OMG! You just checked your lottery ticket for Mega Millions and you won! You check it again, maybe again and again. You feel a strange sensation of falling inward with joy as well as anxiety & panic. You just won all or part of $1.1 Billion dollars! Now what?
According to the Texas Lottery Commission, the very first thing you should do is sign the back of that ticket. Lottery tickets are a “bearer instrument”. Whoever “bears” (holds) the ticket is considered the owner unless the back of the ticket has been signed. So do that first… do it now!
Next, remain calm and most importantly, shut your mouth. Zip it. Avoid all temptation to shout from the rooftops that you have won the lottery. Go totally dark on social media … NEVER announce that you have won the lottery.
At this point the only person who should know is your spouse, that’s it. Don’t even tell your kids. Don’t even call your mother.
Unfortunately, for the current draw (at publication) the $1.1 billion dollar jackpot is being drawn on Friday evening… which means that you can’t do anything until Monday morning. That’s going to be three excruciating days of waiting. Just remember … keep your mouth shut while you formulate a plan.
You will have 180 days to claim the prize, so there is plenty of time to get your ducks in a row. Over the weekend you will likely play around with making endless lists of how to spend your money but think of that as just a game because monday morning the next thing you should do is start looking for an attorney.
Believe it or not, there are attorneys that specialize in lottery winnings. Make some calls & set up two or three interviews. Don’t tell them that you just won the big one, just that you need to discuss your options for a jackpot. When you get to their office, the first thing that you do is make THEM sign a non-disclosure agreement before you discuss anything. If they don’t sign … walk out. YOU are calling the shots now.
When you settle on an attorney, they will also be able to provide you with a financial adviser that will go over the taxes you will owe as well as advise you about the difference between the cash and annuity. They will also advise you on how to invest it … but even with this expert advice, you should seek a second or even a third opinion. Remember, there will always be people who want a piece of the action.
According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, 70% of those who receive large cash windfalls lose them within just a few years. So be smart and get financial advice.
Now you need to make a plan to claim your prize. It starts by calling the Texas Lottery Commission at: 800-375-6886 to complete an initial inquiry on your ticket and to schedule an appointment to complete the processing of your claim.
For this, you will need to travel to Austin. Prizes greater than $5,000,000, all Lotto Texas®, Powerball®, and Mega Millions® jackpot prizes, and prizes paid by annuities must be processed at Texas Lottery headquarters in Austin.
If you are married and have kids, we suggest that you get a babysitter and you and your spouse take separate modes of transportation. One of you would have the original ticket with you and the other a copy. You want to avoid a complete tragedy, right?
BTW, you still haven’t told anyone, right?
Bad things can happen if you spill the beans. Friends, family, and new people will suddenly appear in your life. Abraham Shakespeare was murdered in 2009 after winning a $30 million jackpot. The suspect, a woman who befriended Shakespeare after he won the lottery, shot him twice in the chest and then buried him under a slab of concrete.
Sandra Hayes of Missouri split a $224 million Powerball prize with 11 people, but she soon found that certain acquaintances were more interested in her assets than her friendship. She said that when she dined out with her friends, they would belatedly announce that they didn’t have enough money to foot the bill. “These are people who you’ve loved deep down, and they’re turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me,” Hayes told The Associated Press.
In the State of Texas, you do NOT have to reveal your identity publicly to claim your prize. Texas, along with Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and South Carolina allow anonymity to Mega Millions winners. The 85th Texas Legislature’s regular session in 2017 enacted HB 59 authorizing certain prize winners who win lottery prizes in the amount of $1 million or more to choose to remain anonymous. So chose wisely.
By now you have probably decided whom you are going to tell about your good fortune. But remember, once you let that cat out of the bag you will not be able to get it back. Don’t think that your Mother is not going to blab to her sister… then the sister to the boyfriend… then the boyfriend to the guys at work… then just like the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon the next thing you know CNN is knocking on your door … whether you chose to “remain anonymous” or not.
That kind of money can get people killed. So we suggest that you don’t tell anyone until after you have claimed the prize. Then, before you let that cat out of the bag, grab your closest family and tell them that you are sending a car for them and to pack their bags for a weekend trip. Get them off to a hotel (in the United States) and don’t let them know what’s going on until you get there.
So now it’s time to brainstorm about the future and your security and put your financial plans into action. And start enjoying the good life.
The good people at State Farm have this to say about your windfall.
“Maintain your perspective and sense of self
Don’t quit your day job. Certainly not until you have your lottery money in hand, but even then consider sticking with some sort of part-time work or at least a passionate hobby. Depending on how important work is to your sense of self, you may want to try a new career or go back to school to study something you’ve always been interested in.
