The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 23, 2024

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Learn more about today's sponsor by visiting: uslege.aiShow 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:Texas Children’s Whistleblower Fired After Alleging Child Gender Modification Medicaid FraudFIRE Sues Ken Paxton, Alleging New 'SCOPE Act' Violates Constitutional Rights, Commerce ClauseDallas Judge 'Sets Aside' Federal Trade Commission Non-Compete RuleAllred Campaign Seeks Balance on Energy Issues Between Progressive Base, Moderate ElectorateTexas Tax Return Preparer Banned From Operating After Allegedly Costing Government $20 MillionFTC Alleges Texas Car Dealerships Illegally 'Packed' Add-Ons, Targeted Black and Latino ConsumersNine Houston-Area Massage Centers Face Temporary Injunction After Owner Fails to Comply With Closure Orders

Everyone get your tinfoil hat on. Austin's favorite one on Twitter. Texas Senate race. Oh! Oh my gosh. Well, it's not that they're not helping. Is it the demographics of the area or is it the types of policies? And then focus our efforts on building nuclear plants.

Sorry, Mac. Time out. It's like the donut of shame instead of the cone of shame howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of the weekly roundup this is mackenzie here with brad and marylise gentlemen how's austin actually just kidding i'm not gonna ask you a question i'm just gonna go straight to marylise maryise, I'm so grateful to be on this podcast with you. I'm so grateful to have another female on the pod. It's always a joy when you can join us. But also, it's just fun that maybe possibly when I'm inevitably berated or ganged up on that I

might have an ally. We'll see how it pans out. You can make the determination for yourself. But I'm grateful that there is hope in that regard. Yeah, I You can make the determination for yourself, but I'm grateful that there is hope in that regard. Yeah, I'm happy to be here for you, for sure. Okay, that's what I like to hear. Brad, how do you feel about that? I don't know. I don't. Okay, our newest running bit in the office, and really, I guess, not in the office, because this is just Brad and I, we recorded a new episode of Smoke-Filled Room yesterday. A theme in that recording was that I would pose a question, end a sentence, say something obviously very just insightful, I'd say. And then Brad would meet me with some really good conversational fodder like, yeah. Or nothing. And I would be left to my own devices, which is never a good or constructive thing. And Brad has very inconsiderately said that this will continue.

So that's what we're dealing with here today. I hate that for you. I hate that for you. Hey, that's like five. I hate that for you. That's five words. We'll take it. That's more than I got yesterday. Cameron, how are you doing today? Doing great. Going back to what you originally asked, because you were going to start off with asking us about how Austin is. And it is very hot here. It's been in the 100 degrees, triple digits, upper 90s. So just walking outside, you instantly start sweating.

It is not fun right now. Which Cameron does every day to go to the gym at lunchtime. Which I do every day. But, yeah, I saw someone with one of those little heat guns, like, testing the ground temperature here in Austin. And it said it was, like, 120 plus on the ground. Oh, yeah. Here in Austin. And it said it was like 120 plus on the ground. But I was trying to figure out like, is it really that hot? And it seemed like he was, whoever it was, was pointing the temperature gauge, was pointing it at a manhole cover. So, you know, the heat conductivity between the concrete versus a metal manhole cover,

like it might be a little bit hotter on the manhole cover. I don't know. But either way, either way, it's very hot here in Austin. That's regardless if it's hot enough to make the manhole cover that hot. That's pretty wild. Also, Brad, just take note of how seamlessly cameron transitioned into very easy converse very easy conversation and um responded to me conversationally something i can always rely on cameron for just like take note because i think that's something you can learn from well well here's the thing, we play different roles here, you know?

