Texas

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28425809

Texas sued the Biden administration in an effort to block a new rule that seeks to protect the privacy of women living in states that ban abortion who travel out of state for the procedure.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, opens new tab in Lubbock, Texas, the state is asking a federal judge to strike down the rule, which prohibits healthcare providers and insurers from giving state law enforcement authorities information about reproductive healthcare that is legal where it was provided.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said in announcing the rule in April that no one should have their medical records "used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19456280

Texas Gov. Spent $221 Million on Migrant Busing 'Political Stunt'

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28269337

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19412621

Paxton said he'd sue Harris and Bexar counties if they sent voter registration forms to "unverified recipients".

I wonder why Paxton doesn't want Harris county to vote.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28144160

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19340554

The shooter is a sovereign citizen.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/21655258

Attack on free speech by the free speech guy.

Allred’s sharp divergence from Beto O’Rourke’s more active campaign style has stirred dissent among some Democrats. His allies say it’s working.

Six years after Beto O'Rourke’s electrifying Senate campaign set the standard for Texas Democrats seeking statewide office, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred is taking a completely different approach in his own bid to oust U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Allred, a third-term Dallas congressman, has been far less visible on the campaign trail, opting for events with smaller and more curated audiences in the major cities and select suburbs, rather than the casual town hall-style rallies O'Rourke held in every corner of the state. And instead of O’Rourke’s unapologetic liberal stands which activated legions of young voters, Allred has adopted a more calibrated message aimed at winning over moderates. He’s running ads that portray him as "tough" on the border and willing to work across the aisle, while keeping his distance from his party's standard-bearers, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Allred's sharp divergence from O'Rourke's more active and freewheeling style has stirred dissent and even signs of panic among a segment of Texas Democratic activists who say Allred should be holding more rallies, small-dollar fundraisers and other publicly accessible events. The more buttoned-up approach, they argue, is unlikely to inspire the sort of grassroots energy that helped O'Rourke build a juggernaut volunteer turnout operation and come within three points of ending Texas Democrats’ statewide drought

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27939300

A Texas man who spent 34 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of aggravated assault was exonerated Thursday by a Dallas County judge who ruled that he is actually innocent.

The judge approved a motion by the Dallas County District Attorney’s office to dismiss the case against Benjamin Spencer, 59, who was initially convicted in 1987 of murder in the carjacking and death of Jeffrey Young.

“This day has been a long time coming. I am relieved and humbled to help correct this injustice,” said Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot.

Spencer, who has maintained his innocence, saw his 1987 conviction later overturned. He was then tried again and convicted and sentenced to life in prison for aggravated robbery of Young.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/40984682

Robert Morris, who founded and led Gateway Church for nearly 25 years in the affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Texas, resigned after the scandal came to light in June. His exit sent thousands of evangelicals into a season of struggle that has lasted months.

Last week, a pastor who oversaw all of Gateway’s campuses departed amid an undisclosed “moral issue,” becoming the latest in a series of changes for the church: The cancellation of its annual conference. The departure of Morris’ successor. The renaming of its Houston campus and an exodus of worshippers.

At each weekend service, worshippers continue to face reminders of the scandal, with interim or guest pastors kicking off their sermons saying “I’m sorry,” talking about grief or finding hope in difficult times. They’ve noticed people who have sat and prayed around them for years are once again not showing up for service.

The church has seen a decrease of 17% to 19% in weekend services attendance, a church spokesperson told CNN.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/40733977

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/HIGC0

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19135866

The Texas attorney general is cracking down on Democrats in a supposed crusade to root out “voter fraud.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s crusade against supposed voter fraud appears to be targeting the state’s Democrats. 

Last week, Paxton’s office announced raids and undercover actions against organizations in Texas it accuses of illegally registering noncitizens to vote. In practice, though, the raids have taken place against members of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., as well as several prominent Democrats in south Texas.  

According to LULAC officials, the group’s members had their cell phones and laptops confiscated by law enforcement officials carrying out search warrants.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19105714

In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.

Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240827115133/https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/15725184

By Lil Kalish

Emily Bray was supposed to be celebrating on Tuesday morning. After years of trying to change her name and gender marker, the 27-year-old YouTuber received an official court order from a Texas judge that she was at last, in the eyes of the state, the woman she had long known herself to be.

But that elation was short-lived.

An hour later, she logged onto the private Facebook group where she and other trans Texans discussed the bureaucracy of changing one’s name and gender in a state that is becoming increasingly hostile to trans people. One person shared that they had gone into the Department of Public Safety to update their driver’s license that day and learned that the agency had issued a new policy, barring the use of court orders or birth certificates to change one’s listed sex.

“There’s no other way to describe it than a gut punch,” Bray told HuffPost.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18901880

A Texas mother was taken into custody Tuesday after police alleged her 22-month-old child died when she left the infant in a car outside a Corpus Christi school on one of the hottest days of the year.

The mother, 33-year-old Hilda Ann Adame, was jailed on charges of causing serious bodily injury to a child and child endangerment/abandonment with imminent bodily injury, according to a Corpus Christi Police Department incident report.

It was not clear how long the infant had been in the car before the baby was found unresponsive, according to the incident report.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18928637

These are just polls, so vote!

Hopefully these trends will inspire people in states that have been consistently red that a flip this election is possible!

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-summer-heat-power-grid-solar-batteries/

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/24218249

In response to questions about why A&M discontinued the medical care, a university spokesperson said its growing student population and the resulting strain on the A.P. Beutel Health Center require officials to continuously review the services they offer and how they use the center’s resources. The spokesperson noted that the university has invested more in mental health care following a national rise in college students seeking it out.

Transgender and queer students are skeptical of that explanation and believe the university acted in response to pressure from conservative groups. They say the move shows the university is not willing to support them equally.

“It just seems that they don't take the same level of care to address concerns of the queer community as they would other communities,” Klatt said.

Students saw the move as part of a political environment that has become increasingly hostile against LGBTQ+ people in Texas. And it comes as the state’s public universities face top-down pressure to appease Republican leaders — or risk incurring their wrath during next year’s legislative session.

Don't you just love that "small government?" FFS, y'all. Please vote like people's futures depend upon it.