The Texan Podcast - ESG Pullback, Future of AI Regulations, Texas House Rules: SMSS Ep. 1

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Subscribe to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan reporters Brad Johnson and Cameron Abrams host their first episode of Send Me Some Stuff, where they’ll dive deep into content that goes beyond the scope of their usual reporting. This week, they talk about the pullback in ESG, the future of AI regulations, possible changes to the Texas House rules surrounding the speakership race, and the latest developments at Neuralink. Here’s the stuff they talked about this week:Why ESG Investing Might Never Recover (Wall Street Journal)Is bipartisanship dead in Austin? Not on artificial intelligence rules. (Dallas Morning News)Opinion: The King is Dead. Long Live the King, But Not this Monarchy. (Dallas Express)Implantable brain chip allows paralyzed former Texas college student to use social media for the first time (Click2Houston)

it'll sort of be an interesting dilemma that human civilization could find itself in. Those completely integrated with the technology and those that are not. Are you getting the brain chip? No, because I already think I'm a cyborg. This is in my pocket 24-7, except when I go to bed, right? But even then, it's right next to me. There's a difference between that and something in your brain though. Totally, totally. Hello everyone and welcome in to the very first edition of the Send Me Some Stuff podcast. My name is Cameron Abrams. I'm a reporter here at the Texan and I'm joined today with our senior

reporter Brad Johnson and he's now our star streamer. He's on all sorts of podcasts for us. Well I don't know about that. It's not exactly my job description but yes like a fish out of water I have been on camera more recently. How are you liking it it takes some getting used to i suppose but not bad yeah you've been getting a lot of good feedback though on the podcast yeah uh we got a lot of good feedback on the um smoke filled room podcast that mackenzie and i did and that was a primary post-mortem so if that uh you know catches your eye go check it out um like an hour and a half long i think but going really deep into state politics following the primary and what it means and what we might see yeah and that one's more explicitly focused on texas politics insider stuff and because you and

mckinsey just have a depth of knowledge with all those things. It's a really interesting lesson. But with Send Me Some Stuff. Yeah, explain that. This is an opportunity for us to talk about all the articles that we just share amongst the office. Things that come across our timelines that we see are interesting, but maybe aren't specifically worth an article on the Texan website, maybe not directly related to Texas politics, but they're still really interesting to talk about. And so we thought this would be a great opportunity for us to maybe share some of our thoughts on these things. And what's the origin of the name? Well, the origin of the name is because, everyone in the office knows i go down some rabbit

holes i said on the podcast last week your nickname is alice so um it's a common phrase of mine to say as we're talking about something hey i'll send you some stuff on that i'll send you some stuff so stuff that probably usually doesn't get read, but it's all in Cameron's brain. He's got it. It's usually, oh, listen to this six-hour podcast, or here's 10 articles on this really abstract, weird thing. For some reason, that's just stuck in my brain. Better you than me, my friend. Yeah, so that's sort of the origin of

the name. And before we get into all the conversation on these articles, I thought we'd talk about something that's been dominating the timeline recently. Diddy. Puff Daddy. The feds, they stormed his compound. They're after him yeah he's on the run on the lam and so apparently um this is like months in the making because i don't know how familiar you were with i first heard about this yesterday so the most the most i know about it is what's come across my timeline but apparently there was accusations levied against him by a former girlfriend and R&B pop star, Cassie. Never heard of her until he was around. Well, they ended up settling on outside of court. But to sort of put pressure on him,

there was stuff leaking out about maybe some nefarious relationships he was having with people. And that sort of caught a lot of headlines and eyeballs. And what we saw yesterday is the feds storing his compound. And like you said, he's left the country. And apparently um yeah i saw that his plane was heading to antigua and then another country that i didn't recognize

that antigua has an extradition treaty with the u.s but this other one doesn't so i don't know where he actually is right now no one knows where he is but there's there's so much going on here like i've there was one thing here that i came across um in a court document it describes an incident are you familiar with the rapper kid cuddy yes he's from cleveland boom there there we go ohio oh yeah not texas but yeah no i know. Did you know there was a Cleveland, Texas? I did not. There's a city in Texas. Yeah.

There's an Earth, Texas. Is there really? Yeah. It's so big, you just run out of names sometimes. Yeah. But allegedly, Diddy blew up Kid Cudi's car because he started dating Diddy's ex. And this is from the court documents. In one incident described in the court papers, Ms. Ventura says that in early 2012, Mr. Combs grew

so angry about her dating the rapper Kid Cudi that he said he would blow up the rapper's car around that time. The suit says Kid Cudi's car exploded in his driveway. Through a spokeswoman, Kid Cudi confirmed Ms. Ventura's account. This is all true. So, hey, at least P. Diddy is committed. You know, if he says he's going to do something, by golly, he does it. Even if it's blowing up a rival rapper's car. This goes all the way back to Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. P. Diddy was involved in that feud as well.

So this guy. He's a toxic personality. Apparently. Yeah. So, well, let's get into some of these articles well like six articles that we want to talk about or so yeah six or seven here um we're going to cover all sorts of things i thought we'd start off with something you know a whole lot about the energy industry and there was a story in the wall street journal titled, Why ESG Investing Might Never Recover. And the sub

headline being, the appeal of the moniker is waning, probably because it is trying to serve too many interests at once. And reading from the article here, it was saying newly created funds in the US and Europe with ESG in the name have fallen from a peak of 8.3% to just 3.3%. And then further into the article, it talks about online searches for ESG investing have plummeted back to mid-2019 levels. Mentions of the term in company analyst calls have dropped 59% from their quarterly peak in 2022. And the S&P Global Clean Energy Index has lost 31 percent since the start of 2023. And that compares with returns of 27 percent for global stocks. Further into the article here, investors have pulled $2.2 billion from funds dedicated to decarbonization. And so I want to hear your take on like, what do you think is driving this pulling away from the ESG

movement that has really been on headlines and people have been upset about ESG. What do you think is driving the people away from it now? I think overall the recoil to it is making some ground. And for the past three years since this really took off, you know, particularly those on the political right who criticize it, they've been losing the battle. And you've seen the amount of funds with ESG in their name jump. You've seen a lot of companies deliberately implement shareholder proposals that have to do with decarbonization or, you know, when,

especially among red states, politically red states like Texas, when they start passing laws like SB 13 that requires the divestment of state pension dollars from companies deemed to be boycotting fossil fuels. That's just one state doing it, but we've seen many states doing it along with Texas. So are you saying the pulling back from ESG is more a driver from voices of the public, or is it more at the state level legislatures saying these companies need to divest if they're boycotting the oil and gas industry? Or is it a balance between the two? I think it's a balance. Also, the fact that ESG funds were performing well, but then like all investing, if you get more money into the investment, if you think it's going to do well, right?

