The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 1, 2022

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Starbucks unionizing in Texas, a city revisiting a local ban on abortion after rejecting one in 2020, illegal immigration numbers in Biden’s first year in office, the president of one of the world’s largest financial companies addressing an accusation of divesting from fossil fuel businesses, controversy surrounding Title 42 and its potential end, public school funding adjustments, three Railroad Commission candidates speaking at an oil and gas convention, the Supreme Court siding with a Texas inmate on death row, lawmakers calling on the Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend clemency to the governor, and one primary runoff election heating up as May approaches. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on next week’s podcast.

Howdy, howdy. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, we discuss Starbucks unionizing in Texas, a city revisiting a local ban on abortion after rejecting one in 2020, illegal immigration numbers in Biden's first year in office, the president of one of the world's largest financial companies addressing an accusation of divesting from fossil fuel businesses, controversy surrounding Title 42 and its potential end, public school funding adjustments, three Railroad Commission candidates speaking at Thank you. approaches. Also, this week for April Fools, we have bloopers. Stick around to the end of the podcast to see what was left on the cutting room floor. If you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on our podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with

Brad Johnson, Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, and Isaiah Mitchell all in the office. Oh, nice. Hmm. Say. Hmm. Let me just be the first to tell you, Max, since this is coming out tomorrow. Happy Friday. Oh, my gosh.

You got to get down on a Friday. Foreshadowing. Yeah. Oh, don't sing that song. Do you know there is something else coming out tomorrow? What? So this is something else coming out tomorrow? What? So this is something that I read on the Internet. So take it with a grain of salt.

But apparently on Friday, I'm so nervous right now. The Biden administration. Yes. Is going to release a new program cutting back the price of gas in half. Do you know what this program is going to be called? I bet you it's not. OK, what's it going to be called april fuels that was so bad it was good i know it was terrible it was terrible i saw it on the internet and

it's a low quality pun it's like at the very bottom i'll admit that but i just i couldn't help myself mckenzie is making a face right now that says why did i even get up this morning it is legendary and it is a shame that our audience cannot see it because I am thoroughly enjoying the reaction. Well, prior to recording, Daniel alluded to the fact that he would make some sort of April Fool's pun. And I've been dreading that moment in the last 15 minutes since he mentioned it. So at least, you know, it's like ripping the bandaid off. We just got to get it over with. Lord in heaven. Well, speaking of April Foolil fools nice segue here at the very end of this podcast being that it is april fools we will have a

blooper reel of all sorts of delightful things we've said on the mic here at the texan when recording our podcast that did not make the cut yeah delightful might be a little bit of a stretch how far back does this go since i started editing editing, so not too far back. Okay. That's a pretty substantial... It's like December-ish. Yeah. It's like four months or something. Yeah.

Yeah. That'll be pretty good. Regardless, I'm excited to hear it. Daniel will edit it. It'll be fun. I mean, I think it'll be fun. Y'all should stick around to the very end of this podcast and check out the blooper reel. We'll tease it again.

So it's kind of like one of those marvel movies where you're gonna have to sit through the post credits of listening to mackenzie tell you that you need to go rate this podcast on itunes because you do yeah which also go rate our podcast on itunes yeah and any other anywhere else you listen to podcasts wink wink please thank you yeah that's true listen to the very end um i'm already remembering some of the things that might make the cut it's going to be interesting well on that note brad let's get into the news talk about starbucks you're at a piece this week about this company unionizing particularly here in texas tell us about the updates there so over 150 starbucks stores across the country have begun

the process of unionization in their respective states. This entails the workers at said location voting to unionize. And that starts this process with the National Labor Relations Board and the company. Starbucks takes about a month before they can have the final vote on unionization. But they are all in in at least having started the process and once that final vote occurs then the collective bargaining with the company starts um as well so it's a long process but it began in buffalo i think in december and has since spread like wildfire four stores in texas two in San Antonio and two in Austin, have voted to begin the process. And so the issues center on wages, weekly hours assigned,

and other miscellaneous benefits that the Starbucks employees want that they believe the company is not providing. Now, let's talk about Starbucks just as a company here. I mean, it typically touts very progressive values. What has the company said not providing. Now, let's talk about Starbucks just as a company here. I mean, typically touts very progressive values. What has the company said about this effort? So they are trying to dissuade their workforce from unionizing. You know, I don't think that's a very surprising response from just generic business. You know, businesses generally don't like to deal with that because it does raise their costs, at least usually. And Starbucks, however, is a curious case because they have been so openly progressive on all these number of issues.

But they are trying to dissuade the workforce from taking these votes and beginning the process. So they told me in a statement, we are listening and learning from the partners in these stores, as we always do across the country. From the beginning, we've been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners without a union between us. And that conviction has not changed. Now, I asked them, asked the spokesperson if their position on unionization being unnecessary or even a hindrance for the company. Yeah. If that's unique to their situation, like Starbucks specifically. Like unnecessary within their company separately from others. Separately from other businesses.

Like would they support not only be in favor of other companies unionizing, just not theirs? Right. Now they declined to comment, of course. Got it. But I thought that was pretty interesting. But yeah, so they're trying to, they've been, basically the executive has been going on a circuit to these various places that are considering it and holding essentially town halls trying to persuade these employees that you don't need this. We already pay you quite a bit more than minimum wage and provide all these benefits. So it doesn't appear to be working, though.

So what are employees saying? So I spoke to one person who pointed to the curious position of Starbucks and said, at least compared to its other public stances taken and said, Starbucks brands itself as a very progressive company, and then they fire people for joining unions. Very fiery quote. And it has a very good point in there that this company who is among the most progressive in the country is actively opposing its employees from unionizing, which is not a position you would expect a progressive valued entity to take. And so now Starbucks, they pay their employees at least $15 an hour, and that's going to jump up to the summer an average of $17 an hour. So they're well ahead of the curve on minimum wage payments. And so that's a little now, obviously, these employees want more, but that's a little odd. They also include benefits such as health care coverage, back to the progressive values for things like gender transition procedures and vaccine paid time off, things like that.

