Texas
Fed up and fired up: Texas Republicans meet in a climate of mistrust, conspiracy and victimhood
/static.texastribune.org/media/files/5d3f4cc178bc156575408f119e413f41/RPT%20Saturday%20BV%20TT%2001.jpg "Fed up and fired up: Texas Republicans meet in a climate of mistrust, conspiracy and victimhood")
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HOUSTON — The Republican Social gathering of Texas has managed each lever of state authorities since 2003, and notched main victories final yr on voting, redistricting, abortion, college curriculums and different long-held priorities. Delegates on the get together’s conference this week expressed confidence that their get together will retake no less than the U.S. Home this November, and stated the top of abortion in Texas is all however settled.
However the temper was not celebratory. The Texas Tribune spoke to greater than 25 attendees who described feeling besieged by a tradition that’s more and more anti-family and anti-Christian.
Above all, attendees stated they have been fed up. Fed up with elections they consider are rife with fraud. Fed up with their very own politicians — together with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, whom they rebuked for collaborating in bipartisan talks on gun laws — for being open to compromise with Democrats. Fed up with the persecution of Christians with conventional values. Fed up with a credulous mainstream media that spouts liberal speaking factors and disdains anybody who disagrees as racists or bigots. Fed up with undocumented immigrants, even these fleeing struggle and poverty, for making the most of public advantages. Fed up with the training of their kids, particularly on issues of historical past and race. Fed up with specialists, beginning with Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who they stated are “sexualizing” college students earlier than they’ve hit puberty.
“The enemy is coming in and making an attempt to vary our society, change the very cloth of what made America nice they usually’re doing it by going to the youngsters,” stated Conny Moore, a 75-year-old retired pharmacist and pastor.
Amongst elected officers talking on the conference, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz stole the present, receiving standing ovations on Friday as he thundered towards “radical leftists” driving a cultural assault.
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz spoke on the Texas State Republican Conference in Houston on Friday.
Credit score:
Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune
“They need to tear down the church,” he stated. “They need to tear down our colleges. They need to tear down our households. They need to tear down our religion. They need to tear down our values.”
Sid Miller, the state agricultural commissioner, stated the wrestle for America wasn’t even partisan anymore.
“The battlefield was between Republicans and Democrats,” he instructed the conference on Saturday. “Then it was between conservatives and liberals. Now the battlefield has as soon as once more modified. We should improvise, adapt and overcome to defeat our enemy. This new battlefield, this new battlefield is between patriots and traitors.”
This was a crowd acquainted with The Nice Alternative, the idea that immigrants are getting used to switch white, native-born People, and The Nice Reset, supposedly a plan by international capitalists assembly in Davos, Switzerland, to impose their environmental and social targets on the world financial system and limit what individuals can eat and personal. Fox Information didn’t come up a lot; One America Community and NewsMax appeared way more influential.
Conspiracy theories abounded. Anne Meng, a middle-aged nurse-practitioner in The Woodlands, stated she believed the Could 24 bloodbath at Robb Elementary College in Uvalde was “a ploy by the federal government,” and that “cops have been instructed to face down.” (The police delay in confronting the gunman, who killed 21 individuals, has been extensively criticized.)
Tammy Lake, 52, who lives in one other Houston suburb, Magnolia, and is a senior gross sales engineer for a software program firm, stated she believed that Donald Trump can be rightfully restored to the presidency “by the top of the yr.” She didn’t specify how.
The decision declaring that Biden “was not legitimately elected” because of “substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas” in 5 states — presumably, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — handed with none actual debate, an indication of how highly effective Trump’s unfounded declare of a stolen election continues to resonate with the get together devoted.
Chris Corbett, 66, a member of the get together’s legislative priorities committee, was attending his sixth get together conference. He stated the state get together as soon as revolved round restricted authorities and free markets however has turn out to be extra culturally oriented, he stated, as voters awaken to the threats to their values.
“We’re seeing much more cultural conservatism occurring, it is a little bit extra populist,” stated Corbett, who lives in Flower Mound and is a author and researcher for public coverage and nonprofit teams.
A lot of the cultural points attendees and audio system railed towards handled the LGBTQ neighborhood, specifically transgender people.
Gov. Greg Abbott, who’s looking for re-election in November, referred to as on child-welfare investigators to look into households which have allowed their kids to hunt gender-affirming care, together with using puberty blockers, towards the consensus of main medical associations.
