The Terror-ible Twos

Tomball gets terror babies and Anderson Cooper's not amused

Terror babies are the new anchor babies. Or so says Debbie Riddle, the Republican representative from Tomball, who got a stern talking to Tuesday night from CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Riddle (amazingly) told CNN viewers that she had it under the authority of "former FBI officials" that there exists an elaborate terror scheme in which pregnant women posing as tourists have babies within the United States in order to gain the children citizenship, and then train them to be toddling, America-hating terror(ist)s.

Cooper repeatedly asked Riddle her sources and made no attempt to hide his skepticism. Specifically, he asked why current FBI members seemed unconcerned.

Riddle responded ~~by telling producers Anderson had slapped her~~ defensively. "When your folks called me in the preliminary, that was part of the conversation. They did not tell me you were going to grill me on specific information." She also acknowledged that, "at this point, I don't have the hard evidence right here in front of me."

I think the whole thing is just BEGGING for a Saturday Night Live skit. We're familiar with the struggles of first-generation immigrant parents trying to give their kids a better life, while shielding them from some of the excesses of American culture. Could you even imagine trying to keep from Americanizing a kid you were bringing up to be a terrorist?

You're all trying to get them to renounce materialism and watch Al Jazeera and they're all "But Maaaaaa I wanna watch Entourage!" Hilarious.

The Texas Tribune did a little digging to see whether Riddle even had contacts at the FBI (one official has already called her claims "absurd") and *gasp* "no such records exist."

Don't you just love the suburbs?

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”