Tag: texas

Keith Self Pushes FAITH Act to Block ‘Sharia Tax’ on Non-Muslims

Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, introduced legislation Monday that would prohibit the imposition of religiously based financial penalties, a measure he says is aimed at preventing Sharia-inspired practices such as taxing non-Muslims.

The Freedom Against Imposed Theology Harms (FAITH) Act would establish a nationwide ban on fees, fines, penalties, or other financial burdens imposed on individuals because of their religious beliefs—or their refusal to participate in another religion’s practices.

“This legislation sends an unmistakable message,” Self said in a press release. “Religious freedom means freedom from religious coercion—financial or otherwise.”

“The FAITH Act draws a firm constitutional line: No American should ever pay a de facto religious tax or face financial penalties for their beliefs,” he added. “We must make America Sharia-free and protect the First Amendment for everyone.”

The bill would classify such conduct as a predicate offense under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, expanding prosecutors’ authority to pursue organized efforts to impose religiously based financial demands.

Self said the legislation is intended to address concerns about attempts to enforce Sharia-influenced financial practices in the United States. The bill would apply to both governmental and non-governmental actors, while preserving the right of religious and educational institutions to seek voluntary contributions from their own members for internal purposes.

Self cited the Islamic concept of jizya, a historical tax imposed on non-Muslims under Sharia-based governance, as an example of a practice he views as incompatible with U.S. constitutional principles. Although jizya is not imposed under American law, supporters of the FAITH Act argue that informal financial pressures modeled on Sharia principles pose a growing concern.

“While formal jizya is not imposed by U.S. law, we are seeing growing attempts to establish Sharia-adherent enclaves, parallel financial systems, and community coercion in parts of America—including right here in Texas,” Self said.

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Texas Judge Imposes Media Blackout on Karmelo Anthony Murder Trial: Only 9 Reporters Allowed, No Cameras, No Livestreams — Family Spokesperson Previously Called Case a ‘Fight Against White Supremacy’

Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. has issued sweeping new restrictions on media coverage for the upcoming murder trial of Karmelo Anthony, the teenager charged with fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a high school track meet last year.

The order, signed Friday in the 296th District Court, severely limits press access and bans all recording devices.

Citing the intense public interest and the precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sheppard v. Maxwell, Judge Roach claimed that excessive media coverage could prejudice the trial.

Under the new rules, which go into effect for the trial scheduled to begin June 1:

  • The courtroom opens at 8:30 a.m. with staggered entry: credentialed media at 8:30 a.m., victims’ and defendant’s families at 8:40 a.m., and the general public at 8:50 a.m. Doors close at 9:00 a.m. with no re-entry until recess.
  • Only nine credentialed media members are permitted inside the courtroom at any time. The Collin County Public Information Office will manage all credentials and seating.
  • No photography, video, audio recording, livestreaming, or any visual/audio capture is allowed by media or the public.
  • No images or recordings of witnesses, prospective jurors, or jurors may be published.
  • Media interviews with trial participants are prohibited inside the courtroom and can only occur after the trial ends.
  • Strict decorum is required — no reactions, outbursts, talking, signs, or gestures.
  • All attendees must clear security screening.
  • Trial exhibits will not be released until after the verdict.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office will enforce the order, with violations potentially resulting in removal, loss of credentials, or contempt charges.

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Disgraced Former Democrat Mayor and Pride Leader ARRESTED AGAIN in Texas on New Child Sex Crime Charges – Three More Victims Step Forward After Initial Grooming Scandal

Former Gettysburg Borough Mayor Chad-Alan Carr, a Democrat who proudly led the local LGBTQ Pride organization, has been arrested AGAIN in Texas on horrifying new child sex crime charges.

As The Gateway Pundit reported back in March, this radical left-wing activist abruptly resigned as mayor after less than three months in office, citing some vague “personal legal matter.”

Days later, Pennsylvania authorities arrested him on initial felony charges for allegedly grooming and sexually exploiting a minor he met through his community theater work.

Carr, who also served as president of Gettysburg Pride, was the face of pushing LGBTQ events in the historic Pennsylvania town.

