The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 2, 2024

Episode Date: August 2, 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 on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Biden Visits Austin, Touts Supreme Court Reform at LBJ Presidential LibraryNational Republicans Eye South Texas District, Commit to Backing Mayra FloresPaxton Announces $1.4 Billion Settlement with Meta over Facebook Facial RecognitionTexans Show Support for Educational Savings Accounts and School Vouchers, New Poll FindsTexas Congressional Members Urge DOJ to Investigate Alleged Medicaid Fraud at Texas Children's HospitalGov. Abbott’s Invasion Clause Declaration Backed by Fifth Circuit Judge in Preliminary Border WinIllegal Immigrant Shoots San Antonio Police Officer During Domestic Violence CallDallas Residents Could Vote on Marijuana Decriminalization in NovemberVideo: Rep. Cole Hefner talks Ban on Hostile Foreign Nations Buying Texas Land, House Speaker Race

Very interesting legal debates, and I hope it gets up to the Supreme Court so we can see how those judges think of this and if there's a change in the broader legal discussion on this. Yeah, if no action is action in itself, which is ceding the capacity back to the states to make a declaration like this. Well, the opposite way. The action is an act itself, therefore eliminating the ability for the states at the moment in this current situation to act on their own. Howdy, folks, and welcome back to another week of the Weekly Roundup. I'm here, Mackenzie DeLillo, with Brad Johnson and Cameron Abrams. The boys are holding down the fort in Austin. Gentlemen, I've heard rumors that Olympic events have been on the TVs back at the office.

Are these rumors true? Yes. There was a point where we had the Olympics on and it was the equestrian horse jumping and that was just playing for hours. So that's about as much of the Olympics that I've watched is the horse jumping. Okay. I still think it's a Maslin.

Regardless. the horse jumping okay i still think regardless maslin as usual is is uh holding down the fort in more ways than one and ensuring y'all are watching olympics i'm shocked that brad considering the sports fan you are and cameron you're a sports fan but you spend your time more constructively than a lot of us other sports fans but brad is not as involved in watching the Olympics this year. Did you watch any of the golf that's going on today? I have not watched any of it, not yet, but I plan to. We got Scotty Scheffler teeing off Maslin today.

Another shout-out. Yeah, add that to the reel that you've seen. And Rory McIlroy playing it'll be interesting to watch but yeah I haven't been able

to watch too much of the Olympics or I haven't really been that interested in it yeah I prefer the Winter Olympics why? oh that's right

yeah what is your Winter Olympics sport of choice that you enjoy watching most? I mean I like hockey watching the u.s against canada okay awesome i have such an annoyance with people who only watch olympics for sports they can watch at any point on unbelievably popular broadcast i wasn't finished

wow but watching the golf and hockey watching the u.s and can and hockey? Watching the U.S. and Canada go head-to-head in, I think it was the Sochi Olympics. Was that 2012? When they were just far and away the two best teams on the planet. It was awesome. That's a core memory of mine. So watching, it was, I think, Zach Parise score with a second left to send the game to overtime in the gold medal game and then eventually lose to Canada in OT. But that was awesome.

That was an awesome sight. I remember that vividly. I also like bobsledding. There we go. The movie Cool Runnings was... Jamaican bobsled yeah it was it was um an imperative watch and the johnson household yeah loved it an imperative watch yes and um uh speed skating is great apollo yeah yeah Although he's not doing it anymore.

What about snowboarding halfpipe? Flying tomato. Snowboarding, absolutely. That was the other one. Yeah, snowboarding is great. I love the downhill skiing. Downhill skiing? There we go. Yeah.

I just can't. The main reason I don't prefer the Summer Olympics is I just can't get up for the track and field. It's never been that interesting to me i like the swimming even when it's the 100 meter dash and usain bolt i mean i watched it but it's just not it's very low on my okay list of what about swimming i just said swimming oh sorry i thought you said track and field if you open your ears and close your mouth wow continue brad continue then you would know that i said swimming you should frame that freeze frame that image over the eye roll expression there

um yes so there's my take what's your favorite sport you're gonna go watch one i think so that's the plan we need a flipping bucket though i think so yeah but we want to and here's the thing i i think i want to go back to my previous uh framing i think if you are just watching the olympics to watch lebron and durant whip a lot of these other teams then go watch the nba right i mean it's just oh it's like just go watch something else but so that's why i'm giving you a hard time about the the hockey and the golf but i think a lot of big moments in olympic history have been around those big sports i mean the dream team to name one, right?

But if the Olympics, hey, Brad, why don't you listen for a second? Okay, great. And if you are watching other sports, I think that is what the Olympics are all about is seeing some athletes on your screen that you don't see for the rest of the four years and becoming familiar with them and their sports. So you can have both. Both can be great. Big sports that are popular in the U.S. have yielded big moments in Olympic history. I'm not saying they haven't, but I think you should go watch. For us, if we're going to be in Paris when the Olympics are happening, which we do, we will be there for at least a little bit of them. We want to watch them. Then

you can only really watch at the Olympics like handball or arch for at least a little bit of them uh we want to watch something you can only really watch at the olympics like handball or archery or something a little bit more uh unique and also swimming tickets cost thousands of dollars so that is definitely playing into the decision well the thing i'll say about hockey and some of the other like golf as well there's a lot of parody basketball there's no parody right it's not fun watching a sport that there's no competition or almost no competition so i would put that in an entirely different category kind of like uh ping pong the chinese just dominate i mean it's not even close um they're gonna to run away with that. And so why would I waste my time watching?

