Most of yesterday’s primary races went exactly as you would expect, but there were a few surprises among the results, so let’s dig in.
At the top of the ticket, incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton head to a runoff for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. Right now, Cornyn is leading Paxton by less than 1.5%, which isn’t a very comfortable position for a longtime incumbent, and I suspect there are plenty of Wesley Hunt voters dissatisfied with Cornyn.
For much of the count, scandal-plagued U.S. 23rd Congressional District incumbent Tony Gonzales led challenger Brandon Herrera by a slight margin, but with 96% of the vote in, Herrera leads Gonzales by just under a thousand votes. Herrera almost knocked off Gonzales in 2024, but with undeniable evidence that Gonzales had an extramarital affair with a staffer who killer herself, Gonzales is clearly toast. He should save everybody a lot of time, money and embarrassment and not only bow out of the race, but resign his congressional seat in disgrace so Gov. Greg Abbott can appoint Herrera to replace him for the remainder of his current term as well.
Speaking of Abbott, both he and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick cruised to easy victories, Abbott with 82% of the vote against ten opponents, Patrick with 85% of the vote against three.
In the closely-watched Attorney General race, State Senator Mayes Middleton and U.S. Congressman Chip Roy are headed to a runoff, with Middleton leading by over 150,000 votes. That’s a pretty big gap for Roy to make up.
In the three-way Comptroller race, Don Huffines won outright over Kelly Hancock and Christi Craddick. It’s tempting to think that President Trump’s endorsement of Huffines lifted him to an outright win rather than a runoff, except:
President Trump also endorsed incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller over challenger Nate Sheets, but Sheets won by 5%. I think this may be the only case where an Abbott-endorsed candidate defeated a Trump-endorsed candidate, unless I’m overlooking a down-ballot race.
Indeed, it was a rare outright victory for Abbott endorsed or appointed candidates this cycle, as Abbott appointees Aaron Reitz (Attorney General) and Kelly Hancock (Comptroller) both went down to defeat.
As predicted, Gina Hinjosa easily secured the right to be slaughtered by Greg Abbott in the Governor’s race, defeating Chris Bell and seven other candidates.
With 48% of the vote, Vikki Goodwin looks headed to a runoff with Marcos Velez in the Lt. Governor’s race.
With 48.1% of the vote, Nathan Johnson looks headed for a runoff in the Attorney General race with Joe Jaworski.
With 48% of the vote, Sarah Eckhardt looks headed to a runoff with Savant Moore in the Comptroller race.
It’s always possible the underdogs in those races might just save themselves time and money and drop out.
The Democrat primary turnout totals should be a wake-up call for the Texas GOP. Usually they run far behind Republican numbers, but this year they’re about at parity, an ominous sign for an off-year election with a Republican in the White House.
Those were the races I was paying attention to. If you noticed others with interesting results, feel free to share them in the comments below.
Endorsements issued by President Donald Trump in recent days for Texas statewide races displayed a split between Gov. Greg Abbott and the president, as the two put support behind different candidates in a handful of contests.
These include one of the more fiery Republican primaries — the race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner. President Donald Trump threw his support behind incumbent Sid Miller, breaking from Abbott’s selection of Nate Sheets as his favored candidate.
Abbott endorsed Sheets in January, with strong words about his capability to lead the Texas Department of Agriculture and Miller’s alleged inability to do so. Abbott and Miller have repeatedly clashed over issues throughout both their tenures in office, spanning back to 2020 when Miller joined a lawsuit against the governor regarding the extension of the early voting period during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Trump’s endorsement on Friday night, he described Miller as a “MAGA Warrior who has been with me from the very beginning,” and “is doing a terrific job as Agriculture Commissioner for the Great State of Texas…”
“An Eighth Generation Farmer and Rancher, Sid is an incredibly effective Voice for Texas Agriculture, and our amazing Farmers and Ranchers,” Trump added.
Leading up to this, Abbott has been traveling across the state alongside Sheets for several “Get Out The Vote” rallies, emphasizing his support for the challenger.
Trump also endorsed former state senator Don Huffines for Texas Comptroller, over Abbott’s pick: former state Sen. Kelly Hancock and current Acting Comptroller, after he joined the agency as an employee to avoid a constitutional issue.
Huffines has been a frequent critic of Abbott’s, particularly over his response to COVID-19, also challenging him in the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2022.
Trump similarly described Huffines as a “MAGA warrior” in his endorsement issued via a Truth Social post, adding that “as a successful Businessman, Don knows the America First Policies required to Grow our Economy, Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., and Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE.”
The President also issued a number of key congressional candidate endorsements earlier in the week, splitting from Abbott in two distinct primaries: one for Congressional District (CD) 9, and another in CD 35.
Trump threw his support behind Republican candidate Alex Mealer in her bid for Congressional District (CD) 9, against state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park), who is endorsed by Abbott.
Cain and Mealer are running in the district currently held by U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX-9), which was heavily impacted by the GOP-favored redistricting map that passed the Texas Legislature during the summer of 2025 — legislation initiated at the White House’s request and voted for by Cain in the Texas House.
Trump also endorsed one of the Republican primary opponents to State Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) — Carlos De La Cruz, brother of Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-TX-15), in his bid for CD 35. Lujan was endorsed by Abbott for CD 35 in January.
Super PAC “Forge The Future,” founded by California-based tech giant Meta, reported $1.3 million in Texas expenditures ahead of the upcoming March 3 primary.
Formed earlier this year, Forge The Future is one of four super PACs controlled by Meta. The PAC’s Texas site states an objective of supporting “conservative candidates” with favorable stances on tech policy issues.
Three specific focuses listed are support for domestic tech companies, advocacy for an AI-friendly regulatory environment, and increased parental control over children’s online activities.
Of Forge The Future’s Texas contributions, $800,000 went to a slate of three Texas Senate and eight Texas House candidates, including Rep. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin) and Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield) for Senate Districts 3 and 22, respectively.
Those districts’ proximity to the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area makes them a key early target for placement of AI-friendly legislators, as the area has been a long-time hotbed of Texas technology interests and currently hosts several ongoing data center developments.
The remaining $500,000 was spent on digital advertising campaigns supporting former state senator and now Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock’s bid for a full term as Texas comptroller. The ads focus on Hancock’s efforts to lower taxes and improve education, making no specific mention of tech-related issues.
Forge The Future is one of two super PACs formed by Meta this year, alongside Making Our Tomorrow, which is dedicated to similar technology issues but instead supports Democratic candidates. Making Our Tomorrow has initially focused on contributing to candidates in Illinois, another key state for Meta’s infrastructure.
Meta’s super PACs, all formed within the last year, represent an overall $65 million investment in political activity and mark a distinct shift from the company’s previous, mostly neutral stance on political spending. This new investment from the tech giant comes at a time of increased scrutiny from legislators and the general public alike on many tech policy issues, including social media, artificial intelligence, and data centers.
Aside from AI, social media regulation could also pose a problem for Meta. The Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp parent company has been in and out of court in relation to child safety concerns on its platforms; CEO Mark Zuckerberg was most recently called to testify in a landmark tech addiction lawsuit in California court on February 18.
Meta isn’t the only large tech company ramping up its political spending. Last August saw the formation of Leading The Future, an AI-focused super PAC boasting Silicon Valley backing, which includes names from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Palantir Technologies.
Lots of outside money is being poured into Texas races, but Texans are the ones with the power in their hands. Go vote!
Everyone favors Voter ID except Democrats trying to cling to power, America’s big stick gets bigger, Trump’s tariffs hit a setback at the Supreme Court, another insane tranny shooter, Ukraine recaptures more land from Russia, another Pulitzer Prize winning leftist pedo, more Paxton lawsuits, and a new party rises on the right in the UK.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
On the personal front, I may need to buy a new dryer. We’ll see what the repairman says Monday…
Are voter ID requirements considered a controversial idea in the eyes of US citizens? If you watch the establishment media or follow leaders in the Democratic Party then you might think bills like the SAVE Act are the end of freedom as we know it. However, outside the echo chambers of DNC propaganda, the vast majority of Americans have no problem whatsoever with people proving their US citizenship before they vote in local and federal elections.
The widespread support for voter ID is undeniable. Surveys from the past year including those from Pew and Gallup show that, regardless of party or ethnicity, Americans citizens want elections to be protected from manipulation through mass illegal immigration.
A Pew Research Center survey from August 2025 found that 83% of Americans favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo ID to vote. This includes:
95% of Republicans
71% of Democrats
Only 16% of people oppose it.