However this was not a conference smitten by established information. The group cheered Robin Armstrong, a Texas Metropolis physician who has given sufferers unapproved COVID-19 remedies, together with hydroxychloroquine. Its platform describes homosexuality as an “irregular way of life alternative,” a view that has light in a lot of America. The platform described gender dysphoria as a uncommon psychological sickness, a place not backed by mainstream psychiatrists or pediatricians.
Merchandise on the market on the Texas State Republican Conference in Houston on Friday.
Credit score:
Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune
Vincent Gallo, 60, the proprietor of a small building firm in Denton, stated Democrats and a few Republicans are engaged in a “redefinition of actuality” by accepting transgender people and calling on others to do the identical.
“That’s being pushed on to different individuals by the guise of variety and inclusion,” Gallo stated.
The educating of important race principle, a tutorial method to the research of racial inequality, was additionally a principal concern amongst attendees.
“The entire precept of what you are educating is a plot to place our individuals towards one another, and to position the emphasis on the unsuitable issues,” stated Moore, the retiree from Borger.
All through the week, attendees gathered in periods targeted on these cultural points. One was titled “Threats to Households — Institutional Insurance policies Adversely Impacting Youngsters and Households — What’s Subsequent.” One other was referred to as “Defeat Essential Concept, Marxism and the Sexualization of Our Youngsters.”
Attendees have been additionally in lockstep of their views on election integrity. A number of stated that in-person, watermarked, hand-counted, sequentially numbered paper ballots have been the one reliable technique to conduct an election (regardless that delegates themselves used Scantron ballots to vote on the platform planks, and the outcomes received’t be recognized for days till the ballots are tallied in Austin).
The conference included three screenings of “2000 Mules,” a film that depends on discredited proof to say there was widespread fraud within the 2020 election. A number of attendees floated conspiracies about poll harvesting, election machines and mail-in ballots. On Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stated his precedence when the Legislature returns subsequent yr is to “restore voting illegally from a Class A misdemeanor to a felony.”
Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton additionally defended his lawsuit difficult the election ends in 4 states that voted for Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court docket rejected the lawsuit for lack of standing.
“We didn’t win,” Paxton acknowledged on Friday. “To at the present time individuals hate us for what we did. However I can let you know what. If I needed to do it once more, I’d do it simply the best way we did it.”
Paxton’s feedback drew cheers from the gang — a mirrored image of how a lot the get together loyalists worth their leaders preventing for them, even when the outcomes don’t go their means.
“Candidates, you might want to fulfill your job and your pledge is to serve the individuals, not your individual agenda,” stated Gary Hulsey, 68, an engineer from Haslet.
Not everybody supported the acute partisanship on show.
“Looking for bipartisan commonality throughout the get together, that’s his proper,” Patricia Almond, 57, a retiree from Porter, stated of Cornyn. “As Republican voters, we have now freedom of speech as effectively, however it does not do something to convey the get together collectively.”
One delegate, David Gebhart, urged towards a plank calling homosexuality a deviant way of life alternative. “We’re the Republican Social gathering of Texas, not the Westboro Baptist Church,” he stated. His movement was rejected.
One other delegate, Robert Bartlemay, balked on the decision declaring Biden’s win illegitimate, saying the G.O.P. ought to look ahead and concentrate on electing a Republican president in 2024. Folks round him booed and hissed.
There have been stirrings of dissent over a call to once more exclude the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT political group, from the exhibit corridor, a call that Donald Trump Jr. criticized on-line. (The Log Cabin Republicans did host a three-hour reception on Friday on the conference’s sidelines.)
The prediction that maybe most united the delegates was that this November’s midterm elections can be a massacre for Democrats.
“It isn’t simply going to be a purple wave, it’ll be a tsunami,” Cruz stated.
Sewell Chan contributed reporting.
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My Aggie loyalty started in high school, when my future alma mater mailed a poster of Bonfire to a ZIP code at the very top of Texas. That was about all the recruiting I received from Aggieland, but it was enough. That poster hung on my wall (between Michael Jordan and a Porsche) and I memorized the only words on it:
Some may boast of prowess bold,
of the school they think so grand.
But there’s a spirit can ne’er be told.
It’s the Spirit of Aggieland.
My enrollment at what was then the third-largest university in the nation was a sea change for me, and a culture shock. It’s when I stitched the High Plains together with the rest of Texas and started to get perspective about the history, personalities and traditions that shape our state. One of those traditions will be renewed Saturday when maroon and burnt orange take the field together, for the first time in 13 years, below the roar of the 12th Man.
This rivalry started in 1894, and was renewed 97 consecutive times from 1915 to 2011. Altogether, the game has been played 118 times. It used to unite the state, and it used to divide families. In recent years, jokes about tension over Thanksgiving dinner because of the A&M-UT game have been replaced by dread of Thanksgiving dinner over political talk. With the election behind us, it’ll be good for Texans to get back to the old ways.
