The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 26, 2024

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week, the team discusses:Biden signing the foreign aid and TikTok divestment bills into law after both passed the House and SenateAn El Paso grand jury indicting 141 suspects in the March border riot after a judge dismissed the chargesGov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson supporting an incumbent congressman against his YouTuber challengerThe pro-Palestine protest at the University of Texas at AustinThe U.S. Supreme Court hearing a challenge over treating unbuilt firearm kits as firearmsThe Supreme Court dismissing a lawsuit challenging Texas mail-in ballot restrictionsSeattle Children’s Hospital agreeing not to provide gender modification treatments to Texas childrenTarrant County District Attorney Jose Garza facing his second petition for removalERCOT’s new 2030 electricity demand estimate being 40,000 megawatts more than last year’s estimateAn Operation Lone Star bust recovering $2 million worth of cocaineThe City of Austin introducing a resolution to protect “gender-affirming healthcare” for transgender residents

No, he's not talking. This is awesome. Can you hear me? I can hear you on the phone. Matt, can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay.

Your name? Yes. Yeah. Any fire alarms today or anything exciting this is the most exciting thing that's happened to us today is technical difficulties on the pod well howdy folks it's mackenzie here with brad cameron and matt back again on another episode of the weekly roundup gentlemen it's almost like we do this every week. It feels like it. I almost forgot to start recording Matt again on my laptop,

but I did not. Matthew, we're good. You're recording. Everything's fine. Although he is frozen, so that's great. Oh, no. Well, I hope he comes back. Gentlemen, I'm drinking Starbucks. What's your Starbucks order?

Black coffee. Yeah, you're very boring. What's your Starbucks order? Black coffee. Yeah, you're very boring. Do you have a type of roast? Light roast? I just want the caffeine, man. Blonde roast? I just want the caffeine. I did have blonde roast coffee this morning.

It was pretty good. I usually just go in. I don't even use the Starbucks terminology I say small yeah so why is the tall at the Starbucks the smallest because they want to fool you into thinking you're getting more than you're actually getting deceptive marketing but then venti venti does not denote anything. I wonder if when they were choosing these words, they just had them on a dartboard and they just threw darts.

That's how they selected. That'd be fun. Yeah. It seems kind of random. I'm having technical difficulties here with Matthew, but I think we're going to be just fine. Cameron, what's yours? Small Black Coffee.

Pike Place. Both of you guys. Oh, Pike Place. Do you know what Pike Place is named after? In Seattle, isn't it? What is it in Seattle? Isn't it where they toss the fish? Totally. It's exactly where they toss the fish. Spot on. That's where I took my senior pictures. Really? Am I not showing you these? No. Are you holding the fish? Straight up. i'm like catching a fish flying through the air that's right i sent them to maslin i'll show you i can pull them up right now this is thrilling for our listeners because they can totally engage in this well you're just you're building anticipation i'm reminded of the time that i got reamed i knew

you were gonna say this video on this here podcast. This here podcast, you ancient man. Okay, there were like other normal headshot type of photos, but if you just scroll through, this is me at Pike Place catching a ginormous fish. You look like a regular employee. Thank you. Wow. That was the goal. Very natural.

Oh, wow. Dang. I caught it. I was so nervous that the fishmonger, they're called fishmongers. Brad, do you want to see? You definitely don't, but I'm going to show you regardless. I caught it. I was so nervous that the fishmonger, they're called fishmongers. Brad, do you want to see? You definitely don't, but I'm going to show you regardless. I really don't. It's cool.

Whatever. Look, this is me catching the fish. And then being victorious. Is that not the most Seattle thing you've ever seen? Very happy for you. Thank you. I wonder if Matt is here. Matt, can you hear me? I can. thing you ever seen? Very happy for you. Thank you. Hmm. I wonder if Matt is here.

Matt, can you hear me? I can. Can you hear me? Wow. Yes. Praise the Lord. Okay, great. We were just going about our business, acting as if nothing was going on, but fully admitting

that we were having technical difficulties. So I'm glad you're here. Great. Matt, what's your... Matt, what's your matt what's your starbucks order what what's your starbucks order coffee like black coffee this is riveting podcasting coffee in a cup we got coffee in a cup we got it okay this is going so well the remote setup is

awesome all the time very enlightening yes thank you matt that's so true just so our listeners know we don't pre-plan this at all this is off the top yeah so there was no planning no discussion you think that i feel like this is obvious for this one, for this episode. You know? Kind of. I feel like this is kind of a, they were like, if you did plan this, you're doing a horrible job. But anyways, gentlemen, thanks for being here again today.

Let's go ahead and jump into the news, shall we? Let's do it. I'm always paranoid because Brad jumps ahead of me now sometimes and makes me start talking about news before I'm ready. Sorry. Great. Cameron. Okay. Want to chat? Let's do it. Okay. The highly contentious foreign aid and TikTok divestment package was signed into law in DC. Let us know the details. Yeah, that's right. So this is a $95 billion package, which includes the foreign aid, like you mentioned, and then also the TikTok divestment provision.

