The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - April 5, 2024

Episode Date: April 5, 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:Attorney General Ken Paxton’s investigation into Boeing and its parts supplierA viral social media post falsely claiming Texas voter rolls increased by over one million in the last yearA Texas woman suing after being arrested and detained for a self-induced abortionEleven Texas lawmakers asking the Biden administration for help over a water treaty with MexicoThe University of Texas at Austin closing its DEI office and “redistributing” its programsThe second-ever reported human case of bird flu in the U.S. thanks to Texas dairy cattleA Texas judge’s decision that the federal government overstepped in requiring states to track highway emissionsA lawsuit over a federal rule change for credit card late fees blocked from being transferred out of Texas

I worked at a cemetery and that was not my worst job. Yeah, what did you do? Cutting grass and weed whacking. I only dug one grave. The guy let me use the backhoe. You dug a grave? Yeah. Well, howdy folks.

It's McKenzie here with Cameron and Brad. Hello gentlemen. Hello. Bradley, you've already gone rogue. Gone rogue? You've gone rogue, but it'll get cut out if all goes well. All I'm saying is I was just watching a video of a dog doing his business on a TV show on the desk.

And the anchor woman is just like, what do I do? But you were describing it very vividly. Yeah, and that was while we were recording animal stories never do well on morning tv like i remember there was one clip i saw where this woman thought her dog was vegan have you seen this video where the TV host put a bowl of meat-focused dog food and then a bowl of vegetables. And this woman is so confident her dog is going to go towards the bowl of vegetables.

And the dog just beelines for the meat. She looks so disappointed. You can't outwit biology. That's a curveball. Oh, my gosh. Well, welcome, gentlemen, back to the Weekly Roundup. It's just us three today. Matt is off doing important law school things, so congrats to Matt.

We're going to talk all things news today. Right off the bat, I want to say I got a reader email this week that we definitely need to pay attention to. This is from Casey. I'm a little late catching up on a recent podcast after being busy with work, but I had to comment on one where your staff was discussing the best places to have pie. Ooh. Y'all remember this conversation? I do.

I do not. Are you kidding? I'm not kidding, actually. But continue. Brad, like pie, okay, whatever. You care about pie more than the average bear. Listen, as soon as we do these things, as soon as we're done, it leaves my mind. I totally forget what we talked about.

So our conversations mean that much to you. We have done dozens. Well, it's probably more than that. Each year we've been doing this, what, we have like 52? That's how many weeks are in a year, right? No, 56. Hold on. This is a swing and a miss by you guys. That's right. You're actually right. It is 52. Yeah, dang it. So in the four years we've been doing the podcast, I don't know, however many. Yeah. It's been more than dozens. Great. I don't know. However many. Yeah. It's been more than dozens. Great. I don't remember anything we talked about. Well, this was recent, so I'm worried about your brain function.

But Casey writes, if your work ever brings you here to Tyler, have lunch at Logan's Restaurant. They have been here for decades and have a delicious buffet lunch with favorites served daily. Plus, each day of the week, they have special items as well. All lunches come with the choice of dessert and most days there are multiple pie options from blueberry to apple to pecan sweet potato chocolate and others wow the food pie and service are outstanding they're lunch only sunday through friday and take saturdays off oh yeah that's the sin of your friend take saturdays off i had to put in my two cents about this local treasure. Who's this?

Take care and queue up for good work. Casey. Casey? Casey C. That was a home run email. It was. It really was. That was great.

Yeah. Now you just got to send us an assignment to Tyler so we can. I'm considering it. Yeah. But obviously you don't remember the conversation, so Cameron gets the assignment. However, Cameron doesn't really eat sweets, so that might be in vain. Maybe I'll make an exception. For Casey. For this, yeah.

Absolutely. That makes sense. Okay, well, I wanted to give that shout out. I need to go try some pie at Loggins Restaurant. Okay, Cameron, we're going to start with you. You ready to talk some news? Let's do it. Okay.

Let's talk about the Attorney General. The Attorney General is seeking to investigate a major commercial airline company, very familiar to a lot of folks, following some very unfortunate events. Tell us about the story. as he seeks information on their dealings with Boeing. And the issues are related to airline parts and the company's DEI initiatives. And this was a very interesting development in the story, as I'm sure a lot of our listeners are aware. There's been continued incidences where airliners have had malfunctions. Most recently, one of the larger issues we saw was the cabin pressure Airliners have had malfunctions most recently. One of the larger issues we saw was the cabin pressure falling, a door essentially ripping off one of these airliners. And so this has sort of prompted Paxton to seek investigation into why this is occurring.

And again, I came across a story the week prior to Paxson's investigation coming out. You know, I read a lot of online journals, and one of them that I mention a lot, IM1776, did an analysis of what has sort of prompted this transition in Boeing's standing as the premier commercial flight provider and in their sort of analysis they brought to attention there was a merger between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in 1997 where it sort of transitioned from a more manufacturing innovation and quality controlled environment with Boeing into a more bureaucratic contract culture where they're more focused on inline margins. And we've seen this

with how they've outsourced a lot of their production. And what's been interesting as well is there was a recent whistleblower that had come out who was a part of Boeing's manufacturing process, and he was essentially talking about the diminishing quality of some of the manufacturing processes. And unfortunately, this individual killed himself before being able to give full testimony around some crazy circumstances, let's say. And so just a lot of weird things going on with Boeing at the moment. But in terms of that was the manufacturing side, Paxton is also looking at the dei initiatives that have been ongoing at Boeing and I came across um some of their internal reporting they've done on the dei initiatives and they stated that in 2022 that quote for the first time in our company's history, we tied initiative compensation to inclusion.

So we're seeing explicit changes in their manufacturing processes and different analysis and reporting. We've been seeing their explicit focus on DEI and internal documents. So we'll see if anything comes to fruition with Ken Paxson's request to examine. Yeah, big stuff. Thank you, Cameron. Bradley, coming to you, a viral claim about voter rolls in Texas sparked an online outrage this week. What was the original claim? An anonymous account on Twitter called End Wokeness claimed that 1.2 million people had registered to vote without a photo ID since the beginning of 2024. The poster also oddly claimed Texas to be a swing state, which I think...

