The Americans are coming! Some in a Texas county fear an Obama-led U.S. military invasion.

Bastrop County Republican Chairman Albert Ellison outside the GOP Headquarters in Bastrop, TX: “The Obama administration has a history of attacking Texas.” (Erich Schlegel/For The Washington Post)

By Kevin Sullivan July 4 at 8:32 PM  

BASTROP, Texas — The office of the Bastrop County Republican Party is in an old lumber mill on Main Street, with peeling brown paint and a sign out front that captures the party’s feelings about the Obama administration: “WISE UP AMERICA!”

Inside, county Chairman Albert Ellison pulled out a yellow legal pad on which he had handwritten page after page of reasons why many Texans distrust President Obama, including the fact that, “in the minds of some, he was raised by communists and mentored by terrorists.”

So it should come as no surprise, Ellison said, that as the U.S. military prepares to launch one of the largest training exercises in history later this month, many Bastrop residents might suspect a secret Obama plot to spy on them, confiscate their guns and ultimately establish martial law in one of America’s proudly free conservative states.

They are not “nuts and wackos. They are concerned citizens, and they are patriots,” Ellison said of his suspicious neighbors. “Obama has really painted a portrait in the minds of many conservatives that he is capable of this sort of thing.”

Across town at the Bastrop County Courthouse, such talk elicits a weary sigh from County Judge Paul Pape, the chief official in this county of 78,000 people. Pape said he has tried to explain to folks that the exercise, known as Jade Helm 15, is a routine training mission that poses no threat to anyone.

Bastrop City Council member Dock Jackson, 62: “I don’t think we would have seen this kind of reaction if he weren’t African-American.” (Ilana Panich-Linsman/For The Washington Post)

Pape chaired a public meeting this spring and invited a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman to answer questions about Jade Helm. The meeting drew more than 150 people carrying signs that read “No Gestapo in Bastropo,” “Keep America Free” and “Dissent is Not a Conspiracy Theory.” Some asked whether the Army was bringing in Islamic State fighters, if the United Nations would be involved, and whether the military was planning to relieve local gun owners of their firearms.

Via: Washington Post

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Supreme Court will re-hear Texas affirmative action

The Supreme Court said Monday it will dive back into the fight over the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas, a decision that presages tighter limits on affirmative action in higher education.

The justices said they will hear for a second time the case of a white woman who was denied admission to the university's flagship Austin campus.

The conservative-leaning federal appeals court in New Orleans has twice upheld the university's admissions process, including in a ruling last year that followed a Supreme Court order to reconsider the woman's case.

The case began in 2008 when Abigail Fisher, who is white, was denied admission to the University of Texas's flagship Austin campus because she did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her high school class -- the criterion for 75 percent of the school's admissions. The university also passed her over for a position among the remaining 25 percent, which is reserved for special scholarships and people who meet a formula for personal achievement that includes race as a factor.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2013. But rather than issue a landmark decision on affirmative action, it voted 7-1 to tell a lower appeals court to take another look at Fisher's lawsuit. That meant the university's admissions policies remained unchanged.

Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again upheld the university's admissions policy. Fisher is a graduate of Louisiana State University.

Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part in the case. She sat out the first round as well, presumably because of her work on the case when she served in the Justice Department before joining the court.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, 14-981, will be argued in the fall.

Via: Fox News

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Governor Abbott Asserts The Right Of Texas To Protect And Defend Religious Liberty..

Texas Gov. Abbott's statement on SCOTUS gay marriage ruling

Governor Greg Abbott today released the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling:

“The Supreme Court has abandoned its role as an impartial judicial arbiter and has become an unelected nine-member legislature. Five Justices on the Supreme Court have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court’s previous decisions reserve to the people of the States.

“Despite the Supreme Court’s rulings, Texans’ fundamental right to religious liberty remains protected. No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage.