Although I did see a headline that an American stunned one of the top players in the world. But that's also the point of the Olympics is to watch the underdog stories. And you can't unless you tune into some of those sports where it might seem to be a lockout, right? Those are like the best moments in Olympic history. But I digress. And in prime time, you'll see those. You don't have to watch every sport all day long. Like prime time will show you the big moments.

But my favorite moment of the Olympics so far, and then we'll actually get into the news, is, well, no, yeah, I'll go with my favorite. I'll just say it's my favorite. I also love the women's US gymnastics team taking goals. Such a big moment, but they were very much projected to win. But a big moment for men's gymnastics when the US team won the bronze and they brought in a specialist, Steven, who has a delightful Polish last name that I will not butcher by attempting to pronounce, was brought in just for the pommel horse. It really was up to him to get the US men's team on the podium and he did it and it was just unreal and this is somebody who is like an engineering major

he can complete a rubik's cube in 30 seconds just like a total self-proclaimed nerd and then goes up there kills it and wins the bronze medal for the u.s men's gymnastics team and it was i had chills it was unreal to watch in real time so that was my top moment of the olympics so far i saw something great i saw something come across my timeline related to him he's like something uh some pommel horse guy was cross-eyed or something is that right like he has to take his glasses off or something oh well he takes his glasses off because if he's on the pommel horse with them on they literally fly off he's moving so fast so and spinning around like crazy so yeah and he talks about how he literally just has muscle

memory and can feel where he is on the pommel horse and he is he can still see but not as well obviously as if he had his glasses on but it doesn't affect his competition uh too much so fascinating and the sheer strength gymnastics takes oh my gosh it's insane makes me feel like such a chump watching these people um it's unreal okay let's move on to the news shall we eight minutes in post olympics thanks for uh uh letting me ramble on there for a minute. Cameron, we're going to start with you. The president visited Austin this week after a delay, a postponement amid all of the craziness going on at the federal level. You were there. You went to the event. Tell us what happened. Yeah. So like you mentioned, this was a delayed trip. He was planned to originally visit the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library on July 15th,

but that was delayed after his COVID-19 diagnosis. But he ended up coming this week to speak about the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And during his keynote address, he did speak about the Civil Rights Act, but a large majority of the speech that he gave was actually about a lot of these Supreme Court reforms he's planning to propose and at one point he was absolutely lambasting the justices about some of their recent decisions like overturning roe v wade and the dobbs decision and scoda striking down affirmative action in higher education he described the reforms he is going to propose, which includes term limits for the justices, a code of conduct, and a new ethics rule, and a constitutional

amendment that would limit the justices' recent decision on presidential immunity. So a majority of the speech, like I mentioned, revolved around the Supreme Court reforms. And at one point he mentioned a interaction that he had with House Speaker Mike Johnson. And Brad actually tweeted out the transcript that they had on the tarmac at Austin-Bergenstrom Airport. That was quite the exchange. Very interesting exchange. I'll read verbatim here. Quote, as the press shouted to me as I got off Air Force One, the Republican Speaker of the House said, whatever he proposes is dead on arrival. Well, I think he's, well, I think his thinking is dead on arrival. quite a loud applause at the event. And it was a packed house.

There was lots of people. I did see Al Sharpton was there in attendance. So some celebrities, some commentators, lots of press. And yeah, it was just a very interesting experience in the wake of a lot of the difficulties that Biden has been enduring with the post-debate performance, him dropping out of the 2024 campaign. There wasn't any huge stumbles during his speech. He did his normal shuffling up to the podium and shuffling away, but just a very interesting event.

And the fact that he was reiterating a lot of these SCOTUS reforms, but, you know, there's these reforms, the house is divided, you know, it's not going to pass. But just the fact that he's proposing those is something worth mentioning. Well, and the reason that the exchange on the tarmac went so viral was because the way he phrased the response to the reporter was, well, I think he, as in Mike Johnson, is dead on arrival. Of course, you know, that was disingenuous. Dealers in news breaking took that and ran with it. Like his president was saying he was good.

It was a threat, which it's just a childish answer, but it was funny hearing that from the president, a president. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the, I know you are, but what am I? Right. President of the United States. Pretty funny.

Yeah. But yeah, that, that, that sort of wraps it up there. It's just um i think the main takeaway is that he was reiterating those supreme court reforms he wants to introduce but ultimately doesn't seem as though they're going to pass through congress you know that that's the difficult part you can the the president can posture on a lot of these issues, but when it comes to legislation, it ultimately comes down to these elected officials. A lot has to happen for anything to be passed into law on the state or the federal level.

Cameron, real fast, can you give us behind the scenes, like what was it like being there? Where was the media kept? Did you get access to the auditorium? Were you in a separate room? What was the audience like? Just run us through quickly your day watching the president. Yeah. So you have to apply for press credentials. Those get approved. This being a high level event, there's going to be lots of security involved. So as a member of the press, you show up, you're ushered into a separate security line, secret service, police officers, law enforcement, they're all there. It's funny, they mentioned when they approved my press credentials, you can only bring in clear plastic bags with your things. So I didn't end up bringing my laptop. All I had were my keys, my phone, and my wallet.