What's our TPI for Texas? 56. And that's not a, you know, it's not like Oklahoma, but it's not a swing state. Yeah. So that was, in addition to this other thing, this inaccurate claim, that was just an odd thing. It makes me think about Fat Ugly Rat. Yeah, I wonder what Fat Ugly Rat would say about that. In fact, there is a scenario in which Texas is a swing state, but you've got to read the fourth reading newsletter to find

out. And to find out who we're talking about, this fat, ugly rat. He's a wise man, that fat, ugly rat. Anyway, this tweet from End Wokeness went viral. The account itself has a big following, but what really supercharged it was Elon Musk reposting it and saying, very concerning. So in the original tweet, the account linked to the Social Security Administration's Help America Vote verification database that can be used to cure voter rolls by cross-checking Social Security numbers used to register to vote with the federal database

to make sure they're linked with an actual person and a citizen. The general claim made was that 1.2 million illegal immigrants had registered to vote using illegally obtained Social Security numbers because they didn't have to provide a photo ID to register. But this Social Security aspect is kind of a second option used, and that obviously is checked with the federal database. So it sparked a lot of frenzy and quite a bit of response from some officials. Yeah. So let's talk then about what the actual facts are and what came out after that tweet. 1.2 million people have not registered to vote in Texas since the beginning of the year. The number cited by NWokeness is the

number of transactions made between the Texas Secretary of State and the Social Security Administration. Essentially, when the Secretary of State gets a voter registration that does not use a photo ID and instead uses the last four of a social, they then send that to cross-check to the Social Security Administration. They can also do that with just existing voter registrations. And, you know, people die die people move out of state those that's a way to cure voter rolls and it's not just limited to the um you know new registrants so that's why the number is so big it's not just you know new voters or presumably new voters. They're definitely a part of that. But overall, and the number that the Secretary of State put out, there have been 57,711 voter registrations since the beginning of the year. The Secretary of State, Jane Nelson,

called the claim totally inaccurate. She said, when Texans register to vote, they must provide a driver's license number or a social security number. When an individual registers to vote with just an SSN, the state verifies that the SSN is authentic. As I said, to register, you either need a photo ID or the last four digits of an SS number. To actually vote, though, Texas law requires proof of ID. One of those is a valid state-issued ID, and that's one, it's not just that. You know, I think you can use a utility bill to certify that you live at the address, things like that. And that's a point of contention. Some activists want it only to be a photo ID.

It's not that. But to claim that these are not being checked and that 1.2 million people have registered without any kind of identification or a faulty social security number is just inaccurate. And, you know, don't take my word for it. Attorney General Ken Paxton reposted the Secretary of State's statement, reaffirming it and pouring cold water on the claims.

Who also tends to be at the forefront of a lot of these voter fraud discussions, election fraud discussions. And certainly even instituted an election fraud task force, I think, within the OAGs or within the purview of the OAG. And then, of course, during the primary, Stephen's decision at the CCA was a big talking point, was a big issue. It remains so. CCA is criminal court. Criminal court of appeals ruling that the Attorney General cannot launch his own investigations

into voter fraud, prosecute voter fraud on his own. He has to be invited in by a local DA. We've been over the arguments of that. But yeah, for Attorney General Paxton, who is big on this issue a lot, to come out and pour cold water on it, I think that's a pretty good indication that the claim is just flat out made up or it's a misinterpretation of data that was on the Social Security Administration website. Well, so it's just so interesting because it's like, what's the phrase? A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on in the morning.

Yeah. Right? And so it's like we saw this story, like you mentioned, spread by one of the biggest, if not the biggest account, Elon Musk. And if misinformation is being put out there, are they just going to punt on it or are they going to say, I was wrong on this? They haven't deleted the tweet. I know.

That's the interesting part. It's still up. You know, now that the truth has come out about why those numbers are so off, it's just interesting to see if there is going to be a follow-up statement. Well, and also, all you have to do is check the Secretary of State's voter roll, because they're the ones that actually maintain this. And even in the most broad interpretation of the numbers, it's not even close to 1.2 million. Not even close. And so something should have gone off in this person's head to think maybe what I'm seeing on this or what I think I'm seeing on the Social Security Administration website is not what I think it is. But no.

He just rushed to Twitter, blasted out this scandal, and was totally factually wrong. Yeah. Brad on his hitbox, everyone. Elon Musk is actually the number one followed person on Twitter. On X. Then Barack Obama.

Can anyone guess number three? Kylie Jenner. That's a good guess. Justin Bieber. Interesting. Justin Bieber. Oh. Interesting. Yeah. Top three. There you go.

Well, Bradley, thank you for breaking that. I don't care about any of them. I only follow Elon. I don't follow my mom. Justin Bieber? No. How can you not follow the Biebs? I know. Cam, he's like so up your alley.

I don't know what you're... But, Brad, thanks for breaking that down for us. And certainly worth going in and reading Brad's piece at the Texan Cameron we're coming to you next a Texas woman is suing the DA that detained her for self-inducing an abortion tell us what's going on with this story yeah so Lysel Gonzalez formerly Lysel Herrera is suing Stark County District Attorney Gosha Allen Ramirez, and assistant district attorney Alexandria Lynn Barrera for $1 million after she was briefly jailed and charged with murder for self-inducing abortion. And as I was going through the lawsuit, I pulled out some interesting things that were mentioned,

and according to the filing, quote, neither the Stark County Sheriff's Office nor the Rio Grande City Police Department performed an investigation into the facts or circumstances surrounding the filing quote neither the stark county sheriff's office nor the rio grande city police department performed an investigation into the facts or circumstances surrounding the charge of murder against gonzalez and her charge was brought before a grand jury where according to her lawsuit both ramirez and barrera provided quote false and misleading information and omission as a way to secure this charge against gonzalez she was released from custody two days after her arrest and the charges for murder were dismissed but during a press conference that was announcing the launch of this lawsuit her lawyer cecilia garzaza, made clear that Gonzalez's legal basis

for her lawsuit is not about reproductive rights. It's about her civil rights. So I just thought that was, those comments from her lawyer were very interesting because we can see many of these abortion-related cases be framed as a reproductive rights issue, but her lawyer made explicit that this is about her civil rights, the fact that she was detained and arrested, even though they were eventually dismissed. She's bringing these charges on civil rights causes. In other instances where we see local DAs being at the forefront of some of these big issues here in Texas, whether it be abortion or election fraud or whatever it is. So also worth going and checking out at texan.news.

