The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 29, 2022

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses what’s on the ballot on the May 7 elections, the tragic passing of a Texas national guardsman, Abbott and Patrick finally chiming in on the whistleblower lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a two-year-old Honduran boy rescued by border agents, the donation of three Bitcoin mining machines to the City of Fort Worth, the arguments made for and against the “remain in Mexico” policy at the U.S. Supreme Court, an update on Title 42 deportations, and Melissa Lucio spared from execution this week. 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, the team talks about what's on the ballot on the May 7th elections, the tragic passing of a Texas National Guardsman, Abbott and Patrick finally chiming in on the whistleblower lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a two-year-old Honduran boy rescued by border agents, the donation of three Bitcoin mining machines to the city of Fort Worth, the arguments made for and against the Remain in Mexico policy at the U.S. Supreme Court, an update on Title 42 deportations, and Melissa Lucio spared from execution this week.

Plus, we scour Twitter for fun finds and answer some mailbag questions from y'all. If you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future episode of our podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Friend, and Hayden Sparks. Isaiah Mitchell is in Abilene today for a Sanctuary City of the Unborn local vote. We'll be watching what happens there and he will be reporting. Make sure to go follow him on Twitter to see the latest.

But gentlemen, it's the three of us here, plus Winston, our trusty companion, Brad's trusty companion. Who will be offering nothing to the podcast because he's a freeloader but he is uh very graciously loaned out to the office as a companion to the rest of us he's the office dog just like at home he's the house dog he's not my dog everyone loves him anymore i just pay his medical bills you sound like um a parent to the grandparents that get the kids a lot but the parents still have to deal with all of that it sounds like what you're dealing with here um brad before we get into this i wanted to ask did miguel cabrera get his three thousand his three thousandth hit wow you nailed that three thousand that was just such a smooth transition thank you much like miguel cabrera's

three thousandth hit can i can i ask who miguel cabera is? Because I don't know. Is it a sports ball? Yes, all correct. He's a player on the Detroit Tigers. He's a Venezuelan born first baseman. One of the greatest right-handed

hitters of all time. So he's a Venezuelan Michigander? Now he is, yeah yeah how long did it take him to get to 3 000 well he started playing when he was like 19 i think how old is he now 38 wow that's a few years so half his life he's a lot it's a lot of hits that's a while it takes a lot. How many people are in that club? What? How many people are in that club? I want to say 17 in the 150 years that baseball has been played. Wow. He is the third person ever to have 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, and an over 300 batting average.

Dang. So he's really good. Wow. Well, he was. He's less good now because he's old, but still a great accomplishment. 3,000 hits. That's amazing. Yes, he hit that on Saturday after we recorded the pod.

Okay. Now, we're bringing this up for those who did not listen to our podcast last week because Brad, in the very middle of our podcast podcast had his phone on his little phone stand as he always does when we're recording something happened he was watching sports which i did not know what it was at the time sports baseball the game that i'm saying i didn't know what sport you were watching at the time and you raised your arms in the air with celebration and then you went oh like we're all like brad what's going on and it was because you were watching and trying to see if he'd get a liner to right field yeah and they caught it so that hence my disappointment happy reaction followed by disappointment and then you were roasted after we asked okay brad

what are you watching what's going on yes yes and we have now spent way too much time on this over the span of two podcasts but i said last podcast that we'd asked about it this week so we have well very good exciting news for miguel cabrera broadly let's start with you in terms of the news this week we have um multiple elections coming up this may let's talk about the first one um the next election is only a week away what is on the ballot for the may 7th elections so first and foremost voters across the state will see two property tax related constitutional amendments. The first brings the elderly and disabled exemption in line with the 2019 property tax reform because they're in the constitution as a separate category of taxpayer.

They have to have a basically amending amendments to what the legislature did last time to apply this, that property tax reduction to them. The second would increase the standard school district homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000. Both are going to amount to between $100 and $200 in reduced property taxes for those that get them. So for the first one, only elderly and disabled people can get that exemption. The second one only applies to the school district, but anybody that has a homestead can get that. So it's very complicated when you go look at the ballot language, but just know that

if those pass, property taxes will be reduced in some fashion. So that's basically the simple way to look at the ballot language, but just know that if those pass, property taxes will be reduced in some fashion. So that's basically the simple way to look at it. Second, there is about $18.5 billion in bond proposals on the ballot across the state. I wrote an article on this. I have a list of every single one so you can see if your localities among those um there's one like san antonio has collectively a 1.1 billion dollar bond among like seven different propositions that's like the biggest one this this time around right uh forney isd was like 1.2 so even collectively of all that those seven proposals with san an Antonio, it's not I don't think it's, you know, above it. But, yeah, so we have a list there.

Go check it out. And then third, there are many school board races on the ballots. Those positions are increasingly becoming battlefields for broader political fights, you know, especially over the curriculum, such as gender education, critical race theory, imbued teachings. Um, all those are very important. Um, make sure you know what's on the ballot before you go. And, um, you can check that out at your county elections website. They'll have a sample ballot for you. Um, but yeah, so that's basically it. City council races, all sorts of local fights will be on the ballot for you um but yeah so that's basically it city council races all sorts of local fights will be on the ballot for may 7th so make sure to go out and vote and you know check out who will be on the ballot for more information brad has a couple of great pieces

on those propositions that you can go and check out and on the bonds as he mentioned at the texan dot news make sure to go look at those and read them before you go to vote to kind of figure out where you're at on the issues. Brad, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Hayden, tell us about Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans. It's been a sad week for the Texas National Guard because last Friday, a guardsman, Bishop E. Evans, went missing after he reportedly went into the Rio Grande to rescue two people who appeared to him to be drowning. The Texas Rangers are still investigating what happened, but it was confirmed earlier this week by Representative Tony Gonzalez that Evans' body was identified by local authorities. Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop Evans had, as I said, gone into the river to rescue these two people. Both of them survived and were taken into custody on suspicion of drug trafficking.