“The Texas Constitution guarantees that ‘[n]o human authority ought, in any case whatsoever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion.’ The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion; and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, combined with the newly enacted Pastor Protection Act, provide robust legal protections to Texans whose faith commands them to adhere to the traditional understanding of marriage.

“As I have done in the past, I will continue to defend the religious liberties of all Texans—including those whose conscience dictates that marriage is only the union of one man and one woman. Later today, I will be issuing a directive to state agencies instructing them to prioritize the protection of Texans’ religious liberties.”

Via: The Lonely Libertarian

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GUEST EDITORIAL: Federal data breach so much worse

From The Dallas Morning News

As suspected or feared, the foreign hacking of U.S. government personnel data is far more expansive — and devastating — than originally admitted. This, no doubt, is why U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, called it “the most significant breach of federal networks in U.S. history.”

McCaul chairs the Homeland Security Committee and therefore has access to classified information. Now, too, do hackers believed to be operating from China, possibly on behalf of the Chinese government.

Initially estimated at affecting 4 million current or former government workers, the damage could be up to 14 million or more — including military and intelligence employees.

That shifted the comparison from annoying private-sector hacks like a Target or Home Depot to something that could endanger lives. …

What this hack apparently exposed was virtually every Standard Form 86 filled out by current and former government employees.

This 127-page form demands an applicant’s personal information, as well as details of relations, friends and current and former professional contacts.

Losing control of this information is potentially far more devastating than a stolen Social Security number, although millions of those are now in foreign hands, too.

It takes little imagination to see Chinese hackers using such breached data to track down relatives of U.S. officials abroad or scraping up evidence of love affairs or drug abuse that could be used to blackmail Americans in the field or possibly reveal covert operatives.

Officially, China has denied involvement.

“The potential loss here is truly staggering and, by the way, these records are a legitimate foreign intelligence target,” said retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA director. “This isn’t shame on China. This is shame on us.”

Indeed, the government was told of Office of Personnel Management’s systemic vulnerability eight years ago and apparently did little about it. According to an Ars Technica report, OPM had no IT staff until 2013.

It also had little idea about the scale of the data on its servers or how it was organized. Malware injected onto its network probably did its dirty work for a year or longer and reportedly was discovered only by chance during a product demonstration.

Some critics have labeled the hack as America’s cyber Pearl Harbor, and parallels to pre-Dec. 7, 1941, complacency are daunting.

What’s stolen is lost — and will endanger U.S. personnel for years — but the government must use this massive failure as a guide to better allocate resources and target security spending. Cyber-threats like this one will only intensify; so, too, must U.S. defenses.

VIa:: Northwest Georgia News

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[VIDEO] Chris Wallace to Rick Perry: Aren’t Uninsured Texans Your ‘Responsibility’?

During Chris Wallace‘s interview with 2016 GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry on Fox New Sunday, the show host took a minute to ask the former governor of Texas about his state’s monumentally high uninsured rate. During Perry’s time as governor, Texas boasted what Wallace calls the “highest uninsured rate in the country” as “more than one in five Texans didn’t have health coverage.”

Wallace then put to Perry the question, “Is that looking out for the little guy?” Perry’s response was pure, full-blooded Texan:

If how you keep score is how many people you force to buy insurance, well then I would say that’s how you keep score…

Let me explain what we do in Texas, and this is a state by state decision. We make access to health care the real issue. We passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation. We have 35,000 more licensed physicians to practice medicine in 2013 than we did a decade before that.

Wallace swings back to whether or not Perry feels any “responsibility” for the state’s uninsured masses, but his guest “sticks to his guns” with his “That’s not how we keep score!” line.

Via: Mediaite

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PERRY TO HILLARY: FIX YOUR OWN STATE BEFORE YOU ATTACK THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” former Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) reacted to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accusing Republicans of intentionally attempting to disenfranchise voters based on race, age and poverty level and said she insulted the people of Texas who overwhelmingly supported the law.

