The Texan Podcast - UT Protests, Big Tech Clamping Down on Activism, Drug Recriminalization: SMSS Ep. 2

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

In this episode of “Send Me Some Stuff,” The Texan reporters Brad Johnson and Cameron Abrams dive into the latest on the pro-Palestine protests happening at campuses across the country, Oregon’s backtracking on its drug decriminalization policies, Google firing employees who engaged in a disruptive protest, the FTC banning noncompete contracts, and a Texas city that hasn’t held elections in almost two decades.****Be sure to subscribe to The Texan for full access: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/

We've seen Elon Musk take up this mantle of free speech as well. And him buying Twitter, turning it into X. And then with SpaceX really pushing the boundaries of what's possible with technology. And in Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk, talks quite a bit about when SpaceX was just starting up, there was all these federal regulations in terms of how to procure parts and how to build these manufacturing plants and building rockets. And Musk was like, you know, we're just going to do it and see what happens. And so, but that's sort of pushing back against the certain political ideologies and really just focusing on the mission of your business. You know, in Musk's case, it's really

paid off. He's, you know, the richest man in the world. So, I think... It's a pretty good payoff. Yeah. I think this is an interesting development, though, that tech companies are saying, no, we're just going to focus on development, technology, software, services, whatever it may be. We're not going to focus on politics. Hello, everybody. This is Brad Johnson, senior reporter here at The Texan, here with Cameron Abrams, reporter. Cameron, how's it going? You've had quite a week. It's been a crazy week.

This is the second edition of the Send Me Some Stuff podcast, Cameron's brainchild. But I'm leading in today because he had quite the week of coverage, given all the frenzy that was happening on the campus of the University of Texas. Cameron, give us a rundown on what the heck happened, how to get so insane. Well, we saw early this week, we're recording this on April 26th. It's a Friday. We saw, I believe it was on Tuesday, we saw a post on Instagram that the Palestine Solidarity Committee was planning a protest on the UT Austin campus. And it was sort of expected, like, when was UT Austin going to have something happen? Because the Ivy League campuses have been going crazy. You know, we've seen Columbia most explicitly with tents being put up and occupying. It's very reminiscent of the Occupy Wall Street.

Yeah. And so we've seen stuff at Harvard. We saw stuff at Yale. We saw stuff at NYU. So these Palestine protests have been going on for almost a week now. And UT Austin was the next campus that was going to hold a rally of some sort. But everyone was sort of wondering what was going to be the response, right? About a month ago now, Abbott had issued an executive order saying anti-Semitism on college campuses in Texas would not be tolerated. response was is during the, so we saw lots of responses on social media about how big this was going to get. And, you know, there's a few hundred people initially, and then there was quite

a big law enforcement presence. And you can sort of expect that, you know, Texas is a red state and Abbott had issued this executive order. So it seemed, you know, pretty amicable between the police and the or rather the law enforcement DPS and the protesters. And then there there was some back and forth as the protesters had said they were going to occupy the South Lawn. But they were trying to get there. There was altercations with some law enforcement, protesters. Which is the reason that the police presence was there to prevent them from occupying that because that happened at Columbia. That's right.

That's right. That's right. And so the law enforcement wanted to prevent that occupation. And so there were some arrests that were made. You know, you can see the still photos that were posted on social media. You can see the videos. And there's been reports of upwards of 50 people arrested, you know, 20 or 25 or 26 released so far. is the response from law enforcement and the difference in opinions on if it was the appropriate reaction or not. Because even after the executive order was issued, there was some who were, you know, honestly, a bit critical of what was mentioned. You know, one of the largest voices on the political right in terms of pragmatic politics, instituting policy is someone like Chris Ruffo from the Manhattan Institute. He said, straight out, I'll quote from his