If it has a good projection, but once you start to bear out, well, maybe the returns weren't quite as good as we thought they were going to be. That's when forecasts meet reality and people start pulling back their investments in, in this case, ESG investments. But there's a lot of different factors as to why this is starting to kind of reverse course. There were a lot of different factors why it became really popular. It looked good on, you know, especially political resumes. Right, right. There were countries, especially in Europe, that were promising to put their money into funds or asset managing companies specifically that catered to ESG. Eventually, you just had the rubber meet the road on forecast v. reality, and it wasn't quite as good. The returns weren't quite as big as what people had thought.

You know, you also add the practical implication of this. Especially on the environmental side, they want decarbonization, which is going to be very, very hard to get, just practically, you know, if not impossible. You know, there are those that argue it's impossible to do. And there's a strong case to be made for that. But when you want this, the global economy that runs on especially fossil fuels to entirely change in a way that fossil fuels are now. Well, not just change gradually.

There's been people lobbying for it to flip over dramatically. Like they want it to happen. Like in the span of 25 years. Or even sooner. Or even sooner, yeah. But, you know, 25 years is still a stretch, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of different factors

to this, but the reason it's turning, the reason the Wall Street Journal ran this headline is because it is, it's not, people are realizing it's not what was promised, and they're realizing that there are very real

consequences to the goals that this movement purports to advance. Well, the consequences, like you touched on, either it being political backlash or economic backlash in terms of stocks not performing. You know, one of the things you mentioned about the sort of ideological signaling that the ESG movement had that really gained a lot of steam was it was involved in a CEI score or a corporate equity index. Have you heard of this before? Vaguely, yeah. And so that's overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, which has received millions in funding from the Open Society Foundation,

which is run by George Soros. And they issue report cards on some of America's biggest corporations via the CEI score. And they have this whole rating criteria. And they have over 840 different U.S. companies that have these CEI scores. And some of the things they built into this rating in terms of how they're gauging how aligned in this ESG, DEI sort of movement is things like workforce protections and inclusive benefits or supporting an inclusive culture, social responsibility. And all these are sort of tied in together with what we've seen with the DEI movement, the diversity, equity, inclusion, whether it be LGBT causes or the CRT. And we've seen some of that stuff get pushed back by the state governments, especially here in Texas. And so I wanted to ask you, though, because you've done some reporting

on how here in Texas, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has come a bit cozy with BlackRock. Can you tell us what that relationship is all about? Well, BlackRock is the face of this ESG. And I suppose I should say that ESG, the acronym, is Environmental Social Governance. Governance really isn't the controversial part of this. It's more of the E and the S. And Lieutenant Governor Patrick, back in 21 when SB 13 was passed, called for BlackRock to be put at the, quote, top of the list of these fossil fuel boycotters. And the pair, Texas and BlackRock, have had a tenuous relationship ever since. BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, they've been a big proponent of ESG. Now, they also have billions of dollars tied into the oil and gas industry, and that's their rebuttal to these accusations. But these accusations center more on the rhetoric,

especially from Larry Fink, the CEO, touting a need for a decarbonized global economy. You know, that's the big one, because oil and gas is so big in Texas. And so these two have, you know, squared off quite a bit on rhetoric. But then, as you alluded to, the cozying up that happened is really only on one issue. It was on the power plant loan program that Texas passed last session. Specifically, the state has kind of plateaued in the amount of dispatchable power that's any kind of thermal. That's nuclear. That's natural gas, coal. Coal is actually dropping significantly while natural gas kind of thermal. That's nuclear. That's natural gas, coal. Coal is actually dropping significantly while natural gas kind of increases, at least in terms of, you know, we see a huge market

growing on the LNG side, liquefied natural gas. But in terms of power, we're seeing this massive influx of solar and wind. Wind up until a few years ago was by far and away the biggest grower. Now solar if you look in the queue it's going to add something like 30 to 40,000 megawatts in the next few years or it's expected to. We'll see how much of that is actually built. So to try and counteract that and the state has created this loan program, $10 billion of low-interest loans, to try and level the playing field between these thermal developers and the wind and solar developers. that mainly the production tax credit at the federal level has made it so cost effective to build wind and solar that they can basically make money by selling electricity at negative prices. And that helps with, you know, what people see on their bills, but it does nothing to, it actually undermines the financial structure, the incentive base for these thermal developments.

They cost a lot more. They have actual fuel costs. It just costs more money. And so you haven't seen, that's why you haven't seen this new development of any kind of thermal, really, generation. And then when you hit times of high grid stress, late in the summer when it's really hot, wind isn't blowing, and then eventually when the sun sets, you run into these tight periods, happens in the winter too, usually that's in the morning, where you

can't count on renewables to show up in order to bridge the gap between the demand, the electricity demand, and the supply. And so this power plant loan program, especially as the state is growing immensely in population and economic footprint, they want to ensure that we have 10,000 megawatts more of particularly natural gas generation in order to bridge that gap. Now, where BlackRock comes in, Patrick hosted an event in Houston alongside BlackRock with a bunch of potential investors as basically an advertisement for this loan program that's going into effect. And so they were trying to get commitments, essentially. Here's why the pitch, here's why it's a good investment for you.

Here's, you know, the state is very much concerned with this, and we want to do everything we can to try and, you know, ensure that these power plants are built so we don't have rolling blackouts at any point. And so that was an interesting dynamic to see, and I was there when they were being buddy-buddy, particularly after things that happened in the past few years concerning ESG. And actually, one other thing that was interesting,

in my inbox this morning, I got Larry Fink's annual chairman's letter to investors. Interesting. Have you gone through it yet? I looked at the cliff notes. Okay. But it doesn't really mention, at least from what I can see, decarbonization.

Well, that does at the very end, it looks like, or rather minimally. What he places the most onus on in terms of challenges is the people not having enough saved for retirement, people are living longer but not saving as much money for those years that they're living. So clearly, rather than jumping headlong into this decarbonization debate, which he does touch on in here, he does, he touches more on this other issue. Okay.

So overall, we've seen Blackrock and especially think really temper the rhetoric yeah because they don't want to be on the fossil fuel boycott well it even if they're tempering their language is it true have you been seeing actual changes? And, like, I know you just talked a long time about how Patrick and Larry Fink are carrying out a more cordial relationship now. is going to be a decoupling between what they're actually investing in, in terms of focusing more on natural gas production, thermal reliance on oil and gas, or are they just going to start saying the right things, but continue investing in more green energy decarbonization? They have money tied into both, and I don't see them changing that you know you know there are people that that want to invest their money into these decarbonization funds the esg funds and they supply that what they've done in response is change their rhetoric which affects a lot in the world of investing oh yeah absolutely they've also given things like the Teachers Retirement Fund

the ability to vote on shareholder proposals separate from the proxy service that they use, BlackRock. It's very difficult for, I can't do it myself, so they have a section of their firm dedicated to this to follow all the possible shareholder proposals at all the companies that you have investments in I have no I mean I can do that I can search it if I want but I don't you know most people generally don't keep up on their investments like that and so they have this proxy service that serves as a proxy for them, judgment on their behalf.

