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Below is a Senator Ted Cruz press release:Cruz on Iranian Prisoner Abedini: Unconscionable that Top American Diplomats Did Not Mention His Name WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement on the latest negative reports concerning Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran: “The recent press reports of the brutal treatment of Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison are deeply disturbing. But they are hardly surprising. Such abuse was inevitable after this American citizen, whose only crime is the peaceful practice of his Christian faith, was transferred to Iran’s equivalent of death row—not coincidentally on the...

An elementary school in Frisco, Texas is believed to be the first in the state to violate “The Merry Christmas Law” after they banned Christmas trees and the colors red & green from an upcoming “winter” party. Boys and girls who attend the Nichols Elementary School “Winter Party” will not be able to make any reference to Christmas or any other religious holiday. Christmas trees are also banned—along with the colors red and green. … Ironically, the school is located in the district of state Rep. Pat Fallon, the author of a bill signed into law in June that codifies...

Speaking to the attendees of the group’s policy summit in DC, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rallied the ALEC faithful and urged them not to let the growing chorus of criticism get them down. “I first came to ALEC over a decade ago,” Cruz said. “When I was serving in the Bush administration, I’d been privileged to work with ALEC in the federal government. I’ve been privileged to work with ALEC when I was back in Texas with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, leading the 10th Amendment Center, and I’m proud to stand with ALEC today.” Referencing Sen. Dick Durbin’s earlier...

Tom Pauken, former chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission and former head of the state Republican Party, withdrew from the Texas gubernatorial race. Pauken had struggled to raise money against a well-financed Greg Abbott. The following statement is excerpted from a letter the Pauken campaign sent today to donors and supporters: Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, and I have much to be thankful for with such a great family and so many wonderful friends. The past month has made that even clearer and more dear to me. I want to thank you personally for your gracious and...

On Black Friday, a group of Americans witnessed over a dozen illegal aliens crossing the Rio Grande. A Harlingen couple, who asked reporters in the video below to conceal their identities, said they and others around them were outraged at what they were witnessing. What was more shocking to the couple is nobody was stopping them... "I noticed two, what appeared to be males in the water there," the husband explains. "I guess on the west side of the bridge headed northbound from the Mexico side of the water." Caught on video by the couple, men crossing the river with...

The new report from the Centers for Disease Control had good numbers across the nation when it came to abortion — with abortions declining three percent in 2010 after a five percent decrease in 2009. But they also contained shocking figures showing abortion targets blacks and Hispanics. The CDC Abortion Surveillance Report dated November 29, 2013 reveals that in 2010, 56.7% of abortions reported to the CDC nationwide were done on Hispanic and Black women. According to the report, there were 415,479 abortions for known ethnicity reported for selected states in 2010 and 153,045 (or 36.8 percent) were non-Hispanic white...

You would think Hempstead Middle school principal Amy Lacey was asking to see the “papers” of the 50% Hispanic students at her school as this story is now getting national attention. But all she did was announce that students can not speak Spanish while in class to avoid disruption. The students make it sound like horrible discrimination and apparently the school district agrees. She has been placed on paid administrative leave and the school district is bending over backwards to apologize for the principal’s actions. But some residents of Hempstead (outside of Houston) agree with the principal according to KHOU11:

Baby Riley is now in safe hands after a young couple was sentenced to spend the next 60 years in prison after starving their baby nearly to death. In December of 2012 several teens were attending a party at the couple’s mobile home in rural Hood County, TX when they heard crying from the back of the trailer. Upon investigating the noise they found something that was completely horrifying. Baby Riley was lying there emaciated, covered in urine and vomit. The teenagers quickly called an adult (responsible one) and the person took young baby Riley to the hospital. After some...

On December 2, I had the opportunity to interview Texas gubernatorial candidate Lisa Fritsch about her jumping into the race and discuss her ideas and on issues such as education, poverty, and immigration. Lisa Fritsch has entered a large field of primary candidates, including Greg Abbott, Tom Pauken, Miriam Martinez, and Larry SECEDE Kilgore. Video of InterviewDisclaimer: Hardhatters is a non-partisan political research organization, and we do not support or endorse any political candidates.

To address privacy concerns raised by state leaders, the Texas Department of Insurance on Tuesday proposed additional rules for the so-called navigators directed to help Texans find health insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act. “In Texas, we are being vigilant about safeguarding privacy and keeping personal information out of the wrong hands,” Insurance Commissioner Julia Rathgeber said in a statement. “These proposed rules address insufficiencies in federal regulations and make the training and qualifications of navigators in our state more readily apparent to consumers and service providers.” Gov. Rick Perry requested in September that the state insurance department establish...