Twitter feed here. He said, Greg Abbott's approach, which included an executive order to suppress speech, is misguided. And that's him speaking directly to that EO. And he went on to give a bit of an explanation about how the Palestine issue for the political left is essentially a dividing issue. You know, we've seen those who are Democrats be divided on either support for Israel or support for Palestine. And so when they see these pro-Palestine protests, it's causing a division on who should support or who should not. And so Rufo's sort of diagnosis of the situation is to support free speech on campus, but enforce laws that are already in place, not use anti-Semitism as the cover for shutting down these protests. Because I wrote about this executive order in one of our newsletters redacted a few weeks ago, where I mentioned the fact that there are

already statutes addressing issues that could provide cover for Abbott and law enforcement for shutting down these types of disruptive events that are happening on college campuses. Speech that incites violence already prohibited. True threats of violence already prohibited. Disruption of the function of the educational institution already prohibited. So even someone like Matt Walsh, you know, the conservative commentator at Daily Wire, you know, very much on the right on every issue, you know, maybe to the extent of the right to many average folks. But he put out a tweet in response to the actions that were taking place on UT's campus, saying, this is from Matt Walsh's Twitter feed. He said here, quote,

Greg Abbott said he was having protesters arrested because anti-Semitism won't be tolerated in Texas. I believe in arresting people who break the law, but there is no law against anti-Semitism and there shouldn't be. So that sort of reiterates and supports what I wrote in that redacted article a few weeks ago. Can you explain what exactly was in the executive order in a bit more detail? Yeah. So in the executive order, it addressed, quote, acts of anti-Semitism in institutions of higher education. He directs Texas colleges and universities to update their free speech policies and establish appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution if students or groups are found to be in violation.

Abbott stressed that two groups in particular, the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Students for Justice in Palestine would be, quote, disciplined for violating these policies. Abbott's EO would also require campus free speech policies to adopt the definition of anti-Semitism found in the Texas government code. So this was something the anti-Semitism comments or issuance in the executive order is something that was brought up, like I mentioned, by Chris Ruffo, that is antithetical to previous stances that not just Texas, but Greg Abbott has taken on terms of free speech on college campuses. And just one comment is if there was going to be enforcement against certain positions taken that are anti a certain group, that are criticizing a certain group, then people have been asking questions about why hasn't there been a similar response in years previous when there was maybe Black Lives Matter protests happening on campus or things attributed to the LGBT community.

And so it just sort of brings up this, you know, contrast in what is being enforced and what is not being enforced in terms of what is appropriate speech and what is inappropriate speech. And I think that's a question that's going to possibly have to be answered. You know, no one likes what these groups are saying, obviously. But is hate speech a crime? You know, under this executive order, if the hate speech is directed at a certain group of Jewish students, then apparently it is. It is a crime. And so not essentially a crime, but they can be punished for it. So we'll see if protests or rallies on campus continue.

But it's definitely elicited a wide array of responses. And obviously the reason this is happening is the October attack by Hamas against Israel. There's still a bunch of people that are still held captive in Palestine. Then you get to the point where Congress is considering this aid package and they kind of tied Ukraine aid, Israel aid, and I think Taiwan aid all together, right? You know, there's splintering all over the place. You mentioned the splintering in the Democratic Party. You know, the progressive left is generally very pro-Palestine in this fight. But then you've got a bunch of moderate Democrats.

You know, one that comes to mind is Adam Lowy in Austin. He's a UT grad. He's been commenting on this a lot. Yeah, and I'll mention Adam Lowy, his Twitter feed I go to quite a bit because I see him as the centrist consensus for Austin. That's how I see his Twitter feed. Probably pretty true. So, you know, there is that divide there. There's also the divide on the right.

You know, it's less pronounced because I don't think the group that is taking the same position effectively as the far left. And this side is more isolationist, don't get involved at all. That's less pronounced on the Republican side. Yeah, the Republican side, I would say, is not taking a side, whether it be the more protectionist, isolationistist view is not taking a pro-Israel, pro-Palestine side. They're taking a pro-America side. They're saying we shouldn't get involved in foreign conflicts at all, saying we shouldn't be sending foreign aid at all. And their issue is, I wrote, I covered this in my most recent newsletter is, has that led to a net benefit

for America in the long run? Or has it degraded our culture here in America? Has it degraded our economic standing here in America? That's the discussion happening for those who are arguing for a pro-USA, more isolationist argument. And, you know, I will, you know, it's interesting to try and diagnose what's going on with, because we see with university students, they like to grab onto causes. You know, it's this time around, it's pro-Palestine. You know, it was BLM a couple of years ago. Before that, it was the gender issue. So what's interesting is you constantly see videos on social media about on-the-ground reporters going and talking to some of these protesters and asking them, why are you out