And that is where a lot of these problems arose from because you'd see the teacher's retirement fund, teacher's retirement system, vote for in favor of a decarbonization shareholder proposal at, I think it was Lowe's or something like that. Pretty large company. And so now, in response to the backlash, TRS can vote separate from the proxy service that BlackRock has. So overall, they're making adjustments.

Whether that's going to be monetary, probably not, or at least not in a significant manner. But the biggest problem, the biggest reason they were on the divestors list in the first place was the rhetoric. Right. Well, in just some important context, I came across this number. In 2022, of the $6.6 trillion in managed assets in the United States, there is $8.4 trillion in sustainable investing assets. So like you said, there's a portion of it that's in the ESG stuff, and then they have portions in oil and gas.

And then they have investments in all sorts of things. And so is it going to change or is it just changing the rhetoric? We'll have to wait and see. I mean, you know, again, the rhetoric is important in this debate. Yeah. Especially for BlackRock. So even if they're just changing rhetoric, I think that's not going to make everyone happy, but it's going to make some at least more content with the way BlackRock is operating.

Well, let's move on to the next story we're going to talk about here. There was an opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News titled, Is Bipartisanship Dead in Austin? Not on Artificial Intelligence. And so this story, reading from the text here, the caucus, this is the AI Council, the caucus must effectively balance the benefits of artificial intelligence while also providing guardrails to protect Texans from abuse. Legislation must have a workable enforcement mechanism to discourage and punish abuses so that the state lawmakers don't repeat the mistakes made when federal lawmakers last revised telecommunication law in 1996. Intelligence legislation should build off of the core principles established in Texas's data privacy law, providing consumers with more say on how data is used in recourse when companies abuse customer trust. Companies and state government agencies that use artificial

intelligence-associated algorithms and biometric information need to be held to clear rules on how the technology informs their decision making. Have you been following all the developments in AI over the past year and a half, two years? Only what I hear about chat GPT. So if you could explain to me where the market, where the industry has been going, that'd be great. Yeah, so it seems to be developing rapidly. In particular, when it comes to, how it started was large language models and what basically large language models are are next word predictors.

And so what they do is these large language models, like you mentioned, chat GBT is basically like a avalanche cascading effect where if a word is inputted and it's trained on like huge amounts of data, the algorithm understands, okay, this is the best word that should go after that. And then what's the best word that should go after that. And then what's the best word that should go after that? And so what is interesting is the inputs that these algorithms

are training on. There's controversy surrounding that. We actually saw a lawsuit be filed by the New York Times because they are alleging copyright infringement against Microsoft and OpenAI because in their suit, the Times alleges that when prompted by users, ChatGPT will sometimes spit out portions of an article from the New York Times verbatim. And it will share key points of its content and findings from their journalists and investigators. And also what was happening is ChatGPT was hallucinating, is what the suit says, or make up articles attributed to the Times, which violates, according to the lawsuit, copyright law

and undercuts the Times business model. And so I think that will be something interesting to address with this AI Council is what is the consumer protection of their personal data? Because with everything we've been seeing in terms of not not just social media companies how they're developing their algorithms showing things at the top of their feed or whatever it may be but also advertisements targeted advertising is a huge thing and that uses the data that individuals are essentially signing over in the terms and conditions when they sign up for these websites. And I'm sure everyone has had websites pop up and says, do you accept these cookies?

And usually, oh, yeah, sure. Well, that's tracking your information across different websites. It's interesting how we can be talking about something and then look on Twitter afterwards and there's an advertisement for that thing. Yeah, it's creepy. Yeah, it's very creepy. Well, and so I think that's going to be a big thing to address is as AI develops and comes more ubiquitous into our daily lives. We're seeing AI being used as almost like a co-pilot with a lot of software developers and when they're writing code. As a co-pilot, an AI co-pilot,

if someone is writing code, they can use this AI model to help either write additional pieces of code separate from what they're doing, and the user can then check it and see if it is comparable and it is usable. Oh, is that open source? Yeah. Okay. Or they can write a portion of the code and have the AI write the rest of it. So there's tremendous business and development opportunities

in terms of the technology sphere. But we're also seeing practical applications of AI. I don't know if you saw there was a of my head but there was in terms of compensation where the buyer of a home has to pay for the realtor and the seller compensation for those agents well there was some sort of stipulation that there was a certain percentage that each of them this the agent on both sides of the deal was compensated for. Well, that is no longer the case. And so this allows for more opportunity for individuals who are buying and selling a home to make individual deals for themselves. And you can see AI step in and do this.

Let's say an AI developer spins up a realtor AI that is trained on real estate law and contracts. And so instead of someone going to an agent and saying, hey, all this complicated paperwork, I don't know how to sort through it all. That's why you hire an agent to help you show houses and things of that nature. But if with a realtor AI, if it's trained on all this contract data and knows how to write everything up and could do the negotiations for you, it's a huge opportunity. An opportunity to eliminate an entire industry of jobs. Well, we've seen throughout history, you know, as technology has developed, people find new. Right. But it's also a shock for the people that are in the industry, right?

It is a shock. And you that are in the industry right and you can understand why they would be upset about that you know like take take our job you know if if we get to the point where ai is just where chat gpt is just doing you know reporting there's no need we can spend our entire every waking second following stuff learning things and we still couldn't compete with this ai um function if it gets perfected enough you know that's reality what what outlet was it the sports outlet that was caught using oh yeah was it was that sports illustrated yeah it was sports illustrated they were caught uh using AI to write articles for them. So, you know, there's a precedent that this has already happened.

Oh, sure. I mean, right now it's really crude. Yeah, it's not very sophisticated. It sounds very choppy, you know, and I think there's actually going to be a premium placed on human-created art because of this. Like, we see art that sells for millions of dollars at Sotheby's. We're going to see, you know, we saw like with Google Gemini. I don't know if you remember seeing that. It was the AI art generation that you type in,

show me, create a picture of the founding fathers for me, and it would be like all people of color in the picture. And so I think... Like the cast of Hamilton. Right. And so I think what's interesting is there'll be actually a premium place on human generated content because of this, where if you want something created by movie, pieces of art, people will now be willing to pay for that because there is that human element to it. Well, the same as, you know, the Buy American movement, right? It's the same concept. And that didn't go away when outsourcing happened. In fact,

it, you know, sped up. Now, there's very real reason why if when outsourcing happened. In fact, it sped up. Now, there's a very real reason why if the outsourcing happened, it was a lot cheaper, right? Right. But we've seen a huge recoil. We're talking about recoil with the ESG. There's been one against outsourcing as well. And this is just outsourcing.