A Gallup poll from 2024 shows 84% support for requiring photo ID to vote, with 98% of Republicans, 84% of independents and 67% of Democrats in approval.
A recent CNN segment featuring number cruncher Harry Enten confirms that the backing for the SAVE Act is also dominant regardless of ethnicity: 85% of white voter, 82% of Latino voters and 76% of black voters all want voter ID. It’s difficult to find many issues which the American public universally supports at this level.
Democrat leaders, however, don’t care that the majority of their own base wants voter ID laws. Party officials and the left-wing media have engaged in a shameless propaganda campaign designed to frighten the public into opposing the SAVE Act, despite their previous platforms defending majority rule.
That’s because they view voter integrity laws as an existential threat to their power. If they can’t cheat, they can’t win…
The big stick gets bigger. “Ford Carrier Group Enters Mediterranean To Join Biggest US Build-Up Since 2003 Iraq War.”
Open source monitors as well as US and Middle East media have confirmed that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, has entered the Mediterranean Sea, having sailed passed the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday.
This is the second carrier strike group expected to soon operate directly in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, amid the massive military build-up and pressure campaign against Iran. It was sent from the Caribbean earlier this month, extending its planned deployment.
The USS Mahan Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which is accompanying the USS Gerald R. Ford, is also now crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, maritime tracking analysis shows.
The aircraft carrier will likely take several more days to reach the Middle East and be poised to operate against Iran – so it looks to be in place by start of next week.
According to Bloomberg and other outlets, the US has now amassed the biggest force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There is administration talk of “limited strikes” – but clearly Washington is getting ready for all escalation scenarios.
The Supreme Court (6-3 in a majority opinion written by CJ Roberts) has ruled that Trump’s tariffs exceeded his authority.
We decide whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authorizes the President to impose tariffs.
***
The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it. IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . . importation” falls short. IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties. The Government points to no statute in which Congress used the word “regulate” to authorize taxation. And until now no President has read IEEPA to confer such power. We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.
Trump says he has alternative means to impose tariffs. “Effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232 and existing Section 301 tariffs remain in place… Today, I will sign an order to impose a 10% global tariff under Section 122 over and above our normal tariffs already being charged.”
In the past 12 months (January 2025 to January 2026) there are fewer foreign-born workers employed and more native-born workers in jobs. The time period roughly corresponds to the first year of Pres. Trump’s second term.
The murder-suicide at a Rhode Island hockey rink on Monday is just the latest in a recent string of murders allegedly carried out by self-identifying transgender perpetrators or by those seemingly inspired by transgender ideology.
Robert Dorgan — who police say shot and killed his ex-wife and one of their sons during a high school hockey game this week — had previously insisted he believed he was actually a transgender woman despite being a man. A local TV station said that “An unnamed woman, who identified herself as Dorgan’s daughter, has since come forward, telling WCVB that her father ‘has mental health issues.'”
“He shot my family and he’s dead now,” she reportedly said. Dorgan, who killed himself after the murders on Monday, had also expressed pro-Nazi sentiments, and according to The New York Post, was adorned with “vile neo-Nazi tattoos.”
He is only the most recent example of high-profile attacks linked to transgender perpetrators or transgender ideology, including mass shootings at Christian schools, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Progress: “Major Manhattan Hospital, Massachusetts Health Care System End ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors.”
Setback: “Judge Orders California Hospital to Resume Gender Transition Procedures for Minors.” Democrats seem to love mutilating children too much to give it up.
“Kansas’ governor vetoed a bill that banned men from the women’s room. The legislature overrode her.” “Even in an uber-red state, Democrat governors are still going to toe the party line.”
Scott Pinkser thinks Trump’s deal with India spells doom for the Russian economy, because they won’t allow those shadow fleet tankers to continue on to China. Quoting Peter Zeihan:
If the Russians have lost their single largest source of income, that will manifest on the battlefield. The Chinese may be supplying the Russians with all the gear that they can pay for, but the key thing there is: pay for.
And if the Russians can’t [pay], then a drone war where the Russians can’t get enough drones is one where the Russians start losing territory.
Price of cucumbers double in Russia. I’m mildly fascinated by those per-country yearly cucumber consumption numbers. 12 kilograms about 26 pounds a year, which doesn’t seem high if you’re including pickles, as that’s only one small jar of pickles every other week. But China’s 55 kilograms a year works out to two pounds a year per person. That’s a lot of damn cucumbers…
Democracy dies in protecting sex offenders that check the right boxes:
Wow I missed that Wesley Lowrey, the ex-WaPo reporter who won a Pulitzer and wrote a famous editorial urging journos to forgo objectivity in lieu of ‘moral clarity,’ was chased out of his journalism professorship for multiple sexual assault allegations.
Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Dallas officials, accusing them of defying a voter‑approved mandate to boost police funding under Proposition U.
Proposition U, approved by Dallas voters in November 2024, amended the city charter to require at least 50 percent of “excess” annual revenue be directed to public safety. The charter language earmarks those dollars first for the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, then for increasing officer pay and growing the force to at least 4,000 sworn officers.
Paxton’s lawsuit, filed in a Dallas County district court, targets the City of Dallas, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, and Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland Jr. for allegedly underfunding public safety in violation of the charter.
The attorney general argues that city officials “acted beyond their legal authority” by using an improper calculation of excess revenue that drastically reduced the amount legally owed to police priorities.
For the 2025–26 fiscal year, the city’s own projections reportedly show about $220 million in excess revenue above the prior year. But Ireland told the Dallas City Council that excess revenue totaled only $61 million—roughly a quarter of that amount—after excluding large categories of city income from the calculation.
Paxton’s filing notes that the city did not cite any state or federal law restricting the use of the excluded revenue, which would be required to legally omit those funds from the Proposition U formula.
Because of this narrower calculation, the proposed city budget allocates far less money to police pensions, officer pay, and hiring than voters required, Paxton says. The lawsuit contends that Dallas’ current hiring plan leaves the department hundreds of officers short of the 4,000‑officer minimum mandated in the charter amendment.
Paxton’s lawsuit also points to another provision of Proposition U that city officials allegedly ignored altogether. The charter requires Dallas to hire an independent third‑party firm each year to conduct a police compensation survey comparing Dallas officer pay and benefits to those of other major North Texas departments.
According to information obtained by the state, no such survey was conducted, despite the charter’s mandatory language. That failure, Paxton argues, makes it impossible for city leadership to honestly claim they are meeting the voter‑approved requirement to make Dallas police pay competitive in the region.
Blue city functionaries hate funding the police because the hard left can’t get any of their sticky fingers into that pile of money…
Two former Harris County Tax Office employees and two local business owners are facing first-degree felony charges in connection with what authorities say was a coordinated vehicle registration fraud operation.
Court filings allege the group worked together to process registrations and title transfers that bypassed required state safeguards, collecting bribes in exchange for pushing transactions through the system.
Adriana De La Rosa, 43, owner of Bella’s Multiservices in South Houston, has been arrested. Oswaldo “Oz” Perez, 51, who is affiliated with the same business, remains wanted.
Former tax office employees Sarah Ambria Anderson, 31, and Renisha Touche Wilkins, 35, were also charged. Both were dismissed from their positions in April 2024.
Investigators allege the activity centered on the Scarsdale branch of the Harris County Tax Office, where nearly 200 questionable transactions were processed. According to reporting from KPRC 2, the employees allegedly accepted cash and gifts in exchange for overriding verification requirements tied to insurance coverage, emissions inspections, and residency. Some vehicles were allegedly coded as tax-exempt, allowing customers to avoid paying required fees.
Authorities further allege that Anderson charged approximately $300 per transaction and transported paperwork in a personal binder to avoid detection.
The case reportedly began after employees in another Texas county noticed Bella’s Multiservices promoting vehicle registration stickers on TikTok and Facebook. Social media posts advertised expedited service and claimed inspections were not necessary. That tip prompted an internal review, which eventually led to a criminal investigation.
This is not known as “keeping a low profile.” One wonders if they might also be charged as accessories for Grand Theft Auto.
The first priority is to control who comes to our country, and more importantly, who stays in our country. Restore Britain will not just stop mass immigration; we will reverse it.
Every single illegal migrant will be securely detained, and then deported. The message will be unrelenting: If you are in this country without permission, you will be removed. For the foreseeable future, far more people must leave Britain than arrive.
If a foreign national is unable to speak English, lives in social housing, claims benefits, refuses to work, fails to integrate, commits crime, or even actively hates our way of life and wishes to do us harm, then they must leave, or be made to leave…
Restore Britain will make our communities safe again for women and children. That I promise you. If that means millions go, then millions go.
