The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 22, 2022

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses Austin considering a universal basic income program, revelations about the state-funded Liberty Institute at UT, state officials debating whether the border crisis counts as an “invasion,” Wendy Davis filing a lawsuit against the Texas Heartbeat Act, home appraisals in the Austin area skyrocketing, arrests of illegal immigrants at the border processed under Title 42, the latest in campaign fundraising numbers, Dallas County’s judge using taxpayer dollars in a legal battle with Gov. Abbott, and a few campaign updates as the runoff elections approach. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on next week’s podcast.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, our team discusses Austin considering a universal basic income program. Revelations about the state-funded Liberty Institute at UT. State officials debating whether the border crisis counts as an invasion. Wendy Davis filing a lawsuit against the Heartbeatville. Home appraisals in the Austin area skyrocketing, arrests of illegal immigrants at the border processed under Title 42, the latest in campaign fundraising numbers, Dallas County's judge using taxpayer dollars in a legal battle

with Governor Abbott, and a few campaign updates as the runoff elections approach. If you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on our podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Friend, Isaiah Mitchell, and Hayden Sparks. We're all here on another episode of the Weekly Roundup Podcast. We were just talking about how always when we start recording, we record on Thursdays, the podcast is published on Fridays, how we all get a little hungry, right, as we're starting to record.

So I think about lunch almost the entire time. Well, Isaiah doesn't get hungry because he eats lunch at 10. Yeah, but I'm starting to get to that point where I want to eat lunch at like 10 okay yeah exactly america but isaiah eats like you know brisket at 10 a.m honestly if i had brisket at 10 a.m i would eat it too so are you gonna wait for it yeah maybe lunch that's just my thought but i am getting i i am getting hungry earlier so i have more empathy for isaiah nowadays there you go i have um pesto pasta waiting for me for lunch you have what kind of pasta sounds dangerous pasta i've never heard of this is it good just pesto it's really it's good because i literally talked about that yesterday oh wait what what'd you say didn't i just talk

about pesto pasta yesterday is that why you made it no i made it on uh tuesday night yeah but it's yummy and that's what i'll be having for lunch i will think about it throughout the rest of this recording on that note not on that note at all but let's talk about the city of austin um the city of austin had another very controversial spending item on its council agenda. Tell us about it. So today being Thursday, the Austin City Council has an item on its lengthy agenda that would establish a pilot universal basic income program. Basically, universal basic income is just a set amount of money that the government gives people every month. And this is, like I said, a pilot program. So if it's passed,

if it's approved, it would pay $1,000 per month to 85 families for a year. And the total contract is worth $1.18 million. Most of that would be taken up by the benefits that would be doled out. Then with a service fee for the vendor who is Up Together, which is support of it, intend it to grow into a broader UBI program down the road. What that would entail, they don't know. But that's the intention. Got it. Where does this stand at the moment? So they're currently in their thursday meeting as we record this

uh there on wednesday there was some pushback building um among some council members and four specifically that said uh that called for it to be postponed for a later council meeting and those four were mackenzie kelly cheeto vela who replaced replaced Greg Kassar, Leslie Poole, and Ann Kitchen. And so when I checked before we recorded this morning, it got moved to an executive session. So that's not something that you would be able to watch if you tune into the council meeting but um usually when that much opposition or at least opposition to considering it today bubbles up it will get postponed just like another item did earlier this month the um 15 million dollar covid pr contract that we talked about that got moved to actually today so we'll see what they do on that item as well. But, um, you know,

by the time this podcast comes out, we'll know whether the, um, the UBI program got pushed or not. So very good. You mentioned McKenzie Kelly reminded me of a time I was at an event. I was wearing my name tag. Someone came over to me and congratulated me on a fellowship that I had received thinking I was Mackenzie Kelly. And she knows me. Like, this is a person who knows me, but I think she read Mackenzie Kelly's name on the announcement and just, you know, transposed our last names and thought I had been the one to receive it. Well, congratulations on that.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I was about to say, did you go with it? Did you? She's like, thank you. I love serving my constituents. Well, for a second, I thought i'd been awarded a fellowship i didn't no idea i had set out to you know procure but that was not the case at all anyway that's my mckinley kelly story okay isaiah i want to um

well brad thank you for that i've almost forgot to thank you for your wonderful reporting bradley i'm so sorry doing the thing i'm obligated to do um isaiah i do want to give you props this week you published a story um and that's it i published a story there are more coming down the pipe but uh it's an incredible story about the liberty institute kind of breaking this um wide open talking about what has gone on since the legislature approved this program at UT. But remind us first what the Liberty Institute is supposed to be, what it basically just give us a rundown of what it was set out to be. You told me to be pithy earlier, but I will say

that's a good question because there's been a lot of debate about the identity of the Institute and what it's meant to be. it was originally born in faculty offices there's a professor at ut he's still there and carlos carvalho statistics professor who worked with some others including other faculty and other supporters of something that already got there called the salem center for policy events which is already like kind of right leaning focused on economics yeah and he came up with this idea for an institute at UT that would be kind of like the Hoover Institution, where it's a home for heterodox academics

who are not in line with the prevailing mostly left-wing ideology at UT. But with the Liberty Institute, the idea was that it would have degree programs and classes and up to 15 independently hired tenured track professors that would be creating this this programming um it was very publicly pushed by dan patrick during the session and it got added to the budget they allotted it six million dollars so three million for each year in the biennium since that's how the texas budget works but um

i mean two years essentially when the legislature meets. Yes. Yeah. And so they push it through with a lot of help from Dan Patrick, got some funding. I mentioned that there was some dispute over what the institute was meant to be, especially you see this in the media over like, you know, what it is and what it's meant to accomplish. Dan Patrick touted it as an antidote to what he called the poison of critical race theory in the minds of young students. And he says, we banned it in publicly funded K-12 and we'll ban it in publicly funded higher ed. That's why we created the Liberty Institute at UT.

That's something that he wrote in a social media post. Got it. So what's the status of this project now? According to people involved in it, including Carvalho and another professor who worked on it, Dan Lowry, and some others, it is stalled. There was a timeline included in the initial draft proposal, which we have included in the article. Very important to look at. And that timeline is just not being met at this point. I asked Carvalho specifically about what's going on with the project.

