Free Republic

Texas A&M University is discontinuing its LGBTQ+ minor due to low enrollment, following criticism of the program from Republican lawmakers over what they called “liberal indoctrination.”The Battalion, the school’s student newspaper, reported last week that the university is cutting 14 minors and 38 certificates following an internal review that deemed them “low-producing” programs.The university slashed programs that awarded “fewer than five degrees per academic year and fewer than 25 degrees in five years.”The description of the LGBTQ+ minor on the school’s website states that it “prepares students to examine the ways in which gender and sexuality are socially constructed and...

Colin Allred is gaining on Ted CruzTed Cruz is one of the most high-profile Republicans in the U.S. Senate. He is also one of the most vulnerable — and he has a fight on his hands in Texas. Cruz is "fighting for his political survival," said The New York Times. His reelection race against challenger Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman and former football star, is "increasingly competitive." Polls show Cruz clinging to a slim, single-digit lead. That has some GOP officials "concerned" that Cruz could lose the seat, said the Times. If so, Republicans could also lose the opportunity to...

Mayor Adams’ corruption indictment involving the government of Turkey seems like weak tea compared to other recent scandals. But it also indicates just how intertwined America’s ruling class has become with foreign governments — and foreign money. ... Adams asserts that the prosecution is payback for his criticism of Biden-Harris immigration policies ... American politics, all the way to the top, is riddled with corruption and foreign cash ... Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) revealed an extravaganza of gold bars and envelopes full of cash (along with a Mercedes and, weirdly, basement carpeting) in exchange for favors ... involving gifts and...

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred has signed a letter urging the removal of provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that restrict funding for transgender surgeries and LGBT activities in the military. The Hill reported that in June, Congress passed the NDAA with provisions that would restrict access to funding for gender mutilating surgeries as well as certain LGBT activities such as drag shows for military members and their families. In a letter to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services, 160 Democrats, including Allred, called for the removal of these provisions, citing, “If service members are concerned for their...

A federal judge ruled on Saturday that part of a Texas law that enacted new voting restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution by being too vague and restricting free speech. The ruling, made by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, immediately halted the state’s ability to investigate alleged cases of vote harvesting, such as the investigation into the League of United Latin American Citizens by Attorney General Ken Paxton. Before today’s ruling, a person who knowingly provided or offered vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation was committing a third-degree felony. This meant that organizers of voter outreach organizations and even volunteers...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott .. is making all available tools available to law enforcement to take action against the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang. The governor said the gang members will find their operations in Texas will become unprofitable, forcing them to leave ... They’re looking to make money. And what they’re going to find is, if they’re coming in the state of Texas, they’re losing money. It’s a losing money proposition in the state of Texas, and they’re going to realize they got to take their business elsewhere.” Governor Abbott recently designated the Venezuelan prison gang as...

The vicious Venezuelan migrant gang Tren de Aragua is luring desperate women deep into the heart of the US, forcing them to sell their bodies on the streets of American cities to pay off exorbitant smuggling fees, a newly leaked law enforcement document obtained by The Post reveals. At least eight states have seen an explosion in migrant prostitution since the gang laid down roots in the US, with authorities in Texas, Nevada, Illinois, California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York now fighting to curtail the sex trade, the memo shows. And the victims may be operating out in...

Modern-day grave robbers in Texas have seized unclaimed bodies belonging to veterans and sold their limbs for profit without the consent or knowledge from their grieving family members. Victor Carl Honey, 58, a dedicated Army veteran, who struggled with mental illness, died in September 2022 of heart failure. Honey was among the 2,350 people whose remains were sent to the body donation program at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort-Worth. However, a month after his death, the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Officer deemed Honey's body 'unclaimed' after they said phones for relatives were disconnected even though...

A Democrat judge in Texas was busted for allegedly using a fake Facebook page to direct racist comments toward himself in an attempt to garner sympathy and secure re-election. Fort Bend County Judge KP George, a top elected official in the suburban Houston county, won a 2022 re-election bid against his Republican opponent, Trever Nehls. A warrant obtained by KHOU 11 shows that George's cellular devices suggested he had been communicating with a fellow employee who used a fake Facebook account under the name 'Antonio Scalywag' to interact with the judge's posts and leave racist comments. ... Fort Bend County...

HOUSTON (AP) — The top elected official in a county in suburban Houston was indicted on Thursday over allegations he created fake and racist social media posts when he ran for re-election in 2022... The indictment alleges that on Sept. 26, 2022, [KP George] posed as a Facebook user named “Antonio Scalywag”... The indictment did not specify the election that was allegedly influenced or the candidate that was injured. But at the time, George, a Democrat, was running for re-election as county judge against Trever Nehls, who is the twin brother of Texas congressman Troy Nehls. ...authorities accused him in...

