The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 15, 2022

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Sen. Ted Cruz endorsing opposite candidates of the governor, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Gov. Greg Abbott trading critiques of border policies, a new agreement between Texas and a Mexican state, a rule change from the Biden administration on ATF gun records, controversy surrounding a woman convicted of capital murder, environmental and social credit criteria sweeping through America’s corporations including Texas’ oil and gas companies, the story of an underwater rare earth mineral deposit in Texas, and a lawmaker pledging to file a Florida-style parental rights in education bill next session.

Howdy, howdy. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team talks about Ted Cruz endorsing opposite candidates of the governor. Sid Miller and Abbott trading critiques of border policies. A new agreement between Texas and a Mexican state. A rule change from the Biden administration on ATF gun records. Controversy surrounding a woman convicted of capital murder, environmental and social credit criteria sweeping through America's corporations, including Texas oil and gas companies, the story of an underwater rare earth mineral deposit here in Texas,

and a lawmaker pledging to file a Florida-style parental rights and education bill next session. 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, hello, gentlemen. Hayden, Daniel, and Brad are all here with me today mckinsey taylor senior editor here at the texan we have three yetis two of which are matching daniel and brad both have matching the texan yetis with their names in place and all them thanks to connie and phil for that and i just have a lame water bottle whose fault is that so sorry i have my yeti at home but i didn't bring it today so yeah i have a drawer full of yeti or tumblers at the office and mine isn't there and yeah i still bring one from home which

i'm holding in my hand why do you need so many you should see my um cabinet at home with how many yeti products i really like my question why do you need so many because they come out with new colors and they're fun to get. Okay. That's literally my answer. I only can drink out of one container at a time. So I figure I only need one container. Don't you love to go to a cabinet and be like, man, what kind of fun tumbler do I get to drink from today? No.

I do. He's like, is it going to keep my drink cold or hot or whatever I want it to be? Here's the thing. I know that all of them will. Yeah. So then you just pick one color stick with it then you have to make less choices in life wow it's kind of like lots of uh famous people always have like the same clothes that they wear over and over again yeah to minimize

their choices like a uh oh my gosh jimmy neutron nope just definitely was not thinking of jimmy neutron thinking of the head at the head of apple uh not tim cook the other one steve jobs wow that was so hard i don't know how i could not remember i was thinking of his t-shirt oh yeah whenever i see that i think of jimmy neutron because he had it was a running bit in the show that he would open up his closet and it was a whole row of the same outfit. I never watched Jiminy John growing up, so I would not be able to pause and think about which one he was going to wear though. Yeah. See that like feels like the defeats the purpose.

I don't know. I just like to be able to choose and there are different kinds of Yetis. There's like a 20 ounce with a handle. There's a 16 ounce without a handle. I have two yetis other than the texan yeti but or yeti-esque i don't know it's like arctic or something they are freakishly too large to serve any practical benefit i can't put them in a cup holder yes if i carry it around with me it's like i've got a water tower with me at all times so i guess if you're at home and you

need something to hold your beverage but carrying them around it's a bit cumbersome yeah no i have different kinds of mugs i have different kinds of um just tumblers i have little wine glasses that are yeti so you can have wine in your yeti if you so choose. You know, cold wine and a picnic. All sorts of options. I'm really glad we could talk about this. This is one of my favorite things. I really, really like Yetis. I'm very happy for you.

I can tell you're absolutely thrilled. And speaking of merch, you should go to thetexan.news and visit our store. Absolutely. There is one of those wine Yetis, right? Yeah, we actually do have a wine yeti on our in our store y'all should definitely go get it it is a tumblr it is absolutely tumblr it's pretty awesome um okay well let's actually jump into the news here brad another top level gop figure has jumped into a number of texas house runoffs last week we talked about the governor who jumped in and who did they announce support for u.s senator ted cruz jumped into a handful of races this week he chose in

numerical order of the house districts ben bias in hd 12 he is challenging representative Kyle Casal. Ellen Trox-Clair in HT-19, who is running against Justin Barry. Mike Olcott in HT-60, who is challenging incumbent Glenn Rogers. Eric Bolin, who is in HT-70, running against Jamie Jolly. And Kerry Isaac in HT-73, who is facing Baron Castile.

Each of the opponents that i mentioned are all endorsed by governor abbott um in their races and so it creates this um loggerhead between the two yeah and um we'll uh you know obviously we'll see how it plays out electorally but um both candidates are taking strong stances um in opposite directions in these races. Yeah, certainly. Now, just to clarify, all of these races, but four, no, but one are open seats. Correct? These are open seats except for... Two are not open.

Oh, okay. Got it. HD 12 and HD 60. With Olcott, that's right. And Bias's endorsement came out earlier this year, I think in February. So the rest of them all came out this week um we'll see if there are any more that come down the bike but um um you know there's there are more runoffs that are happening that cruise did not declare an endorsement for yeah um but you know we'll see what happens do we expect to see something

come out later on to make more endorsement potentially there were a couple that i was surprised we didn't um that he didn't put an endorsement out one of them was hd 52 um but nothing has come yet so we'll see very good okay well tell us why crews got involved in these races in the very in the first place um so while he didn't explicitly state it uh in these endorsements other than you know touting each candidate's qualifications for the job as every top level endorser does you know they run through what makes the candidate special that they're choosing um but past statements indicate um his school choice played at the very least a large role in his decisions. If it wasn't the only thing informing his decisions back in January,

Cruz said, when I'm deciding who to support in a contested Republican primary, we have a spreadsheet and I pull up every vote. Someone has cast on school choice. If you voted against school choice, the chances of me endorsing you are essentially zero. If you voted for it, then I'm going to look very seriously at engaging and engaging hard. Now, obviously, um, a few of these seats are open and therefore

the candidates he's endorsing against, uh, at least in the legislature don't have a voting record, um, to, to look at, to analyze. But, um, some of them have been endorsed by teachers unions who are not supportive of school choice. Uh, the two incumbents Rogers and, um, I think we talked about this in the podcast last week, but Rogers and Casal have both come out expressly against a voucher system. And so, um, you know, in terms of that issue itself, it's a very clear choice for Cruz and, um, it's not surprising the way he's come down on it. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, let's say Abbott's endorser endorses win. It doesn't mean that every candidate is going to vote against what if a school choice legislation comes up.