It includes $26 billion for Israel, $61 billion for Ukraine, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. And that's mostly going to be sent to Taiwan. And in the Senate, before it was sent to President Biden's desk, it passed 79 to 18. And we saw our Texas senators actually split on the vote. Cornyn voted yes, and Cruz was a no. Cruz put out a press release where he called this, quote, one of the toughest votes I've cast during my years in the Senate. He went on to say, quote, it was a close call, but there are good elements in the bill that I strongly support. In that same press release, he detailed how he supported aid to Israel and Taiwan as well as the divestment of TikTok, but he expressed concern over one of the aspects of that foreign aid package was

$3.4 billion reserved for migration and refugee assistance. And he also went on to say that the package does not address border security. We also saw the leaders in the Senate comment on the passage with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that the passage of the foreign aid, quote, sends a message to the entire world, we will not turn our back on you. And then on the Republican side, we saw Mitch McConnell, who did vote yes on the package, say, quote, today's action moves this critical national security supplemental one step closer to helping America and our friends to meet the most dangerous array of threats in a generation. And McConnell has been staunchly in support of Ukraine since the inception of the conflict with Russia. What was interesting, though, is, like we mentioned at the

top of this, is there was the TikTok divestment element of this package. And we actually saw the CEO of TikTok post a video in response to the bill being passed. And he said, quote, make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice. And he went on to say that, quote, we aren't going anywhere. And so it seems as though TikTok is planning on fighting this in the courts. But there was a plan for some large technology groups to possibly invest in TikTok because of this divestment provision that was going to be enacted that's sort of gone away now. So we'll see what happens with TikTok. I know it's one of the largest platforms in the entire world. And so I'm sure

people are really itching to see what's going to be happening with TikTok. It's been a topic of conversation in the office for sure. It absolutely has. And I'll just finish up here with saying Biden did sign the bill package into law on Wednesday and he said quote, it gives vital support to America's partners. And if people would like a deeper dive on the relationships of America to Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan in the growing geopolitical conflict, I did that deep dive in this week's redacted newsletter if people would like to check that out. If you've not already subscribed to the texan reason enough should be to subscribe to get access to the redacted newsletter so folks subscribe to the texan thanks mckenzie and i will say too we will um we are coming up on our

five-year anniversary and rumor has it there will be a discount coming up so keep an eye out for that that's news to me that's pretty cool so much enthusiasm i love deals i love a good deal i'm a deal hunter are you a black friday guy absolutely cyber monday totally because i usually don't usually i'm still in a food coma on friday so i don't typically partake in black friday deals unless there's like an item I've been eyeing. Yeah. But perusing, I'm not a huge peruser. We've talked about this. I'm a bargain shopper. That's true.

I go to the Goodwills. I go to the Ross. Yep. You know. T.J. Maxx? Absolutely. Yeah. T.J. Maxx is my favorite.

Love. Yes. Totally. Well, Cameron, thank you. You're welcome. Matthew, we're coming to you in all hopes that our technical difficulties will evaporate. An update on the El Paso border riots, where the local district attorney announced 141 indictments were handed down by a grand jury relating to the March 21st incident. Run through your story. Nationals rushed Gate 36 on the Rio Grande near El Paso on March 21st, which led to the injury of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers. The El Paso area district attorney, Bill Hicks,

sought to charge several hundred individuals in connection with the incident. However, that prosecution has proven challenging. The first bump in Hicks' prosecution experience with this case was after a magistrate judge held a bond hearing on Easter Sunday after his office and the judge had agreed to hold it during the week. The judge decided to order the release of the suspects on PR bonds, basically not requiring them to post any money as a surety and allowing them to be released from jail. However, an immigration detainer from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement prevented their release from the county jail. Fast forward, in this past week, Hicks' office was hit with another sudden notice

of this time a habeas corpus hearing in the county court at law where Judge Ruben Morales rejected their motion to postpone due to inadequate notice being given for the hearing. Judge Morales then proceeded to review only the DPS complaints in the case, which Hicks said he then refused to look at additional evidence his office offered the judge. Judge Morales then announced he didn't believe there was sufficient probable cause based on only reviewing the original complaint affidavits and dismissed the rioting charges on 141 suspects. Hicks quickly then assembled a grand jury, and after presenting additional evidence to the jury on every case, the grand jury issued indictments on all 141 cases. Hicks characterized the grand jury decision as the community of El Paso, describing how it's

made up of ordinary citizens, speaking on the incident and saying that, yes, we believe this crime occurred and essentially overruled the judge. He also emphasized the importance of sending the message that you cannot come to this country, assault our officers and National Guard troops, destroy public property, and expect to be allowed into the country and not face any consequences. Yeah, absolutely. Matt, thank you for your coverage of that story and definitely worth checking out Matt's Twitter as well. All sorts of information there on, I guess, X, not Twitter. What am I talking about? I use it interchangeably. Yeah, I do too.

Oh, well, Matt, thank you so much. Bradley coming to you. The primary runoff for Texas's 23rd congressional district is grabbing so many headlines. Give us the latest. The big guns are rolling out for Congressman Tony Gonzalez in Texas's 23rd congressional district. The embattled incumbent is seeking a third term. Governor Abbott this week endorsed Gonzalez following Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's previous endorsement of the congressman. Also this week, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson came into the district and held a fundraiser for Gonzalez that raised about $300K, according to Gonzalez's camp. The incumbent narrowly won election initially in 2020 over Regina Ortiz-Jones.