And for one, he, the creator of the project, has been sidelined. He was removed from the committee steering it. And so he's no longer officially involved with the ongoing creation of this institute. What he really is complaining about, though, is that he says that independent hiring in his opinion was very necessary for the success of the project because the way he sees it without the ability for the people that were invested in the creation of the institute controlling the hiring practices of the institute the money will go to will go through existing departments who will decide who is hired and that he says says, will create,

it will maintain the intellectual imbalance that the university already has on campus. So, on the other side of the debate, University of Texas President Jay Hartzell has said in faculty council meetings that a lack of independent hiring is actually, that actually conforms with the way that they run centers and institutes at UT already. He says they generally don't appoint tenured faculty. So the administration's position is that, you know, taking away what was in the original proposal to have independent hiring is actually just, you know, kind of playing by existing rules for the institute. But Carvalho, Richard Lowry, who worked on it with this project, both say that without the ability to hire staff independently, something else to add to this,

they're also going to go through a diversity, equity, and inclusion office. They have a big seat at the helm of who gets hired according to current proposals for hiring for this Institute. But without independent hiring, as I said before, the existing administration and system of UT is going to maintain that same pattern at the institute, according to the creators of the project. Another little detail is that one administration leader specifically

who has a leading seat at the helm of the project is Richard Flores, who's a professor in the Mexican-American Studies Department. And Flores is a critical theorist, actually. Critical theory is a big part of his academic publishing, you know, corpus. So a critical theorist has a major seat at the helm of this project that is in a very deep and ideological level opposed to a lot of the ideas that are very fundamental to critical theory, which is interesting. Meanwhile, Dan Patrick, who had been, you know, boasting about the success of the project and its possibilities during the session

a little bit afterward, according to Carvalho and Lowryry is not involved at all. They gave somewhat disputing accounts over how much they believe he knows. His office did not respond to me for comment. Flores did not respond to me for comment. But he is kind of, he pivoted to a new position that, that's a whole

other article with regards to like how to address in his terms what he sees as a problem with CRT and the university. But he's no longer really involved in this project now. Wow. That's so fascinating. So then there's another player as well. We've seen a lot of Twitter action, Facebook. Even there were some news articles written about the potential new head of the Liberty Institute and where he would be tapped from.

Talk to us a little bit about him. Yeah, so Justin Dyer is, from what we're seeing in media coverage of what I was told by professors, is likely the frontrunner that the administration has eyed to lead the Institute. So Justin Dyer has built, he's done similar type projects in the same political vein at the University of Missouri, where he'd be coming from. And Carvalho and Lowry give, again, here it's like where it's just somewhat conflicting theories on how the search culminated in Dyer. Carvalho is mainly disappointed, he said, because he and the other professors who were infested in creating the project originally say that they had approached staff at other elite institutions like the University of Chicago, Stanford, and other top universities whose funding and research is more on par with the activity and funding that you see at UT. And so he said that he wishes Dyer all the best if he's ultimately picked but feels that the

search was done hastily and he says he wasn't sure why it was done this way because for one as I said the people initially invested in creating the project had actually approached others about it and two the University of Missouri is just simply like by the numbers alone, not an institution on par with UT in terms of funding and research activity. And so that was Carvalho's main concern. It's the depth of the talent pool, essentially. Yes. And so he believes that like UT could have aimed for top talent from like other existing

academics that are on that same level. And Larry had some other theories that are included in the article in somewhat greater detail that dyer has existing friendships with the remaining donors who are on the committee or the remaining higher-ups on the committee that are steering the institute at this time and that the application process was not blasted out nationwide as they said it would be, but really rather hastily done, a little bit secretive and not well advertised, leading to three applicants, only one of which, Dyer, submitted a very serious application. So a lot of skepticism around that appointment for sure. Well, it's a wonderful piece of journalism.

Certainly go check it out at the texan.news folks from Isaiahaiah mitchell this piece on the liberty institute we'll keep an eye on that story and isaiah thank you for covering that for us you're so welcome hayden let's talk about um illegal immigration shocker you're probably your biggest beat is the border and illegal immigration at this point so yeah yeah it takes up the most the majority of your time um but let's talk about a lawmaker i'm talking about you know asking the attorney general for his input for his uh you know a little bit of a little bit of back and forth here between two um lawmakers here in texas talk to us about what representative matt krause um had to say about illegal immigration this week representative krause chose a formal venue to make his request of the Attorney General's

opinion. A lot of the time, politicians and candidates will go back and forth on social media. They'll ask each other questions on forums, but this was a very formal way of asking Attorney General Paxton if he believes the border crisis or illegal immigration constitutes an invasion of our southern border. And his request centers on two constitutional provisions in the U.S. Constitution. First, the United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion and on application of the legislature or of the executive when the legislature cannot be convened against domestic violence end quote then there's another constitutional provision that allows states to defend themselves this is an article 1 section 10 quote no state shall

without the consent of congress lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in times of peace, enter into any agreements or compact with another state or with a foreign power or engage in war unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay, end quote. Attorney General Paxton now has the option of issuing an opinion on whether illegal immigration is an invasion. The Arizona Attorney General issued a similar opinion that Representative Krause said he found compelling. Paxton is being asked to make a similar finding or express a similar viewpoint. So that's the request that was made. But this happens in the middle of a runoff for both of these men. Representative Krause originally ran

against Paxton for attorney general in the Republican primary, but then dropped that race and is now in a runoff for Tarrant County District Attorney against Judge Phil Sorrells, who has been endorsed by Donald Trump. So, Mr. Krause has a lot of political capital on the line, and it looks like he's seeking to get his views on immigration out there. As far as the timeline for Attorney General Paxton's response, Krause asked him to expedite his answer, but I'm personally not sure if there's a specific deadline that Paxton has to act. I imagine it would depend on the complexity of the legal issue or his answer. But you can go to the texan.news. We have the full letter embedded in that article about Representative Krause's

request of Attorney General Paxton. Very good. What have been some of the points on both sides of this invasion argument? This invasion argument has been made in the past. Krause is not the first one to raise it. It concerns the level of urgency of illegal immigration. Congressman Chip Roy recently called on Governor Abbott to shut down the border. Those were the words he used. Of course, there are those who say that tactically that's not really an option because militarily there are only so many things that can be done and shutting down the border would entail a complicated mission, tactically speaking. And this would be a nuclear option of sorts, calling this an invasion and excluding the federal government from the state's response to illegal immigration, which is, of course, a course of action that Governor Abbott has declined to take thus far. He's still making sure that the state is staying on the right side of U.S. Supreme Court and other federal court

rulings. So this would dramatically raise the level of urgency. And those who are in favor of this say that because Texans are being subjected to crime, being committed by illegal immigrants, and the federal government is relaxing policies that would deter illegal immigration, that this response is justified. And they point to the number of enforcement encounters, which we'll talk about later in this podcast. But because there has been an increase in more than a million illegal immigrants since Biden took office, they contend that this is a necessary option. Of course, not a very small portion of those people are criminals other than crossing illegally, but there are those who say that this is necessary. And the counter argument would be that the state needs to remain in cooperation with the rest of the union and that this border crisis does not justify such a dramatic escalation of our response in terms of rebuffing the federal government's authority. Yeah, certainly. Complicated issue. Some of it has to do with rhetoric,

and part of it is just legality. Very interesting to watch that kind of combine here. Thank you, Hayden. Daniel, we're going to come to you. A former state senator and gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis, filed a new lawsuit against the Texas Heartbeat Act this week. This is somebody who has certainly been very vocal about her pro-choice views in the past, well-known for her filibuster years ago. What makes this lawsuit different from the others that have been filed against the new law? So Isaiah has done a great job covering a lot of these lawsuits in the past. His plate was a little bit full this week, so I went ahead and took this for him. But this lawsuit is a little bit different than the other ones that have been filed for a couple different reasons that caught my attention.