here? What do you want the university to do? And they're unable to give a well-thought-out, coherent response. And so I think that sort of shines some light. And so people can understand that these students are just seeking out a purpose and a cause to attach themselves to. And it could be anything, honestly. And so I think the issue needs to be addressed on what is causing these university students to latch on to these more extremist causes. You know, this goes all the way back to the Vietnam anti-war protests. You know,

there's been a history of campus rallies that are explicitly anti-war or anti sort of establishment views. So is it the issue of the cause itself that is bringing people to it or are individuals looking for a cause and they are just seeking out something to attach themselves to? Well, you know, what else is new, right? Like there's campus students engaging in this kind of activism is as old as time. You know, like the Russian Revolution really took root on campuses, like the ideas that created it. And so this is just another example in a long line of examples of college kids, as you said, joining, finding, latching on to these causes.

Right. And trying to make themselves seen and heard on it. And obviously that, you know, when it's one giant mass of people, you can always make the best decisions on things. Right. It's the mob mentality with anything. You know, it's people aren't completely committed to a cause or enacting some sort of action until one person does and then the mob latches onto it and things move forward. So, you know, there's many different things that could have done preemptively in terms of how to handle what occurred on the UT Austin campus, because

we have seen, like, for example, the UT Dallas campus, there was a pro-Palestine protest, but it was held in a gym and they had conversations with the I don't know if it was the president or the provost. But there wasn't any, you know, back and forth between law enforcement and protesters. It was relatively peaceful from what I understand. So could there have been an alternative response that was enacted preemptively so this didn't occur the way it did? Or, you know, because I think there are, I honestly think there were alternatives that could have been. I'm glad you mentioned that because I just saw a tweet from Ryan Chandler.

He's a reporter at KXAN here in Austin. An internal memo obtained by KXAN details UT leadership's actions before and during the PSC protest. Admin tried to speak with the organizers to no avail, it says, and was then intent on staging an extraordinary show of force to send a message. You know, we've seen text messages specifically between State Senator Sarah Eckhart and UT President Jay Hartzell. And Hartzell was saying, she was asking him why they brought in DPS. He's like, our police force couldn't handle this, the size of this thing. We needed help.

And we can't, essentially can't allow what happened in Columbia to happen here. Completely understand. Yeah. And that's where my analysis comes in is if you knew this was going to take place beforehand, what could have been done to prevent what we saw over the past few days? You know, instead, you know, if you were unable to come to an agreement with the organizers of the protest, then have law enforcement stationed already out there to prevent people from gathering in that area. If we already have Texas statutes that are saying it's not allowable to disrupt classroom activities, or if that's in your institutional rules, then that provides cover for Hartzell to take preemptive action. And so I think cutting the head off the snake first,

you know, before letting it get out of control. But I think this is a lesson for how to respond in the future, possibly. Sure. I don't think anybody wants what happened to happen again. And we'll see if the next cause sparks another similar bout of unrest. So the next piece we want to talk about was the FTC issuing a ban, essentially, of non-competes. Tell me about this. Yeah. So this was a Wall Street Journal piece I'll read from here. The FTC on Tuesday banned employers from using non-compete contracts to prevent most workers from joining rival firms, achieving a policy goal that is

popular with labor but faces an imminent court challenge from business groups. The FTC chair, Lena Kahn, said that the rule restores rights to Americans that corporations have taken by imposing non-compete clauses in the workplace. She said, quote, robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them all sorts of other freedoms. And just for some background here, the FTC provided some information. They say the more innovation and it will bring about more innovation, an average of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year, more startups, a 2.7 increase in new firm formation. That's over 8,500 new businesses per year. Higher earnings, typical workers earn $524 more per year. They estimate 18% of U.S. workers are covered by non-competes.