A 62-year-old Texas mother died Saturday night after her three-story home exploded, rattling the entire neighborhood and surrounding cities. Wanda Buckley Davis' body was found amid the rubble of her property in Grandview, outside Fort Worth following the blast, which occurred just before 11 p.m., Sheriff Bob Alford said.

Two years ago, Gayne C. Young, a Texas-based writer and blogger for Outdoor Life, scored the interview of a lifetime. As a beat writer, Young had enjoyed the outdoor exploits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been documented shooting a gray whale with a crossbow, tranquilizing a tiger attacking a news crew, hunting shirtless, fishing shirtless, and riding horseback shirtless. On a personal level, Young liked the rugged brand of masculinity that seemed a throwback to Teddy Roosevelt. "Although you have Clinton shooting ducks, you never see it. Although Rick Perry says he enjoys hunting, you don't see it....

(CNN) -- Gail Sandidge rushed to help when screams rang out during a stabbing at a Texas medical center on Tuesday. Horrified patients and family members watched as a man stabbed the nurse in the chest. "She was just saying...'I'm hurt. He got me,'" witness Jana Jackson told CNN affiliate KLTV. "And that's when we realized there was blood all on the front of her scrubs." Hours later, authorities pronounced Sandidge dead. Police said four others were wounded when 22-year-old suspect Kyron Templeton attacked visitors and employees Tuesday morning at Good Shepherd Ambulatory Surgical Center in Longview, Texas. The hospital's...

After catching multiple so-called ObamaCare “navigators” on camera urging people to lie on federal forms, Project Veritas released another video exposing more fraud and lawlessness surrounding the healthcare takeover aimed at surreptitiously advancing Big Government. This time, among other scandals, a senior operative with “Enroll America,” an outfit linked to the Obama administration and funded by insurance firms bullied by the White House, was exposed admitting what sounded to analysts like a potential conspiracy — unlawfully using the private data collected under the new healthcare scheme for pro-Democrat political purposes. Complaints have already been filed with the IRS and the...

According to the interim agreement regarding Iran's nuclear program that was reached this weekend in Geneva, not one centrifuge will be destroyed. Not one pound of enriched uranium will leave Iran. Not one American unjustly detained in Iran's notorious prisons will be released. But Iran will start to receive, in a matter of days, $7 billion in relief from international economics sanctions. This appears to be an unfortunate case of history repeating itself. As happened with North Korea in 1994, fascination with the negotiation process has blinded American diplomats to the true nature of their negotiating partners. Substantive sanctions relief...

The Texas communications director for Enroll America has resigned after a conservative watchdog group posted a video of him discussing his Democratic leanings. A spokesman for the self-proclaimed non-profit, non-partisan group, which is leading efforts to enroll Americans in ObamaCare, confirmed to FoxNews.com Chris Tarango has resigned after the video by Project Veritas was posted online.

Ted Cruz "Thanked" In New TV Ad Campaign - Airing on Thanksgiving FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Monday, November 25, 2013 CONTACT: Ryan Gill - RyanJamesGill@gmail.com This Thanksgiving Day powerful TV ads will air across the state of Texas "thanking" Senator Ted Cruz for leading the fight against Barack Obama's failed ObamaCare healthcare scheme. The ads will run during the highly-rated NFL Thanksgiving Day football games and during the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on one-dozen (12) TV stations across Texas. The TV ads are paid for by the Conservative Campaign Committee (website: www.ConservativeCampaign.org), a federal political action committee that endorsed Cruz for...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released the following statement on the interim agreement on Iran's nuclear program: "According to the interim agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program that was reached this weekend in Geneva, not one centrifuge will be destroyed. Not one pound of enriched uranium will leave Iran. Not one American unjustly detained in Iran's notorious prisons will be released. But Iran will start to receive, in a matter of days, $7 billion in relief from international economics sanctions. "All the smiling embraces between diplomats after the interim deal was signed notwithstanding, the Iranian regime remains a...

About seventeen years after the murder of John F. Kennedy, I was given the opportunity to watch an archived film of the President's last public remarks, a short speech to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Friday morning, November 22, 1963.Having been impressed, I still remembered a line or two, and I briefly searched for what I hoped would be unedited footage. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find what was to be found had been heavily edited.There may be better copies of his full remakrs out there, but I did finally stumble on one unedited whole tape with...