According to court documents, Carr allegedly groomed a 16-year-old boy he met through high school musical productions in Gettysburg around 2011-2013.

The victim, now an adult, reported that Carr solicited explicit photos, engaged in video sex acts via Skype, and shared his own nude images while pressuring the teen for more.

Carr reportedly described the interactions as “late-night talks.”

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Embattled Rep Tony Gonzales announces plans to resign amid sexual misconduct allegations

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, abruptly announced his decision to resign from Congress Monday evening amid calls for him to step aside after admitting to sexual misconduct with a staffer earlier this year.

The embattled lawmaker is facing an anticipated expulsion vote that could occur as early as this week. 

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office,” Gonzales wrote on social media. “It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas.”

It is currently unclear when Gonzales will formally resign. A spokesperson for Gonzales did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gonzales has come under bipartisan pressure to immediately step aside or face expulsion following his acknowledgment of an affair with his former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later died by setting herself on fire.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., has vowed to move forward with her expulsion resolution if Gonzales does not quickly resign.

“He has until 2PM tomorrow—when we will file his expulsion. He better write that resignation “effective immediately,” Leger Fernandez wrote on social media.

He first admitted to an affair with Santos-Aviles during a radio interview in March after repeatedly denying the existence of a sexual relationship.

“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” Gonzales told conservative radio host Joe Pags during the interview. “Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife, Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.” 

Gonzales, who is married and has six children, has not acknowledged a second accusation of sexual misconduct with a former aide reported by The San Antonio-Express News.

Lawmakers are prohibited from engaging in sexual relationships with staffers, per House rules. 

His announcement came just an hour after Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said he planned to resign from the lower chamber amid serious allegations of sexual misconduct and rape. The California Democrat has not specified the particular day he plans to leave office.

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Faith Facade: Democrat Talarico Targets Texas Believers

In the wake of President Trump’s decisive second-term victory, the Democratic Party finds itself in full retreat mode. The old playbook, full of shoving Woke extremism, drag queen story hours, and open borders down America’s throat, backfired spectacularly.

So now they’re trying a new tactic: pretending to be one of us. No more rainbow flags and “defund the police” chants in public.

Instead, they’re courting centrists, independents, and – most brazenly – the very heart of the MAGA base: churchgoing white Christians, Baptists, Evangelicals, and everyday folks who still believe in the God of the Bible.

Nowhere is this deception more obvious than in the 2026 Texas U.S. Senate race. Texas hasn’t sent a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, yet the party is all-in on James Talarico, their freshly minted nominee for the Class II seat currently held by Sen. John Cornyn.

Talarico, a 36-year-old state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, is being sold as a “man of deep faith” – a Lord-begging, Scripture-quoting Texan who supposedly shares the values of Sunday-morning pew-sitters across the Lone Star State. Don’t buy it. This is classic wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing territory, straight out of Matthew 7:15.

Talarico doesn’t hide his church membership. He’s been at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin since he was a toddler, and he frames every policy through a distorted Christian lens.

“Love thy neighbor” becomes his justification for open borders and taxpayer-funded abortion. He preaches that Jesus was a “feminist” and twists the Annunciation story to claim Mary’s consent somehow endorses abortion rights.

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Texas Democrat James Talarico Said Having Police in Schools Fuels ‘Culture of Violence’ in Newly Resurfaced Audio

We haven’t heard much lately from James Talarico, the Texas Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat in November. Perhaps he has been trying to keep a low profile. Every time this guy turns around, a bizarre new video or audio clip of him surfaces somewhere highlighting his utterly bonkers view of Christianity.

Now there is another one.

In this case, Talarico says that having police in schools fuels a culture of violence. This goes directly to the idiotic Democrat idea of defunding the police.

Also, why would anyone object to having more police in schools? It could save lives.

FOX News has details:

Rising Dem Talarico denies anti-cop label after ‘culture of violence’ comments exposed

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is pushing back on the idea that he supports defunding the police, calling it a “flat-out lie.”

