag shows.

“[State] Senator Vince Leach [R-SaddleBrooke] is spearheading the effort, and he sent his ideas on the subject matter to our legislative council who is in the process right now of researching to help craft a potential bill. They will look at what’s in our constitution, what other states are doing and not doing, et cetera,” the Arizona State Senate GOP spokeswoman said.

Read the full story

Economist: ‘When It Comes to Connecticut, Businesses Are Being Incentivized to Look Elsewhere’

LEGO Group’s decision to spend $1 billion to build a new factory near Richmond, Virginia, has led economy and industry experts to raise questions about the status of the Denmark company’s Connecticut headquarters.

The global toymaker announced at a press conference with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) its plans to build a new factory in Chesterfield, a move that would expand its production in the United States and create about 1,760 new jobs.

Read the full story

Texas GOP Adopts New Platform: Biden ‘Was Not Legitimately Elected’

The Texas Republican Party has adopted a new platform, rejecting the certification of the 2020 presidential election results and declaring “that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”

The 40-page platform was adopted by the state GOP in Houston over the weekend for its biennial convention, The Hill reported.

Read the full story

Report: World’s First Trillionaires Could Be from Texas

The world’s first trillionaires could be from Texas, according to a new analysis of the 30 richest people in the world.

A new report published by the software company Tipalti Approve estimates that newly relocated Texas resident, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024. Houston native and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell could become a trillionaire by 2033.

Read the full story

DeSantis: Texas Should Be Sending Illegal Immigrants Back to Mexico

Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says Texas shouldn’t be allowing illegal immigrants to enter the state, echoing sentiments conservative Texans have been arguing for over a year.

“What Texas needs to do is just send them [illegal immigrants] back across the border,” Gov. DeSantis said at a recent press conference in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. “Who cares what the Feds are saying. They aren’t doing their job.

Read the full story

Caterpillar Announces Relocation of Global Headquarters from Illinois to Texas

Construction and mining equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. announced Tuesday it will move its global headquarters from its current location in Deerfield, Illinois, to the company’s existing office in Irving, Texas.

“We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” said Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby in a press release. 

Read the full story

Commentary: No Duty to Protect

The May 24 massacre in Uvalde, Texas outrages the conscience, though not for the facile and stupid reasons spewed by every prominent Democratic Party politician, half-witted newspaper columnist, and vapid television talking-head. 

Liberals and other simpering dunderheads make fetishes of objects, focusing on the tool rather than the tool’s misuser. “Nobody needs an AR-15,” goes the refrain, when need has nothing and right has everything to do with it. “But the tool is so easy to misuse and abuse!” comes the ovine rebuttal, when we know as a matter of fact the tool is used in a small fraction of violent crimes.  

Read the full story

Questions Swirl Around Law Enforcement’s Response to Uvalde Shooting; AP: SRO Driving Nearby, Not at Campus

The director of the southern section of the Texas Department of Public Safety cut short his Thursday press conference as reporters shouted questions at him about why local law enforcement was ineffective for the hour after Tuesday’s spree shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School as gunshot victims languished inside. The crisis ended when Border Patrol Tactical officers arrived, engaged shooter Salvador Ramos, and killed him.

Read the full story

Nashville-Based Jason Whitlock of ‘The Blaze’ Blasts Barack Obama and BLM in Wake of Texas Tragedy

In an op-ed titled, “Barack Obama, BLM, and the summer of George Floyd contributed to ‘Uvalde massacre,'” Jason Whitlock of The Blaze said, “As Barack Obama pretends to grieve for the children in Texas, he should make time to recognize that America’s emotional and immature reaction to George Floyd contributed to the slaughter of 19 little kids.”

Whitlock is the host of the program, Fearless with Jason Whitlock, based out of the Nashville area.

Read the full story

Texas Court Reinstates Transgender ‘Child Abuse’ Policy

Texas government officials can continue to investigate parents who transition their children to the opposite sex for possible child abuse, the state’s supreme court ruled Friday.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) determined that child sex change surgeries constituted child abuse in August 2021 upon prompting by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and the DFPS began investigations of families for potential child abuse over treatments their transgender children were receiving in February. An appeals court had previously blocked these inquiries throughout the state, but the Texas Supreme Court ruled the lower court had “abused its discretion.”

Read the full story

Texas Mask Mandate Repeal Case Attorney Welcomes Florida Judge’s Ruling

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Robert Henneke, the executive director and general counsel of The Texas Public Policy Foundation, about Florida federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s Oct. 18, 2022 ruling that overturned the Centers for Disease Control’s mask mandate for air travelers and public transportation passengers.

Read the full story