We’re constantly told that the economy needs vast swaths of low-skilled migrants. We know that’s simply not true. What we need is to get millions of healthy Brits back into work – a radical overhaul of how welfare is delivered. Protecting those in genuine need, but not funding healthy shirkers to live off the back of hard working men and women. If you can work, you must work. It really is that simple.
There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for Restore Britain, given their willingness to tackle the illegal alien invasion head on. The irony is the reform leader Nigel Farage looks poised to go from a fringe figure on the right to being ,i>outflanked on the right without ever being elected Prime Minister…
The face of evil: “This Karen called CPS on students’ parents because they chartered a TPUSA chapter at school…A liberal woman in Maryland, Nancy Krause, is facing mass calls to be charged after she weaponized CPS against Calvert County high school students for starting a TPUSA chapter at their school.”
I hope they sure her for every penny she has, and then some.
Stephen Colbert and James Talarico are lying about Trump blocking an interview. CBS merely told Colbert there were equal time considerations for such an interview, and that he might have to interview other Texasw Democratic senate candidates like Jasmine Crockett.
After text messages obtained by news media appeared to corroborate prior reports alleging that U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) engaged in a relationship with his now-deceased regional director, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles — which would violate U.S. House rules — her husband has now come forward in a tell-all interview affirming the claims.
Gonzales, however, continues to deny the allegations and now says he is being “blackmailed” following a settlement request from the husband’s attorney.
Santos-Aviles died months after her husband discovered the affair and confronted Gonzales in what authorities ruled a suicide by self-immolation.
The story has set off a bombshell of controversy, with the most recent evidence being released at the beginning of early voting for the March primary election, where Gonzales faces three challengers in the GOP primary.
Santos-Aviles served as Gonzales’ regional director based in Uvalde, overseeing constituent affairs across 11 of the congressional district’s 23 counties near Texas’ southern border.
Emergency responders found her in the backyard of her home on the night of September 13. A gasoline can was nearby where she laid severely burned. She was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead the next day.
News of the affair was first reported by Current Revolt, which was met with silence by Gonzales until an interview with the Texas Tribune wherein he claimed the reports were not true.
Fast forward, and the San Antonio Express News obtained text messages between Santos-Aviles and another former staffer that purportedly show her writing,“I had an affair with our boss.”
This prompted Gonzales’ main opponent in the GOP primary, Brandon Herrera, to call for his resignation, saying an affair would have violated House rules.
“Tony Gonzales must resign. He not only broke House ethics rules by having an adulterous affair with a member of his congressional staff and by using taxpayer money to fund the affair, but he also broke trust with the public by insisting that the initial reporting of the affair was false,” Herrera wrote in a press statement.
Speaking of Texas politicians behaving badly, here’s a story that doesn’t cover anyone in glory.
After personal details about U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt were posted online by a senior John Cornyn advisor, the Houston Republican has filed a police report documenting what some are describing as a possible crime under federal or state law.
Cornyn advisor Matt Mackowiak posted images of documents late last week that purportedly listed Hunt’s address, Texas driver’s license number, and the last four digits of his Social Security number. What Mackowiak seems to have designed as a last-minute attack on Hunt has turned a spotlight on Cornyn’s struggle to remain relevant with Texas voters ahead of the March 3 Primary Election.
Mackowiak, who runs Save Austin Now and was head of the Travis County GOP, is someone I know casually. We followed each other on Twitter before my suspension there, and we’ve bumped into each other at various events. As a political consultant/head of Potomac Strategies Group, Mackowiak has worked for some pretty squishy, swampy Republicans.
Cornyn is being challenged by Attorney General Ken Paxton and Hunt for the GOP nomination. Most public polling has consistently shown Paxton leading the field, followed by Cornyn and Hunt. Recent polls have shown Hunt closing that gap. The “doxxing” of Hunt by a senior Cornyn advisor has led some to suggest that perhaps the incumbent’s polling is even worse.
“The only reason you direct fire at someone behind you in the polls is you thinking their momentum will overtake you,” explained a political consultant not working the race. “Whether Cornyn is worried or not, Mackowiak’s actions make their campaign look desperate.”
Yeah, that was pretty stupid of Mackowiak. His post was evidently designed to ding Hunt over some provisional ballot he wasn’t entitled to file in 2016, and frankly my care meter isn’t even twitching. A three-term incumbent attacking a third place candidate does indeed reek of desperation. That said, in my (admittedly limited) understanding of federal laws on personally identifiable information is that none of that stuff quite qualifies as actual PID, so the Hunt campaign is probably going to see that criminal complaint dismissed.
In one of his more unanticipated endorsements, Trump threw his support behind Republican candidate Alex Mealer in her bid for Congressional District (CD) 9, against state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) and seven other GOP primary candidates.
The district, currently held by U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-TX-9), was heavily impacted by the GOP-favored redistricting map that passed the Texas Legislature during the summer of 2025 — legislation initiated at the White House’s request and voted for by Cain in the Texas House. CD 9 is one of the five congressional districts expected to flip from blue to red in 2026, with a majority of the current CD 9 folded into the new boundaries of the Democratic stronghold of CD 18, where Green is now running instead.
Trump stated in his endorsement of Mealer, “A West Point Graduate, and Combat Decorated Army Bomb Squad Officer, Alex knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Defend our Country, Support our Military/Veterans, and Ensure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
Cain was supported by Trump for re-election to the Texas House in a mass endorsement issued by the president for House Republicans who voted to pass education savings accounts legislation. The endorsement did not include any members’ pursuit of an alternative office.
According to a recent survey, Mealer leads the Republican primary for CD 9 with 34 percent of the vote, followed by Cain at 26 percent. When the poll was taken there were 10 candidates in the race, but one, Dwayne Stovall, ended his campaign on Tuesday and endorsed Dan Mims.
Among the other endorsements announced by Trump via Truth Social posts on Monday night was for Jon Bonck in his bid for CD 38, left open by U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt’s (R-TX-38) run for U.S. Senate against incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary.
Bonck is up against nine other Republican candidates, including businesswoman Shelly deZevallos, businessman Larry Rubin, and Tomball Independent School District President Michael Pratt. The district’s partisan makeup did not alter after redistricting, remaining at R-65%, per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index (TPI).
“Jon Bonck is an incredible Candidate,” Trump said in his endorsement.
“He is supported by many MAGA Patriots, including Senator Ted Cruz [(R-TX)], Congressmen ‘Doc’ Ronny Jackson [(R-TX-13)], Brandon Gill [(R-TX-26)], Jim Jordan [(R-OH-4)], and Tim Burchett [(R-TN-2)], among others.”
“A successful Business Executive, Jon knows the America First Policies required to Create GREAT Jobs, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, and Champion our Nation’s Golden Age,” Trump added.
Trump also endorsed Carlos De La Cruz, brother of Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-TX-15), in his bid for CD 35. The district is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX-35), but went from a TPI rating of D-70% to R-55% due to redistricting — drawing in a number of Republican candidates eyeing the new GOP-favored seat.
“A Brave, 20 Year Air Force Veteran, and now, as a successful Businessman, Carlos has a Proven Record of Success — He is a WINNER!” Trump posted.
“In Congress, Carlos will work tirelessly to Grow the Economy, Promote our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Cut Taxes and Regulations,” he continued, with similar language used in his several other endorsements that night.
He also endorsed in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX-8), throwing his support behind attorney Jessica Hart Steinmann, who served as the director for the Office of Victims of Crime in the U.S. Department of Justice during Trump’s first presidential term.
Steinmann, now with an edge up, is running in a field with five other Republican candidates, including U.S. Army veteran Nick Tran, Deddrick Wilmer, Jay Fondren, and Stephen Long. Businessman Brett Jensen suspended his campaign following Trump’s endorsement.
Trump said of Steinmann, “As a former appointee in my First Term, and now, as a Highly Respected Attorney, Jessica continues to prove that she has the Wisdom and Courage necessary to uphold our Constitution, and ensure LAW AND ORDER.”
Good news: “The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that the VA will no longer report veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) solely because they have been assigned a fiduciary to assist them with their finances. Further, the VA is working with the FBI to remove all the names of veterans who have been unjustly reported to NICS under this guise.
Former Democratic Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson died. Oddly enough, President Trump had good things to say about him.
Well, I didn’t know Jackson, so I’ll always consider him a race-hustling poverty pimp who ran a shakedown operation. He’s probably among the five people most responsible for strained race relations in modern America, behind Obama, George Soros, Al Sharpton and Ibram X. Kendi.