Just I'll note real quickly that there's two big lawsuits in federal courts that have happened. There's been one from the Biden administration that sued Texas directly. And then there's been another one from a bunch of abortion providers, I think, or abortion funds that were suing a variety of people, including the attorney general, a state judge, a state clerk, a pro-life activist, and several state agencies. So I'd say the big difference between this new lawsuit and those other two ones, one of the biggest differences is the defendants listed in the case. So unlike the Biden administration, which sued the state of Texas, or the defendants listed in the other lawsuit, this one really focuses more on private individuals. There are four individuals who are named in the lawsuit. Two of them target a person or people who have actually taken some legal action against abortion funds under SB 8. Another person is someone who has made a threat of it.

And then the fourth person listed as a defendant is State Representative Briscoe Cain, who has sent a cease and desist letter to abortion funds, which his letter is really the second key thing that's different about this lawsuit than the previous one, whereas those ones just focus more on SB8, the Texas Heartbeat Act itself. This one also includes some context about a pre-Roe v. Wade law in Texas that Briscoe Cain actually, in his letter, really was the basis for that. And that abortion law actually prohibits the furnishing the means to procure abortions. Um, of course,

after Roe v. Wade, the state basically just set that aside and stopped enforcing everything together. And now there's been a big push from lawmakers like representative Cain to say, Hey, like there's actually sections of this that we can enforce.

Um, so that's something that's a little bit different, uh, in this lawsuit. Yeah. Like the idea behind that's a little bit different in this lawsuit. Yeah, like the idea behind that is that Roe v. Wade recognized a right to abortion, but it did not recognize the right to furnish the means to an abortion. So Cain says that he thinks this can still be enforced, but the only reason it's not is because these abortion funds inhabit areas where DAs are ideologically opposed to prosecuting them.

Got it. So this is kind of an aside here, but the means to furnish an abortion, I mean, we've seen cities, like let's drill down into what that could potentially mean. We've seen cities, I believe the city of Austin, Brad, had for a while a program that would help fund transportation for women seeking abortions. Different localities have had programs like that in the past so this is essentially taking aim at those kinds of programs or ideas correct yeah but also even in the private level okay got it um so can you all explain some more of why such an old law is getting attention in court now yeah so as i kind of explained some of it, quote some from actually Kane's letter, his cease and desist letter that he sent to these abortion funds. He said, quote, courts do not have the ability or the authority to strike down or formally revoke statutes when

pronouncing them unconstitutional. Kane contended that the severability provisions of Texas law allows the state's pre-row abortion statutes to be enforced in situations that do not violate the constitutional rights of abortion patients. In essence, that means that the old state law, quote, remains fully enforceable against abortion funds that pay for abortions performed in Texas, as well as their donors. So that's actually something that he said himself, that's kind of the argument that he's putting forward. He's also said separately that he wants to enact legislation or enact legislation next session that to, quote, ensure that these lawbreakers are prosecuted by authorizing district attorneys from around the state to be able to sue to prosecute crimes when a local district attorney is not willing to do so, which would really, you know, if these things are happening in big counties like Travis County or Harris County, where you probably have a Democratic district attorney less likely to prosecute such crimes, that's really what this

is focused on. So, allowing DAs that are probably more Republican from other parts of the state that are actually pro-life pushing to enforce this pro-life policy. Wow. Now, Davis's lawsuit that she sued, it asks the court to have a declaratory judgment against SB8, but she also asks for the court to enter a declaratory judgment that the criminal abortion ban, this law, this pre-rural law, quote, cannot be lawfully enforced because the U.S. Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional. So this is being brought back to the courts.

We'll see what happens with it. Anything to add, Isaiah? No. Boom. Good tag teaming, boys. Thank you so much. We'll keep an eye on that for sure. Bradley, let's talk about, speaking of Austin, let's talk about Austin.

The Austin area, Travis County, is among the fastest growing parts of texas in both population and cost of living as we all around this table know as property tax appraisals hit mailboxes talk to us about what the travis county appraisal district announced uh yeah so quickly before I get into that, I found a an update on the EBI program and it was pushed to May 5th. So they while we were talking, they did push that. But in terms of property tax appraisals, the Travis County Appraisal District said as they were announcing the mailing of appraisal notices out to their, I forget the exact number, but it was a lot of households and businesses, I'm sure. They announced that the average home value in Travis County increased 56% this year, which is massive.

Just this year? Yep. year which is massive just this year yep and uh you know a month ago or so i uh wrote a piece on statewide appraisals increasing and they said the average was across the state was between 20 and 50 percent increase and this is even higher than that so it's a massive massive jump the median home value in travis county is 632 000 roughly um which is a lot that is huge yeah i compared that to the city of houston which um has relatively lax zoning laws that it was like 250 000 yeah and dallas is 310 so that's totally different. It is obviously a problem and it's something that is becoming a massive theme in the mayor's race. There's the affordability, the availability of housing, that kind of thing.

So the total total appraisal role in Travis County rose 43 percent. The total amount of value property value in the county rose to four hundred and $447 billion, which is a staggering amount. Wow. That was the general update there on just the appraisal side. What does this mean for taxpayers? So while the appraisal increases are startling, and they are startling, that does not mean taxpayers will see a proportional increase in their tax bills. For homeowners, Texas has a 10% increase cap on the appraisal's taxable value for homesteads. So if you have a homestead

exemption, the amount that any of these localities can tax you on your appraisal increase, it only goes up 10%. After it can go up to a 10% increase, If it's above that, your actual appraisal. So let's say you are feeling your home is getting the 56% appraisal increase. Only 10% of that will be taxable for you. So that could still yield a significant jump in what you are paying for your tax bill. But it wouldn't be as stark as what you would see if there was no appraisal increase cap for homesteads. Now, that is not the case for businesses. So if you have a small business and your property value went up 56%, unless you qualify for other exemptions, first of all, you're not going to get that 10% increase cap. And the array of exemptions available to businesses is much lower than is available for homesteads.

But that said, we don't know what tax bills will look like yet because local officials at the various political subdivisions will make the decision on tax rates, usually between August and September. And that determines how much in taxes you will actually pay, how much in increase you will feel. If they don't adopt the no new revenue tax rate or a lower one, then your tax bill will increase. So they can talk about how we reduce the tax rate over and over. But unless that is the no new revenue rate, you're paying more. So just know that.