Keep a healthy mind and body. We all know money can’t buy happiness — in fact, some folks say winning the lottery and dealing with the money and requests for help and loans ruined their lives with stress. Eat right, exercise, talk to close family and friends, and seek professional counseling if handling your new wealth is causing too much emotional strain.”
Good advice in our opinion. And now for our disclaimer:
These tips are merely suggestions and should not be considered financial or legal advice. Please consult professionals for specific advice.
Election
“MAGA Mayes” vs. “RINO Roy” for Texas Attorney General
OPINION – Texas conservatives have seen this movie before. A polished Republican talks tough on the Constitution, quotes the Founders on cue, rails against Washington corruption, and convinces voters he is one of the good guys. Then the pressure hits. The cameras come on. The media starts demanding blood. And suddenly the “fighter” voters elected folds faster than a lawn chair at a church picnic.
That is the growing fear surrounding Congressman Chip Roy as speculation intensifies over the Texas Attorney General race. For many grassroots conservatives, Roy is not simply another establishment Republican. He represents something more dangerous, a Republican who knows exactly how conservatives think, exactly what they want to hear, and exactly when to abandon them to protect his standing with the political class.
That perception hardened permanently after January 6.
While Democrats, corporate media, and anti Trump Republicans launched a coordinated political assault against President Donald Trump, Roy joined the feeding frenzy at the exact moment conservatives expected Republicans to stand firm. On January 13, 2021, Roy took to the House floor and declared Trump’s conduct was “clearly impeachable.” The comments were widely covered by outlets including CNN and The Texas Tribune.
At the time, Democrats were aggressively pushing impeachment while left wing media outlets painted millions of Trump supporters as domestic extremists. Conservatives across the country watched banks deplatform citizens, federal agencies ramp up investigations, and political dissent become increasingly criminalized. And there was Chip Roy, sounding almost indistinguishable from the Republicans conservatives had spent years fighting against.
Worse still, Roy’s rhetoric placed him in alignment with some of the most despised anti Trump Republicans in modern history, including Liz Cheney and Congressman Thomas Massie. Cheney ultimately became the public face of the January 6 Committee, a committee many conservatives viewed as less interested in truth than in politically destroying Trump and intimidating his supporters. Roy may not have joined that committee, but to many voters, he helped legitimize the narrative driving it.
This matters because the Attorney General’s office is not ceremonial. The Texas AG is often the final line of defense against federal overreach, politically motivated prosecutions, censorship efforts, and constitutional violations. Every time a city government wants to object to an open records request by a citizen, they need the permission of the AG. Conservatives are not looking for another Republican who caves once the editorial boards and Sunday shows begin screeching. They want someone willing to absorb political punishment without turning on the movement that elected him.
That is why Texas State Senator Mays Middleton is gaining traction among MAGA conservatives. Known by supporters as “MAGA Mayes,” Middleton has cultivated a reputation as an unapologetic America First conservative. He backed election integrity legislation, border enforcement measures, anti-ESG policies, and efforts to stop taxpayer funded lobbying by local governments. More importantly, he has not spent the past several years publicly distancing himself from the voters who dominate today’s Republican base.
To many conservatives, the contrast is glaring. Middleton looks like a man preparing for political combat. Roy increasingly looks like a man carefully managing his reputation with DC insiders while hoping Texas voters forget what happened in 2021.
And conservatives should ask themselves an uncomfortable question. If Roy was willing to publicly break with Trump during the biggest coordinated political attack against conservatives in modern history, what happens when the next crisis arrives? What happens when federal agencies pressure Texas? What happens when media outlets begin demanding prosecutions, investigations, or compromise? Does Roy suddenly rediscover his “constitutional concerns” while conservatives once again get thrown under the bus?
Roy’s defenders will point to his conservative voting record, and that’s fair. He has opposed Biden administration policies and marketed himself as a constitutional hardliner. But conservative voters are increasingly learning that voting scorecards mean very little when pressure reveals someone’s instincts.
And Roy’s instincts, at the defining moment, were not to protect the movement. They were to condemn it alongside people who openly despised it.
Texas conservatives have spent years warning about Republicans who campaign like MAGA warriors back home while quietly serving the priorities of the donor class and establishment once inside Washington. Many now fear Chip Roy fits that mold perfectly, polished, articulate, deeply ambitious, and ultimately unreliable when the stakes become uncomfortable.
The time has come to end the political careers of all who oppose the People, those who oppose the MAGA agenda.