Less frequently recalled is the distress Jackson’s rise caused within the American Jewish community during the 1980s. For many identifiable Jews, and especially for Orthodox Jews, his candidacy was not merely another political development but a moment of rupture. His reference to Jews as “Hymie” and to New York City as “Hymietown” was not dismissed as a careless aside. It was recognized as an anti-Jewish slur, and it left a lasting mark, even becoming the subject of an Eddie Murphy Saturday Night Live skit that captured the moment with uncomfortable precision, as comedy often can.
The episode revealed how quickly old language could reemerge, even from figures celebrated as moral leaders within liberal politics. Jackson’s campaigns compelled Jewish institutions to confront questions about alliance, dignity, and communal security that they had long preferred to manage discreetly. They did more than provoke private discomfort; they produced public argument. On the pages of Jewish newspapers, the debate unfolded in real time, week by week, as each issue went to print, and it was not confined to the usual institutional voices. Orthodox writers, in particular, entered the conversation with a directness that many establishment Jewish leaders found unwelcome but that the moment required.
Three figures responded with unusual clarity. Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, writing in The Jewish Week; Dr. Marvin Schick, writing in The Jewish World; and Rabbi Meir Kahane, writing both in The Jewish Press and in the periodical Kahane: The Magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea all confronted the Jackson candidacy directly. Each treated Jackson’s candidacy not as an isolated controversy but as a diagnostic moment, asking what it revealed about Black-Jewish relations, the credibility of coalition politics, and the judgment of Jewish leadership itself. They disagreed about almost everything, but they shared one conclusion: The assumptions that had governed Jewish political alliance since the 1960s were beginning to fray.
The desire of western liberal elites to import unassimilated Muslims into the country would pretty much break those assumptions apart.
Dallas officials aren’t the only ones Paxton sued this week: “Texas Sues Temu for Deceptive Marketing and CCP‑Linked Data Harvesting.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton is escalating his campaign against China‑linked tech companies, filing a new lawsuit targeting one of the most downloaded shopping apps in the United States, Temu.
Paxton’s suit names PDD Holdings, Inc. and WhaleCo Inc., the companies behind Temu, alleging they deceptively market the platform as a simple discount marketplace while secretly using it as a vehicle for aggressive data harvesting.
Though PDD moved its principal executive offices from Shanghai to Dublin, Ireland, it still maintains significant operations in China, and Temu has rapidly grown to more than 80 million active users in the United States as of late 2023.
According to the lawsuit, the Temu app is not just a shopping tool—it runs “dangerous software functions” that are “completely inappropriate” for a normal e‑commerce platform.
Paxton characterizes Temu as a digital “trojan horse” capable of bypassing security protocols and creating backdoor access into a user’s private data, all while presenting itself as a harmless way to buy “affordable great products.”
The attorney general alleges that when Texans use Temu, they are unknowingly exposing themselves to a serious digital security threat.
The Temu security threat has been known for a while. Security-aware shoppers will have to forgo such great products as this:
Kurt Schlichter has a word of warning to dog-hating Muslims thinking of moving to the west:
2/16/26 – On Dogs And Those Who Hate Them
Some of us have lived in Muslim countries and understand how they treat dogs, @jaketapper. During one of my deployments, we had to inform the locals, in no uncertain terms, that no, they would not conduct their annual dog cull. In other… https://t.co/eVWowrKwkH
“This is not open to debate. We’re going to keep our dogs as we always have. If you come to our civilization, you’re going to respect our pets, or there’s going to be trouble. John Wick is the moderate position on this issue.”
A fungus among us: “Dangerous superbug spreads in US hospitals…Candida auris infections reported in more than half of US states as healthcare facilities struggle with containment.”
“Western Digital is completely sold out of hard drive production capacity through 2026 due to massive demand from—” (You know exactly what’s coming next, don’t you?) “—AI data centers.”
Texas early voting started today, so here’s a roundup of Texas primary links, along with something that might vaguely resemble endorsements in a “one-eyed man in the land of the blind” sort of way, since I haven’t been paying terribly close attention to this year’s primaries. But the top of the ticket endorsements are easy:
Ken Paxton for Senate. I’ve said about Paxton before what Abraham Lincoln said about Ulysses S. Grant: “I cannot spare this man. He fights.” Yesterday I talked to a lawyer who thinks Paxton is a crook, and he’s still going to vote for him over Cornyn.
Greg Abbott for Governor. National conservatives may not realize it, but for a long time inside Texas, Abbott was considered a bit of a squishy, consensus-driven Republican, more competent technocrat than conservative firebrand. But the school choice fight with seems to have screwed his courage to the sticking place, and he’s now rightly regarded as one of the country’s most conservative governors.
Dan Patrick for Lt. Governor. Patrick has proven to be a very competent, very conservative Lt. Governor who’s had Texas Senate Republicans passing conservative priorities like clockwork, only to see half of them die in the Texas House.
I already covered the narrow case for picking Mayes Middleton over the also acceptable Chip Roy.
Here’s Texas Scorecard’s Campaign Finance Tracker. The fact that Gina Hinojosa has such a huge lead over Andrew White for the Democratic nomination for governor suggests that primary is already over, which is pretty much how I figured it.
NRA PVF ratings for Texas candidates. At least they had the decency not to endorse anyone in TX-23, instead of endorsing incumbent Tony Gonzales over Brandon Herrera…
Gov. Greg Abbott endorsed Nate Sheets for Texas agriculture commissioner in the 2026 GOP primary against incumbent and fellow statewide elected Republican Sid Miller.
Texans for Greg Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder described Sheets as “the only candidate in the race who has the integrity to lead the Texas Department of Agriculture,” in a statement to the Texas Bullpen.
“The current Texas Department of Agriculture commissioner has a history of corruption and, as a state legislator, he previously voted to grant in-state tuition for illegal immigrants,” Snyder said.
Miller has a long history of public disagreements with Abbott, dating back to 2020 when he joined a lawsuit against the governor and then-Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs over the extension of the early voting period during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2022, Miller condemned the governor’s directive for enhanced vehicle inspections at the border, saying, “You cannot solve a border crisis by creating another crisis at the border. These Level 1 inspections serve as a ‘clog in the drain’ and divert commerce and jobs to more western ports of entry.”
Their endorsements are split in interesting ways as well, with Brandon Herrera and several U.S. Republican reps endorsing Miller, but Gun Owners of America, Texas Gun Rights, The Kingwood Tea Party, True Texas Project and Texas Eagle Forum. I think I may be leaning toward Sheets at this point, if only because he seems to be emphasizing border security over Miller.
If you hadn’t heard, incumbent liberal fossil congressman Lloyd Doggett retired rather than face commie twerp Greg Cesar in the newly redrawn Texas 37th congressional district. Doggett first entered the Texas Senate in 1973…
Also retiring: Texas Republican U.S. Congressman Troy Nehls of the 22nd Congressional District. The leading candidate to replace him: His brother Trever Nehls, who’s been endorsed by President Trump. So I’ve got to think that the chances of primary opponent Rebecca Clark are pretty slim.
Also retiring: Democratic State Rep. Bobby Guerra of McAllen from Texas House District 41. Tempting to write this off as another Democrat retiring due to Republican inroads into Rio Grande Valley, but the guy is 72.
Also retiring: Republican Texas House District 1 incumbent State Rep. Gary VanDeaver. “The East Texas Republican was one of only two Republican House members to vote against school choice legislation championed by Gov. Greg Abbott—the other being former Speaker Dade Phelan, who has also recently announced he won’t be returning.” VanDeaver barely survived a primary challenge in 2024, and Abbott-endorsed opponent Chris Spencer is running again.
Nine Republicans are on the primary ballot for the newly redistricted Congressional District 32 that has been held by U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX-32) since 2025 and previously held by Colin Allred before his U.S. Senate bid.
The district map has a portion in Dallas and then stretches out and widens into more eastern regions of the state. It includes portions of Dallas, Collin, and Rockwall counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, then extends east to take in parts of Hunt, Rains, Wood, Camp, and Upshur counties.
Redrawn by the Texas Legislature in 2025, this district flipped from a Democratic-leaning district to a Republican-leaning one. According to The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index, it had a pre-redistricting rating of D-62% and is now rated R-60%.
The field of nine Republicans vying to fill the seat are listed on the ballot in the following order: Jace Yarbrough, James Ussery, Darrell Day, Paul Bondar, Ryan Binkley, Gordon Heslop, Monty Montanez, Abteen Vaziri, and Aimee Carrasco.
