Tex's Place

By Bob Hoge The reports are everywhere — miserable conditions supposedly aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, including food shortages, broken plumbing, widespread exhaustion, and plummeting morale. It’s so bad, these reports say, that some sailors have attempted to jump overboard and presumably drown. Breathless headlines like “Conditions on US aircraft carrier at sea for more than 250 days raise alarms” are rampant. Democrat lawmakers like Richard "Da Nang Dick" Blumenthal (D-CT) are demanding answers and writing strongly worded letters. The U.S. military was already preparing to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln with the USS George Washington as part of a scheduled Middle East deployment, which will bring the Lincoln's more than (so far) 260+ days of service at sea to an end. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had something to say about all the reports Thursday evening: many of them are complete BS. 🚫 CLAIM: Over the past 48 hours, multiple media outlets have reported seve...

By Brad Essex Colombia has lived with the drug trade for decades. What began with marijuana in the 1970s grew into cocaine empires that turned cities into battlegrounds and left thousands dead. The Medellín and Cali cartels once controlled vast routes north. Pablo Escobar’s organization assassinated judges, politicians, and police. After those groups fractured, FARC guerrillas and later dissident factions plus Mexican cartels filled the vacuum. Coca cultivation expanded even as successive Colombian governments, often with U.S. support under Plan Colombia, tried aerial spraying, military pressure, and crop substitution. Progress came in fits. Violence never fully left. Today the problem still crosses borders — and directly impacts American communities. Cartels move product through Panama’s ports and along shared frontiers before pushing it through Mexico to the U.S. southern border . Securing our own border requires shutting down these pipelines at the origin point. Corruption and w...

By Jennifer Oliver O'Connell Democrat Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is finally being put through the paces in her run for governor . Her slovenly work as secretary of state has recently come under a microscope. On Wednesday, state AG Dana Nessel criminally charged five non-citizens and one U.S. citizen for fraudulent voting in the 2024 election. On Tuesday, a lawsuit from the Michigan Republican Party against Benson was filed because Benson allegedly issued orders to delete election records in violation of state and federal retention laws. But with the Wednesday arrest and indictment of The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Project 's Heidi Beirich on wire fraud charges, Benson's ties to SPLC and Beirich are getting fresh scrutiny. As they should be.  As our editor Bob Hoge reported Wednesday:  Beirich previously ran the SPLC’s project tracking hate groups and allegedly funneled donor money to members of those organizations in exchange for inside inform...

By Rusty Weiss A Nevada judge has thrown out yet another so-called “fake electors” case from the 2020 election, ruling Thursday that prosecutors hadn’t proven the six Republicans involved in the matter had any real intent to commit fraud.  The group had signed documents claiming Trump carried the state, gathering outside the legislature in December 2020 to do so in plain view. Among them were state GOP chair Michael McDonald and former Clark County GOP chair Jesse Law, along with four other party figures.  Judge Mary Kay Holthus (non-partisan) pointed out that the defendants never hid what they were doing and that the certificate itself couldn’t legally be accepted or recorded under state or federal law. She concluded there was no reasonable basis to infer they were trying to deceive anyone into treating it as the real thing.  “The fact that Defendants openly announced both their actions and their asserted purpose, rather than concealing their conduct or attempting to...

By Ward Clark Just when you think you've hit peak disgust, something like this happens.  The World War II Memorial isn't a political statement. It doesn't belong to a political party. If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the veterans of the world's greatest war, the brave Americans who waded ashore at Normandy under constant fire. It belongs to the bomber crews who braved flak and German fighters. It belongs to the paratroopers who jumped into battle, knowing that no matter which way they looked, there would be enemy troops. It belongs to the Marines who fought a bitter and implacable foe all the way from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. It belongs to the Navy pilots who flew off of shifting carrier decks to take the fight to the enemy. It belongs to the surviving Americans, the last, dwindling few who served in World War II and are still alive to tell the tale. It's their memorial. It was just placed in a location where the rest of us, the beneficiaries of their cour...

By Catherine Salgado President Donald Trump is thrilled about a court win for his administration, one addressing a controversial tariff exemption. Ebullient and triumphant, Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday, “BIG WIN today at the U.S. Court of International Trade on one of the most DESPICABLE loopholes in American Trade Policy — The so-called ‘de minimis’ exemption.” After decades of other countries imposing outrageous tariffs on our goods while facing no reciprocal tariffs from us, the Trump administration is trying to even the playing field, but has run into constant challenges from woke politicians and judges. That is another reason this win is important. And the latest court victory will also strike a blow at illegal drug traffickers. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled in Trump’s favor, bolstering the administration’s ongoing tariff war. Trump explained why this particular exemption has galled him. “For years, Foreign Shippers could send packages worth up to $800 ...

By Teri Christoph A story out of Los Angeles is making waves on social media – and likely in LA, too – after an ex-con who was found guilty of shooting at and striking a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) helicopter last year was handed a relatively light sentence by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo. And her reasoning for going easy on him was absolutely bonkers. Douglas Byers, 62, was convicted in March on two counts of assault on a peace officer and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon after using an AR-15-style rifle to shoot at the LAPD helicopter on Aug. 15, 2025. There were two officers aboard at the time, and it subsequently had to make an emergency landing. Despite Byers' best efforts, the officers were not hurt. According to one report about the shooting, police responded to 911 calls from residents who reported hearing gunfire coming from the backyard of the home Byers shared with his mother.  When officers entered the backyard,...

By HANNAH KNUDSEN The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is set to install privately-funded, dedicated Islamic foot washing stations in the facility, according to documents from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. According to the document, the project , which comes at an estimated cost of $300,000, is expected to begin August 31. Women and men will have separate facilities that will not be shared between the sexes. “Project consists of adding Ablution stations to existing concourse level restrooms in Terminal D, one Men’s ablution station in existing men’s restroom and one Women’s ablution station in the existing women’s restroom,” the details of the project read, as some say this will help eliminate the use of sinks in that capacity and keep the floors dry. The Dallas airport is now installing dedicated Islamic “Wudu” foot-washing stations inside bathrooms. pic.twitter.com/2t5TLtcpBj — Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) August 12, 2026 Reports indicate...

By Katie Daviscourt A Colorado school district has been put on notice over its "inappropriate" sex education program, which includes teaching kindergartners explicit anatomical terms and asking how they prefer to be touched. On behalf of parents, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent a letter to the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education on Tuesday, urging that the program be terminated. This comes after a public outcry from parents who reportedly received insufficient notice and were told they couldn't opt their children out of the 3R curriculum . The sex education program includes vulgar content and activities for students as young as five years old. ADF has asked the school board to, at minimum, implement an opt-in procedure so parents can have autonomy over their children learning controversial subject matter. "The district specifically chose an opt-out model to 'ensure students have access to health education,' then implemented a messy opt-out ...

By Victor Davis Hanson One of the more surreal things about the new Democratic Party is its habit of charging Trump with legal and ethical transgressions that Democrats themselves normalized years ago. The result is a strange sort of projection, in which the Left’s charges often reveal its own prior wrongdoing. And after undermining norms, they now lament the loss of what they destroyed. Too Cozy an Attorney General? Democratic Senators voted unanimously against Todd Blanche for attorney general, claiming that, as a former Trump attorney, he was too close to the president. Really? Even if true, the model came from the Democrats—and dates back to John F. Kennedy’s appointment of his own brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general and Obama Attorney General Eric Holder’s own boast: “I’m still the president’s wingman, so I’m there with my boy.” Lawfare Worries? Democrats are angry that Republican state prosecutors might find grounds under state law to indict Anthony Fauci, despit...