Right. But it's outsourcing the labor to artificial intelligence. Yeah. is just outsourcing right it's out but it's outsourcing the labor to artificial intelligence yeah and well one of the because there's really two sides of this ai debate there's the safetyists those who want government intervention and placing regulations and that's that so that sort of oversight is what we're seeing with the ai Council and what they're saying in this article. But then there's the more accelerationist types, the AI optimists who say, no, take government hands off it and you should allow it to increase its proliferation within the United States and the world. And the person really leading that is a tech investor, Mark Andreessen.

He wrote an entire AI tech manifesto. And I can send you that. Yeah, please send me that stuff. I'll definitely read the manifesto. No, but he's a huge voice in this space. And just some of the things No, but he's a huge voice in this space. And just some of the things, like one thing he said, in short, AI doesn't want, it doesn't have goals, it doesn't want to kill you because it's not alive. And AI is a machine and it's not going to come alive any more than your toaster will.

Wait, so we're not talking about Terminator here? We're not talking about Terminator here? We're not talking about Terminator. I think that's what people picture when they think of AI, is they think Arnold Schwarzenegger with a shotgun on a motorcycle. And that's not what this is. The best way to think about AI is really a tool that can be used to create more human flourishing in terms of whatever endeavor you're embarking on. Whether it's for us, like I'll use ChatGPT when I'm investigating a legal case and there's lots of language in there that I just simply can't understand. And so what I'll do is I'll take chunks of things that are in a legal document and I'll ask ChatGPT, hey, can you decipher this in plain English for me so I can understand? And that way, when I'm reading through court documents, I understand

some of these Latin words and things that are used. And so I use it as almost a co-pilot when I am engaging in legal cases for my reporting. And so it can be a tool. Of course, if you're thinking in sort of a sci-fi way, it can seem dangerous. But as it is right now, it can be used as a force for good, at least in my mind. Okay. Well, what are the potential pitfalls for this? Well, like you mentioned, it could potentially displace people from certain jobs, like the example I brought up with the realtors. Which is a real problem. Which is a real problem, or service industry jobs. I'm not sure the last time you were in a McDonald's, but there's still people behind the counter cooking, but most of the time when you

walk into a McDonald's, there's a kiosk there, you know, and you just put in whatever you want and go to the counter and it spits it out for you. You know, and we saw we actually wrote a story over a year ago about a fully automated McDonald's. Right. And so service industry jobs. Again, as technology develops, as industry develops, people will pick up new skills and people will pick up jobs in new sectors that will emerge that we can't even think about right now. That maybe AI will take over right now that will open up opportunities in the future. It reminds me of this book I read by this guy at Stanford, Russell something, called The Choice. And it's about – it's a fable about this car manufacturer CEO who has a choice between – basically he's the deciding factor for whether the protectionist president gets elected or the free trade president gets elected, and that causes a ripple effect, yada, yada, yada. But it's kind of like Dickens-like where he gets taken by this angel

who happens to be an economist from centuries past and shown the future of the kind of prosperity that developed because the U.S., its labor market and capital market could focus on things that were far more profitable and useful like pharmaceuticals than automobiles. And so that's the whole, that's the support for, you know, outsourcing that, you know, Japan focused on, they spent their time and money on building automobiles. Eventually that got outsourced further from them. But while they were able to profit and make it, make a good use of their time doing that. The U.S. then focused on pharmaceuticals.

And so while it wasn't trading equal value goods in both directions, both goods in each direction had value. So like Japan bought our pharmaceuticals, we bought their automobiles, and it was a symbiotic relationship. Now obviously that's a fable, right? Like there were, and it actually does a good job of talking about the pitfalls that happened, you know, the towns that depended on, you know, the Ford factory that went out of business and then died because of that. You know, up where I'm from in Ohio, there's many towns like that.

And it's not unique to Ohio. It just depends on what industry you're talking about. Texas, I'm sure there's plenty of towns that used to be, you know, booming that Galveston's won. Now, that was because of a hurricane. But, you know, this is a tale as old as time. And the adjustments will be made provided that, you know, there's enough time to adjust. Yeah. And we've had these discussions in just this worker movement get behind the

Republican Party in recent years especially because of someone like Donald Trump has been more protectionist you know placing these massive tariffs on in on industry imports and really saying he's fighting for the working class and trying to bring jobs back. So, you know, it is a balance, right? You know, outsourcing can be a good thing, but then at what cost to the people of the country that you're tasked with overseeing? And you might be getting less expensive goods coming in, but the income opportunities in terms of jobs are being displaced to other countries. So it's a balance.

It's a difficult conversation to have. It's interesting you mentioned the political side of it because I saw a really good explanation a couple months ago that kind of hit me. Obviously, things are changing between the parties. good explanation that a couple months ago that kind of hit me on, you know, obviously things are changing between the parties. Now, the Republican Party for a long time was the ideological party and focused on, you know, policy, beliefs, things like that. Whereas the Democratic Party was the coalitional party. And we see that in the FDR coalition that largely still is in existence today. However, that's kind of shifting. And we're seeing the Republican Party jump more into coalitional politics

versus the Democratic Party that is jumping into the ideological side of things right and obviously this is not you know this switch is not fully matured yet if it ever does but we're seeing the trend start the train track started being laid um and so it there are a lot of things that are causing that you know trump is one of them and his shift on particularly trade i'm sure is, has a big part to play in it. Yeah, well, I'll do a plug for my newsletter because I get into actually exactly what you just mentioned in this ideological shift that has occurred probably in the past two decades of American politics. Check it out, redacted. Redacted. By the time this goes up, it will already be posted.

It'll be up. It'll be up. So let's move on to the next story here. I'll take the lead on this one. So Aaron Harris, a conservative activist. He's been a staffer for multiple people. Lance Gooden, chief of staff for him. I don't know if he was the chief for Don Buckingham

when she was in the Senate before she ran for GLO, but he was working for her. He's been in Republican conservative politics for a while. He wrote an opinion in the Dallas Express titled, The King is Dead, Long Live the King, but Not This Monarchy. And essentially it's a similar take to what we've seen from others because Phelan was pushed to a runoff, his speakership is done. Now, that's not, I wouldn't say that's totally accurate at the moment.

It could be. Jury's still out. We have no idea. There's so much stuff that could happen. Phelan could win. And then he could, there are many different ways he could shore up his support within the statehouse to remain speaker. That's certainly possible.

