The Texas Tribune

Well, this is what he just sent me.

He sent me a headline from the Texas Tribune that says more than 7.7 million Texans voted early in 2026 elections, surpassing the 2018 selection or election by about 40%.

That's telling.

That's a lot for fucking Texas, a place where we, we hear that, uh, they don't get up and vote.

Okay.

So according to the Texas Tribune in January, 2026, the Texas Tribune reported that the TEA was addressing approximately 4,200 requested edits.

across more than 2,100 components of Bluebonnet learning.

And again, they're being incentivized to put this in.

We have Bud Kennedy from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

We have Gabby Bierenbaum from the Texas Tribune, the Washington correspondent, and joining us from D.C., and Natalie Haddad, political reporter at WFAA in Dallas.

Thank you all for being here.

Gabby, I want to start with you.

So, yeah, I was, you know, it's a long wait, but I think it was worth it.

All right, we want to bring the roundtable back in to talk about these early voting numbers.

So still with us is Bud from the Star-Telegram, Gabby from the Texas Tribune, and Natalie from WFAA.

Thanks for sticking around, you guys.

OK, but it advocates your position.

So how does that become, in fact, tied to a political attack? So the sender on the mailer said that apparently the Texas Transgender Student Union matches a limited liability company or an LLC that was formed September 2nd in Wyoming, according to the Texas Tribune.

So the return address on the physical mailers is a place called Meadows Park, Texas.

Address, surprise, doesn't seem to be valid.

This week, a judge ordered Infobib, the messaging company that sent the texts on behalf of its client, to answer questions in a deposition.

According to that deposition, the Texas Tribune reports, the texts came from a political action committee, the Republican Women Caucus Fund, and a man named John Braun.

No other details other than the name were provided about Braun.

The Republican Women's Caucus Fund sent a response to the Texas Tribune saying, we did not authorize, fund, direct, coordinate, or participate in these activities in any capacity.

But they came from you like they discovered that, like the first video showed us like this place.

They have a bunch of other nefarious shit going on there that involves semi trailers and theft of merchandise and stuff like that.

Abbott's action thus far, it was reported earlier this year when he froze H-1B hiring at public universities, following my reporting, by the way, not to brag, not to brag.

But the reason I can say that is because the Texas Tribune was like, this came, I was at the Dallas Express at the time.

This freeze came after Dallas Express reporting about H-1B hiring at Texas A&M.

There we go.

Just days ago, a Travis County judge ruled the group behind the mailers and messages could be identified.

Our partners at the Texas Tribune obtained a deposition over the messaging company InfoBip.

It says the Republican Women's Caucus Fund is behind the texts, but the group says they had, quote, absolutely no involvement, end quote.

This is an example of those texts, and the included link appears to be an LGBTQ plus resource guide claiming to be from the Transgender Education Network of Texas, also known as TENT.