The Texan Podcast - 'Signalgate,' Cornyn and Paxton's Primary Drama, RFK's Protein Politics: SMSS Ep. 14

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

On this episode of Send Me Some Stuff, Cameron and Rob delve into Signal Gate, the implications of the Trump administration's accidental disclosure of attack plans, Texas Senator John Cornyn's bid for reelection in 2026 and the potential primary challenge from Attorney General Kim Paxton, and more!Listen to more Send Me Some Stuff podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Hello and welcome back to episode number 14 of send me some stuff. My name is Cameron Abrams, reporter here at the Texan. I'm joined once again by assistant editor Rob Lauschis. Rob, how's it going? It's going alright Cameron. I've been watching some good TV lately. That's what I've been up to in my recent time. You've been talking a lot about Sopranos in the office. I just finished the Sopranos for the first time ever. The show actually got really popular again on TikTok, because there's all these edits being made of the characters.

There's clips of the show. You know, if you go on YouTube shorts or Tik TOK or any of these nowadays, you can watch almost whole episodes of TV that people have just clipped up into 60 second clips and put online. So this show, which ended in 2007 is getting a whole new audience from people who were too young to watch it the first time and are now on social media. And from what I understand, this was really big in 2020 because of the pandemic. There was this, a lot of people thinking, you know, what am I going to do with all

this free time? I'm going to watch a lot of TV. So, yeah, it was, it was a good show. It was a great show. Maybe, maybe the best show of all time. People still debate it. People debate a lot about the show. People debate what the ending means. And if you've seen the ending, then you know what that's like. So yeah, well, prestige TV right now is really big you had said you're gonna start watching True detective absolutely. That's probably my very good show Favorite television show the very first season the other ones sort of fall off a little bit, but season one is my favorite Watch the first two episodes of season one. Oh, very very good so far you have to continue updating me on what your thoughts are absolutely, but

severance season two just finished up and I've been Loving that show it's Really interesting and it's been greenlit for season three but there's it was like a year and a half two years between season one and season two so you and Mac cannot stop talking about it in the office well we we stop sometimes we thought you guys occasionally stop talking about it to do work but it's it's definitely a dominating conversation, right?

Between me and Mac, yeah. But it's a fun show. Yeah, I'm kind of looking for other stuff to watch. I've tried watching The Pit. How'd you enjoy that? Not my favorite. But everybody's got their preferences. Yeah, but lots of really good TV going on and lots of news going on. No, absolutely. got their preferences. Yeah, but lots of really good TV going on and lots of news going on. Absolutely. As we pivot back to the podcast here, all sorts of stuff going on. We're going to talk

John Cornyn making a re-election bid for 2026. We have the big controversy that has swirled concerning the texts on signal. Signal gate. I've heard some people call it signal gate. Let's see how it turns out in the long run, but, uh, a running theme of a lot of this, send me some stuff podcast is diagnosing the, uh, current problems with the democratic party. And there's a couple of big figures that have been going around the nation doing different town halls so we'll talk about that.

There's also an interesting piece that was published about dietary preferences of Americans. The dietary and the political right the two most important things to Americans. Well now that everything's political, from what you put in your mouth to whatever it is, you know, there's a political angle to it. And then one of the more interesting stories that I thought came up this week that has a relation actually here to Texas is the 23andMe filing for bankruptcy and what that means for the genetic information that they have collected on Americans so

food technology politics, right? What more could you want in a podcast episode? That's it So let's actually start with a story that we published here at the Texan Senator John Cornyn makes 2026 reelection bid official bid official awaits GOP challenger. This is a piece published by our senior reporter Brad Johnson. And in this piece, Brad talks about how there was a few questions looming if Cornyn was going to run, but he sort of put those all to bed with this new video he published March 26. That's the day we're recording here. And in this two-minute video, Cornyn featured his role as the Senate JLP whip during Donald Trump's first term. And he says in the video here, quote, in President Trump's first term, he made America great. In Texas, Senator John Cornyn had his back.