But Cruz is clearly making a judgment call on these. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's interesting too, in light of, you know, school choice back in, I think the 85th session, I mean, there was a rally on the Capitol steps for school choice and it had been an issue talked about by the legislature for many years and it kind of has been a dormant issue for the last several legislative sessions. And we're seeing that become not the case anymore. It's starting to become a theme once again.

Talk to us about, you know, what school choice has kind of been in terms of the discussion around these campaigns. Yeah, it's an issue coursing through the veins of the Republican Party. And especially after the COVID shutdowns, it's gained broader appeal than just, you know, one segment of the GOP. You see independent voters talking about it, parents who are totally apolitical now all of a sudden really political on this issue because of what the school shutdowns did to their children. And you add on top of that all these social issues whether it's the sexuality stuff in schools or critical

race theory teachings all this is combining into kind of a snowball effect of this issue making it bigger than it's been in a while and you know we saw with the the Harpy Bill and constitutional carry, it took years to get those passed for the legislature. Those had been filed a lot over the last decade, probably every session. And they never didn't pass until now. And so maybe this is the session, the upcoming session is the time for a school choice bill um i mean governor abbott said earlier this year he expects a big push for school choice next session um but you know some of his endorsements it runs counter to some of his endorsements in these races um you know obviously that's not the only issue there are a myriad of issues to consider on this, but with Cruz and Abbott's

endorsements, there's a very clear dichotomy here on this one specific issue. Yeah, certainly. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, let's talk about the border. What was the enhanced inspection policy that Abbott and DPS instituted last week? As we talked about last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety began conducting enhanced inspections of vehicles, especially commercial vehicles coming into the state of Texas from Mexico. This was part of Governor Abbott's response to the federal government, specifically the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, announcing that Title 42 expulsions would be ended in May. So Governor Abbott chose to enact this policy ostensibly to reduce human smuggling and detect human smuggling, deter illegal immigration. However, as he revealed at a press conference yesterday, part of the purpose of this policy that he stated was to put pressure on the Mexican government and Mexican states because of the problem of illegal

immigration and the anticipated deluge of illegal crossings that will come about as a result of Title 42 being suspended or no longer enforced, which, of course, is the public health law that the feds have used since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to expel illegal immigrants. And that policy will end in May. So that that is the policy that was the subject of yesterday's press conference. Yeah, absolutely. So, before all of that, we had some objection from a statewide elected official. What were Commissioner Sid Miller's objections and what were some of the unintended consequences that he described? Well, like you said, prior to the press conference, which, sorry, I jumped ahead a

little bit. We're going to get to that in a bit. But the Commissioner of Agriculture, who's a Republican, very, he, you know, won his election in a landslide on primary day, much like Abbott did. You know, these two men, Miller and Abbott, are very much generally on the same page politically. And he criticized this policy because of the reported 8 to 12 hour wait times, the rotting produce on away as Nogales, Arizona, to get across the border because of the traffic jams that were caused by virtually every single vehicle being inspected, which takes about an hour for each vehicle to be inspected, whereas before, it was a randomized inspection process at these ports of entry. So Miller highlighted that. And he also stated that border crises in order to mitigate them, you can't create another crisis in order to answer a crisis.

And in fact, that is what what Abbott did, because he was creating these traffic jams in order to draw attention to the problem. At least that was one of the purposes. So we'll talk about the press conference in a second. But Governor Abbott did have a response to those criticisms. He said that Miller was completely uninformed. Those were his words. And he also said, quote, he had no clue what we were doing because of the things we're about to talk about. Miller had no clue what the state was doing. Correct. Miller had no idea.

Basically, he was in the dark. And so the criticisms came in the form of a press release and remarks that he made. But Miller said that he wanted to refocus on litigation. The federal lawsuits that are, I believe, are pending to get Title 42 reinstated instead of trying to create these events where a lot of attention is drawn to it, like the busing illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C. and the enhanced inspection policy. So those were some of Miller's concerns. He also talked about the energy prices and the U.S. Department of Labor reporting increased prices. And of course, we have an overall problem with inflation right now, but that is what precipitated the remark that Abbott was turning a crisis into a catastrophe, according to Miller.

