Good morning, 

This is the Texas Minute for Thursday, August 8, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas Rancher Sues Biden Administration

• South Texas rancher Michael Vickers is spearheading a lawsuit against the Biden-Harris administration for damages his ranch sustained as a result of their open border policies. Will Biagini reports the ranch is just 70 miles north of the border.
       
• According to the lawsuit, the Biden administration’s non-enforcement of immigration laws and parole policies have resulted in large numbers of illegal aliens crossing through the county, destroying Vickers’ ranch in the process. He has incurred more than $50,000 in gate and fence damages alone and spent thousands more to prevent further environmental destruction.
      
• Vickers is forced to always be armed with a rifle and pistol in order to feel safe on his own land and says his dogs have caught hundreds of criminal trespassers.
      
• He is joined in the lawsuit by Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe. During fiscal year 2022 alone, Kinney County incurred thousands of dollars in expenditures for increasing crimes committed by illegal aliens.
            
• “These unlawful policies have not only harmed Kinney County and its residents but threaten the safety and security of our community.” – Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith

Border Security Advocates Criticize Kamala Harris’ Record

• While the establishment media has attempted to bury Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on the border, Holly Tkach reports border security advocates are not letting the issue fade into the background.
       
• According to the Center for Immigration Studies, more than 11 million illegal aliens have entered the United States since Harris took office with President Joe Biden.
       
• Among Biden's earliest actions was to name Harris the administration's "border czar." Under her tenure, the advocates say the problem has grown exponentially. Hit hardest are local communities facing higher crime and homelessness, while dealing with costs associated with education and health care.

RELATED NEWS

• Those include: 1) educate Texans on the dangers of travel to Mexico; 2) require state officials to search all shipments crossing the border from Mexico; 3) impose a 6 percent border inspection fee for any transfers across the border; and 4) ban illegal aliens from transferring cash to Mexico and other nations.

Blain on Bail Bond Boards

Kim Ogg Joins ‘Democrats for Cruz’ Coalition

• Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has become the latest Democrat to cross over and endorse Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for re-election. Brandon Waltens has the story.
   
• In a recent interview, Ogg expressed concerns over the rise in violent crimes committed by illegal aliens, including the brutal murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray.
   
• Ogg was defeated in the Democrat primary by George Soros-backed challenger Sean Teare in March.
      
• “We’ve had a number of murders committed by undocumented illegal aliens, and as a law enforcement official, the top one in the third biggest county in the country, it’s really important to stop the violence.” – Kim Ogg

School Security Guard Accused of Abusing Child

• A security guard who worked at an elementary school in Carlisle Independent School District is in jail, accused of a sex crime involving a child. Erin Anderson has the details.
   
• There is no indication Keith Russell McFarland's arrest is connected to a student at the school, but that is not reassuring parents in the community. In 2022, a Carlisle Junior High principal was arrested for failing to report an alleged assault of a student by another student. He was allowed to keep his job.
     
• School officials stress the security guard was not a direct employee of the district but rather had been hired through "another agency."
      
• Parent advocate Rachel Hale said that schools hiring people who abuse children has become “an epidemic, not just across the state but across the nation.”

Grand Prairie ISD Limits Student Cell Phone Use in Class

• Grand Prairie ISD is the latest to crack down on student cell phone use during class. Debra McClure reports students in the district's two high schools will be given a special pouch in which to keep their phones locked during the day.
       
• Students keep the pouch with them and can unlock it at the end of the school day. 
       
• GPISD claims "90 percent of GPISD staff support" the new program.

Quote-Unquote

"Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the State of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted—sometimes with guns—by an estimated eighty percent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880s, when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard."

– John Taylor Gatto​

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