So what's your initial thoughts here, Rob, with John Cornyn making his announcement for 2026? Did you, this was expected, but what's your overall, what's your overall thoughts here on his reelection bid? Well I think most people were expecting him to run again you know Cornyn has been I believe in office since if I can do basic math 2020 2014 2008 what is it 2002 I believe is when he first started I'm not sure something like that we probably should know but the important thing is Cornyn's been in office for a

long time he announced recently that he has over the course of his tenure in Congress raised 400 million dollars which is a lot of money he is a prolific fundraiser and he has given a lot of that money to other Senate Republicans for their reelection campaigns and he ranS. Senate GOP leader last year, but lost to Senator John Thune. So that was a big deal because there was also Rick Scott of Florida, if I recall correctly, who was the other contender in that race, but I think Scott had a lower ceiling than either Cornyn or Thune. So Cornyn did not win majority leader, but he is running for Senator again.

And the really interesting thing will be who challenges him not in the general election, but in the primary. Because Brad mentions this in his piece that Attorney General Kim Pason here in Texas has done everything but announce his bid for the seat. Pretty much. He even came out and said, like, if I get $20 million in fundraising commitments, I'd

win. Right. So, and it's interesting the differences in personality between the two. Paxson has routinely been a Trump stalwart as attorney general here in Texas when the Biden administration was in office constantly launching different. I think I think he filed about a billion lawsuits against the Biden administration over the Christmas tenure.

Plus or minus one or two there. But yeah, so he, Paxton, though he hasn't officially announced, we sort of, it sort of seems as though he is going to be the one challenging Cornyn in 2026 in the primary. And it'll be an interesting dichotomy of personalities just because Paxson really plays into the base and it seems as though Cornyn historically has been much more of a promoter of the institution that is the Senate. And how do you see, do you see that playing out in either favor or opposition to either candidate possibly? Because as we know right now, it sort of is the party of Trump. Yeah, well that's exactly, sorry, go ahead.

Well I was just going to say, so it might just come down to who gets the endorsement. That's really I think what's going to matter is you can see in this video that Cornyn put on social media he's like I'm John Cornyn and I helped Donald Trump when he was president and now he's president again and I'm gonna help him again and you know obviously Paxton has a good relationship with Trump if I recall correctly Paxton was there in Washington DC. Was it was it was it was Abbott Patrick and Paxton joined Trump for what was it again recently

the event that they were at. Was it a school choice event or was it. Say that again. I was getting text messages. What was the event where Paxton Abbott and Patrick joined Trump for I'm trying to remember what the event was. Oh the signing of the

dismantling of the Department of Education. That's what it was I knew I was thinking was it school choice related and arguably it is but yeah so Paxton was straight up there invited to the event, right? I mean, it's obvious that he has a very good relationship with Trump and Cornyn wants to Have that similar kind of good relationship and Cornyn also wants to court the Texas Republican Party Given that he invited chairman Abraham George to Trump's March address to Congress So like George was his guest, the current chair of the Republican Party of Texas. And Cornyn has had a bit of an interesting relationship with the Republican Party of Texas. If you were at

the 2022 Republican Party of Texas state convention, you remember that when he gave, when he got up on stage to give his speech, he was booed. You could hear the booze throughout the convention hall because Cornyn had been involved in passing the bipartisan or he led the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was intended to increase, you know, like red flag laws regarding firearms. And that obviously does not play well with the Texas GOP base. So Cornyn had caught a lot of flak for that and it kind of hurt his reputation with party officials and party activist types and so now it remains to be seen if he wins that Trump endorsement over can he repair that relationship? Remains to be seen. Yeah, and it's, Cornyn, it appears is in a difficult spot

with some of those votes he's taken in the past, the one you just brought up, but also being a vocal supporter of Ukraine and the co-sponsoring of number of pieces of legislation to continue sending aid over there. So in the Ukraine issue, has sort of split the Republican Party base in many ways. I'd argue it's probably the biggest dividing line

in the GOP right now. I mean, there's debate over lots of things, but it's definitely one of those things that really divides Republican voters, but especially Republican officials. It's just one of those things the party has two factions that don't agree with each other. Yeah. But if Paxson does end up announcing, it's going to set up a very interesting campaign for both candidates, both trying to court not just the primary voter base of the Republican Party, but also attempting to court Trump's endorsement. As Brad says, the most important endorsement in Republican politics right now. Right. So before we move on to the next story,

we're gonna take a short ad break. The Bear Alliance of Texas is proud to support its members who help deliver an annual economic impact of $35 billion and provide over 200,000 jobs to hardworking Texans. From local tax revenue to direct economic investment to charitable contributions, their members are heavily invested in the success of our communities and our state.