Thanks. You're welcome. election fraud or whatever it is. So also worth going and checking out at texan.news. Thanks. Bradley, 11 legislators sent out a letter to the Biden administration asking for help this week. What's the letter about? The 11 members, three senators, and eight representatives of the Rio Grande Valley delegation in the Texas legislature asked the Biden administration for assistance in getting Mexico to abide by the 1944 Rio Grande Water Treaty. Representative Terry Canales, who led the letter, wrote in it, In our fast-growing region, development is beginning to slow, with numerous communities lacking the water supplies to service new customers. Just last month, we learned that our state's last sugar mill located here in the RGV was shutting down because of dwindling water supplies. This closure ends production on estimated 40,000 acres of land, leaving hundreds of valley residents without jobs.

You know, when businesses are looking for places to relocate, build operations, you know, basic utilities are something they they look at and the reliability of that you know we see that discussed a lot with the power grid how important that is to continue attracting businesses here it's just the same with water and if they can't count on an adequate supply of water then they're not going to build there also just take population it's not going to be able to support population growth. And so Canalys also mentions jobs. The Brownsville, Harlingen area and McAllen, Edenburg and Mission metro areas, they are both lagging behind other regions in the state on unemployment and have been since the pandemic really subsided. Well, since it started, but also since it subsided where other regions have improved.

You know, Amarillo is consistently very low, as is Austin in the threes. These are up near 6%, and that's significantly higher than the statewide average. So obviously that is the ability to attract jobs is, you know, paramount to them down in the RGV, as it is everywhere, but, you know, especially there that is kind of primed for development. So under the Water Treaty, Mexico was obligated to deliver 350,000 acre-feet per year of water. Basically, the RGV section on the river is downstream. And so if tributaries and the river itself upstream don't have enough flow,

you have less water getting down to these areas. And so that's causing issues with crops. Farmers can't plan very well with that. And it's just causing a lot of ripple effects. So this is something that has been talked about for a while, but it's getting worse, it seems. I'm sorry if I missed this, if you mentioned it in the story, but does this overlap at all with what was happening a few weeks ago?

I remember we were talking about there was a river water treaty that was not a treaty but an agreement between states yes mexico colorado similar um it's a similar concept to the new mexico built a a dam and reservoir upstream from in the color, and that had caused less water to reach Texas farmers on that side of the state. And so that really had been going on for decades, that court fight. And finally they reached a resolution at the U.S. Supreme Court, and I think they're still putting the final bow on that. But similar concepts.

Well, water flow, because that water flow goes into the Rio Grande, right? Yeah. And so is there any issues in terms of the contracts that are had between New Mexico and that flow of water is because of issues at tributaries in Mexico. And Mexico pulling too much water from those for their own purposes. Obviously, they have their own interests. Texas individuals, farmers have their own interests. Texas individuals, farmers have their own interests. And it's just kind of a butting of heads, especially when, and I wouldn't go so far as to say that Rio Grande is drying up, but it's certainly not where it once was. You know, as population increases, more water is used. We've been in droughts. There's a lot of factors there that is kind of culminating in this problem.

And so when the Biden administration has an issue with how the Mexican government is acting with these tributaries and letting water in, who is overseeing those negotiations? Is it just whoever Biden puts in place to negotiate and whoever the Mexican government puts in place to negotiate and they just have it out? Or is there a third body oversight of this? Do you know? Because I find that sort of interesting. There's a long bureaucratic name that I will try and pull up as we're talking. How dare you not know the long bureauc head game off the top of your head.

Because we brought this up before a couple weeks ago when Mexico said they were not going to abide by the deportations under SB4. And I sort of brought that question up last time is, is there a third party adjudicator of these international issues or is it just heads of state from both of these countries who are negotiating right you know so because is it a body from the un is there international courts or you know how does it actually like how does that process work yeah work um there is a body that tracks this uh international boundary and water commission there it is okay um How does that process work? There is a body that tracks this. International Boundary and Water Commission. There it is.

Rolls off the tongue. Right. I think they're tasked with monitoring, but it's up to the two countries and whoever they appoint to discuss these, to have negotiations, to actually hash it out, hash things out. There was, this has been an issue for a while. Back in 2020, Governor Abbott sent a request to the Trump administration to do something similar. And they seemed to work out some sort of agreement, Trump and Obrador, or at least the people working for them that were tasked with this. So basically, Mexico, what they're doing, the 350,000 acre-feet per year, that's over five years.

So whatever that number equals times five, that's the amount every five-year stretch that they have to allot. Now, if there's a deficit over a five-year stretch, they have to make that up the next five-year stretch that they have to allot. Now, if there's a deficit over a five-year stretch, they have to make that up the next five-year stretch. But what Mexico's been doing is back-ending their water supply allotment to the United States. So the first three years of the five-year span, they keep more of it for themselves than they're supposed to under the treaty, and they make up for it on the back end the last two years. Interesting. And there's a chart that I link in the piece that you can kind of see that. But, you know, from a Texas farmer's perspective, they're, you know, growing crops annually? How do they plan for variable amounts of water when it's

supposed to be a pretty set amount? Well, it makes me think how stock traders who track commodities might be trading on sugarcane production if they understand how this contract is set up. If they are making bets on those first three years and then they understand in the final two years the it's just flooded with water is just gonna increase the production of sugarcane because they they the sugarcane needs it then people are just playing this commodities market that's right and so money is exchanging hands based upon how the Mexican government is flooding the zone with water

I'm about to cut you guys off and plug send me some stuff I'll just say that Was it Newton's third law every action has an equal opposite reaction, right? It's just like that Anyway, there you go. There you go over to you on that note folks Braden Cameron's first episode of Send Me Some Stuff released this week. What day is it? It was this week. It was released on Monday.

