Fifth Circuit Upholds Texas Ban on Paid Ballot Harvesting in Major Election Integrity Win

The Fifth Circuit just handed Texas a major win on ballot harvesting, reversing a lower court and allowing the state’s ban on paid in-person ballot harvesting to take effect.

The ruling clears the way for enforcement of a key provision in S.B. 1, the 2021 election integrity law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The statute targets compensated political operatives who interact with voters while they are physically handling ballots.

The law defines “vote harvesting services” as:

“in-person interaction with one or more voters, in the physical presence of an official ballot or a ballot voted by mail, intended to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure.”

That definition is neither abstract nor open-ended. It zeroes in on in-person conduct that occurs in the presence of a ballot and is intended to influence how that ballot is cast. The statute does not sweep in general political advocacy. It addresses direct interaction with a voter while the ballot itself is being handled.

The enforcement provision leaves little ambiguity. Under the statute, a person commits an offense if he:

“knowingly provides or offers to provide vote harvesting services in exchange for compensation or other benefit.”

Put more plainly, Texas can prohibit someone from being paid to hover over a voter while a ballot is being completed and steer the voter toward a preferred candidate or measure.

Keep reading

Eyewitness video of mysterious craft hovering over El Paso upends Trump administration ‘party balloon’ claims

Claims that US airspace was shut down because of a party balloon have been popped by new video appearing to show a large, hovering UFO over El Paso, Texas.

An eyewitness driving near El Paso International Airport on Tuesday pulled over to record what they described as a mothership floating above the ground in the distance, which was releasing smaller objects from its underside.

The sighting, shared with crowdsourced UFO-reporting platform Enigma, occurred just hours before a large swath of US airspace was abruptly closed for ‘special security reasons’ at 11.30pm MT on February 10.

The mysterious shut down was originally announced to last for ten days and included all commercial, cargo, and general flights within a ten-mile-wide area roughly five miles southwest of El Paso, from the ground up to 18,000 feet.

However, the chaotic shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was quickly called off, with the Trump Administration changing the story of what triggered the alert multiple times within a matter of hours on Wednesday.

White House officials initially announced the US had taken down a Mexican cartel drone flying across the southern border, only to claim hours later that the object struck by a high-powered laser was a party balloon.

Now, UFO researchers and witnesses in the area have alleged that something other than a balloon or drone was spotted on multiple days near the US-Mexico border before the FAA warning.

‘Looks like the mothership. It’s huge. And there are stuff coming out from the bottom of it and going off to the left a little bit as it landed,’ the driver on Tuesday said. 

Keep reading

La Linea: The Mexican Cartel Controlling the El Paso-Juarez Metropolitan Area

A recent cartel operation sent drones from Mexico into the United States, triggering a national security alert that temporarily shut down the airspace around El Paso, Texas, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

While the Department of War disabled the drones, Breitbart Texas reported, it remains unclear how large the drones were or if the cartel aircraft were moving drugs, being used for surveillance, or carrying improvised explosive devices, a tactic that has become prevalent in Mexico.

El Paso is directly north of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a city with various criminal organizations present, which remains largely under the control of La Línea, a former faction of the Juárez Cartel that has since become the dominant criminal organization on the Mexican side of the border.

Keep reading

Jasmine Crockett Shows Just How Low Democrats Are Willing to Go to Attack Trump

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) slammed President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers over the handling of the Epstein Files. But, as always, there’s a problem.

Crockett posted a video on Monday in which she addressed reporters about the matter. She referred to recent reports suggesting that Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, would refuse to give answers to Congress about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation unless she received clemency. 

“Basically, Ghislaine was like, I’m not going to participate, but we’re not going to stop,” Crockett said. “There were those that thought we would stop when we were able to get the discharge petition done. There were those that thought we were going to stop when it didn’t seem like we had the votes once we finally got that done.”

The lawmaker said the Trump administration violated a law passed in December compelling the White House to release all of the files pertaining to Epstein and his possible collaborators. It released the last tranche of the files last week.

“Now that they have violated the law because this is actually in law, we are not stopping. So I want people to understand that House US Democrats, we are going to be on their as**s. That’s just the reality,” she said.

The reporter asked Crockett what her message would be to President Trump. “Same thing,” she answered. “We’re going to be on his a**. I mean, it is so… I don’t really know where we are in this country. Why are we even having this conversation? The United States has fallen apart right now, partially because he’s going out and randomly allowing for the killings of people in the middle of the street.”

Keep reading

Juvenile detention center supervision officer arrested on child sexual assault charges, LCSO says

A juvenile supervision officer at a juvenile detention center has been arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child, according to the Llano County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies with LCSO’s Criminal Investigations Division obtained multiple arrest warrants for Justice Malachi Johnson on Jan. 28. He’s also charged with indecency with a child by sexual contact. Both charges are second degree felonies.

According to a press release, LCSO discovered Johnson’s employment at the Hays County Juvenile Detention Center during their investigation. The department coordinated with the Hays County Sheriff’s Office to arrest Johnson. He was booked in the Hays County Jail and released several days later, online jail records show.

Further details were not immediately available, and it’s unclear whether the alleged assault happened in Llano County.

“The protection of our children is paramount, and the Llano County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to thoroughly investigating allegations of crimes against children and holding offenders accountable,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Keep reading

Democratic firebrand Jasmine Crockett embarrassingly deletes multiple errors on her campaign website

Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was caught with multiple errors on her campaign site before her team scrambled to correct them. 

The 44-year-old Democratic firebrand, who launched her Senate campaign two months ago, shared her stance on critical social issues in the state – but the content didn’t appear to be proofread before it was published. 