The Beer Alliance is dedicated to ensuring the safe distribution of alcohol throughout Texas. For more information, visit BeerAlliance.com. All right, and we're back. Next we're going to talk about Signalgate. Everything's a gate right? Everything's a gate. Like Watergate gate. Watergate, the Flight Gate, you know it crosses issues here. Absolutely. Everything's political. Everything's political. So this was published in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg.

The title of the article, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. Which is an important title because that specific headline has become the object of disagreement. So yeah, it's been the semantics over the

characterization as war plans versus attack plans, but just to read a little bit of the article here for those unfamiliar what is going on. Starting at the top quote, the world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern Time on March 15th that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hexeth, the Secretary of Defense, had texted me the war plan at 11 44 a.m. The plan includes precise information about weapons, packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.

Well, that explanation has been explained to death on X over the following days. Everybody can explain it, and they all have different explanations. Exactly, because apparently this journalist was accidentally added to this signal thread, which included a number of top brass in the Trump administration, including Mike Waltz, including JD Vance, as we've already mentioned, Pete Hegseth. And in this signal chat, there was discussions about if moving forward with this HOOTI attack plan was the right course of action or if alternatives needed to be discussed. Ultimately, the attack did end up moving forward, but the text message signal message release

is what caused the big controversy so your initial thoughts Rob you've seen all the discussion online what's your what's your main takeaway here I mean you have half the people saying you know Pete Hegseth needs to resign this is like mean, I've seen people saying this is, you know, the worst national security failure in decades and stuff like that. And I've seen other people saying, actually, this is classic Trump 4-D chess. They intentionally included this journalist so they could show off the fact that the Trump administration is not all bluster. This is how they really think in private.

I am skeptical of the idea that this was all some gamed out plan. I'm not sure how Jeffrey Goldberg got added. I'm not sure if people in the administration know how Jeffrey is, it is Jeffrey, yeah Jeffrey. I'm not sure people in the administration know how Jeffrey Goldberg got added, but my initial thought is this is why you check who's in your group chat before you start sending messages and this is the real issue as somebody that I saw on Twitter put it is the real crisis in America is just being added to really big group chats that constantly spam you with things you don't want to hear

about so yeah well so trouble but yeah it seems to me to be a I mean I don't know I remember you were telling me there are some people who theorize that he was trying to add another JG in his contacts. Jameson Greer, the US trade representative, because on this texture, it wasn't just the names that I mentioned, but it was a lot of, I don't know if it was all, but it was a lot of these secretaries of these departments. So the JG mix-up is a serious one, it seems.

As you mentioned, there's been rebuts of what the actual story was saying, what the chats were saying. I'll read here, Caroline Levitt said the entire story was another hoax written by a Trump hater who is well known for his sensationalist spin during an appearance on Fox Tuesday evening. Waltz said, this is Mike Waltz, this is accused of having added Goldberg. And I believe Trump himself came out and said that it was Mike Waltz. And let me remember, remind myself what his, White House National Security Advisor. Yeah, and he called it embarrassing, taking responsibility for it. CIA Director John Ratcliffe has commented on it during the Senate

intelligence hearing where a number of officials, including Tulsi Gabbard, were questioned about this. Hegseth has said, these weren't war plans. I know exactly what I'm doing. So it's the semantic difference over the war versus attack plans. Yeah. Calling it, saying, well, they're attack plans. It's not a plan for a war. I feel like this is a bit arbitrary at a certain point.

Yes, it's not launching a full on war against Yemen or something, but I do believe that the fact that this is how the administration is responding shows that it was more of an accident than it was intentional. I don't believe this is some 4D chess move by the administration. If this is their argument, it's well, it's not a war, it's an attack plan. And I think what's interesting is in the text thread, at least for me, my biggest takeaway

is JD Vance's responses. If I could pull those up somehow here, you know, they're all behind paywalls and buried on different websites and stuff. But essentially, JD Vance was voicing some concern about launching this attack and how only a small percentage of American trade moves through the Suez Canal, could affect oil prices, and that the administration should essentially work on messaging before saying he doesn't like the idea of bailing Europe out, especially as the current messaging is focused on pushing

back against how Europe has engaged in conflicts within the region. So interesting to see the dissent from someone like the Vice President in that context. But what's interesting to see what is actually going, but we do get to see what is going on behind the scenes, which is that there is still a debate within the administration about what is the right thing to do. Now, here's a question that I had. Was Trump in this group?