It was a very contentious battleground clash. After that, after redistricting, it was made more comfortably Republican, though it's still, I think it's like an R54 district. So it's not, it's not a safe Republican seat, even though it does favor the GOP somewhat. So he narrowly won in 2020, extended his margin in 22, and now he faces a significant primary challenge. There was a field of candidates in the primary itself. I think there were four challengers. And he, in the primary, Gonzalez got like 44 or 45 percent of the vote. So he was close to avoiding a runoff, but still it wasn't a razor thin margin between him and avoiding that. So he had to get 50%. Pushing him to a runoff is Brandon Herrera, who is a popular YouTuber known as the AK guy. And he basically reviews guns.

Yeah. Give us a rundown of who he is. He's an interesting fellow. So I'm not sure exactly how he got started, but he's been doing it for a while, and he just streams himself firing guns and discussing the details of them, how they're made, the history of them. And there's like a humorous element to his content. Right, yeah, he's entertaining, a very entertaining guy. But he's very much in the edgy humor realm, which has come back maybe not to bite him,

but it's been used against him in this race. Gonzalez's camp has run ads criticizing the language he uses on these streams, jokes he's made. There was one in particular that drew a national headline from, I think, the Jewish Insider. And it was about a review of the MP40, which was developed in Germany under the Third Reich. And he's reviewing it and he's posting in this a montage, a sarcastic one, being humorous, with the song Erika, which was a Nazi marching song. And so with that, the article was written hitting him for that.

He's been called a neo-Nazi by the Gonzalez camp, also just called a generally unpleasant person because of the language he uses. Herrera's hit back about how this is my way of getting people to learn about firearms. And, I mean, strong argument for that is millions of subscribers. People obviously like that. But really this is a test case of is the edgy Internet humor compatible with this curated realm of politics that we see? Do voters care about this? I don't know. Maybe they don't. Maybe they do. We'll see in the runoff. And he's leaned into it, right?

He's not shied away from it. And even after some of those attacks were levied, he hit back at Gonzalez with a very, I don't remember the expletives used in the tweet, and I won't say them here regardless, but he's leaning into it. Yeah said he's not shying away you can't attack me on policy so you're attacking me on this other stuff so um some interesting dynamics in this race obviously Abbott Patrick have backed Gonzalez Mike Johnson obviously did too on the flip side you have Matt Gaetz and some of the other congressmen that are similarly aligned with Gaetz have backed Herrera. He's definitely, Herrera himself definitely would be in the Freedom Caucus if he makes it to Congress or something, you know, caucus around that or a group of members around that,

and very much anti-establishment, anti-leadership, and it's an interesting race. Then on the other hand, you have the Texas GOP getting actively involved in this because Gonzalez is one of so far three Republican officials to be censured ever, I think, by the Texas GOP. The first one was. Which then allows them to campaign against a Republican. Right. The first one was Speaker Joe Strauss.

Second one was Gonzalez. And the third one is Speaker Dade Phelan. So the Texas GOP has sent mailers into the district on Herrera's behalf. So they're getting involved. I'm not sure exactly how much money they're spending on it, but they're spending something. So because, especially at the congressional level, there's not really that many interesting runoffs. There's this one and there's Texas 12 up in up in Fort Worth up in Tarrant County and because of that this is getting a lot of the headlines and also it's a fairly competitive district so whoever wins this is gonna is not

gonna have an easy race in November and Democrats especially if Herrera wins and he acknowledged this when I interviewed him, Democrats will see an opportunity to try and flip it because he's not, he's further right than Gonzalez. He's also a more polarizing figure, at least in terms of rhetoric. Gonzalez has taken a lot of heat for votes he's taken. But overall, it's just a fascinating race to watch and a good test case for future generations of politicians and whether there's going to be a problem. Yeah, I don't know what it's going to look like in 10 years' time.

But like you said, this is the first test case we're really seeing. Can an online person make the transition to real-world policymaking, right? And I just think it's fascinating to follow, you know, because it's sort of the political incorrectness that someone like Trump was loved for. Does that transition to someone who's running for congress it's also a bit further than trump's rhetoric yeah um we'll see if we can stretch the boundary on that you know but very interesting race to watch and i think i don't know i don't i don't have a good read on what we're going to see and it's a good district for it to happen into because it'll be fascinating

to watch the general like you were saying i think there are so many dynamics at play here that are more interesting because it's this district, because it's the 23rd Congressional District. So we'll keep an eye. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, coming to you, a story that hit very close to where our office is this week. We were right down the street. Protesters and police clashed on the campus of UT Austin. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so I'll lay out a little bit of a timeline