So that's about 30 million people. But we already saw a legal challenge from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They launched a lawsuit. We also saw a lawsuit filed by a tax firm, Ryan LLC, and these are being challenged in Texas. interesting about this is we're speaking just a little bit before the podcast is that this essentially is a win for the free market. You know, if people want to go work for whatever business they want, they should be allowed to. The question becomes, why was this done under a Biden administration, a Democrat administration, where it's been criticized for its handling of the economy? And there's been rhetoric thrown around that it's stifling businesses, where now the FTC is enacting a rule that could help employees transition from

one job to another by eliminating this non-compete rule. I would think under a Republican administration like the Trump administration, this would be an easy win. It just is a little eyebrow raising. Why wasn't it enacted earlier? Well, you know, you mentioned that labor unions like this and labor unions are definitely hard for the railway unions, right? When that whole story was happening, what, in the fall last year? So I don't think this is totally out of left field for the Biden administration to try and enact. Do you think the Biden administration is sort of seeing the winds change on how labor unions have supported the Republican Party in recent years. We know we've seen Josh Hawley be very much pro-labor in his rhetoric. So you think the Biden administration is sort of talking behind

the scenes saying, hey, how can we get these labor unions back on the- They don't want to lose that constituency that's been so pivotal for them since labor unions started voting for Democrats under FDR. We might even have predated that, but that was the coalition that really solidified this. So, yeah, I mean, of course, there's probably some political calculation there. I just think also the Republican Party is not where the Democratic Party is on labor right now. Now, they're moving in that direction, I think, but it's still not the home of, you know, labor unions. And then add that to the fact that the face of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is a very wealthy businessman who owns a lot of businesses. Right.

You know, so it takes a while for that shift to change i think and sure obviously this is an election year yeah that everything that is done on both sides is going to be at least have an eye towards that yeah but i do think it's interesting um but what's the what's the case for these non-competes because you you voice the the case against them why do businesses want them well it's the intellectual property issue right if you're working uh i i won't you work for tech company a and you've been there for two decades and you leave that company you have all this institutional knowledge you know it could be proprietary it could be not, you have all this institutional knowledge. It could be proprietary, it could be not,

but you have all this information about how certain operations are handled. And then you want to go work for tech company B. Well, tech company A wants to hold on to that intellectual property that that individual has learned throughout those past decades. So that's the argument for keeping the non-compete rule is it protects business intellectual property. And so but, you know, this brings into the question of how do you truly judge the intellectual property, right? You know, that's been a big libertarian question for a long time, right? So I don't know where I really fall on that in terms of my analysis of it because it is such a complex issue.

I just don't have a huge background in understanding it. But I think this in terms of the political angle, like we were talking about earlier, it being a election year and everything that's going to be coming out over the next few months, you have to bring in that. Why are they doing it in order to gain a certain coalition of voters? So I think your analysis on that was spot on. Well, it'll be interesting to watch play out. And obviously it's going to have, even if it is just a cynical political move, it's going to have a massive effect in the real world. And so, yeah, that's just fascinating to watch and not something I really saw coming out.

No, I had no idea this was coming out. It just popped up on my timeline this week, and I was like, whoa, okay, this is big news. Like with most rulemaking things coming out of these administrative institutions. So, yeah. What were we talking next? What's the next one? You want to talk about drug decriminalization that was going on in Oregon?

So, recently the state of Oregon recriminalized drugs and they had decriminalized a couple of years ago through a statewide ballot initiative and it has gone quite poorly for them and oregon is obviously you know a very blue state um very progressive it's not just blue it's also progressive and so they had one of these ballot initiatives and it passed and apparently the the measure was sparked by um a george soros related group uh measure 110 from this is from the dispatch uh says measure 110 was the brainchild of the drug policy alliance a lobbying group founded by billionaire George Soros. Alongside contributions from Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan, and the Oregon ACLU chapter, out-of-state decriminalization activists raised millions of dollars for the measures passage. So I remember reading a year and a half ago, I think, a Politico magazine article on the consequences of this. And I specifically focused on marijuana.

Yeah. And it was describing how, you know, there's the argument of creating a decriminalizing this stuff to get rid of the black market. Well, in Oregon, at least, it just solidified the black market. And you had, you know, very shady characters building up weed farms in right next to, you know, people, just neighborhoods. That was happening in California as well. Yeah. Is there were WeGrow operations happening in national parks. Wherever they can find land, they'll do it.