Yarbrough, who is endorsed by both President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott, is a U.S. Air Force veteran and constitutional law attorney. He emphasizes his fight as a member of the military against the mandate that he take the COVID-19 vaccine as a demonstration of his courage and willingness to “fight for constitutional freedoms and the America First Agenda in Washington.” He ran for Texas Senate District 30 in 2024, but lost in a runoff to now-state Sen. Brent Hagenbuch (R-Denton).
Well, I guess the race already has an overwhelming favorite, then. Here are a few tidbits on the other candidates:
Ussery points out that he is an East Texas native with a longtime career in the oil and gas industry. His campaign promises include protecting Social Security for seniors and fighting to protect the First and Second Amendments.
Day is a small business owner who says he “understands real-world challenges.” He has previously served as a precinct chair, election judge, and Arlington City Council member. Day has been endorsed by groups such as Moms for Liberty, Collin County Patriots, and Red Wave Texas. He also has a list of community leader endorsements on his website.
On his website, Bondar introduces himself as a former Division I football player and successful business leader, adding that the issues he cares about are “driven by real life”: secure borders, safe communities, economic opportunity, strong families, and a “government that respects our freedoms instead of controlling our lives.”
Binkley, who formerly ran for president in 2024, is the pastor of Create Church and is also the CEO of mergers and acquisitions advisor Generational Group. He jumped in the race with a kickoff event in September. He is endorsed by leaders such as the First Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford and Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, along with other pastors and community leaders.
Former educator Heslop claims he wants to “Make America Normal Again” by strengthening the middle class and reducing the national debt. He said in a candidate survey that he would focus on government policies to help the “ordinary citizen.”
Veteran and entrepreneur Montanez announced his candidacy for the seat in June before the maps were redrawn. His priorities include public safety, jobs and the economy, healthcare, and veterans’ affairs.
Vaziri is a hedge fund manager, a real estate investor, and an attorney, who says his life represents the “American dream.” Born in Iran, Vaziri is a convert to Christianity who “vehemently opposes Sharia law.”
Carrasco describes herself as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, a community leader, and a mental health advocate. Her top priorities are securing the border, strengthening the economy, and leading with integrity and compassion.
I want to timebox this post to keep it from sprawling all over the place, so I’m going to cut it off here and try to do a separate post on the Comptroller and Railroad Commissioner races.
While his fellow Democrats are assaulting ICE agents over deportations of illegal alien felons, Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico is kicking it old school by breaking out a bottle of Grandad’s Olde Class Warfare. Talarico just debated primary rival Jasmine Crockett, where he directed his ire against billionaires.
The debate was hosted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). After hosting the two candidates, the AFL-CIO declined to endorse in the race.
Snip.
In their opening and closing remarks, the two candidates stuck to their respective themes thus far in the race: Talarico with his pitch for unity, loving one’s neighbor, and billionaires’ negative impact on society, and Crockett with her frequent use of the word “fight,” citing her many viral moments chewing out Republicans, the need for authenticity, and her experience as a public defender.
Snip.
Talarico kicked off with similar lines as can be seen on his campaign website and that he’s pitched at various rallies: uniting against billionaires.
He said, “Before I was a legislator, I was a public school teacher on the West Side of San Antonio, one of the poor ZIP codes in the entire state of Texas. On the west side, I learned that the real fight in this country is not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom. We will not win this race in November with the same old politics of division.”
“Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other, so we’re not looking up at them. We are building a people-powered movement to beat them,” he added.
You may remember the social justice left previously declaring that mathematical abstraction, the 1%, was the source of all evil, as part of Obama’s battle-space preparation against Mitt Romney for 2012. Evidently that was just too broad of a class enemy for Talarico. Now he’s setting his sights on the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, at the same time so many are fleeing California’s proposed wealth tax and coming to Texas to open up new factories and create jobs. I bet he’s still smarting over Elon Musk backing Trump.
The Texas Democratic primary for U.S. Senate heated up on Friday with former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred directly criticizing his rival, state Rep. James Talarico, for the first time, calling him out for accepting donations from casino magnate and megadonor Miriam Adelson while railing against billionaires’ influence in politics.
“I like James, but when I see him say that he’s running against billionaires, but then when nobody was looking, his top donor was Miriam Adelson … That contributes to the cynicism that folks might experience,” Allred said during an event at The Texas Tribune Festival.
Snip.
During his 2024 reelection campaign for the Texas House, Talarico accepted $59,000 from Texas Sands PAC, a pro-gambling group funded by Adelson. Talarico has also accepted donations from billionaire Charles Butt, the H-E-B chairman who supported candidates from both parties opposed to private school vouchers.
What are mere scruples when there’s all that sweet, sweet gambling money available to stuff into your campaign’s maw?
Though this rank hypocrisy clashes with Talarico’s performative piety, it’s par for the course for Democrats, who decry billionaires while funding their leftwing street operations through the likes of George Soros and Neville Roy Singham.
Because our billionaires are beyond reproach, and it’s always OK when we do it.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued a sweeping new legal opinion declaring that “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” programs rooted in race- and sex-based preferences are unconstitutional in the public sector and expose private companies to significant legal liability.
The 74 page opinion argues that government policies awarding opportunities or benefits based on “skin color or sex” cannot survive strict constitutional scrutiny and should be dismantled across Texas.
An attorney general opinion is a formal written interpretation of the law issued by the state’s top lawyer, typically in response to a legal question about how existing statutes or constitutional provisions should be applied.
Paxton’s office said the opinion targets decades of DEI frameworks embedded throughout state and local government, including programs in public institutions and schools. The attorney general framed the action as a return to equal opportunity and a rejection of what he called “woke, race-based favoritism.”
“This action to dismantle DEI in Texas helps fulfill the vision articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr. when he dreamed that his children would one day live in a nation where they were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Paxton said. “America is waking up to the egregious unfairness of DEI policies. People should be judged based on merit and the quality of their character and qualifications, not their race, sex, or any other inherent characteristic conferred at birth.”
Seems like apt phrasing for a decision issued on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Paxton added that “it’s imperative that all private-sector employers, schools, and state and local government entities—based on this legal opinion—immediately abolish any DEI, affirmative action, or unconstitutional discrimination programs under their authority.”
In the opinion itself, Paxton’s office contends that DEI has evolved into a system in which immutable traits have become “the currency of advancement,” spreading through academia, government, and private industry.
While an AG opinion can carry significant weight for state agencies and local governments—often shaping how officials administer programs and avoid legal risk—it does not, by itself, change the law, repeal statutes, or carry the force of a court order.
It does, however, signal how his office will treat DEI going forward.
If you read the decision, it goes into considerable detail not just on how racial preferences violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and Paxton cites the words of American Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine and George Mason.
It also fiercely critiques the reintroduction of official support for racial preferences and the introduction of racial quotas under President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the name of “affirmative action,” as well of the slight-of-hand by which temporary solutions to address past discrimination have been transformed into permanent “diversity” bureaucracies. “The rhetoric that diversity is essential for ‘business survival’ continued to take form and brought with it a cottage industry of diversity training programs, networking, and mentoring programs that fixated on the advancement of women and minorities.”
The legal opinion concludes that race- and sex-based preferences in public institutions “cannot survive strict scrutiny and are therefore unconstitutional.”
It also warns that many private-sector DEI practices could trigger liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, and federal civil rights law, including Section 1981, as well as potential exposure under state and federal securities laws.
A major focus of Paxton’s opinion is Texas’ historically underutilized business (HUB) contracting framework, which Paxton describes as a “pervasive, discriminatory regime” that violates both the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the Texas Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment.
The opinion argues the state’s HUB structure defines eligibility and access to government benefits by race and sex, triggering strict scrutiny and creating what it calls de facto quotas through race- and sex-based “targets.”
Plus a slam at current Senate race rival John Cornyn for failing to address DEI when he was Attorney General.
Our nation was founded on the radical notion that all are created equal. Though we have often failed to live up to that promise, it remains as a constitutional lodestar—both in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. The race- and sex-based, public sector preferences discussed in this opinion cannot survive strict scrutiny and are therefore unconstitutional. Furthermore, a large body of DEI practices in the private sector triggers liability under Title VII, the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, and Section 1981 in addition to state and federal securities law.
That should be the proper death-knell for DEI in Texas. The question remains how much resistance will Democrat-run blue locales like Austin and Houston, who desperately want to continue discriminating on the basis of race, put up against the ruling, and long will it take private sector entities to fall in line to limit their legal liability?
The Democratic side of the 2026 Texas Senate got a shake-up just five hours before the filing deadline, when U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett filed for the race right after Colin Allred dropped out.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30) has made official her long-awaited run for U.S. Senate — entering the mix with several other high-profile Republican and Democratic challengers to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), about five hours before the filing deadline.