Featured
UFO Files Released
Trump’s “UFO Files” Drop Lands With a Thud, Leaving Believers and Skeptics Equally Unsatisfied
Department of War – For years, UFO believers promised the truth was buried somewhere deep inside government vaults, hidden behind classified markings and decades of official denials. The long-awaited disclosure, they said, would prove humanity is not alone. So when the Trump administration released a major archive of UFO-related material this week, anticipation exploded across social media and conspiracy circles alike. The result, however, landed with all the excitement of opening a mystery safe only to discover it filled with newspaper clippings, hobby magazines, and blurry photos of distant lights in the sky.
The files were released through the federal archive portal at www.WAR.GOV/UFO Files and include videos, audio recordings, witness statements, correspondence, and archival documents connected to unidentified flying objects, now often called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
The website also prominently features a statement from Donald Trump posted from Truth Social:
“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
The Department of War website also states that additional material will continue to be released on a weekly basis, suggesting the current archive represents only the first phase of a broader disclosure effort. That announcement has kept many UFO enthusiasts hopeful that more substantial evidence could still emerge in future document dumps.
For now, however, the initial release appears to contain little that fundamentally changes the public understanding of UFO phenomena.
Despite years of sensational claims about craft performing maneuvers that supposedly “defy physics,” none of the videos included in the archive appear to show anything close to that. The objects captured on camera are consistently small, far away, and moving in mostly straight lines at what appear to be ordinary, subsonic speeds. There are no impossible right-angle turns, no instantaneous acceleration, no sudden stops, and no visible flight characteristics beyond what could plausibly be explained by conventional objects or optical effects.
File: DOD_111688964 – Taken 2024-06-01 – The United States Northern Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 21 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2024. An accompanying mission report, DoW-UAP-D8, described the UAP as consisting of an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom of the object. The observer also reported that the UAP may instead be a reflection from an object in the water.
Most of the footage consists of little more than bright shiny objects against the sky, filmed from such extreme distances that meaningful identification becomes nearly impossible. A few clips appear consistent with balloons or commercial drones. Others show glowing or reflective orbs with no discernible structure or detail. None of the material independently verifies the extraordinary claims often promoted by UFO media personalities and internet commentators.
The release arrives after years of mounting public fascination with UFOs. Congressional hearings, Pentagon acknowledgements of unexplained aerial sightings, and endless online speculation helped create expectations that the government might eventually reveal evidence of non human intelligence. Those expectations likely contributed to the enormous interest surrounding this document dump.
But much of the archive reads less like disclosure and more like an oversized collection of unresolved anecdotes and cultural memorabilia. Witness statements describe strange lights, odd movements, and unusual sightings, but almost none are supported by physical evidence, radar tracking, or technical analysis capable of independent verification. Some are handwritten personal accounts submitted decades ago by ordinary citizens reporting mysterious experiences investigators apparently could neither confirm nor explain.
A surprisingly large portion of the collection focuses on civilian UFO enthusiast organizations that published magazines and newsletters dedicated to sightings and theories about alien life. Rather than classified military revelations, many files simply document the activities of hobbyist groups fascinated by UFO culture during the Cold War era and beyond.
The archive also includes letters from school children asking the government whether flying saucers and aliens are real. While historically interesting as a reflection of American pop culture and public curiosity, the letters offer no evidentiary value regarding extraterrestrial life. Some of the material feels more appropriate for a museum exhibit on twentieth century UFO fascination than for a headline generating government disclosure project.
NASA related recordings and footage included in the release similarly failed to produce dramatic revelations. Most involve routine aerospace operations, ambiguous observations, or discussions about unidentified objects without any conclusion that they originated from beyond Earth. NASA has consistently maintained there is no confirmed evidence of alien visitation, and nothing in this release appears to alter that position.
Reaction online quickly shifted from excitement to frustration. Some UFO believers claimed the truly important files are still hidden behind classification barriers and that the public release was carefully sanitized before publication. Skeptics argued the archive merely reinforces what critics have long maintained, that UFO mythology survives largely because blurry footage and incomplete information allow people to project extraordinary conclusions onto ordinary phenomena.
Notably absent from the release are the kinds of materials long promised in sensational documentaries and conspiracy forums. There are no recovered alien craft, no biological specimens, no authenticated extraterrestrial communications, and no government memos admitting contact with non human intelligence. More importantly, there is no footage of any object displaying flight characteristics that genuinely challenge known physics.
That disconnect between public expectation and documented reality may ultimately be the biggest story.
For decades, UFO culture has operated on the assumption that earth shattering proof exists just beyond public reach. Every blurry light becomes a possible spacecraft. Every vague government statement fuels another round of speculation. Entire media industries now thrive on the promise that disclosure is always right around the corner.
Yet when the files finally arrived, they mostly revealed what Americans have seen for generations, distant lights, uncertain observations, stories without proof, and a government willing to catalog mystery without necessarily solving it.