Yeah. So I've been sort of keeping my eye on this issue because as many young people go through their libertarian phase, you adopt certain viewpoints. And then you sort of learn more and graduate out of certain views or your views change on things. But being in California, drug decriminalization, you know, California is where I'm from. It's been a big issue for a long time. And so something I paid attention to is a lot of these drug decriminalization pushes in the United States have been built off of what has gone on in Portugal where they decriminalize drugs. But even Portugal is drawing back a little bit on what's going on there.

What are they paring back? So I brought up this. This is actually in the Washington Post here. Portugal decriminalized all drug use, including marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, in an experiment that inspired similar efforts elsewhere. But now police are blaming a spike in the number of people who use drugs for a rise in crime in one neighborhood state issued paraphernalia, powder blue syringe caps, packets of citric acid, or diluted heroin litter sidewalks outside of an elementary school. And we've seen safe injection sites pop up in places like San Francisco. I'm sure you've seen those. Our listeners have seen those. And just for some statistical information,

why did Oregon roll back on this? And so from the CDC here, I have some information is in Oregon, they had a 12-month ending count of drug overdose deaths. In 2023, 1,804. So it went up there. And we've been seeing a rise in drug overdose deaths for years now in the United States. Again, on the— We see these massive million, billion-dollar settlements going on for all these—for multiple states, pretty much every state, and these drug manufacturers or prescribers for specifically opioids, right? That's a big issue. Yeah. And obviously that's not quite the same as marijuana.

It's not. Well, I think it is related in some sense that, you know, we've heard the war on drugs. Marijuana is a gateway drug. And in some senses it is. In some senses, it's not. It's dependent on the individual. But those who are in society, if they are going to be on marijuana, where it is much more powerful these days, where it has almost a psychoactive effect.

And so the question becomes, what are these more powerful forms of marijuana if they are decriminalized and they are causing increased activity, psychoactive effects rather, and people are in public spaces. Is there a line that is drawn where one person's freedom is impeding on another person's freedom? Some person's freedom to use marijuana and another person's freedom to not be imposed upon by that individual who's using marijuana. Right. And so it's just it's going to this Oregon case was grounds of not allowing marijuana usage at all, rolling back decriminalization permanently, or is there going to be regulations placed on the amount of THC that is allowed to be sold if marijuana is decriminalized. We've already seen questions about the CBD and hemp that is decriminalized here in Texas. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick put in his

institutional, what is it, the orders that he released the other week? The interim charges? Interim charges. That possibly the Delta 8 and Delta 9 could be addressed in legislation. So if Oregon was a test case, it could be further addressed here in Texas even. And like I mentioned, I think people still think of marijuana like Cheech and Chong. Like it's sticks and seeds and, you know, it's people just chilling, having fun. But these are incredibly powerful compounds now.

It can cause psychic breaks for people because of how powerful it is. And if the individual is not used to that or they're not expecting it, it can have serious long-term effects. And where's the line on that? That's something for lawmakers to address. Well, it's not just marijuana either from the dispatch article. The measure decriminalizing even fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine possession passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote and went into effect in february 2021 but that groundswell of support has evaporated three years into oregon's experiment with drug decriminalization the state is reversing course after seeing increasing overdose deaths

rampant homelessness and open-air drug dens state legislators swiftly passed a bipartisan hall of measure 110 in under a month this year, reinstituting penalties for possession of hard drugs. Oregon's Democratic Governor Tina Kotick signed it into law on April 1st, and it will take effect on September 1st. And put simply, in this article they say, Oregon is a lesson in what not to do. Yeah. And I think what you mentioned earlier about the over-prescribing of opioids has caused an epidemic, especially in Appalachia, and that's spread out across the country now. And I think it brings up a deeper question of what is driving people to want to take themselves essentially out of reality through the use of psychoactive compounds. Because if they were using opioids to treat a sort of physical ailment, that's one thing. If they're using it and abusing it, what is causing them to do that?