Now, to get those, you have to work about 20 hours a week. And so that's one of the main issues in this is that a lot of these employees say they're seeing drastic cuts in the amount of hours they're working. One person said that they know someone who was working 35 hours a week and is now being assigned for the next few weeks, seven hours a week. So that's a substantial drop. You know, if that's your main income, that's a lot of money that you're losing. And these employees are criticizing that and criticizing the discrepancy that we mentioned. Starbucks also, another position they've taken out there was after the death of George Floyd and the, the riots, um, and protests that occurred Starbucks, there was a big thing about their, um, baristas not being able to wear black lives matter stuff.

And so Starbucks made great hay about them, uh, paying for 250,000 BLM shirts that their employees could wear. Um, so there's some more details in the piece. I recommend you read it. But I think this is going to continue in Texas, especially because generally people that work at Starbucks are more progressive because they align more with the company's values. You don't have to be. sure that's not um entirely comprehensive but the people that i've spoken to have said that their entire locations voted to unionize and so there's not like it's not a close vote at these places yeah so and these are uh two stores in san antonio and two in austin correct which are more liberal cities certainly true yeah um so you you'll be more likely to see this occur in urban areas yeah absolutely and we did see and this is notable particularly in that we saw a congressional candidate um soon to be congressman greg casar rallying with i believe

some of the san antonio employees um several weeks ago he's becoming a political uh political issue yeah he basically did a whole tour at all of the locations in texas that have voted to unionize and in austin he had at least like half of the city council there mayor adler was there um he senator menendez was down in san antonio at one of the locations. And he's been, Kassar, who himself traces his political lineage back to the Workers' Defense Project, which is this worker center that basically collectively bargains through public pressure campaigns for especially illegal immigrant workers. That's his lineage. And so he's big on this issue.

He's been hitting Starbucks for that. And it's not going away. Certainly. Thank you, Bradley. Isaiah, Lindale is the 42nd city in Texas to ban abortion. But the story behind it is unique. Walk us through the history of this proposal in Lindale. Well, it actually made headlines at the New York Times and the

Telegram and us, the Texan. It was is funny, in 2020 when it rejected the ordinance initially. And the process that went through this time is different. So it joined a spate of cities where residents pursued this thing called a citizen initiative process, sometimes called a referendum process. The terminology is a little bit different from city to city, but the way it works everywhere is that you aim for an election where if you gather enough signatures on a petition, you can force the city council to vote on it. And in these cases for the, for the sanctuary cities, for the unborn movement, the pattern that's been developing beginning with Lubbock and now with some other places is that when you resort to that process, um, you're, you're expecting the city to vote it

down in which case, then it goes to a citywide election. So, Lindale, my guess is it's probably going to be the only city among, I want to say about four right now that are going through this process that won't go to an election. Plainview and San Angelo went through this and have decided their council's rejected it. It is going to go to a citywide election there, and it probably will in Abilene as well, which is the other one. Now, how is this ordinance different from the one proposed in 2020 that they rejected uh it's a lot beefier which is a word that matt took out of this article that is correct she said more substantial which is which is probably better but um on the podcast

i can say beefy a hundred percent um the one that they rejected in 2020 would a big difference is that um pretty closely after lindale rejected the ordinance in 2020 the aclu helped a couple of abortion funds sue several of the cities that had adopted similar ordinances on the grounds that their ordinances included language designating them as criminal organizations these abortion funds and it actually banned them from operating in city limits so that kind of language would have been in lindell's ordinance as well the one that got rejected that was uh that language was dropped in the towns that were sued after the lawsuit and so their ordinances remain effective except for that provision right but the abortion ban itself is still effective in those towns.

So that's one big difference is that the new ordinance doesn't have that language. But that's about the only thing that was taken away from the original proposal. And the rest of it has been a lot of evolution. And coming soon to theaters, we're going to write an article on how they've evolved in greater detail. But for example, Lindale is, I want to say, yeah, the 13th sanctuary, so-called in Texas to make abortifacient drugs contraband. So that's a newer development. And a really big, big, big development is that initially in these ordinances,

they would, I mean, they're still enforced by civil enforcement lawsuits primarily. And initially, the way that would work was that they would hold the living kin of the aborted child. They would hold the person who performed the abortion liable to the living kin of the aborted child. So those related to the aborted child could sue the person who performed the abortion. And now that's been changed. And it's a little bit more like the Texas Heartbeat Act now. There's some differences in, for example, which abortions are illegal. And in these cities, it's all different.

The Texas Heartbeat Act is after the point of a heartbeat. But in these cities, for example, now anybody can sue anybody that performs their AIDS and abortion in these towns. So it's a lot broader. Certainly. Thank you for covering that, Isaiah. Hayden, you wrote a piece this week about an analysis of the illegal alien population and the foreign-born population in the u.s tell us about that the analysis was conducted by the center for immigration studies which is a right of center or a conservative

think tank that has been around since the 1980s. It takes more conservative stances on immigration. It asserts that it is pro-immigrants, except illegal immigration. And they put analysis and research out there that adds credence to, or purports to add credence to the belief that stricter and stronger immigration protocols are preferable because of their security benefits

and it contributes to law and order is this group's position. So, that's the political leaning of the Center for Immigration Studies. However, they are asserting that they've based this study on methodology that is used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to estimate the illegal alien population based on the Census Bureau's monthly current population survey. So this is a private think tank conducting an analysis of federal data in order to arrive at an estimation of both the illegal alien population and the foreign-born population, which includes both legal and illegal immigrants. Now, how many people are

estimated to be living in the US illegally? And how has that number changed since Biden took office? The population of illegal immigrants increased 1.13 million from the month that Biden took office to January of this year, so that 12 or 13 month period. And the population was estimated to be 11.35 million in January of this year, while it was 10.22 million last January. But in January of 2019, the population was 11.48 million. So the estimated population in January of this year was lower than it was in January of 2019. However, the estimation for the current month is 11.46 million. So we're about, according to this think tank's estimate, about the same as we were back in January of 2019. Now, the total foreign-born population in the U.S. is estimated to be 46.7 million.

Again, that includes both the legal and illegal immigrant population. So, I'm not, you know, equating those two at all. The population of those who have come here illegally also does not include the children of those who have come here illegally because, of course, in the US, we have birthright citizenship. So if you're born here, all the benefits of citizenship are conferred to you as an individual born in the homeland. But I'll close by giving the margins of error for this research. In terms of the foreign-born population, again, the entire foreign-born population, not just illegal immigration. The center reported a statistical margin of error of give or take 490,000 with a confidence level of 90%.