It's pretty simple. You go through security check, and there's a little press room that you, sort of prepare for the event. And then press initially was held behind the seating area in the auditorium. And then probably about 10 minutes before the event was scheduled to start, an usher came up to us and said, hey, if there's any open seats, you guys are free to take those. So, um, I got, you know, relatively close to the stage where it was at and got a clear line of sight so I could, you know, take photos or video, whatever it was. So I ended up working out really well. That's awesome. And Kim, thanks for going. We appreciate it. Long overdue the president

visiting Austin, Brad, let's go to you here. Mayra Flores is getting a lot of attention from national Republican groups. What happened this week? So the National Republican Congressional Committee, NRCC, named former Congresswoman Mayra Flores to its young gun list, signifying heightened attention it'll give to her race against Congressman Vicente Gonzalez. They said in the release that it'll come with, in addition to campaign support in terms of, like, advice and grassroots support, whether it's block walkers or, you know, other things like that, it'll also come with money. So that's big in all these races.

Flores has raised quite a bit of money herself. In the latest finance report, she raised over a million dollars. I think that was like double or three times the amount that Gonzalez raised. So she's doing pretty well, and NRCC has consistently signaled that this is a priority of theirs, trying to flip this seat. The NRCC spokes in this announcement stated, extreme House Democrat Vicente Gonzalez has fueled the border crime and cost of living crises that are wreaking havoc on Texans' safety and security. Mayra Flores is in a prime position to flip Texas's 34th district red and help grow our house majority in November.

Flores told me on this announcement, it's an honor to be selected by the NRCC as one of the top GOP candidates in the country. The Young Guns program provides critical resources and guidance as we work to elect new leadership in Texas's 34th district, and I'm grateful for the NRCC's confidence in our campaign. This, Mayra Flores was the only Texan on this list at least so far. Notably it did not include Jay Furman who's the Republican nominee in House District 28 against Henry Cuellar. That race has moved tighter, at least among the projections from Sabato's, Crystal Ball, and Cook political reports after the indictments against him. But a notable omission there. I think that kind of signals how they feel about Furman as a candidate,

especially compared to Flores. I think there were two Texans on this list last time around. Wesley Hunt was one of them. Blanken on. Monica de la Cruz was the other. She's in Texas 15, another South Texas district, along with this 34th congressional district. That one they're playing, Republicans are playing defense on, though, because she is

the incumbent. And so that's a much tighter district there. I'm sure the NRCC will be helping her out as well. But yeah, they're still bullish on Flores and hoping to kind of flip the script from two years ago when Flores won or lost when Gonzalez won, though Flores did outperform the partisan rating of that district. So it could be a tight one, although who knows. You talked a little bit about this already, but give us just a broad overview or add anything you haven't already said about where the rates is right now. So the district is rated by our TPI R58%. I think that's down from like, sorry, not R58, D58. I think that's down from D63 last cycle. And if the trend is any indication, it'll get closer again. But, you know, I've heard from people down in the Valley that it's probably not winnable

for Flores or any Republican right now. But, you know, that could change. Who knows what happens, especially when a lot of it's going to be determined by the top of the ticket, both in the presidential level and in the Senate race. So, you know, does Trump continue moving, shifting these South Texas counties towards Republicans? We saw that happen in 2020. And, you. And then the next question logically is, if that does happen, does that support turnout for down-ballot races such as the 34th District? So I think Gonzalez is feeling pretty good, although he's not taking this lightly um but yeah it's going to be a pretty high profile clash there in south texas uh in a rematch from 22 certainly broadly thank you one will definitely keep an eye

on cameron coming back to you attorney general ken paxton entered into a huge settlement agreement with meta the facebook parent group tells us about it. Yeah, so like you mentioned, this was huge. It was actually the largest settlement ever obtained by a single state after he alleged that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, collected Texans' biometric identifiers without their consent. The $1.4 billion settlement was announced this week, which stemmed from the first lawsuit ever brought under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, which prohibits the capturing of an individual's biometric identification, such as retina, fingertips, hand geometry for commercial purposes purposes unless the individual is informed and provides consent prior to the capture. And in the aftermath of the settlement announcement,

Metta put out a statement and a spokesperson said, quote, we are pleased to resolve this matter and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in texas including potentially developing data centers and in that same statement the spokesperson also noted that there is no admission of wrongdoing in the settlement agreement and this is just an interesting development, not only the fact of it being the largest single ever settlement for a single state, but the settlement is sort of eye-opening in the fact that a lot of the evidence produced in the lawsuit had shown that in 2011, Facebook introduced what is called tag suggestions, which is a facial recognition feature that automatically tagged people in uploaded photos without informing Texans how it worked.

This was what was being alleged. And there's been lots of discussions about how these big tech companies are using data from individual users, how they're collecting that data. And this sort of just provides some insight in this one instance about how that is actually being invoked here. So just to bring some awareness to people and their conduct online, I just think that's very interesting. Absolutely. Huge, huge settlement. One that we'll be keeping an eye on for any sort of record break in the future because this is setting a new standard. Cam, thanks for covering that for us.

We're going to stick with you here. Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs published a poll on school choice. Give us these numbers. Yeah, so the new poll here, very interesting because it covered both forms of school choice, school vouchers and education savings accounts and the way they did this is they had respondents were given descriptions of school vouchers and education savings account and asked if they strongly or somewhat supported or strongly or somewhat opposed to the adoptions of these two different pieces of legislation and And also there's different versions

of the statement that they were presented with or descriptions they were presented with, whether it be for all parents or for low-income parents. So there was a lot of data to sort of sort through in what this poll showed. And when the issue was phrased as school vouchers, 65% support the proposition that it should be provided to all parents in Texas, and 33% strongly supported it. ESAs were even more popular. 69% supported the creation of ESAs for all parents, and 30% strongly supported them. Access to ESAs, that's education savings accounts, for all parents are more favorable than just providing them to low-income parents. 64% support the legislation for low-income parents only, while 32% strongly support it. And with, you know, with a lot of these polls, they have cross-sections of different demographics, demographics partisan affiliations and what was