You know, is that an issue where they're not finding fulfillment in their job, with their family? Do they have some sort of mental disorder? Do they have some sort of mental health disease that needs treatment in some other way? That's a much more complicated question. But I think there has been lots of documenting about why the over-prescription of pharmaceuticals has occurred with opioids. And the downstream effects of that is once that prescription runs out, people are addicted and they go to the streets. And so we see with Oregon, decriminalizing it does not make the place safer. It makes people more able to get their hands on these types of drugs and they abuse them. You mentioned competing individual rights. Where is your right not to be attacked on the street, exceed someone else's right to do drugs? Well, you also see it state to state.

So when Colorado passed its marijuana decriminalization, obviously, and it's still in effect, I believe, You saw a massive groundswell of businesses operating there. But it wasn't just Colorado that was affected. I remember reading a story a few years ago about this small town in, I think, Nebraska, western Nebraska, right on the border. The sheriff there is jail is full, is at capacity, because they're having to arrest people that are trafficking marijuana across state lines. And, you know, this whole country is based on, at least originally it was based on federalism, right? You know, states doing, handling most of their affairs themselves. And that's going to create a patchwork of policies. We see that with abortion right now.

You know, Texas has its law. But then we've got Ohio and Kansas passed ballot measures to establish their own policy on abortion. It's a difficult issue to address when, you know, your state has banned it, but you're still having the effects of it hit you from the state next door. That's right. And with what you mentioned about the growing prison population in states that might be adjacent to another state that has decriminalized drugs and they're bringing it over, 58% of people in prison have substance abuse disorders. Around 85% of individuals in prison have an active substance use disorder or were convicted of a crime involving drugs or drug use. So, you know, we've seen propositions to address this with the decriminalization. We need to eliminate the penalties for possession or selling of drugs, and that will reduce prison population. But what we see again with Oregon and with other states is once that decriminalization is enacted,

we have these substance abuse problems, and that affects regular citizens in those local communities and in the state more generally. And so, again, it's a complicated question is for those who are trying to toe the line on what is the appropriate limits of a free market, is there regulations that shouldn't be in place when it affects the public good? Well, then you get into how do you define the public good, right? That's right. And so, and again, that's a question that lawmakers need to really hash out. And, you know, we've seen different proposals for that. You know, here in Texas, you can't have marijuana.

And then in Oregon, they tried decriminalizing it to negative effects. So we're getting a bit of that federalism aspect, test cases in these different states. And so lawmakers can kind of use that as a way to say, okay, didn't work here, works here, kind of works here. Cobble together something and try it out and see if it works. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Interesting fallout there.

And, you know, actions have consequences regardless of what they are. You know, you're going to have negative effects of drugs and these psychoactive compounds, whether it be opioids or to another degree, psychedelics. at somewhere like UT Austin has a place or University of San Francisco or these institutions of higher education. They have these research labs where they're trying to understand does something like psilocybin have a positive effect on things like addiction. And they have, in a lot of of cases shown positive effects for reducing things like nicotine addiction or even PTSD for treating veterans with psilocybin and psychedelics. We had both come across around the same time this video of a man who had, what was it, Parkinson's? Yeah. And he was prescribed medical marijuana and he was able to live a much more normal life because of that.

So there are cases where in the right environment, in the right situations, test cases where it can work. It can have positive effects. But when we're seeing it essentially unleashed on the general public, it's not shown positive effects. So again, it needs to be narrowly tailored for the correct situation. How narrowly tailored does it need to be? You know, that's obviously the question that all these policymakers will have to grapple with at one point or another. One story I want to touch on quickly here. Its title is from the Texas Tribune. This East Texas town hasn't held a city council election in at least 18 years.

From the story, it's about canard texas there is no living memory of the last contested election in canard specifically about the municipal elections the city council uh and the texas secretary of state which oversees most elections does not keep records on municipal races um it's just it's one of these little quirks that you see in these tiny little towns. The Canardas, like, it's not even 400 people there. But they basically just, when one city council member is ready to retire, they bring their successor to the meeting and they get appointed. Yeah. And that's just how it's been done. And everyone is generally happy or they're too distracted to care about what's going on there.