A former Gateway Church member who had her membership revoked and was allegedly forced off church property by armed guards for publicly criticizing the Texas megachurch for its alleged lack of transparency and accountability amid child sex abuse allegations against founder Robert Morris is now speaking out. "I will say this: in my 47 years of life, I have never had my church membership revoked, dismissed, as they wanted to call it," Valentina Hansen, Grapevine resident and former Gateway Church member and volunteer, told The Christian Post in an interview Tuesday. "I've never had my volunteer opportunities be dismissed." Morris...

A Texas woman has confessed to drugging young girls with melatonin gummies while trafficking them into the US — just as border agents are warning that kids are being smuggled through similar means all across the southern border. Vanessa Valadez, 23, of Laredo, pleaded guilty Friday to working with family members to smuggle children under the age of 5 into the country from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, between August and September 2023. “La noquiamos con unas gomitas,” one of Valdez’s co-conspirators wrote in a message alongside an image of a passed out girl during one operation — which translates to “we...

It was a real flight to nowhere. Passengers aboard a recent international American Airlines flight were flabbergasted after the plane turned around five hours into the trip — without any explanation. One of the flummoxed flyers detailed the aerial about-face in a viral Instagram video. “American Airlines needs a lesson in effective communication,” Jimin Lee, 41, captioned the clip of the incident, which occurred Sept. 7 aboard AA flight 281 from Dallas, Texas, to Seoul, South Korea ... crew members provided “zero explanation” for aborting the flight bound for Incheon International Airport,

A federal jury cleared all but one of six Trump supporters accused in a civil trial over the surrounding of a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a Texas highway days before the 2020 election. Why it matters: The defendants were accused in the lawsuit of violations including the Civil War-era 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act... ... Following a two-week trial, Eliazar Cisneros, a chef and Navy veteran, was the only one of the accused to be found liable in the U.S. District Court case... A lawyer for Joeylynn Mesaros, one of the defendants cleared in the case, said they would ask...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the administration of President Joe Biden over an endangered lizard found in West Texas. The dunes sagebrush lizard, found in southeastern New Mexico and four Texas counties, was classified as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May. Typically about 2.5 inches long, the lizards are found in the Permian Basin, which is an epicenter of oil and gas production in the U.S. However, Paxton argues that this classification is improper and violates the Endangered Species Act, and says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to use...

A West Point graduate who first made headlines for his “Communism will win” message written in his uniform cap is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) studying “Modern Arab intellectual history.” In 2017, Spenser Rapone displayed various Marxist messages, such as wearing a Che Guevara shirt beneath his official West Point uniform and posting “#VeteransForKaepernick” on social media. According to UT’s website, Rapone entered the Ph.D. program in 2020. His university biography cites his interests as “decolonization, revolution, metaphysics, [and] consciousness,” with his research topics focusing on “question of the self, soul, and spirit...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday declared the Venezuelan gang, Tren De Aragua (TDA) as a foreign terrorist organization. Texas Department of Public Safety is aggressively targeting gang members who were released into country by Biden administration, he said. “I will not allow them to use Texas as a base of operations to terrorize our citizens,” Abbott said at a news conference in Houston. “Texas is a law and order state and I will ensure that law enforcement has every tool they need to keep our community safe.” Tren De Aragua is characterized as “MS13 on steroids,” Abbott said, referring...

A Democratic darling and top fundraiser who had President Biden preside over his nuptials has dished out tens of thousands of dollars to Kamala Harris and other candidates — while the IRS was coming after him for millions in unpaid taxes, The Post has learned. Henry Muñoz, the finance chairman emeritus of the Democratic National Committee, had a whopping $3,497,319 federal income tax lien placed against him in April 2023, IRS records show, along with a $152,411.46 business tax warrant in his home state of Texas.That hasn’t stopped Muñoz, 64, from splashing out out six figures to his fellow Democrats...

Exposure to arsenic and other toxic metals may accelerate the progression toward diabetes, according to a new study. In a longitudinal study of more than 500 Mexican Americans living in southern Texas, researchers found that high levels of toxic metals in urine predicted faster increases in blood sugar over subsequent years. Based on these results, individuals with the highest levels of arsenic in their urine were projected to qualify as prediabetic 23 months earlier and diabetic 65 months earlier than those with the lowest exposure to the toxic metal. The study highlights an underappreciated risk factor for diabetes, a disease...

Texas has stopped allowing trans people to correct the gender marker on their birth certificates, according to LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in the state. On Friday, the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), the state’s largest trans advocacy organization, reported that the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) removed the option to amend an individual’s sex in the application form to correct birth certificates. TENT provided screenshots to Them, appearing to show form VS-170, the application used for birth certificate corrections, before and after the recent changes. The form bearing a revision date of January 21 allows applicants to “correct child’s...