Perry said, “Well, I think it’s way outside the norm of ridiculous, if you want to know the truth of the matter, to call out the people of the state of Texas, that’s what she did, I just happened to be the governor that signed that legislation and support it, and the vast majority of the people of Texas support it, and what Secretary Clinton did was saying the state of Texas didn’t.”

He continued, “Why would you say that you need a photo id to get a library book or to get on an airplane? This is a state issue, and this is an issue that the people that the state of Texas overwhelmingly support. so you know, I don’t know who she is playing to, but she is not playing to the people of Texas and I don’t think she is playing to the Americans that believe that the sanctity of the vote is really important and you need to have a photo id to go and vote. And the people of Texas wanted it, and whichever state Hillary Clinton considers to be her home state, she goes home and argues there to not to have it.”

“I think we make it pretty easy in the state of Texas for people to vote. again, I don’t know what her beef is with the people of the state of Texas about voter id but I think she is on the wrong side of the issue,” he added.

Shouldn’t We Only Count Voters When Drawing Voting Districts?

Most people are familiar with the term “one person, one vote.” But what exactly does it mean? Probably the most common understanding is that it requires each voting district to have the same number of people in it. If I live in a town with 10,000 people in it and you live in a town with 100,000, and each town has one representative in the state house, my vote is much more powerful than yours. The concept seems fair and logical enough.

But let’s say we both live in towns with the same total number of people. But in my town half of the people aren’t citizens while in yours everyone is a citizen? Should my town still get to vote for one representative just as yours does? Should non-citizens be counted just as citizens? That is a critical question that has just been taken up by the Supreme Court in a case out of Texas called Evenwel v. Abbott.

The answer seems obvious from the very concept “one person, one vote.” Every citizen gets one vote, not two or one-half. The Supreme Court seems to have made this clear decades ago when it stated in the Hadley case from 1970 that voting districts should be set up “on a basis that will ensure, as far as is practicable, that equal numbers of voters can vote proportionately for equal numbers of officials.” The lower court inEvenwel disagreed, though, and said that equal total population should get equal representation, regardless of how many actual citizen voters are in the district.

In many parts of the country, that’s the status quo. Texas used the total population of areas in order to draw legislative districts for state representatives after the 2010 census. But some areas of Texas have high proportions of the population who are not citizens. Based on the actual numbers, the result is that some districts in Texas have 1.5 times the number of actual voters than in others.

Via: Human Events

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Texas Spending $800M to Create Its Own Virtual Border Patrol

When former Gov. Rick Perry ordered a big reinforcement of security at the Mexico border in 2011, Texas bought six new gunboats that can fire 900 rounds a minute and clock highway speeds. But the boats, which cost $580,000 each, spent more time docked than patrolling the Rio Grande.

That was a small price tag compared with what Texas is about to spend. The new Republican governor, Greg Abbott, this month approved $800 million for border security over the next two years — more than double any similar period during Perry's 14 years in office.

On Texas' shopping list is a second $7.5 million high-altitude plane to scan the border, a new border crime data center, a 5,000-acre training facility for border law-enforcement agencies and grants for year-round helicopter flights. The state also wants to hire two dozen Texas Rangers to investigate public corruption along the border and 250 new state troopers as a down payment on a permanent force along the border.

Special: Why is the Country's Largest Bank Stockpiling Silver?

Other states along the nearly 2,000-mile Southwest border — New Mexico, Arizona and California — do not come remotely close to the resources Texas has committed. And Texas is doing so long after last year's surge in undocumented immigrants crossing the border has subsided.

So why is Texas setting up what appears to be a parallel border patrol alongside the federal force?

"Google 'cartel crime in Mexico' and just put a time period of the last week, and you'll see some dramatic instances of what the cartels are doing in Mexico right now," Abbott told reporters this month following the legislative session. "The first obligation of government is to keep people safe and that means ensuring that this ongoing cartel activity, which is not abating whatsoever, gains no root at all in the state of Texas."