I'm not sure. I don't know, that's just one of those, I feel like nobody's really brought this fact up, but it is interesting to think that Trump himself is not in this group. I don't know if that's significant or not. I wasn't in the group. So if they want to add the Texan, I guess we'd be fine with that we could get information but Did you already have a signal account before this? I do have a signal account

I am part of a group chat So maybe maybe if there's some other administrator with an RL for his initials, maybe I could get added by accident. But yeah, we'll see what the actual fallout from all this ends up being if anyone is going to be required to step down from their post. We're still very early, not even a 100 days into the Trump administration. And this, it's a big breach of national security of peers with something like this. And to something like the Atlantic, to something so unfriendly to the Trump administration. The Atlantic, you know, I enjoy reading the Atlantic. I think that they often have interesting think pieces. But it definitely is a very Trump-critical website.

And to see that it wasn't leaked to somebody in Fox News, it wasn't leaked to somebody from American greatness or something, it was leaked to the Atlantic, which is just very interesting that that's the site that gets this information well we'll see what happens here you know if signal chats are now banned from well that's the other criticism I've seen some people saying is that they should not have been using signal at all that some people are saying that they're getting around I saw one person said that they are trying to circumvent like the law that requires them to communicate on official channels

I don't know if that's actually true or not because I would assume that they do need to be communicating on encrypted software to obviously prevent this kind of information from any in any way being leaked. Yeah, well from what I understand normally is there are protocols for this sort of confidential whether you know even these chats if they're confidential or not, but for types of confidential conversations these officials with certain security clearances, if they are not in a secure location, there is like a skiv essentially put up where they're putting a secure location

off site with secure communication devices. But as we know, war doesn't wait for weekdays. So when individuals are not at the office, there are communications that need to be had off official channels. And so this is something that probably happens more often than we might truly or ever understand to its full extent but it is interesting nonetheless. There's always conversations

going on we don't know about and I'll bet you anything that right now someone is getting chewed out. Yeah. There is obviously the administration has to put on a brave face but there is probably someone somewhere getting a Tongue lashing for having done this also right speaking of of course other big political developments We have the tour taking America by storm We have in a good article from the New Yorker titled Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fight the oligarchy. That's right.

Absolutely. These two big, very popular Democrats, I think with a lot of like younger people, people who viewed them as a very big change to the status quo. You know, obviously Bernie Sanders has been very popular ever since 2016 with this idea that he was going to displace Hillary Clinton and lead the Democratic Party in a more progressive or even socialist direction and then Cortez who is elected to the House in this big wave after Trump's election and you know they thought well she's gonna

bring this big change and now you have these two on tour together across the US talking about fighting oligarchy. Cameron, what are your thoughts on this? I think it's a bit performative. Interest. Performative. You think politicians are being performative? Well, there's this populism wave since Trump entered

the political arena back in 2015. It's been 10 years. How about that, huh? Well, and at the time it was Trump and Bernie were the two leaders of that. And then when Hillary Clinton had the nomination in 2016, and then in 2020, the left populism sort of died out a bit with a more establishment figure like Joe Biden came in. Then they tried to recapture that moment with Kamala Harris, but again, it seemed very inauthentic with some of the social media campaigns

they were launching at the time. The reform candidate who's also the current vice president. Right. Yeah. So they're trying to re-up this populism wave and trying to build upon the class sort of conflict issue. Well because unfortunately when it comes to democratic messaging in a lot of ways the messaging on race and sex has kind of started to shift in the direction of the GOP, right? You have in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I think, the Democratic Party was captured by this idea that

racial minorities and women would basically always vote Democrat. And they got to this mentality that the Democratic Party was just the natural governing party of America, because the U.S. would only become more racially diverse over time, right? Younger people will only ever vote more progressive. Well, that's what they thought. That's what they believed. But now I think it's pretty clear that that is just not the case. Trump's second win succeeded in winning over a lot of especially young people,

a lot of young men, a lot of Latino men. Trump was able to win the popular vote because he flipped a lot of people in these deep blue states. Now he didn't actually flip the states themselves, but he was able to win the popular vote specifically because he went to states like New York, where he wasn't going to win New York, but he was able to get enough voters in those states that it put him over the edge nationally, right? When you look at it as a net. during Kamala Harris's campaign, as you pointed out, when she started signaling to the right on guns is where you thought, okay, their internal polling

