Texas

An election official checks a voter’s photo identification at an early voting polling site in Austin, Texas. A federal appeals court is set to take a second look at a strict Texas voter ID law that was found to be unconstitutional last year. (AP/Eric Gay)

A Texas man posing as a licensed cop was sentenced to 63 months in prison for transporting prisoners on commercial airlines while carrying guns after a previous conviction for possessing a dangerous concealed weapon prohibited him from possessing firearms.
Jordan Jericho Bautista-Gunter, 26, transported prisoners 21 times as a service to Hays County, according to San Antonio Express-News.
And he wasn’t even a real cop.

A  Texas sheriff made good on his promise to take action after he was made aware of a video taken by PINAC reporter Phillip Turner showing a complaint audit fail at his department that we reported about on January 8.

Even as he was assembling and deploying an American kakistocracy and calling it his administration, there were people of goodwill urging everyone to just wait and be open-minded and see if Trump didn't turn out to be an OK president. "After all," one of that tribe told me several times, "he was a liberal Democrat most of his life." Nah...

Kyle Biedermann R-New BraunfelsSeptember 15, 2016 during a conversation event. (Photo: Marjorie Kamys Cotera/Texas Tribune)
Ahead of Texas Muslim Capitol Day scheduled for later this month, freshman state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, sent a letter to mosque leaders and Muslim student associations across the state asking them to fill out a poll about their beliefs.

A Texas cop was facing six months in jail for illegally entering and searching the car of a PINAC reporter who had been unlawfully arrested for recording in public.

A Dallas jailhouse employee threatened to confiscate a teen’s phone, pulling off her belt and threatening to whip the 19-year-old citizen journalist for recording her in public.
Patrick Roth, who operates the YouTube channel, Dallas Community Watch Copblock, was forced to run down a walkway where another corrections officer grabs him, threatening him with arrest.

A Texas cop took to Facebook to call PINAC reporter Phillip Turner a “black moron” for daring to stand up for his rights when a cop demanded his identification for recording in front of a police station.
Pearland police officer Cary Homeyer also accused Turner of being part of Black Lives Matter, but Turner has never associated with the activist organization.
Phillip Turner

The criminal trial for a Texas cop who searched the car of a PINAC reporter without a warrant after arresting him for recording in front of a police department begins today.
Galveston Police Sergeant Archie Chapman probably did not realize his unconstitutional actions were being recorded by a dash cam inside Phillip Turner’s car in November 2015, even as Turner sat inside a jail cell.
Phillip Turner
Now Chapman is facing 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine if convicted.

The Rev. Annie Steinberg-Behrman, right, holds a sign while at City Hall in San Francisco while reaffirming the city’s commitment to being a sanctuary city in response to Donald Trump’s support of deportations and other measures against immigrants Monday, Nov. 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)