interesting here is support for school voucher legislation for all parents was 81 percent popular among black republicans the highest of the cross-section between racial and partisan demographics all groups showed more than 50% support, excluding white Democrats at just 49%. So just an interesting breakdown there of how not just racial demographics but partisan demographics can play into either support or opposition to either ESAs and school vouchers. I think it is important to note that some of the opposition to the descriptions of school choice, whether it be vouchers or ESAs, showed similar numbers by the respondents. Like, for example, 66% agree, 31% strongly agree with the anti-voucher ESA argument that it funnels money away from already struggling public schools. In

addition, 63% agree, 28% strongly that they provide funding to private schools and individuals with only limited accountability for how the funds are used. So similarly, like I mentioned at the beginning of this section here, large support for passing ESAs and school vouchers, but also strong opposition when the description of the legislation is framed in in a negative way and so if You want to do a little bit of analysis what that means in terms of the respondents in this poll? They just agree with whatever argument was presented to them in the poll. So It's interesting to you know, look through numbers, and depending on where you are on this argument, whether you support or you're in opposition, there is something you can take away from it. But it's important to note that the percentages on either side of the argument show that the respondents don't seem to know how they truly feel so very interesting poll lots of data

i just threw at you guys there but i wanted to ask brad though with these numbers um you wrote about in your newsletter about esas and the potential upcoming fight about that and some of the battles over the budget and things. Will lawmakers be looking at a poll like this and say, oh, we have to pass school choice and it will help bolster their arguments? Or do the disagreements at the top between people like Phelan and Patrick and Abbott that you highlighted in your newsletter this week, does that take precedent over numbers like this that come out? Well, the way I saw the reaction to this poll was as a Rorschach test.

Okay. Obviously, those in support point to the top-line numbers of broad support. It's not just generally. You'll break it down into racial and partisan groups, and it's supported almost all the way through, even when they're using the term vouchers, which has been branded negatively by its opponents. You know, there's a whole messaging fight on this,

and we've seen the opponents of something like this call it vouchers. We've seen the proponents of it rebranded to school choice. And polling on this question is very difficult to do because the terms are all over the place, and it all depends on how you frame the question. Like if you say parental empowerment, do you believe in parental empowerment? Of course it's going to pass with flying colors, right? If you say it's taking public dollars to give to private religious schools, that's going to pull much lower. So it's all over the place, all over the map.

So, yeah, the top lines, and I thought the questions were worded very well because they pulled both voucher, the term voucher, and education savings account. But, yeah, the top line showed a lot of support. But then, like you mentioned, with the questions about objections to vouchers or criticisms of it you know I'm talking specifically on the voucher one but I think it also applied to the education savings account term you saw a lot more support for criticisms right of of these things right so when I say Rorschach test basically everyone who has decided on this issue

took out of it what they wanted to um and that was clear in the reaction i saw on social media okay from officials yeah uh you know the one those opposed focused heavily or entirely on the criticisms the results of the criticisms uh while the people who support it focused on the broad support at the top. So that was my takeaway from that. But as far as next session, it depends on what. Everyone generally understands this is going to pass. It's just a question of what is tied to it and what final form the school choice program actually takes.

How broad is it? Um, what kind of guardrails are on it? All that kind of stuff. So while the votes are there for it to pass something and the votes aren't there to pass just anything. Right. So that's going to be a big fight. Yeah.

And that's a good time to plug smoke-Filled Room, which will come out this Monday. Brad and I recorded it this week, and we talk a lot about school choice and the policy fights that are being teed up for next session. So Cameron, you led us right into that. I'll also say, too, the vouchers is a very politically hot term. It also is a different mechanism than ESAs and education savings accounts, right? So there are different things that are being pulled. Yes, it's for optics, but there are also different offerings of what a school choice

proposal could look like. And polling too. We talk about this all the time and it's about time for my semi-annual reminder to folks that polling is indicative of a lot of trends. It's fun to look at. It can be very informational, but it's certainly not the end-all be-all for anything. And part of it is because polling can be formatted in so many different ways. The questions can lead folks to different

understandings, but it does provide a lot of information and well-formulated polls can be very, very helpful for folks trying to decode what's happening politically. Cameron, thank you for that. We're going to stick with you again. Cam, you just are running all the bases today. Texan members of Congress urged the Department of Justice to investigate alleged Medicaid fraud at Texas Children's Hospital, an institution that has been in the news plenty as of late. Tell us about it.

Yeah, so this was a letter signed on by 10 Texas Congress members addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him and the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of Medicaid fraud related to child gender modification at Texas Children's Hospital. In previous months, multiple whistleblowers have actually come forward alleging that Texas Children's Hospital falsified medical records and accused it of unlawfully billing the state Medicaid program for the purposes of, like I mentioned, child gender modification. The signers on the letter include representatives Jody Arrington, Jake Easley, Ronnie Jackson, Keith Seltz, Randy Weber, Lance Gooden, Chip Roy, Pat Fallon, Brian