Like, oil and water, you know, they don't mix, but you put different ingredients in a salad dressing, you mix it up, pour it all over some lettuce, and it tastes delicious. But on their own, they're not going to be good. But once we're together, it works out. Cameron, you and I were talking about that a little bit yesterday on our call, but I think that's something that's very interesting about you and the role you play in the office. You're a chameleon. You make a lot of folks feel heard, even mortal enemies like Brad and myself. And you you have those that ability to kind of sense what direction something might be going in and just play the role you need to in a given moment. So we're aware you do it well. And we're grateful for that. I particularly

am grateful for that on the podcast. So I know at least somebody, you know, and Mary Elise is here. So I've got a lot more going for me this episode. But well, so if you're if you call me a chameleon, what are the animal equivalents for Brad and for for mary elise oh that's good you know what let me that is a very good question let me think on it let's get to the news let me think on it and cameron remind me to come back to it a little bit because i'm gonna need to think about it all right sounds good okay delightful well cameron you're up first we have a story from you up first um a texas children's hospital child gender modification whistleblower, man, that is a mouthful, has been fired after going public. Tell us about the story.

Yeah. So the whistleblower, Vanessa Savage, she blew the whistle. It's been a few weeks now on the alleged Medicaid fraud at Texas Children's Hospital. She actually provided a statement in light of this firing to Manhattan Institute's Christopher Ruffo about the details about how she was fired after she revealed, quote, sex change procedures ongoing at the hospital, but also the fraud and deception related to the illegal billing practices to Medicaid in having these procedures covered

by taxpayers. And Savage went on to state that after her initial story went public, Texas Children's Hospital put her quote on leave and then she was fired on Friday, August 16th. And like I was mentioning, she provided a lot of details in an extended statement here. I'll just add a few things where she said she submitted a religious accommodation request to transfer to another department. She said her role in the endocrinology clinic, quote, was devastating because her role as a nurse, quote, primarily involved providing medication refills and working with physicians to answer questions from parents about treatment plans she also added that she quote would like to change she would like to challenge this in court and so this whistleblower is actually the second one to come out of Texas Children's Hospital. Originally,

the first whistleblower was Ethan Haim, and he alleged that Texas Children's Hospital was continuing to provide the gender-affirming care to minor children, even after stating that it would stop doing so. And there's been lots of fallout from both Haim and Savage coming out and going public with their stories. Both individuals have been visited by federal agents. There's been action here in Texas where House Speaker Dade Phelan has requested an investigation into the allegations and the Office of Inspector General for Texas Health and Human Services has responded to that request from Senator Donna Campbell and Representative Tom Olverson, stating that the allegations of Medicaid fraud do warrant an investigation and confirming that the Office of the Attorney General is, quote, pursuing an investigation into the allegations against Texas Children's Hospital.

So a long series of stories that we've been covering here at the Texan. This is just the latest update where Vanessa Savage, after going public with the allegations, has been fired by Texas Children's Hospital. I, while watching the Olympics, and this is a hard pivot here, but it's really not, while watching the Olympics, I think the two commercials I saw the most were a Ted Cruz campaign ad and an ad for Texas Children's Hospital. And with all of this going on, I think that's the only thing I can think of is these whistleblowers and this trial gender

modification when I see Texas Children's Hospital come across my screen. So wild story. We'll certainly continue to follow it. And Cameron, thank you so much for being so on top of this. Brad, we're coming to you. You've been working on a piece for quite a while now about Colin Allred's campaign against Senator Ted Cruz and the strategy behind the campaign, how it very much differs from the 2018 strategy we saw from Beto O'Rourke and his campaign. Tell us about your piece. So Allred's been accused by allies and opponents alike that he's not running an actual campaign, namely that he's not visible, he's not doing a ton of events, he's not running an actual campaign, namely that he's not visible, he's not doing a ton of events, he's not on a barnstorming tour like we saw Beto do in 2018. There's some truth to it. He's definitely not on the road like O'Rourke was either in his Senate