of what happened. So the protests happened on Tuesday, April 24th, and what first caught my attention is the Palestine Solidarity Committee posted on their Instagram that they were planning to walk out of class and say they were going to occupy the South Lawn. So immediately, I was like, okay, we've been seeing Palestine protests throughout the country on a lot of these Ivy League campuses, and they've gotten a bit out of control with the camping aspect and the pushback of police in their interactions. I was like, all right, I'm going to keep an eye on this. And then immediately it seemed there was a whole lot of videos coming out in terms of what the interactions between or just the sheer presence of the police on the campus was. And I can sort of attribute the reaction to the protests on the grounds of Abbott's executive order that was issued just a few weeks ago, how he said there was going to be pushback against anti-semitism on texas

university campuses and so we saw state troopers and austin pd and campus law enforcement really out in force you know essentially drawing a line between the student protesters in the South Lawn. And then we began seeing chants and attempts to push by the police, and there was quite a number of videos of arrests being made of protesters. And what was interesting as well is we started to see lawmakers trickle out in their response to what was going on. For example, Brandon Creighton, who was actually the author of the protests and harassment that are going on across the country. So I thought that was very interesting. We saw City Council Member Zoe Quadri.

He called out Greg Abbott in his response, saying, quote, if you don't fall in line with his agenda, your rights are violated. So really going after the governor there. Ted Cruz even jumped in, calling the anti-Semitic protest, quote, disgraceful and, quote, they do not represent Texas for the views of Texans. We did see Greg Abbott make a post on social media, and'll read verbatim here what he said. He said, quote, arrests being made right now and will continue until crowd disperses. These protesters belong in jail. Anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in Texas, period. Students joining in hate-filled anti-Semitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled. So very forceful in the language used there. You know, this has been something growing on university campuses. Like I mentioned, a lot of the Ivy League schools have had these sort of Occupy student movements. I actually came across a video of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

put out a video condemning much of what we've been seeing on American university campuses. Dan Patrick came out and was calling these protests delusional. So all the big names were coming out. Lots of arrests. I saw some posts from other news outlets saying it was up to 50. I saw Texas DPS at one point say more than 20 arrests. So no clear number as of yet. Obviously with something at this scale, it's sort of hard to track, but we've been seeing, you know, 20 plus at least arrests being made. What was interesting as well is the faculty element of these pro-Palestine protests.

Later in the evening on Tuesday, we saw, or rather on Wednesday, we saw the UT Austin Texas Conference for American Association of University Professors. They had put out a press release saying, quote, no business as usual tomorrow, no classes, no grading, no work, no assignments. In essence, they were planning another protest for April 25th. That's Thursday, the day of this recording, we eventually saw the UT Austin president, Jay Hartzell, he put out a press release on the incident saying, quote, our rules matter and they will be enforced. Our university will not be occupied. So Hartzell in alignment with

Abbott there. And just a last update for you here is the Palestine Solidarity Committee, who planned the initial protest, was planning a second protest for Thursday, that's today, and there was a planned DEI protest as well being led by some of the faculty, but that was actually canceled. So the Palestine protest wouldn't have any essentially competition for people coming out. So lots of things going down. I'm sure many of our listeners and readers have had their eyes glued to what's been going on because what has grown out of just here in Texas with the protests have caught national headlines because of many of the videos captured have been picked up by national outlets. So this is something we'll continue to monitor.

Absolutely. As it goes along. Absolutely. It's not going to stop for a little while here. We'll keep an eye on it. Cameron, thank you. Matt, we're coming back to you. The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a challenge from two Texas residents against a new rule banning ghost guns.

Give us the details. That's right, Mackenzie. Two Texans are being represented by the Firearms Policy Coalition, which is a gun rights organization that focuses on Second Amendment litigation in challenging a federal rule banning homemade firearms parts kits, or I should say regulating firearms parts kits. The lawsuit originated out of the Northern Federal District Court of Texas, and the litigants have prevailed at both the district trial court level and the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Essentially, what the rule says is that Congress, through existing legislation such as the Gun Control Act, et cetera, wanted to require that firearms contain a serial number so that the ownership origin of them can

be traced. Secondly, they want firearms to be purchased through regular firearms dealers where you have to undergo a background check to make sure that you can legally own the firearm, etc., etc. So the federal government contends that they're not really banning anything, but that it's going to be no different under this rule than it would be for you to go to a gun store and buy a regular gun. The Firearms Policy Coalition, however, points to communications they obtained between the ATF and the FBI saying they're going to essentially use this rule to shut down a large portion of the homemade firearms kit industry, and that this rule is the executive branch abusing its rulemaking authority, that Congress did not go this far, and that if it's implemented this way, that it's going to cause their clients and other members of the firearm industry irreparable harm. Of course, as I mentioned, both the district court and the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the plaintiffs on that, and the Department of Justice has now appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which this past week said that they would agree to pick up and consider the case. So kind of two interesting things that are going on here.