Question is, is it likely? Probably not at the moment. But again, we still have a whole runoff to go. And then we have what's likely to be a pretty chaotic speakers fight. We already have one person jumping in and challenging. That's Tom Oliverson. There's rumblings about others. No one else has jumped in yet. But calls are being made behind the scenes and talking. People are talking. So what I took away from this was not what I found interesting was not really that the claim that feel and speakership is done. It's about what he lists out these five things that need to change for whoever the next speaker is. First off, he says the next speaker must agree that the speaker will be decided within the Republican caucus exclusively, will follow the rules of the caucus,

and will agree such will be decided by secret ballot. So the caucus has a secret ballot vote each time for who their nominee is going to be. Usually that happens in December. And that's essentially the person that's going to be speaker, at least that's how it's been. Now, the issue is that the issue for some of these critics, Harris is one of them, that the coalition building within the chamber has already happened by the time that caucus vote occurs.

And so you have, I believe, Speaker Bonin did this along with Phelan in 21. You know, they get, when Phelan announced, he had like 86, he had a whole list of 86 members who supported him. I don't know the exact breakdown, but there were a lot of Democrats and a lot of Republicans on it. That secured his speakership, essentially. And it was bipartisan in that 86. And so when he announced that was it, he said, this race is over. I have the votes. It's happening the other way around where, you know, you get your core base of support among the Republican caucus, and then you go get Democrats who likely are going to be given at least some committee chairs or other positions

of import. And then that's how you shore up your governing majority. Now, this is a numbers game, right? You have to hit 76. And really all that matters, I mean, it's not all that matters, but ultimately what matters is hitting that number. And that's why you see these deals made. That's politics, right? Probably more momentum than we've seen before behind changing things up and trying to secure an actual majority from the Republican caucus for a speaker before going and getting Democrats. Well, do you think that's even feasible? We're seeing some changeover in some of the members that have been elected that are more ideologically aligned with a step maybe further to the right. Yeah.

And so do you think it's possible now? It's more possible than it was. In my first newsletter, and Mackenzie and I talked about this in our podcast, Speaker Bonin's, the scandal that brought him down was really, it was at root him trying to do exactly that and move the center of the caucus rightward that way you there would be less of a chance of a Strauss-like coalition forming where you have a dozen Republicans in the whole Democratic caucus naming a speaker uh now Bonin himself and Phelan avoided that scenario by getting some Democrats and a lot of Republicans and securing a majority that way.

So, however, there are – there's a secret ballot shall be conducted within the caucus itself. And whoever wins that will be the caucus's nominee for speaker. So, you know, that's how many rounds of voting? As many as it takes. As many as it takes. As many as it takes. I think in 21, there were like four or five. Okay. So, and then you, each round you eliminate one person, the lowest tally.

So eventually it was, it finished Phelan in first place, James Frank in second, pretty distant second, but second place. So, I mean, that's all fine and good if you can secure the numbers that way. And that very may well happen now with this changeover, with these particularly more conservative new members who ousted longtime incumbents who were generally more in the center of the political sphere. Yeah, they're more moderate. Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's possible, but you never know until the numbers, you know, meter out. It's just there's always the threat of that Strauss-like coalition happening because you see an opportunity. Imagine how difficult it is to pass that up. Yeah, well, you know, we have lots. Again, one of the discussions we have is about politicians being self-interested in many instances. And so do you think it's possible if they want to attempt to do this coalition building among the Republicans where they're going to maybe have to put some of that self-interest aside and really put all their efforts behind one individual and say, maybe I don't agree with this person 100%, but maybe I agree with them 75%, 70%.

And they're going to help move the legislation I want to see moved across. And it's just interesting, is there going to be a movement in the upcoming session if a new speaker is elected, are politicians going to be able to put self-interest aside to move what they might want as a more conservative agenda forward by putting a more conservative member in the speakership, maybe if they don't agree with them 100%? It's possible. Anything's possible at this point. There's a lot of momentum behind reforms and the way things are done or have been done. Overall, you know, it's not just politicians that are self-interested.

That's a human thing, right? It's a human thing. So try kicking human nature to the curb at any point. Like, that's hard. Right. So I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. You know, on the flip side,

if number two here from Harris is, we'll agree to work with our friends across the aisle, but we'll not install Democratic chairs. Now, that has more momentum than I've ever seen behind it. But if that happens, think about it on the flip side, because the Democrats still have, at least right now, what, like 64 votes, I think, in the House. That's a pretty large block. If they vote all together, then that makes a Strauss coalition very possible, just provided you can peel off enough Republicans. But what incentive do Democrats have to play ball on anything if they're locked out entirely? Now, it's all about finding the balance, right?

If the line is now we're not going to have any Democratic chairs, well well what then do you give some democrats to prevent that block voting on their part i don't know i'm sure that i'm sure that's being discussed behind the scenes right now but uh it's it's easier said than done and frankly i don't know if it's entirely possible to cut Democrats out because, in fact, it's not because Republicans don't have a supermajority. And so to pass any constitutional amendment, they need Democrats to vote for it on whatever that is and take the speakership out of it. There's that as well. And if they are locked out entirely, what incentive do they have to not break quorum again? You know, there's punishments in terms of, you know, fines and revoking chairmanships, I think. But if they don't have any chairmanships, then what's the, what does that do? You know, a lot of, a lot of stick and not a lot of carrot there for the Democrats. But we'll see on that, like I said, more momentum than I've ever seen behind preventing any Democratic chairmanships. The next number here is insist upon a new cadre of House parliamentarians that aren't Democrats. So the two parliamentarians, Hugh Brady's the one that

gets a lot of attention. He is, I'm not sure exactly what his voter history is, but he worked in the Obama White House. I think it's safe to say he's on the left of center. And then Sharon Carter on the other side is a more of a Republican. So this was the basically Phelan appointed those two, and I believe they were holdovers from Bonin, so I think he just kept them, to provide an aura of fairness to both sides of the aisle. They're the ones that are taking the lead on deciding points of order, which I'll get to here in a minute.

But they provide a lot of counsel to members on how to fashion bills, things like that to ensure that they don't get point of order. They have a lot of authority, a lot of power. Brady especially has gotten a lot of flack for many things. You know, what kinds of bills die. HB 20, the border bill, is a big one that gets a lot of attention. There's a lot of insistence among the Republican section of the caucus that isn't happy with the current leadership to start over, clean slate and start over with new parliamentarians?

Well, you know, this was my first foray into Texas politics this past year. And sitting in the press box when points of order are called and seeing everyone rush the speaker's desk and the parliamentarians. Seeing the scrum when they're arguing the cases. Yeah, and the parliamentarians like sort of hanging over, listening, engaging in conversation, and then having a discussion with the speaker, and then you get the decision.