Over the weekend, there were search and rescue efforts led by multiple Texas state agencies. The search and rescue efforts had to be called off multiple times because of the current of the river. And they, I think, overnight a couple of times had to stop the searches. But it became a presumption that had not been confirmed that he had drowned in the river. There was some reporting by Fox News in the beginning that he had drowned, but that fact wasn't necessarily confirmed. And the Texas military department had to come out and clarify at a certain point that a body had not been recovered. But I believe it was on Monday morning that Gonzalez stated that local authorities had identified Evans' body. He has been heralded as

a hero and his bravery has been honored by multiple Texas officials. Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop Evans was 22 years old. He was from Arlington, and he had been in the Texas National Guard since May of 2019. in Kuwait, which I believe is a standing military operation there in Asia. And the flags of Texas and the U.S., I believe both flags were flown at half-mast the other day by Governor Abbott, ordered to be flown at half-mast by Governor Abbott in honor of Bishop Evans. And then Congressman Gonzalez, of course, this morning made a speech on the House floor honoring him and his family. And there have been lots of condolences offered to his family. All of this is part of Operation Lone Star, which is Governor Abbott's border security operation.

And there's been criticism of how this is impacting the National Guard. But, of course, any time there's, you know, sadly, a military operation or involvement, this isn't, of course, isn't the same as an overseas conflict that the National Guard was deployed to. But this is a tragic case. And of course, you know, we do want to honor the family of Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop B. Evans today. Yeah, absolutely. Now, can you clarify a little bit? There's been a lot of

just discussion about the circumstances that he kind of waded into when he did attempt to rescue these people. What do we know about those circumstances and these people he was attempting to rescue? The Texas Rangers are leading this investigation. What we know about them is that they were entering the U.S. illegally. This was an effort to breach the southern border, and they are suspected of trafficking narcotics. So, he was heroically going into the river to rescue two accused criminals, and he, of course, wasn't checking to see if they were, you know, accused criminals or who they were. He wasn't, you know, trying to decide are these lives worth saving. He saw two people drowning and or struggling in the river and he went in

to save them. And there has been commentary. I haven't had a chance to take a close look at this, but there's been commentary about guardsman training and the equipment that he may or may not have been provided. I'll have to take a closer look at all that. There were questions yesterday at a joint committee hearing in the Texas House. But in the meantime, the Texas Rangers are investigating. And this is a tragic death. And again, everyone in Texas is honoring the family of Bishop Evans at this time. Absolutely. And Hayden, thank you for updating us on that. Absolutely important

story. Daniel, let's pivot. The whistleblower lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton has been pending in courts for a year and a half. That is so wild that it's been there for a year and a half at this point. But Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have largely stayed silent on the allegations against the Attorney General. But this week, they submitted briefs to the Supreme Court in this case. Politically, this is a very interesting development. What were those briefs about? Yes, I think part of the reason why they submitted these briefs is because it does apply to them and it does affect their positions. Now, as I was writing this article, I didn't include this in the draft that I sent to you, but I did toss around the idea of describing these briefs as brief briefs because they were brief.

They were only one page long each, so they each submitted a brief basically saying that the Supreme Court should take up this case and consider it. Now, they did largely stay out of saying whether or not the Supreme Court should rule one way or another. They both kind of just said the Supreme Court needs to consider this. They need to make a decision on this. It should be a decision that the highest court in Texas makes. And there was an interesting note, though, that the attorney for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called it a separation of powers issue, which did kind of seem to be a little bit favoring the attorney general's argument, because that's what the office of the attorney general has been arguing in this case is that it's a separation of powers issue. And that's kind of why they're pushing it to the Supreme Court. So there was an agreement there.

But other than that, it was basically just saying, hey, the Supreme Court should consider this. Wow. So can you quickly tell us about the arguments that Paxton is making in this case as a whole? Yes. So a year and a half ago, when these whistleblowers raised criminal allegations against Attorney General Kent Paxton, they ended up losing their jobs. Some of them were fired. Some of them resigned on their own or were kind of pressured to resign. They said that they faced some retaliation in the office as well. Now, the arguments in the case have not actually gotten to those allegations or either the criminal allegations against Paxton or the allegations of retaliation. What it's been based about is whether or not they actually have the standing to sue to begin with, with the Attorney General and the

Office of the Attorney General basically arguing that the whistleblowers don't have the authority to sue under the Whistleblower Act because they were forced to resign or were fired, not because of retaliation necessarily, but more in a disagreement between policy issues. Because the whistleblowers were saying that Paxton used his office, his official capacity as attorney general in several specific ways to benefit real estate developer, Nate Paul, which has been, you know, the central thing about this whole case. And Paxton is basically saying, you know, it's my decision to use my office how i want to and you disagreeing with me you know that's you're basically taking a stance against an elected

official and so their argument is that the texas whistleblower act doesn't explicitly say that statewide elected officials apply to this so they're saying there's a carve out here where you can't actually sue statewide elected officials like the attorney general like the governor like the lieutenant governor under the whistleblower act um so that's basically the argument here that is now before the supreme court uh the appellate court and the trial court both said basically no they have the right to sue let's let the case continue and now paxton has appealed this to the supreme court where we're still waiting to see if they're actually going to consider it or not yeah why is it taking so long why has it been there a year and

a half uh it's just uh a long procedural thing yeah um you know they they file in a court i think it was filed in uh november of 2020 then, of course, you have to wait for them to respond to the brief, and there's just replies going back and forth. And then it's notable that the Office of the Attorney General also does kind of drag their feet on this in consistently asking for extended time to file their filings. And so, you know, that's just been this whole process for the past year and a half. It's been a lot of back and forth. Interesting, like I mentioned politically in that, I mean, the governor and lieutenant governor have been very reticent to comment on this issue.

I mean, when you talk about like the big three elected officials in texas usually looping the speaker and the governor lieutenant governor but the attorney general is up there up there too immense power as the state's top lawyer in so many ways and really does work with those two other offices and a lot of different things now i mean this is kind of the first that they're publicly addressing this even if it's's kind of subliminal even. Right. It's like the first time they're really coming out and like making an official move in one way or another on this issue. Yeah. Now, I will I will note that there, of course, Paxton has faced quite a competitive primary challenge this season. He had three big GOP challengers.