You know, there's a lot of Second Amendment gun rights oriented cases that come to the Supreme Court, but there's also a lot of, and this has been something that the Biden administration has done a lot with the executive rulemakingmaking where they take an existing statute passed by Congress and they say, well, we can enact these rules that expand upon the statute. And so a lot of these challenges are really more of a administrative state kind of issue as opposed to a gun rights issue. It just comes down to what authority does the executive branch have that they've been given by Congress, and does this rule exceed that? So it'll be a very, very interesting case from both of those aspects, depending on how the justices ultimately rule, but it'll be heard, oral arguments for the upcoming

fall term. And then we should see a ruling come out sometime in the year thereafter. Matt, just for clarification for me, is the rule that is cracking down on the ghost guns, is that a rule on the instructions that are being fed into the 3D printer? Are they trying to place a rule on the 3D printer manufacturers themselves? Or is it, how are they essentially regulating the creation of these ghost guns? That's a good question. It essentially treats anything marketed to be readily made into a usable firearm as a firearm. not, or a parts kit, et cetera, et cetera. The rule would be that you would have to obtain that through a licensed gun dealer and execute a yellow sheet and do a background check, et cetera, et cetera, on it. And of course, the plaintiffs point out that the specific language in the congressionally enacted statute doesn't really leave room in their arguments for this kind of expansion

of the application of things. I can't quote it verbatim off the top of my head, but essentially the statute says firearms parts, receivers, and they describe the receiver as the primary part of the gun that that includes the the action or trigger mechanism etc etc and you know it has to be something that's readily made not you know a block of steel that hasn't been right uh into one and one of the things that you see in a lot of these parts kits is you'll see a receiver that's been, you know, 80% of the millwork has been done in machining the part towards becoming a usable firearm receiver. And then, you know, it comes with a little paper template and says, you know, get your Dremel tool and cut here, here, and here. And boom, you've got a usable firearm receiver. They're saying that Congress really didn't contemplate such an instance whenever it enacted the existing statute. And so to stretch

the existing statute to encompass all these different scenarios, whether it's 3d printer designs or a partially milled billet of, of metal or whatever is just, it's just not something that the federal government has, has Congress has decided to regulate. And yeah, there you go. Thank you, Matt. Matt killing it. Thank you so much. Bradley coming back to you with the U S Supreme court dismissed a revived attempt at making mail and balloting universal in Texas. What's the deal. So back in 2020, there was a lawsuit. There were many lawsuits relating to elections and whether to change things on, um, for, for COVID to cope with that. One of them was an attempt by the Texas Democratic Party to make universal mail-in balloting.

They alleged under the 26th Amendment that this abridged, that this limitation to just those 65 or older, disabled, or out of the county during the election, that that abridges their right to vote. The 26th Amendment, of course, is what extended the right to vote to 18-year-olds. And so back in December, there was an attempt to revive that lawsuit. It was dismissed both in state and federal court back in 2020. Nothing happened on it. And then three petitioners back in December of last year attempted to revive this case, while the Supreme Court this week denied the attempt to revive it. So it's not going to go anywhere. They're not even going to hear the case.

It's dead as a doornail unless there's another attempt to revive this. So that's where that stands. In the announcement of this, the Office of the Attorney General, they celebrated the denial and took credit for defending the Secretary of State against the attempt to revive this. Within the statement that was put out, Attorney General Ken Paxton said, quote, many states irresponsibly and unconstitutionally changed their voting policies prior to the 2020 election. Fortunately, we did things differently in Texas. We fought hard to uphold the Texas law and defend the integrity of elections in this state.

Now, that's an interesting statement to make, especially because Texas did change its election laws unilaterally. Governor Abbott extended the early voting by a week back in 2020. He was actually sued by a handful of Republican officials, two state senators. Then at the time, now he's a congressman, Pat Fallon. Charles Perry also joined it. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller was part of this, as was then GOP Chair Allen West. And so if I looked at the history correctly, I don't know if, I don't think the Attorney General's office was that active in defending the Secretary of State in this suit. I couldn't find, it was an expedited request for a

temporary restraining order, the lawsuit. That was just dismissed by the Texas Supreme Court. They didn't take it up. They kicked it. But the Office of the Attorney General was named, Ken Pax himself was named as one of the counsel for the Secretary of State, then Secretary of State Ruth Hughes. So it's not accurate to say that Texas did things differently, especially when you add the fact that Paxton filed a challenge to four states' election results in 2020 on the grounds that they usurped legislative authority to change election code. Very strong argument to make about that. But you know who also did that?

Texas. So a bit of an interesting dynamic there, and I'm not sure that it was entirely thought through writing that quote. But overall, the Office of the Attorney General has defended against an attempt to expand universal mail-in balloting. That's going nowhere. Texas's law remains on the books. Well, I think that's important context to add because I wasn't familiar with Texas's actions on voting, like you mentioned, during 2020. And so I had to ask you, is this accurate? And you explained exactly what actually happened.