And then the margin of error for the illegal immigrant population. Sorry, I'm pulling it up here just a second. I lost that number i believe it is 270,000 for the illegal immigrant population point two in terms of millions correct so 270,000 give or take margin of error and again just as with a foreign born population that's a 90% confidence level. So, give or take 270,000 people in terms of the margin of error for the illegal immigrant population with a 90% confidence level. And those were the results of the analysis. Got it. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. Brad, Texas officials have accused one of the world's largest financial companies of divesting from fossil fuel businesses.

The lieutenant governor has even gotten in on the action here. The company's president finally addressed those accusations this week. What did he say? So BlackRock president Rob Capito, speaking to a gathering of oil and gas executives this week, denied those accusations quickly. It was clearly on his mind because it was among the very first things he said. Well, he's in Texas at an event where many elected officials are also in attendance. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think it was the first thing he said after he said, thanks for having me.

Wow. So, um, he was very quick to, uh, to try and dispute this this claim um now he said that blackrock is the biggest investor in oil and gas uh stating that the company has 264 billion dollars invested in fossil fuel companies across the nation 93 billion dollars of which is in texas um now he further blamed the media for spinning misconceptions about their practices. Capito said that BlackRock is providing its customers with a choice of investment direction and partaking in the evolution of the energy industry. So that was his case. The question isn't really about how much money they have invested in oil and gas currently. Rather, it's about their policies moving forward that allegedly discourage or encourage divestment away from these fossil fuel companies and towards renewables or geothermal or anything

else that is not in that category. So, kind of addressed it, but not really um so that's where that's what he said it was especially notable given that he was talking to a room full of oil and gas people yeah texans and i'm sure he has his company has money invested in some of these so there you go now what are officials pointing to as evidence for this? So, CEO Larry Fink's letter, CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink's letter to investors last year touted decarbonization and an energy transition toward net zero emissions as something they're looking at in advising their clients toward investing in certain channels. Now, Glenn Hager, the comptroller, said that our research thus far shows some companies are telling us in other energy-producing states one thing and turning around and telling their liberal clients in other states another thing. So, earlier this month, Hager sent 19 companies, including BlackRock, a letter asking them

to clarify certain policies. Didn't get too much detail into that. I think they're keeping that pretty close to the chest, at least for now, until they release the final ruling on it, and asking them to disclose portions of their financial portfolios. If BlackRock or any other company is found to harbor these divestment practices, SB13 passed last year instructs the comptroller to pull its public money from them thing from things like pensions and whatnot. So

it's clearly a developing story. But the president of BlackRock felt the need to come out and do damage control. So especially given the audience he was speaking to, I think it's incredibly notable. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Bradley. Daniel and Hayden, we're going to talk to both of you about this next topic. Title 42 has been in headlines this week. Give us a brief overview of Title 42 and some of the controversy that has surrounded it. Key word there being brief, right? Title 42 is, you know, we say Title 42 to mean this particular application of Title 42. But this is actually part of the Title 42 of the US Code is basically the federal government's public health law. So we're not talking about repealing Title 42. We're talking about ending the application of it for this purpose, which is to expel illegal immigrants or turn people away at the border because of COVID-19. President Trump invoked this back in 2020 when the pandemic began. So it's been in effect for really two years now.

And it has been used to expel at least hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. In fact, most recently, the most recent report from CBP indicated that two-thirds of the single adults that were apprehended were expelled or slated for deportation under Title 42. And 29% of the family unit individuals were slated for deportation under this policy. to prior to March of, or compared to March of 2020 going forward, Title 42 has been the center of what the Biden administration has contended is its COVID-19 response, not part of an immigration policy. And that has been how they've portrayed it. What could be the fallout of ending the use of Title 42? Well, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, and Daniel can speak to this too, but there had been talk of ending Title 42. There's been litigation going back and forth for months on this. And the Wall Street Journal broke, I believe they were the ones who broke the story.

It was reported in other outlets. I think bits and pieces were obtained by different outlets, but they reported that they had reviewed a copy of the proposed order for the CDC to end the application of Title 42, because ultimately this falls under their purview since it is a public health law. And the federal government was also reportedly, in ABC, I saw it in their outlet, I don't know if it was, I believe it was also reported by other outlets that the reporters were told that they were preparing for the possibility of up to 18,000 daily encounters with illegal aliens if the policy is ended. And it is slated to be ended in May of this year to accommodate a possible springtime increase in illegal immigration. But 18,000 encounters a month

or a day, that's more than half a million in a month. And the reported encounters for CBP reported well under that, something like 160,000, 170,000 nationwide encounters in February. So that would be a dramatic increase in enforcement encounters. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting how, you know, when President Trump first implemented this order back in March of 2020, the border is really a lot more under control as far as the number of people trying to cross the border and the number of apprehensions and expulsions that were conducted then was significantly low. It's the lowest that we've seen in a long time in March of 2020. Of course, that was during the pandemic and everybody was pretty much staying isolated

and kind of not interacting with a lot of people. So that was at that time. But then after March of 2020, it slowly began to pick up. And then we saw a really big spike after President Biden was elected and then inaugurated in January of 2021, then the numbers just really took off. And it's been at very all-time highs since then. So it's been interesting how that has happened. And then also how the Biden administration, even though they have pulled back a lot of this, the Trump era border policies, this is one that has hung on for a little bit longer. And so there's actually a lot of Republicans who, you know, say we should hang on to this a little bit longer.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about that. Now, the congressional reaction, Daniels, more in your beat. Walk us through what has been said by Texas congressional members. Yes. So most Republicans are all pretty much on the same page now. There's a few who haven't been quite as outspoken about it. But with the talk of ending Title 42, Republicans in particular have been very bold in saying the Texas congressional delegation to the Biden administration, to both the secretaries of

health and human services, as well as the Department of Homeland Security. You know, those two agencies were CBP and the CDC. So many acronyms are under that umbrella. So the two relevant agencies there, they sent a letter basically saying, hey, this is like, we need to get COVID under control. And we know that this is a temporary measure tied to COVID-19. This is a health order.