Taxpayers have on the appraisal side again, taxpayers have until May 16th to protest their appraisal. If you don't know how to do that, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has a good explainer on how to protest that. So if you just search that in google should come up um but that's something that can really help reduce the amount that the amount of tax burden you'll feel um but uh odds are if you go up 56 you're not going to be able to protest it successfully to drop it under 10 so you're still going to pay a 10 increase in your tax bill um on average so yeah there's that yeah wildly expensive to live here in austin fascinating well thank you brad for um breaking that down for us hayden we're going to come back

to the border shocker let's talk more about this we alluded to this earlier um but let's talk about how many illegal immigrants were processed under title 42 in March, and when is Title 42 set to end? I just want to say, every time we say on the border or back to the border, I just get hungry for chips and salsa every time without fail. But we're looking at a very probable increase in illegal immigration this summer after Title 42 ends. The most recent report from CBP indicated that there were 221,000 enforcement encounters nationwide or the southwestern U.S. in March and 129,000 of those were in Texas border patrol sectors. The reason these numbers are significant at this point is Title 42, which are the federal laws that allow the federal government to invoke a public health emergency that results in expelling illegal immigrants more quickly.

The application of that is going to end on May 23rd due to a directive by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been estimates reported, and the governor's office indicated this as well, but that there could be up to 18,000 enforcement encounters with illegal aliens daily when this policy winds down and to put the put it in perspective the number of illegal immigrants who have been processed for deportation under this policy half of the illegal aliens taken into custody in march were processed under this policy according to commissioner chris magnus and i want to read his full quote because it's significant. Quote, CBP continues to enforce the CDC's Title 42 public health order. Half of migrants encountered in March were processed for expulsion under Title 42, and those who were not processed under Title 42 continue to be processed for removal under Title 8, the same authorities CBP has used

throughout our history, end quote. And he mentioned Title VIII because those are the regular immigration laws of the U.S. government, which will go back into full effect. Well, they're still in effect, excuse me. They are in effect, but Title 40 people who might have otherwise been processed under Title 42 will not be processed under Title 8. And I say processed because that's the word that the feds use there. They are taken into custody and then they are consulted and the enforcement encounter follows the guidelines and those federal laws. So that is the proportion of people who are taken care of under Title 42. That program is set to end on May 23rd. Wow. So talk to us about how enforcement

encounters in March compared to previous months. And when was the last time there were this many encounters? Specifically focusing on Texas sectors, there was a 32% increase in apprehensions from February to March. February had about 97,000 and last month had 129,000. There haven't been this many enforcement encounters since August of last year. And Title 42 isn't even over yet. So we're looking at an increase of nearly a third in apprehensions in Texas sectors from February to March. And April's almost over, but it seems to be taking longer and longer for CBP to come out with the numbers. I don't know if that's just a feeling I have or if so far this fiscal year, 1.2 million encounters with illegal aliens and unaccompanied children. And again, we haven't even started yet on the post-Title 42 atmosphere. when the federal government instituted a policy that would grant temporary protected status to Haitian illegal aliens who were here prior to a certain date last summer. And there was confusion reported around that policy. And what ultimately happened was a rush of about 30,000 illegal

crossings in Val Verde County in a compact period of time. And deportations to Haiti commenced after a brief pause. The federal government really was forced to reinstate those deportations. So Commissioner Magnus, a Biden administration official, has stated that very likely there will be a spike in illegal crossings and they are surging resources to the border to hopefully be able to respond to that. Wow. Well, thank you for breaking that down for us real fast. Title 42. Let's go back and just like give a 30 second little spiel of what Title 42 is. President Trump originally invoked title 42 at the beginning of the pandemic to keep to reduce the spread of covet 19 it's a federal law that when there is a disease that can be spread

uh through uh i guess transmission transmission then the border can be shut down to people who are not legally authorized to be here. Got it. So it was a piece of code invoked specifically for COVID-19. Well, thank you, Hayden, for that. We're going to stick with you here and talk about Dallas County drama. Talk to us about how much Dallas County taxpayers will spend on Judge Jenkins' lawsuit against Governor Abbott. A small sum of a quarter of a million dollars. That could be a good down payment on a house in Austin. Emphasis on down payments. You might be able to buy a tent in Austin

for a quarter of a million dollars. Hey, look at that. It'd be a fancy tent, but a tent nonetheless. A yurt, maybe. Yeah, a yurt. $250,000 was earmarked by the commissioner's court this week to pay the legal fees of Judge Jenkins' lawsuit against Governor and Abbott, but it started with Jenkins kicking Commissioner J.J. Koch out of a commissioner's court meeting because he wasn't wearing a face covering. And Jenkins had said that if you wanted to be in the commissioner's courtroom, you had to have a face covering.

This appropriation of a quarter of a million dollars was not plan A for Jenkins to pay for his lawsuit. It was originally going to be paid for with COVID-19 relief donations from a charity called Community Foundations of Texas. There was a public outcry. I say public outcry. There was pushback from Jenkins' political opponents. Lauren Davis, who is his opponent in the GOP primary, told us that she believed it reflected on his leadership and that it was one more reason he should go. I did reach out to Jenkins when we originally reported on this. His campaign and his office did not get back with me. But Jenkins changed course. And what's interesting is the original motion to spend the COVID-19 donations was drafted by his office.

But this motion was drafted, I think, by the county administrator. And it was a different originating agency that drafted this motion. But Jenkins and Commissioner Koch recused themselves from this vote. And interestingly enough, Commissioner John Wiley Price, who has also gone to bat with Jenkins throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, took his side on this. The three remaining commissioners who, I say remaining commissioners, Jenkins recused himself and Koch recused himself. So there were three commissioners in the room and they unanimously supported this despite Price's battling with Jenkins in the past. Yeah, certainly. So how did this lawsuit begin and why did Commissioner Koch

recuse himself while commissioners were considering this plan? Well, I sort of gave that away a little bit. But of course, it started with the dispute over the masks, but they've also argued over the vaccination strategy. And the big justification for spending county funds on this was the fact that there was some kind of public interest in this. before the vote commissioner price called this a personal dispute those were his words between Koch and Jenkins so while the commissioner's court stated that this lawsuit between Jenkins and Abbott which challenged Abbott's prohibition on local mask mandates that this was a public interest and that this lawsuit which is now pending in the Texas Supreme Court, has implications for public health and other issues of local control versus state control during a disaster. Commissioner Price did call this a personal dispute, and I don't think anybody disagrees that this did begin with Koch and Jenkins going at it over some of the, what Koch would consider