This rivalry has created our state’s own version of mixed marriages. Kevin Scheible, one of my closest friends from college, married a member of the Longhorn Band. Kevin and Sharon live in San Antonio now. They’ve somehow made it work, though it’s an arrangement I would counsel most young lovers to avoid.
A dozen years ago, right around the time the rivalry was being suspended, my Aggie wife and I found ourselves in a Bible study group that was evenly split between Aggies and Longhorns. It included two mixed marriages. Those people are still some of our closest friends. Only the supernatural bonds of the Holy Spirit could have kept us from cracking in half. That, plus we don’t watch the game together.
College football has changed enormously since this game was played last, let alone since it was played first. The crowds are larger. The record size of the 12th Man is 110,663; this game will almost certainly surpass that.
The payouts are bigger too. The era of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) sponsorships has created a breed that would have been unthinkable in 1894: millionaire college athletes.
Two of the 10 highest paid college athletes in the nation are Longhorn quarterbacks Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning, according to Yahoo! Sports.
In the new Aggie tradition of paying football personalities not to contribute, benched quarterback Conner Weigman will earn his $628,000 NIL valuation from the sideline.
But at least the venue will be simple. The Aggies play at Kyle Field, the state’s largest stadium, named after Texas A&M horticulture professor E.J. Kyle, who created the school’s football field in 1904.
In contrast, the name of the Longhorns’ haunt is something like Campbell-Williams Field at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium presented by Bud Light in association with Hemp-It-Up-America Political Action Committee.
Both schools have storied programs. The Longhorns have Darrell Royal, Earl Campbell, Ricky Williams and four national championships if you include the one in 1970 when they lost to Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl but United Press International writers awarded them the title anyway because the media loves them. Some things never change.
The Aggies have Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings and Jackie Sherrill (for the purposes of this column, please forget the state of Alabama exists), as well as Heisman Trophy winners John David Crow and Johnny Football Manziel. When I was a student, Aggies claimed just one national championship, back in 1939. But then other schools started putting such achievements in big letters on their stadiums and we demanded a recount. Now, Aggies include the undefeated seasons in 1919 and 1927 under Coach D.X. Bible who later coached at, you guessed it, UT.
The rivalry has included its share of pranks. The official story (and by “official” I mean made up by Aggies) of how UT mascot Bevo got its name is that a group of Aggie students snuck over to Austin one night, long ago, after the horns had lost to A&M 13-0, and branded the cow with the score. In a mascot cover-up, UT students converted the 13 to a B, the – to an E and added a V before the 0 to create the name.
It is true that A&M beat UT 13-0 in 1915, and it’s true that some Aggies branded the mascot. But the brand-conversion part remains unconfirmed and Longhorns refuse to admit the obvious: that this is a terrific story that should live long in Texas lore.
For all the differences between these schools, there is still more that unites us than divides us, as it’s popular to say these days. Both institutions are doing important work in research and molding the next generation of Texas leaders. Aggies and Longhorns love their state. We love our schools. And we would love to see our rivals lose. Both school’s songs mention the other.
That poster on my bedroom wall would be as close as I would come to the real Bonfire until I stood on Duncan Drill Field watching it burn in the fall of 1991. My unit in the Corps of Cadets was known for building Bonfire. We had spent thousands of man hours in exhausting manual labor kindling Bonfire’s purpose: the burning desire to beat the hell outta UT.
I remember watching the news just a few years later, heartbroken by the loss of 12 Aggies who were making their own Bonfire memories when tragedy struck. Aggies everywhere remembered them this week.
Longhorns did too. I’ll never forget how Austin dropped the rivalry taunts and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with grieving Aggies in the wake of that tragedy. UT showed its class that year. The school canceled its Hex Rally, the ritual that traditionally preceded the game. The UT Tower went dark and the Aggie War Hymn was played there — the one that derides the “orange and the white.” It’s the only time in UT history that has happened, I’m told. At the game, the Longhorn Band played Taps, a fitting salute at a school with military roots.
Longhorn coach Mack Brown offered to postpone the game and he said he has shed tears over the loss of those 12 Aggies. His staff organized a blood drive. Brown was a great coach whose players would have run through a wall for him. In November 1999, I think a lot of Aggies would have too.