Yeah. And, you know, including one statewide official, George P. Bush, who has been the most outspoken about this among the statewide electeds. But after the primary election, when George P. Bush and Ken Paxton headed to a runoff, then Dan Patrick did endorse Ken Paxton. And whereas Greg Abbott has basically stayed out of the race entirely as well he was asked on election day who'd you vote for and he said i'm not going to tell you i'm going to let the voters decide what they want yeah um which many people took as okay i'm not voting for paxton because that would be the you know the incumbent would be the easy person to answer when you're also a statewide incumbent but who knows that is complete conjecture we don't know at any point if that's the case but that's kind of the interpretation a lot of the Austin folks had to say. And one other thing that I'll note real quickly,

there was another brief that was submitted to the Supreme Court in this case. This was submitted actually after the Amex briefs by the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor, but Kent Hance, who's a former Congressman, I believe he's the president of texas tech i believe um yes i believe that's correct he is also an attorney for hance scarborough his law firm um but he submitted an amicus brief supporting the attorney general's arguments um it's worth noting that he is also a Paxton donor. He's donated to Paxton. He's donated to Greg Abbey. He's donated to Dan Patrick.

And he's also represented, his law firm has also represented Nate Paul, which is just an interesting connection there for him to be filing an amicus brief here. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Daniel, for covering that for us. Always an interesting thing when you see this whistleblower suit with Paxton back in the news. Thank you so much, Hayden. Let's talk about the border again. Shocker, we got two border stories this week. But talk to us about what happened to a two-year-old Honduran boy rescued by border agents last week. Earlier, we talked about Texas Army National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans and his bravery on the Rio Grande, which was near Eagle Pass. This happened in a different part of Texas near Roma.

And it goes with the theme of border agents having to step in and take care of some of these humanitarian issues. Of course, Evans wasn't a border agent. He was a guardsman, but he was acting as someone who was helping secure the border. This Honduran boy was reportedly, according to border guards, with a group of 38 illegal aliens who had abandoned him near Roma, and they were able to rescue him and give him a medical examination. Fortunately, the child was not in medical distress and was deemed to be in good health, but this group that he was with had evidently left him along the way, and it is possible that none of the people he was with were relatives. I don't think they specified

whether they were able to ascertain that immediately, but there are, thankfully in this case, and this is not always the case, but the child was recovered without any serious injuries or health problems. Yeah. So, what are some of the challenges involved with rescuing an unaccompanied minor? As Mark Morgan, who's the former acting commissioner of CBP, highlighted during the Trump administration, children are often used as what he called passports to enter the country. In other words, groups of people will travel with children who may or may not be related to them in order to gain entry into the country and to be seen more favorably when they have an enforcement encounter. But the Biden administration has created policies that are designed to be more compassionate and

favorable to keeping unaccompanied minors in the country, such as exempting them from Title 42 expulsions. And Mayorkas repeated at a hearing just today that he believes unaccompanied minors under Trump were quote, cruelly separated from their parents, end quote. And of course, some children were separated from their parents in the zero tolerance policy of the Trump administration. But as the agency has stated before, thousands of times a a year illegal aliens will falsely state that a child traveling with them is related in order to hopefully have a more favorable enforcement outcome i assume that would be being allowed to stay and or avoiding deportation but as they specified in this instance in this honduran child's case border patrol agents are often not able to get information because they're just too young.

A two-year-old can't articulate, you know, I'm from Honduras and here are my parents' names. So, they have to rifle through their personal belongings or sometimes parents will write contact information or ID information on the child's body or on their clothing. And American authorities then have to piece together that information to somehow try to form an idea of where this child came from and who they are so that they can possibly reunite them. So oftentimes, you know, the Trump administration was criticized for its policies, its enforcement measures, and that's still a debate. But sometimes it's not the federal government who separated the child from the parents. The parents sent the child with

somebody or they were possibly abducted. And it's a situation that falls in these border agents laps and they have to come up with a solution and find a place for them to stay, a facility for them to stay while they're in the U.S. Yeah, absolutely wild that that is happening just south of where we are. Just absolutely wild. And I think it's just fair to say that the humanitarian crisis so often talked about at the border is on all sides. It really is something that a lot of people have to reckon with. And there isn't always a clear cut policy response to these kinds of issues. And even when there is, those kinds of

blanket policies don't always work. So just complicated all around. But Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Daniel, let's talk about Bitcoin. My gosh, that's kind of a new one for us here. The Fort Worth City Council approved a very unique resolution Tuesday. What was that about? The city of Fort Worth, the city council voted on a resolution to accept a donation of three Bitcoin mining machines from the Texas Blockchain Council to launch a pilot program that will allow the city to mine Bitcoin themselves from City Hall with these three machines for the next six months. Fort Worth will become the first city to mine Bitcoin. There's other, obviously, private people who do this, and they usually do it at a much larger scale.

Three machines is not very much, according to Mayor Matty Parker. That's the equivalent. Each machine is the equivalent of about a vacuum household or a household vacuum cleaner. Um, which sucks, you know, I'm sorry. I had to throw that joke. Um, I think that was bound to happen at some point. Yeah. Um, but, uh, that is just kind of a noteworthy thing.

It's not necessarily going to create a lot of revenue for the city, but it is something that they're just pushing that will continue to push cryptocurrency in the state of Texas. To give you a little bit more context about what Bitcoin is, it's a cryptocurrency if you haven't heard about it. It is basically another form of paying people with stuff. It's used using blockchain technology, and the mining of Bitcoin is actually done by a very extensive computing process that these machines, giant computers, have to do. Just extremely hard math problems that I would not want to solve. And neither do everybody else, so they have computers that do this, but it eats up a lot of energy.

So there's been a lot of push in Texas to kind of have that grow. So yeah, that's just an overview of what happened. Okay, very interesting. So if it won't generate much, if any, revenue and is more of a symbolic measure, what is the point of launching this pilot program? I think it's what Parker has said and what Lee Bratcher, who is the president of the Texas Blockchain Council, has said.