On the site, under the slogan ‘Crockett Texas Tough’, a bulleted list displayed the liberal’s ‘priorities’. 

In the initial mention of insurance companies helping citizens with mental health issues, Crockett’s team seemingly forgot to delete ‘write out your bullet point here’,  the placeholder statement that appears when building a website. 

Before edits were made, senior CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere spotted the error. 

‘Requiring all major insurance providers to include full mental healthcare coverage, including prescription medications and therapiesWrite out your bullet points here. Anything from a sentence to a paragraph works,’ the line originally read. 

The bullet point has since been shortened to: ‘Requiring all major insurance providers to include full mental healthcare coverage, including prescription medications and therapies.’ 

Online users also uncovered that her campaign added a bullet point praising her work on gun control in the Social Security section of her website. That error has since been amended. 

Keep reading

LAUGHABLE: Jasmine Crockett Tells MSNOW That Republicans Will ‘Absolutely’ Vote for Her in a General Election

Far left Rep. Jasmine Crockett recently appeared on MSNOW and told host Michael Steele that Republican voters in Texas will ‘absolutely’ vote for her because she’s genuine or something.

Crockett has raised her national profile over the last year through her willingness to go on TV and say incredibly stupid things, but it’s unlikely that she would win over Republican voters in a general election.

It’s also funny how no one at MSNOW even challenges her on any of this.

Breitbart News has details:

Co-host Michael Steele said, “Do you think Republicans, when you get to a general election, can be convinced that you are the representative they need in Washington?”

Crockett said, “Oh, absolutely. Now, Michael, you can maybe talk about this a little bit more because I think the Democrats have a perception of what Republicans want. And I think that, you know, what the real is. I think that Republicans aren’t looking for somebody that is Republican lite. They can just go and get the real thing. What they want is somebody that they know who they are. So I have text messages from Republicans that have made it clear that if there is a certain person that ends up making it through, they are absolutely voting for me because they know who I am.”

She added, “And so that’s why we can understand. When Republicans went out and voted for a less than perfect candidate in Donald Trump, they don’t seek perfection, whereas Democrats typically do.

Keep reading

You’re Gonna Laugh Your Head Off When You Find Out Why Jasmine Crockett’s Opponent Is In Trouble

The Texas Democratic Senate primary race took a bizarre turn when a TikTok influencer claimed one of the candidates made a racist remark about former Rep. Colin Allred, who had dropped out of the race.

Morgan Thompson, a black political TikTok personality, dropped a bombshell allegation on Sunday. She claimed she had a private conversation with state Rep. James Talarico, who is running neck and neck with U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

During the conversation, Talarico insulted Allred, allegedly telling her that he “signed up to run against a mediocre black man, not a formidable, intelligent black woman,” referring to Allred and Crockett respectively.

Thompson said she previously backed Talarico before Crockett entered the race in December. She had requested the meeting with Talarico to express her concerns over his association with Democratic strategist James Carville, who has told the party on several occasions that they need to abandon their reliance on woke identity politics.

Keep reading

Scuba school told instructors they were allowed to KILL two students a year, shocking lawsuit from family of girl, 12, who died there alleges

A scuba school told its instructors they were allowed to kill two students a year, according to a lawsuit filed by heartbroken parents whose daughter died while taking lessons there. 

The astonishing claim comes after 12-year-old Dylan Harrison tragically drowned on August 16, 2025, while attending a class at The Scuba Ranch in Terrell, Texas, about 40 minutes outside of Dallas. 

Harrison, who was also known as ‘Dillie Picklez’ by her loved ones, was eager to get her National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) Open Water diving certification so she could join her family members in the underwater activity. 

But sadly, her dreams never came true after she vanished during her training class that summer day. She was found dead about 45ft underwater, approximately 35ft away from the platform. 

Now, a new lawsuit filed on January 30 by Harrison’s mother and father, Heather and Mitchell, detailed the disturbing guidelines the scuba school owner told his employees before being entrusted with students in the water. 

Joseph Johnson, the owner of Scubatoys, a dive and certification shop that the family was using for Harrison, was ‘seen bragging to a roomful of Scubatoys Instructors’ that two students were allowed to die each year and the business would ‘still be fine,’ the documents allege. 

The unearthed footage, filmed in 2017 by an employee, captured a worker telling Johnson not to take lawsuits lightly. 

Stunningly, Johnson appeared to have very little compassion over the statement, shrugging and telling his workers: ‘All I know is we’ve killed what, four people, five people, and we’ve never even done a deposition. 

Keep reading

One Glance at Jasmine Crockett’s Website Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Her Senate Campaign

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s (TX-33) campaign website tells you everything you need to know about her bid to become Texas’ next senator.

And what it tells you is almost nothing.

Over the past decade, we have seen a weird trend in which people pretend to run for office without actually trying to win to gain notoriety and fame. I’ve learned to spot such performative politicking, and one red flag is how their campaign websites are set up.

If you head over to Crockett’s campaign website, you will see how little there is to her candidacy. Her home page features a statement from the lawmaker explaining that she is running because she believes “Texas deserves a Senator who will be an independent voice for all 30 million Texans — not a rubber stamp or party line vote for Donald Trump.”

Okay, fine. That’s what you’d expect from a Democratic candidate. When you click on her “About” page, you are treated to a quick overview of her political career and learn that she is “a battle-tested fighter for the people” who has “gone toe-to-toe with Trump, Abbott, and Paxton.”

She promises that she “will fight hard for you and your loved ones and get Texas back on track.”

The question is: How?

That’s where the red flag is. There is absolutely no mention of policy on her website. No idea of what legislation she will introduce. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

Keep reading