more onerous COVID-19 protocols of the county judge, which Dallas County was one of the first counties to institute a stay-at-home order. So, we've got the federal mask mandate ending. We have Title 42 ending. The pandemic is officially coming to a close and yet we still have these ancillary legal issues drawing out past the end of the pandemic and these disputes between local officials yeah well clay jenkins name id skyrocketed during the covid 19 pandemic particularly as he went to bat against the governor on a lot of these kinds of issues particularly related to the

response to the pandemic fascinating stuff and interesting to watch it still be in the news two years later. Daniel, we're going to pivot back to you. One of your beats tends to be fundraising numbers and combing through quarterly reports. We have another that came out this week, or last week rather. Who were the big fundraisers this time yes right before easter uh federal candidates for office had to file their quarterly reports so this covers uh well actually this period for most congressional candidates actually covered from about february to the end of march uh they had filed a pre-primary report for the people who are in primary elections which is all house candidates. Senate candidates had to file ones for the entire quarter from January to March. Now, that said, whenever we do a report on federal candidates

fundraising, there's always two names that we see at the top consistently over and over again, at least in the past several years that I've been here. And that would be Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Dan Crenshaw. These are two of Texas' superstar fundraisers, and once again, they were both at the top of the list with over $1 million. Dan Crenshaw raised a total of $1.9 million for the quarter, and Cruz raised $1.5 million, which is notable because he's not even on the ballot. Crenshaw is, of course, but Cruz not on the ballot this year.

So those are some big numbers for them this first three months of the year. But the notable thing about the fundraising numbers this year, or this quarter rather, was that there was someone who topped them both. And it was a Democrat who's not even an incumbent. Jessica Cisneros reported raising $2.4 million for the entire quarter. So she's challenging Representative Henry Cuellar, and that was quite a big haul. Yeah. What are some of the reasons? What's the root of support in this way? Some of the things that I would pin it on, of course, there's no way to actually know exactly everything that goes into fundraising, but some of the broad things that

we see, she has the support of national progressives like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She's in a very competitive race with Representative Henry Cuellar, who's seen as one of the more moderate members in the Democratic caucus. And so he's also had some – there was an FBI raid on his house, and he's been connected with that in some ways. Now, his name actually hasn't been brought up as being tied to or like a part of the scandal, just somehow connected to something that the FBI is investigating. Not a lot of details on that. But Cisneros also ran in 2020 against Cuellar and ran a very close race that time. And so once again, it's been very close. They're now in a runoff.

So I'm sure all those variables put together, she's just a candidate that has a lot of support, especially outside of Texas. It's not just, you know, there's, I think she raised a few hundred thousand dollars in Texas, but a lot of this money has come from outside of Texas, which is also very interesting. Yeah.

So those are just some of the reasons that I would suspect why she's been such a big fundraiser this cycle. Yeah, lots of heavy hitters. So who are some of the other big fundraisers? Yeah, real quick. Of course, you always have some who are kind of newer to the scene who have just raised a lot of money. We have that right now with representative or not representative Wesley Hunt, who's the GOP nominee for Texas's 38th congressional district, which is a new district in Houston. He also ran last time against Lizzie Fletcher and was a big name. And so he's walked away with $1.3 million for this quarter raised.

You have Representative Jake Elsey, who's a new congressman in the 6th congressional district, won a special election last year. He raised close to $1,944,000. Then, of course, Cuellar, also running for re-election against Cisneros, raised a big sum, almost not quite $800,000. So that's still a third of what Cisneros raised, but also among the top, among candidates in Texas. And other big names are two republican candidates morgan latrell the gop nominee for the eighth congressional district and monica de la cruz who's the nominee for the 15th congressional district they also both raised over 700 700 000 wow lots of lots of lots of big money happening here um brad are you watching sports i am oh my gosh is wow almost uh he was up

to bat and he's chasing his 3000th hit so i'm sitting here trying to smoothly milestone transition from one portion of this podcast to another and brad's arms just go flying and yeah exactly like flying in the air flew out to right field so ridiculous you really hit a home run with that transition oh my gosh damn friend also i do want to give a shout out every week on this podcast it is freezing cold in the podcast room i have this blanket that was sent to us by one of our readers joe hootman and i just want to say thank you i use it every week and oftentimes every day on you know just at the office i'm always cold your blanket yeah he's ended to the whole team this is a very loyal uh listener and reader and i have completely commandeered it and use it all the time it has a special drawer in my desk where it stays and i pull it out and use it as much as i need which is pretty much every day i even have a heater in my office as soon as i have a heater

and the blanket you know you use at the same time on the on the drawer like a nameplate that just says yes like the commemorative hootman drawers i totally should joe hootman memorial drawer but i thought about um shouting you out many times on this podcast joe and so now i'm finally remembering mid podcast but thank you so much you um ensure that i stay warm which is very helpful and office full of these boys who would rather it be um an icebox in here so i appreciate it bradley um if we aren't interrupting your sports watching oh no it's between innings okay perfect perfect timing let's talk about the house district 73 debate that you and i went to earlier this week talk to us a little bit about the drama that went on there so it was a really interesting time. It was like 300 to 400 people at this town hall. It was a lot.

The GOP runoff for HD 73, which is an open seat to candidates are former New Braunfels mayor, Baron Castile and Carrie Isaac, who was a candidate for hd45 in 2020 her husband jason is um a former state rep in he was state rep in hd45 um what was that like six seven years ago yeah four or five yeah um and so it was it's been a pretty contentious race uh the two candidates are um both pretty formidable in the district and it was very tight in the primary so um i wrote a piece about what they discussed their policy positions um they each have gotten some high-profile endorsements castile boasts abbott's endorsement, Governor Abbott, and Kerry Isaac has been endorsed by Senator Ted Cruz. Yeah.

One of those examples we've talked about previously on the pod of the governor and Texas junior senator kind of splitting ways on their endorsements this cycle. Yep. So, you know, they talked property taxes. They talked school choice. They talked Democratic chairman in the Texas House. They talked the speaker. So if you want a critical race theory, critical race theory, gender education, all that stuff. So if you want to if you're interested in that race, I'd recommend you give it a read.

It's got a lot in there. But, yeah, it's certainly going to be one of the races to watch on the runoff on May 24th. Certainly. Thank you, Bradley. Speaking of campaigns, Isaiah, let's talk to you. The primary elections for a lane commissioner for both parties went to a runoff, meaning that two candidates for each party are now vying for their party's nomination. Are there clear frontrunners?

Yes. There already were. It was an interesting race. It's the only open statewide seat in Texas right now. And the Republican side started with, I want to say, eight candidates, and the Democrats with four. And as you said, they've narrowed down to two now, the top two from the primary.