They're really trying to push cryptocurrency in Texas. They're really trying to push blockchain technology and Bitcoin in the state of Texas. We've even seen in the governor's race, of course, Governor Greg Abbott has kind of signaled his support for cryptocurrency and his interest in it. You even had his challenger, Don Huffines, have some stuff about Bitcoin that he came out with. And so you've seen this growing push even in the last legislative session. They did pass one or two bills about it. I think one actually created a like a blockchain working group where they're going to continue exploring legislation further to see how they can can push the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry in Texas. It was interesting that legislation was actually from Representative Tan Parker, who is now, of course, running for the Texas Senate seat and is expected to win in November for that Denton County area seat. So we'll see how that continues to be pushed in the legislature.

We've also seen a growth in recent months of mining in Texas as well. China, there was a huge, huge industry of Bitcoin mining in China because the energy there was so cheap that people who had these large computers would go to china to mine the bitcoin because they could get really cheap energy but china has now banned the transaction of cryptocurrency in their country and so that's pushing a lot of these miners away from china and towards the west texas of course has been an an ideal spot that people are looking to because of easy access to the energy grid. And proponents of it have also said, argued that the extensive amount of power that it takes to run these machines would be beneficial for situations like the freeze, saying that this could be the first thing that they could cut in instances of needing more power.

And that's a protocol that's already cut in instances of needing more power. And that's a protocol that's already in place for large industrial users. They do that already. Actually, those industrial users, if they have additional generation, can sell it back into the grid at premium prices. So I don't know if that's something that these Bitcoin miners would be able to do, take advantage of, but that's kind of the continuation of policy currently. Yeah, and that's basically what they're building it as it's like you require a lot more energy to uh basically energize these machines and so there's a better verb to energize power there we go

energize i've been watching too many energizer commercials he's like i'm gonna make some. Here we go. So yeah, there has been a push in Texas. And Mayor Parker said that really, it's not about the money. She said, it's, quote, about exploring how to integrate digital assets into our operations as a city of Fort Worth. I think there's also Bratcher and Parker on a Twitter spaces call after the city council passed this resolution, they were talking about how Bitcoin is also not necessarily a currency that will replace the dollar, but it's something that can compliment the dollar and come alongside and be another means of people being able to finance stuff. And so they're also trying to get cryptocurrency more in use by big cities like this so even by having a little bit on the books in fort worth

that's also kind of expanding uh kind of signaling their support for it very interesting i think i also saw corsicana just got it some sort of plan in place for a bitcoin corsicana of all places yeah wow yeah it looks like that might be a private business or entity i'll have to look into it yeah there was an economic development kind of announcement when they put it out but we'll see what it turns into wow fascinating well thank you dino for covering that for us hayden border story number three um just wild we have so much to talk about today. So talk to us about what some of the arguments were that were made by lawyers for Texas and the Biden administration on the Remain in Mexico policy and where the policy is currently at.

Well, the policy was launched in January of 2019 under the Trump administration, and it is currently under a federal judge's order that it be reinstated after the Biden administration sought to end it twice, in fact, once last summer and then again in October. But the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in oral argument on Tuesday after a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling required the Biden administration to continue to make a good faith effort to reimplement this, which requires people to stay on the other side of the southern border while their asylum claims are considered by U.S.

courts. In other words, they can't wait out their asylum cases in Texas or Arizona or whatever state they happen to have entered through. The Solicitor General of the U.S., Elizabeth Preligar, argued that DHS only has so much bed space and only has so much what she called detention capacity, and therefore they must prioritize accused criminals and other people who are considered to be a public safety risk. Past administrations, according to Perligar, have exercised a similar policy and it would be legally unsound to say that all of those administrations were in violation of federal law, which he says gives the DHS a little bit of leeway. And Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary, according to her, was

exercising a policy judgment that he is entitled to make. On the other hand, Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone stated that federal law is not that flexible and the federal government is required to make a good faith effort to make sure that people are in this country illegally and if they are not to detain and possibly deport them. The ruling was made by Judge Matthew Kazmarek in Amarillo in August, I believe, of last year and the Supreme Court originally declined to take the case. But then Mayorkas issued a new ruling, pardon me, a new memorandum hoping to satisfy Kazimeric's decision. In other words, trying to angle it in such a way that

the policy that he was trying to implement would not run afoul of Kazimeric's decision by the Fifth Circuit rejected ad, and that's why it ended up at the Supreme Court. Wow. So what were some of the questions and concerns that Supreme Court justices had? Of course, this policy has foreign affairs implications because we're dealing with Mexico, and some would say that we should be less diplomatic with Mexico when it comes to sending people back over. But bear in mind, a lot of the people coming across the border, in fact, in some cases, most of them are not Mexican. They are Central American, as we've talked about before. And in the case of the Del Rio surge, many of them were Haitian.

So it's not like these deportations are just repatriating people back to mexico when they are required to await in mexico they could be unlawfully in mexico that's why it required negotiations with our neighbor to the south but the biden administration reached an agreement with me, and that's why this policy, they were able to re-implement it. But Justice Kagan feared that requiring this policy would give Mexico leverage over the U.S. government. But Justice Roberts also challenged Solicitor General Proligar that even if it is a struggle from a policy perspective. In other words, if they don't have enough bed space, the Supreme Court's role is to determine what the law is and then the policy consequences, the chips will fall where they will, more or less. But a decision could be

this summer and the federal government or the U.S. Supreme Court, I don't think is tied to a specific timeline. So we could have a decision in this case this summer. Got it. Well, we will certainly keep an eye onS. Supreme Court, I don't think is tied to a specific timeline. So we could have a decision on this case this summer. Got it. Well, we will certainly keep an eye on it. Thank you, Hayden. We're coming right back to you. Border story number four. 50% of our topics today are border related. You have a lot of talking to do today on the pod. But let's talk about Title 42. What did a federal judge decide regarding Title 42 deportations? I'll keep this one a little shorter since I ran over my last segment. But Title 42, as we've talked about before, is a federal law that allows the US government to expedite deportations during a risk of a