Republicans are confronting Talarico with resurfaced comments from a 2019 episode of the Trey Blocker Show, in which he suggests that a heavy police presence in schools without sufficient mental health professionals contributes to a “culture of violence.”

Democrats believe they have a shot at flipping the critical Senate seat blue for the first time in decades. But the GOP hopes to defend its Senate majority by highlighting Talarico’s more controversial stances to undermine his moderate appeal.

The latest to be unearthed is from the 2019 interview, in which Talarico decried plans to increase police officer presence in schools without also placing more emphasis on mental health.

“We’re all concerned about school safety and recent school shootings, and that concern, in some ways, has been channeled unproductively toward militarizing schools and toward kind of leaning into a culture of violence and adding more law enforcement officials into campuses,” he posited.

As a solution, Talarico, a former middle school teacher, touted the first bill he introduced as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, which would have mandated a set ratio of mental health workers for every police officer placed in a school.

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Convicted Democrat Voter Fraudster Who Pleaded Guilty on 106 Felony Charges Now Running Again for Mayor in Texas

A man who was convicted on 106 felony counts of voter fraud after he tried to rig a mayoral race with forged mail-in ballots is back on the ballot, running for mayor again in Carrollton, Texas.

Back in October 2020, The Gateway Pundit reported that Texas Democrat mayoral candidate Zul Mirza Mohamed (D) was arrested and charged with 109 felony counts in a brazen mail-in ballot fraud scheme while running for mayor of Carrollton

Zul Mohamed forged absentee ballot request applications for unsuspecting Carrollton residents and had the ballots sent to a fake “nursing home” address that was actually a P.O. Box he rented at a Lewisville mail store.

He did it using a fictitious Texas driver’s license and a fake University of North Texas student ID. When authorities searched his home, they found a fake insurance ID, a fake notary stamp, and a box full of Dallas and Denton County ballot applications.

He was originally hit with 25 counts of Unlawful Possession of Ballot/Ballot Envelope w/o Request of Voter (second-degree felonies) and 84 counts of Fraudulent Use of Mail Ballot Application (third-degree felonies). Three counts were later dropped.

Fast forward to December 2024, Mohamed pleaded guilty to 106 felony charges, 25 counts of the method of returning ballot and 81 counts of fraudulent use of an application for ballot by mail. A Denton County jury sentenced him to four years in prison and 10 years of probation.

He appealed the conviction, served just one month behind bars, and was released on bond.

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Texas Judge Pauses New Rules Banning Hemp Products Like Smokable THCA Flower Amid Legal Challenge From Industry

A Texas judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of new state rules restricting access to hemp-derived products such as smokable THCA flower.

The ruling on Friday comes in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of hemp industry leaders and advocacy organizations that claim the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) illegally bypassed lawmakers to effectively ban the sale and manufacture of certain consumable hemp products.

The order from District Court of Travis County Judge Guerra Gamble pauses the new hemp product restrictions for 14 days while the broader legal dispute is considered.

“This lawsuit is really based on a constitutional separation powers issue,” Jason Snell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, including the Texas Hemp Business Council (THBC) and Hemp Industry & Farmers of America (HIFA), said during a hearing on Friday, characterizing the new restrictions enacted by regulators as “illegal rules.”

“Here we are today, with the regulators attempting to do what the legislators could not and did not do, and that’s illegal,” he said. “What the legislature refuses to enact cannot be imposed through rulemaking. The rule-makers cannot overstep their authority and enact rules that are more restrictive than what the legislators have enacted.”

“Thousands of people lose their products, their lifetime investments, their businesses, their jobs, everything they poured their heart and soul into,” Snell said. “Those are already going away and could be gone forever unless this illegal regulatory framework is stopped.”

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Latin Grammy winner-turned-politician who performed with PEDOPHILE for years is seen on camera admitting he knows his bandmate is a ‘bad man’

A Latin Grammy Award winner running as a Democrat for Congress who claimed he had no knowledge of his pedophile bandmate’s criminal past was captured on video referring to him as a ‘bad man.’ 

