July 30, 2021

Homeless Solutions for Boulder County backtracks on six-month residency requirement

Homeless Solutions for Boulder County intends to revoke its policy requiring that people live in the county for six months in order to obtain shelter services and other aid for those experiencing homelessness.

Although officials said the decision was made in a June executive board meeting, it was shared with the Camera Thursday, hours after the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado penned a letter to Boulder officials arguing the city’s treatment of its unhoused residents is inhumane and unconstitutional.

The six-month residency requirement, implemented in January 2020, was not repealed due to the legal concerns raised in the ACLU’s letter, Housing and Human Services Director Kurt Firnhaber said.

“This decision was based on what we think is best for the people that we’re trying to serve,” he said.

Read more: https://www.dailycamera.com/2021/07/29/aclu-argues-boulders-treatment-of-unhoused-is-unconstitutional/
(Boulder Daily Camera)

July 30, 2021

20 migrants found inside train near Hebbronville

The U.S. Border Patrol Laredo Sector announced on Tuesday that 20 migrants were found inside a train near Hebbronville.

The USBP stated that agents found the people on a Kansas City Southern train on Monday morning.

The USBP reported that around 1 a.m. the KCS train was inspected by agents.

Upon examination, agents discovered two subjects hiding in the engine and broken security seals on stacked containers. The USBP stated that people were also found inside the containers.

Read more: https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/20-migrants-found-inside-train-near-Hebbronville-16344125.php
(Laredo Morning Times)

July 30, 2021

Space city: Musk's employees converge on Brownsville

Brownsville has become increasingly thick with SpaceX employees in recent days as the company races toward the biggest launch event so far at its Boca Chica production and test site, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has dubbed “Starbase.”

Hotels report being full and restaurants busy with the sudden spike in arrivals as the company moves quickly to conduct the first orbital flight of a Starship prototype, employing its Super Heavy booster to achieve orbit. SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said in June that the company was shooting for a July launch, a window that’s about to close, leaving August a likelier target.

SpaceX just finished stacking a 440-foot orbital tower at Boca Chica that will be used for attaching the 160-foot Starship to the top of the 230-foot Super Heavy, launching the resulting 400-foot-tall vehicle and catching boosters on their way down.

“Congrats SpaceX tower team & supporting contractors!” Musk tweeted on June 28.

Read more: https://myrgv.com/local-news/2021/07/29/space-city-musks-employees-converge-on-brownsville/

July 30, 2021

Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee arrested in D.C. voting rights protest

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism and accolades alike, three Texas Democrats took center stage Thursday during a congressional hearing on voting rights with their national call to action to stop Republican efforts to pass further restrictions.

The hearing put an even brighter spotlight on the battle that drove dozens of Democratic state legislators to flee Austin to Washington, where they want Congress to pass federal voting legislation.

In a demonstration of Democrats’ determination, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston was arrested later Thursday outside of the Hart Senate Office Building after leading a march of Black voting rights activists to protest the Senate’s nonaction on the For the People Act.

Jackson Lee and other protestors launched into songs and chants as they were escorted into police vans. Several others were arrested with the congresswoman, but it was not immediately known who or how many.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/07/29/texas-lawmakers-who-fled-austin-blasted-by-gop-for-cutting-and-running-from-legislative-duties/

July 30, 2021

Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee arrested in D.C. voting rights protest

Source: Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism and accolades alike, three Texas Democrats took center stage Thursday during a congressional hearing on voting rights with their national call to action to stop Republican efforts to pass further restrictions.

The hearing put an even brighter spotlight on the battle that drove dozens of Democratic state legislators to flee Austin to Washington, where they want Congress to pass federal voting legislation.

In a demonstration of Democrats’ determination, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston was arrested later Thursday outside of the Hart Senate Office Building after leading a march of Black voting rights activists to protest the Senate’s nonaction on the For the People Act.

Jackson Lee and other protestors launched into songs and chants as they were escorted into police vans. Several others were arrested with the congresswoman, but it was not immediately known who or how many.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/07/29/texas-lawmakers-who-fled-austin-blasted-by-gop-for-cutting-and-running-from-legislative-duties/

July 30, 2021

Texas House Democrats spar with congressional Republicans over their protest of the voting bill

Source: Texas Tribune

Texas Republicans in Congress took on Texas House Democrats Thursday in a tense, four-hour congressional subcommittee meeting that drilled into the technicalities of voter restriction bills sitting in limbo back in Austin and at times erupted into angry accusations.

U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, a freshman Republican from Sherman, was particularly fired up. At one point he accused Democratic State Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth of calling her Republican colleagues racist.

She hadn’t said her colleagues were racist, Collier said. “They’re uninformed.”