run in 2018 or in the governor's gubernatorial run in 22 last cycle. But after looking into it more, it's clear that they're running a different playbook. In this article, the example I use, at least that came to mind when I was thinking about this, was the 1968 Nixon campaign. And Nixon had come off of two defeats, presidential in 1960 and the California governor's race in 1962 went into the wilderness came back in 68 to run against what he thought was gonna be LBJ turns out LBJ did not run again did not seek another term but in that race you know Nixon had faltered previously because he might be a good executive manager,

but he wasn't a flashy candidate like, say, JFK was. And so the way they tried to mitigate those weaknesses was go heavy on TV, and they did. They spent like $55 million in today's dollars in TV ads back then, along with doing these carefully curated, almost scripted events that made him look like he was talking to real people. But really, it's scripted questions with, yes, average people, but people that they know aren't going to go rogue and ask crazy questions and also dodging press. So when I was looking at this and talking to people, that's what came to mind.

And the similarities are pretty stark there. All Red is going heavy on TV. According to the Cruz campaign, these numbers just vary so much because it's hard to track and it's hard to know exactly what constitutes an ad by here or there or what's booked, what's not. But numbers from the Cruz campaign I got, Allred has spent about $6 million on TV ads so far. And of course, that doesn't include digital, radio, all this other stuff. So the numbers are a lot higher. But that's compared to Cruise's $265,000.

The national political ad tracking firm, Ad Impact, put the Cruise spending deficit at a much larger figure. And that includes everything, not just the campaigns, at $21.7 million to $2.2 million. I mean, that's a massive difference. And so Allred, he has done a couple rallies. He's got one coming up on Saturday that I'll be at up in Dallas. But most of it's been these roundtable events. Did one in Austin on Social Security. He did one in Houston on energy. Got a piece coming out on that. We'll actually probably talk about that in a bit, he did one as an endorsement event with the San Antonio mayor. So it's clear the strategy here, rather than stick him out in these uncontrollable winds,

these environments where you have just a bunch of random people, who knows who's getting in, what's going to happen. They're going for this more controllable style. And based on the polling, at least if it's to be believed, it seems to be working somewhat. But, you know, the improvement here for the Democrats is not getting the same margin that Beto did in 18. It's winning. At least that's what they want. They want to win the seat. They think they have a chance. You know, in comparison, back then, Beto was lighter on TV, and I think he didn't really go heavy on TV until really late. While Allred's undecided numbers are so large that he's had to spend money going up on TV for quite some time

in order to find who he is in his mind and the way he wants to be framed rather than Cruz defining Allred. So I think it's a pretty interesting dynamic here and comparison to what is currently the lodestar democratic campaign in the state of texas the thing that everyone searches for and hopes to attain um at least coming at least in in the form of coming short of this win that has evaded democrats for 30 years so it's interesting case study i think absolutely and i you know obviously encourage folks to go read this So it's an interesting case study, I think. Absolutely. And I obviously encourage folks to go read this piece. It's much more in depth than we're going into here, but very worth talking about a lot of these numbers. Brad, twofold question here. You talked a little bit about this already, but I want you to go into depth a little bit more about why you think this

is Allred's strategy. And then what's the criticism been like? I mean, this is something where, and you and I talked about this a little bit, I think on our podcast, or I might be totally misremembering. But one thing that is interesting is in the shadow of O'Rourke, who really was the guy to bring Texas to the national stage in terms of, you know, Democratic hopes, following in his footsteps and challenging the same very popular, very famous, well-known incumbent senator in Cruz is a challenge, right? And that's a huge legacy to live up to. Talk to us about what criticism has been like on that front too. Yeah. So the strategy here is emphasizing or de-emphasizing Allred's weaknesses compared to Beto's strengths. And Beto was a walking soundbite, and he still is. Allred's not that.