Bobby Pulido, known for Tejano hits such as Desvelado, is vying to flip Texas‘s 15th congressional district, which runs just east of San Antonio down to the border with Mexico.

Pulido has been facing controversy since the New York Post revealed last week that he toured with a bandmate named Frankie Caballero, 62, who was sentenced to four years in prison for indecent contact with an eight-year-old girl in 2014.

Caballero was ordered by the court to be registered on the Texas Public Sex Offender Website for life following his conviction.

Pulido’s campaign manager, Abel Prado, previously told the Daily Mail: ‘Bobby was never made aware of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that kind of history.’

But video of a 2018 performance in Arizona, after Caballero’s conviction and prison sentence, shows Pulido introducing Caballero on stage by saying: ‘When I was starting, I was like, “that guy’s a bad man,” and so I brought him over.’

Caballero was the accordionist in Pulido’s 1995 breakout hit Desvelado, which was recorded nearly 20 years before his child sex offense conviction.

But he was also previously charged with aggravated sexual assault against a child in 1992, according to Hidalgo County jail records. He was issued a $75,000 bond, but the outcome of the case was not listed in the records. 

Pulido’s campaign manager told the Daily Mail in a statement: ‘Watch the full video and it’s clear what he meant – turning a comment about a musician being “bad” into something more is not serious.

‘These fake, exaggerated connect-the-dots stories are politically motivated attempts to discredit a candidate. 

‘As stated before, Bobby had no knowledge of Caballero’s sex offender registration and would never knowingly associate with anyone with that history.’ 

Pulido and Caballero performed together in at least six cities between 2018 and 2021 after the pedophile’s release from prison.  

Caballero also has an extensive criminal history, which includes 13 charges ranging from cocaine possession to transportation of an unlawful alien from Mexico into the US and domestic violence.

The possession charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal in 2009 which saw him plead guilty to transportation of an alien. He was sentenced to 27 months in that case.

In 2020, Caballero was arrested for strangling a family member named Nancy Caballero and was released on a $2,000 bond. 

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A Jury Approves Damages After 2 Texas Cops Snatched a Supposedly ‘Abandoned’ Girl From Her Home

More than seven years after two Texas cops kidnapped a teenaged girl they falsely claimed had been “abandoned,” a federal jury has concluded that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights by unreasonably seizing her from her home. In a verdict delivered last week, the jurors said that seizure also violated her parents’ due process rights under the 14th Amendment. And they agreed that one of the officers had violated the Fourth Amendment by searching the family’s kitchen without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances. In the second phase of the trial, the jurors approved $175,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages.

The verdict validates constitutional claims that Megan and Adam McMurry made in a  federal lawsuit they filed in October 2020, two years after Officers Alexandra Weaver and Kevin Brunner, both of whom worked for the Midland Independent School District, visited their apartment and left with their daughter, Jade, then 14. That intervention, the jury concluded, was not justified in the circumstances, since Jade was not in any danger. The verdict “was vindicating after having our lives turned upside down and trampled through for the past seven and a half years,” Megan McMurry told KMID, the ABC affiliate in Midland.

The bizarre episode at the center of the case happened when Adam McMurry, then a member of the National Guard, was deployed to the Middle East, and Megan McMurry, a special education teacher at Abell Junior High School in Midland, was in Kuwait looking into a job that would have allowed the family to live near him. Megan McMurry had alerted her colleagues to her trip and had asked two neighbors, Vanessa and Gabe Vallejos, to keep an eye on Jade and her brother, Connor, then 12, who was a student at the school where McMurry worked.

On October 26, 2018, the guidance counselor who was supposed to take Connor to school was ill, so she texted Weaver, who lived in the neighborhood, asking if she could give Connor a ride. Although another Abell employee ended up bringing Connor to school, Weaver’s involvement did not end there.

Weaver was convinced that Jade had been “abandoned” and was in urgent need of a “welfare check.” Brunner, her supervisor, agreed, which is how they both ended up at the McMurrys’ apartment that morning.

Jade, who was homeschooled and in the midst of her online studies, did not understand what the cops were doing there. But within a minute, they had decided she needed to be rescued.

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