And on the Republican side, it's pretty clear. You've got Don Buckingingham a current state senator going against tim wesley an educator and veteran and uh alan west when he was chair of the texas gop appointed him to be party historian so that's kind of his foray into politics and um buckingham is a pretty obvious front runner for for the runoff she already um before the primary she had raised more money than any other candidate in either party. And since then, she's added a lot of new endorsements to a collection that had already kind of established her as the party favorite for a lot of big Republicans. Like both Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, former land commissioner Jerry Patterson. But what's interesting is that now she's got the endorsements of most of her primary competitors.

So, Weston Martinez, Ben Armena, Victor Avila, Don Mitten, and Rufus Lopez have all sided with Buckingham after failing to make the runoff. Which is interesting because several of those guys had positioned themselves as some of them explicitly as grassroots type candidates and others as, at the least, political outsiders, some of whom criticized Buckingham as being the establishment pick. Right. And now they've all backed her. Wesley, meanwhile, he's kind of spun his more modest fundraising into an underdog reputation, that kind of image. Yeah. As a political outsider.

His biggest endorsement is probably Alan West, who, again, appointed him as kind of a top brass spot in the Texas GOP. But in fundraising and endorsements and the initial primary results, vote counts, Buckingham is kind of the clear front runner on the Republican side. So she led Wesley 42, so I want to say 15% on March 1st, election night. Big margin. Yeah. It's a little bit more complicated on the Democrat side. Not that much. Jay Kleberg is definitely the party favorite. He has got all the major endorsements. Before March 1st, it was a little bit split between him and jenny sue with cleberg being a little bit more of the moderate side and sue being the more progressive side uh in terms of

their endorsements and the politicians that endorse them and and their stances you know that led to those endorsements yeah sue did not make the runoff sandra grace martinez won the runoff this is your favorite story in politics right now. It's a funny story, yeah, because Martinez had such low fundraising numbers, like $42 cash on hand in the last pre-primary election report. And Kleberg grew up on the King Ranch, and he is second only to Buckingham for both parties for fundraising. So he's got all kinds of money and, uh, has been running a solid campaign and everything. And, um,

he had conservation experience and all that. And, uh, Sandra Grace Martinez, um, it's just been quite an underdog in this race. Um, especially by, by winning, by winning the primary, but you know, you're shy 50% of it goes to the runoff. So I have not seen so far endorse... I was kind of trolling through these endorsements for the candidates that had been... Like I said, Sue got a lot of the big names, and especially in the Texas House. And I haven't seen them jump to Kleberg yet. I might be missing one. So we don't see that same phenomenon on the Democrat side as we do on the Republican side.

But nonetheless, in terms of fundraising, Kleberg's got a huge advantage. But polling has shown polling has sided with Martinez so far. It's kind of sparse. It's not like for these bigger races where we get polls like every week, like we were getting for the governor, you know, all the time. It seemed like, oh, every day there's a new poll for the governor. Yeah. Well, this one we've got, you know, about one or two and they tend to favor Martinez, which is interesting. So, you know, in that respect, if I'm sounding hesitant, it's because like election day is always full of surprises. Yes. And especially I'm certain for our our readers and listeners people are very conscious of media making these very confident guesses on what's going to happen on election day yeah and then being totally wrong

and so there's always room for surprises on election day but kleberg and buckingham in terms of reputation are the party favorites for these respective runoffs that's a good way to phrase it and certainly something we want to stay away from is just you know we want to present the facts tell people what's going on who's endorsed who and then leave it up to the listener to figure out what's going on very good well thank you isaiah gentlemen we are going to go ahead and go to our twitter fun section here and start talking through some notable things we've found on twitter this week daniel i want to start with you. What have you found that caught your eye? I was scrolling through Twitter so long this

morning trying to find something to fit this segment that I found interesting. It's so hard to find anything interesting on Twitter. I feel like it's not unless you're looking if you're actively looking for something you can't find anything yeah but just scrolling daily or like dang there's so much just I don't know like 90% of the stuff is just not that interesting it's just people having their own opinions there's just a lot of fluff on twitter which is good and even this what I did find is a little bit fluffy but I found it interesting. Let's do it. Representative Terry Canales tweeted this morning that 134 years ago today, that would be April 21st, which is also the same, the anniversary of the San Jacinto battle, which is fascinating. But on the same day, 134 years ago, the Texas Capitol was first opened to the public.

Wow. He said the third building to serve that purpose for our state uh he said that the construction of the capital was actually funded by an article of the state constitution and one of these other things that was just really fascinating to me was that uh he says in one of the largest barter transactions of recorded history the builders of the capital john v farwell and Charles B. Farwell, were paid with more than 3 million acres of land in the Texas Panhandle. So, that is just fascinating that the Capitol was paid for by some land in the Panhandle. Wow.

And he said that the tract later became the largest cattle ranch in the world. So, just fascinating. Wow. That he said that the track later became the largest cattle ranch in the world. So just fascinating. Wow. That's super fun. I like that little Texas history angle. That's really fun. Thank you, Representative Terry Canales for tweeting out that fun fact. Isaiah, what about you?

What do you have for us today? I am dropping the rivalry with me and Holly. And I'm picking a Holly tweet. I love it um the rivalry about whose article is trending most on the website it's not even fair she's living in harris county where there's a million bajillion fulfilling people and she's got equally as many twitter followers she puts anything i say i don't know your twitter your twitter followers Almost compare to her like 7000 Okay

Thank you for that tone of voice But Now we're friends for the next two minutes And so Holly She just twatted out saying It's funny I was excreted for referring to this judge As a socialist and the article that she Includes it's a picture of it from the houston chronicle and the headline that's included in the

picture says harris da's office wants to suspend a self-described socialist judge accused of such and such behavior and um so as a throwback she wrote this article in march of 2020 that uh led with socialist judges officials in har Harris County in the headline. That's how the headline began. And evidently, she took some flack for that. I wasn't there actually at the company during this time. So I'm not that familiar on what went on. Oh, I remember that.

You remember? I'm going to summarize if you can. I mean, if you remember vividly enough. If I remember correctly, they describe themselves as socialists. And Holly put that in the title, self-described or something like that. And yeah, it's just got a lot of flack. The typical projection, you know, like from people like, I like this politician. This politician must believe everything I believe. And then when that's refuted, it's like, yeah, that's wrong.