GAINESVILLE, TEXAS -- A Gainesville family is fighting for their childrens' lives. Ronald and Krista Alford's two children, Hunter and Mikayla, were born with extremely rare types of cancer. Now, sven years into fighting that battle, they've been hit with a new one: their children's insurance has been cancelled, affecting Hunter's chemotherapy. News 12's Allison Harris brings us their story of struggle and strength. Hunter Alford is due for his next round of chemo. As of right now, his mom Krista says, he's unlikely to get it. "Since his insurance was dropped, we're thinking about cancelling his chemotherapy," Krista Alford...

Richard Nixon thought Lyndon Johnson killed John F. Kennedy, according to legendary political operative Roger Stone. “Richard Nixon told me in 1982 that he immediately knew who Jack Ruby was when he saw him shoot Oswald,” Stone told The Daily Caller in an extensive interview. Stone’s new book The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ is currently tearing up the Amazon bestseller list and even earned praise from Ron Paul. Among other revelations, Stone told TheDC that Nixon hired Jack Ruby as a House committee informant at Johnson’s request years prior to the Kennedy assassination, which occurred 50...

George Prescott Bush, a political newcomer who is the grandson and nephew of U.S. presidents, filed to run for Texas land commissioner on Tuesday — a move that officially begins the continuation of his family's political dynasty with a young, Hispanic, Spanish-speaking candidate. The 37-year-old Fort Worth lawyer's entry into politics comes at a moment when the state Republican Party is desperate to woo Hispanic voters. Bush arrived at the Republican Party of Texas office in Austin midafternoon along with campaign workers and his wife, Amanda Williams. According to the party's communications director, Spencer Yeldell, Bush is the second Republican...

Officials in Bell County, Texas, have released the dashcam footage of a police officer in Temple, Texas, disarming and arresting decorated veteran C.J. Grisham while he was on a hike with his son in March. The officer is seen grabbing the dad’s gun and then seemingly attempting to unlatch it from the man’s sling without telling him why or asking for permission. Video recorded by Grisham and his son went viral earlier this year, but it did not show the moment the dad was approached and disarmed by the officer. He was later charged with “interference with duties of a...

For all these years, they’ve hidden the truth about the Kennedy assassination. It didn’t require a conspiracy. It just took repeating a falsehood until it was accepted as conventional wisdom. The myth about the Kennedy assassination is that President John F. Kennedy, at great personal risk, traveled to Dallas a.k.a. the City of Hate, and was somehow murdered by an atmosphere of intolerance. The truth is that he was shot by a communist. As James Piereson writes in his brilliant book Camelot and the Cultural Revolution, liberals had the choice after the assassination to make Kennedy a martyr to civil...

Man, this kind of stuff gets my hillbilly back up. It burns me up to see these city folk acting like sheep, when armed policemen pull them over, under color of law, and — Lord have mercy! — 'ask' them for BLOOD and TISSUE SAMPLES! The Supreme Court, may the Lord judge them ever so harshly, has said that police checkpoints looking for drunk drivers are Constitutional (Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz), but this is something new: these are Fed contractors, asking for BLOOD AND DNA after armed deputies stop citizens under color of law. And then say,...

Full title: "Shock Interview: Welfare Recipient: “I Get to Sit Home… I Get to Smoke Weed… We Still Gonna Get Paid” While workers out there are preaching morality at people like me living on welfare, can you really blame us? I get to sit home… I get to go visit my friends all day… I even get to smoke weed… Me and people that I know that are illegal immigrants that don’t contribute to society, we still gonna get paid. Our check’s gonna come in the mail every month… and it’s gonna be on time… and we get subsidized housing…...

One hundred fifty years after President Lincoln foresaw a “new birth of freedom” in his Gettysburg Address, the folks at MSNBC are busy celebrating abortion. From Chris Jansing to Thomas Roberts, to liberal darling Alex Wagner, the all-liberal network has chosen November 19 as the newest abortion day at the “Lean Forward” network. Perhaps the most obnoxious abortion segment on MSNBC on November 19 was during Now w/ Alex Wagner, where the MSNBC host featured liberal comic Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, to promote Monday’s online abortion fundraiser for the women of Texas and a new campaign she...

George P. Bush, a son of a governor and a nephew and grandson to U.S. presidents, has filed to run statewide in Texas, the latest member of the powerful political family to seek elected office. Bush, 37, the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Mexican-born wife, Columba, is seen by some as a transformative figure - a Hispanic candidate for a Republican Party that wants to appeal to the growing and increasingly influential electorate of Latino voters. Bush filed on Tuesday to run for Texas Land Commissioner, a position which, among other duties, manages the Alamo in...