Collier was one of three Texas House Democrats who testified before the civil rights and civil liberties subcommittee. She and colleagues Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Diego Bernal of San Antonio took questions from Democratic and Republican members alike — explaining and defending their decision to flee to the nation’s capital and put the Texas Legislature’s special session on hold.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/29/texas-democrats-congressional-hearing/

July 29, 2021

Federal judge tosses lawsuit that sought to end UT-Austin's affirmative action policy

The judge found that the group behind the suit had essentially brought the same claims in a previous case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the University of Texas at Austin’s policy.

by Allyson Waller, Texas Tribune


A national organization’s latest attempt to sue the University of Texas at Austin over its admissions policy that the group claims “improperly considers race” has been tossed out of a federal court, with the judge ruling the group cannot bring back its case against the university.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two white students who applied to UT-Austin’s 2018 and 2019 freshman classes, accused the university of discriminating and denying applicants admission based on race. This is not the first time the group, Students for Fair Admissions, has brought forth a civil suit targeting UT-Austin’s affirmative action policy, with previous attempts also proving unsuccessful.

In the ruling, which was signed Monday by federal Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas, the court states that plaintiffs brought similar arguments that were already made in a prior case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice. In those cases, the courts upheld UT-Austin’s admissions policies.

“The alleged changes that [Students for Fair Admissions] brings forward about UT’s admissions program do not rise to the level of being ‘significant’ such that they ‘create ‘new legal conditions,’ that would allow for relitigation of these claims,” Pitman wrote.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/27/ut-austin-affirmative-action/

July 29, 2021

Texas Democrats in Washington, D.C., to meet with Stacey Abrams and the Clintons

by Farah Eltohamy, Texas Tribune


Texas House Democrats will meet virtually Thursday morning with voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in their latest series of bids with the nation’s most powerful Democratic leaders.

More than two weeks into their stay in Washington, Texas Democrats have met with a handful of top Democrats — including Vice President Kamala Harris, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and civil rights activist Martin Luther King III. But the Democrats have yet to nab a sit-down with President Joe Biden.

The Texas House Democratic Caucus also confirmed a virtual meeting with U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

Time is running out for Texas Democrats, who have been calling on Congress to pass voting legislation that would preempt efforts to restrict voting access like the one being pushed by GOP officials at home. Yet Congress remains unmoved, thanks to an ongoing filibuster that has brought the For the People Act, a nearly 900-page voting reform bill, to a halt.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/29/texas-democrats-stacey-abrams-hillary-bill-clinton-voting/

July 29, 2021

State orders Las Cruces store to stop 'gifting' cannabis

In what could end up being the first test case of illicit cannabis operations in a post-legalization New Mexico, a business “gifting” cannabis has caught the attention of state regulators.

According to KVIA-TV, the state’s Cannabis Control Division sent a cease and desist letter to a Las Cruces business called Speak Easy after it was discovered that the business was giving away cannabis with the purchase of a sticker.

In the letter, the Cannabis Control Division concluded that the price of said stickers matched the value of the cannabis being gifted and therefore is illegal.

“Additional media stories have been published by other media outlets in the Las Cruces, New Mexico, area likewise recounting the ‘gifting’ of cannabis products by Speak Easy to involve a purchase being made by a customer and the quantity of the ’gift’ of cannabis products provided by Speak Easy being tied to the dollar value of the purchase made by the customer,” the letter stated.

Read more: https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2021/07/27/state-orders-las-cruces-to-stop-gifting-cannabis/

July 29, 2021

The Jefferson Davis Monument - Knock it down, or do something else?

The Jefferson Davis Monument in Fairview, Kentucky (photo by Bartleby92, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

In western Kentucky stands the tallest unreinforced concrete structure in the world, built as a tribute to a traitor. What should we do about it?


In the Western Kentucky town of Fairview stands a majestic pyramid-topped obelisk, constructed on a foundation of solid Kentucky limestone and reaching 351 feet above the ground. It is the fifth-tallest such structure in the United States, and the tallest unreinforced concrete structure in the world.

It is also a monument that pays tribute to a traitor who turned his back on his nation and participated in the death of 620,000 of his countrymen in our nation’s bloodiest conflict.

We’re talking, of course, about Jefferson Davis, the Kentucky-born President of the Confederate States of America.

When I was a student at Western Kentucky University, I took odd pride as I drove past the towering structure on U.S. 68 through Fairview and on to Bowling Green, the so-called Confederate Capital of Kentucky. As a young white man, I viewed the monument as a historical piece of work that brought some attention to Kentucky as the birthplace of Davis. I never paused to think how Black people might feel at seeing such an ostentatious memorial built on the birth site of a man who sought to keep their great-great-grandfather enslaved. To me, at that time, it all seemed like ancient history — blood under the bridge.

Read more: https://forwardky.com/the-jefferson-davis-monument-knock-it-down-or-do-something-else/