Perhaps future weekly releases from the Department of War will contain something more compelling. But if this first archive is any indication, Americans waiting for undeniable proof of alien visitation may need to lower their expectations considerably.
Featured
“Paid Influencer Ecosystem”?
Thune’s Dismissive Smear of Election Integrity Concerns Demands His Immediate Ouster
Opinion – Senate Majority Leader John Thune has revealed his utter contempt for the American electorate. Amid mounting pressure to advance the SAVE America Act—a straightforward bill requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship to safeguard federal elections—Thune shrugged off the grassroots outcry as nothing more than a “paid influencer ecosystem.”
This arrogant dismissal, captured in recent comments to reporters, isn’t just tone-deaf; it’s a betrayal of the millions of everyday Americans who demand secure elections as a cornerstone of our republic.
Thune’s remarks didn’t emerge in a vacuum. They came as conservatives, including President Trump and a chorus of activists, ramped up calls for the Senate to use procedural tools like a talking filibuster to force a vote on the SAVE Act.
The legislation, already passed by the House, addresses widespread fears of voter fraud by ensuring only citizens cast ballots—a measure supported by an overwhelming 80-90% of Americans across party lines, according to polls from Gallup, Rasmussen, and others. Yet Thune, ensconced in his leadership perch, waved it away, implying the push is manufactured by compensated online agitators rather than genuine civic concern.
As one critic aptly put it, this reduces the legitimate worries of voters to a “social media echo chamber,” ignoring the real-world efforts of poll watchers, state lawmakers, and ordinary citizens who’ve fought for transparency since the chaotic expansions of mail-in voting during the 2020 pandemic.
Let’s be clear: Thune’s words aren’t a mere slip; they’re a window into the soul of a career politician who’s lost touch with the base that elevated Republicans to Senate control. Public skepticism about election integrity isn’t fringe—it’s mainstream. Polls consistently show that a significant portion of voters, including independents and minorities, harbor doubts about the security of our processes, fueled by irregularities in battleground states and the rapid, unchecked changes implemented under the guise of COVID emergencies.
Organizations like the Election Integrity Network and grassroots groups have documented these issues through audits, lawsuits, and reform proposals, all driven by patriotism, not paychecks.
To smear these efforts as the work of “paid influencers” is not only insulting but dangerously divisive, echoing the elitist disdain that has alienated voters from the GOP establishment for years.
This isn’t Thune’s first rodeo in undermining conservative priorities. As the No. 2 Republican under Mitch McConnell, he previously downplayed candidates focused on 2020 election concerns, blaming them for midterm setbacks rather than addressing the underlying voter frustrations.
Now, as Majority Leader, he wields immense power over the legislative agenda, yet he’s dragging his feet on border security, spending reforms, and yes, election safeguards—issues that define the MAGA movement and the party’s platform. His reluctance to “bust the filibuster” or rally votes for the SAVE Act, despite a Republican majority, reeks of cowardice or worse: complicity in preserving a system that benefits the uniparty elite. Even Elon Musk has publicly questioned if Thune is “owned by someone,” a sentiment echoed across conservative networks.
The backlash has been swift and justified. Activists, commentators like Tomi Lahren, and everyday Americans on platforms like X have torched Thune for his arrogance, with calls to “vacate the chair” gaining traction. From podcasters decrying him as a “RINO on steroids” to voters labeling him a “damn liar,” the outrage underscores a deeper fracture: Senate Republicans are failing their base, and Thune is the poster child for this dysfunction.
Thune Must Go—Step Down or Be Vacated
John Thune’s tenure as Senate Majority Leader is a disgrace, a glaring example of how Washington insiders prioritize self-preservation over the will of the people. By belittling the fight for election integrity as a fabricated “ecosystem” of influencers, he has spit in the face of the 77 million-plus Trump voters and the broader conservative coalition that demands action, not excuses.
This isn’t leadership; it’s sabotage. In a constitutional republic, where the legitimacy of government rests on the consent of the governed, dismissing voter concerns as paid propaganda erodes the very foundation of our democracy. Thune isn’t just wrong—he’s unfit.
It’s time for Thune to face the music: Step down immediately and let a true conservative warrior take the reins. If he refuses, Senate Republicans must summon the spine to vacate the chair, just as House conservatives did to oust Kevin McCarthy when he failed to deliver.
Anything less is a capitulation to the swamp, allowing Democrats to block vital reforms while illegals potentially sway elections and fraud festers unchecked.
The American people aren’t “paid influencers”—we’re the bosses. And we’re done with traitorous enablers like Thune. Remove him now, or risk losing the Senate and the republic along with it. The clock is ticking, Republicans: Act, or be replaced.
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