It's not a border specific issue. Like Hayden mentioned, this is something that's actually based in a health code. And so they're like, we know this is temporary, but given the amount of people crossing the border, this is a policy that needs to be in place

because if you look at the communities down in South Texas that will be affected by this, they're not prepared to handle the influx of immigration that we could see if Title 42 is basically revoked. So their argument is more that it's a tool in the toolbox, might as well use it. Yes. And so it's interesting, there were 20 Republicans who signed onto this letter, but there were also two Democrats, both from South Texas. You had Representative Henry Cuellar and Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who also signed on to this Republican letter urging them to keep Title 42

in place. So there was a lot of concern this week that Title 42 might be dropped actually this week. Now that we're seeing reports that it's going to be pushed off a little bit longer until May, it does come all not that it's an interesting timing for Representative Cuellar, who's in a runoff race with a progressive challenger down in South Texas in a purple swing district. So it is interesting that the timing of the order comes on May 23rd and the primary election is on May 24th, the runoff. So that's just an interesting timing. Is that just coincidence? I don't know. Now, the other interesting thing with Cuellar and Gonzalez on there, they're also members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is a Democratic group. The same day that Cornyn sent this letter, you also had the Congressional Hispanic Caucus send a similar letter to the Biden administration saying, it is oppressive to minorities and kind of the same talking points on immigration that you would expect from progressive Democrats.

Now, there were, I think, six members of the Hispanic caucus who actually signed that letter, including Texas Representative Joaquin Castro. Even though Cuellar and Gizels are part of the caucus, as well as several other Texas Democrats, they did not sign the letter itself. So that's of note. The other thing about a congressional reaction that is worth noting is Representative Chip Roy, he began what's called a discharge petition, which is essentially a way for members of Congress to bypass the traditional route if things get hung up in a committee, if the majority party is not necessarily doing what a majority of the members want. If a majority of the members sign this petition, then they can discharge it, get it out of the committee, get it onto the floor, and get it voted on.

So Representative Roy, as well as a representative from New Mexico, have legislation to keep Title 42 in place longer. And so they're trying to get this to the floor. So far, there have been 209 members of Congress who have signed it. And so all Texas Republicans have signed it. Cuellar and Gonzalez have not signed it. So there could be potentially some Democrats that jump on board and get it up to the majority. They need, I think, 218 as majority. So that's where it's at right now. Could something happen with that? Maybe, maybe not.

Very good. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Isaiah, you wrote this piece this week on some education news. Before we get to the announcement that came out about how funding for schools will be adjusted this year, why don't you explain the process from the last school year? So last school year, they had this whole harmless policy in place. And what that means is where the schools get money from local property taxes on one side and the state on the other side. And the money that they get from the state is determined based on their average daily attendance.

So how many students they've got going to school. Since there was a pretty sizable enrollment drop across the whole Texas public school system during COVID, schools were teaching fewer students, and that normally would result in a concurrent loss of funding from the state as well. To keep that from happening, the state of this whole harmless policy, where they waived the attendance requirement basically, you know, in effective terms, pretended that districts across Texas had the same number of students as last year. So this prevented schools from losing money despite losing students. Very good. Now, in terms of Abbott's announcement this week, how is it different from that? It would be easy to confuse with hold harmless, which might be why his office emphatically said in big bold font at the bottom

of his announcement, this is not, this is not whole districts harmless. It's a different, different deal, but it's meant to have the same effect to kind of cushion the blow of students that are no longer there that would normally result in less funding. So schools in Texas in statute actually have an operational minutes requirement, which means that they have to operate for at least 75,600 school minutes, excuse me, minutes every school year. And Abbott and Morath said that they would reduce the minimum number of minutes schools have to operate this year, specifically, which is interesting, for the first 24 weeks of the school year, which might suggest that those, you know, enrollment kind of bounced

back after that. I don't know. The data for the whole state has not caught up to this yet. And the TEA will not caught up to this yet. And the TEA will not count operating minutes on days where schools had low attendance compared to the pre-pandemic year, 2019, 2020 school year. So it does not hold districts harmless for attendance losses, but it does mean to cushion the blow a little bit. So in other words, the TEA is not going to count operating minutes on days where schools had low attendance. So it's not this across the board thing with hold harmless, where it's like all the districts across Texas for the whole year.

It's like in this particular chunk of the year, the TA is not, you don't have to meet the 75,600 operating minutes number because the TA is going to decide to not to exclude operating minutes on days where you had low attendance. Right. So only schools can only qualify if they had lower attendance in this period, like the beginning of the year, compared to in the same period in the pre-pandemic year. So there are some schools that didn't lose students, actually. One that keeps making the news a lot, I wish I could find more and I've tried, but Peaster ISD is a school that got famous for never requiring masks, for example. Their enrollment actually went up during COVID, suggesting that some of the enrollment loss was because of dissatisfaction with responses to COVID. But we also know that some of it was fear of COVID itself.

So anyway, there's not a lot of polling on that. But something that's interesting, the alternative to this whole option that Abbott and Marath are doing, excluding operational minutes, the alternative to that would be for schools to just operate longer days for the rest of the year, which we still have because the school year is not over yet. But instead, the state has chosen to artificially increase funding for certain schools that are teaching fewer students. Got it. Well, thanks for keeping us updated on that. Certainly interesting to watch the effects of COVID trickle into 2022. Very very crazy brad let's talk about the three remaining candidates for texas railroad commission two republicans and one democrat they spoke to the tip row convention same convention we talked about earlier in terms of black rock um how did that go

uh so the three candidates each gave like a 10 minute talk and then they took uh and answered questions from the audience uh when christian the incumbent touted the industry's reduction in flaring and capping of orphaned wells it's a basically an abandoned oil well um he also criticized the biden administration for its energy policies, Keystone Pipeline, federal land drilling, asking OPEC and Venezuela to ramp up their oil production to reduce the global price of oil instead of basically encouraging Texas production to ramp up. Stogner, who is the Republican challenger to Christian, who pushed him to a runoff, hit the incumbent for various things such as the orphaned wells across the state that are not capped and said that the flaring statistics are misleading. industry niche issues whereas there are the you know the the global uh gasoline problem right now that's all that's something that most people understand much more um she also talked about that she said that um the oil and gas industry needs to get its regulatory house in order

before they lose the narrative fight to the progressive left who wants to eliminate fossil fuels um both of them gave gave interesting talks uh she was very intelligent she sounded like she knew the knew the issues knew the intricacies of actually the day-to-day operations of oil and gas um as does christian who served on the railroad commission for now almost a term and then but it was interesting that uh the democrat luke warford also showed up which kudos to him for going to that it's not a obviously not a friendly environment uh for a democrat um especially one of his political persuasion um at least that he's been out running on um he tried to appease the audience in front of him saying that he's not there to vilify oil and gas that kind of runs contrast

to um some things he said before about how oil and gas executives are buying and paying for and all this stuff. But he basically gave them a vision of trying to encourage all kinds of energy investment, not just renewables and not just oil and gas. But if you want to read more about it, we'll have a piece up. You can read more of their statements about things. And it's, it's, uh,

it's pretty interesting what they say. And, uh, in, in line with how weird this race has been, some of the comments have been at this were pretty odd too. Um, at least if you didn't know the context of what they're talking about.