Babin, Morgan Luttrell. And the letter highlights both the Texas Senate Bill 14, which bans child gender modification in the state, and these whistleblower allegations. And they are urging the investigation to be taken under a section of code, which is the False Claims Act that imposes liability on individuals and entities who knowingly submit fraudulent claims for payments or approval to the federal government. And these whistleblower allegations stem from a lot of reporting from Christopher Ruffo over at the Manhattan Institute, where Vanessa Savage and Ethan Haim have both claimed to be visited by federal agents. Savage told Ruffo that the FBI sent agents to her home to, quote, intimidate and threaten her. Haim, who alleged

that Texas Children's Hospital has continued to provide, quote, gender-affirming care to minor children, even after claiming that it would cease to do so, has also been visited by agents of the U.S. Department of Justice and has been indicted for four felony counts of violating the Health Insurance Probability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA. So this has been an evolving story over the past few months. Whistleblowers, lots of reporting, lots of lawmakers coming out, both on the side of urging an investigation for the Medicaid fraud. We saw someone like Kim Paxton do something similar here in the state, but then also lawmakers condemning the continuing actions of how Texas Children has been using the child gender modification treatments even after they said they were going to stop. So lots of angles to the story,

lots of developments, and I'm sure it's not going to stop with this letter. We'll keep covering it as more information comes out. Absolutely. And Cameron is all over it. So Cam, thanks for covering that for us. Brad, you're going to talk quick about a big ruling on the border case this week. Matt Stringer wrote the general story. We'll get into your more specific article here in a minute, but tell us generally about the ruling and what happened yeah so um the u.s court the u.s fifth circuit um they rule issued an opinion permitting the state of texas buoy barrier in the rio grande to remain that's of course the down by i think eagle pass or in eagle pass this set of buoys that has been placed out in the river to prevent crossings at that point lots of reporting on the buoys

themselves too yes yes the uh the very sharp uh bladed right. Right, right. But the ruling that came out, there was a preliminary injunction placed at the district level, and that had stopped things for, ordered them to be removed. Well, then the state of Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit, so that kind of stayed that preliminary injunction for a bit while the Fifth Circuit considered this. Well, the Fifth Circuit did consider it and basically eliminated that preliminary injunction, setting the case back to the district court for consideration on merits. And so the reason they did that was there's this fight over what's a navigable water. Does this stretch, 1,000-foot stretch, count as a navigable water under federal law? That's the case the federal government has been making in court, or at least one of the cases, that this buoy is blocking the navigable waterway.

It's really fascinating reading through the opinion because it goes blow by blow of the case and the arguments made by both sides. You know, specifically the feds were arguing that, you know, this thing's blocking commerce and traffic. They were citing the Commerce Clause that it doesn't they don't think the the Fifth Circuit ruled they don't think this that contention can be argued successfully or is likely to be argued successfully at the district court level so there's a lot of nuances about how these things are argued what the standards of it's like a ladder the different standards you have to meet in order to actually consider a case on the merits. So by doing this, they eliminated the preliminary injunction that border buoys can remain,

and it had this really odd but interesting debate over what is a navigable water. Does the fact that there are ferries that cross here, does that count as commerce or foot traffic, basically, at least as it pertains to this federal law? So really odd, interesting dynamic, and I'm sure Matt gets to it in his piece. But that was the main aspect of this ruling and um yeah i thought it was interesting so then brad tell us about your article focusing on a different aspect of the case yeah so even more interesting i found was

judge james ho's opinion and it was a partial concurrence, partial dissent. He reached the same conclusion about eliminating the preliminary injunction, but reached it in a different way. And his opinion is a flat-out endorsement of the state's invocation, Governor Abbott's invocation of the invasion clause. And this has been slowly developing developing the case behind this, the arguments, you know, it really started with a lot of these counties, I think 55 at this point, declaring an invasion. I mean Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution basically gives the states war powers when being invaded to repel

an invasion. And there's a lot of constitutional debate about how far does that extend? What does that mean? Does this fit that definition? Eventually, after a lot of shrugging it off or being skeptical of that idea. Governor Abbott eventually has declared an invasion. That was a big issue during the 22 governors primary. He was being hit over that quite a bit. But we've seen this slow development, this slow crescendo of this legal argument, and now it's being fully embraced.

James Ho's embrace of it just gives it more credence in the legal fight. It gives basically the state of Texas a jumping-off point, a foothold in this. And, of course, that's not the majority opinion. The majority did not endorse this position by Ho. But it's an interesting, like it's interesting a judicial point is he a pointee or whatever it may be uh a judge is making a argue argue an argument for state sovereignty right right and you you included a quote here in the docket. If you want to read that, I think it's very interesting. Yeah. So Ho wrote in this opinion, a sovereign isn't a sovereign if it can't defend itself against invasion. States did not forfeit this sovereign prerogative when it comes to states. Presidents routinely insist that their power to repel invasion is implied by certain clauses, but Article I, Section 10 is explicit that states have the right to engage in war if actually invaded without the consent of Congress.

He then goes on to provide some historical examples of when this has been used. He talked about when governors in the state of Texas have deployed the military to fight off Mexican bandits in the 19th century. He talked about when Woodrow Wilson sent in forces to go after Pancho Villa. He talked about the deployment of troops to combat terrorist operations in the 90s and after 9-11. So he lays out a lot of groundwork there, and it's pretty interesting to read. But basically, he's making the case that, of course, this applies here. And even though these are individuals, they're still foreign actors right even if they're not directly associated or contracted by a foreign government and it still applies here it

still fits basically the the idea behind article 1 section 10 well I think it'll be interesting because Texas isn't the only state that's become impacted by right the illegal immigration at the border. So with a judge insisting that a state can act in a sovereign capacity in an attempt to quell the illegal immigration, will other states, other state governors attempt to do something similar now that they see there is a legal argument that is being made in a similar court case with the Buoys. Will other states like Arizona, or probably not California, but, you know, they have a legal immigration. Arizona is definitely primed for that.

