Texas Republicans have the choice between two guys with no principles.
Texas Republicans have the choice between two guys with no principles.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/sen-john-cornyn-flips-filibuster-154153551.html
Tag: texas
Texas man was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent last year during a stop, new records show
“As in the Good case, experts in police training and tactics questioned why a federal officer apparently positioned himself in front of Martinez’s vehicle.
“You don’t stand in front of the car, you don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a police use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina. He added that there’s never a scenario where it’s justified, “because you don’t know whether this person is going to flee, and if he flees, you could be dead.””
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/20/us/texas-ruben-ray-martinez-shooting
Texas man was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent last year during a stop, new records show
“The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the nonprofit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Though Martinez’s death on March 15, 2025, was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent,” resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
The department did not respond to questions about why it had made no media release or other public notification of the officer-involved shooting over the last 11 months.
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The HSI officer who the report says was struck by the vehicle was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released.
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Reyes said she first learned her son had been shot by a federal agent, rather than a local police officer, about a week after he was killed. She was contacted by an investigator from the Rangers who she said told her there were videos of the shooting that contradicted the account provided by federal agents. DHS did not immediately respond to an email Friday about the claim that there is video showing a different account.
She said she was told by the investigator that the state report into the shooting was completed in October and that the case would be presented to a grand jury for potential criminal charges.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, said in a statement Friday that the investigation into the shooting is still “active” and declined to offer more information.
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Martinez’s mother said she didn’t believe he would ever intentionally assault a law enforcement officer.
“They didn’t give him a chance,” Reyes said. “It’s so excessive. They could have done anything else besides that. It’s like they shoot first and ask questions later.””
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/texas-man-fatally-shot-federal-232303964.html
British graduate, 23, was shot dead by her father in his Texas home after Trump row, inquest hears
“A British graduate who was passionately anti-guns was shot dead by her alcoholic father at his Texas home just hours after they had an argument about Donald Trump, an inquest was told today.”
If the father had not owned a gun, Lucy Harrison would likely be alive today.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/british-graduate-23-was-shot-dead-by-her-father-in-his-texas-home-after-trump-row-inquest-hears/ar-AA1W3gbb?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=698b92b697b4460bb096264bfa928330&ei=14
Right-Wing Legal Strategy Is Working, And It’s Terrifying | Mark Joseph Stern | TMR
The Trump administration told Texas to gerrymander based on race. Texas did as asked. A judge said the gerrymander was illegal because it was based on race. The Supreme Court said that despite the detailed investigation by the lower court that showed a race-based gerrymander, they don’t think it was based on race. They based that opinion on very little, and overturning a lower court based on one’s opinions of the facts is illegal, unless the lower court decision was overwhelmingly erroneous, which it was not in this case. The Supreme court also said it is too close to an election to make a change even though the elections are a year out. This means state legislatures can illegally gerrymander half the years because House elections are every two years.
The Supreme Court is clearly ruling on freedom of religion cases in a way that is biased toward Christianity and that allows Christians to risk and hurt non-Christians as long as they consider it a part of their religion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31vNflImmtM
Texas Governor Strips 2 Muslim Groups of the Right To Buy Land in the State by Calling Them Terrorists
“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, an ally of President Donal Trump, has added two organizations to his state’s list of terrorist organizations—an action taken without any safeguards and which deprives the organizations of the right to buy land in the state.
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You don’t have to like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Council on American-Islamic Relations to think the government should be required to prove accusations before punishing people.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/05/texas-governor-strips-two-muslim-groups-of-the-right-to-buy-land-in-the-state-by-calling-them-terrorists/
Texas Judge Loses His Mind
The conservative court decided no matter how extreme a partisan gerrymander, it is legal. However, they said racial gerrymanders are illegal. A district judge dug into the Texas gerrymander and concluded that the actors involved explicitly gerrymandered based on race. Without disputing the facts, the conservatives on the Supreme Court rejected it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv_OsWd7cLo
Texas Man Faces Up to 40 Years in Prison for Transporting Constitutionally Protected Pamphlets
“these materials, although controversial in their advocacy for insurrection, squatting, and anarchy, are all squarely constitutionally protected speech. The government cannot infringe upon one’s First Amendment right to read, possess, or write—unless the author is inciting imminent lawless action—anti-government or pro-revolution literature. And while some may see the ideas in Sanchez’s box as dangerous, anti-government zines and pamphlets are far more similar to the Revolutionary-era literature popular when the First Amendment was passed than today’s social media landscape, as Seth Stern of The Intercept points out.
However, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September designating “antifa” as a “major terrorist organization, prosecutors, like the ones in Sanchez’s case, are attempting to use materials that “explicitly [call] for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law” as evidence of criminality, despite their constituitonal protection.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/26/texas-man-faces-up-to-40-years-in-prison-for-transporting-constitutionally-protected-pamphlets/
Appeals court lets Texas enforce law aimed at drag shows
“A divided federal appeals court panel has given Texas the go-ahead to enforce a state law seeking to criminalize “sexually oriented” shows on public property, a ban that drag performers say targets them in violation of their free speech rights.
The decision Thursday from the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals appears premised on the notion that the 2023 law known as S.B. 12 won’t be enforced against drag acts unless they include overtly sexual components.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/06/texas-drag-court-ruling-00640225
How Trump Triggered California’s Redistricting Fight
“Trump, who urged Texas and other Red States to redistrict before the end of the decade in a shameless attempt to help the GOP pick up additional seats as we head toward the midterm elections. The Republican Party holds a slim House majority, so a slight shift can slow its agenda.
As the president posted on Truth Social: “Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down. Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing.”
This isn’t as ominous as, say, the GOP effort to steal the 2020 presidential election with absurd claims, bad lawyers and a mob attack on the Capitol. But it’s yet another GOP assault on democratic norms. Prop. 50 is the Democrats’ attempt to neuter these ill-gotten GOP gains. It’s not good, but it’s justifiable. It’s temporary, with the redrawing heading back to the commission in 2030.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/17/in-californias-redistricting-fight-there-are-no-principled-combatants/