California Supreme Court orders Republican sheriff to return 650,000 seized ballots

The California Supreme Court has ordered Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County to return ballots he illegally seized from election officials.

According to The New York Times, Bianco took approximately 650,000 ballots cast in California's 2025 special election on congressional redistricting as part of an investigation into voter fraud—an investigation California officials called baseless. The court had previously ordered Bianco to halt his investigation in April while it considered the state's case against him. On Thursday, the court ruled in two cases that the sheriff lacked the authority to take the ballots.

"I would underscore the seriousness of the violation here. This is not a case involving a few documents," Associate Justice Goodwin H. Liu wrote in a concurring opinion. "It involves the unlawful removal and handling by armed deputies of over 1,000 boxes of documents—and not just any documents, but the most precious documents of the citizenry in a democracy: their votes."

Bianco claims he received complaints from county residents that the vote count from last year's election did not match the number of ballots received. The alleged discrepancy would not have affected the outcome of Proposition 50, which passed with 64 percent approval and allowed California to redraw its congressional districts to favor Democrats.

The sheriff was running for governor of California when he began his investigation but finished fourth in June's primary election, failing to qualify for November's general election. Bianco remained unrepentant on Thursday, attacking Attorney General Rob Bonta, who brought one of the cases against him.

"This is about an attorney general who believes that he can stop an investigatory process into something that he doesn't want us to know the answer to, and that was not the intention of our Founding Fathers," Bianco said. "That was not the intention of the writers of our Constitution."

President Trump has fueled election fraud conspiracies in the Republican Party for years, and whenever his followers dislike election results, they attack the results as fraudulent or rigged. Bianco is one of many Republicans who continue to demonstrate that these accusations are, in fact, confessions.

With the president and GOP polling at record lows, November's results could lead many conservatives to cry foul because they cannot fathom losing. Hopefully, the courts will withstand their attempts to undermine the coming votes.

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Nevada Noncitizen Voter Claims Collapse to Zero

Earlier this summer, the Trump administration claimed there were more than 15,000 noncitizens voting on Nevada's voter rolls. Last month, that number shrank to 185. Now it is zero—a perfect example of the administration's frantic, fraught effort to find voter fraud that does not exist.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in July that he found 15,903 noncitizen voters on Nevada's voter rolls. The New York Times reported Thursday that a follow-up meeting between DHS officials and Nevada election officers revealed the number was wildly incorrect.

"So what you're saying is the 15,000 number has not been vetted?" Nevada Secretary of State Chief Deputy C. Murphy Hebert asked in the August meeting.

"I probably wouldn't use the sentence, 'It hasn't been vetted,'" Homeland Security Secretary Kimberley Vogt said. "Because definitely we've done something with it to get down to 15,000. So I wouldn't say that. But it hasn't had a full manual review of each one." She also stated they were not saying only 185 people on the voter roll were noncitizens, but that those 185 definitely were. That was also wrong.

"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Nevada Deputy Attorney General Greg Ott wrote in a letter to DHS this week. "You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

Nevada election officials say they are still waiting for the list of 15,903 noncitizens, which DHS has now lowered to 6,218. But even that number may be inaccurate due to DHS's use of "voter case numbers."

"The number also doesn't tell us whether an individual was born in the United States, naturalized, derived citizenship through a parent, or holds any particular immigration status," Ott wrote. "A number that matches a voter record thus establishes only that a number exists in, or once existed in, a voter registration system."

These baseless claims—and their debunking—may well be occurring in other states as part of the Trump administration's voter fraud witch hunt.

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Tuberville Ignites Anti-Furry Frenzy Ahead of Midterms

With just weeks until the midterm elections, Senator Tommy Tuberville, who hopes to become Alabama's next governor, is ignoring voter concerns to descend into a bizarre anti-furry frenzy.

In a series of social media posts Thursday, Tuberville refused to back down from his outrageous claims that many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of a community of adults who pretend to be animals that have sex with each other.

"I know the deranged Democrats don't like the fact that I called out the insane FURRY CULTURE this week. But the truth is, there is an ALARMING number of these DERANGED people working in our airline industry," the Alabama Republican wrote on X. "Don't believe me? Just a few months ago, PILOTS were MEOWING and BARKING at each other over the radio at DCA."

Tuberville included a link to an NBC report from April that featured audio of two pilots doing just that: meowing and barking. (The report indicates the pilots were simply joking around.)

In another post, Tuberville complained about an "Aviation Furs Meet-up" at the Furry Migration convention in Minneapolis earlier this month. "Ask yourself … would you be comfortable with a MENTALLY ILL FURRY being your pilot?" he wrote on X.

Tuberville's anti-furry frenzy began during a Senate floor address Wednesday. "Lord help us. It's terrifying when you think about this," Tuberville said. "When you walk onto a commercial flight, it's possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal."

The Alabama Republican falsely claimed there was a disturbing trend of violence on the left, specifically stemming from transgender people and furries—and mentioned Tyler Robinson and Thomas Crooks as examples. (Neither man is trans, nor have they given any indication of being a furry.)

It should go without saying that being transgender has nothing to do with being a furry, and being transgender and/or a furry has nothing to do with political violence. In reality, right-wing attacks account for the majority of domestic terrorism, and most mass shootings are committed by white cisgender men. Tuberville's comments only serve to antagonize transgender people and sexual minorities, who are already targets for the Trump administration.

Similarly, his claims of a secret furry community embedded within the airline industry are unsubstantiated.

Meanwhile, Tuberville has faced widespread criticism for sidelining actual issues.

As the average price of diesel reached $6.15 in Alabama this week, Tuberville claimed that prices had been high before, would go up and down, and insisted that "people will deal with it."

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Senate Republicans Block Iran War Powers Resolution

Senate Republicans have once again refused to rein in President Trump's war on Iran, voting 49–50 to block a war powers resolution on Thursday, choosing to allow the president to continue his $45 billion failed effort.

The razor-thin margin saw four Republicans vote against the president's war: Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, and Thom Tillis. Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution, while Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks missed the vote, ensuring that four Republican votes were not enough to sink the resolution.

The last time the Senate attempted to pass the Iran war powers resolution, in June, Trump yelled at Republican Senator Bill Cassidy afterward for breaking ranks—and he subsequently changed his vote, sinking the resolution. The war has worsened since then, with gas prices still high, the Strait of Hormuz still closed, and sailors attempting to commit suicide—all as midterms draw near. Still, many Republicans remain boisterous and confident about the war, even as the vast majority of Americans are not.

The measure is largely symbolic, yet most Republicans still did not want to vote in favor.

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Dozens Arrested at UN Protest Ahead of Netanyahu Speech

Police arrested dozens of protesters who filled the streets around the United Nations Thursday in advance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before the U.N. General Assembly.

Those arrested included Daraliza Chevalier, the Democratic nominee for New York's 13th congressional district, New York City Council member Chi Ossé, Chelsea Manning, Linda Sarsour, and celebrities including Hannah Eindbinder, Susan Sarandon, and comedian Caleb Hearon. They were among at least 100 protesters detained by police, organizers told The Guardian.

The protest, led by Jewish Voice for Peace, included other famous celebrities such as Elliot Page, Chris Rabb, and Cynthia Nixon, though it is unclear if they were also arrested.

Prior to her arrest, Chevalier told PIX11 News that...