And so when you say they have an outweighed influence, you can see it if you're just watching the floor proceedings. So, yeah, it's interesting. I didn't know how much influence they did have, but just sitting there and watching it, it is a lot. Yeah, and a lot of trust is placed in them, too, because the rulebook is massive. Yeah. And I don't know, you know, one-tenth of it. Right. Imagine what just a regular member has, the knowledge, especially one that's focused more on policy

rather than, you know, these parliamentary maneuvers and stuff. So it's a lot to absorb, and that's why parliamentarian is a thing in the first place, right? And it's not just the House. It's in every governing or legislative body, whether it's, you know, like the Republican Party of Texas, the SRAC. They have a parliamentarian, you know, stuff like that. So that part is not out of left field. Harris says in this, we need parliamentarians that are fair to all parties, but rule on the merits, not politics, as has happened for the past decade. You know, that's a

good goal, I think. I don't know how possible that is to get politics out of a political process. Right. You know? Well, so, and I think that, I think that's important though, is if it's an inherently political process where biases are going to play a part in decision-making, then. And not just political biases, personal biases. Totally. Totally. So if you are going to have individuals taking up this parliamentary position, making decisions on how rules are enacted and how floor proceedings are carried out, you might want them to be more aligned with your worldview than maybe the one that you're, you know, essentially fighting against. Yeah.

And so I understand the argument there is just, who chooses the parliamentarians? The speaker. The speaker picks them. You can hire anybody. They can hire anybody. So, yeah, I have no issue with that. You know, I think if we're talking about an inherently political process where people bring personal biases, political biases into that, and they're making decisions that are influenced by those biases, you want them aligned with your worldview. It seems common sense to me. I wrote about this during session, but one of the big points of tension that occurred that a lot of bills died over was a change in the way background and purpose statements are done, which is it's in the bill analysis.

And it's really it doesn't matter. Right. It's just a it gives you a brief summary of what the bill is about or it's supposed to. And there was a change, whether by dictate from the parliamentarians, I'm not sure. That's what I've heard, but I don't know for sure. There was a change to try and get those more in line. And it sounds like there was a good argument for doing that because you could put – you could make any claim in these BNP statements. X group said Y was a problem, and therefore that's why I'm filing this bill.

It doesn't really give you anything when you read it. So there was an attempt to try and pare those down and get them more based on cited facts, I'd say. But that's not the way things have been done for a while and through much of the session. And so when they hit this point, there was a, I think it was a Valerie Swanson bill. I forget on what, but it was point of order by John Busey. And that opened the floodgates. All of a sudden, all these bills are dying

because of these flawed background and purpose statements, and members are holding up their hands like, what the heck? This is totally new, and you're killing my bill that I've worked on for months or maybe years because of some summary that doesn't matter at all, really? And so... And that falls on the parliamentarian to rule on if that point of order summary that doesn't matter at all, really. And so... And that falls on the parliamentarian to rule on if that point of order based on the background and purpose, right? So again, it's if the parliamentarian is going to be more aligned

with what you just said, that these background and purposes statements don't really matter all that much to the bill. It's part of the analysis. But if in the parliamentarian's mind it means a lot and it is germane to the point of order, then they will rule on it in a certain way. Well, it is. And we saw that this past session. It is a rule. It's there.

Yeah. The question is how should you interpret it, right? How should you apply it? And so there was a lot of criticism from members whose bills were down. Keep in mind, a lot of these bills, not all of them are, you know, really one way or the other on a partisan basis. You know, a lot of them are just kind of standard, down-center-stripe, not controversial bills. But we do see the point of order be used a lot on the more controversial bills. Yes, absolutely.

But we also see points of order used to get back at members over personal gripes. For example, Olofvorsson said when asked if there were any Republican priority bills that died last session from committee chairs, he said not that he's aware of last session. I think there were. School choice was won during the 21 session, I think. It had a weird procession there. But Oliverson said, no, it's not that. You know, it was more of a Democratic chair did not like me carrying SB14, and so they targeted my other bills.

And with that, that was through, you know, basically extinguishing it in committee. But we also see members do it on the floor. And that happens both directions, right? Well, I was just listening to Tulsi Gabbard on Tucker Carlson this morning. And she was talking about when she started to push back against the Democratic Party. She was saying people were coming to her and say, you know, good luck with the rest of your career. They're going to be coming after you, and, you know, they're not going to pass any of your bills. And so it happens at the state level, at the federal level.

Personal issues play a part in terms of how legislation is moved. I mean, think about it. You have, in this case, 150 people all in a chamber constantly together. Yeah. High stakes, especially on certain things, and different personalities, people hating each other for various reasons. I interviewed Jay Malzano the other day, and a piece just went up today on his positions on the speakership.

I thought it was an interesting interview. One of the things he said was, this isn't high school. Well, I get the point, and yes, it shouldn't be high school, but everything's high school, right? I mean, that's just the world, right? Well, that's why I brought up the idea of self-interest in terms of the coalition building right exactly people are going to be holding these grudges against individuals because you didn't help me pass a bill five years ago six years ago so i'm not going to vote for you for speaker whatever it is you know are republicans who are very individualistic passionate about their

positions are they going to be able to pull back a little bit of that self-interest in order to get a certain individual in that seat? It'll be interesting. Yeah. It's all wheeling and dealing. What will you give me in order for me to vote for you? And part of that is, do I believe in you, in your positions? Do I believe in your ability for leadership? There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. And just there's not one thing that causes a chain reaction for everything else, you know. And then you have the fact that it's like herding cats.

And in the House especially, you're constantly worried. Mike Johnson's having this issue right now in U.S. Congress. You're constantly worried about losing your majority, especially for him, because it's razor thin. But that is the same with every speaker in the Texas House. Lieutenant Governor has the luxury

of having been elected popularly. He doesn't have to worry about getting ousted. And so there are deals made, agreements set, all with in mind of preserving the majority. You can agree or disagree with the veracity of them, the quality of the deals, all this stuff, but they're all deals. Yeah, well, and I completely agree there are deals being made behind the scenes, but what is making, you know, just the

average person upset is they're seeing things that might get passed that they don't agree with or how the speakership is being led. And maybe there were deals made behind the scenes. So other pieces of legislation could get passed. Do you think there's an element of transparency that could help quell some of the anger that sort of bubbles up by the average citizen where, let's say, there are deals being made behind the scenes, and if the speaker comes out or a coalition of Republicans say, we've made deals, these are the types of things we are going to say yes to or no to because we're going to put this person, do you think that'll help

bring down some of the animosity that has grown? It's possible. I mean, I think transparency is another big thing that we're seeing from the individuals who want more reforms. You know, another reform I've heard is actually the caucus actually meeting consistently. Apparently, they only met twice last session. At least that's what I was told. The GOP caucus itself. So transparency, I think, also can only go so far. You know, the legislative process is muddy, and it's designed that way. That's all legislatures. It is designed to kill more things than pass, and that is what happens.

More bills die. You look at the filing numbers and there's thousands that are filed every session and it just keeps rising. And the number of bills that pass is like in the hundreds. So most bills die. And that's just, that's the way it is. And that's the way it was set up, unless you drastically change things. And as far as transparency, it's on the members to be transparent about what happens. Yeah, and I think that's just the age we're living in, is people have much more access to information,

especially with social media. It feels just right in your face, and you get access to it, to everyone. And so just the average person now sort of expects that from their elected official. And so when things die or things are passed that they don't agree with, the average person is expecting transparency, but they're not getting it. Well, the other thing is. So could there be a transition in how governance is carried out in terms of when bills are passed or when bills are killed? When a legislature, a lawmaker can be more transparent about the what, the why, and the how of this bill?

Sure, there's always room for improvement, right? I don't know what that would look like. But overall, though, it's more transparent than it's ever been. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't improvements to be made. I'm sure there are. But we live in a time where you can watch the House floor in basically every committee meeting on livestream. You don't have to be in Austin to watch it. Now, there are things you can't see, but I don't know if there's any way of fixing that.

You can see the record of what's in bills, the different versions. And you can see committee meeting notes, all this stuff. There's a lot of resources available. It just takes time to go look at it. And, you know, I do this for my job. This is my living, right? Most people are busy with family, with their own job, all kinds of stuff. They don't have the time to do that.

And so I get that not everyone can just sit and watch the house floor constantly. But it's available. No, I completely agree. All that information is available. It's, like you said, people are busy. They might have 90 minutes at the end of the night where they're sitting on their phone, scrolling Twitter, catching up on the news. If they come across a two-minute video from their representative explaining what happened that day

and what went down. I think that level of transparency is what people are sort of craving. Yeah. And I mean, that might be a good idea for members to do because, you know, there are a lot of things that are said on social media that aren't true and angles taken on things that happen that aren't true. And that's by all parties. Totally. I don't mean political parties. I mean parties generally, people. And so if there's something that is incorrect that's circulating the airwaves, it's kind of on you to try and right that or at least provide a counter.

But I don't know. Well, yeah, we're in an evolving time because with this article, things could change drastically in terms of the speakership. It's already seeing a change in the types of individuals that are being elected to public office. And it's just about what is actually going to be the outcome of all these changes and potential big, big changes. And so, yeah, it's so interesting to follow, especially really being an outsider this past year and having you and Mackenzie explain everything that's been going on. I'm still asking questions to you guys about how this works or what this person's like.

So there's a lot of nuance to these conversations. Absolutely. But we're in an evolving, changing time, and it is really interesting. I think we beat that dead horse enough. So let's move on to the next one. Well, speaking of changing times, well, we were talking about AI earlier,

and what just happened is Elon Musk, he's been developing this brain implant, a Neuralink, he says. I don't like it. I don't like it. And so this Neuralink had been implanted in an individual named Nolan Arbaugh, who's actually a former Texas A&M student. And he actually sent out his first tweet via Neuralink. And so he's a quadriplegic. You know, he can't move his arms or his legs. And so just with his mind, through this Neuralink,

he was able to pull up X, write a post, send it out. That's crazy. It's crazy. And he's been playing chess, and he's been playing chess and he's been playing other computer games and so is this would you ever get the neural link brad um no no no why not well i don't have the handicap that okay let's say it's available to the public well no i mean the utility i see in this is helping someone who can't live a normal life live more of a normal life like this guy for me this just gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Well, because... Something going into my brain. Yeah. I already don't like the Apple Vision stuff. The Apple Vision Pro, the goggles. Yeah. Yeah. But this was something going into me. No, I...

Yeah. I think there is a step you have to take to cross that line where something is just a wearable, like the Apple Vision Pro, where you can take it off. And then a Neuralink where surgery is required to implant it into your brain. And so what I think is interesting, though, is we've sort of seen these barriers of surgery, like elective surgeries, be kind of brought down. We see plastic surgery with celebrities, with just the average person now getting nose jobs, facelifts, whatever it is. And so what used to be seen as taboo, like body alteration, whether it's tattoos, piercings, that's become normalized. We've seen plastic surgery become much more normalized now. So what is the next step in terms of integrating technology?

Does there have to be a next step? Okay, so how many TV shows have you seen where the first season was great, next season was good, and they just keep going, and it turns into a horrible product because they can't let it go? Are we just on a slippery slope to being cyborgs? Is that what this is? Well, it could possibly create a splintering of communities, let's say, in five decades or 50 years, where Neuralink is now available to the public, and there are those that do elect to get the brain chip, and then there are those that do elect to get the brain chip, and then there are those who elect not to. And so there will be those that are plugged in to information online

directly into their brain, and then there are those who choose not to, that have the ability to take it off, set it down, actually completely remove themselves from it. It'll sort of be an interesting dilemma that human civilization could find itself in. Those completely integrated with the technology and those that are not. Are you getting the brain chip? No, because I already think I'm a cyborg. This is in my pocket 24-7, except when I go to bed, right? But even then, it's right next to me. There's a difference between that and something in your brain, though. Totally, totally.

But what I'm saying is when the latency between wanting to know something is really at a time frame of just thinking about it. Like if you want to know something, you have to physically type it in to your phone or your laptop and look it up, and it might take, you know, 60 seconds, 30 seconds. Well, how about less than.00001 second, and you have the information in your head? So it's going to create almost two different types of human beings, I see. Yeah. Well, you know, when I first heard about this, I think it was yesterday we were talking about this, right? In the office. Yeah. And it made my skin crawl. But then, you

know, I heard you told me more of this story for this guy. Yeah. And he can't move other than, I guess, from his neck up, right? And it helps him live a more normal life. It reminded me of medicinal marijuana. You know, videos that you see of someone rubbing whatever it is, CBD or whatever, on their gum who has, like, Parkinson's. And all of a sudden they stop shaking so much and they can actually function. You know, that changes your perspective on the efficacy of this thing, whatever that is. And in this case, you know, helping this guy be able to live a more normal life I see as, you know, a net benefit. But unless I'm in that situation, you couldn't pay me enough to put this thing in my brain.

And my gut reaction is that moves us one step further away from being human, whatever that means, you know? Like, what does it mean anymore? I don't know. Especially if this becomes commonly used. So as with many things, I see the utility in it. Not for me. I'm not doing it.

No, I do agree with you. What I was sort of laying out is the far future. What we were talking about earlier with AI, the sort of sci-fi mindset, is related to this as well. But there is utility to it. If someone can use an ErrLink to communicate online or live a more normal life, absolutely. Do it. It is when it's available to the public at large. Should everyone get it?

I have to go with you and say I don't think that it is something that maybe everyone can talk about. We already have issues with social media addiction. Oh, yeah. Imagine social media in your brain. I just saw Florida pass a law that prohibits the use of social media for anyone under 14, 14 or under, and restricts it for those 16 and under. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see something filed in Texas next year to try and accomplish that. Is it the right solution? I have no idea, but you know, this is a very real problem. and by implanting a chip in your brain, you're just making that addiction worse, I'd say. quite a bit on the issues of social media with young adults, and especially with young girls, is seeing this almost hockey stick graph of the rise in suicides, and it happens right around the mass adoption of smartphones and eventually social media. And we've seen these ideas in terms of social contagions with the transsexualization of young kids.