One of Texas' oldest oil fields, in decline for decades, has become one of the hottest places in the country to drill for crude, as energy companies create clusters of wells with layers of horizontal branches. The Permian Basin—86,000 square miles centered on Midland, Texas—has been pumping oil since the 1920s, though production peaked at about 2 million barrels a day in the early 1970s. For decades, geologists have known that oil could be found in different layers of rock piled up like a stack of geologic pancakes. But now drillers are starting to tap those layers simultaneously from a...

WASHINGTON D.C. — Amidst troubling reports of Obamacare navigators urging consumers in Texas to lie on their applications in order to qualify for greater federal subsidies, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today wrote to President Obama demanding he terminate the troubled Navigator program. In the letter Sen. Cornyn also points to recent sworn testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in which she admitted to Sen. Cornyn that due to a lack of criminal background checks, it is possible taxpayer-funded navigators, who handle consumers’ personal and confidential information, could in fact be convicted felons. The full text of...

Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. "It just doesn't seem right that you can be forced off the road when you're not doing anything wrong," said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North...

Dozens of Texas drivers have been stopped at a police road block, where they were then directed into a parking lot and forced into surrendering blood, saliva and breath samples in a study that has upset civil liberties advocates. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration admitted it was attempting to conduct a government study meant to determine the number of drunk or drug-impaired drivers on the road at any given time.  “It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” Kim Cope, who said she was forced to the side...

This isn’t a final ruling on the merits. They simply affirmed the lower court’s decision to let the new restrictions take effect now while the parties continue to battle over their constitutionality in court. The Oct. 31 appeals court ruling prompted women’s clinics in five cities to stop providing abortions. It also meant that women seeking an abortion 15 or more weeks into pregnancy had to travel to Dallas or Houston, the only cities with open facilities that could legally perform those procedures.The law would require doctors to have privileges at a hospital within 30 miles (48 kilometers). The measure...

Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers. "It just doesn't seem right that you can be forced off the road when you're not doing anything wrong," said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North...

DEVELOPING: The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block controversial Texas abortion restrictions that have been called some of the strictest in the country. The court by a 5-4 vote denied a request by Planned Parenthood to block a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which allows key parts of the Texas abortion law to stay in effect while the case plays out.

MISSION, TX, November 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Planned Parenthood facility in Texas has reopened its doors, thanks to federal taxpayer dollars it has received from the Obama administration. The office in the Texas border town of Mission threw a reopening celebration on Friday, two years after it closed down. The facility – which is named after the Rev. Bruce Galloway – gives women referrals for surgical abortions, offers chemical abortions by administering the “morning-after pill,” and performs “LGBT services.”

The Planned Parenthood abortion business is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new facility in Forth Worth, Texas that is ironically located next to an adoption center. Cecile Richards, the head of the nation’s biggest abortion business, sent a tweet this morning about the new center. The Planned Parenthood clinic new abortion facility will be next to a large adoption center, the Gladney Adoption Center, a staple in Fort Worth. The new center at 6400 John Ryan Drive is being described as a “state-of-the-art” abortion facility which, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “will include a larger family planning...

<p>AUSTIN — A conservative student group at the University of Texas is organizing a controversial event this week in which students will be rewarded with $25 gift cards to “catch” volunteers posing as illegal immigrants.</p> <p>The UT chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas, which caused a stir in September by holding an affirmative action bake sale, said it will host an event called “Catch an Illegal Immigrant.” It’s scheduled from noon to 3 p.m. on Wednesday in the school’s West Mall.</p>

Longtime Houston Community College Board Trustee Bruce Austin said he will request a recount after narrowly losing his District 2 seat to his challenger in Tuesday’s election. Small business owner Dave Wilson was ahead of Austin by 26 votes, based on complete, but unofficial results. A candidate needs to garner a majority of the vote to win. Wilson had 50.1 percent, while Austin got 49.9 percent. HCC officials must canvass the votes and declare them official before Austin can request a recount. The canvassing process usually takes up to four to five days. Black district: Four other seats were up...

As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was driving his wife and two young daughters to Mt. Vernon the other day, one daughter asked the other what she wanted to do when she grew up. “I want to work with daddy in the Senate,” one said. “That’s boring!” the other replied. “Let’s be in a rock band. Besides, daddy will be dead by then.” “I thought maybe she’d been talking to Senate Republican leadership,” Cruz quipped to the national convention for the Federalist Society (“Fed Soc”) Thursday in D.C., to thunderous laughter and applause. While Cruz tweaked some fellow Republicans with...