Yeah, released on Monday. Thank you. Brad looked at me like I was a crazy person. I told you. It escapes my brain as soon as we finish. Well, it's apparently mine too. But that's where Cameron and Brad sit down and have a lot of long-form discussions about different issues. They bring articles in.

They're always sending each other stuff. We're all sending each other stuff in the office all the time. So we literally made a podcast about it. There you go. Brad, real quick before we move on, how long has this whole thing been going on that these legislators are trying to address? Like quickly. Five to ten years, I'd say. And it's probably, you know, back when the treaty was made, that was an onus for it.

So this has been recurring over the decades, over the almost century now. So right now, though, it's really heating up at the moment because of droughts that we've had recently. And also, it's getting overshadowed by the border crisis. As is a lot of, yeah, absolutely. Well, Bradley, thank you. Cameron, great questions. Cameron, let's talk about higher ed. Let's do it.

So UT Austin made a big announcement about one of their DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion-focused offices, one of their divisionsI, diversity, equity, inclusion focused offices, one of their divisions. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so an email from University of Texas at Austin, President Jay Hartzell stated that the university will be closing the division of campus and community engagement and quote redistributing the remaining programs. And the email highlights a recent evaluation that the campus and college did about their different divisions and programs following the passage of Texas Senate Bill 17, which was passed during this past legislative session, which will ban DEI offices at public universities in the state. And from the email here I will read, quote, as part of this reallocation,

associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. And I highlight that portion of the email that was sent out for the reason that these DEI positions where individuals were hired to explicitly focus on those initiatives, they are not leaving the university. They are being reassigned. And another portion of the email here I'll highlight. The positions that provided support for these associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no

longer be funded. And so funding not going to these roles that were from formerly focused on DEI there's been reporting anywhere from 20 to 60 members that were a part of these DEI focus offices are no longer with the university so I thought I'd highlight that as well but again this has been an ongoing discussion about what will happen with these individuals who work in the DEI offices after the DEI offices are closed down. Hartzell here is saying the associate assistant deans will return to faculty positions so they'll be continuing to teach at the university, but there are some roles that will no longer be funded. So we'll see if this actually results in a less focus on DEI because the office is being closed,

but those ideas are now just being pushed into the classroom as, like I mentioned, the deans are going back to faculty positions. So DEI is still an issue for many lawmakers, so we'll see if there's any future legislation to address that. Yeah, and how this, you know, works out very tangibly. Will DEI, like you said, still be part of university discussions? Is the elimination of the office effective in terms of how lawmakers actually want this addressed on the university level? Or, you know, will this basically just be a redirection or redistribution of resources? And I think that's the big question is we've seen how the DEI offices have really placed themselves into many different corners of how universities operate. It's not just the DEI holds a training, it's they are overseeing different departments as well, making sure these initiatives are enacted. So if that DEI office is eliminated, will those

requirements to have certain diversity, equity, inclusion, hires be eliminated as well? We've seen legislation address this, and we see these offices eliminated. But will the practices themselves be eliminated? And it's an idea of are you going to be able to outroot the ideology itself by just eliminating the office, or is there a different method that is going to need to be had through legislation in order to turn universities in the direction that Texas legislators want them to go into? So it'll be interesting to see if it's addressed in further legislation. Yeah, totally. Okay, we're sticking with you for another story. When you pitched me the story this week, it was unexpected. It was very unexpected. We were

alerted about a case of bird flu occurring here in Texas. Tell us what you found out. Well, yeah, I thought this was interesting just because of how rare this has occurred. And so we saw Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both confirmed that a person in Texas has tested positive for H5N1, and that's better known, like you mentioned, as bird flu. And according to the CDC, and then later confirmed as well by Sid Miller, the individual had been exposed to dairy cattle in Texas supposedly infected with bird flu. And this is why I brought it to your attention is this is only the second person in the U.S. to test positive with bird flu. And this is why I brought it to your attention is this is

only the second person in the U.S. to test positive for bird flu. The other case occurring in Colorado in 2022. And in the statement from the CDC, they made sure to say that this is uncommon, but has occurred sporadically worldwide. And this was also confirmed by the Texas Department of State Health Services, where they reported, had a report of a person becoming sick following contact with dairy cows. And then Miller added that the facility Cow Main Foods, their poultry facility, received notice of a positive bird flu test and will be required to depopulate their facility of 1.6 million hens. So this is a large event to happen, not just in terms of the amount of their flock that they are going to have to depopulate, but how rare of a bird flu occurrence this is. And CalMaine added that bird flu is not transmitted through properly cooked eggs and there is quote no known risk for eggs currently in the market. So that's important context there. I wonder what properly cooked means because I do like over easy you know.

That's true. I don't know if the virus is in the whites or the yolk. You know, that's a good question. But just some additional background on the H5N1 virus. It's primarily acquired with direct contact with an infected animal or contaminated environment. And according to the World Health Organization, there's been a total of 888 cases worldwide across 23 different countries of humans infected with bird flu from up till 2024 which has resulted in 463 deaths so this is a rare occurrence in the united states but just something for our listeners to keep their eye on absolutely well cameron thank you.

Bradley, we're coming back to you. It's been a while. It's been a while indeed. Texas judge ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its bounds with an emissions regulation. This is right up your alley. Tell us the details. The Department of Transportation issued a rule in July 2022 directing states to establish their own benchmarks and systems to monitor and

reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles that are using federal highways. It then required states to report those findings to the federal government. I will just say I have no idea how they could possibly calculate that. You know, like, I'm sure they're ballparking it with estimated number of cars on the highway, but, you know, that can only get you so precise. Without putting an actual device on a vehicle that is tracking the emissions. Right, yeah.