Yeah. this politician must believe everything i believe and then when that's refuted it's like yeah that's wrong yeah but um well it's also interesting to watch these folks these progressive folks um which republicans do the same thing on different issues but shy away from a title that they don't like if they feel like they're being criticized for it but then also fully embrace it when it is politically expedient for them and it's like if it's a primary if it's a combination of who can be the most or the competition if it can be the most progressive it's interesting to watch amphibious yes yes so um yes yeah well i'm glad you and holly could temporarily bury the hatchet that's very good good stuff okay hayden what do you got for us well i'm you know second guessing my choice of tweet as daniel said it's hard to peruse the internet and find something interesting to talk about you guys put so much pressure on yourselves

to choose great tweets for the segment it's like no guys this is just something that caught your eye this week okay well this did catch my eye so um a reporter tweeted an article she had written about a large uh denominational pardon me, non-denominational church with multiple campuses and in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And the reporter tweeted with the article that she had written, he asked at Bible study if black lives matter. Then he says, insert name of the church, kicked him out. And this article's framing was interesting because the grammatical construction of this headline and tweet it capitalized black lives matter and which would make it refer to the the organization and the protest of the black lives matter movement as opposed to the sentiment

right black lives matter which it's like a discreet entity. Exactly, which no thinking or moral person would disagree that Black Lives Matter, but the debate is not about that. The debate is this organization and the political views and proposals that it espouses. Is that a legitimate way of addressing racism? And is racism a problem to the extent that this movement says. And the framing of this story is that this churchgoer was kicked out of his church for stating that Black Lives Matter. And if you read the piece, and it's definitely one of those pieces where you feel like you're not getting the full picture. If you read the piece, he was trespassed from the property of this church. It very much seems

like he was using the church as a facility for protesting, which is, of course, not the purpose of a religious organization. And I'm pretty sure any lawyer would probably tell you that churches have the right to discipline their members and to choose who joins them. But I think it's one of those framings that cause people to second guess their media consumption. And it's the type of thing that inspires us here to frame things as fairly as possible to both sides. Absolutely. As fairly and fully as possible. Absolutely.

Very good, Hayden. Bradleyley what do you got for us so in another baseball related it is not i wish it was i wish i was able to say yes mcgillicare just got his 3000th hit which is a massive milestone for anyone that doesn't know baseball i was gonna say after i uh called brad out for his little arm pump he messaged me and said 3000 is a big deal just fyi i was gonna say after i uh called brad out for his little arm pump he messaged me and said 3000 is a big deal just fyi i'm not disputing that i'm just making fun of you for getting so excited during our podcast recording um yeah i remember when i hit my 3000 3000th hit it was pretty big deal wow daniel i'm really excited to hear that. Congratulations. So another Central Texas race that has the same Abbott v. Cruz dynamic that we talked about in 73 is HD19, which has been a very public contentious race, very publicly contentious, especially on the Twitters,

which makes it good fodder for this segment, I suppose. Brett is salivating at the thought. Ellen Traxclare, former Austin City Councilman, is running against Justin Barry, an Austin police officer. These two were famously kind of a ticket when Traxclare was running for Senate and Barry was running for the HD 47 House seats. They both have since, after redistricting, jumped into the 19 seats.

And it's been a very public falling out between the two. But the tweet that caught my eye this week was the Travis County GOP, which has supported both of them in the past. They're kind of being pulled both ways and they're not taking a side. And that was their tweet. They said, to be clear, TCRP is not endorsed in the HD19 race between Ellen and Justin. And that came out. It was not out of the blue.

There was a resolution that was passed at their meeting this week that, among other things like condemning the ubi thing that austin wanted to pass uh it put out a resolution that um basically condemned the protect and serve texas pack which is a pack that has been supporting barry uh has been releasing a lot of claims about tracks claire's record while on the Austin City Council.

Basically. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's not like one of these, it's not explicitly tied to one of these associations. It's not like a police association or anything. Yeah. for voting against the, in I think it was 2017, the first version of the police, Austin police labor agreement.

And she did vote against that. And then she voted for the final one that was a lower pay, resulted in a lower pay raise, but still made the police, the Austin police at the time, the highest paid in the state. So there's a lot of nuances to that attack, as there are with many of these kinds of things. The kernel of truth here stretched into a broadside against the opponent. But the Travis County GOP passed a resolution at their meeting this week condemning the Protect and Serve Texas PAC.

From what I've been told, it was Don Zimmerman, another former city councilman, who brought it to the meeting. And they went through their typical procedure that they do and passed it. Zimmerman, of course, was he ran against Barry in the HD 47 GOP primary. Barry beat him by one vote. Oh, I forgot about that. One vote.

At first, Barry was losing by one vote, I believe, at the end of the primary night. Then they did a recount and Barry ended up winning by one vote. I forgot. Then he went to the runoff against Jennifer Fleck, who of the primary night then they did a recount and barry ended up winning by one vote i forgot so then he went to the the runoff against jennifer fleck who won the primary by a wide margin and if i remember correctly shell actor in the in the runoff and so he won the gop nomination didn't win the race against or didn't win the general um and so now he's running in this other

seat but it's interesting seeing the uh travis county go gop they're chaired by matt mcoviac consultant who's been big on the especially homelessness issue you know there have been multiple over the last couple years multiple press conferences that mcoviac has had with his Save Austin Now group that has included Barry and Trox Claire. When they announced their Austin police refunding petition, Barry and Trox Claire were standing right next to each other supporting this. And so it's just this race is,

in addition to being very intense and at times vitriolic, it's kind of dividing a household, interestingly enough. Absolutely. Travis County GOP has never had to, at least between these two, hasn't had to pick a side. And they're trying their best not to. But it's interesting seeing all these different players jump into this.

And the Zimmerman cameo was not something that I envisioned, but certainly, but nonetheless, jinx. Very good. Okay, gentlemen, we're going to end the pod, um, on this question that Hayden came up with actually credit to Hayden. It's good stuff. But now that the mask mandate has officially been lifted in terms of air travel this week. All those videos on Twitter, people cheering on planes and those selfies like cracked me up. I thought it was so funny. But now that's been lifted, let's talk about the best and worst parts of air travel. What do you enjoy about it? What do you hate about it? For me personally, I just love going to an airport. I just love being at an airport. I always get there way early. I like sitting at my gate. I like pulling up my computer, doing work, grabbing grabbing a coffee maybe some tacos because it's the austin airport and you can get plenty of tacos or an old-fashioned that's very true if it's like an evening flight i do like an old-fashioned um but that's why i just like airports and hanging out in them and

watching the hustle and bustle and what was speed walking through acting like i have important places to be which you know if you're through acting like I have important places to be, which, you know, if you're going somewhere, you do have important places to be. That's what I like. I just like the whole feeling of airports. No, I agree that I, it's, it is fun to get there, you know, and kind of enjoy the atmosphere of the airport. But this past weekend, I flew for the first time since the pandemic started. And I forgot all of the, you know, small things about air travel that, you know, maybe are not as fun, including being packed like sardines into the plane when you're trying to get in and out. But another thing, when I was flying out of the Tyler Airport, I told Isaiah this the other day, the Tyler Airport's very

small. So it was basically me and my family was there to drop me off and in the lobby of the airport they had the show air crash investigation outside of the tsa checkpoint like whose choice was this that what a wonderful idea let's put on air crash investigations it'll really relieve everybody's that's hilarious so you know uh air travel is usually fun hanging out at the airport is fun but uh not when they choose a tv show like air crash investigations not particularly encouraging yeah of all the shows that's pretty awful i say the worst part of traveling is i'm saying this now because y'all know i will forget if i don't just say it um being really tall and being in the middle seat. Yeah, that's no good.