He doesn't carry a room like O'Rourke did or does. And so by going heavy on TV, they can set the standards from which they're operating, not deviate too far, and open the door for chaos, frankly, in terms of does he say something poorly here and get caught up in an issue and blow back from it. They can control the message a lot better. The other part is they basically signal that rural areas are a waste of time. O'Rourke in 18, and he did this in his governor's run last cycle, did this barnstorming tour across the state doing makeshift rallies, events constantly where you'd have lots of people come. I mean, that was one of the three guarantees or staples of a Beto campaign, or he raised lots of money, he had massive turnout at events, but then he lost. So Allred's trying to

not do the last thing there and go about his process differently. In these rural areas, take 2018, in counties with fewer than 100,000 voters, Cruz's margin of victory eclipsed, it almost reached a million people. And now compare that to O'Rourke's margin of victory in those other 27, the top 27 most populated counties, of 716,000. So rural Texas saved Ted Cruz and it has ensured Republican wins in every statewide race across the board for the last 30 years all words basically saying we can't win that we can't even really cut into that so we're going to try and drive up the turnout in these large areas especially

the um the I-35 corridor extend that over to Houston as well. And, um, this is where we're going to make up the ground by bringing in more people that didn't turn out last time. For someone like myself, who is trying to follow along here and understand, like when you say rural areas are carrying many of these elections for Republicans, what is the demographic difference that is represented in a rural area versus a suburban area versus an urban area? Why is it that the suburban and urban areas are not helping Republicans in these elections and they're relying on the rural areas. Well, it's not that they're not helping. Is it the demographics of the area or is it the types of policies that they're attracted to?

I wouldn't say it's specific demographically. It's just that rural Texas is very red. And they have been Republicans ever since the the flip happened they used to be conservative democrats now they're conservative republicans and that's who they support um that's how i see it you know i'm sure you can break it down and further into different demographics but you know like what sort of policy issues then are rural voters more attracted to Republicans than Democrats? And would Democrats have to change their policy stances to win over these rural voters? Well, I think you can throw in the border stuff as a big one in terms of policy. But generally, I don't think it's a policy

thing. I think it's at, at least not taken individually. It's the whole portfolio of the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party. And they just, they're Republican. And they're firmly Republican. They're hard R voters. Whereas in especially suburbia, that's where we saw a lot of these more traditional voters, take a demographic here, suburban white women used to be a staple of the republican party at least above a certain age i think but they started turning to the democrats after trump

and that played a big role in the beta wave in 2018 and they've stayed there largely you know abortion's a big player there i think um is that why we're seeing i'm sorry i'm getting us off track but is that why we're seeing a lot of talking points from cruz and all red trying to stake a position on the abortion issue well cruz is actually not trying to stake okay he's talking about ivf right that's that's kind of an ancillary issue to abortion. It's not abortion related. And I think we talked about it before. Abortion is a winning issue right now for Democrats. Is it a winning issue enough to push them over the line? That's a different question. and want to replicate here, where the state's policy is on abortion is not reflective of the vast majority of voters. Generally, this polling has gone something like voters are generally supportive of abortion

in the first trimester and opposed to it in the third trimester. And it's the second trimester where everyone just fights fights about what we saw flip was with roe abortion the republicans having the more advantageous position because you could have abortion into the third trimester and then that flipped when Roe was overturned and the state's trigger ban went into place. And now the unpopular position, generally speaking, is the Republican policy.

And so this is what gives Democrats an advantage on this. So if with the Cruz-Allred matchup, if rural voters are full on for cruise all reds not even paying attention to them urban voters are going all in for all red cruise isn't going to flip many of them so are they really focused on that the that suburban voter and should we pay attention to issues like abortion or maybe the border with suburban voters to see it what are going to be the differences between crews in all red and how they take certain policy positions try and flip those suburban voters to or sure yeah i mean i definitely think most of the undecideds

you're going to have in this race are in that suburban area okay immigration the border is definitely going to play heavily there. And that's going to play more heavily than abortion. That's the biggest issue in the state. Has been for quite some time and will continue to be that. You know, crime and public safety is another one. You know, we saw spikes in crime and safety problems during COVID. I think that's kind of tempered out a bit, but it's still an issue.