And of course, Miller was not the only one. The White House put out a statement criticizing this policy. And it's always a strange day when Commissioner Sid Miller is on the same page as the White House. But there's some bipartisan criticism of this policy. So certainly we've alluded to this press conference several times already during this podcast. Let's talk about the agreement that was reached between the Mexican state and the state of Texas. Well, Governor Samuel Garcia of Nuevo Leon, which is a state that shares about a 12-mile border with the state of Texas. So placing this in perspective, we've got a 12-mile border with the state of Texas. So, placing this in perspective, we've got a 12-mile border with this Mexican state out of about a 1,200 or 1,300-mile border

that we share with- So, 1%. Correct. So, we're looking at about a 1% portion of our border, but we do have a bridge or a port between Texas and Nuevo Leon. And what Governor Garcia announced with Governor Abbott was that the two states have reached an agreement for increased border security. And as a result of that, Governor Abbott said that the policy for enhanced inspections will be rescinded just for this particular port. For all other ports of entry between Texas and Mexico, the policy will remain in place. However, Abbott has said that he's been in touch with governors of Mexican states, aside from Nuevo Leon and the Secretariat for Foreign Affairs. That office has also been in touch with Governor Abbott and

the state of Texas. But an interesting note about these inspections is the governor said 25% of the vehicles that were coming through were removed from service because they were deemed unsafe for Texas roads. So even with this more thorough policy, about a quarter of the vehicles are being pulled off the roads. But for the New Everly on port, the policy will go back to the previous policy of randomized searches rather than these thorough, you know, virtually every vehicle being inspected. Got it. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that so thoroughly for us. We'll certainly keep an eye on what's happening down there at the border. And interesting to watch the governor of a Mexican state and, you know, Texas here in the U.S. kind of partner on this. And some of the, I'm sorry, I can just add this, some of the rhetoric of

Governor Garcia was similar to Governor Abbott. Some of the state pride, I think he said, you know, our state and Texas were the most important states in our two countries. Oh my gosh. It was interesting to hear some of the banter and some of the state pride that you usually hear from Texas governors, a Mexican governor expressing that. It was interesting. That's super interesting. Well, thank you, Hayden. Daniel, let's talk about an ATF rule. So Congressman Michael Cloud has been vocally opposing this rule change from the ATF,

but the Biden administration announced that it had finalized the new rule this week what are the details of that change so there are two kind of big points that have been talked about with this rule change uh the first one that's gotten a little bit less attention but is actually what congressman cloud has really been vocally opposed to uh is the one of the things that the world changes is the out-of-business records that the ATF obtains from gun stores that are going out of business. So currently under federal law, if you're a gun seller, you have to hold on to records of sales and transfers and who you sell the guns to for a minimum of 20 years. If your store goes out of business, all those records that you have on hand have to be transferred to the ATF. The ATF then stores that in their own

digital warehouse indefinitely. They have over 900 million records, probably close to a billion or over a billion now, because that was from last November, the 900 million number. All that to say, the rule change that they are pursuing right now would actually require gun stores to hold onto those records indefinitely so that there's not a 20 year limit on there. So anything even older than 20 years, you have to hold onto that. So that's one of the changes. The other change that the rule makes is what the administration calls a crackdown on quote ghost guns essentially right now as federal law stands you can order a gun parts kit and kind of assemble a gun yourself those parts don't have to have any kind of a serial number because it's not

a firearm what they're doing with this rule change is redefining or expanding the definition of a firearm to include parts like a frame of a gun so that if you're ordering a gun kit the frame has to have a serial number on it the manufacturer has to do that and then also by changing the definition or expanding the definition rather to include these parts then you also have to go through a background check to purchase a, uh, one of these, these frames or any, any part that has, uh, one of those things. Now it's not, uh, necessarily all parts of a gun. Uh, there are probably like some springs and stuff that you're going to order that would not fall into this, but if it's a frame for a gun, uh, then

that will fall into the definition and you'll have to go through a background check to get it. Uh, unless you're, you know, maybe if you have a 3D printer and you print it yourself, then you wouldn't necessarily have to have that. But if you're buying it from someone who sells that for a living, then you do. There you go. So what's next for this rule? So the rule will go into effect 120 days after being published in the Federal Register. So there's still a few more months before the enforcement begins. As far as efforts to kind of push back against this, there are many Republicans in Congress, including Representative Cloud and also Senator Cruz, who are filing legislation to push back against it. Cloud had already filed legislation that I think over 60 Republicans have co-sponsored now that would require the ATF to essentially destroy their out-of-business record system.

So all those one billion records that they have on file, they'd have to destroy that, and then gun businesses wouldn't have to transfer any new records to them in the future. Another piece of legislation is something that Senator Cruz announced today when we were recording this podcast. He announced that he would also file legislation pushing back against both parts of this new rule that I mentioned, the business record stuff, and then also the kind of broadening the scope of a firearm. So I haven't seen the text of that bill yet. I don't know if it's available, but those are two pieces of legislation. Now, Democrats are in control of Congress, so I don't expect it to go anywhere this session, but it could set up something in the future if Republicans take back Congress. This could be one of the items that they push.

Wow. Well, very interesting. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Hayden, this is a case that we've talked about very briefly before on the podcast, but let's go over it again. There are some definite developments here. So who is Melissa Lucio and what is the story surrounding her in Texas right now? evicted in 2008 of the brutal killing of her two-year-old daughter who died at a hospital with injuries after she was subjected to horrific violence, according to the jury's verdict. And the ER doctor called it the worst case of child abuse he'd ever seen in his decades as a doctor. But the forensic pathologist also stated that she was beaten to death. And it was a horrific event. The child suffered greatly, and the jury found her guilty and sentenced her to death. Wow. So, talk to us about why her scheduled execution is receiving so much attention and whether she could be innocent. The execution is scheduled for April 27.

