POLITICS

Greg Abbott has never faced a challenge quite like Gina Hinojosa. First, she's Mexican-American. Second, she's a woman. And even though he easily won against Wendy Davis, this candidate has something Davis didn't: she's puro 956. The Brownsville native and five-term state representative stopped by Caro's Restaurant in Rio Grande City on Monday to talk with local voters about her campaign. The event drew family and local Democratic officials who turned out to support her candi

Donald Trump made his choice in Texas's 34th Congressional District on December 18, and the fallout has been delicious. The former president endorsed Eric Flores, leaving his 2022 congressional candidate, Mayra Flores (who shares the surname but not the bloodline), fuming on the sidelines. Mayra Flores wasted no time posting a clarification that screamed "we are NOT related" in everything but those exact words. Eric Flores, who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney from 2021 t

Senator Mark Kelly, the combat-tested Navy captain turned Arizona senator, has launched a blistering 46-page federal lawsuit against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon, exposing what can only be described as a brazen, vindictive power grab by the Trump administration. This isn't justice—it's a political hit job, a chilling warning shot fired across the bow of any veteran or lawmaker daring to speak truth to power. In a move reeking of authoritarian overreach, Heg

Greg Abbott's campaign account hit $105.7 million in January 2026. That staggering sum didn't come from bake sales or grassroots fundraising. It came from billionaires who expect results. Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass handed Abbott $6 million in December 2023, the largest single campaign donation in Texas history. Yass's net worth hovers around $29 billion, and his priority issue is school vouchers. Abbott spent 2024 using that money to unseat Republican legislators who

Judge Baldemar Garza issued a direct response to challenger Abel Villarreal Jr.'s campaign attacks, using a social media video to defend his record and question his opponent's reliability. The 229th District Court judge framed his rebuttal around a lesson from his mother. "My mother taught me a lesson I carry every day," Garza began in a video ad. "No puedes tapar el sol con un dedo. You cannot cover the truth with a single finger." The judge addressed criticism about his war

Elizabeth Warren fumbled the easiest question in progressive politics. Asked whether she'd continue funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Massachusetts senator offered a conditional yes—funding with restrictions on behavior. A technocratic answer that misses the entire point. The correct answer was no. ICE didn't materialize from Trump's fever dreams. The agency was created in 2003 under the Homeland Security Act, signed by Republican George W. Bush but supported b

Most Texans couldn't pick the Land Commissioner out of a lineup if their property tax refund depended on it. That should probably change. The Texas General Land Office manages over thirteen million acres of state property and funnels billions into public school funding through the Permanent School Fund. When hurricanes flatten coastal towns, this office distributes disaster recovery money. When veterans need housing assistance, this agency writes the checks. The commissioner

Here's what you need to know about how federal agents are trained to kill people and call it self-defense. In February 2013, the Police Executive Research Forum delivered a report to Customs and Border Protection that should have ended careers. Instead, CBP tried to bury it. The nonprofit had reviewed 67 use-of-force incidents from January 2010 through October 2012 that left 19 people dead along the southern border. What they found was a pattern so egregious it read like a tr

Representative Jasmine Crockett angered people when she compared some Latino voting patterns to a "slave mentality" during a post-election interview with Vanity Fair. Her words have been resurfaced and people are obviously losing their minds. But nobody wants to talk about whether she was right about the matter. In a December 2024 Vanity Fair interview about Kamala Harris's loss, Crockett was asked about race and gender in the election. Trump pulled 46 percent of the Latino v

"We will move next week in the House Oversight Committee markup to hold former President Clinton in contempt of Congress," Rep. James Comer announced. The threat itself matters less than what came next. Bill and Hillary Clinton responded with a letter that abandons the careful distance former presidents typically maintain from congressional battles. The response extends far beyond the testimony request that prompted it. "Every person has to decide when they have seen or had e

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina didn't have to do much to earn President Donald Trump's endorsement. He just had to not be Henry Cuellar. That's the peculiar calculus propelling Tijerina's congressional campaign in Texas's 28th District, where Trump's backing arrived Tuesday as punishment for someone else's insufficient gratitude. The president pardoned Cuellar five weeks ago, eliminating federal bribery charges that threatened prison time. Cuellar responded by staying Democr

Stephen Miller is the man who looks like every mall Santa’s lawyer, if that lawyer’s specialty was getting kids deported for crying in line. He is best known not for one bad policy or one ugly soundbite, but for a sustained, years‑long crusade to turn the immigration system into a weapon, especially against Latino families who dared to believe that “land of opportunity” was a promise and not a legally unenforceable slogan. He is the human embodiment of the “Do Not Enter” sign

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium on September 10, 2001, and declared war. Not on a foreign enemy, but on the Pentagon itself. "The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America," he told the audience. The enemy? Pentagon bureaucracy. The evidence? $2.3 trillion in transactions the Department of Defense couldn't track. This was a financial black hole representing roughly 25% of the enti

Representative Jasmine Crockett stood during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday and let it rip. "It is so hard to sit here sometimes because I didn't come to Congress to write laws or to do things that are hurting people," Crockett said. "I'm asking if there's any decency or heart or courage on that side of the aisle. The fact that a woman was killed, she was shot in her head, and y'all are pretending like nothing happened." The Texas Democrat wasn't finished. "I re

The Moderates Moving As GOP Allies

The Rio Grande Valley just lost control over immigration enforcement in its own backyard. Hidalgo County confirmed full participation in the federal 287(g) program, not because officials chose cooperation but because Texas Senate Bill 8 gave them no alternative. The state law took effect January 1, 2026, requiring counties with populations over 100,000 to partner with ICE through 287(g) agreements. Hidalgo County already worked with federal agencies before the mandate, but SB

Minnesota is standing in that classic fault line right now, where the state line meets the federal boot, and a governor is quietly getting his Guard ready, not for a hurricane or a blizzard, but for Washington’s own agents on his streets. That alone tells you how far this immigration “crackdown” has gone off the rails, and how willing this administration is to turn blue states and brown bodies into props in a national show of force. In south Minneapolis, ICE didn’t just show

ICE claimed thirty-two lives in 2025, the agency's highest death toll in over twenty years. Seven days into 2026, another civilian is dead. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a 37-year-old woman in the head Wednesday morning in south Minneapolis. She died hours later at a local hospital. The woman has been identified by family as Renee Nicole Good. Federal officials claim self-defense. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara says otherwise. That discrepancy i

Nobody agrees with everything. Not a spouse. Not a best friend. Not even the version of themselves from five years ago. Yet people wear political parties like team jerseys and defend every play, even the ugly ones. Especially the ugly ones. The reaction feels automatic. It sounds trained. Political identity now behaves like a personality. I’m a Democrat. I am a Republican. I am a liberal. Then there’s I am MAGA. Labels replace thinking. Allegiance replaces scrutiny. Once some

The gallows were real. So were the zip ties, the bear spray, the broken windows, and the politicians cowering under desks while their constituents hunted them through the Capitol. But five years after January 6, 2021, half of America remembers an insurrection while the other half sees a protest that got out of hand. That disconnect might be more dangerous than the riot itself. Donald Trump spent two months after losing the 2020 election telling his supporters the victory had