Right-wing Texas state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, who recently boasted about receiving an “F-” for his voting record on LGBT rights, is in hot water for denying marital rape and trying to cheat a drug test.

Stickland, a tea party darling who’s known for being a loudmouthed antagonist in the Texas House, was exposed this week as a former pot-smoker who lied about his drug use, but who now claims his sins have been forgiven.

The Quorum Report reported Monday on posts Stickland made to online forums that were dug up by his opponent in the March GOP Primary, Scott Fisher.

“Rape is non existent in marriage, take what you want my friend!” Stickland wrote in a fantasy sports forum in 2008, in response to someone who complained that his wife wouldn’t perform the “reverse cowboy” position.

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2015/12/anti-gay-texas-lawmaker-rape-non-existent-marriage-take-want/

Gov. Greg Abbott wants the organization that oversees Texas lawyers to reverse its disapproval of a Catholic faith-based continuing education course, calling the decision shallow and potentially discriminatory.

“The {State Bar of Texas} Committee’s position that ‘legal ethics’ and ‘religious or moral responsibilities’ should be — or even can be — completely divorced from each other is entirely without basis,” Abbott’s general counsel Jimmy Blacklock wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to the State Bar of Texas.

Abbott, who is a devout Catholic, waded into the dispute after Catholic lawyers and educators connected with St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio sought his intervention. The school and the State Bar are in a stand-off over whether lawyers should be given continuing legal education credit for a faith-based educational course. The State Bar contends that its rules only allow credit for courses specifically related to attorney duties, excluding issues related to religious or moral responsibilities.

It has also denied approval for other faith-based programs proposed in Dallas. But St. Mary’s, which is seeking approval for a course titled “Christian Ethical Perspectives: Faith and and Law Today,” argues that morality and ethics cannot be separated from legal responsibilities. The attorneys and educators affiliated with St. Mary’s argue that the State Bar decision violates their First Amendment rights.

Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/gov-abbott-wades-into-dispute-over-faith-based-legal-education.html/

MCKINNEY -- A prominent real estate developer has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop payments to the private attorneys appointed to prosecute Attorney General Ken Paxton — the latest twist in the Republican’s securities fraud case.

Jeff Blackard, a Paxton donor, filed the lawsuit in Collin County District Court, arguing that the county was paying too much to the attorneys prosecuting Paxton, violating local rules for such payments.

“This lawsuit seeks to halt a threatened expenditure of public funds that would unlawfully serve to enrich private attorneys at the expense of taxpayers in Collin County, Texas,” says the complaint, filed on behalf of Blackard and “similarly situated taxpayers.”

Blackard says he lives in Hopkins County but pays taxes for two parcels of property in Collin County, along with local sales taxes.

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/30/paxton-supporter-sues-over-targets-special-prosecu/

[font color=330099]So Ken found himself a water carrier?[/font]

AUSTIN–The Texas Supreme Court released new rules Tuesday regarding the process used by abused and neglected minors to obtain abortions without parental consent.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law in June that made more than a dozen changes to the judicial bypass process that allows teenagers seeking abortions to get permission from a judge instead of their parents. Abortion-rights supporters say the new rules, set to go into effect Friday, are the ‘most radical’ in the country.

Austin-based Jane’s Due Process, an organization that connects minors with lawyers and helps them through the judicial bypass process, said the Texas Supreme Court’s rules were “more extreme” than the provisions outlined in the law.

Currently, a judge is required to rule on bypass cases within two days. If they don’t rule in time, the bypass is granted by default. The new law extends the time judges have to rule to five days and removes the provision that specifies what happens if a judge doesn’t rule in time.

Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/texas-supreme-court-releases-new-rules-for-minors-seeking-abortions-without-parental-consent.html/

Not far from the downed trees and crumbled houses that mark the path of the tornado that struck North Texas Saturday, the parking lot of Rowlett High School filled up Tuesday morning with trailers emblazoned with the logos of insurance companies.

Company representatives in parkas and knit caps stood in the cold, waiting for customers who might want to file their insurance claims and coordinating efforts to get a better grip on the extent of the damage.

“A lot of the claims come quickly. But it’ll probably be a month before all of them come in,” said Brant Chandler, one of the owners of the Wellington Insurance Group in Fort Worth.

Three days after a storm believed to have damaged at least 2,000 homes and buildings, insurance companies were setting up for an extended operation in North Texas to process a flood of claims that began almost as soon as the skies cleared.

Read more: http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/tornado-damage-estimated-at-1-2-billion.html/

Read more: http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/12/authorities-to-release-details-on-ethan-couchs-capture-at-10-a-m-news-conference-in-tarrant-county.html/

[font color=330099]So the only question is whether Ethan will be out of jail so he can go drinking on his birthday?[/font]

Ted Cruz is a Douche

I'm certain that Rafael will appreciate your comments.

Almost the entire town of Electra was without power Monday following a major outage at Western Farmers Coop in Oklahoma, the company that provides most of the electricity to the Wichita County community.

The outage occurred about midday Sunday, according the Wichita Falls Fire Chief Jon Reese, who is spearheading emergency response. Reese said firefighters will go door-to-door Monday evening checking on the welfare of residents and advising them of the availability of a shelter and food.

The response is by the Wichita Falls Area Instant Management regional assistance program.

Reese said the Electra Community Center will be open as an emergency shelter, powered by generators. The Salvation Army of the Dallas area is bringing in food. Reese said the Electra hospital is fine, operating on emergency power and the community's nursing home has some generated electricity and generators are being set up there, too.

Read more: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/local/Electra-in-the-dark-363670251.html

[font color=330099]Electra is a town of about 2,700 located near Wichita Falls.[/font]

NEW YORK (AP) - The heirs to a New Hampshire teacher who wrote a poem about a "soft kitty" say TV's "The Big Bang Theory" is violating their copyrights.

Edith Newlin's daughters sued CBS and other media-related companies Monday over the copyright to a song the lawsuit says has repeatedly been used on the sitcom.

According to the lawsuit, "The Big Bang Theory" used lyrics written by Newlin in the 1930s without buying the rights. The lyrics begin: "Soft kitty, warm kitty."

"The Big Bang Theory" characters have periodically sung a lullaby involving that phrase.

Read more: http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-Arts+Entertainment/229050/big-bang-theory-producers-sued-over-soft-kitty-warm-kitty-lyrics

You've probably heard this before, but Texas has (once again) sued the federal government.

This time, the Lone Star State is challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's new ozone standards, which lower the National Ambient Air Quality Standard from 75 to 70 parts per billion.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says in a press release that the lower standards are inappropriate and unrealistic and would cause a serious financial burden on Texas' economy "for dubious public health benefit."

In March, San Antonio Metro Health doctor Vincent Nathan, who specializes in environmental safety, told the San Antonio Current that Bexar County has high rates of asthmatic children that is often associated with, though not necessarily caused by, high ozone levels.

Read more: http://www.sacurrent.com/Blogs/archives/2015/12/28/attorney-general-ken-paxton-files-lawsuit-against-epas-new-ozone-standards