And there was a hearing of the Texas House Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice Reform, which is chaired by Representative Jeff Leach. And they more or less confronted the district attorney who scheduled or requested this execution date. Pardon me. The execution is not scheduled by the DA. It was set by a state district judge according to the laws of the state of Texas. And the claims are that she could be innocent based on the family's request that the execution be canceled. The family believes that the girl died in an accident, that she fell down the stairs. And I believe there were questions about a disability that she had

that could have caused her to fall down the stairs. And the reason why, you know, this wasn't hashed out in the committee hearing. And I haven't hashed it out in my articles because frankly, that would be for a jury to decide in a trial and hearing the relevant evidence from both sides and each side having the ability to cross-examine witnesses and evidence and all that. And the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 10-7 decision denied her a new trial, reversing a decision that was made by a lower court. But there's been a lot of media attention around this execution. And at this hearing, which I attended the other day, Leach confronted the DA and many members of the committee hopped

on the bandwagon of questioning this DA as to why he hasn't requested that this execution date be withdrawn. And because there are questions in the media about her possible innocence, which include claims that the Texas Rangers improperly elicited a confession from her by pressuring her. And it was an hours-long interrogation that included, of course, a lot of emotion. And they believe that there was evidence left out of the trial that should have been included that might have led to her receiving a lesser sentence. And some of the jurors have in the media stated that they would make a different decision. Of course, this is all outside of the law, all outside of the. This is all after the trial, correct? It's after the trial.

And by the way, it's after the trial and by the way it's you know 14 years ago and so this is all separate uh from the media storm is separate from what's been happening in the courts the courts have upheld the conviction and uh however what the district attorney said at this hearing is there are several motions pending as it relates to this case and um it is very possible. And he said that he does not believe she'll be executed on the 27th. He says it's rare for people to be executed on the first execution date. It's usually delayed and another one is set. And of course, all these motions have to be resolved before she's taken to the lethal injection chamber. So it is possible that it could be stayed. And the board of pardon and paroles could

recommend clemency and the governor could accept that recommendation. He could grant a reprieve. A court, federal or state, could issue an injunction. There are so many different ways that this could be delayed. But I think the focus on this case, you know, Mariah Lucio, that was the name of the child who passed away. And her name hasn't been spoken as many times as it probably should be. But she was two years old and we'll have to see the final outcome of this case. Yeah, certainly. Well, Hayden, thank you for breaking down a very difficult subject for our listeners and something we'll certainly continue to see in the news over the next several weeks. Brad, let's skip over to oil and gas.

Environmental, social, and governance criteria, ESG I believe is the shorthand, is sweeping through America's corporations. Can you explain what that is? is yeah so it's a financial grading system a kind of corporate credit score that grades companies on myriad metrics such as commitment to net zero emissions that would apply to the environmental lgbt and minority focused social issues that would apply to the governor putting out the DFPS investigating child abuse for the use of puberty locks or that kind of thing. That would inform that part of it. And then other things like unionization also play a factor that applies more to the governance. Governance also more like nuts and bolts of the company less political but it still can be among those who use esg criteria the higher the score means

the larger the financial investment you know whether they're banks issuing loans or asset managers buying stocks this basically creates a a hierarchy on what companies the money will flow to. Some companies like BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, have their own grading system and use it to decide where to direct investments. And so this esg grading system can vary based on who it is that is um putting this out there um there's no like one uniform esg uh grader basically now um they use these esg has gone has flowed into the corporate boardrooms quite a bit um i think we saw exxon mobile had two of its actually three of its board members ousted in shareholder elections and those new board members are very friendly to the environmental left and those kinds of policies

and obviously exxon is one of the world's largest oil and gas companies yeah so there's a a bit of head-butting there uh but they do it through uh yes she is used through like um proxy voting um you can have like in the case of exxon you had blackrock and vanguard and i think state street the the shareholders that they manage, so if you put money into BlackRock and they then invest it into X company, BlackRock can then vote on your behalf in these shareholder meetings, on whatever it is, whether it's a corporate board member or some other statement of preference on some issue or whatnot. So it doesn't have to be that way,

but because most shareholders just kind of invest the money in BlackRock and wash their hands of it, they don't have BlackRock in those types of organizations have a lot of authority over it. And they just basically, because of ignorance, get to vote how they want. The other side of it is public pressure campaigns we see that on so many different issues but esg is really a central aspect of the way corporations are changing especially politically and you And that is coming to a head in Texas's oil and gas industry.

Very good. Now, talk to us about that, because you attended an oil and gas convention recently, and they discussed ESG. Talk to us about what was said. Yeah. So, Travis Stice, CEO of Diamondback Energy, it's a Fortune 1000 company, they're worth $13 billion. defended esg he defended esg saying a that shareholders have demanded it uh and b it's the right thing to do now shareholders being the ones who speak out now that may be an average person that holds stock but it also may be the executives at blackrock that are voting on proxy um and so who it is that's actually saying this, that they want it,

that can vary based on who you're talking to. Rob Capito, who's president of BlackRock, he took the opportunity to say that they weren't divesting from oil and gas, which is another issue that we'll talk about in a second. But he said that we need to protect our environment, so why can't we figure out how to do both things and get better esg is just a framework it's not a demand it kind of is demand

it's um holding hostage the access to capital especially when you introduce it with banks who are forcing companies to sign these sustainability statements in exchange for getting financial backing. There's a lot more coercion involved there, as opposed with BlackRock that utilizes the proxy voting stuff and still has a lot of power over it, but not quite what the banks do. And then Ed Longenecker, president of Tipro, he was moderating the discussion with each of these individuals, said that ESG is that, you know, ESG is, he told me ESG is here to stay. Even if those criteria went away tomorrow, most operators