communicable disease. The CDC invoked this at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and then just weeks ago determined that they would terminate this policy on May 23rd. A federal judge has foreclosed that at least for the next 13 or 14 days because yesterday, District Judge Robert Summerhays issued a two-week temporary restraining order against the termination of Title 42 enforcement, and that was in a lawsuit filed by the states of Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona. They are seeking a more permanent solution through a preliminary injunction, which would be, I believe, in a legal sense, I don't know the specifics, but basically a more permanent resolution while the

case is being resolved and resolved through trial or the hearings or whatever, however the case is ultimately resolved. But a hearing on that will happen on May 13. So in the meantime, the feds cannot move forward with their plans of ending Title 42's enforcement. Why is Title 42 and its enforcement so important to those who support stronger immigration enforcement? In March, half of the illegal aliens who were arrested were set for expulsion under Title 42. Wow. And an interesting fact that Solicitor General Proligar mentioned at her hearing, and I'm going to pull it up because these numbers kind of took me aback during the Remain in Mexico policy or the oral argument on the Remain in Mexico policy was the number of people who were released who were not deported under title 42 because she mentioned that there were 43 000 in march granted bond

or conditional parole released on that policy and then 37 000 were just granted parole wow and that's out of 212 000 apprehensions and there were a few that were deported or handled under the Title VIII policies, which is the U.S.'s regular immigration laws. So, this is important because, A, we're already expelling a lot of people under this policy as is with the increased number of enforcement encounters as is. And then, of course, if this policy is ended, there is expected a deluge of up to 18 000 illegal alien encounters every single day which would be an extraordinary number according to one estimate by dhs why is that massive growth expected with this? Because when word gets back that you're not going to be you back because of COVID and you have a better chance of being able to stay, then it is contended that the incentive would be strong enough that people would rush the border just like many Haitians did when there was a miscommunication over our policy toward Haitians back in September of last year. So, a similar event just on a much larger scale

because it applies to more than just Haitians absolutely okay okay well Hayden thank you for that you've you've ticked off all your border story coverage look at you well done but now we're going to continue talking to you because we have more another story to talk to you about um so let's pivot here this is a story you've been following for several weeks now how and why was Melissa Lucio spared from execution on Wednesday? I feel like my beat has been a little bit grim. Your beat has been grim. And last week. It's been a tough couple weeks. I know. It's been a tough, not for me, but it's been a tough week for a lot of people who are dealing with some really difficult seasons of life as they confront these issues.

But, you know, not the least of which the Evans family who's dealing with the loss of Bishop Evans near Eagle Pass in the Rio Grande. But Melissa Lucio was spared from execution. She is under sentence of death for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah, in 2007. Her execution was scheduled for Wednesday, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution and directed the trial court judge, Judge Gabriela Garcia, to take up some of the issues that Lucia raised in her appeal, most importantly, her claim of innocence. To me, that was the most striking item was that the court stated that the Court of Criminal Appeals said that the trial judge should look at whether she's innocent, which would, to me, override all these other

issues that are being discussed. But they also rejected some of the issues that her appeal raised. She had claimed that gender bias and possible juror misconduct, and I say gender bias meaning sexism, but she had claimed that juror misconduct had contributed to this, and I say she, her lawyers were making these claims on her behalf. But her death sentence is not commuted. Her conviction is not overturned. This is merely a delay of the execution. A new date would be set by the trial court, I presume, when these issues are settled at the district court level. Very good. Okay. So then why is Melissa Lucio on death row in the first place? You spoke about it briefly. Well, of course, there's a full-blown trial. I can't possibly summarize all the evidence that

was presented. I wasn't there and I haven't read all the transcripts of the trial. But there's been a frenzy of media coverage, or there was a frenzy of media coverage prior to the execution date. But in the trial, I understand based on the court documents, there was testimony that the ER died due to blunt forced trauma to the head, i.e. she was beaten to death. And there was other evidence presented of child abuse. So, Mariah Alvarez, the victim in this case, suffered a terrible death and a jury concluded that Melissa Lucio, her mother, was guilty of the child's murder. And it has not been proven that Melissa Lucio is innocent. There was a frenzy of media coverage prior to this case. And I want to just make clear that there has been no finding by a

court that she is innocent. The Court of Criminal Appeals has sent that back to be considered by the trial court. And all these lawmakers speaking out about this, of course, everyone has the right to weigh in on this and lawmakers have the right to weigh in on this. And her execution was legitimately stopped because of concerns, but it was stopped by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Her sentence was not commuted because she was innocent by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Her sentence was not commuted because she was innocent or because she's been proven innocent. Things are just on pause right now, basically. Correct. They are on pause and they will be hashed out by the trial court. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thanks for breaking that down for us. Again, very grim beats that you have been covering diligently these last few weeks, so thank you for that. Gentlemen, let's pivot to something

a little more lighthearted here. Let's talk about Twitter, what's going on on Twitter these days. Daniel, we're going to start with you. What do you have on the Twitter front to share with our listeners this week? So about Twitter, if you didn't know, Elon Musk put in a bid on Twitter for $54.20 per share. I was going to say. For all shares. Dang, I was going to say. For all shares.

Dang, I could have bought Twitter. I think that accounts to $44 billion, which you probably couldn't buy that. Dang it. I'm guessing. It's a little outside of my range. Maybe not. But it actually went through this week.

Or the Twitter board of people accepted. The Twitter board of people. The Twitter board of people. You know, the people who make the decisions the powers that be said okay so twitter is being sold to elon musk elon musk uh tweeted out a tweet believe it or not that's what he tweeted and he quote oh isaiah uh rocket ship star heart yes explain with three exclamation points. Heart star rocket ship. There was more to the tweet than that.