Because for those not in the state or maybe those not paying attention wouldn't know that additional context. So I think that's important. Good stuff. Bradley, thank you. Cameron, coming to you Attorney General Ken Paxton back in the news and Seattle Children's Hospital have resolved an ongoing legal battle run us through your story yeah so uh Ken Paxton announced an agreement has been reached with Seattle Children's Hospital which will now quote abandon all attempts to

do business in Texas so what? Paxton had previously sent a letter to the Washington State-based hospital in an effort to obtain documents related to their alleged violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act. That's a mouthful, but I got it out. In turn, Seattle Children's Hospital sued Paxton, asking the court to, quote, set aside the request, as well as to find that Texas does not have, quote, personal jurisdiction and that the hospital, quote, cannot comply with the requests pursuant to controlling Washington laws. So there was a legal back and forth here, but we had in our Monday announcement from Paxton that a joint motion to dismiss the case had been agreed to, and the hospital would no longer be providing,

quote, gender transition treatments to Texas children. And that was really the crux of this issue. Paxton was seeking to obtain those documents, trying to investigate if Texas children were being treated with gender modification treatments at the Seattle Hospital, Washington state-based hospital. And there was alleged instances where they were sending gender transition treatments to local pharmacies in the state. And so based on our announcement that we got, Seattle Children's will no longer be operating in the state of Texas. There you go, Cameron. Thank you. Matt, we are coming back to you. The Travis County DA faces the second attempt at a citizen-filed petition seeking his removal from office. And while the first petition did fail, this one appears set to take Garza, Jose Garza, to trial.

Run us through your story and props to Matt was the one breaking this story late on a Friday night. Huge news. So props to Matt on that. Well, thank you, Mackenzie. We reported on the first petition seeking Garza's removal by a former Republican candidate, Jason Salazar. That petition was dismissed because the newly enacted state law, which is known as the Roe prosecutor law, I believe, requires that to be eligible to file the petition, you cannot be presently charged with a crime. And it turned out he was. I think the details were that he was going into the Travis County Courthouse,

and when he went through the scanners, the sheriff's deputies found some illegal narcotics in his backpack, and so he was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance. So, it didn't take very long for that petition to be dismissed. But, fast forward, and a new petitioner filed almost an identical petition seeking Garza's removal off Travis County resident Betsy. And I'm going to probably mess up this French name, but it's Dupois. Beautiful. Dupois. Dupois.

I think that has pronounced it. You did a great job. We're going to stick with it. Anyway, so she filed that latest petition, and it was reviewed by the chief administrative judge for the region. It was actually Comal County District Judge Dip Waldrop. And I believe that the chief administrative judge is tasked with reviewing the merits of the allegations. And if it checks all the boxes, then he's also charged with assigning a special prosecutor to litigate the case. And that is exactly what happened this past week with Waldrop assigning the Bell County attorney to litigate the case. Interesting note about this case, whenever the news broke this past week, that there were a lot of accusations circling around that the motivation for it was part of a Republican slash MAGA

conspiracy to oust Garza, who is a progressive Democrat. But we ended up speaking with the petitioner and she said that that is anything but the case. She's definitely not a Republican and she's definitely not, or she says she's not a Republican and definitely not MAGA. progressive ideologies, et cetera, which the petition cites Garza's refusal to enforce state abortion prohibitions and also cites his refusal to enforce certain types of state narcotics laws, I believe, such as marijuana possession, et cetera. It also cites his mistreatment of police officers, such as keeping a list where he keeps certain officers from being eligible to testify as witnesses in criminal cases, and also subjects them to disparate treatment by taking cases that there is no probable cause of police brutality or that sort of thing, but presenting them to the grand jury for a potential indictment anyway.

Anyway, you can go online and read a lot of the comments that we received from the petitioner. She actually cites a number of reasons and concerns. said she doesn't believe that the district attorney refuses to enforce these certain laws out of principle, that rather it's more something that helps him consolidate his own power. And she's hoping that the petition and the removal will help hold the office accountable and bring some investigations and transparency to the issue. So going forward, what happens? Well, the appointed prosecutor on the case is going to review everything and determine whether or not he's going to move forward with it. So it could end there if the appointed attorney doesn't feel like the case has merit or it's something that he can achieve a conviction on, if he does, then it's going to go forward with the regular trial court process.

And if they take it to trial, then ultimately a Travis County jury will be charged with the task of deciding whether or not Garza refused to enforce the law or did some of these elements that triggers the removal requirement. And if they find him guilty on any of the counts, he'll be removed from office as the Travis County District Attorney. Absolutely. Matt, way to break the story and way to cover it. We appreciate it. Brad, coming to you today, actually, the Texas GOP made a very significant announcement related to the potential closing of its primary, a long-discussed topic. What happened? So Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi announced the creation of a working group of five-party activists to consider non-legislative methods to close their primary. This has been something that's been talked about quite a bit, increasingly so since the March 5th primary.

Rinaldi appointed five members, Mark Ramsey, he's a former SRAC member, then two current SRAC members, Matt Patrick and Jim Pickle, along with Texas Homeschool Coalition President Tim Lambert and the party's general counsel, Rachel Hooper, to this working group to figure out ways in which they can close the primary without having to get a law passed because there's been a lot of tension between Republican lawmakers and the party activists. It is no guarantee, even with what happened in the primary, that votes would be there to advance a bill to close primaries. There would be significant opposition to it. The arguments on both sides, we talked about this, but are briefly that any influence from voters who have Democratic history in a Republican primary is undue and should be rooted out. On the flip side, you have a lot of districts that are heavily, heavily Republican.