The 320-mile Rio Grande Valley sector of the border was ground zero last year for a wave of Central American migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors and women with children. The Valley sector accounted for 53 percent of all migrants captured in the Southwest during the fiscal year ending September.

Via: Newsmax

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Austin’s Plastic Bag Ban Worse for Environment Than Bags It Outlaws

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CNSNews.com)-- In an effort to protect the environment, Austin,Texas passed an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags in 2013.

However, a recent review concludes that Austin’s bag ban has backfired, creating more negative effects on the environment than the plastic bags it outlawed.

“Beginning March 1, 2013, no person may provide single-use carryout bags at any City facility, City-sponsored event, or any event held on City property,” the ordinance reads. “Beginning March 1, 2013, a business establishment within the City limits may not provide single-use carryout bags to its customers or to any person.”

Two years after the bag ban was implemented, the city asked the Austin Resource Recovery group to investigate its effectiveness. Their June 10 report, written by Aaron Waters, states that while the ban was successful in lowering the amount of single-use plastic bags made from high-density polyethylene in city landfills, it was actually worse for the environment overall.

“The amount of single use plastic bags has been reduced, both in count and by weight,” Waters states. “However, in their place, the larger 4 mil [4/1,000ths of an inch] bags have replaced them as the go to standard when the reusable bag is left at home. This reusable plastic bag, along with the paper bag, has a very high carbon footprint compared to the single use bag.”

The 4 mil reusable bags are often made from non-recycled low-density polyethylene and require more resources to manufacture than the single-use bags, Waters explained. Many of the heavier gauge 4 mil bags are also shipped from overseas, which increases their carbon footprint compared to the single-use bags.

Via: CNS News

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Who Is Dallas Shooting Suspect James Boulware?

James Boulware is the suspect in the Dallas Police Department HQ shooting last night, and today we’re learning more information about him.

The police have not officially confirmed Boulware was the gunman, but are looking into him, and both of Boulware’s parents have already spoken out today. His mother confirmed to CNN that it was her son opening fire at the police building, and told NBCDFW, “We’ve been dealing with this for a long time. I’m glad nobody else was hurt.”

The Dallas police said that during negotiations, Boulware was screaming about the police accusing him of being a terrorist and taking his son away from them, threatening to blow up the HQ.

His father told The Dallas Morning News Boulware was angry with the police after losing custody of his son. Jim Boulware explained, “I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job.”

Boulware had been arrested by Paris, Texas police two years ago for allegedly getting guns, ammo, and body armor, and threatening to attack his family and several public buildings.

Boulware ended up losing custody of his son after that, and he sold his house. His father said he saw his son just last night but didn’t notice anything wrong, but added, “I’m not saying he doesn’t have some problems of some kind… but you can push someone so far and everybody will break.”

Update- 1:55 pm EST: Dallas police confirmed this afternoon that the suspect is dead, though they aren’t ready yet to officially confirm his identity.

Update- 2:40 pm EST: WFAA is also reporting that Boulware has an “extensive history” with Child Protective Service, and the aforementioned 2013 incident was dismissed by the police.

Update- 3:25 pm EST: Boulware had also threatened judges and the police contacted the judges in response to those threats.

Update- 4:01 pm EST: One of the judges he threatened spoke out on CNN, saying his presence in court would always lead to heightened security.

Via: Mediaite.com

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[AUDIO] Rick Perry: Obama Lacks ‘Executive Experience’

Earlier this week, during his press conference at the G7 Summit in Germany, President Barack Obama said in response to a question about the fight against ISIS, “We don’t yet have a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis.”

The president’s conservative’s critics were quick to jump all over the statement as proof that the administration doesn’t know what it’s doing in the Middle East, a narrative that carried into an interview Dana Loesch conducted with former Texas governor and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry this week.

Perry said he was “stunned” that Obama would make those comments publicly and that he believed they provided some level of insight into the president’s mentality on ISIS. The candidate suggested that if Obama hadn’t expressed a “lack of engagement to stop ISIS” in Syria, then the U.S. could have somehow eliminated both the terrorist network and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite the fact that they were fighting each other and knocking one side down would have only bolstered the other.