And we see Ted Cruz talking about it quite a bit. He's also looking to appeal to crossover voters with things like AI and Bitcoin. So there's the difference in strategy here. All right is putting a big emphasis on abortion. And we'll see how much that plays for him. But well, like how you're mentioning at the top of this section. I'm sorry. Cameron, we got to move on. OK, I'm sorry. I'm cutting you off. I'm cutting you off, my friend. But Brad, can you speak really quickly about the the online part of this and what what exact criticisms are coming from folks in terms of the all-red strategy? Yeah. So one thing I didn't mention was that he's trying to ride the Kamala Harris wave

without getting too attached to it. We see he hasn't been incredibly vocal. He's endorsed her. He is now speaking at the DNC tonight in front of her. That was a change from the previous setup. So he's trying to figure out a strategy on that. As far as criticism goes, Cruz has said he's dodging press, not running a real campaign, running a basement campaign like Joe Biden did in 2020. That's not true factually, but he's tapping into something that even Democrats recognize

as an issue. He's not as visible as Beto was. And so Allred's getting hit from both sides by his opponent and the people on his own side with, from the expectations, Beto's set. Democratic activists think he's hiding, not replicating the successful in-context Beto campaign. Successful, and it was the closest one we've had in a long time. However, average voters

are barely paying attention, and all the events in the world aren't going to reach most of those voters. It's mainly activists. Now, it revs up the base. That's what O'Rourke was really good at, revved up the Democratic base and even grew the base some. But Allred's making a big play with these TV ads for just the average voters who aren't really going to start paying attention until we hit Labor Day and after that. But it is those activists and they're loud. They're putting up a stink about it. They're very critical that he's

not visible enough. So he's stuck between these two forces. Which is, I think, where the beadow of it all comes into play so much, right? I mean, the expectations set there in terms of how a statewide campaign can aid down ballot races is so different from what had been seen before 2018. And that's, you know, those repercussions are still living on now. And watching the Allred campaign strategy is very interesting in that regard, too. Pryley, thank you. And Cameron, great questions. Cameron, we're coming back to you. A free speech group has sued Ken Paxton. Kind of a wild combo there. Tell us about it. Yeah. So the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in an effort to prevent the Securing Children Online Through

Parental Empowerment or SCOPE Act from going into effect. The law aims to prevent digital service providers or DSPs, from entering into agreements with minors without parental or guardian consent. It also mandates that DSPs include options in these agreements for parents or guardians to permanently enable specific settings. So, going through the complaint, FIRE is arguing that the Scope Act, quote, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. They go on to state that, quote, the law would burden adults who want to view content that is fully legal for adults, a violation of the First Amendment. Understandably, don't trust a third-party website with their driver's license or passport. Texas's law effectively bans accessing constitutionally protected speech. So just an interesting matchup between FIRE and Kempaxin over the past five, six, seven, eight years. We've really seen red states, conservative states, taking up the free speech mantle. But in this instance, we're seeing a free speech group

push back against a policy that's been instituted here in Texas. So if there's any more developments, we will make sure to cover it here. These are certainly two entities that Cameron covers all the time. So watching them converge in one story is fascinating. Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Brad, coming to you. Continuing your Senate coverage this week, we truly are pivoting to November. You wrote a piece on Ted Cruz and some issues that have some crossover appeal and are huge issues on the federal level. Lots of folks talking about him even just in terms of congressional hearings.

What's the story? So Ted Cruz sees his undecided numbers are very low. Everyone knows how they feel about Ted Cruz. Either they love him or they hate him. But in the areas where there is some undecided nature on him, he sees these two issues, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, as potential gets for those undecided voters. Texas is obviously huge and its energy footprint is very large. Its business footprint is very large and growing. And a part of that are these two sectors. And it takes a lot of forms. You have big data centers

that have to deal with it, deal with artificial intelligence. Doesn't just apply to that, but that's a big part. These crypto miners, chiefly Bitcoin, there's about a half dozen of those in the states and then a bunch of other smaller crypto mining operations. And Cruz sees these as competitive advantages for the state of Texas in terms of jobs. He said, my number one priority is jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs. The reason for that, which is straightforward, is jobs are the number one priority of Texans all across the state. We want more jobs. We want higher wages. We want a better opportunity for our grandkids and for children and grandchildren.