If they haven't declared it already, I don't know for sure the answer to that question but that you've had many um governors across the country republican ones endorse this idea and explicitly declare an invasion or at least state publicly that they think an invasion is happening in texas and that's actually also cited in ho's opinion as justification for this being a problem and actually an invasion? Well, I think to myself, for those who might be opposed to this sovereignty argument, you know, I can understand that they could see this as being sort of a needle or the straw that breaks the camel's back, where if a governor is able to enact a sovereignty act with something like a legal immigration would they be able to enact a sovereignty declaration in another area that they're seeing as a problem you know is that the block that knocks down the jenga tower right on federal

um supremacy basically that's the that's the question Yeah. And so I think it's very, very interesting that the sovereignty, because we've seen so many disagreements about federal powers versus state powers. And I just think the insight that Ho is providing in his argument here, if other judges in other states are having conversations similar with this legal argument and setting a precedent in this way we could have a radically different system in a few decades so well two more points about this in another opinion judge Oldham stated specifically that nobody's agreeing or nobody everyone is in agreement that what

constitutes an invasion, that's non-justiciable, meaning that's not up to the courts. The courts have no ability to decide that as a political question of up to the federal and state legislatures and executives. So there's that. That's actually a bigger win that a lot of these proponents are touting, at least in terms of this case. But I think a bigger win that a lot of these proponents are touting, at least in terms of this case. But I think Ho's position holds a lot more implications more broadly. And dissenting judges addressed Ho's arguments in their own dissenting opinion, and they said, sum up, put simply, if Texas is engaging in war, it must cede authority to the federal government to conduct that war once the federal government has had time to respond to the purported invasion. Basically, the argument is that the ability to respond to an invasion and invoke war powers exists only so long as the federal government has not had time to act.

And so they're arguing that this has gone on for years now. The federal government has clearly had time to act and has chosen not to. And in doing so, that's an act in itself. And so the invasion capability or the wartime capabilities associated with this clause are moot at this point. So very interesting legal debate. And I hope it gets up to the Supreme Court so we can see how those judges think of this and if there's a change in the broader legal discussion on this. Yeah, if no action is action in itself, which is ceding the capacity back to the states to make a declaration like this. Well, the opposite way, the action is an act itself, therefore eliminating the ability for the states at the moment in this current situation to act on their own.

It's complicated. It's fascinating. It is. It's complicated. It's fascinating. It is. It's so fascinating. And I think, I mean, we have two stories up at the Texan right now that are great introductions to all of this. And Brad, I mean, your piece really cleared some things up for me. And folks, I'd definitely recommend going and reading Matt's initial piece on the border case, the big ruling, and that sparked all of this. And then going and reading Brad's piece that goes into more detail on that different portion of the case so really fascinating stuff and brad thanks for chatting through it we appreciate it and cam thanks for

joining in love it cam we're gonna come to you here an illegal immigrant uh shot a texas police officer during a confrontation spawning from a domestic violence call on sunday sheesh tell us about it yeah this was according to fox news i came across this story on monday um like you just said an illegal immigrant shot a texas police officer during a confrontation that spawned from a domestic violence call this was on sunday the venezuelan national Jorge Cochon Gutierrez engaged in a shootout with officers of the San Antonio Police Department. Gutierrez is dead, though it is not currently clear if it was due to being shot by police or by suicide. I'll actually read a statement here from the San Antonio Police Chief William McManus. He said,

quote, when officers went into the apartment, he was lying in bed with a rifle by his side, and he started shooting at the officers. The officers returned fire and exited the apartment. One of our officers was shot multiple times, and she is currently in the hospital. And just coming off of our story that we were just talking about in regards to illegal immigration, there's been quite a few stories of violence, whether it be sexual in nature as well. We've seen the murder of the 12-year-old in Houston by Venezuelan nationals. We saw an illegal immigrant from Ecuador was charged with rape in New York City. Of course, Lake and Riley, her story out of Georgia. So

many of these stories just sort of piling up over the past year, year and a half, two years. And as we've talked about at length before on the podcast and many different articles is illegal immigration is now battling for that number one spot for most important issue for voters when they are asked about it in different polls. So illegal immigration continues to be in the news, whether it be in a legal capacity or in this hyperlocal but tragic incident. Absolutely. And go read Cameron's coverage of that incident at thetexan.news. Sticking with you, Cam, Dallas voters will determine if the city will decriminalize

possessing small amounts of marijuana. Give us the update. Yeah, I seem to come across these stories quite a bit. But this organization called Ground Game Texas, they announced they had collected nearly 50,000 signatures from Dallas voters in support of this proposition of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. The proposition, according to the organization's Dallas Freedom Act petition, would instruct police in Dallas to stop issuing citations or making arrests for Class A or Class B misdemeanor marijuana possessions. And so for those that are unclear, under state law, possession of two ounces or less of marijuana is classified as a Class B misdemeanor, which can result in up to 180 days of imprisonment and a maximum fine of $2,000. If the amount of marijuana possessed is between two and four ounces, it is considered a Class

A misdemeanor carrying a potential penalty of up to one year in jail and a fine not exceeding $4,000. And we've seen quite a few cities make similar propositions on ballots, and some fail, some get passed. But an interesting development, Brad actually wrote this story, was the Office of the Attorney General has already announced preemptive lawsuits against cities like Austin, Denton, Elgin, Keelan, San Marcos, arguing that the local decriminalization ordinances violate state law and are unconstitutional. So we're seeing pushback to some of these local ordinances from state elected officials. So just, you know, it's one part of the story is the localities are introducing and passing in some instances this decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana, but it is still illegal. And state elected officials like the attorney general are pushing back against it. So just some interesting crossover. And again, what we're talking about, whether it's

federal powers, state powers, but local powers and state powers coming into conflict. So just another interesting story about marijuana decriminalization that is more complex, the deeper you look at it. I was just gonna you made the point I was about to make Cam that the federal state and local jurisdiction battle that is ongoing and will be forever is always so fascinating this is just another example of that thanks for covering it Brad why don't you plug some of your work which you're so good at doing Thanks. We put up an interview with Representative Cole Hefner, chairman of the Hostile Foreign Nations. I can't. It's such a securing Texas from hostile foreign organizations. I think that's the name of the select committee. Is there an acronym for this?