Her filing on Monday afternoon followed several campaign shifts as the filing deadline on Monday night approached, including former Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32), who dropped his bid for U.S. Senate despite having been last year’s nominee for the same position the morning prior to Crockett’s campaign launch.
You may remember Allred from such hits as “I lost to Ted Cruz by over 900,000 votes“; which, being only 8.5% of the vote, was actually quite respectable by post-Betomania standards.
Crockett is a regular in national news headlines, often highlighted for sparring with other similarly-robust GOP members and for her unfiltered rhetoric typically targeted at the Republican Party’s leadership.
She flirted with a potential run for the U.S. Senate as various candidates jumped into the race, including Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), and Democratic candidates Allred and state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin). Crockett indicated on numerous occasions that she’d only consider jumping into the ring for U.S. Senate if she was shown general election polling that proved she has a path to victory, and teased the possibility on various media hits leading up to Monday night.
I suspect that people outside of the state haven’t heard of Talarico, who fills the Beto O’Rourke mold as a white guy with a vaguely Hispanic name. But he’s clearly the anointed choice of Texas Democratic Party insiders, to the point that he has been out-fundraising Allred (the man who raised over $94 million in his futile attempt to oust Ted Cruz last year) by more than $1 million, which was probably a contributing factor in Allred dropping out.
Among the polls in the field measuring Crockett’s potential success in the race was one released in early October, conducted by both the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. It found that in a four-way primary matchup between Crockett, Talarico, O’Rourke, and the now-null Allred, Crockett led the Democratic field with 31 percent, with Talarico and O’Rourke tied behind her.
It also showed her as a viable general election candidate when placed against Republicans Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt — ranging from a six-point deficit to as low as a two-point deficit when placed in a hypothetical November 2026 general election against each of the three. Her best shot at winning the general appeared to be against Paxton, who held only a two-percent lead against her. Hunt led against her at five percent, while Cornyn proved to be the most difficult at six percent.
Usual poll caveats this far out apply.
Per reporting from CNN over the weekend, Allred, Talarico, Beto O’Rourke, and Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX-20) conducted a meeting to plan a statewide slate of Democratic candidates — to which Crockett was not invited — but it yielded no concrete plan and concluded with no set U.S. Senate candidate.
Does rather suggest that Crockett is on the outside looking in, doesn’t it?
The reaction from inside the Democratic tent was twofold. First came cheers about her stardom and visions of her being the one to flip the seat. Second came frustration about her high negatives and potential to crash and burn on the general election ballot in an R-58% state, per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, reactions to her candidacy only took one form: elation.
Republicans now have their foil in Texas, serving much the same purpose as Zohran Mamdani does nationwide going into next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee instantly put out messaging hitting border Congressman Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX-34) as Crockett’s “best friend.”
The Crockett-Talarico winner will face either U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38), who are currently bloodying each other up over in the GOP primary.
Republicans in Texas — who are staring down the barrel of a very difficult midterm cycle — would be overjoyed for Crockett to be the Democratic name at the top of the ticket in November.
Indeed.
Someone who believes that 80% of crime comes from white supremacists suggests a candidate way out of touch with the Texas electorate, and a hothouse flower more suited to the confines of her overwelmingly Democratic black majority south Dallas district than someone suited to run statewide.
The Texas Democrat political establishment fears a wipeout of down-ballot candidates if they nominate a “terminally online” lefty candidate like Crockett at the top of the ticket. Long before she jumped into the race, they had already picked Talarico as their designated candidate. A Texas state rep who’s checklist positions aren’t a world away from Crockett’s, he still presents quite a different cultural profile as a “Presbyterian seminarian.” The “Christian nationalists” he rails against may be as thin on the ground as Crockett’s white supremacists, but someone who actually speaks the language of Christian belief is quite a different profile than the social justice warriors the national party has been lionizing.
Can he win in November? Barring a Great Depression-level economic crisis, no. Neither can Crockett. It’s simply a matter of protecting down ballot races, as Crockett is so far to the left of the Texas electorate that she might face a Wendy Davis style wipeout against whichever Republican captures the nomination.
Crockett’s has also jumped into the race very, very late. When O’Rourke ran against Ted Cruz, he jumped into the race April of the year before, not December. It will be very hard to build out a statewide campaign organization in a mere three and half months. It will also be hard to hire the best staffers, as the vast majority will already have signed on with other candidates in other races. And it’s likely most of the big in-state Democrat money was already betting on Talarico, and that seems unlikely to change.
She may be able to tap out-of-state lefty donors. But, then again, they may be tired of sending their money to Texas to die without noticeable effect. Also, unlike O’Rourke, there’s not enough time to write a million fawning magazine profiles of her, assuming half the magazines that fluffed O’Rourke are even still publishing.
Also, say what you want about O’Rourke, he did the work, “campaigning hard all across the state with a grueling personal appearance schedule that rivaled similar hard work put in by Cruz in his winning 2012 race. He also built out a competent campaign infrastructure and a national fund-raising apparatus to channel in the huge sums of cash national Democrats were throwing into the race.” I have my doubts that Crockett will prove overly capable in either of these areas.
I’ve long assumed that Talarico was the state Democratic Party’s favored` candidate based on the highly unscientific but usually accurate metric that a few yard signs had popped up in my neighborhood for him and no one else. Thus far, I see no reason Crockett’s entry into the race should change that assumption.
If you’re a long time incumbent, you’re not supposed to be running in third place in a three man race, especially after you’ve dumped a whole lot of money into the race, yet that’s exactly the position John Cornyn finds himself in.
A new poll of likely Republican primary voters shows U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s support continuing to decline ahead of the 2026 Texas GOP primary, with Cornyn now falling into third place in a three-way matchup.
The poll, conducted November 21–22 by Stratus Intelligence, surveyed 857 likely Republican primary voters in Texas. It found Attorney General Ken Paxton leading with 36 percent, followed by U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt at 26 percent, and Cornyn at 25 percent. Fourteen percent of voters remain undecided.
The first caveat is that 857 likely voters is a fairly small sample for a state as large as Texas. I’ve seen smaller, but generally you want to see something at least in the 1,500-2,000 range. The second caveat is that I’m not seeing the crosstabs here. There are a bit fewer shenanigans to pull if you’re actually only polling Republicans, but I still want to see the crosstabs.
The third caveat is that all the other usual poll concerns apply.
Cornyn’s favorability rating has also declined. The survey shows him at 35 percent favorable and 51 percent unfavorable, with 28 percent of respondents holding a “very unfavorable” view of the incumbent senator.
In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, Paxton leads Cornyn 51 percent to 34 percent, while Hunt leads Cornyn 52 percent to 29 percent. The memo accompanying the poll states that Cornyn has spent more than $40 million on advertising and campaign activity this year but that his numbers have not improved.
$40 million to make yourself less popular? That’s some mighty fine campaign management there, Lou.
Early TV advertising is the perpetual fool’s gold of political campaigns, as it rarely moves the needle, especially for incumbents. Thus far I have not received a single direct mail flyer from any of the three Republican senate candidates (though I have received four from AG candidate Mayes Middleton).
The polling also explored President Donald Trump’s potential influence. In a scenario where Trump endorses Cornyn, Paxton still leads 44 percent to 41 percent. By contrast, if Trump endorses Hunt, Hunt leads Paxton 51 percent to 31 percent.
Interesting.
Small poll samples aside, it reinforces the existing impression of Cornyn: A long-time incumbent who’s worn out his welcome with Republican primary voters,
Trump might actually bring peace to the Middle East, the FBI behaving badly (again), Letitia James gets served a heaping plate of payback, a bomb factory goes boom, a dive into the mind of a social justice warrior, Ukraine keeps wrecking Russia’s oil infrastructure, and ShoeOnHead dives deep into really icky erotica aimed at women. Plus multiple good boys.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Peace in the Middle East? “Trump Announces Israel, Hamas Have Agreed to First Phase of Peace Deal to End Gaza War.”
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of his 20-point peace agreement to end the war in Gaza.
Hamas will exchange the remaining living and dead hostages in its captivity and Israel will respond by releasing Palestinian prisoners, Trump said on Truth Social.
“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump said.
“All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen,” he added.
“BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”
Snip.
With the deal on the table, the White House said Trump is considering a trip to the Middle East after he completes his annual checkup on Friday.
Releasing the hostages and prisoners is one aspect of the Trump administration’s plan to stop the fighting in Gaza and foster economic development in the region. Hamas is expected to begin releasing the hostages this upcoming weekend.