Both AI and cryptocurrency are enormously impactful on jobs. He then goes and talks about how AI he sees as the next major technological shift compared to, like, say, the Internet in the 90s and turn of the century. So he sees this as an opportunity to make some ground on, you know, not just campaign-wise, but legacy-wise moving forward for him politically. Check out the rest of it there. Can I just ask one question? I'm sorry. Did he specify what kind of jobs he's talking about? Is he talking about the people being hired to build these data centers or these Bitcoin

mining facilities in terms of infrastructure jobs? Or do you mean jobs, people working in the data centers once they're completed? It applies to all of them okay and also the ancillary businesses that support these businesses it's kind of a like this is all of the above approach here on jobs like because if businesses or startups have been migrating to Texas specifically in here in Austin so if there's the data centers to support those startups and businesses, I got you. Yep.

There you go. Bradley, thank you. Appreciate it. Cameron, back to you. A Dallas judge has blocked an FTC rule that would have banned non-compete agreements. Give us the updates here. Yeah. Judge Ada Brown wrote that,

consequently, the rule shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect on its effective date of september 4th 2024 or thereafter so very clear there this lawsuit was initially brought by ryan llc a dallas-based tax servicer and then a separate lawsuit as well from the texas business association theS. Chamber of Commerce, and the Longview Chamber of Commerce. Like I said, they filed this lawsuit previously. The same judge issued a temporarily block to this new rule. Brown later in the order stated clearly the reasoning behind the decision, writing, quote, the role of an administrative agency is to do as told by congress not to do what the agency thinks it should do the role or the new rule was actually

announced back in april when ftc chair lena khan wrote quote non-compete clauses keep wages low suppress new ideas and rob the american economy of dynamism, including the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once non-competes are banned. But these business organizations were arguing the opposite, saying businesses, this is my analysis here, that businesses use non-compete agreements to protect their substantial investments and employees who are crucial in safeguarding valuable propriety information, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure while enabling companies to offer enhanced training and compensation opportunities in competitive industries. So kind of going back when we

first highlighted this, when it was initially instituted, this new rule in April, it had come down to these business organizations wanting to keep an electoral property, the training of their employees within the company itself, and non-compete agreements allow them to do so. And with this new rule, though, the rule has been set aside saying that if non-compete agreements want to be banned, they need to do it through Congress, not through an agency. Well, there you go. Cameron, thank you for your coverage. Something we'll just continue to watch here. Lots of developments. Bradley, gosh, there you go. Cameron, thank you for your coverage. We'll just continue to watch here. Lots of developments. Bradley, gosh, all you wrote about this week was the Senate. My goodness. Are you getting tired of it? I probably will be after I go to the cruise event tomorrow and the Allred event on Saturday.

I feel like probably right now you're feeling pretty good about it. Like being able to dig your teeth into this is probably pretty fun. Yeah, it's fun. And I'll ask you again in a couple of weeks and exactly and yeah well i'm sure by the time the election rolls around you'll have a different which is how it works right by that point everyone's tired of everyone and covering all the same people and the ads on tv and everything else so um but let's talk about it you have an energy piece specifically about all red's position on energy walk us through

your story so as everyone knows texas is the nation's energy powerhouse and running on a fracking ban is very much a losing strategy and that is something vice president kamala harris is having to grapple with as she supported a fracking ban in 2020. She's now walking that back in her nascent presidential run this year. But just below her on the ticket for the Democrats is Colin Allred. And he's also trying to make inroads with the oil and gas industry after he wasn't exactly towing every party line on energy, but to a large degree he was. He was a standard Democrat on the issue,