And so that, the Republican primary, is what decides who the representative is. And so that argument, the counter to the other side is that voters should have the ability whether they're republican or independent or even democratic to elect the person that's going to um that's going to eventually represent them yes in the in the office um now those of rinaldi's persuasion believe that the party should be able to run its affairs as it sees fit. And part of that can include closing off who is eligible to vote in their contests. So this announcement is really just a continuation of something that was started last convention in 2022 when the party stripped all explicit mentions of state code from their party rules so they kept their all the requirements laid out in code that way it doesn't contradict

what law requires but it's untied at least nominally the rules from the from the state code and the requirements therein. The theory is that it then unties them from the legislature in conducting their party affairs. Really, the strategy here is likely through the courts. As it will probably go, the party will pass at convention. Some dictate that the primaries, that the GOP primary is closed from now on. You have to register as a Republican in order to vote in the primary. And then it would likely spark a lawsuit. And there is a lawsuit that could hold some imports on this from the 1980s in Connecticut when the party sued actually to keep its primary open. This would be the reverse, but what the court found,

the Supreme Court found that the party has the right of freedom of association to decide who associates with it, and so do voters. So that could be used in reverse. We'll see if the court eventually upholds that. But first, you've got to get to actually passing the dictate. And it sounds like that's going to happen at convention in some form or fashion. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brad, we'll keep an eye on it.

And convention is inching up closer and closer. So we'll have lots to discuss during and after that for sure. Okay, let's move on to you, Matt. Really quickly, let's hit this story. State police in McAllen conducted a traffic stop that led to the seizure of $2 million in cocaine and the recovery of multiple firearms. Run us through it. That's right, Mackenzie. DPS officers near McAllen conducted a traffic stop on an 18-wheeler. Inside the back of it, they found 90 bundles of cocaine, and they estimated that the street value of it was around $2 million. They ended up arresting three men from Mission, Texas, in connection with the investigation. Now, as they continued to investigate further, it led them to a house in McAllen where they conducted a search and they turned up numerous firearms, including three AR-15s and one AK-47 style rifle that were apparently used in connection with the drug trade.

So huge drug and firearm seizure for DPS. It's something that we report on quite frequently. So we encourage you to check out our story and other recent stories where DPS, along with Operation Lone Star, as well as federal authorities, are consistently making big drug busts along the border and large weapons cash seizures. One notable one out in El Paso just a couple of months ago that we reported on where they seized a lot more firearms, but also thousands of rounds of ammunition and body armor that was being supplied to the Mexican drug cartels. So another part of the border crisis that we continue to report on.

Absolutely. Matt, thank you. Cameron, coming to you. Last story. We'll hit it quickly. The city of Austin has added a noteworthy resolution to their May 2nd agenda coming up quite soon. Tell us what you found.

Yeah. So on this May 2nd agenda, the city of awesome will be proposing a resolution to quote protect the health welfare and safety of transgender residents this includes the resolution will make it the policy of the city to prohibit the use of city personnel funds or resources for investigating prosecuting or imposing penalties on transgender l LGBT individuals seeking, quote, gender-affirming health care or any individual or organization that provides or assists in providing such health care. Other provisions are added into that resolution, including placing, quote, lowest priority to enforce any state laws or regulations that penalize

transgender individuals and this resolution appears to be in the wake or a response rather to SB 14 which was passed during the 88th legislative session which bans gender modification treatments for minor children and we've seen a resolution similar to the one the city of austin is proposing that was passed in sacramento california which declared itself a quote sanctuary city for transgender people and there has been continued reports about how gender dysphoria should be treated. I go into that in the piece if people would like to check it out. Lots of information in there. Absolutely. Thank you, Cameron. I almost said good stuff and I stopped myself. No angry emails this week.

Let's move on to the tweeter-y section. Brad, we'll start with you. So the... I was not ready, but now I am. So the HT-108 recount concluded. That was the race between Morgan Meyer in Dallas and Barry Wernick, the challenger. The recount took like two and a half weeks. It was crazy long. What's a normal window of time for something like that? I guess it depends on how labor intensive each one is um i'd say probably the timeline they expected when this first started was like a week week and a half maybe but it went on another week longer than that so um in the end the margin

actually barry warnick filed for a recount after losing by 537 votes to Meyer. In the end, the margin actually got worse for Wernick. It went from 537 to 552. Meyer gained five votes. Wernick lost 10 votes. So Wernick said frequently throughout this that this wasn't trying to overturn the result of the election. This was to try and provide transparency. There were a lot of accusations lobbied at the current Dallas County GOP chair, Jennifer Stoddard-Hadju.