So, um, recommend you go read that. One of the most fun races to watch this cycle for sure. Absolutely. Isaiah, the Supreme court just sided with a Texas inmate on death row. Remind us quickly about the details of his crime, what his arguments are, and then what the state's arguments are. The inmate's name is John Ramirez.

He is on death row for stabbing a guy several times in an alleyway. And he says that he wants his pastor to lay hands on him and pray for him during his execution, which is against Texas policy. Texas claims that that could endanger the inmate, in this case Ramirez, but also future inmates if the precedent is set. Because the pastor could jostle IV lines for the injection and speak, which could, you know, interrupt signs of distress from the inmate. In which case that, you know, the injection team would have to step in and speed things up. So the court sided with the inmate Ramirez and said that clerical participation and execution has been around a lot longer than Texas's rule in American history. And to get into the nitty gritty of the law, we link the actual statute in the article. But like a lot of other religious freedom statutes, it basically says that the government cannot prohibit, cannot exercise some kind of prohibition in a way that could be exercised less restrictively on some kind of religious act. same goals that you're trying to achieve by like, you know, securing the safety of the inmate with the IV lines and looking for signs of distress by less restrictive means than

saying that the pastor cannot speak or lay his hands on the inmate. So Clarence Thomas was a lone descent from this decision. And his argument, along with some other statutory stuff, was that Ramirez is just trying to stall his execution. And he goes into some history that we include in the article there on that point. Yeah. Well, Isaiah, thanks for covering that for us. We'll continue to keep an eye on that.

Hayden, let's talk about an issue. I believe this was, excuse me, I believe this was a press conference from last week that you attended. But tell us about Melissa Lucio's conviction and death sentence. It was last week. In fact, it was last Thursday, but

we didn't have a piece out by the time we recorded. So I'll address it now. Melissa Lucio was convicted of capital murder in Cameron County in 2008 and was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of her two-year-old daughter. However, her case has been in the courts for nearly 15 years now, and that death sentence has been appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied a request for a new trial, upheld the conviction. She was granted a new trial by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but that was appealed to the entire Fifth Circuit, all those judges, and they issued a 10-7 opinion denying Melissa Lucio a new trial.

What did Texas lawmakers have to say at that Capitol press conference last week? The coercion, is what they're saying, led to this death sentence. I say the coercion, the alleged coerced confession in this case by the Texas Rangers. The 12-person jury again convicted her after a trial, but they contend that there was evidence the judge excluded from this case that would have made it less likely that she would have been convicted. And again, just to put this

in context, these are lawmakers. These are not the people who were directly involved with the case. The judge, a Democrat on the 138th District Court in Cameron County, set this execution date for April 27 at the request of the Democratic District Attorney there in Cameron County. And if the Board of Pardons and paroles does not recommend clemency to the governor, and if the governor does not accept that recommendation, if it happens, she will be executed on April 27, borrowing, pardon me, barring any intervention by the court of criminal appeals or another federal court. So that is, these lawmakers are requesting that Abbott and the board of pardons and pars give clemency, which they have not announced that they're doing thus far, and they may choose not to do that.

I believe the governor came out and said he has not been given a recommendation by the board yet and that he will make his decision after that recommendation is on his desk. I believe that's what he said. So we'll see what happens there. But Hayden, thank you for following that for us. Daniel, we have time for one more topic really quickly. You wrote an overview on the House District 12 race this week and you, oh my gosh, you always find ways to loop redistricting into your pieces and you did so in this piece once again. What's the connection to redistricting into your pieces and you did so in this piece once again what's the connection to redistricting this time there is a legitimate connection here i'm it's it's not too far of a

stretch okay here's i just want to say this before you get into your topic daniel is like a little wizard who just puts things in places for me to find or just finds ways to connect puns or little white whales of his into everything and it's like easter eggs that you find in you know easter's april march it's not a wizard he's the easter bunny it's like easter eggs you find in like october that have like maybe gone bad and they might smell a little but you find them later and you're like oh my gosh just wait till you read my book there's so many easter eggs in there and references to other things it's fantastic oh man okay continue anyways house district 12 actually does have to do with redistricting because that's really when this all began the representative is representative kyle cassell um the district previously under the old maps

included uh brazos county and robertson county which is north of the college station area and then a few other counties north of the College Station area as well, and even reached over into Waco. So that was where it originally was. That was the voters that Representative Cassell had for the terms that he was in there. I think he was first elected in 2013. So that's where he's been on the ballot. But during redistricting, that changed, and his district shifted,

not from north of College Station so much as now it's a lot more east of College Station. So it reaches over to Huntsville. That's the biggest population center in the district now, which is not where he had been. That's a lot different. One of the people who's running against him, though, Ben Bias, is from Huntsville. And he's run in different races in the past, I think three or four times in different races. And now he's running again. He said that he actually got a call during redistricting and someone was joining the district and they were pointing to Representative Cassell's voting record. And so that's kind of what

motivated him to run. The district was changed. So now it includes Huntsville, as well as some counties that were also in representative of Ben Lamont's district previously. Ben Lamont, of course, is also retiring from the legislature and Lamont has endorsed bias. So it's an interesting race going on there. Yeah. Interesting to watch a lawmaker endorse against an incumbent, like a fellow incumbent. Very interesting. Now, what are the big issues in this race very quickly? Now, one of the things that Lamont said when he endorsed bias was, I can't support Representative Cassell's voting record. And so that's what this race has really become about. And various scorecards and different ratings of members in the legislature, Representative Cassell has consistently been ranked among the more moderate wing of the party, among the more liberal Republicans.