Mary Margaret Penrose, a full time professor of Law with Texas A&M University, has called for the full repeal of the Second Amendment. Utilizing her unquestioned exercise of the First Amendment, the Texas Professor insisted the Constitution was outdated, and needed some substantial re-writing. Penrose was speaking in Connecticut (at a gun-control symposium) when she launched into her misinformed explanation of the Second Amendment; implying that our enumerated right to possess a firearm is largely responsible for the mass shootings that have cropped up in recent years. Her argument, and blatant contempt for the Constitution (which she admits to describing...

6 year old boy Josia Cotto’s mom and dad had no choice than to let him rest peacefully as their child was fighting a brain tumor that was inoperable for a period of 10 months. His mother said that they knew that they could do nothing about their son as they say he was unresponsive and did not open his eyes. They covered him in a soft blanket in white and blue and held on to the tiny hand one last time before the ambulance took him to a local hospital. She said that they told Josia that he had...

New questions are being raised about the tax-exempt status of an Obamacare enrollment group tied to Kathleen Sebelius after it was implicated in James O’Keefe’s most recent investigative probe. O’Keefe captured an official for Enroll America, for which Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted to fundraising, being introduced at an event as “the official group for the DNC.” O’Keefe’s work also revealed that Enroll America might be working with the political action committee Battleground Texas, possibly sharing mined data between the two groups. O’Keefe’s footage was enough to prompt the legal advocacy group Cause of Action to...

Half a dozen states are ignoring a federal decree to grant marital benefits to gay members of the National Guard, claiming the mandate conflicts with state laws banning homosexual unions. Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act (pdf), which prohibited the federal government from recognizing gay marriages, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel issued an order for gay spouses of National Guard members to receive the same federal marriage benefits as heterosexual spouses. But six states—Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia—have refused to comply, despite the fact that the president has...

Every day in the New Normal, it is either a mass shooting or an explosion in some pipeline or crude-carrying train. Moments ago, a pipeline in Texas exploded in a massive fireball and has prompted the evacuation of the nearby town of Milford. From Breaking911: Smoke and flames are visible for miles. There is a fear that an additional pipe may explode. Nearby schools have all been evacuated as well. NUmerous rescue teams responding; unknown if there are any injuries at this time. UPDATE 11:30AM EST: According to county officials, a 10-inch pipeline east of U.S. Highway 77 and Farm-to-Market...

Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) has introduced an Articles of Impeachment resolution against Attorney General Eric Holder for his role in Operation Fast and Furious and other scandals of President Barack Obama’s administration. Seven congressman have signed onto the resolution thus far in addition to Olson. They are Reps. Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Phil Roe (R-TN), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Roger Williams (R-TX), Ted Yoho (R-FL), and Randy Weber (R-TX). The Articles of Impeachment has four different sections. The first calls for Holder’s official removal because of his failure to comply with congressional subpoenas relating to Operation Fast and Furious....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, the... No, no, no. What's interesting about that is like Kay Hagan, Democrat senator from North Carolina. All these Democrat senators now want to be exempted from all the fallout of this. There are 13 of 'em, a baker's dozen. They knew when they voted for this. I don't think they deserve to be let off the hook. The Democrats that now want this all delayed -- they want the individual mandate delayed -- they want things delayed 'til after the 2014 election. They've trooped up to see Obama. Folks, they knew. Everybody knew that...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, the... No, no, no. What's interesting about that is like Kay Hagan, Democrat senator from North Carolina. All these Democrat senators now want to be exempted from all the fallout of this. There are 13 of 'em, a baker's dozen. They knew when they voted for this. I don't think they deserve to be let off the hook. The Democrats that now want this all delayed -- they want the individual mandate delayed -- they want things delayed 'til after the 2014 election. They've trooped up to see Obama. Folks, they knew. Everybody knew that...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday said that former President Clinton's comments about ObamaCare were an effort to distance his wife from the program ahead of a possible 2016 run. “That was certainly revealing, and it suggests perhaps that Hillary Clinton is looking to run away from President Obama and run away from ObamaCare," Cruz, who's seen as a potential 2016 candidate, told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday morning. "And that ought to be a signal to Democrats, this thing isn’t working." Clinton said President Obama should change the law to allow people to keep their existing plans under ObamaCare....

Recently declared Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis had a really, really bad opening round of campaign appearances. Naturally, the national press, which swooned over the Fort Worth Democrat's ultimately failed filibuster against a common-sense pro-life law in the Lone Star State's legislature, pretended not to notice. They had local help. On Wednesday, At The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, in an item mirrored at the Brownsville Herald, "reporter" Ty Johnson opened with six paragraphs of fanboy fawning about Davis's Tuesday campaign appearance in Brownville, and then buried Davis's galling attempt to portray herself as "pro-life" in Paragraph 23. Also, stay tuned...