But she hit back at Wernick saying this was all a ruse and just some unnecessary hoops that had to be jumped through. A lot of accusations that were unfounded, she said. But ultimately, nothing's changed other than the margin of a loss for Wernick, and it got worse. So there's that. There's that. Always love a good recount. Do you? No. Okay. there's that there's that always love a good recount do you no okay i don't think we have anything for the cold open this week i'm just realizing but it's also hard for me to tell

what time we're actually at with our podcast currently because of the technical difficulties we've experienced this is probably the cold open yeah just us sitting just like us sitting here in silence. Like this. Looking at you like, is he talking? Yeah, it's probably true. It's just Matt like, is it working? Cameron, what do you got? So I came across a poll that was conducted by Axios, where in a survey of 6,251 adults taken through March through April 2024, the question posed, or rather it says here,

share of Americans who say they support mass deportation action if elected. Some interesting statistics here. It says 51 percent of the general public supports the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. And if you drill down into political affiliation, 68% of Republicans and then 42% of Democrats. So we've seen immigration continue to be a top priority for those headed to the polls. And a further step in terms of mass deportations appears to be supported by a large majority of people. So will that make its way into actualizing itself in policy? Or it's yet to be seen but um i think the polling here is

eye-opening to say the least as you squint you squinted and you said eye-opening well i squinted eye-opening oh he squinted so he could yes make a more dramatic eye opening that works well done thanks i'm really good at this um matthew what did you see this week on twitter i saw the most important news of the day only a new flavor being released by bluebell kind of an interesting name too it's very, I can't wait to try this. Gooey Butter Cake. That just sounds like high-calorie goodness. Yeah. Bring it on.

There's a Jenny's Ice Cream has gooey butter cake already, which is very, very good. But I'm curious. I'm sure Blue Bells will be delish. When I was going to school in Kansas, they would, in the cafeteria, they would have these butter bars. Butter bars? Yeah, they had all these homemade desserts.

And one of these things was a butter bar. I'd never had a butter bar before. What is a, yeah, tell us what it is. Well, I have no clue. It was just sugar and butter i'm sure but it tasted good yeah it was delicious um that was the problem right yeah you know you throw three or four of those back three or four of those back and be like wait what's going on you got the. Luckily, at the time I was playing sports, you know, working out all the time. So I didn't balloon to 1,000 pounds. But I easily could have.

Yeah. It's true. Well, very good. We'll have to try it. Do a little blue bell taste test on the pot. It's been a while since we did that. Ooh. Smoke-filled room?

Ooh. Ice cream-filled room. Ice cream-filled room. Brad has a major sweet tooth. That is something people should know about Brad, smoke filled room ooh ice cream filled room ice cream filled room Brad has a major sweet tooth that is something people should know about Brad is he has a major sweet tooth yeah

do you disagree with that characterization it sounds as though you do I mean not as much as I used to but yeah it's true what caused

the lessening of the sweet tooth I have no idea it just kind of happened this is a podcast where we're supposed to provide insight to people and you're providing none Yeah, it's true. What caused the lessening of the sweet tooth? I have no idea. It just kind of happened. This is a podcast where we're supposed to provide insight to people, and you're providing none. I don't know.

Well, our office snacks lend themselves to those who have a sweet tooth. You know, we have Skittles, Snickers. Unfortunately, we have Skittles here. We have even little bags of Froot Loops as a snack. Do we really? Oh, oh absolutely but the bags are little snack size but apparently fruit loops are larger so they're easier to just grab and eat you know innovation in the snack space innovation in the snack space our five-year anniversary is coming up i know i've said this ad nauseum but I will admit that I have been on this podcast scrolling through my videos and photos

to find things to commemorate our time as members of the team at the Texan. And I'm finding all sorts of crazy throwback photos. Yeah. Like crazy. Oh, yeah. I think I have already found my favorite please please share you know we need to fill a little bit of time if i can find it here how far back does this

go is this on your phone or is this in the thread? It was in the thread. The one I showed you. Yes. Oh, I might have found it here. For some reason. Oh, yes. This one. Oh, my God. If I can just show our... Our YouTube audience. If you guys can get that.

Brad used to be a cowboy. He's left that life behind. Ben was supposed to Photoshop a cowboy he's left that he's left that life behind ben was supposed to photoshop a big old gun into my hands there and he never did that's why my hands are like that that's very rude oh my gosh poncho in your chair doing his work he's very very studious there are so many though so many we all maybe some of them will make the cut different also yeah well the ones i'm only sending to the thread ones that could potentially be used there are i'm better son i should be sending you these as well so you can see what we all looked like back in the day cameron

we look like different people but regardless five-year anniversary coming up folks be prepared for an onslaught of celebration and social media activity and discounts so check it out and thank you for listening to us for five years that's wild yeah that's just we're very grateful it's unreal to think about where we're at what matt we should celebrate with ice cream maybe that's what we do is next week as the five-year anniversary week pod we can have ice cream what if blue bell were to create a texan flavor the texan flavored ice cream what what would be the flavor b what would they make the flavor what would be the flavor b the flavor b what would be the flavor b

hmm maybe a little bit of coffee yep it would have to have coffee wouldn't it maybe some whiskey coffee and whiskey that actually sounds like a pretty good combo that does sound like a good combo maybe like a brown sugar coffee whiskey is that too much going on i just think about making it sweet you know yeah i found a I found a photo of Isaiah napping at Mozart's when we went to go work for Mozart's one day and then when the bird pooped on my head.

That was an eventful day. Yeah. Okay. Well, on that note, folks, thank you so much for listening and reading and just engaging with us generally for five years.

And if you're new and you haven't been around the whole five years, welcome to the party. We're excited you're here regardless. We'll celebrate next week. Indeed we will. Thanks for listening

and we'll catch you on next week's episode.