shows that she is doomed, right? If she has to be like, I'd shoot someone if they broke into my house. And now the Democrats are still kind of wondering, where do we go from here? Well, and the difficult thing with many of these Democratic elected officials is there is such a long history Where do we go from here? Well, and the difficult thing with many of these Democratic elected officials is there is such a long history of them

playing up the sex and gender issues, which has been kryptonite for them in elections. And then even with someone like Bernie Sanders, who has been consistent on a lot of his messaging, but when he was interrogating RFK Jr. during his cabinet confirmation, people brought up the fact that there was multiple times when Sanders was, during that process, essentially shilling for big pharmaceutical companies. You know, and RFK was on the other side of that issue. So, and pharmaceutical companies, in essence, is a big issue for many people. Well, it says we've talked about before on this podcast But the theme of the Trump administration or the Trump movement if you will is not

Conservatism as opposed to liberalism. It's like Anti-institutionalism as opposed to institutionalism because RFJ RFK jr. Is not really a Conservative right? He's just he is Jr. is not really a conservative, right? He's just he is anti-institutional and that is exactly what Trump likes about him is the fact that he is skeptical of the the established narrative within American governing institutions and Trump is like, burn it all down. Yeah, well it'll be interesting to see if a class conflict message will resonate with people because, as you just mentioned, the anti-institutionalism that's landed with Trump and the people that

he's surrounded himself with in this new coalitional Republican party. Is the Democrats gonna be able to capture that same energy? Because the Republicans are walking a thin line with essentially pushing back against big corporations, also pushing back against establishment politicians. But the issue sort of occurs with the left, those in the Democrat Party, is the right is able to say we want to promote capitalism alongside this and allow people to make their own way whereas on the left it's that's a much more difficult issue to balance because of the Democrat socialist

leanings of many of those leading the charge right now especially Bernie Sanders in AOC. Well it's tough because obviously when, you know, in these speeches, they talk about this in this article from the New Yorker, but they mention how, you know, Sanders is saying, Sanders says, these guys have never had it so good. You know, go on vacation, they don't go to Motel 6, they own their own islands, and just for kicks,

the very rich decide to take a trip to outer Space I don't know who he's referencing there But it's it's like the they're trying to frame the Republican Party is obviously the party of the billionaires, right? it's the party of the rich the established the oligarchs, but The funny thing is a lot of Trump supporters view themselves as being exactly the opposite. They view the Republican Party as the party of the rebels against a democratic or liberal progressive movement that has captured American institutions. So and as you put it you put an interesting point about capitalism right which is that for a lot of

conservative minded people nobody likes people who break the rules in order to enrich themselves unfairly. But conservatives believe that the solution to that problem is more free markets, fewer regulations that allow these oligarchs to gain the system, right? Whereas Sanders and Cortez, or Ocasio-Cortez, are trying to argue they need to change the way the system fundamentally operates.

Whereas the Trump team is like not trying to change the way, I mean, you know, call it anti-institutional, right? But they're trying to, in their minds, liberate the market from the people who've done wrong with it. Whereas Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders want to liberate America from the market. There's a very different strategy, you know? Yeah, well, because I listen to, as much as I can, those on the left and their perspectives on issues and much of the commentary, at least from those who are in the media, who are quote unquote real leftists. It's a disdain for billionaires in general. They just don't like that there's this widening or they they say widening inequality between the

haves and the have-nots. Whereas on the right, they just want the ability for everyone to have the opportunity to be one of those individuals who can have rather than have not. It's like the difference between, what is the great quote from, I believe it's the, is it John Steinbeck who said America will never have a revolution because America is a nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires, right? And he says this as a way of being like, oh, it's kind of sad that America's not going to have a revolution because of the way we view ourselves.

But of course, you know, if you're a more conservative person, you say, well, it's a good thing, right? We don't have a revolution because unlike these countries in Europe where, you know, the majority of people are actually just descended from peasants lured it over by aristocrats right in America there really is more of a concept that you can succeed in spite of those difficulties right so that's that's always the dip the tricky thing right is that the average person the average person isn't a communist in the United States no class of course and neither are Ocasio-Cortez or

Sanders outright communists, but it goes to show that they're tapping into a very different kind of rhetoric about, you know, do we need to save America so it can be a better capitalist country, right? End crony capitalism or do we need to abandon the idea of capitalism itself altogether? Yeah, well there it seems as though they're unwilling, they're not willing to take that final step to... To become... well, if you're an actual Marxist communist in America, yeah, you don't like these people because you say, oh, they're not committed, right? So it's who, you know...