And so I know he kind of disputes these scorecards and says that there's really not that much of a difference between him and the Republicans. But bias points to some different specific things in his voting record. One of the things that he mentioned was Representative Cassell joint authoring a bill with Democrats to expand Medicaid in the state of Texas. Another thing that he points to, that he's pointed to several times on the campaign trail, has been the comments that Representative Cassell made during the quorum bust back in last summer when Democrats fled to D.C. to try and stall the election bill from being passed. And during that time, Representative Casale actually went on TV and in an interview,

he said, quote, we need to have someone some communication and come up with a moderated deal that brings everybody to the table and make sure they have a victory or two. And so Mr. Bias has said that he would not negotiate with anarchists is how he frames the Democrats quorum bust there. And so he's been critical of that. Another thing that he has noted as well is in the election bill, when the quorum did get reestablished in August, and they brought that to the floor for a vote, there were a bunch of amendments that were added to it. One of the amendments that they voted on that did not pass was an amendment from a Democrat. I don't remember which Democrat. I think it was Representative Morales, Eddie Morales, that offered it was an to vote that same day. And so Representative Cassell was one of the only Republicans, along with Representative Larson and Patty, who voted in favor of this amendment. Now, Patty also put in the House Journal, he added a note to the clerk saying that he intended to vote no against that amendment. So it was really only two Republicans who voted against this amendment or voted for this amendment. And Representative Cassell was one of them. Got it. Well, very spicy runoff after a very spicy primary. We'll continue to watch that for sure. Let's move on to the Twitter fun segment of our podcast. Daniel,

we're actually going to start with you. What do you find? What have you found on Twitter this week? Okay. This is, you know, I talked about my novel a few seconds ago that I wrote. This is a fun tweet. I've done some more political tweets in the past in these segments. So I'm going to do a less political one. Kyle Mann, who is the editor in chief of the Babylon Bee, tweeted out that he had finished reading That Hideous Strength. That Hideous Strength is the third book in C.S. Lewis' science fiction trilogy. This is such a niche, Daniel. It is niche, but I think that there's a lot of listeners who probably are familiar with this. I think our crowd somewhat knows about this.

So it is C.S. Lewis' third book in the science fiction trilogy. It was kind of his own interpretation of another book he wrote called The Abolition of Man, which is a very more philosophy heavy book. It's just, it's a fascinating story, but Kyle Mann's critique of it, he said so much jumping around and boring dialogue, a few gems in there. And I really liked what Lewis was trying to do. I just wish it wasn't so painful to actually read. Oh my gosh. Which is a brutally honest take. I think a fair critique.

This critique has been made of the book many times because it is, out of the three books in this series, you have Out of the Silent Planet and Paralandra. And they're both a lot more faster paced and a little bit more of action to the plot and you jump into that hideous strength and it's just like reading about this small little college and it is very boring at the beginning and it takes a lot to get through i think lewis actually wrote

i haven't read it but apparently he did have like a condensed version of it that might be a little bit punchier. But it is slow and hard to get through. Is it a long book? I've not read it. I think it's longer than the other two put together. Wow. So it's longer. It is harder to get through.

There's a lot of gems in there, I think. The novel that I wrote is also like my own fictional interpretation of uh the abolition of man so it has a lot of similarities to that interesting um wow so yeah there you go very niche daniel tweet regardless but yeah our listeners may this is a decent audience for that tweet for sure isaiah we're coming to you What do you have for us in terms of the tweets? What do you say? Quote? That's your past tense?

You quote? Yeah. Okay. And the participle is twitting. Oh, my gosh. But I initially didn't have anything until Daniel initiated the precedent that we can just do a fun one. And so then I was caught between a couple. But I'll turn around a picture before i explain it verbally to the listeners uh do y'all know what this is no is this for cap gun yes oh i do know

what that is then okay all right so all the boys at this table nodded their heads and mac did not which i guess is to be expected but it is a little a little red velvety looking ribbon with these little i guess lavender purple circles on it and uh some guy just twirled it out and said do you know what this is the picture of it and um it got this crazy traction there's like 79 all these comments and everything and the top comment just says that smell oh my gosh and um the one below it says it makes a heck of a bang when you hit it with a hammer and i was just immediately transported back to childhood of like getting the cap guns um so well i will say to be fair i did not recognize it upon first look

i did not but my brother had a cap gun i shot it all the time as soon as you said cap guy i was like oh my gosh yeah like a transport as soon as i knew what it was it transported me back to you and the smell is something else the smell yeah i remember coming out my brother was very small very young and he had some like a rock and he was hitting it yeah and my mother was not pleased with him for that i remember learning like you can just hit him that's all that's all it does science pretty crazy yeah um i just remember like having a cap gun revolver and thinking like can i actually do that thing where they just like pull the hammer back real quick you know i'm talking about yes anyway yeah yeah this is not a i can see now this is not a tweet

fruitful for discussion it's just me reminiscing about having a cap gun that's fun. Hayden, what do you got? The Texas Destination Resort Alliance, which is one of the groups that is pushing casino gambling for the upcoming legislative session, tweeted, Many of our neighbors, pardon, I can't read. This is probably relevant to this job, but I can't read now. Quote, many of our neighboring states benefit from huge tourism revenue thanks to their destination resorts and world-class entertainment facilities. Support our efforts to bring those same opportunities right here to Texas! I think that's an interesting foreshadowing of what will probably be a robust policy debate, if not next year, you know, in the coming years about whether Texas should legalize casino gambling, because, you know, on the pro side, that's always portrayed as just

capturing money that is, you know, flowing out of our state. And of course, on the con side, there would be those who say that it is going to cost us in terms of law enforcement and cost us in terms of social consequences if we bring casinos to metropolitan areas such as Houston and Dallas and San Antonio, etc. But I think it's interesting that though this is not a topic that is at the forefront of really anyone's mind, except for those who are involved in it, you know, people are focused on other issues right now, they're still, you know, out there pushing this and probably are getting ready for a pretty aggressive marketing campaign in 2023. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Hayden. Bradley, what you got?

I've got two quick ones. Governor Abbott appointed Eric Opila to the Texas Funeral Service Commission for roughly three year term. Now that sounds really, really boring and not worth discussion with this at all. Texas funeral commission. Yes. That's, I didn't even know that existed. There are so many commissions I don't know exist. Yeah. Um, but the wrinkle to this is that Opila was, I'm sorry if it's, if it's OPL, I apologize, but, um, I don't, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Or Opilia or who knows. I'm going to go with the one that I initially thought. We'll see. Apelia was the attorney who filed a challenge with the Texas GOP that was trying to knock the other Rick Perry off the ballot,

off the governor's ballot back in December. Now the party rejected it. But it's just when I saw Funeral funeral commission i'm like oh there's no way that's not worthy and i saw the name like oh my gosh this is actually kind of interesting didn't he run for something in 2014 he ran for ag commissioner yes okay this is really random but i believe i have met his wife because i think in high school i was you know waving a sign for someone at a polling location and she might have been. I don't know if it was him or his wife or somebody else running for Ag Commissioner, but anyway, random. Republican, Tim O'Hare, received Dan Patrick's endorsement this week. It's just interesting because O'Hare was endorsed by Trump in the primary. And admittedly, from Trump himself

and from Dan Patrick, most of the endorsements in Texas from Trump have come at the request of Dan Patrick. And so it was odd that dan patrick waited until now well after the primary occurred and and tim o'hare won the primary and he's the republican nominee for the race in november uh it's just interesting that dan patrick waited until now to endorse o'hare i'm not sure why um but it was just an odd thing to notice. Just notable. Yeah. And it is, you know, he was going up against Betsy Price. Yeah. Very prominent political figure in North Texas and in Republican circles, believe it or not. So interesting.

Nonetheless, I my tweet this week has to do with a statement from Chip Roy. So Patrick Svitek andiel friend have both tweeted about this um i don't know this daniel friend guy but i think he works at some outlet called the texan he sounds pretty friendly he does sound pretty friendly i think he also really enjoys a good c.s lewis novel here and there but i would just be you know that's just conjecture at this point i don't know for sure regardless chip roy sitting uh texas u.s congress or texas congressman um republican said on newsmax texas ought to just flat out shut down the border. And I'm looking at Governor Abbott right now when I say that. You shut down the border,

Governor. You stand up to the president. I'm tired of Texas taking a backseat to an administration screwing the people of Texas. Pretty strong statement coming from somebody within the Republican Party to another uh republican party head he also said every republican better get on board with impeaching mayorkas which is the secretary mayorkas um homeland security so it's interesting to watch this really kind of come down to the wire here in terms of okay what does the federal government do in terms of like what's their responsibility what's the state's responsibility when the federal government isn't doing what it needs to do to secure the border. Conservatives have gone against Governor Abbott repeatedly during the Republican primary on

this issue. It's been a huge talking point among conservatives. And we're seeing that even after the governor secured a hefty win on primary night, this is still something that is being talked about. Very interesting. I think uh you know irrespective of that and there is disagreement i don't think any you know republicans or conservatives are would disagree that they are against mayorkas and i remember uh you know abbott

saying in october that he thought mayorkas should be uh should surrender his post um and you know others have called for him to be impeached as well. So it is interesting to see the different strategies come forward. Absolutely. Interesting GOP infighting. Fun stuff. Okay, gentlemen, this is a topic that we neglected to get to last week because we ran out of time. But there was a lively debate that sprung up in our Slack channels here at the Texan regarding the best kind of fries. Yes, fries like potato fries that exist. People had very strong opinions.

Kim and Holly, our writers from around the state, had very they had opinions as well. Let's just say that. And I think everybody weighed in, but we decided that we would fully flesh this out on our podcast. And let's set the table here. We're not talking about things put on fries. We're talking about cuts of fries. Cuts of fries. Not like cheese fries don't count.

Any other. Truffle fries. What is that? You put truffles on them? Yeah. It's really yummy. I've never heard of that. Truffle salt or something.

No, they're so good. Truffle salt's good. It's good. I just want to acknowledge Brad's brilliant pun. Set the table. Yeah. I was hoping that we would just get past that. Me too.

Yeah. Wait, Isaiah, are you not a pun fan at all? Or is it just Daniel's puns that you hate at? Working here has just honed my hatred for puns. Yeah. I won't point fingers, but his initials

are Daniel Friend. And his puns hurt me. They hurt my soul. I'm just glad that somebody's in this camp with me finally. Okay. Wonderful. Back to fries.

Gentlemen, where are we at? Shoestring. I think regardless of your hierarchy of the best fries, we can all agree the worst fry, cut of fry, is those darn smiley fries that are just terrible they look like smiley faces they're disgusting i've never had them they're abominations there are certain restaurants that had them i think you can buy them frozen in like grocery stores but like a fast food kind of thing that's not even a fry or some vodka that's very rare it's very rare what that's not even a fry that that's like a whole cookie it's

like a lot at that point yeah and i don't know why they taste so bad i really don't because waffle fries which is the whole other thing right are delicious and those would have the same consistency you think they're thicker but they are god awful so i've Wow. At least every one that I've ever had. I haven't had those smiley fries, but they remind me of a particular type of fry. There's this restaurant called Burgerim, which is... What's it called? Burgerim. Like burger, and then it's I am at the end of it. The plural of burger in Hebrew.

Yes, because it was actually started in Israel. Oh, it was really? Yes. Oh, really? Wow. It is like how cool that's to play on the word it's like mini burgers i guess and then it's also like mini a play on word there too because it's mini mini they're like small burgers but there's many of them

anyways mylanta okay um but they have these fries that are kind of similar to that in that it's more like a bloated potato chip so like some of them can be kind of crispy and like have a little bit of a crunch to it but there's also a little bit of a like a meaty texture of talking about that no it's not quite like a cottage fry that he's pointing to but um it's it's interesting i think once again this might just be latkes oh my gosh speaking okay this is gonna go off on a whole other thing which we need to get back to I think once again, this might just be a lot because. Oh my gosh. Speaking of, okay, this is going to go off on a whole other thing, which we need to get back to fries.

If you've not been to Jew Boy in Texas, it's this incredible restaurant here in Texas that is a combination of, oh my gosh, it's so good. It's like Jewish burgers and like border food. So it's like you're, it's this Jewish man who grew up on the border and he has incredible burritos and unbelievable burgers anyway you should go to jupiter it's incredible okay cut a fry so let's just go around the table one word tell me what your preferred fry cut a fry is well i haven't been able to find the name. No, I said one word. No, no. You literally specified. They are, my grandparents make these at their, well now, old restaurant that they used to have. They're like shoestring, but a lot thicker. So they're like hand cut. I don't really know.

Yeah, hand cut. Is that what, I don't see the name hand cut on here. So that's why I'm. Okay, well that's, this is not the end all be all. so yes i would say those okay hand cut daniel all all i would explain in more words but you didn't give me that option if you had to choose one type of fry which would you choose? Depends on the day. Oh my gosh. Hayden. Waffle.

Waffle. Isaiah, what about you? Also waffle. Me too. Guys, three waffle. Yes. The waffle wins. Good team.

I don't understand why people don't like waffle fries. Shoe string is the worst, I believe. Really? Yeah. It's terrible. It's so insubstantial. Okay. So let's do that

let's go around the table and say our least favorite shoestring shoestring for for isaiah what about you hayden i is this a one word answer i don't know i i can't think of i can't think of a type of french fry that i just particularly hate although or just that you don't prefer you prefer the least there there are okay i will say this p terry's fries playing games with reporters where i ask them to say one word is impossible for hayden bland that's fair that's totally fair but yeah p terry's you're not you're not a fan of p terry's oh Hayden got the mic away from him. Daniel. What was the question?

Least favorite. Least favorite, Burger King. Oh, okay. It really has to do with the texture. So more of the steak fries can also be this way where it just feels kind of mushy. Yeah. Burger King does have absolutely terrible fries. The smiley fries. I already said it.

No, that's true. Potato wedges for me. The ones that are just like ginormous. Stick fries are fine, but potato wedges are... Yeah, I just don't... I feel like they often can be bad. Good ones are good, but I feel like you don't get them done well very often. I also don't like In-N-Out fries.

They're good. They're hot and fresh. In-N-Out fries? Yeah, if you get them right at the restaurant, they're good. They get cold really fast. But they're not as, like, McDonald's fries are better than In-N-Out fries.

No. A hundred percent. There's a time and a place for every fry under the sun. Not sweet potato fries. Not sweet potato fries not sweet potato fries they are so good i will often well i just don't like sweet potatoes but that's right i forgot it's not fair people are always trying to suppress the nature of the sweet potatoes let's put salt in there and barbecue all kinds of let the sweetness shine through you know that's why i don't like sweet potato fries what about sweet and salty though well what about it it's delicious not about it really to that or do you not like other

sweet and salty things i'm not going to consider at this point it's not even worth his consideration maybe i do but not that okay what uh yeah brad i was just gonna say you all need to try a smiley fry just to understand how atrocious they are. So where are we going to get fries after this? Hmm. I think P. Terry's would be great. P. Terry's? What about, where's Jewboy at?

Do they have fries? It's on Airport. They have Lockhees and they have Tater Tots. I actually don't think they have fries. I think those are their two potato offerings. Are Lockhees and they have tater tots. I actually don't think they have fries. I think those are their two potato offerings. Potato offerings? Yeah. I think I got chips when I was there.

I went once. Disappointing. I felt it was disappointing. Potato chips? Or just a bag of chips? I don't remember. I really don't remember. It's so good.

Oh my gosh. They actually were fries. He was in England remember. It's so good. Oh my gosh. They actually were fries. He was in England. Very good. Okay. Any final thoughts on, on taters? Wow.

Guys, I think a very good addition to them. It's barbecue sauce. Most people go with ketchup, but barbecue sauce on fries. You're just a big barbecue sauce proponent in general. I like barbecue sauce. I feel like it doesn't go as well with fries as other sauces.

I would prefer, I mean, ketchup is pretty standard, but also ranch or honey mustard. Honey mustard is good with fries. If I get waffle fries at Chick-fil-A, I dunk them in the Chick-fil-A sauce and the buffalo sauce together. It's a good combo. Is that even legal? I gotta try that. It's quite yummy. It's outlawed in 42 states. Wonderful. Well, folks, thank you for listening, and we have bloopers

coming up, so stick around for that. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoy listening to ourselves fail abundantly. Thank you for listening. We will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. We will catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome

if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism

in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas. Brad, let's talk about Starbucks. Now, a wave of unionization is one of America's largest... Nope, that's... I read that completely incorrectly. Blooper.

So, the golden-cheeked warbler, a bird which nests entirely within the state of Texas. Which is just such a great name for a bird. Yeah, if it was real, of course. If it was real, of course. Making a birds-aren't-real joke. Yeah. That's my least favorite inside joke okay do not be intentional about your friendships focus all your energy on social media

and don't think about the future live for the moment and don't take the advice of anyone older than you. Brad, Starbucks. A wave of unionization in one of Texas... You know, I think I'm just going to pull bloopers from this. Exactly. I'm just going to say... Just say Starbucks. I'm just going to say... Say Starbucks, and then I'm going to say something.

You were pronouncing it wrong. It's not Spokane. It's Spokane. Everyone knows that. Sorry. No, no, was didn't land apparently um just like the birds okay we should keep that what is this crap that was that was way funnier spokane the u.s senate held hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Katonji. Okay, I can't remember how to say it. Katonji.

Katonji. What about you, Isaiah? What would you do on a long truck drive across the country? I would get one of those ovens that you can plug into your cigarette lighter and I would cook things. Those exist? Yeah. I'd have one right now if my cigarette lighter thing still worked. Are you serious? I just look at them longingly because I can't use one in my car.

But you totally would if you'd given the chance. Yeah. My little brother broke my cigarette lighter somehow. I don't remember what he did. Why can't I talk? So that is something that's kind of out the window. But. OK.

So another thing to remember in this context is that I've never seen a single minute of the rice's pie. I personally agree with Daniel. I wouldn't want something to take care of. And I think outside things should stay outside. And a tree is an outside thing. So just generally speaking. I don't understand why we equate dog years to seven years, no matter the breed of dog or the size of the dog,

because older dogs die much younger than small dogs. What kind of apple was it, Zay? I don't know. Oh, great. This is a little bit of a rough podcast.