So anyway, it was part of the more climate change-oriented policies by the Biden administration that they've introduced here and there. It's kind of a cadre of different federal regulations that they've introduced across the agency spectrum. States, including Texas, challenged the rule in court. Last week, Texas Judge James Hendricks ruled, quote, when a regulation attempts to override statutory text, the regulation loses every time. Regulations can't punch holes in the rules Congress has laid down. He continued, if the people through Congress believe

that the state should spend the time and money necessary to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions and set declining emissions targets, they may do so by amending Section 150 or passing a new law, but an agency cannot make this decision for the people. Basically, the statutory support that they cited for this rule is a section in code that allows the federal government to monitor and set standards for pavement, road condition. And that's the springboard they used to justify jumping for this emissions rule, very broad interpretation of the of statute and clearly they just got slapped down so the the regulation would put a penalty on the state itself like which department requires the state to to create and maintain its own system for monitoring.

So the state would have to spin up their own system to oversee the emissions. And report it to the federal government. Yep. And that's just interesting because like, so if they're spinning up a department to track these carbon emissions from vehicles, then the downstream effects would be, are they going to be, will the state then have to pass laws and regulations on individuals who own vehicles? Would it be on the car manufacturers themselves? Like, how would they even plan to track those certain things? Because it's just passing the buck down. Right, and the federal government put the ball in the state's courts to decide it themselves so you'd probably have 50 different

ways of doing it and so you get 50 different kinds of results and even if you could track adequately track emissions on it's federal in mind, it's just federal highways. It doesn't include all the other highways. I don't know just functionally how they could even do this. Yeah. It's just kind of a pie-in-the-sky thinking. Air quality tests, I have no clue. Yeah, but, you know, cars aren't the only things. That's right.

So how do you. How do you accurately. Yeah. Yeah. You could have cars going on the highway, but you could have a factory right next to the highway that's also emitting. How do you factor that in? And I know a lot of these new vehicles do a better job at reducing carbon emissions in their exhaust, right?

But a lot of people can't afford these brand-new cars that do that. And so, like, if you're driving a car that's 20 years old, you know, and you aren't able to control the amount of carbon emissions from your car because you can't afford to buy a new one, then you might be penalized more. It's just like... People who are worried about, you know, maintaining their junker car car don't give a rip about emissions. And that's many people. How can you blame them?

They're trying to get to work every day, feed their family. They don't have the time or the luxury to worry about what their car is emitting. It's just kind of silly. And what's interesting is Abbott signed into law something that's going to go into effect next year that has to do with car registration. Oh. Right?

Yeah. Or emissions test. Or no, it is a car registration. I think the emissions test still was left in place. Oh, the emissions test was left in. I think so. Okay. Or maybe test was left in. I think so. Okay. Or maybe I have it backwards.

I don't know. Well, because it's just interesting that Texas passes a law where you don't have to register your car, where as part of that registration process is normally this is an admissions test. It depends on which county you're in. Oh, okay. That counties have the option to adopt that requirement. Like Travis County, they do. Right.

So when you get your car registered here, you have to get an emissions test. But I think Bastrop right next door doesn't. So if you buy the car there, you don't have to get the emissions test. Or you register the car there, you don't have to get the emissions test. So it's, again, a patchwork of different things. Yeah, I forget exactly what the registration law, it wasn't as wide sweeping as the original version was when it first came out, but it still eliminated something along those lines. Well, I just think that if there's the differences between localities on tracking emissions or requirement to register your car's emissions amount, then I think that provides onus to just regular citizens.

Like if you live in Travis County and you're like, I don't want my car being tested for emissions, you know, because my car is not going to pass. It's like this opportunity for you to get involved and lobby your local government. So the new law, reading from Matt's article last year, under the new law, instead of taking non-commercial or personal car inspection, taking a non-commercial or personal car to the inspection station prior to renewing a registration sticker, Texans will be given the opportunity to simply pay a $7.50 fee or $16.75 for first-time registrants. So certain counties in Texas, however, require an inspection to test for vehicle emission standards. For those 17 counties, the emissions inspection requirement will remain in effect. So it does change something, but I assume for those 17 counties, the largest populated counties in the state, or at least among them. And so for most people, it's really

actually much. It's also the entire climate change agenda that lobbies at the federal level can have these downstream all the way down to the local effects. So the people who are the loudest voices arguing in favor of enacting climate change policies in the federal government will have an effect on your average person's pocketbook if something like this is enacted, because they're going to be having to monitor or make changes to their vehicle to adhere to these new standards that potentially could be implemented. Which is why when we saw that law pass last year, the traction on the article, people were unbelievably excited about it. And it was one of the smaller bills that passed during the legislative session.

Well, Bradley, thank you for your coverage. Killer as always. Cameron, coming to you. We have two more stories and we're getting to tweetery. An ongoing lawsuit could have major impacts on credit card companies and late fee charges. Tell us what's going on. Yeah, so I came across this story earlier this week that in early March, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group of Texas business organizations sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after a new rule was implemented that would limit credit card late fees.