He actually has like a screenshot of a quote from him, which is actually the thing that I wanted to get to. Maybe I'll get there. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just drag it out and let you all figure out what it is. My Atlanta. Okay. He said, quote, free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy and twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated uh he said some other stuff too but that was the the thing that caught my eye was his use

of the term digital town square um because this is this is tied to the whole um censorship arguments going on in Texas. Of course, last year we had the big tech censorship bill that was being pushed by Governor Greg Abbott, Senator Brian Hughes, and House Representative Briscoe Cain. And one of the things that they pointed out and they have said repeatedly is that Twitter is a town square. It's a public square. It's this public forum. And that's kind of the central argument to saying why we need to have free speech protections on Twitter. Whereas the lobbies for Twitter and a bunch of other organizations, the lobbying group is called Net Choice. The president, Steve DelBianco, came to the legislature to testify and essentially

rebuffed these arguments and was saying like, no, it's not a town square. It's a private company. And so you shouldn't regulate the free speech of the private company versus the free speech of the people on the platform. Who regulates who, basically. So there's this debate over, like, whose free speech is being violated. Is it individuals on Twitter or is it Twitter, the company itself, with the anti-censorship law from Texas? And so that has been a core argument in this. So seeing the new owner of Twitter agreeing with the other side and saying, yes, it's a town square, it's a public forum, I think that does give you some indication of where

he purportedly wants to take this company. Interesting. Well, Daniel, thank you for that. Absolutely interesting to watch those same kind of terms be used and thrown around. Hayden, what do you have for us this week? What did you see on Twitter that caught your eye? Okay, I have a little bit of a confession. Because I originally flagged this tweet from the Washington Post to make fun of it. Because the title of this

or what the tweet said is this hair braiding class for dads is so popular there's a wait list and this picture is a little weird okay i've got to say it because it's a group of of men basically around sitting around tables and they're they don't have their kids or their daughters they're with them it's just they're in front of these i don't know what you call these like mannequin heads yeah you know practicing braiding hair i'm like oh that's kind of weird so i flagged and i'm like i'm gonna make fun of this on the podcast um but i read the you know the article and it's actually kind of touching because it's people like single dads and or dads wanting to you know find a way to connect with their

their daughters and so they learn how to braid braid hair and um it's just it's something that they want to learn how to do to connect with their daughters so it was i you know i i lightened up a little bit it's not you know not too ridiculous but i um you know the heads are creepy though the heads are creepy yeah like i'm looking at this yeah i if they would you know if they brought their daughters with them, I think it'd make it better. And maybe if they hadn't have, you know, tweeted it from their breaking news account, I think that would also have made it a little bit better.

But that's what caught my eye on Twitter this week. Do you guys know how to braid hair? Any of you? Even like in Boy Scouts, like braiding the leather, you know, straps you'd put on your key chain or anything like that? You don't know how to braid? Guys. Even like in Boy Scouts, like braiding the leather straps you'd put on your key chain or anything like that. Do you know how to braid? Guys, we need to sign up for the braid, the air braiding class.

We can all braid Winston's tail after this. I'm sure he would love that. He probably would. He'd be like, oh, people are touching me. I just want love. Daniel, you don't know how to braid either i think i had to do it for some kind of a class project that involved making octopuses out of yarn octopi no it's actually octopuses is it really no no no it's syllabuses maybe it is octopi but it's syllabuses it's not syllabi correct oh it's definitely octopi we're answering the real critical questions

yeah i don't know i think i might be able to pull it off but it might pull off the hair i remember as a as a young but i pull it off right i remember as a young girl like it was it was easy to do a braid but you were really good when you were like 12 13 and you learned how to french braid your own hair because it's really it was very hard at the time to french braid my own hair yeah i could i could probably relate if i never grew my hair out longer than a half inch high and tight i like it okay um oh i'm next i'll talk i'll talk about a tweet that caught my eye it was my own tweet about a tweet that caught my eye davis was showcasing your humility there truly truly no but there's a tweet from my own tweet never um but this week i was scrolling through twitter

and for some reason i don't even know i think it was because people I follow had interacted with this tweet. It showed up in my feed. It wasn't even because anybody retweeted it. It was Matt Rinaldi and Jonathan Stickland said, aliens are real, and I believe it, and Bigfoot. And this tweet came from Jose Canseco, who's like all-time major leaguer. He was spelled the names, too. Oh, my gosh.

Well, that's the best part, is that Mattynold reynoldy and jonathan sticklint not sticklint and anyway their spellings were so funny they didn't even tag them on twitter and come to find out when he was speaking to um chairman of the texas gop matt reynoldy and former state representative and someone who's still very involved in the political sphere here in Texas, Jonathan Stickland. He had no idea who he was speaking to according to their account of the encounter. But essentially, Rinaldi and Stickland went to a baseball card signing event at a store near them and went in, asked for the baseballs to be signed. I think it sparked conversation about whether or not aliens are real and demons and bigfoot and all these different things and um they enjoyed

apparently jose enjoyed the conversation and tweeted about it and he didn't even know who they were didn't tag them and all of a sudden you have all these um texas political you know talking heads tweeting about it, including myself. Jose Canseco is an interesting character to begin with. Oh my gosh, yeah. I think he was wrapped up in all the PED stuff in baseball. Yeah. Very good player.

But he's most known for helping his opponent hit a home run. He's in the outfield and he was chasing a fly ball and he misplays it. And the ball sails over his glove, hits him in the head and bounces over the wall for a home run. Just one of the most iconic videos I've ever seen. Well, it's so sad because he really did have a great career in a lot of ways. Yeah, he was really good. He was very, very good.

Anyways, I think that's very funny. I just could not believe that I was on my Twitter feed. I think he was part of the Bash Brothers with Mark McGuire on the Oakland A's. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. As the name would allude, would suggest, they hit a lot of home runs. And then some reporter replied to my tweet saying that it was kind of crazy and not what I expected to see on a that it was kind of crazy that and not what i

expected to see on a sunday afternoon is this tweet from canseco some reporter said but you can say go uh gets how big 3 000 hits is hey that reporter's spot on yeah he would as he can say go would know he only has like 1800 dang only only 1800 oh man really slacking yeah well brad on that note um what do you have for us well where hayden meant to make fun of something and decided not to i am jumping all in on making fun of something uh the austin news guild tweeted um today texas's three unionized newsrooms are logging off for a one-hour lunch break we know texas news will be stronger when we all have fair contracts but we're all facing similar battles to get there and they added the dallas news guild and fort worth news guild

the there's this growing movement especially among these city newspapers to unionize and unionization just you know whether rightfully or wrongfully comes with higher costs but all these outlets are struggling across the country with being able to keep up their have their revenues meet their costs and now all their employees are doing this and um there's just like a really cultish response on Twitter about this. You know, all the legacy outlet reporters are, yay, we're so proud of you, blah, blah, blah. And so it's just quite something to watch unfold.