They need to come up with one. There should be. While I'm talking, maybe you can come up with it. But there was a hearing last week. They had on proposals on how to prevent foreign nations or hostile actors thereof from buying Texas land. It's an interesting debate. We'll see how it fares during session next year that was something else we talked about on SFR but we did a a podcast this week with representative Hefner we talked about that we talked

about his thoughts on what that's gonna look like and how expansive it'll be and we also discussed the speaker's race we discussed the legislative dynamics house versus senate um and so uh what else we talked national politics a bit so i i thought it was pretty interesting conversation and um uh yeah give it give it a watch give it a listen a lot of the clips i've been doing uh i've been eliciting a lot of the clips have been doing uh have been eliciting a lot of reactions online at least i've seen i've seen people quote tweeting it giving their comments on it so oh really yeah it's very interesting stuff you guys talk about certainly a big issue in the legislature from last session and in this interim but also on social media and a lot of

folks care about it republican circles republican activists are very passionate about this issue and you see that in response to this interview so definitely worth going and checking out um gentlemen let's move on to the tweetery uh brad i want to start with you because it is olympic related and so my bias is obviously going to show there well i actually just saw this during the podcast while Cameron was talking and I was ignoring him. It's a video side by side of the Olympic men's 100 meter freestyle swimming event. One side is in Los Angeles in 1932. The other is Tokyo in 2020. And it's just amazing how much faster the swimmers are in what is the most well-known race in swimming, the 100-meter free.

And, you know, the guys swimming it in 2020 finished, like, 20 seconds before the guys in 1932. It's just amazing to see the difference, the comparison in athletes. And, you know, this is something where you take baseball, for example, you hear a lot of comparison of, you know, would Babe Ruth have succeeded in today's game or would he have just been a chump? Well, this is something that is pretty comparable.

Baseball is not really, you can't really compare it because the context changes. You know, guys throw so much faster and harder and are just bigger and stronger. Also, you add changes just to the parameters of the game, you know, the shift change, the pitching clock, you know, things like that. But with this, it's remained basically the same. And maybe some dimensions of the pool have shifted,

but it's as comparable as you can get it, and it's just a massive gap. Well, like with your baseball example about how guys are throwing harder and they have all these different pitches or whatever it may be, but the field dimensions are the same. It's still 60 feet 6 inches. Sure. But I think it comes down to – But the mound is raised and lowered.

But the training methods that these guys employ now, there's hyper-specificity. Like these guys in your baseball example guys will train their entire lives just to be a closer in the mlb right trying to get an extra one inning yeah or like in swimming hyper specificity and you know um the only event i didn't even watch i just watched highlights was the triathlon event and um in the sport of Ironman you know where you're out there for hours you know sometimes 9, 10, 11 hours for amateurs you know for the professionals they're breaking eight hours going for a full Ironman and in the Olympic event the

guy I was following the Norwegian Christian Blfeld, he did not do well. But, yeah, it's just the training, like, because I'll follow his training methods. He does a lot of stuff on YouTube. And, like, tracking all these biometric markers, VO2 max, power outage, watts, like, it's all hyper they can calculate it down to the most the smallest decimal to improve just a little bit well well and it showed this video the end of it shows side by side of the the two winners i don't know who the guy is in 1932 and then you have caleb dressel the american in 2020 and he's just a machine of a human being the dude is ripped yeah I mean his muscles have muscles um and then you look at this other guy and he's he's fit but he's just like

a normal guy yeah um he's slightly above average and physique wise and it's just fascinating to see the difference i also think it's it's interesting the the selection of the athletes because probably back in what year are you 1932 1932 it was just oh this is the best guy who worked his way up through high school and college and he's been the winner well now you'll see coaches or even olympic commissions in different uh countries actually like going and like searching out for specific body dimensions for different sports like you'll see these swimmers like super long torsos long arms giant hands short legs you know michael phelps yeah you know so they're looking for a certain body type now for these individual sports it's just very interesting but it also makes you wonder how

long these world records can keep getting broken how fast can people actually be in these events like when will that slow down because we see world records broken every olympics and i think what will likely happen is just the as because I mean, I don't know, they are pretty refined. And obviously, they can get more refined, but you can never hit zero. Right? Like that's so at what point does the record? Does the record breaking slow down a little bit? I think we're nearing that right now. Well, I'll mention I'll mention this about the selection for training methods and for athletes themselves. There's a really good book called The Sports Gene by David Epstein.