And, you know, it's a small town, which means it's a very small, bare-bones government. The taxes are pretty minimal, it sounds like, and the services are also pretty minimal. The biggest savings point that the city has is to fix its roads. And they kind of struggle to do that, though they have been able to kind of maintain upkeep to some degree. But I just I think these stories about tiny little towns and the people that live there, Um, it's just, it's different than what we see here in Austin where, you know, the, the council meetings are, you know, a hundred items long, if not more every week. And then you have testimony that goes from, you know, 10 in the morning until, uh, at least nine o'clock at night, if not later. So, uh, just a really interesting dynamic there um also in here

the uh the tribune writes in 2022 nearly 70 percent of races went uncontested in the u.s in texas nearly 76 percent of local races went uncontested yeah and And I'm not sure because I you know more about this story than I do. But it seems as though this is what the town has sort of done for a long time. So they are enjoying the process. Is there is there something that they're doing incorrectly? Is this not supposed to be happening this way? What's the issue? Is there an issue?

Probably not. Although, you know, the Tribune frames it as there's an issue because they kind of see it more as people not being engaged. And since they're not engaged, they don't care at all care enough to run um you know the flip side of that argument is they're running things fine enough and they're keeping things limited enough that it's not pissing anyone off right so um i don't know i different places do things differently yeah always will yeah and if it's working for the people of Kinnard, then what's the issue? Yeah. So I don't see a real big problem with this.

It's just a tiny town with stretched resources, limited resources. Yeah. And they don't do a lot because they can't. There's not enough. Yeah. And they don't do a lot because they can't. There's not enough. Yeah. And everyone's busy. The town used to be, it was founded around like a lumber mill that burned down recently. Oh, okay.

And then the railroad. And so it's only 400, less than 400 people. So it's not booming. Right. It seems like the people from what you're saying are pretty happy with how things are going. They have some issues, like every little town is going to have issues. But they have their way about putting people in an elected position and it seems to be working okay for them. Yeah, and contrast that with a place like Taylor, Texas, which is where the Samsung plant is. And you see something

I covered a year or two ago, the massive amount of friction that's going on because Samsung comes in, naturally that's going to bring people, it's going to bring businesses. And there's a bunch of people that moved there to be in a sleepy little town that all of a sudden what they had thought this place was no longer exists. Then you get into this massive zoning fight. Where do you draw the lines? Yeah. You know? Naturally, there's going to be someone whose property is just outside of it.

Well, Samsung had to come into an agreement with the city council and Taylor, correct? For them to build that plant? They did. I don't know if they had to, but they were involved in the process. Yes. And they gave them a tax break. Yeah. As did the school district there through 312 and 313s. The state of Texas gave them Texas Enterprise Fund dollars. So it was very collaborative. Yeah.

But there's people that don't want it. So like the people that are locked out of it are those now, then they're, they're SOL. Their choices are either leave this place that they probably sunk in their nest egg on. And yeah, they get,

um, they'll probably get a higher property value than what they paid. But it's not always about money for people. Some people just want to stay where they're at. They like the familiarity. But I think that's the freedom, though, people have in these small towns is, let's say, Samsung had went to Canard instead. Yeah. You know, if the people don't want the Samsung plant there, they could have lobbied their city council to reject their proposal.

Well, you know, there is the other thing of this massive economic growth that Texas is taking. You know, everybody loves it unless you're the one at the pointy end of the stick there. Take the reservoir up in the Marvin Nichols Reservoir Project up in northeast Texas. People's land is going to be taken. Yeah. And it's going to be used to provide. But through an eminent domain?

Through an eminent domain. It hasn't happened yet, but it will at some point. And it's to provide water supply mainly to Dallas. So you have... Well, that's a separate question with eminent domain. Well, sure, but it's the same intention between... It's change, right? Yeah.

And the question is, how much change do we want? And what do we do for the people who aren't benefiting, who don't benefit from the change? If anything, I don't know. That's the question that policymakers have to ruminate on. But, you know, when you see a place like Kennard versus Taylor, there's a reason that Kennard is that nobody's really raising a stink about this. Not much is happening there other than the fact that there's a bunch of uncontested elections.