In September, the White House released Trump’s plan for stabilizing Gaza and creating a temporary governance structure to rebuild the territory and prevent Hamas from governing it after the war. At the same time, Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to escalate the conflict in Gaza if Hamas rejected his latest overture.
“With God’s help we will bring them all home,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Trump’s announcement Wednesday marks the beginning of end of the war between Israel and Hamas after almost two years of fighting and tens of thousands of casualties. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 innocent civilians and abducted more than 250 hostages.
If it works out and the hostages get home, fine and dandy, but Jihadis not living up to their promises and treaties is pretty much the norm, so I’m not going to hold my breath…
“Patel Fires FBI Agents, Ends CR-15 Squad After Learning Jack Smith Tracked GOP Senators. Patel also said the FBI “initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead.”
FBI Director Kash Patel announced he fired the agents and dismantled the squad after learning former Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked eight GOP senators while investigating then-former President Donald Trump.
Patel wrote on X:
Transparency is important and accountability is critical. We promised both, and this is what promises kept looks like. This FBI is delivering.
As a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we have already taken the following actions:
We terminated employees, we abolished the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead.
Transparency is important and accountability is critical. We promised both, and this is what promises kept looks like. This FBI is delivering.
As a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we…
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 7, 2025
But will the DOJ take action against Smith? That’s my big question.
The CR-15 squad is a federal public corruption squad. It helped Smith during the Arctic Frost investigation, which involved Trump allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and the Capitol Hill Riot.
In May, Patel said he folded the squad and reassigned the agents. I’m unsure if today’s comments indicate that the FBI will no longer have another CR-15 squad.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed the tracking memo on Monday. Smith tracked these eight senators:
Marsha Blackburn (TN)
Lindsey Graham (SC)
Bill Hagerty (TN)
Josh Hawley (MO)
Ron Johnson (WI)
Mike Kelly (PA)
Cynthia Lummis (WY)
Tommy Tuberville (AL)
Yet another reason President Autopen was so busy handing out pardons like Halloween candy…
R.S. McCain takes a deep dive into the Democrat Party’s social justice craziness.
Did you ever wonder how the Democratic Party got so crazy? For example, how is it that the governor of Illinois is inciting violent mobs against federal immigration authorities and meanwhile, in Virginia, every Democrat is rallying to the defense of Attorney General candidate Jay Jones, who openly fantasized about murdering political opponents?
To summarize briefly: Bad causes attract bad people.
To understand the symbiotic relationship between toxic political movements and their toxic supporters, my advice is to first read Eric Hoffer’s 1951 classic, The True Believer, especially Part 2: “The Potential Converts.” Next, you should read Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, focusing on Chapter 10, “Why the Worst Get on Top.” Among the personal experiences that led me to comprehend this phenomenon was being swarmed by a mob of “Occupy” protesters in 2011. If you ever had the misfortune to be in close proximity to a zombie horde like that, you would never doubt that the fundamental problem of the Democratic Party is that its grassroots “base” is composed of dangerous lunatics.
If you ever needed a reason to vote Republican, this is it: Democrats are the party of people who celebrate terrorist massacres of innocent Jews.
All of which is preamble to introducing you to the person calling herself “Cloud,” who describes herself as “Pisces / 26 / ATL / Immortal Angel Femboy / Cosplayer” on an Instagram account with approximately 8,000 followers. If ever anyone needed a Kiwi Farms LOLCow file . . .
This summer, “Cloud” went viral with a video denouncing Taylor Swift’s engagement to “MAGA-adjacent” Travis Kelce:
“I can already feel myself regretting making this video. If ten people are sitting at a table, and one of them is a Nazi, and the other nine people are not telling the Nazi to fuck off, then you’re at a table with ten Nazis. When Taylor Swift first started dating Travis Kelce and Travis Kelce was so open about his ‘respect’ for Donald Trump, I already knew we were reaching the beginning of the end, right? When she was posting photos with, like, other NFL wives and girlfriends or whatever, and they were all open MAGAs, and Taylor was happily posing with them on Instagram, I knew we were at the beginning of the end. I just didn’t know how long it would take for the general populace to catch on that it was the beginning of the end. You cannot be friends with people who have different opinions on you when those opinions are life and death for other people — when the Supreme Court ruling today has decided that certain people’s lives are genuinely worth more on paper than others. This is a black-and-white issue. I’m sorry, but there is no nuance when it comes to Trump. You’re either chill with the guy who has death camps in El Salvador or you’re not. And the only reason I’m making this video is because I’ve been very open about how much I love Taylor Swift during the last few years. So I do feel obligated to come on here and say she is MAGA — or at least, MAGA-adjacent. And I’m sorry, as a trans person, if you’re Nazi-adjacent, that’s still a Nazi to me. Do with that info whatever you will.”
Oh, wow — where to begin unraveling this gigantic yarn-ball of dangerous craziness? To start with, the Supreme Court ruling she references (see “NY Times on the Left’s Skrmetti Bungle: ‘Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb’,” June 21) was a consequence of transgender activists overplaying their hand, trying to claim that a state law prohibiting transgender “treatment” for children to be a form of sex-based discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pause for a moment to ask yourself whether those who voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 intended for it to protect the use of synthetic hormones and surgery to turn children into carnival sideshow freaks. As a legal theory, this is bizarre, and yet “Cloud” (who identifies as a “trans person” despite apparently having undergone no such treatment herself) sees the Skrmetti ruling as “life or death.” This over-the-top rhetoric is entirely consistent with her lazy formula “MAGA = Nazi.” If you don’t vote for Democrats, you are a latter-day Hitler, she contends, and therefore . . . ?
Violence is the logical conclusion of a syllogism built on such premises, and good luck trying to convince Democratic voters that their belief system is based on dubious premises and fallacies. Having convinced themselves that they are “on the right side of history,” they consider it a hate crime to disagree with them. This fanaticism attracts bad people to the Democratic Party banner, and the bad people expect their party to represent their beliefs, which is why the Democrats are so crazy.
A federal grand jury in Eastern Virginia has indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on one count of bank fraud, multiple outlets are reporting.
US Attorney Lindsey Halligan presented the case to the grand jury on Thursday, according to sources, one month after she was installed in her role.
As noted in August, a criminal referral was filed against James, alleging that she had “falsified records” to get home loans for a Virginia property that she claimed was her “principal residence” in 2023 – while she was serving as a New York state prosecutor.
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William Pulte sent the missive to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche, claiming that in late August 2023 – weeks before she launched her civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization for inflating the values of its properties.
In 2021, James also purchased a 5-family Brooklyn property, but has “consistently misrepresented the same property as only having four units in both building permit applications and numerous mortgage documents and applications,” the letter noted.
Loans secured for this property could have reduced her mortgage interest rate by as much as 1% – leaving James with lower monthly payments under the federal Home Assistance Modification Program (HAMP) since it was listed as containing just four units, according to Pulte.
More on that subject:
Not trying to make a political point here.
I spent years as a mortgage banker at Quicken Loans (now Rocket Mortgage), the number one mortgage lender in the country, before I ever went to law school. So when I see stories like this, I look at them a little differently.
The Trump Administration has designated international drug cartels as unlawful combatants.
President Donald Trump has finally named the enemy: Mexican drug cartels. Declaring them unlawful combatants and recognizing a “non-international armed conflict” marks one of the most consequential national security shifts in modern history.
For decades, Washington treated cartel violence as a crime — a problem for prosecutors, not generals. Indictments were filed, assets seized, and sanctions imposed. But the cartels fought a different kind of war, one that combined terror, intelligence, and territorial control. Calling it “crime” guaranteed defeat.
We refused to define the cartels as belligerents — and fought the wrong fight.
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, Mexico ranks among the world’s most violent conflict zones — behind only Palestine, Myanmar, and Syria. It is also the second-most dangerous country for civilians. Those numbers are not from a failed state overseas. They come from our southern border, where cartel wars spill into American communities daily.
For decades, federal authorities insisted on using a law-enforcement lens. Agencies operated under Title 21, Title 50, and limited “detect and monitor” authorities. They punished crimes but never broke campaigns. The narrow scope bred strategic blindness. While U.S. prosecutors filed indictments and built cases, cartels corrupted institutions, coerced populations, and built empires.
As the Marine Corps teaches: How you define the environment determines how you operate in it. We refused to define the cartels as belligerents — and fought the wrong fight.
By every operational measure, cartels are hybrid threats. They control territory, command loyalty through terror, and run parallel governments. They tax, adjudicate, and even “protect” local populations. Their power rests on corruption and espionage: bribing officials, infiltrating agencies, and compromising law enforcement through human networks that resemble intelligence tradecraft.
