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– Michael Quinn Sullivan 
Thursday, October 9, 2025

Abbott Cracks Down on Political Messages on Texas Streets

• Gov. Greg Abbott is directing the Texas Department of Transportation to ensure cities and counties comply with federal and state roadway safety guidelines, targeting street markings such as the LGBT-promoting rainbow-colored crosswalks found in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. Brandon Waltens has the details.
      
• Under Abbott’s order, TxDOT will enforce compliance with federal roadway standards that prohibit surface markings, signage, and symbols that “do not directly support traffic control or safety.” That includes “symbols, flags, or other markings conveying social, political, or ideological messages.”
      
• Cities that refuse to comply could face significant penalties, Abbott warned, including denial of state and federal road funding.
       
• In launching the “SAFE ROADS” initiative back in July, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy urged states to remove “political messages of any nature” from intersections and crosswalks, calling such markings “distractions” that detract from roadway safety.

DEI Advocates Placed on A&M's Presidential Search Committee

• Earlier this week, Texas A&M System Chancellor Glenn Hegar announced the formation of a committee tasked with finding a president for the College Station flagship campus. As Robert Montoya reports, several committee members have been proponents of the left-wing "diversity, equity, inclusion" agenda that has now derailed two A&M presidents.
        
• Among the members of the search committee are: Nate Sharp, dean of the Mays Business School; Trev Alberts, director of athletics; and the former speaker of the Texas A&M faculty senate, Andrew Klein. When first applying for a job at Texas A&M, Sharp wrote of his “unwavering commitment” to DEI. He also expressed his willingness, if hired, to push ESG (environmental, social, and governance investment activism favored by the left).
        
• Alberts was hired by former A&M president and DEI proponent Mark Welsh in 2024. He served on the "Athletics Inclusion Council" at the University of Nebraska, but left the institution when voters elected a Republican governor who campaigned against leftist indoctrination in higher education. (Welsh, of course, had built his military and academic career around promoting DEI.)
        
• Klein, meanwhile, opposed the university governance reforms enacted by the legislature this year.

UT-Austin Requires ‘Anti-Racism’ Training for Social Work Majors

• All students at the University of Texas at Austin who major in the field of social work are required to complete “anti-racism” training as part of their introductory coursework. Adam Cahn reports the program is rife with leftwing indoctrination.
   
• Students at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work are required to take Foundations of Social Justice. In it, students must demonstrate a “competency” to “[e]ngage Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI) in Practice.” They are also required to demonstrate how they apply the concepts to their personal lives.
       
• UT-Austin recently told Texas Scorecard that they were conducting “an audit to assess the classes we teach and our overall curriculum.”

Redistricting Trial Day

State Witnesses Challenge Claims of Racial Bias

• Under cross-examination by Democrat-aligned Plaintiffs, witnesses called by the State affirmed that the newly adopted congressional map was driven by partisan factors, not racial ones. Travis Morgan has a full report from the federal courthouse in El Paso.
      
• At issue are new congressional boundaries, adopted by Texas lawmakers this summer, which create five new GOP-opportunity districts. Democrats have argued, without evidence, that the maps illegally considered race. On Wednesday, the man responsible for drawing the maps—Adam Kincaid—sat through cross-examination by the Plaintiffs' lawyers.
    
• Kincaid testified that he had not been told by Republicans which five Democrat-held seats to address, but instead let the “political realities” make that determination. When asked by the president of the NAACP why he had not protected minority opportunity seats, Kincaid said that purposefully protecting districts based on race would itself constitute race-based gerrymandering.
       
• Also on the stand yesterday was State Sen. Adam Hinojosa (R-Corpus Christi), who emphasized his belief that people vote on their values rather than a racial identity.

New Braunfels LGBT Org To Host ‘All Ages’ Drag Show

• An LGBT organization in New Braunfels is hosting a drag show on Saturday that is being marketed as “all ages.” Sydnie Henry has the story.
      
• The Riverside Pride Festival was originally slated to take place at the Comal County Fairgrounds, but has been forced to move due to concerns over “age appropriateness.” The organizers announced that the event will now be held at Faith United Church of Christ.
     
• U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Austin), whose district includes New Braunfels, condemned the show as “reprehensible garbage.” 

Academy ISD Student Alleges Bus Driver Molested Her

• A Central Texas school district employee, William Anthony Blackburn Sr., faces three felony charges for allegedly sexually abusing a female student for 10 months starting when she was 13. Erin Anderson reports that local authorities are “still investigating” if there are more victims.
     
• Blackburn worked for Academy Independent School District as a maintenance worker and bus driver starting in 2020. The district fired Blackburn last month, reporting him to Child Protective Services and the Texas Education Agency, “in accordance with Board policy and state law.”

Casino Lobby Bets Big in North Texas Senate Race

• As voters prepare to select a new state senator for Texas Senate District 9, one candidate is receiving a flood of support from the casino industry. The special election was necessitated by the resignation of Kelly Hancock, who is now serving as the acting comptroller.
     
• Former Southlake Mayor John Huffman reported a $500,000 contribution from the Texas Sands PAC, the political arm of Las Vegas Sands. Despite its name, the company does not operate any casinos in Nevada or the United States, with much of its revenue generated in China.
     
• The casino lobby is pushing for government-mandated casino monopolies for geographic regions in the state.
      
• Huffman’s chief Republican rival in the open-seat special election is conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who opposes an expansion of gambling in Texas.

Quote-Unquote

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

– Robert Oppenheimer, quoting a Hindu text​

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