It remains to be seen, you know, the Democratic Party could adopt a new working strategy for 2028, maybe outright revolution is the way to go. We'll see. But speaking of commercialism, all that good stuff. Before we move on to the next story, we're going to have a short ad break. Texans work hard for their money, but bad policies can take it away and risk future prosperity. On the Let P.L. Prosper show, I break down economic news that impacts your income, job, and future in a way that you can understand. I also invite top voices in politics, policy, and economics to discuss solutions that unleash America's potential. As a former Trump White House Chief Economist and now policy entrepreneur

at more than 20 influential organizations, I find my calling in driving forward policies that let people prosper. Get insights that can help you get ahead by subscribing to my Let People Prosper Show podcast, wherever you get your podcast. For more information, go to vansgan.com. God bless you and have a prosperous day.

Okay. All right now that we're back. We're gonna talk another Atlantic story, and you brought this up. Headline, America is done pretending about meat. Plant-based eating has lost its appeal. And one of the great cover images for a story. Say what you will about the Atlantic. Their cover images are fantastic. The people who do their photos are almost as good as the people who do our photos, I have to say. It's a great image of a bald eagle

holding a steak in its beak. And they just, they never miss. Well. Never miss. Reading from the article here, making America healthy again, it seems, starts with a double cheeseburger and fries. Earlier this month, health secretary RFK Jr. visited a steak and shake in Florida and shared

a meal with Fox News' Sean Hannity. The setting was no accident. Kennedy has praised the fast food chain for switching its cooking oil from seed oil, which he, they say, falsely claims cause illness to beef tallow. And then they quote Kennedy saying, people are raving about these fries after eating one before commending other restaurants that fry with beef tallow, Popeyes,

Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback Steakhouse. So, the discourse concerning seed oils and make America healthy in general, you know, yeah. Why'd you want to talk about this? Why do I want to talk about this? Because everything's political, nothing's allowed to be not political, right? And it's I think it's a very interesting, you know, cultural changes are a very interesting thing. And over the last 15 years

There has been a real rise in the idea of plant-based eating as the solution not only to America's health problems But also to environmental problems right environmental activists say that raising cattle and other animals is a huge Carbon is huge source of carbon emissions. They say it's not an effective use of the land, that we would be better off putting, you know, all of this land we use to graze cattle instead onto just growing things like wheat or rice

or whatever it is to feed more people, right? There's all of this talk about, you know, meat is bad for you, it's saturated fat obviously. You're more of the health expert than I am when it comes to the actual nutritional stuff, but in general there was a big shift over the last 15 years from I think a lot of Millennials and Gen Z about shifting to a plant-based diet, right. I think 15 years ago it would have been harder to find a vegetarian option in every restaurant, but now in parts of Austin,

it's hard to find places that can serve meat. It's just kind of an interesting generational change, right? There's been a general change, I think, of a greater health-conscious focus, essentially, from the Obama administration onward and which is also one reason why I think there were so many articles about Donald Trump's love of McDonald's because people just couldn't believe we have a president who eats burgers and fries you know or well fish fillet I don't know why he eats

filet-o-fish but well these sort of health trends come in waves and the vegan vegetarian options yeah well there was also the Atkins diet in the 2000s, you know, don't eat bread. Yeah, and so the vegan vegetarian options was something that was incredibly popular, that's why we saw those sorts of things come up and become more prevalent on food menus across the country. But I think as these waves of nutritional fads come and go,

it just provides more information for people to make healthier choices. And as we understand now with a lot more studies that there has been issues concerning the over consumption of seed oils in comparison to things like beef tallow or other sorts of animal-based fats. But an interesting interesting sort of wrinkle to all this is that asking why are sea oil so popular? Well, it's because there is a tremendous amount of government incentives for, like you mentioned, corn and rice and soy and those sorts of things. Farmers are incentivized through these government subsidies to produce more and more and more of those.