Cartels operate across land, air, maritime, subterranean, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. They deploy drones, tunnels, jammers, and encrypted systems. They are multi-domain actors running hybrid campaigns.
Cartels don’t just smuggle — they destabilize. Mass migration has become a weapon of war: overwhelming institutions, hiding operatives, and masking foreign infiltration. Millions of illegal entrants from more than 170 nations have crossed under cartel supervision. The intent is not just profit. It’s demographic disruption.
Under federal law, terrorism includes violence intended “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “influence government policy.” By that definition, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation qualify as terrorist organizations.
Munitions plant explodes in Bucksnort, Tennessee. Which is a real place off I-40. “Accurate Energetic Systems, LLC (AES) is a certified Women-Owned Small Business specializing in the production, handling, and storage of energetic materials for military, aerospace, and commercial demolition sectors.” Chopper footage shows the place leveled.
“Ukrainian drones hit multiple targets in Russia [including] the Feodosia oil depot in Crimea, a chemical plant Sverdlov in Dzerzhinsk and power plants in Belgorod and Klintsy.”
They also carried out a drone strike on a key oil pumping station in Efimovka. “The station [is] a key node on the Kuibyshev-Tikhoretsk pipeline that moves Urals crude to the Black Sea.”
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb says that Russia’s economy is crumbling. “Inflation is over 20% which means that their [financial] reserves are close to zero.” Also: “In the past roughly 1,000 days, Russia has advanced only one percentage point of Ukrainian territory.”
Eman Abdelhadi, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Comparative Human Development, was arrested Friday and charged with two counts of aggravated battery to a government employee, a Class 3 felony, and two counts of resisting/obstruction peace, a Class A misdemeanor, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News.
Radical sociologist Abdelhadi, who previously cursed out her employer while speaking at a “Socialism 2025” conference, is due in court again on Tuesday.
It sounds like University of Chicago already has plenty of evidence to fire Abdelhadi for cause.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins lawsuit to close the Texas Republican primary. Paxton might quite rightly have a conflict of interest here, since Democrats voting in he Republican primary would obviously favor his Senate race opponent John Cornyn…
EPCOR Utilities Inc. recently announced its intent to begin construction and eventual operation of a facility in Galveston Bay, a region that is home to almost eight million people.
Beginning with a permit application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), EPCOR is planning to construct a desalination plant on the San Leon Peninsula, which, according to a press release, will supply approximately 26.5 million gallons of fresh water per day.
The Bayshore Desalination Facility is projected to be completed in approximately five years if the design and construction phases are allowed to proceed.
Various government entities have been warning about potential water shortages for some time now, so it’s good to get ahead of the curve.
“Morning Glory Milking Farm [is] a popular romance novel about a young woman down on her luck who does what every young woman does when facing financial struggle. She starts an Only Fans. No, I’m just kidding. She wouldn’t degrade herself like that. She gets a job jerking off monsters.”
“I forgot to inform you that there is a new epidemic. An epidemic that many have yet to discuss and that epidemic is female Gooners. Now, for those of you unaware, Goonar is internet slang for someone addicted to porn, and smut is slang for dark romance novels, otherwise known as porn.” [sigh] I did a tiny bit of research on the term “gooner” when I first came across it in an Asmongold video, and Shoe is slightly off in her definition, as the most common use of the term seems to be someone who masturbates constantly without achieving orgasm.
“I actually read the book myself, and I’m not going to lie: the Nineteenth Amendment needs to be abolished.”
“I like how in this fantasy world, student loans still exist. Like, we can imagine a world with minotaurs and humans in a relationship, but we can’t imagine a world without student loans.”
She reads a goodly portion of the scene where the minotaur insists on paying for his handmaiden’s dinner. “Inside every woman there are two wolves or two bulls, the strong independent girl boss and the submissive doting housewife. And in the presence of a masculine man, or a farm animal, she will fold like a lawn chair and instantly return to factory settings.”
“Women are going to be picking up Animal Farm now, ‘like, where’s the horse cock?'”
One of the books Amazon recommended after she bought this one: Pounded By Produce.
“Are we really going to pretend that a story about a young woman getting a job milking mythical creatures to pay off her student debt is not funny? It’s funny. If that makes me a sexist misogynist, you got me. To act like you are so different and above the other Gooners is just it’s silly. I’m sorry, but you are no different than Joe Schmo jerking it to Fat Booty Latinas in Space 12.”
Just wait until she talks about women attending the “Sinners and Stardust” convention and actually sexually assaulting a man there. So if you’re a single man desperate enough to attend such a convention know that the odds are good, but the goods are odd…
“The women are like conquered and taken and overpowered by these monsters. And I think many of these women are reading these books containing monsters and not men because masculinity and dominance in men has been completely demonized in modern society. But the truth is many women still crave it. You see, the monsters in these stories have those like dominant masculine traits that women like so much, but they’re not human men. They have all these traits women desire without the problematic baggage human men bring without being the men they hate or have been told to hate. It is the perfect guilt-free slop.”
On the other hand, he thinks Tron: Ares is “complete arse. “I’ve got plenty of issues with Tron: Legacy, but that movie was a goddamn masterpiece compared to this.” “Not only can Disney not be trusted as the custodians of other people’s IPs that they bought their way into, they can’t even be trusted to manage their own fucking IPs at this point.”
Ridley Scott says that most films today are crap. on the one hand, he’s right. On the other hand, he’s also the director of Prometheus, so glass houses, stones…
The top of the ticket on the Republican side in Texas is now a three-way race as Congressman Wesley Hunt (R-TX-38) made his long-rumored challenge to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Attorney General Ken Paxton official on Monday.
“What I’ve seen in polling over the past few months is people want an alternative, and I’m going to give it to them,” Hunt told the Associated Press.
Hunt, a U.S. Army veteran, is a second-term congressman from Harris County’s 38th Congressional District who’s allied himself with President Donald Trump since running for the new district in 2022 after the previous year’s post-Census redistricting.
Launching with a campaign video, Hunt said in a press release, “This campaign is about defending the timeless conservative values that built this state and this nation. My convictions do not waver, they do not falter, and they do not bend to political pressure. I will fight for Texas with the same courage and resolve with which I once fought for our country in combat.”
“Washington does not get to dictate what happens in Texas. Bureaucrats in D.C. do not choose Texas’ leadership; Texans do. This race will be settled by Texans, not entrenched political figures from inside the beltway.”
Cornyn campaign spokesman Matt Mackowiak told The Texan, “Senator Cornyn has soared ahead in the latest polling and will win this election. Wesley Hunt is a legend in his own mind. No one is happier this morning than the national Democrats who are watching Wesley continue his quixotic quest for relevancy, costing tens of millions of dollars that will endanger the Trump agenda from being passed.”
Nick Maddux, spokesman for Paxton’s campaign, told The Texan, “We welcome Wesley Hunt to the race. Primaries are good for our party and our voters, and Welsey and General Paxton both know that Texans deserve better than the failed, anti-Trump record of John Cornyn.”
Cornyn and Paxton have long established their campaign lanes — the former backed by Senate leadership and the more established part of the Republican Party; the latter supported by conservatives unhappy with the incumbent for various reasons. But Hunt’s is less clear, potentially taking from both candidates already in the race.
In the most recent poll from Ragnar Research that shows Cornyn and Paxton neck and neck just above 30 percent, Hunt polled at 17 percent.
Voters know how they generally feel about Cornyn and Paxton, both in single digits for the “don’t know enough” category of support and opposition in a recent survey from Texas Southern University; Hunt’s unknown category registered at 45 percent.
Hunt’s net favorability rating is +39 percent to Paxton’s +19 percent and Cornyn’s +5 percent among Republicans.
That’s a nice high favorability rating to start with, but Hunt has never run statewide. I’m guessing the average voter knows he’s a Republican, a congressman, and he’s black, but probably little more. A few more people may have heard about him due to his interview with Joe Rogan or that campaign ad that first introduced him. Hunt has a 97% conservative rating from CPAC, and an A from Gun Owners of America.
While Hunt has filed a good two months before the December 8 deadline, he’s getting in fairly late from an organizational and fundraising perspective. Paxton has led Cornyn in just about all polling, though by varying amounts. Through Q2 (haven’t seen any Q3 numbers yet), Cornyn has raised $8 million to Paxton’s $2.9 million. Hunt, whose congressional campaigns suggest he’s a solid middle-of-the-pack fundraiser, has a lot of catching up to do and not much time to do it.