Two weeks ago, Mrs. Aggie and I attended a gathering sponsored by the Coppell Aggie Moms Club where we got to meet the Texana artist Benjamin Knox. Knox was in the Aggie Cadet Corps just a few years before I was. He went on to paint the school spirit at several Texas institutions, including commissions by the State of Texas, and the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
Knox showed us a new painting he created to mark the revival of this Texas Thanksgiving tradition. And because I accosted him after the meeting, he agreed to let The Dallas Morning News reproduce it here.
From a folded poster hung with thumbtacks to a work of art by one of Texas’ great painters, this rivalry has produced a lot of memorable images. If the Aggies don’t run out of time, I look forward to treasuring the image of the Kyle Field scoreboard Saturday, and sharing it with a few of my Longhorn friends.
Editor’s note: Over Sanders’ loud objections, this column was edited for a variety of blatant biases and subtle but consistent grammatical slights (such as the use of “tu”) that did not meet our editorial standards.
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A common theme for No. 22 TCU has been their complete dominance on their home floor this season. The Horned Frogs finished the year 14-1 at Schollmaier Arena. On Friday night, in front of over 3,000 fans, TCU swept Texas Tech (25-14, 26-24, 25-11).
The four seniors honored by TCU were Melanie Parra, Cecily Bramschreiber, Stephanie Young and Ashlyn Bourland. All four players found ways to contribute as Parra finished with 14 kills and seven digs. Bramschreiber filled up the stat sheet with four kills, four aces and seven digs. Both Young and Bourland got an ace.
Both teams traded points in the early going, but Bramschreiber sparked a 7-2 run to give the Frogs a 16-9 lead. TCU hit .417 in the first set and dominated the first set capped off by a Becca Kelley ace.
In set two, Texas Tech made things much closer jumping out to a 8-5 lead. A 4-0 run from TCU put them back in front. This set included multiple runs and it was Tech that got it to set point leading 24-22. TCU was able to end the set on a 4-0 run courtesy of kills from Jalyn Gibson and Parra paired with aces from Bramschreiber.
Trying to keeps things alive, TCU wasn’t met with much resistance from the Red Raiders in the third set. The Frogs kept up the pressure with multiple runs to build a massive 17-8 lead. Bourland picked up her first career ace and an attack error ended things.
It was a fun night for the seniors that played in front of the TCU crowd for the last time. The 14 wins at home tied the school record for most wins at home in a single season. They also picked up the most wins in a season since 2015. What Jason Williams has done for this program in such a short time has been remarkable to watch.
The Frogs move to 19-7 overall 11-5 in conference. They still are fifth in the Big 12 standings with two games to go. They will travel to Morgantown on Wednesday to take on West Virginia at 6 p.m. and then to Cincinnati on Friday at 1 p.m.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit Thursday targeting the blue city of Dallas over a ballot measure that decriminalizes marijuana.
Paxton alleges that Proposition R, which “prohibits the Dallas Police Department from making arrests or issuing citations for marijuana possession or considering the odor of marijuana as probable cause for search or seizure,” violates state law.
The attorney general argues in the lawsuit that the ballot measure is preempted by Texas law, which criminalizes the possession and distribution of marijuana. Paxton also claims the Texas Constitution prohibits municipalities from adopting an ordinance that conflicts with laws enacted by the state legislature.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court on November 01, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“Cities cannot pick and choose which State laws they follow,” Paxton said in a statement. “The City of Dallas has no authority to override Texas drug laws or prohibit the police from enforcing them.”
Paxton called the ballot measure “a backdoor attempt to violate the Texas Constitution” and threatened to sue any other city that “tries to constrain police in this fashion.”
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A flower bud of marijuana. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)
The lawsuit comes after interim Dallas Police Department Chief Michael Igo directed Dallas police officers not to enforce marijuana laws against those found to be in possession of less than 4 ounces.
Ground Game Texas, a progressive nonprofit group that campaigned in favor of the ballot measure, argued it would help “keep people out of jail for marijuana possession,” “reduce racially biased policing” and “save millions in public funding.”
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A mature marijuana plant begins to bloom under artificial lights at Loving Kindness Farms in Gardena, Calif., May 20, 2019. Paxton has sued the city of Dallas over a ballot measure that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
“It’s unfortunate but not surprising that Attorney General Ken Paxton has apparently chosen to waste everyone’s time and money by filing yet another baseless lawsuit against marijuana decriminalization,” said Catina Voellinger, executive director for Ground Game Texas.
“Judges in Travis and Hays counties have already dismissed identical lawsuits filed there. The Dallas Freedom Act was overwhelmingly approved by 67% of voters — this is democracy in action.”
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Since January 2024, Paxton has filed lawsuits against five Texas cities that decriminalized marijuana possession, arguing these policies promote crime, drug abuse and violence.
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