And according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, quote, not only exceeding its statutory authority, but did so by relying on the use of secret data collected for unrelated purposes. And the lawsuit just came days, just a few days after President Joe Biden announced he would create a strike force on unfair and illegal pricing that was co-chaired by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission. In Biden's announcement, he stated that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would create a new rule to quote slash credit card fees from current average of $32 to $8. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer responded to this new law by saying, quote, by significantly limiting late fees, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not only discouraging responsible credit card use, but also imposing higher costs on consumers and limiting choices in credit card options and benefits. There's been a

lot of legal back and forth on this case. And what really brought this across my timeline was there was attempts to send this case from a Texas courthouse to a D.C. courthouse just for the fact that those who were arguing in favor of sending it to D.C. said that's where the majority of the credit card companies are being adjudicated in legal cases. So they thought that would be the best place for it to be hashed out. But it was placed on an administrative stay in the Fifth Circuit. And I don't have any updates as of yet, but that was going on this week. And I just thought this was interesting because we have seen credit card debt now go into the trillions of dollars in the United States. And I can understand the

Biden administration's attempt to help ease the stress on people's pocketbooks by regulating these late fee charges. But I also understand the argument that by placing these regulations, it does not incentivize people to be more conscious of their spending and searching for better options in terms of credit cards and interest payments and late fee charges and so by putting these sort of guardrails on how late fee charges are instituted it would disincentivize how maybe this credit card market operates. And so just an interesting case that I thought people who are maybe dealing with different credit card issues might want to be alerted to. Absolutely. Another story that you wrote this week, we want to highlight really fast,

crazy story about a guardsman arrested for a pretty crazy charge. Walk us through what happened. Yeah, so this happened on Sunday where there was a Texas state guardsman that was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle an illegal immigrant across the border. Allie Bradley at News Nation first released this reporting. She was able to obtain police scam video of the arrest as it went down. There was the 26-year-old Texas State Guardsman that was arrested on March 30th, like I mentioned, and we were able to see Greg Abbott actually respond to this video and the allegations. And he said, quote, if the allegations are true, the accused is a traitor and criminal. He goes on to say that the accused may be subject to a mandatory minimum prison sentence of at least 10 years, Abbott went on to say that he deserves more. And this crazy story, you know, highly unusual, comes amid this recent surge that we saw in El Paso where

221 people were arrested on rioting charges. I'm sure everyone has seen the videos that have come out about that incident by now. Our reporter, Matt Stringer, he did a story on El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks responding in a press conference saying that he was concerned about these mass-coordinated surges at the border. And we've seen the Texas legislature attempt to enact laws to help the Border Patrol and DPS handle the flow of illegal immigrants in the form of SB4. And we're seeing that case continually be challenged in court and we just saw it argued again in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals where it will remain on hold until a decision is made by that appeals court. So border issues, influx of illegal immigrants continues to be in the headlines, and this is just an unusual story that is interesting to a lot of people, especially us here.

Yeah, certainly. Well, great stuff. Yeah. Well done, Cameron. Let's move on to the tweeter-y section here, shall we, Bradley? Okay. Bradley, what you got? We might have a debate on NHG21 and the speaker's race. Dade Phelan's camp released a press release yesterday, Wednesday, saying he's accepted a debate invite for May 7th from KFDM and Fox 4 in Beaumont.

The speaker's office or speaker's release said that Covey had not yet responded to the invite. That sparked a back and forth. Covey responded saying, Dade Phelan has refused to debate since the inception of this campaign, avoiding a public forum during the primary. Now the Speaker's failing campaign believes that they can pacify voters with a debate that is closed to the public until Monday. We had not received a formal invitation from a neutral third party. As this date has just been put on our radar, we are reviewing our schedule and the terms to ensure it is open to the public. In the Phelan campaign release, he coins a new nickname, Ducking David Covey. This is out of the playbook. Ever since 2016, just everyone's rushing to make nicknames,

and it's just hard to keep track of them. Phelan's been on the pointy end of those before, especially from the pointy end of the spear, jabbing him with it, from the lieutenant governor. And so this is, I don't know if this is going to happen. After this went out, I heard from both sides about what the circumstances actually are with this. So an invite was sent out by Elaine Henderson, who is president of the Golden Triangle GOP Women. From my understanding, she has endorsed Phelan.

The Golden Triangle. Yeah. GOP women. From my understanding, she's endorsed Phelan. The Golden Triangle. It just sounds like the Bermuda Triangle. You know what the Golden Triangle is, right? I do, yes. I'll have to explain that to you. Anyway, so...

An email went out from Elaine Henderson on March 19th stating that she had approached Fox 4, who had tentatively agreed to host this on May 7th, and that was sent to both camps. There was a back and forth until on who's responded who's not covey's team did not respond to her on monday this week an official email went out from fox4 saying it had reserved

may 7th for that and they were ready to go it also said in the release any editorial discretion for these questions will solely be up to our moderators in KFDM management. It was probably the reason that Covey's team did not reply to her, to Henderson, is she endorsed the speaker and they were under the impression that you know they that she is involved in this more than what the official email says. But it looks as if this even happens, it'll be a traditional debate set up by the TV station. Now, a roadblock here. Covey says that his condition, and I mentioned it in his response, is that the debate is open to the public. And I don't know, you know, candidates, especially if you get an audience in there that's rowdy, that can throw people off.

That was the reason that when Governor Abbott debated Beto O'Rourke in 22, there was no audience. There was not even any press in there. We had to sit in a side room and watch it on the TV. We drove, you know, five hours to go watch it on TV like it could have done on my couch. What is – I'm sorry. Was there even a spin room then? I forget. Beto did one.

I don't think Abbott did. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean mean there was some which abbott being like a political heavy hitter in that way i mean when you're the incumbent that's a little bit different yeah that's the other thing with this it's interesting the dynamic now uh that it's the challenger that is hesitant to debate rather than the incumbent hesitant which is usually how it is. Playing some hardball.

So, you know, obviously Phelan's team is comfortable with the parameters of this. We'll see if Covey's team gets there. I mean, just for my own edification, I hope they do. It would be good to see them debate these things, debate the race itself. Well, if there was one question that you hope was asked during this debate for both Covey and Phelan, is there one question that is just burning on your mind that you're like, I really want this answered by Phelan, I really want this answered by Covey? Good question.

I was not prepared for this. I think I'd ask Phelan if is is it is the reason that voters in HG21 should reelect you, chiefly that you are the speaker, and that provides its own set of massive influence to the district. That's been the messaging, especially recently. Rick Perry wrote an op-ed defending Phelan making that exact point. And that can be a very persuadable message, provided he can actually maintain his speakership if he wins.