It's quite something. Is that how you would describe it? I feel like Statler and Waldorf sitting in the parapet, just pointing and laughing watching all this unfold but hey you're so high on your horse that one hour lunch break i'm sure is really going to change a lot of things but who knows well we have said on this podcast that we get very hungry around the time we record and that is happening currently. I'm very hungry for my lunch break. But before we get to our lunch break, folks, it is that time again where we chat about some questions that were sent in by readers, by listeners. Thank you to those who have sent

in questions for our team. We will answer some of these mailbag questions. Now we do this periodically on our podcast, just started doing this, but we're going to go ahead and start with a question from Nancy M. Are school bonds good? Is there another way for schools to get funding without hitting the taxes? What if previous bonds haven't been paid off? Is it wise for the school board to ask for more money? How is it possible to roll a new building under an existing bond? Could you please talk about this? The elections are coming up in May 2022. Lots of questions from Nancy. Some of them we will not answer. You know, we certainly want to leave it up to our readers in terms of deciding whether certain bonds should be voted for or against. You know your issues, do your research, and we're just here to provide you with some facts. But Brad, can you answer some of those questions about how this process works?

Well, it's certainly not the case that they're all improper spending. You know, infrastructure needs do occur, but it's a case by case basis. And the voters themselves need to analyze whether it's necessary or not. are because there's no income tax in Texas, because their way of collecting revenue, especially school districts, is basically only through property taxes. They have to go through this method to take a local bond to their constituents. And the reason they're having to do this is because it would raise property taxes.

That's important because you'll see a lot of messaging from people advocating these bonds. It says, oh, we're reducing the property taxes, or at least more honestly, we'll say we're reducing the property tax rate. But that doesn't mean that your taxes are going to go down. If this is on the ballot, it's going to raise your taxes. It doesn't mean you shouldn't vote yes. It just means more money is going to be required yes if they're selling if they're selling this to you as a tax it's not going to raise your property taxes at all that's a flat-out lie and so um take that under consideration um don't let the campaign messaging make you believe something that's not the case uh is it possible to roll a new building under an existing bond?

That I am not sure. They do do refinancing. A lot of times they do that, though, through certificates of obligation for existing debt, which is not subject to vote by the taxpayers and voters in general. Let's see. What was the other, is it wise for the school? Oh, if they had, if previous bonds haven't been paid off, basically all these schools have existing debt. Um, I'm sure there are cases, I mean, there's so many localities in Texas. I'm sure there are cases that have no debt existing, but most of them do. And so, you know, for example, uh, I live in Dale Valley and which is right outside Austin. Um, they just passed a school bond in 2019

and now they're going for another one, an even larger one. That's that happens all the time. Um, is it wise? It depends on what they're asking the money for um usually the what they spent the money on in the previous one is different for the purpose now and in del valle's case they're doing it because of the rise in population they saw from the census saying they need more schools because the population is booming with tesla tesla's factory right there um but you know is it wise for them to ask for more money well it's up to you guys and um they have to make the case to you and a lot of times because these are most people just pay attention at the national or even the statewide level these go under the radar and don't they have to have

hearings on these things and a lot of times they go unattended by average taxpayers who otherwise would have a say on this folks don't realize how high local debt is here in texas it's massive it's massive and even even if you compare it to the 50 states um you know across the country texas is always in one of the top the number that's sticking in my head right now i don't know if it's correct at the moment but it was one of the recent uh numbers put out there it's uh twelve thousand five hundred dollars debt per taxpayer local just local a few years ago and i'd have to look at the numbers now but texas was number two only to new or california i think it was just slightly ahead of new york yeah um

of all 50 states in low in terms of local debt yeah and the reason it's so local heavy is because there's no income tax for the state and so or um yeah for the state and so um a lot especially for schools which make up more than half of your property tax bill that's where they get the money is through the local property taxes. And so these deserve a lot more attention than they usually get. Yeah. So folks, keep an eye.

May 7th election's coming right up and go to the Texas.News, like we said, to read all about those bonds. Gentlemen, this is a question we'll just ask all y'all. So from Ken G, parental choice in education is a critical issue for texas and the nation even the most rural areas supported parental choice overwhelmingly in the march primary so why are rural areas typically more hesitant about or even passionately opposed to

school choice it's a heck of a question it is and i think it highlights an interesting difference between rural politics and big city politics. And it's been said before that it's, well, I'll say this, when the countyard, at least when I was in high school and middle school. And a lot of the people who were involved in Bullard ISD went to our church. And so a lot of the time, you know, the community is more tight knit. And, you know, I'm not, obviously I'm not speaking to Bullard in particular. That just came to mind because that's, you know, I'm not obviously I'm not speaking to Bullard in particular. That just came to mind because that's where I spent my time. But when it comes to issues that affect school districts, living in a smaller community, you might be more your money and taking it to a different school or, you know, sending your kids elsewhere, that may not necessarily be, I don't think it would be necessarily that people are staunchly opposed to it, although there are people who are. it's just less imminent in people's minds because they support their local school district and they know the people that are involved and they know their school administration.