And people are fine with that. this issue of the growth is something that has fascinated me for a while in Texas. Because, you know, another example, there's a massive putrid chicken farm in East Texas. Yes.

That is, that's stinking up the joints by, I think it's Henderson County. Yeah. And the neighbors there hate it. Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? Yeah. It's not, you know, the smell isn't the problem with Samsung.

It's all the other issues. So I don't know. It's just a dynamic that fascinates me. Well, I think if anything, if economic growth is going to continue in Texas and it's going to be impacting local communities, it could be the impetus for people to become more involved. Maybe this article that the Tribune wrote highlighting the fact that the citizens of Kennard are essentially happy with the status quo of the

succession process with their city council. if a chicken plant or a samsung plant wants to move there you know they know now okay we have to get involved or maybe they're okay with it we don't know but um but inaction is not necessarily a problem because it might signify yeah inaction is not a problem because it can competent or happiness with whatever they're happy with the status quo yeah yeah all right we're coming up quickly so which one do you want to hit last um i think if we hit on the Google story. Okay. Well, tell me about that. What's the situation with Google? So Google, they had some internal protests.

Because essentially there was like a walkout, a staged protest in one of their offices. Essentially, Google was providing cloud services to Israel and the employees were upset about that. They're asking them to divest. Well, Google has fired these protesters. And what's interesting, the reason why I thought it was noteworthy is Google is known for being a very progressive company. And this is sort of a step in a different direction. And we're seeing this with a lot of tech companies now. actually put out a memo following the firing of these protesters saying they are going to be on a mission first basis now with how their company operates. And he talks about fighting over disruptive issues or debate politics is not going to be allowed anymore. And essentially, it's distracting to what they're trying to do. And what I wanted to mention as well is this sort of started to gain some steam in terms

of tech companies becoming more mission focused in terms of the products and services they're offering rather than being politically focused. We saw the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, he issued a memo in 2020 and then again in 2021 talking about this mission first aspect of their business. He said in his press release on this, we don't engage in social or political activism. It is unrelated to our mission while at work. And interesting branding there, because when you say mission first, that maybe it's just I'm in the political world. Yeah. My mind goes to, oh, my gosh, they're just – that's them getting involved in politics. Yeah.

Well, I think this is part of a larger move, like I mentioned. who has been trying to promote this tech optimism mentality among tech investors and innovators in terms of we should be pro-capitalism, pro-growth, and try to invent a better world through our companies, not through creating policy initiatives or trying to create political activism within our companies. And so it's really focus on the tech, focus on the innovation, don't focus on the politics. And seeing Google step in that direction, I think is a huge move. And, you know, we've seen someone like Mark Zuckerberg, who constantly is the whipping boy for the right, you know, with his Zucker bucks, and all of his liberal policy initiatives with his Zuckerberg Chan Foundation, sending money to Democrat causes. He's trying to change his view in the public.

You know, he's getting involved with UFC and putting out these like more personal type – you know, but he's trying to revamp his image. It's also funny that, you know, in 2016 he was the whipping boy for the left because they blamed him for Hillary Clinton not winning the presidency. Right. Well, we've seen Elon Musk take up this mantle of free speech as well. And him buying Twitter, turning it into X. And then with SpaceX really pushing the boundaries of what's possible with technology. And in Walter Isaacson's biography on Musk talks quite a bit about when SpaceX was just starting up, there was all these federal regulations in terms of how to procure parts and how to build these manufacturing plants and building rockets.

And Musk was like, you know, we're just going to do it and see what happens. You know, and so but that's sort of pushing back against the certain political ideologies and really just focusing on the mission of your business. You know, in Musk's case, it's really paid off. He's, you know, the richest man in the world. So I think it's a pretty good payoff. Yeah, I think this is an interesting development, though, that tech companies are saying, no, we're just going to focus on development, technology, software services, whatever it may be.

We're not going to focus on politics. Okay. Well, I think that about does it for the second episode of the Send Me Some Stuff podcast. Cameron, anything you want to say to sign off? No, if people are enjoying Send Me Some Stuff, you guys can send us some stuff if you come across anything send us a message on x or to our email and subscribe to the Texan

yep always appreciate feedback as well so thank you all for listening and we'll catch you next time