And those ag products are then incorporated into everything from what you order at a restaurant to what you pull off the shelves. And so. High fructose corn syrup. Well, so kind of like the conversation we were having before about the congruence between government and private industry that the Democrats are railing against. This is the rights version of that where people who are Republican or conservatives or libertarians or whatever it may be and

they're more health conscious their issue is with the overproduction of some of these agricultural products that are then forced into a lot of our consumer products. Well there is also a concern I mean there are some people I know who embrace this carnivore diet believing that they should actually only eat like meat and does the Carnivore diet exclude like milk or butter. I'm not sure does it exclude that skin into the nuances Okay, I'm not enough of the carnivore diet, but I mean a diet without milk or butter just sounds awful to me If you can't have ice cream or anything like that or cheese, what's the point? But it's I think the most interesting thing about this whole thing

is just seeing the cultural change in how there was this real, I think since the 1990s onward, there was this big kind of move towards health consciousness in general. I mean, people haven't, you know, the rise of, you remember the rise of smoothies as an example of a health drink in America. You have- Well, that's why I mentioned that with all these different

Yeah, health fads and trends it just is providing more information to people to make healthier choices because a smoothie probably is a better option than than a milkshake than a milkshake, but When it has added sugar as much as a milkshake does, what are you saving for yourself? Yeah, but you have to go through these waves of getting new information, trying out new health trends, to where people are at a point now where they're questioning the use of seed oils in these fast food restaurants. And so it's just an interesting development here

in regards to how much intervention should the government have in a person's individual food choices. Well, because during the Obama administration with this focus on health, there was also a focus on promoting plant-based eating for environmental reasons, for economic reasons, and for personal health reasons. And now you have this, you know, reaction of saying, actually you can't tell me what to do. I'm gonna eat as much steak and eggs as I want to. You know what

really gets me? What? I think most of this plant-based meat tastes terrible. There's plenty of great vegetarian and vegan food out there. There's like, there's a lot of good vegan food, but I don't know why you would choose to eat an impossible whopper. They're just, they're just nasty. That's my biggest, that's my biggest thing about it is there's lots of good plant based food, but I don't understand the, the, the fake eggs or the fake meat or stuff like that. Personally, that's just me.

A, another interesting wrinkle to this story is the fact that there has been a rise in what's called lab-grown meat, where something like a Impossible Burger is made out of plant-based proteins and then formulated in a lab to look like a burger. Whereas- It's like 3D printed essentially, protein strands made to kind of look like an actual cut. That's the other thing that I was getting to

is the lab-grown meat, again, made in a lab, but it is derived from an animal protein, but it's created in this ultrasterile environment through the combination of these different protein strands. And then, like you just mentioned, 3D printed essentially into something consumable and digestible. There's been issues with that that some states have brought up. Even Florida has banned those. They've preemptively banned the sale of lab-grown meat. There's a bill in the Texas legislature to do the same. So

there's all sorts of things that are happening currently with our health and nutrition as a country and I think the biggest takeaway for me at least is at least people are becoming more conscious to what they're ingesting. I just think it's interesting to see how I think the left for a long time was associated with the health movement, right? And now you have the right to taking on its own real health movement in the sense of, you know, eat steak, eat eggs, eat butter, eat fries cooked in beef tallow. It's just interesting to see how the right has kind of claimed its own stake in the kind of the the health culture war. I think the health culture war is downstream from again what we're going back to with how the left and the right are trying to position themselves to the broader voting public is people on

the right who are promoting health do it in such a way that it is going to create a better opportunity for you to be successful in the world, in your relationships, at your job, by feeling better and making healthier choices. Whereas on the left, historically, making healthier food choices was made more in a climate-sensitive messaging. That's an interesting point. It's more about personal feeling good versus like a view that you should kind of be making a sacrifice for the well-being of society.

That's an interesting point. So kind an individualist, collectivist thing going on there. Yeah, so it's just like you just said, both Democratic and Republican administrations have attempted to conceive a sort of message regarding health and wellness, but on different messaging fronts. That is an interesting point. Go ahead. I was gonna say, speaking of health technology, I think it's time to discuss RIP 23andMe,

our article from Reuters, DNA testing firm 23andMe files for bankruptcy as demand dries up. So the 23andMe was one of these big genetic sequencing companies. I'm sure most people have heard of it. But it's a company. Genetic testing, hereditary, understanding

what your genetic makeup is, where you're from. Exactly, you send in a swab of your spit and they will tell you, they will give you your genetic profile. If you send in a swab of your spit and they will tell you they will give you your your genetic profile if you there are tons of horror stories on the internet of people finding out that their alleged parents are like not their real parents because they did this 23andme thing for their for Christmas or something you know it's a crazy crazy technology to think that this is available you know it's like it's like something out of

Gattaca yes of course one of my favorite science fiction movies. I'll find an excuse to bring up Gattaca in anything. But the funniest thing. The issue here with 23andMe is that in the privacy policies of the company, it says the data that you send in to 23andMe can be sold to other firms. So we've already seen the California Attorney General question about

what is going to happen to people's genetic data. We've seen a number of articles and just posters online encouraging people to delete their genetic data from 23andMe, but how do you ultimately know if your information is being deleted? That's yet to be determined. But this is something that I actually wrote an article about for the Texan because there's a bill that is being taken through committee hearings in the Senate where individuals are gonna, if this bill passes, have property rights over their individual DNA. And this was brought up specifically in the bill analysis

because of a company like 23andMe, it says, quote, has given private companies access to persons person's genetic makeup with minimal oversight. There's a limited privacy and protection against what is done when an individual's DNA once it's in the company's position or outsourced to a third party. And for those unfamiliar, 23andMe actually experienced a data breach back in 2023,

where almost seven million customers were affected and what's interesting though is that is sort of the dark side of this where the DNA can be accessed improperly or it can be sold to medical companies pharmaceutical companies and they can essentially profit off of your DNA in a way that you don't approve of. But we have seen examples where someone like the Golden State Killer was identified through the use of genetic genealogy techniques,

where during the investigation investigation they were having trouble tracking this person down they didn't know who it was and they did this complicated genealogy testing identifying like a fourth cousin or something and then through a process identifying who the actual killer was. So there are ways that it can be used benevolently and malevolently, let's say. Absolutely. Well, I think one of the really interesting things about this technology is the fact that there was this,

like, a real excitement for it, you know, back when people were excited about technology, which feels like a very different vibe than I think nowadays, where you have a back when people were excited about technology, which feels like a very different vibe than I think nowadays, where you have a lot of people who seem very pessimistic in general about technology and, you know, the broligarx, right? This is a leftist conception of, you know,

Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and especially Elon Musk as these kind of, it's kind of a boys club for like immature billionaires who are running roughshod over our freedoms with all of their crazy new gizmos, right? It seems, it just, I feel like perhaps the decline of interest in 23andMe due to an increasing interest in personal privacy and skepticism of technology.

This is what I was originally thinking. I was like, is that why it became less popular? And the article points out something interesting, which is that the problem is they might have simply maxed out their customer base. You know, at a certain point, everybody who wants a 23andMe sample is going to get one and people who say, I'm not sending my DNA to that company, they're not going to send one and they're just going to run out of business. There's not going gonna be enough people there

so well you bring up this split between some that are more pessimistic towards technological developments in recent decades and You see that both on the left and the right You know, there's the split you mentioned from the Democratic perspective or the liberal perspective but also on the conservative side of things there's a big split between someone like Steve Bannon who has been highly critical of Elon Musk but then there's also the fact that the Trump administration has done routinely done press conferences with Elon Musk right next to Donald Trump. So we're definitely in a more privacy conscious age now, I think.

I think that in the 2010s, the great golden age of, you know, I have read the terms of conditions. Nobody read the terms and conditions. And now people are really, I think, becoming more skeptical of these companies and these technologies and what they're offering. Well, I think you can be I think you can promote and be conscious of privacy rights, but also be a promoter of technological innovation. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. And so it's just a fact of how our state and federal governments are going to react to these new developments in

technology. We see it here in Texas with a bill to try and create a property rights around individuals DNA. You bring up the fact that people aren't reading their terms and conditions when they accept different contracts for these websites and so digital property rights is going to be another big front And we've seen that with social media companies there's been a number of Supreme Court challenges regarding that and it's still yet to be determined what's going to happen because if we continue down this path of technological acceleration and how more and more of our lives are being conducted through screens and

through audio presentations of information with it whatever it may be there's gonna either be a move towards creating more guardrails for people or the more open Internet option going back to that sort of what web 1.0. Yeah the cowboy internet right when it was the wild west you move fast and break things as a certain owner of Facebook once said right an attitude that it seems the Trump administration is actually kind of embracing and a bit right the cultural like the liberal side of the United States is becoming more

skeptical of so all very interesting things we'll just have to see what happens but but Cameron do you want to wrap us up here yeah well thank you everyone for joining us for episode 14 of send me some stuff and if you have anything interesting send us some stuff. Maybe we'll bring it up next episode. You can subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news where we have all of our articles, podcasts, and newsletters. Feel free to send us an article at editor at thetexan.news.

Thanks for joining us. Music