And so they're happy with the way things are. That would be my best theory is that people are, and counties, sometimes the most, or the major employer is the county or the local government school district and the school district so um you know it's not it's more personal and uh it's more important uh for the the local school district to be successful in order for the broader or for the the uh the town or the county to be successful certainly sorry go ahead and i would say too like just to piggyback off of that hayden you know when school choice is talked about the typical reform that is mentioned is vouchers so let's just like boil down on that one for a second

basically saying if a parent chooses to homeschool their child or send them to private school or send them to some sort of charter school whatever whatever that might be, the voucher would basically be money given back to you by the government since your student is not taking advantage of the public school that's offered. Basically saying you're paying for this, but you're not reaping any of the benefits. Whatever you pay in property taxes to the school, you can take elsewhere. Exactly. And local school districts in rural areas, they're already saying, okay, well, we have funding issues. There are all these things we need to pay for. We don't necessarily have all the same options for schooling that places in more suburban or urban areas might have. There are a lot more private and charter school options in areas that have more population just by definition. So why would we bankrupt these local school districts? That's the rhetoric

that's used is why would we bankrupt these local school districts, take money away when parents can homeschool their children when there can't be as much accountability? That's a lot of the argument that's used typically. And two, you have a lot of property rich areas in parts of rural Texas that have money shipped off to urban areas because of robin hood right that's a huge part of how public school education is funded here in texas which is a whole other issue um and so a lot of school districts for better or for worse are very territorial of the money that they are allotted by the state or by their local um property tax revenues. Yeah. I think also Ken mentioned the ballot prop

that was on the GOP primary ballot this year. That represents the most disciplined Republican voters, I would say. There are people that vote Republican in the general election,

especially in these rural districts, that don't vote in the primary. That's the case all over the place. So while the hardest core GOP voters support vouchers, it doesn't mean that everyone that votes for the elected official in November is going to support vouchers.

So I think it skews that perception a bit. Now, this has been a party priority for years. Yeah. So, um, there's that aspect of it too, but,

um, you know, especially like you mentioned about the, the funding, you know, when you take, uh, when one student leaves a rural district and takes their money elsewhere,

that has a larger effect than if one student leaves a rural district and takes their money elsewhere, that has a larger effect than if one student leaves an urban school and just in terms of money, you know? So, you know, that doesn't mean that the arguments for it is, is without merit. Um, but that's the perception or that's the, um, the point of view that people that oppose it have. So there's just there's a lot less agreement on this issue within the Republican Party than that ballot prop indicates. Yeah. Even though it was so overwhelming. That's just a small fraction of the people voting Republican. And the public school community in Texas is very strong, very vocal,

very loud, definitely makes their voice heard in the legislature. And lawmakers certainly do their best in many cases to avoid unnecessary confrontation or conflict with that group. I think that's a huge thing. And it's also too, like Brad's saying, it's less of an impact on the larger districts, but also people start to lose the thread back to, and everybody does this, but people start to lose the thread back to ideological consistency when it affects their children or their friends or people they respect. And so, you know, the conversation changes from, you know, is this a conservative policy to what is this going to do to our district or our employee? Or, you know, I've known so-and-so for years and, you know, they're, you know, a teacher in this district and we want to take care of the, you know, the teachers in this district. And, you know, all of that's valid, but it is a shift. It is a change in, in what the priorities are.

Yeah, absolutely. And other opponents will also say that, um, opponents of vouchers will say we already have school choice in the state. You know, you can take, you can homeschool your kid tomorrow. You can take them to a private school, but the taxpayer dollars are that is that, yes, they can do that. But that's in addition to having to pay the local property taxes, which, as I said, is the largest part of your tax bill. Yeah. So, you know, there's oftentimes these arguments and this is spans well beyond this issue. Talk past each other. And, you know, they're not,

they're not really meeting in the middle of dealing with the, the actual contentions of each other. But yeah, I mean it's, they're paying property taxes and, and private school tuition or, and having to finance their, or take an income away for a parent to stay home and, and homeschool their child.

So that's the issue at hand. Yeah. And that, that's where sorry i don't mean to harp on it but the um that's where i think that that argument needs to be given more air time because there's this you know this kind of a this posture out there that well unless you're you know you know well such and such they work for the school district so they know what they're talking about or or they you know have kids in the school everyone has a stake and it's a public school system it is taxes pay for the system everyone is entitled to a viewpoint on that

and um whether you know whether you have this this involvement, whether you were homeschooled, whether you homeschool your kids or you have a child in a private school, that's why this is so controversial and so emotional for so many people is because this is a government-funded source of education. And so everyone has a stake in it. So children and their livelihoods. Okay, well, we have two more that we're going to get to here before the end of this podcast. I want to read this message from John M. Specifically talking about an article written by Daniel. Daniel, how do you say the name of this hymn? Unfortunately, I don't speak Polish.

I wrote it. Yes. I was able to write it. I don't know how to pronounce it. If you read it phonetically in English, it's Gorski's Ale. But we'll go with that. We'll go with that. It probably is absolutely butchered in terms of what you'd actually say if you were speaking to somebody who knew about this.

But I'll read this message from John M. Thank you, Daniel Friend, for the article Gorski's Ale. For someone who immigrated from Poland, it brings back many memories of old Polish traditions. There are many beautiful churches in texas built by polish immigrants p.s there are many good reasons i subscribe to the texan this is just one example very encouraging to read that this is um referencing an article that you wrote daniel around easter specifically about um a polish hymn that was um traditionally sung on good friday there you go so yeah it was our good friday article this week so daniel shout out to shout out to you from john m thank you for writing that we have another shout out to you daniel from russell b um good job daniel friend and writing

this story about the real rare earth minerals under the lake as a retired mining engineer i am always interested in learning how these projects happened there's enough intrigue in this story flashy characters etc to make a movie are you up for writing the script if i had time i would be you there i feel like there's enough there to certainly write a script this is a for folks who have not listened this is a story we talked about i think two podcasts ago um it's the creation of lake buchanan underneath the, or above rather the Berender Hill, which is a just interesting story. Lots of little neat tidbits in there. Yeah.

Very good. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening. And that's the end of our podcast. Gentlemen, any final thoughts for our listeners? Nothing.

Oh, you, we, you know, we didn't have statements prepared. You caught us off guard. I say that to you, everyone's soil. And you guys all look at me like deer in the headlights for good reason. Because, you know, we think you're signing off and then it's like anything else.

Oh, should I sing a solo? What's going on? I really next time I ask you, I want you to break out in song. I unfortunately I'm well, actually, fortunately, I'm going to spare our listeners hearing me sing. I suppose I'll end it on, if you go to vote on May 7th and it says this will raise your property taxes, it's going to raise your property taxes, regardless of what the campaign messaging says. Solid. Very solid. Okay, gentlemen, thank you for joining me. Folks, thanks for listening, and we will catch you next week. seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by

readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas.