Free Republic

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...

A U.S. citizen known to have fought with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine between 2014 and 2017 has been killed in Moscow-occupied Donetsk, Russian media reported Friday. Russia-installed authorities in eastern Ukraine had earlier this month reported the American — 64-year-old Russell Bentley — as missing. "Russell Bentley, known as 'Texas,' a real American, truly from Texas, was killed in Donetsk," the head of the pro-Kremlin RT network Margarita Simonyan said on social media. "He was fighting for our guys," she said. Simonyan gave no details on how he died. The Vostok battalion with which he fought confirmed his death, calling...

Russell Bentley, a self-described “Donbass Cowboy,” joined Russian forces soon after they created a proxy state in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He quickly became one of Russian propaganda’s favorite Americans, receiving a Russian passport and a gig with state-run Sputnik TV. On April 8, the 64-year-old Austin native better known under his call sign “Texas” was detained by Russian soldiers in the city of Donetsk, occupied by Russia for the past decade, according to his wife. Eleven days later, he turned up dead. He is the latest in a string of figures involved in Russia’s 2014 takeover of parts of...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred will face off in their first televised debate on Tuesday, October 15, at 7 p.m. at WFAA’s studios in downtown Dallas. Scheduled three weeks before Election Day, "The Texas Debate" will be a crucial opportunity for both candidates to work to sway undecided voters in what could be a close contest in November. -- snip -- "The Texas Debate" will be moderated by WFAA Senior Political Reporter Jason Whitely and Gromer Jeffers, Jr., political reporter at The Dallas Morning News. “No team has the depth of experience like WFAA’s...

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Prosecutors have rested their case against disgraced former Houston Police Officer Gerald Goines after nine days of trial. Texas Ranger Jeff Wolf finished three days of testimony on the stand. During his final hour, Wolf was asked to read out loud to the jury some of Dennis Tuttle's extensive medical history. Tuttle, who was in the Navy as a young man, had a lengthy medical history with the local VA hospital. According to records read in court, he suffered constant pain following an industrial work accident. The pain was often debilitating, to the point where Tuttle...

On September 9, 2024, the murder trial of Gerald Goines started in Houston, Texas, more than five years after the killings. The former Houston Police officer, undercover officer, and narcotics squad leader, was charged with the murders of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nickolas.On January 28, 2019, undercover Houston drug police raided the residence of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, both 58 years old. Both of them and their dog were killed. The raid was caused by a neighbor who lied about the Tuttles, and Officer Gerald Goines lied on an affidavit to obtain a no-knock warrant. From Houstonpublicmedia.org:During the hearing...

An American flag hung on the side of a barn and a country song about a working man played at Warren’s Backyard, a music venue, where on a searing summer evening, the Hood County Republicans met for an open bar and a silent auction to kick off the campaign season.A school board candidate rallied her supporters. A precinct chair held court at the front door next to a storied basketball coach. The county commissioner — a local hero since 2019 when he shot and killed a gunman who had stormed a church — wiped sweat from beneath a brimmed hat...

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is not happy that the Texas National Guard has been installing razor wire along the Rio Grande river – facing her state. Nexstar’s KTSM captured video showing troops putting up concertina wire and fencing on the riverbank in the El Paso, Texas, area Tuesday afternoon. The expansion came three days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X that the state would triple its razor wire border barriers to “deny illegal entry into our state and our country.” “Gov. Abbott seems to be pushing to make Texas its own country...

Two illegal immigrants have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to kidnap and ransom other illegals living in Southern California, federal authorities said Monday. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement that Honduran Darwin Jeovany Palma, 30, and fellow national Eduar Isrrael Sauceda Nuñez, 25, allegedly planned to kidnap and ransom immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. – Mexico border. Migrants were allegedly taken to stash houses in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico where their cellphones were confiscated, the DOJ said, adding that 57 migrants were held at a stash house in Albuquerque .. Palma and his fellow...

DALLAS - The State Fair of Texas starts next Friday with uncertainty about its new restrictions on gun owners. New and Permanent Teeth in 24 Hours - Life Changing! Now offering No Credit Check in-house financing. Low Down payment - 0% Interest - Extended monthly terms - Payments from $250 a month for full-mouth dental implants G4 By Golpa | Sponsored Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says the fair is violating state law by banning license to carry holders from bringing guns onto the fairgrounds. The State Fair is run by a nonprofit organization and the property is owned by...

A helpless mom was zip-tied in front of her small children as armed men in Texas who posed as food delivery people forced their way into a Houston home. Those same thugs shot an police officer who later arrived at the home where the mom and kids were being terrorized after a worried neighbor called 9-1-1. The armed men pushed their way into the house after the mother answered the door Tuesday morning, initially hiding the guns. 'He came up with a red DoorDash bag, and he knocked...or rang the doorbell, and my daughter was going to tell him that...