Is that the main case, or are there other reasons that you should be reelected? For Covey, I think I'd say, one of the chief criticisms of Phelan is we should have no Democratic chairs. Do you think it is actually feasible with the current makeup of the house and the potential for you know every time i talk about this i mention a strauss-like coalition because that's what members since strauss left office had been afraid of at least a certain contingent of the republicans and you know the, do you think it's actually feasible to not have Democratic chairs? Or if you promise that setup, do you leave yourself open for, you know, a frankly more centrist, more liberal Republican speaker than, you know, the guy you're running against. You know, feelings, contentions this whole time is, yeah, we've had Democratic chairs,

but we also passed a lot of huge priorities. Right. So, I don't know. No, those are, I think those are great questions. I definitely have more. You know, if I could do the debate, I would have a whole slew of questions. But if I only got one, that would be harder than you can get. It's harder to just say one, too.

I think that's a tough task. That's a good question, Cam. All good stuff. Cameron, what you got for Twitter? Well, like I talked about Boeing earlier and at the top of the podcast, Paxson launching this request to examine. Christopher Ruffo from the Manhattan Institute, I've talked about him before. He's done a lot of research into DEI. And he put out on X that he

actually interviewed a longtime Boeing insider who explained exactly how DEI has undermined company culture and degraded performance. And this insider talked about how DEI has become a status game in every boardroom in the country. And the DEI narrative is a very real thing, saying that at Boeing, DEI got tied to the status game. And it's something that you embrace if you want to get ahead. It becomes a means to power. And so I thought this would be interesting to bring up in not just the context of the DEI examination that Paxson is attempting to investigate at Boeing, but I talked a bit about how this statusing of certain moral virtues by both sides of the political aisle has occurred, not just as we've seen with DEI on the left, but with Republicans on the right. And I touch on this

in my newsletter and redacted with Abbott's recent executive order in terms of attempting to curtail anti-Semitism on college campuses. If people are interested in checking out an analysis of that executive order, go check out Redacted. And I get into a bit of history of how voting has swung in terms of the Jewish support for the Democratic Party and then for the Republican Party. And then I get into some of the free speech policies in terms of what are the types of values that the right wing or political right is attempting to signal to not just their base, but America more generally. So if people are interested in a breakdown like that, go check out Redacted. Absolutely. And you should. It's phenomenal. Good stuff, Cameron. This week, Brad, I'm actually referencing something you tweeted, but it's not political in nature. Lou Conter, last survivor of Pearl Harbor's USS Arizona, dies at 102. Yeah, pretty unreal. And it really started to make me think about how growing up,

you know, you meet World War II survivors and, you know, your parents say one day World War II, like they won't be here anymore. And I think it's starting to hit home a little bit more now that, you know, we're seeing that happen in real life, in real time. But a couple of excerpts from this story from the Wall Street Journal that I thought were very worthy of talking about here. This is an excerpt. He got his pilot swings in November 1942 and was part of a team that flew Black Cat aircraft overnight doing bomb runs in the South Pacific. He was shot down twice, once in September of 1943 and a second time three months later. Both times, Conter said, he used a lifeboat to get to shore. Just things we can't even fathom now. Another excerpt, as the number of the USS Arizona survivors shrank to about 30 over the years,

the former crew members would get together. For a few years, there were just two survivors left, Conter and his former crewmate Ken Potts, who died at 102 years old last year. Conter told the Journal last year that he didn't know Potts when they were on the USS Arizona, but that they became friends decades later, talking on the phone every few weeks. That's cool. Yeah, really, really cool. So definitely go check out that story at the Wall Street Journal.

Yeah, and it's interesting with like World War II, when you were in the military at that time and you went and fought in world war two you were over there for years you know it's like modern warfare you're going on tours you know six months eight months and you come back home with world war two you were there yeah and so um just the types of things um the the those people must have saw it's it's crazy yeah yeah that made me think to look up world war one vets and if any are left alive and the last one claude chulas uh was he served in the royal navy during world war one he died in 2011 at age 110. Wow. So. 110, what a life. Yeah.

But, you know, one day we'll be talking about World War II veterans like we are World War I. Yeah. So. If you come across one, sit down and chat. That's the least you can do. I'm sure the stories they could tell are. Oh, my gosh. Crazy.

Absolutely unreal. Amazing. But it goes without saying saying but their service is an unbelievable blessing to us now so thank you to everyone who served gentlemen um thanks for joining me today of course knocked it out of the park knocked it out of the park that's right you really did we're not doing our worst jobs don't have time for that oh let's actually you know let's do our worst jobs okay Do we have time for that? Oh, let's actually, you know, let's do our worst jobs. Okay. Real fast.

Before, basically, the back story is, before we were recording, Cameron was telling us about some of the jobs he had in earlier stages of his career that were quite fascinating. Well, I wouldn't call it a career. And they were fascinating. So if we had time at the end, we were going to talk about worst jobs. And Brad's hypothesis is that, which I don't have, like, a end we were going to talk about worse jobs and brad's hypothesis is that which i don't have like a crazy horrible job to talk about and brad i think like your hypothesis earlier say you see what you're saying about guys and gals and the difference between the jobs they held in my experience guys usually have a broader work history or at least more jobs in their work history than women do.

And I don't know why. You were saying, like, in high school and college, a guy could have, like, a dozen jobs, and a girl would be like, oh, I had two or three. Yeah. Or that's your hypothesis. You know, I had, like, half a dozen jobs, I think, between high school and finishing college.

The worst one was a dishwasher at Red Lobster. Oh, you've talked about that. It wasn't, by no means was it, you know, being stationed in Bastogne. I was watching Band of Brothers last night. Oh, okay. Appropriate. Look at that. Yeah.

Which just looked absolutely miserable. How many cheddar biscuits were you able to put down at the time? I was about to ask. Also, how were they made? Were they literally made from a box? No. No, they have. From scratch?

Or just a mix? No, I mean, I'm sure it comes in boxes, pre-made, but it's mixed. No, those things got me through yeah in the watery hell that was the dishwashing station station in red lobster um it was they were i don't know i have no idea how many i put on there but it was fantastic. And every time I'd finish a delivery of steaming hot dishes, I would grab a biscuit or two. Yeah. But I worked at a cemetery, and that was not my worst job.

Yeah, what did you do? Cutting grass and weed whacking. I only dug one grave. The guy let me use the backhoe. You dug a grave. The guy let me use the backhoe. You dug a grave? Yeah. How did you get hooked up with a graveyard? You're just like...

Summer job. Summer job. Interesting. They needed kids to mow the grass and weed whack. Did either of y'all watch Survivor growing up? Mm-hmm. Do you remember James the Grave Digger? Mm-hmm.

He was on, I want to say Cook Islands, but he was a fan favorite. He was awesome. I mean, the world needs ditch diggers, too. Yeah. You don't get the reference. Oh, I thought you were just saying. It's a Caddyshack reference. No, never seen Caddyshack.

Okay. Put it on. Put it on. So, worst job, red lobster or dishwasher? Oh, without a doubt. It blows away the cemetery and the movie theater

and everything else. What did you do with the movie theater? Concessions. Oh, okay. Cam, Worst Job. Well, I told you about a bunch of them.

You did. So, if you had to choose between the drywall drywall You have to explain to our listeners

what your top three are, and then maybe Brad and I will choose. Top three in no specific order. Cameron's lived many lives. No specific order here. I worked for a drywall company where I would put up the plastic sheeting and then come in behind the cutters,

haul out the cut drywall, and then have to be on my hands and knees cutting out the half inch of drywall that was beneath the floorboards. And so my only tools were a box cutter and a flyhead screwdriver, doing that for hours, cutting out drywall. Do you have knee pads to use? No knee pads. I was a young kid. I was just going at it. Maybe that's, you know, knee problems. That's where they spring up. Yeah. Well, and then I had another job where I was selling gym memberships in Wichita, Kansas, where I would have to make a hundred, at least a hundred cold calls a day, just sitting in an office, no bigger than where we're sitting right now.

Me and three other guys just making cold calls all day. And I was telling you how our gym manager would once or twice a week just put us all in a car and drop us off in a Walmart parking lot and say, all right, guys, let's get some leads today. I'll be back in two hours. So I'd have to just walk up to random people at a Walmart and be like, hey, are you interested in a two-week free pass to Genesis Health Clubs? Did your boss, what's that salesman movie,

Glen Gary Glen Ross you? Coffee is for closers. No, he didn't. No, okay. And then I also had a job where I worked for a bounce house and party supplies company. I have to wake up at like four o'clock in the morning, get to the boss's house, and she would be shuffling up to the front door and hand over the paperwork and be like, here's where you're going today. And so it was- That's the exact same impression you did like an hour ago. And so me and a couple of buddies would drive to the storage facility, load up pickup trucks with these hundreds of pounds of just plastic rolled up in generators and snow cone machines and all sorts of tables and chairs and drive for hours across Northern California and drop off these bounce houses. So Brad, of those,

which one do you think is the worst? The drywall thing sounds miserable. Crawling on my hands and knees and just. That wasn't very fun. That just sounds like knee pain. And I guess it helped that you were a child. Yeah. I would say cold calls. 100 cold calls minimum a day.

And you said like zero sales. Like it was just nobody wanted your membership. It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. And you're getting a random phone call from some guy. Where did you get the numbers? Oh, it's just from years of this gym building up leads. And so I'd be calling the same numbers every single day,

you know, just getting hung up on. And, yeah, it was an interesting experience. Made you the man you are today. That's what I was going to say. You have to learn about rejection. Learn about rejection. Oh, gosh. I struck out a bunch.

Hey. It's true. It bunch. It's true. It happens. It's true. I didn't have any crazy jobs. I was like a barista. I worked at a winery, babysat a nanny, did those whole things. Very typical, classic girl jobs.

Well, I can relate. I worked for a child care facility. Yeah, that's the other one he mentioned. You were like 18 and holding screaming babies yeah well this was at another gym where oh you're child care at the gym yeah so you know like how some of these bigger chains have like and so for some reason they hired some right out of high school i was playing college baseball and i was looking for a job at the gym they're like we got a spot open but it's in the child care facility i'm like okay

sure foot in the door yeah and they stuck me back there and so people coming in to work out and their gear and everything they just hand like a little baby yeah over to me i'm just holding it just crying like have a good workout see you in 45 minutes that's amazing. What's that? Hilarious. Well, cool. What was your worst? I don't think, I liked all my jobs. I'd say, I don't have like a worst job, but I have a worst instance at the winery I worked at. I'll spare everyone the details because it is quite nasty. This group of gals, I lived in Woodinville, Washington. It was a very wine country

esque town there were 200 wineries there so a lot of bachelorette parties would come in and tour the wineries and do projectile something it does we had they came in and they smelled of a certain kind of smokable substance. And it wasn't a skunk. It was not. No, but it resembled the smell. And they smelled that way. They were already very inebriated. We had round glass, like clear glass tables where people would sit and we'd see big parties. Beautiful big tables. It's a very beautiful winery and one of the girls had we had just fed them a bunch of food they'd ordered some food and let's just say that one girl lost her cookies on the glass table and then the other girl who was also very intoxicated with multiple different substances, saw it, and then she joined. Oh, no.

So, yeah. That's fun. Yeah. They went to the bathroom, and then more happened in the bathroom. Did they actually hit the toilet? We had to clean it all up. Absolutely not. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. You didn't have to clean? I did have to clean. Oh, you did? Yeah. Me and several. It took a village. Yeah.

It was not a one-person job. That's wonderful. Thanks. But it made me the woman I am today. Hey. Iron sharpens iron. That's right. Even if it's full of vomit.

Well, I did my absolute best to keep that description so kosher. The first one was radical, but at the end. Well, gentlemen, thank you. We are over time. Folks, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on next week's episode. to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.