would still continue with these initiatives as part of their normal business practices. And I think that comes back to a larger issue with this. There is a demand for this kind of environmental sustainability injection into financial companies because there's some coordinated capital that's being pushed behind this. So like if a hedge fund invests in a company they want you know they obviously have priorities on this and if the hedge fund is environmentally oriented like they that is their focus which is the case in some of these then they push their priorities to the the governing body of the corporation and so it's very complicated i recommend you go read the piece to know more about it more in more detail but yeah this is it's texas's oil and

gas industry is not immune to this got it now you mentioned it earlier but how does this tie into texas's fight over fossil fuel divestment yeah so texas is trying to pass the law last session ordering the texas comptroller to divest its money from state pensions from companies like blackrock that are alleged to be divesting from oil and gas. ESG ties into it because ESG is the justification that these companies are making for pushing capital in one way or another based on, you know, environmental policies specifically with oil and gas. So that's how it ties in. And this is not going to go away. It's going to continue to be an issue. And I am sure, quite sure that there's going to be something brought up in the next legislative session on this.

Wow. Always interesting. Thank you, Bradley. Daniel, let's talk about an issue. We haven't talked about this in a few months. It's been a while since we talked about rare earth minerals. But they've become a bigger focus these days, particularly in that the U.S. is trying to minimize their reliance on China. When you wrote about mining operation out in El Paso in December, there was another location that caught your attention. What was it, and why did it grab your eye?

The location that grabbed my eye was Beringer Hill, which is located in Llano County. It is purportedly one of the state's largest deposits of rare earth minerals. And it's actually pretty close to austin you can get there you can almost get there pretty easily i actually went out a few weeks ago you go drive about 70 miles northwest of austin i believe you tweeted a photo i did tweet a photo no one liked it except like maybe a few people i liked it i think i think brad did and i think holly did i didn't i don't think so okay it's sad but it's fine you know anyways you drive out there you can almost get to the mine if you drive 70 miles

but then you have to take a boat out into the middle of the lake and go scuba diving oh wow so the this location is actually underwater it's underwater so if it's under underwater how do we know about it the mine or i guess it wasn't the mine that was discovered the minerals where the mine became uh was actually discovered in the late 1800s by a man named beringer you guessed it because it's called beringer hill uh so it was named after the person who found it uh john beringer he he did some digging around there poking around he wasn't really sure what these minerals were but it was fascinating kind of a uh just a local um fascinating thing eventually some of these samples wound up into the hands of a geologist named william hidden

and he kind of facilitated uh doing some more research into this place. The mine or the hill actually changed property ownership a few times. So Hidden first bought it through another geologist from Beringer, and then it went into the hands of a company that was actually owned by Thomas Edison. Edison was looking for materials as he was, you know know doing the whole light bulb thing that we always talk about then it changed hands again to a different company to the nertz lamp company which they actually made street lamps that was growing in popularity popularity at the time around the turn of the century and some of their engineers had figured out a way to

use the minerals that were found at behringer hill uh for a new type of street lamp uh more gas powered thing and so a gas lit yes yeah okay gas whatever you want to say you can you can use your gas lighting joke but it was stupid. Never mind. Oh. Yeah. I was going to try and return and gaslight you about your gaslighting joke, but then never mind. Anyways, moving on. Off we go.

After that smooth speed bump. So a few different companies owned it, and then that was, yeah. That was the gist of it. That was the gist of it. And then that was, yeah. That was the gist of it. That was the gist of it. So explain to us how the heck this went from being a mine to being under a huge lake. Yeah. So someone had to put the water there, right? The water had to get there somehow.

I guess I should describe this hill. It's not just like a giant hill. It was actually about 40 feet tall uh just kind of this protruding thing out in the middle of a flat it was probably i don't know 200 feet long or so i have i have some dimensions that i quote in the article um but uh so it was sitting there next to the banks of the colorado river um kind of upstream and uh the interest in these minerals kind of died off. The Nerds Lamp Company actually found some better ways to do their gas lit lamps. And so their operations kind of faded into oblivion.

There's actually an employee who operated the mine for a brief period of time. And one of the the fascinating stories i won't waste your time going into detail on the podcast on it but it's a fascinating story about how he left uh go read the article um so after all that happened it just kind of died off people weren't you know obviously the the stuff that we use rarest for now were not technologies that were around 100 years ago uh you know, we use it for computer chips and electric vehicle batteries

and all this sorts of modern technology that they just didn't have. So they weren't actually looking for the resources for those purposes. So they were just like, eh, whatever. It kind of just lost interest. I think they did mine a pretty good portion of the resources that were there too.

So while that was kind of interesting, that was dying off, there was interest in something else that was gaining a lot of traction. Even long before Berenger found the hill, there was a man named Adam Johnson. He went on to gain the nickname Stovepipe in the Civil War. That's a fascinating story that I don't even go into in my article, but fascinating. There's so many stories here. I don't know how I contained it in so few words. And I see how excited you are about it. And that's fun too.

There's just so many things in your brain that you want to share. And I can't get them all out in the same organized manner. Anyways, I don't even know where I was. So Adam Stovepipe Johnson, he was a surveyor out in West Texas, and he surveyed the land. He actually found this spot up the river on the Colorado River, and he's like, this would be a perfect place for a dam. So he had a dream of building a dam there.

Of course, when he went off to the Civil War, he ended up losing his eyesight. And then he came back. He actually founded Marble Falls. Fascinating story in and of itself, but all that to say, he didn't end up building a dam, but he kind of laid the groundwork for it of having that idea, uh, and where he wanted to build the dam as original is eventually where it ended up being built. Uh, there was a company that started getting involved in it. Samuel Insull,

was a business magnate in the 1900s. And he was kind of backing this project to build a dam on the river. People wanted a dam because it's now known as a region in the country called Flash Flood Alley, the hill country area. And so they wanted flood control they wanted uh better irrigation for farmers and they wanted electricity so a dam seemed like a pretty damn good idea so insole kind of financed this project uh but then in i think 1931 or 1932 the project was about 45 complete and insole's whole empire goes toppling down he goes bankrupt i think he ends up fleeing the country and going to france just because he has some some financial problems and so with all that the the project on

the dam just comes to a halt and they're're left here like, what do we do? We have a dam that's half built. We have dumped about $3.5 million into this project. $3.5 million at the time of the 1930s. So quite a bit of money back then. It's a lot of money now. I want to look up how much that would be today. It's more than I have.

It's probably less than Elonon musk wants to spend on twitter um but so now they're they're stuck at like not having a dam but then ralph morrison a businessman from san antonio uh steps in with a plan uh along with alvin wurtz who's a he was a state senator from like 1925 to 1930 and then you have a congressman james buchanan not to be confused with james buchanan the president this is a congressman from west texas pronounced buchanan it would be 60 million sorry 60 million yes yeah that's a lot per the inflation calculator anyway um so 60 million dollars already dumped into this project uh so ralph morrison comes along with wurtz and buchanan pronounced buchanan apparently um and i think he actually had a

nickname his name was james paul buck buchanan now maybe i don't i don't know how the pronunciation came maybe he was just trying to differentiate himself from the president tangent anyways you're doing great am i yes you're on time we're probably like i could go for like three hours on this i know you could i'll several more minutes okay cool um oh no my screen is dying because i haven't moved my mouse so long you've been talking yeah uh so these three gentlemen come up with a plan to finance the project, not with private money, but with federal funds. So they go to the Hoover administration. Hoover basically tells them, no, we're not going to give you the money. Hoover of the famed dam.

Yes. Hoover of the famed dam. And they also are pointing to this dam and they're like, hey, this is going to be just like the Hoover Dam. It's going to bring a lot of electricity to the region. They're saying it's going to provide electricity for everything from Dallas to San Antonio, just like wide swaths of the state. And so they have this whole plan. The Hoover administration kind of pushes back against it. But for them, they saw it as fortunate when FDR got elected president the following year, or maybe it was the same year, actually. And of course, FDR ran on this whole

program of the New Deal, trying to push through the Public Works Administration and spending lots and lots and gobs and gobs of money on different infrastructure projects and whatnot. So they saw this as a golden opportunity so they go to the roosevelt administration and they say hey can you give us money to to finance this project can the government lend us some funds the roosevelt do you say roosevelt yeah roosevelt roosevelt i've heard of both of those. Really? I've never heard Roosevelt. Oh, cool. Okay, so they go to FDR. And FDR's guy basically says, I actually don't think I can do that to a private for-profit company.

And so now— That's surprising coming from him. Yeah, that's true. They're like, okay, well, what are we supposed to do? And so what they end up doing is pushing legislation in the state legislature for the Lower Colorado River Authority. And so this is where the Lower Colorado River Authority actually originated from. Wirtz, who's a former state senator, he's actually had been involved in other water projects like this and developing different water districts. Gets involved in it and kind of pulls some strings behind the scenes,

working with other legislators that he knew. Of course, he's not a senator now after 1930. Some also say that he was involved in the redistricting process and was pulling strings there to try and get... Man, you're just tying in all of your stuff. Yeah. They're trying to get... Supposedly now, I don't know. It sounds like it was a little bit...

It could have been either way because Buchanan was already on board with the project, but the redistricting could have added some counties that were more in the Colorado River region, giving him more incentive to do it. So you have Buchanan and Wirtztz a former state senator and current congressman working on the project to try and get the legislation passed at the state legislature to get the lower colorado river authority done so they get ma ferguson to call a fourth special session ma ferguson a non-consecutive two-time

governor yeah who sent the texas rangers after bonnie and clyde that is yeah we always we always talk about ma ferguson we always talk about her in different facts i like the two non-consecutive you like the body she's got a lot of interesting facts well also her husband's a whole other deal i brought her up in the santa claus story and now because she parted in santa claus rob the bank and now she's having a special session for them to create the lower colorado roof authority and so uh they do there's a little bit of opposition there but the legislation makes its way through buchanan uh which is really interesting at the time they're already calling it the buchanan dam like they're referring to the project by his name because he's the one who is

like i'm gonna get the federal money and everybody's like yay they're So they're cheering him on, and it's already the Buchanan Dam, is what it's called. Before that, it was the Hamilton Dam, but various debates on where the name Hamilton came from. Anyways, I see Matt's eyes just widening. I'm like, hurry up and get to the end of the story, so I will. They get the Lower Colorado River river authority done the next year they get federal funding uh from the government i think it's like 15 million dollars uh or something

like that through roosevelt's fdrs uh great the whole great new deal great deal great new deal whatever they call it the green new deal oh my Oh, my gosh. One of those deals. One of the deals. They got the funding for it and pushed it through. And so then the Buchanan Dam went live in 1937. Lake Buchanan became a thing. Beringer Hill became not a thing. And that is how there is now rare earths. One of the largest deposits of rare earths in Texas is now sitting underwater. Currently inaccessible. Yeah. Wow wow unless you snorkel down there now sometimes the the water levels do

fluctuate um and so you can there's actually an article uh that someone wrote in 2008 uh they've i think some people have been able to go out when the water levels are low and find some rare earth stuff left behind. So, yeah. That would be pretty profitable if we could access it for a number of different reasons, whether it's, you know, I'm totally blanking on the name of them. Solar panels, that's the thing. And semiconductors and all that stuff. And all the car batteries that Elon Musk needs for his Tesla Cybertruck. I think for Christmas I'm going to buy you three boys,

not Isaiah since he's not with us today, but scuba gear so that you can go down and harvest it. But then you can give it to me and then I can sell it. Yeah. I will give you a portion of the proceeds. You're like investing in a business. Correct. I'm starting a business.

Sounds like a good deal. I'll go along with it and then I'll just like investing in a business. Correct. I'm starting a business. I'll go along with it and then I'll just like, we'll cut you out. That sounds about right. That sounds about right. Well, Daniel, thank you for that. Folks, definitely go to the piece to read all about these details and very fascinating story in Texas history. Brad, we're going to hit this topic before we go on to Twitter real fast. But late last week, a Texas House member announced that he would file legislation in his chamber

marrying what Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has talked about, a Florida-style parental rights and education bill. Who was that and what did he have to say? Representative Gary Gates announced he'd be filing that legislation in the House that prohibits discussion of sexual topics in at least K-3 classrooms that was what

the florida bill does it is certainly possible uh that texas if they do pass something does something broader than that but right now that's the baseline from florida resented gates said disney's conduct disregards me as a parent and feels like a betrayal talking about uh what disney's executive officer said on some zoom thing about how they want to make at least half of all characters lgbt or something like that so they also opposed the florida bill specifically i think that's the policy focus criticism but he added as texas moves forward we will support lieutenant governor dan patrick's legislation in the senate to restrict how teachers talk about sexual or can talk about sexual orientation in the classroom mirroring yours in florida this was a letter to ronda santis governor

of florida likewise i will put put forth legislation in the texas house for the same purpose talk to us about what the speaker had to say about this proposal. So I think it was in Nogadoches, maybe not, somewhere in East Texas in the Speaker's District. He was discussing this issue and he said the House will take a thorough look at what's being taught in schools. And so that extends beyond this specific issue. But he indicated that this would obviously be something they will have to contend with because Dan Patrick is very clearly hell-bent on pushing this through the Senate, which means it will go to the House in some fashion. But he also added, as Republicans who always talk about cancel culture, we need to be mindful

of cancel culture in the legislature and singling out companies and corporations. I don't know that that's what the House wants to be focused on next session. One thing I didn't mention was that Dan Patrick, in conjunction with this classroom sexual discussion bill, he also wants to explore removing pension money from Disney, similar to what we talked about with the fossil fuel divestment earlier, it would be a similar bill. Governor Greg Abbott, though, has not yet said anything on this issue. We'll see if he does it all. But, you know, as we talked about with school choice,

education is a massive issue right now. And that will continue through the election this might be another uh you know a point of contention between governor ron de santis and governor greg abbott more comparison these two governors are constantly compared um by their constituents and those at large particularly in light of a potential presidential run for both of them um so it'll be very interesting to see what happens it will be thank you brad, gentlemen, we are going to pivot to Twitter and talk about notable tweets from the week. Daniel, I want to start with you. We've kind of talked about this already today,

or we've alluded to it, but what's going on with Elon and Twitter? Elon Musk, as I mentioned, is trying to buy Twitter. He already bought a pretty good chunk of Twitter. I think he it was like what 9.1 percent yeah uh which is a plurality stake is that well he he's the largest individual largest what's what's the proper terms he's the individual with the largest amount of shares so he owns quite a bit quite a big chunk he was they had this weird hole bringing them onto the board and then not bringing them onto the board thing, which was a little bit interesting and confusing.

And now he has made an offer to buy all the shares of Twitter for $54.20 a share. What are they valued at right now? I want to say... Less than that, by like $6 or something, right? More than $6. I think it's... Let me pull it up right here. right now um i want to say less than that by like six dollars or something right no more than six dollars i think it's let me pull it up right here twitter is at 46 and 35 cents so yeah yeah you're about right um so about eight bucks more um which is a significant amount of money ahead of the shares yeah it also puts the board in kind of this awkward

situation because uh if they refuse to buy it then the and musk sells his shares like the stock is going to tank some uh so that could be interesting yeah it's also interesting the number that he chose i don't think anybody has pointed this out but elon musk is known for making uh memes about 420 so 54 and 20 cents i don't think that was a coincidence. Oh, that's interesting. That would totally be the case. Well, we'll have to keep watching what happens. Hayden, I know you have a tweet as well that caught your eye on the same subject.

Oh, Robert O'Neill, who famously was one of the SEALs who shot Osama bin Laden. Oh, that's right. Yeah he i believe he was on the on the team he was the guy that shot um he tweet yeah he tweeted um show me on the little blue bird logo where elon musk hurt you and then he put the little laugh face emoji and y'all i don't know why this cracks me up but i just i picture I picture Elon Musk just going to bed after like he buys the shares on, on Twitter and then he's going to go on the board and he's like, you know what? Nevermind. And then he's going to bed.