“It’s this lack of really being able to connect the dots, I think it’s a lack of executive experience that this president has, as well as a philosophical void when it comes to understanding what it takes to keep America safe,” Perry added.

While this “executive experience” argument may have been a reasonable line of attack against Obama in 2008, now that he has been president for more than six years, it rings a bit hollow.

Listen to the full interview below (ISIS comments start at approx. 15:40):

Via: Mediaite

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[VIDEO] Police Shut Down Lemonade Stand Run By Two Little Girls for Operating Without a Permit

- Zoey and Andria Green, seven and eight, were running store by their home

- Girls had lemonade for sale at 50 cents a cup and popcorn for $1

- They wanted to raise money to for water park trip on Father's Day

- Chief of police in Overton, Texas, told them they needed a permit

Police shut down a 50-cents-a-go lemonade stand being run by two sisters because they didn't have an official city permit.

Via: Fox Nation

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Elisabeth Hasselbeck: McKinney Chief ‘Threw Officer Under the Bus’

The Fox & Friends troika sounded a tad suspicious Wednesday morning about the resignation of McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt, wondering if he had been “pressured” to resign, and whether his chief had properly backed him up.

Casebolt was caught on a cell phone video manhandling a teenager and drawing his weapon against unarmed bystanders after a call about a disturbance at a pool party. He resigned Tuesday evening, and was castigated by McKinney police chief Greg Conley for being “clearly out of control” — something co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said constituted “throwing him under the bus.”

Conley’s comments undercut other Fox segments, including one from last night in which Sean Hannity said the teenagers might have been “provoking” Casebolt.

F&F wasnt even entirely sure Casebolt was in the wrong, simply noting that “some say” he had “overreacted.”

Via: Mediaite.com

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HERE WE GO: NATIONAL RACE-BAITER HEADED TO MCKINNEY TO STOKE THE FLAMES OF RACISM

McKinney is about to turn into another Ferguson. Al Sharpton told the USA Today that he’s going there to hold a rally to demand that the police officer who pulled his gun should be fired:

USA TODAY – The Rev. Al Sharpton told USA TODAY on Monday that he was alerted to watch the video by the Dallas chapter of his National Action Network (NAN). He described McKinney as indicative of a police community that has a “tendency to throw police procedures into the wind.”

“I was praying it didn’t end in (the officer) shooting someone,” Sharpton said in a phone interview from New York. “(He) was a trigger away from yet another police shooting, which is why he should be prosecuted.”

Sharpton said cellphones and technology are bringing to people’s living rooms evidence of what activists have been saying all along — that some white officers have a complete disregard for black lives.

…

Sharpton said he is considering holding a rally in McKinney as early as this weekend to demand that the officer who pulled the gun be fired.

It’s plain to anyone who has watched the video carefully that the reason the cop drew his gun is because two punks ran around to his side as if to threaten the him and one looked like he was about to pull a weapon.

Via: The Right Scoop

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[VIDEO] Perry announces presidential run

The 2016 election will be one in which “voters will look past what you say to what you’ve done,” Rick Perry says in a new video on his website. The former four-term governor of Texas will put that to the test, as he announced on his website overnight that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination — again. Later today, Perry will make a public announcement in Addison, Texas:

Rick Perry, the former Texas governor whose 2012 campaign for the White House turned into a political disaster that humbled and weakened the most powerful Republican in the state, announced Thursday that he will run for president again in 2016.

Mr. Perry is the latest candidate to officially enter a crowded field of Republican presidential contenders, declared and undeclared, several of whom have Texas ties and have overshadowed him in recent months, including Senator Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush, Mr. Perry’s predecessor in the governor’s mansion.

Mr. Perry made the announcement on his website and planned a speech later in the day at a small municipal airport here in Addison, a northern suburb of downtown Dallas.