He's a sports journalist. And he sort of explores the nature versus nurture argument in high-performing athletes. And, like, how are all these African runners so dominant in distance running? Well, it's not just African runners, it's African runners from a specific country. And it's not just from that country, it's from a specific region in that country. And it's not just from a specific region, it's from like a small town in that region of this country. So there's all these different dimensions that come into play with high performance athletes

where it's not just you can take anyone off the street you know there they have to be in the right environment and they have to have the right genetics as well so every time we the olympics happen i see the same take and it's kind of a joke but also not there needs to be one average person in every event to show just how insane these athletes are yeah have y'all seen snoop dogg doing this like people are snoop dogg's going around and competing in olympic sports just to show how hard they are now of course it's snoop dogg and he's also being ridiculous and it's a comedy show in and of itself but it's kind of happening and i even remember like i think it was either

last Summer Olympics or the Summer Olympics before. No, it must have been last Summer Olympics because Kevin Hart, anyway, Kevin Hart took a video of himself. Actually, it was quite impressive doing the butterfly stroke and swimming very quickly. And he did so on like a live broadcast with Michael Phelps. And Michael Phelps was like, how are you getting that far out of the water? And you're actually going fast. And Kevin Hart's a fit guy. He's athletic, right? He knows his way around a lot of sports, but swimming. Michael Phelps was like, what am I looking at? And he goes, wait, are you wearing flippers? And you can't see it in the video. Like the video is just his torso swimming and he is swimming fast and he's getting, his torso is getting far out of the water.

And Ken Hart was like, what are you talking about? I'm definitely not wearing flippers, and he definitely was. I'll mention one last thing about what you said about they need just an average person competing. Well, there was a show called Pros vs. Joes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Did you ever? Yeah, so they've done this before. The average guys just get destroyed.

They have like a professional. Sport science, right? That's what it was, yeah. Yeah, there was that and the other one. So it's like you put an average Joe in like a football game, you know, against a linebacker flat on their back. Yeah. That's just straight up dangerous. Like there's no, there's literally no reason for that. Wait. Okay.

Cameron before we move on to yours and then I'll, I'll just forego mine. Tell us about this Sen river situation with the, uh, the athletes actually finally swimming in the river, winding its way through Paris and throwing up. Yeah, this is my speculation because people have been saying, oh, they're throwing up because of swimming in the river. But I don't think people understand the limits to what these athletes are pushing their body to. And once you cross that finish line, everything just sort of breaks down and wants to come back up. And so like, because before these races, especially triathlon, you're putting down a lot of carbohydrates the night

before, even the day of, and it's like a lot of sugar a lot of simple carbs and they're taking in a lot of caffeine as well and it's all for 40 minutes in this single performance and so they're doing this race at the highest intensity they can and then they stop and the body just rejects whatever they put in. And so I, I've seen this a lot during triathlon races and during marathons is even during the event, people, you know, pulling over to the side and, you know, letting out what they had put down. Yeah. So which makes sense. It wasn't unusual to see, to see people throwing up after a race. I'm tracking. I haven't seen even reports of athletes throwing up, but I am surprised considering the entire lead up to the Olympics and, you know, our top notch coverage of the river cleanup effort on this podcast, um, that they're actually competing in the river. It's

wild. It's happening. Like events are taking place in the river. And so far, it's been okay. And there was an E. coli scare just days before the events were supposed to start. So hey, it's happening. It's working. And so far, so good. But and I understand that that's part of the that's the nature of competing at such a high level and doing something that's so difficult and strenuous on your body. But still, I think there is, you know, if in a, if in a few days we're still hearing these rumors about athletes, um, vomiting, I think we may be able to attribute it to something other than fatigue.

Just saying, um, Cam, okay, let's hit yours here before we move on or let our listeners move on. Or let our listeners move on, rather. Well, today, August 1st, there is a big announcement that there was a prisoner swap between Russia and the United States. And among those returning was the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich. And he has been detained in Russia for quite a while here. I'll read from the Wall Street Journal article about it. It said, Russia freed wrongly convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerskovich as part of the largest and most complex east-west prisoner swap since the Cold War, in which he and more than a dozen others jailed by the Kremlin were exchanged for Russians held in the U.S. and Europe, including a convicted murderer. Gerskovich and other americans left russian aircraft moments ago at an airport in turkey's

capital russia had kept the 32 year old behind bars for more than a year on false allegations of espionage it sentenced him in a hurried and secret three-day trial to 16 years in a high-security penal colony. So just some big news about this prisoner swap. I just think it's, you know, interesting the fact that we've seen this happen now, but then we've also seen someone like Donald Trump make promises to free someone like Ross Olbrich here in the United States. So just prisoner swap with Russia, is that going to lead to better relations with Russia? You know, ultimately, they still have to come to a resolution with Ukraine. That's an ongoing struggle.

But maybe this can be an act of good faith between the countries. So ultimately, peace can occur between Ukraine and Russia. And notable to all roads lead back to the Olympics here. But Russia is not allowed to compete in the Olympic Games this year due to the you know, they after after the invasion of Ukraine and very notable absence in the olympic games this year um due to the you know they after after the invasion of ukraine and very notable absence in the olympics this year um and to britney is it just the country or the athletes too because last one last one they are the the winner one the athletes could compete it just wasn't it was i think it was under just the IOC banner. I haven't seen that yet, though.

So I don't actually know what's being allowed this year. But yeah, Russia, the nation, is not allowed to compete. I have not seen any sort of – I haven't seen a Russian athlete competing under another banner of any sort, like the IOC or something along those lines. But also Brittany Greiner is competing in the Olympics this year. And that's notable as well. She's out there competing, doing all that. Okay.

Gentlemen, thank you. We appreciate it. And by we, I mean me. You guys are awesome. Folks, thank you for tuning in to the Weekly Roundup and we'll 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.