He's like, you know what? I'm just going to buy the whole thing. Gets up the next morning, runs down to the SEC. Here's 43 billion. You know, here you go. Just casually. Yeah. Just, you know, and then he goes to i don't know p terry's

for lunch or something and that's yeah that just cracked me up i was gonna make fun of you which is p terry's i'm like wait no he's in austin he could totally go to p terry's that's so crazy staying in a massive riverside mansion according to some reports i've heard yeah some journalist went through a bunch of i of regular role to find that out. And yeah, I mean, if I was Elon Musk and I was living in Austin,

I would live in a mansion too. I would still go to Pete Harry's, but it's not, it's not his mansion. He's staying in someone else's. I don't even know if he's renting. I don't know if he's paying anything, but yeah,

I can't imagine like they were just made in the world to see it in your mansion and you don't make him pay anything. I don't know. I'm sure there's something that comes along with it. Yeah. Free Tesla. Oh my gosh. Well,

Hayden, that's a solid one. Brad, what do you have for us? Is it also Elon Musk related? It is not related to Elon Musk at all. We can make a connection. I'm good at this.

I'm sure you can. Go ahead and try. Oh my gosh. With the, the, the education theme that we've talked about, this is a big issue. And there's been a lot of discussion about books and materials that are in school libraries. And someone that has been following this a lot is Representative jared patterson he's been um tweeting out examples of books that are some of them are very obviously sexually explicit um others are more imbued with like political certain political um language things like that but um right now or earlier this week

he tweeted out another example of a book called uh boys aren't blue all boys aren't blue um and i'm not going to read the passages because it is extremely explicit but um patterson tweeted more sexually explicit materials in frisco isd and sanger isd two districts in his house district um neither district signed the pledge to not knowingly do business with vendors who supply pornography to texas schools that's in reference to a letter he put out he and i think it was like 30 other house members put out asking these superintendents to sign an agreement to do all they can to get these books out of their school libraries. Now, the issue comes to these book vendors.

They supply these districts with thousands of books. And so these very sexually explicit materials slip in. The question is who's putting them there. That's not really been found out yet. Um, but it's going to continue to be an issue. And especially the more books they find, um, in these libraries, if you want to, for some reason, see what is in this book that, um, that is, was found in, it's like eight school libraries throughout those districts. Go to his Twitter and you can read the passages.

But it is definitely, yes. Wow. Very good. Yeah, go ahead, Daniel. So how would lawmakers potentially push back against this stuff? Would it be like property tax-related stuff? Well, you could do that you know we saw um in last session we saw the legislature with the police defunding situation um threatened to freeze rates if they have deemed a locality to have defunded their police department i assume

you could do something like that there's also just the public pressure campaign which patterson is doing right now criticizing them a lot um so i suppose there's a bunch of different things they could do i was going to try and make an Elon musk connection with property taxes since tax local property tax breaks for Tesla and something. I'm trying to make the connection. I don't think it works on this one, sorry. I tried. I'm just looking at Daniel.

As soon as he asked that question, I just looked at him and I was like, oh my gosh, he's trying right now. And I knew exactly what you were doing. Lord in heaven. Okay, folks, well, I'm going to share one tweet that I thought was notable from the chairman of the Texas GOP, Matt Rinaldi. Matt Rinaldi, a former state legislator, state house member, recently became Texas GOP chair after Allen West opted to run for governor. tenure and even when he was in the legislature primarily even since then um in terms of the covid lockdowns he had a lot to say about the governor's approach to coronavirus um even some of the reforms that were put in place in the legislature very interesting to watch and he had before i believe it was before and help me on my timeline here brad but i believe he endorsed don

huffines before he became chairman just as a former lawmaker he endorsed like 2020 because he and huffines were going around on the speaking circuit with uh true texas project that's right that's right um kind of talking about a lot of these coronavirus shutdowns and like you said criticizing abbott a lot yes very vocally i mean literally not speaking to or criticizing the governor so it is notable when um this chairman of the texas gop who has you know towed a different line since he entered this office for sure he pulled his endorsement he pulled his endorsement and though he still will criticize the governor um he's not operated as a bomb thrower as he was seen previously in the same capacity that he was before but interesting nonetheless

to see in light of the border agreement that hayden talked about earlier between governor garcia and the state of texas matt rinaldi tweeted the decision to apply pressure so agreements like this could be reached is good policy the flack governor abbott is getting from the austin press make me like it even more long way to go go on the border, but this is meaningful. Good job. Matt Rinaldi. Look at that. Saying yes to, or say, you know, praising something the governor's doing.

Very interesting to see. Notable for sure. I just thought, scrolling through my Twitter feed, that that was a very fascinating take from the Texas GOP chairman. And the last two Texas GOP chairman, Allen West and Rinaldi, have both been very, very critical of the governor. Allen West more so would position himself directly opposite of Abbott. He sued the governor when they ran against him.

So very interesting to see that kind of from the chair of the party. It's also interesting that the policy is similar to uh what huffines put out during his gubernatorial run um i think huffines called for in top shutting down the um commerce entirely across the entire border and this was one one entryway i think maybe two um but yeah it's just interesting seeing the the lines that were drawn and now are kind of melding together well those increased inspection times were a big part of that too right it's like the time it takes to get across the border very fascinating um okay any final thoughts for our listeners i have one more quick tweet to share. Okay. I just saw this. Diogo Bernal retweeted this.

It's from a count. His name is Superman Always. He said, I saw this online and now it's the only Superman I really want to see made. And there's a picture of Clark Kent in the description. It says, I want to see a comic about the CIA trying to murder Clark Kent and making it look like an accident. Not because they know he's Superman, but he's a really good journalist. Make it a comedy because the CIA assassins can't figure out why their attempts keep failing. Now I want to

see this movie too. Well, let's get some screenwriters on this. Daniel, your next novel. Yeah, there we go. There you go. Well folks, thank you for listening and 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.

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