In promoting his political plans, Mr. Perry has cited his 14-year tenure as governor of the nation’s second-most-populous state and a vibrant Texas economy he has called “the envy of the nation.” As he has often pointed out, Texas added 1.8 million private-sector jobs on his watch, from January 2001 to October 2014, although his critics — and some economists — say he is taking too much credit for macro-economic forces, including an oil boom, beyond his control during that time.

Well, Perry had to be doing something right. It wasn’t just a coincidence that a third of all new jobs after the recession came in Texas, and the oil boom was not just a Texas phenomenon. The “macro-economic forces” over the years since the Great Recession have actually been a lot less than phenomenal, so the growth in Texas is remarkable on any level, and Perry was the man at the top during the entire time.

The biography video uploaded last night to the channel tells the campaign story Perry wants: a military veteran, a successful governor, and a man who connects with both the grassroots and the establishment to bring unity to the GOP. The flip side of this story is that all this was true in 2012, and the nomination could have been Perry’s for the taking except for the implosion during the primary. The campaign isn’t running away from that debacle, and they’ve wisely chosen Anita Perry as their point person for confronting it head-on:

“Rick is absolutely the guy that you want to have a beer with, but he’s so much more than that. He’s prepared now,” Anita said. “I want people to really give him a second look.”

Rick kicked off his first presidential bid in 2011 with six weeks of preparation, and he vaulted to the top of the polls. Things quickly unraveled.

He hadn’t fully recovered from an elective back surgery, was in pain and didn’t get much sleep. As a result, he couldn’t campaign as aggressively as he wanted to. He made errors like the infamous “oops” moment on the debate stage when he forgot one of the government agencies he wanted to eliminate.

“He will tell you he was arrogant at that time,” Anita said. A former nurse, both she and her husband underestimated how severely his back surgery would impact him. “I had a health care background. I should’ve realized he wasn’t ready and prepared health-wise, but I didn’t,” she said.

Via: Hot Air

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The Supreme Court Could Transfer A Lot Of Political Power Away From Cities

This week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by conservative activists in Texas that could redefine the principle of “one person, one vote” as we know it. And if the Court sides with the plaintiffs, Republicans could stretch their already-historic majorities in the House and state legislatures even wider — the GOP would be helped just slightly in presidential elections.

Is Congress’s job to represent people, or just voters? Currently, all states are required to redraw their political boundaries based on the Census’s official count of total population every 10 years, which includes minors and noncitizen immigrants. But the Texas plaintiffs argue that states should be allowed to apportion seats based on where only U.S. citizens over 18 years of age live.

It seems like a minor detail, but it’s actually a major distinction. The decennial Census doesn’t track citizenship data, but the Census’s American Community Survey does. And although all 435 U.S. congressional districts have roughly equal total populations, the number of eligible voters and rates of actual participation can vary wildly from place to place.

For example, in Florida’s 11th District, home to the largely white retirement mecca of The Villages, 81 percent of all residents are adult citizens. But in California’s heavily Latino 34th District, anchored by downtown Los Angeles, only 41 percent of all residents are eligible to vote. The variations across districts in terms of actual turnout can be even more eye-popping. According to results compiled by Polidata for the Cook Political Report, Montana’s lone House district cast 483,932 votes for president in 2012, more than four times the tally in Texas’s 29th District, 114,901.

Via: FiveThirtyEightPolitics

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68th Terrorist Plot Calls for Major Counterterrorism Reforms

On the evening of May 3, two men armed with rifles attacked the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Texas. While both shooters were killed before they could get inside the exhibit, this attack is the 68th Islamist terrorist plot or attack against the U.S. since 9/11. This incident has raised significant questions about the way terrorists are being recruited in the U.S. and what the U.S. can do to stop them. With Congress set to debate portions of the Patriot Act, it should consider how it can provide intelligence and law enforcement officials with the tools they need to find and stop terrorists, while respecting individual liberty and privacy.