My knee, and I swear I have like an 80-year-old's knee. I mean, I was even at a concert last night and sitting in the seat. My knee just like tenses up and like tightens and it really hurts after a while. My left knee. I don't know what it is.

Only the left knee. Only the left knee. Sitting in the middle is just the worst regardless of how tall you are and so I can't imagine how much it sucks, the suckitude of being six feet tall and sitting in the middle. I mean, having shorter legs though, does, does help. Like I feel like I was sitting in the airline seat thinking, you know, if I had, you know, longer legs, which I have extremely short legs. And so if I was sitting in a seat and I had longer legs it would be it would be harder to uh you know

get comfortable especially when you've got when you're when you've got people in the seat next to you yeah but it's uncomfy regardless and i've been told i resemble one of those like um inflatable balloon dudes that are outside like car dealerships like i've been told that my limbs resemble that so it's really painful it hurts it's really painful no not the resemblance but the um just generally physical seats yes it's painful and then also apply to the window seat i mean there's no stretching out there either there but i can angle myself better in that way in a middle seat if you angle either way you're toward a person but i can angle myself more readily in way in a middle seat. If you angle either way, you're toward a person,

but I can angle myself more readily in a window seat. And I'll see, it can also be good, but I also feel really bad if my knee is in the middle of the aisle, which usually is kind of just really long, but I really don't like it. And it makes me sad for the people who have to walk by me. I always choose an aisles or at least I try to,

I would rather sit at the back of the plane in an aisle seat than in a middle or a window seat. Because I get claustrophobic if I feel hemmed in. So I like to have that aisle seat. That's why I like Southwest. Because you can pick right then. But on American Airlines, what airline do you usually fly when you it's usually it's American or Southwest

okay yeah just because I think it's Texas those are kind of the two that are readily yeah I don't have the most options I usually fly to Phoenix

to see my family a lot and so that is in the Southwest correct yes you're exactly right it's a big hub for Southwest it's really it's more

Southwest than Dallas which is where Southwest is yeah and American's in Dallas too yeah anyways what about you boys Daniel, Isaiah for southwest really it's more southwest than dallas which is where southwest is yeah americans in dallas too yeah anyways what about you boys daniel isaiah bradley um i have poor oh go ahead daniel i have poor flying with a passion like just in general yes oh not not flying like i like flying if i if i could just fly my own plane that be cool. But the fact that I have to go to an airport, wait in line at security,

something will inevitably go wrong. There'll be delays. Not if you get there really early. No, you cannot control the plane schedule. You get there early. Which is why you can get there early and you can get through security. Fine. Like you can control your own schedule,

but you cannot control the schedule of the plane. Something will go wrong. There'll be an emergency landing. Someone will have a heart attack on the plane. Has this happened to you? It's happened. Yes, it has happened.

And all of it at once. I hate it. So just like if I can not fly, like I don't mask or no mask, I would rather drive. I will drive 20 hours rather than take a flight if I can. What if your car breaks down in the desert?

At least I can be in control of fixing it. Can you though? I don't have to wait on some maintenance person to come. I totally understand what you're coming... But I feel like that's manufactured control. You aren't actually in control. You just feel as though you are. If that does happen, if you do work down the desert,

you can just find transportation with the horse with no name. Yeah, I've been through the desert. Brad's smug smirk right now is absolutely just making me itch. I hate it. I hate it so much. There ain't no one to give you no name. I don't want to talk about this. There's rocks and things okay

this is ridiculous i see we're bringing back the mac and brad fighting segment that's true um any other thoughts gentlemen um i i enjoy sitting in the airport and it's just a different scene you know um i don't like how expensive everything is because you're a captive audience yeah um the thing i don't like the most is getting stuck in the middle seat but getting stuck in the middle seat next to people that are very inconsiderate about the fact that you are the one in purgatory in the middle seat and i was flying to boston one time and this guy is with my one buddy and then i was next to a rando and he's sitting there he wasn't even that big he's just he's like my size but he's sitting there with his arms out um i mean you can't

see it on if you're just listening but he's sitting there with his arms out all the way into my side. And so I'm sitting there like contorting myself. He's currently going through a seizure to recreate. And I have to sit there for the two and a half hour flight to Boston. It was just you're like a Tetris puzzle piece between these. Yeah, it was miserable. I'm really sorry. That would be probably be it.

Oh, actually, another one. Stewardesses that are just unreasonable. Wait a minute. I thought we'd be in this segment with things we like about flying. Yeah, but I think we're just a negative, mellow group. I think we just sort of support the negative. Well, I started out positive. I love airports. I agree with you on the positive.

Shout out to Southwest. Okay. Cause they're just awesome. But, um, they're, they're pilots and they're, they're flight attendants usually have a sense of humor and they're usually

pretty jovial with the passengers. Um, I also love the free checked bag. That is so nice. Oh yeah. I just have a carry on. I like to check it just so I don't have to wheel it around the airport. So you don't have to lug it around the airport,

especially if you have a layover at dfw which is because dfw you have to take the skylink to it's like a train or or a tram i guess to other uh other terminals have a carry-on in dfw absolutely it's so nice i flew through atlanta for the first time like four or five months ago. I didn't hate it. It was just massive. Yeah. And I've never seen anything like it.

Yeah. I was not a big fan of the Atlanta airport for that reason. It was just a lot going on. Not a fan. Isaiah, any thoughts? I haven't really flown much. Yeah. The positive thing is it's pretty cool to look at the ground.

Yeah. When you're by the window. That's so true. I love that. The views are really fun. Maybe not coming into like the Dallas area. Like there isn't always a great view coming into the Dallas area, but Austin's really fun.

Yeah. Who knows? There's not a huge, beautiful river going through the Dallas area. There's a river. It's pretty much just. It isn't like the Colorado. It isn't different i like putting on um like rap and walking with purpose through the airport walking with purpose yeah through the airport just speedily like kinder glomar and my ears just blasting like you're late for a united nations conference 100 and that my uh soundtrack would

be kendrick lamar yeah it's a little weird yeah okay on that note folks thank you so much for listening we are so glad you join us every week and we will catch you next week with all sorts of new topics and potentially new odd things that we will share. Right, boys? There'll be nothing new. The news stops, apparently. Except for Miguel Cabrera hitting his 3,000th hit. Got it. We should check in on that next week. Well, if it doesn't happen by then, whew. Well, we'll check in.

I'll be in a bad mood. Folks, thanks for listening. We'll 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.

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