And that's all being done through social media as well. If we see something like a Neuralink where young girls right now are using, or just people more generally, are using smartphones and photo editing apps, and they're seeing someone on their phone that's completely different than what they see in the mirror. What will something like Neuralink do is, let's say you have a different picture of how you actually look in your head. If this Neuralink can essentially relay that image to your optical lens,

so where you're looking in the mirror, you're seeing that Photoshopped image. You're not actually seeing yourself. Oh my God. And so you're, you know. That's horrible. It's something to think about though. Yeah, certainly.

Let's quickly touch on one more story. We gotta wrap up, the camera's dying apparently. So, though. Yeah, certainly. Let's quickly touch on one more story. We've got to wrap up. The camera's dying, apparently. So Ronna McDaniel, no longer Ronna, Romney McDaniel, she dropped that, former chair of the Republican National Committee. She was hired by NBC News to be a pundit, and it caused quite a firestorm recently. I think Chuck Todd went on kind of a rant.

Yes. What was it, Meet the Press? And, you know, it's interesting that she's causing this firestorm, but there's been plenty of others hired out of the White House or either of the two parties that did not cause such a firestorm. Yeah, well, Jen Psaki, right when she left the White House press secretary role, she's got a show on MSNBC. And so, you know, I came up with a little list here. We got Simone Sanders, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' 26th presidential campaign,

former chief spokesperson, senior advisor for Kamala Harris. Nicole Wallace, She was White House comms director for George W. Bush, Joe Scarborough, former member of the Republican Party and House of Representatives member. And then Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee from 2009, 2011. So these people who are political insiders within a particular party and then saying, oh, we're stepping away. We're going to work for the news industry. We're going to be journalists now. We're going to be objective in our analysis.

But we know, obviously, that that never happens. Well, the other thing is McDaniel's not hired to give an objective opinion. She's hired to give one side of an argument on these shows. And that goes for all these members. Saki has a show herself, is that what you said? I guess that's slightly different. But, you know, we see, look at on Fox, Sean Hannity, he's not objective. Look at who's the guy, Van Jones? No. Who is the guy that, Don Lemon. Oh. Who was just guy? Van Jones? No. Who was the guy that... Don Lemon. Oh. Don Lemon, who was just fired, right?

Yeah, he was fired, tried to have a show on X, interviewed Elon Musk, and that went up in flames. And then he went on CNN, and they ran cover for him. Yeah. So I don't know what the big uproar about this is. You know, journalists are very thin-skinned, usually. Most are. And like anybody, they're going to be protective of their little fiefdom. And I get that's why Todd went on the rant he did.

But as far as people that stir things up enough to cause issues. I'm not sure Ronald McDaniel is really the poster child for that. Yeah. Well, what's interesting is I think the average person is starting to, you know, really realize over the past decade that the news is not objective. It is partisan, and it's about if you go to Fox News, you're going to get a certain opinion. Go to MSNBC, you're going to get a certain opinion. And what I think the bigger issue is when it comes to individuals who used to work in White House roles or within the party structure is, are the opinions that they're giving,

are they their own opinion or is it a talking point that was given to them from the White House establishment? Or was it an opinion that was given to them from the party structure that they just left? And so they might be given an opinion, but is it even their own opinion? Or is it someone else's opinion that was fed to them? I think that's the bigger issue that we're sort of trying to sort through right now with these talking heads. Well, you know, it's a third rail you're always going to hit if you have opinion in your outlet. And yes, everyone has bias, right? But there's a difference between reporting

and having a certain perspective from which you operate and having outright opinion on your platform. Now, that's what draws eyes. That's why they do it, right? Yeah. But this is a minefield you're always going to step in when you have a show like Sean Hannity on Fox. There are many stories about Hannity, Tucker Carlson when he was there,

butting heads with the more reporting side of things of Fox. And MSNBC happens everywhere, all these media outlets. And, you know, we're not perfect, but we don't leave ourselves out to dry by putting opinion on the website. And so, especially when you naturally have to find people that have been in the arena, that have some level of competence to talk about these things, of course, former activists and staffers are going to come in and have a perspective that you may or may not like or agree with. Yeah, but I think the issue is they can have their opinion and that's their role on these shows is to

give an opinion, a partisan opinion. But is that partisan opinion their own opinion, or is it being fed to them by some corporate structure or from the White House, where it's not even them giving opinion, it's them being a propagandist? I don't know. What's the line there? because if you have someone that is McDaniel spent the past what six years as chair of the RNC working closely with Donald Trump as the face of the party at what point does her opinion morph it into something that's very close to Donald Trump's, and then when she goes to this, she's in that mode, and she gives her opinion that is heavily influenced by the Trump position. It's a problem that you don't need to put yourself into by doing this, but media is stuck with it. Well, I think mainstream media is stuck with it. And we're seeing the downstream effects of that. People aren't watching these shows anymore.

People aren't watching MSNBC or CNN or even Fox News, really, since Tucker Carlson left. People have found independent creators on X, on YouTube, wherever it is, that they trust more, that don't have explicit ties to a mainstream outlet or a political party or being former staffers in some congressional office, whatever it is. They don't have these explicit ties. They're just your average person that might be tuned in. And so when people want news, they're going to these independent creators now. And so that's when, you know, because we've seen all sorts of stories pop up

about even independent creators being influenced now through big money. Again, human nature. But there are ways to mitigate it, and I just think that it's stepping on a rake that does you no good or very little good, and they just keep stepping on it. So obviously I'm not going to influence the minds,

the big brain minds at NBC to change course on anything, but this is the bed you made and you got to lay in it. Yeah. Well, I think people are going towards getting their information from independent creators and independent outlets where there's not big money coming in, where they're being run by subscriptions or small money donations. And I think that adds a level of credibility to smaller outlets

because you know the information you're getting is not influenced by one or two people. You're really getting information from that individual. I think the last thing is I think another point of contention here over the McDaniel hire is they laid off, NBC laid off, reporters in order to make room in the budget to hire her. Oh, really? Or at least that was what was alleged by the Guild, which is there's this movement among news outlets to make guilds and effectively unions.

But that's another kind of issue that I saw centered on this, that this McDaniel issue is centered on. Well, did you want to touch on anything else? that this McDaniel issue is centered on. Well, did you want to touch on anything else? I think that's all we got time for. Daniel's giving us the hook. Is that it? All right. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in for the first edition of Send Me Some Stuff. We'll be back next time to dive through some more stories.

And if there's any interesting articles that pique your interest send us some stuff and we might just go over it in our next episode until then be sure to visit the texan.news and subscribe for news you can trust on texas politics