Attack in Texas

While the FBI has not completed its investigation of the incident, FBI Director James Comey provided details to reporters last week and the Garland police have provided updated information as well. The first shooter, Elton Simpson, had been watched by the FBI since 2006 when it appeared that he was going to travel overseas to join al-Shabaab, a terrorist group that is based in Somalia and affiliated with al-Qaeda.[1]While his travel plans were thwarted, he was only convicted of lying to federal officials and received three years probation in 2011. The FBI stopped monitoring him in 2014 but reopened their investigation in March after he expressed interest in jihad and the self-styled Islamic State (ISIS) on social media.[2]

Hours before the attack, the FBI sent a bulletin to Garland Police to notify them of Simpson, but they had no definitive information that he was headed from Phoenix to the event much less that he was set to attack it. So far, little is officially known about the other shooter. According to the Garland Police, he was Nadir Soofi, Simpson’s roommate.[3]

Arriving at the art contest in Garland, Simpson and Soofi opened fire with rifles, wounding one unarmed security officer in the leg.[4] The first officer to confront the shooters wounded both before other members of the Garland police department returned fire, killing the shooters. ISIS reportedly claimed credit following the attack and also claimed that it has “71 trained soldiers in 15 different states ready at our word to attack.”[5]

While the investigation will uncover more specifics, there is sufficient detail available to declare this a terrorist plot: Simpson had expressed interest in jihad and proceeded to attack an event that he viewed as contrary to his faith. The investigation may provide us more insight into Simpsons’ connection and communication with ISIS, how this target was chosen, and how Soofi became radicalized, but for now many of these details are unknown or unconfirmed by law enforcement.

Via: Heritage

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The Obama Administration Was Handed a Huge Immigration Defeat. Here’s Why It Matters.

COMMENTARY BY

Hans von Spakovsky@HvonSpakovsky

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Obama administration a huge defeat this week.

It denied the government’s request for an emergency stay of a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of President Obama’s immigration amnesty program. This is not a decision on the merits of the lawsuit filed against the administration by the 26 states. But it certainly does not bode well for the administration’s case since in today’s 2-1 decision, the 5th Circuit concluded that “the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction.”

The panel also denied the government’s request to narrow the nationwide scope of the injunction so that it only applied to Texas and the other states in the lawsuit.

The court concluded that “partial implementation of [the president’s program] would undermine the constitutional imperative of ‘a uniform Rule of Naturalization’” contained in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, as well as “Congress’s instruction that ‘the immigration laws of the United States should be enforced vigorously and uniformly’” that is outlined in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

The 68-page opinion was written by Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, who was joined by Jennifer Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee.

The dissenting judge, Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee, argued that the underlying immigration issue is one that can only be decided “by the federal political branches” and is not an appropriate issue for “intervention and judicial fiat” by the courts.

Next up in the 5th Circuit will be the main event: Oral arguments over the substantive issue at stake, which is the constitutional and statutory merit of the injunction issued against President Obama’s plan to, in essence, legalize up to 5 million illegal aliens.

Via: Daily Signal

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Texas Now Produces More Natural Gas Than All Of OPEC

Everything is bigger in Texas, especially natural gas production. The Lone Star State alone produces more natural gas than every country in the world, except Russia, and that includes every member state of OPEC.

The American Petroleum Institute has released a graphic showing that Texas produces 18.81 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, well above any member of OPEC. The graphic is meant to show how hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling into shale formations has made the U.S. the world’s top oil and gas producer.

Source: The American Petroleum Institute

“This is what energy security looks like,” Tracee Bentley, head of the Colorado Petroleum Council, said of the graphic. “Thanks to innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, Colorado now outpaces seven of 12 OPEC nations in natural gas production.”

Individual U.S. states now produce so much natural gas, they outrank whole countries when it comes to daily production. Iran, the largest OPEC gas producer, only produces 15.43 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Qatar, OPEC’s number two gas producer, produces 15.09 billion barrels per day.

Via: California Political Review

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