particularly when you compare him to some of his Texas colleagues and how they voted. But he held a roundtable last week with a group of oil and gas workers and miscellaneous other energy workers and he called for an all of all of the above approach you know that's something we hear a lot especially in texas and we hear it from republicans and democrats alike um you know there's through for for most of the elected officials in te, there's not really a Green New Deal zealotry flavor to the Democrats, and there's not a ban all windmills and solar panels from the Republicans, at least at the top level. Abbott does not talk about ridding the state of windmills and solar panels. There are some in conservative circles that do, but he's not really doing that. Allred is trying to find this new path, toe this line like

Joe Biden had to do when he ran in 2020. Some interesting examples of this. So the LNG pause, the LNG export permit pause that the Biden administration put out earlier this year in January. That was an effort to, that was like a sop to the progressive activists who want us to use less natural gas or any kind of fossil fuels. And Allred, it was interesting looking at the timeline on this, Allred was pretty quiet about it during his primary run for the Senate race, for the nomination which he currently holds. He was facing State Senator Roland Gutierrez, who was taking the more progressive lane on it. So he was quiet about it, and then he voted against a bill that would have stripped the Biden administration's ability to do this.

Now, after he won the primary, he comes out in an op-ed and subsequent statement saying, I don't like this. This Biden administration needs to drop it. And he applauded the court ruling that nixed it. So, I mean, it's pretty clear what was happening there. He's trying to find the balance between the progressive side and the more moderate side on this. While he was in Congress, he took similar actions with Democratic colleagues, such as voting for the Climate Action Now Act. He voted against the Restoring American Energy Dominance Act. It's a Republican bill. Both of these either had no chance or were going

to pass anyway based on the partisan breakdown of the House, Senate, and presidency. But he also didn't join a letter that called for the Biden administration to end its moratorium on oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands. There were four Texas congressmen on that, including Lizzie Fletcher, Houston Democrat. So he's trying to find this awkward lane here. Compare that then again to his 2018 run where he told the Young Turks, right now all of our climate scientists agree, with very few exceptions, that we need to do something about the climate crisis and self-correct immediately we are in a position to lead the green energy revolution if I can just add one thing I'm sorry it's just like there is a middle ground on this, which is nuclear energy.

Where it's like, if a politician, this is my unwarranted advice, like take a long term view and say, we need as much energy as possible right now to build as many nuclear plants, nuclear energy plants as we can and nuclear energy which is clean energy if they are so worried about the climate and using oil and gas and they say is polluting the environment building these nuclear plants would help off-ramp that our energy systems from relying on oil and gas to relying on nuclear energy and so it's a win-win there but you know that's just me the problem with nuclear is it's really expensive right now and it takes that and it takes decades to build these giant plants but they as we've talked about there's so many innovations with these medium and smaller size plants yeah so they could do these smaller projects and do these larger projects on the side. But I don't know.

It's just odd to me. People don't focus on nuclear energy. I don't know. That's just me talking out loud. Cameron, this is a perfect time to plug Send Me Some Stuff, where Brad and Cameron sit down and talk about these kinds of things. And you guys probably didn't touch on this in your last episode, did you? No.

I'm halfway through. But I just feel like a Democrat who's trying to play the moderate on the energy issue could say, I want to move to a greener energy system, but we can't do that now without damaging the entire economic system. So we need to rely on oil and gas right now and then focus our efforts on building nuclear plants. Sorry, Pat.

Time out. Calling a time out. Because Brad has, I know Brad has a rebuttal to this. We are going to save the policy debates for a different time specifically the outlet we've created for both of you called send me some stuff keep it in mind folks an episode dropped this week boys save for that pod deal deal thank you you guys are amazing okay

mary lee's coming to you a texas-based tax return prepare also mary lee's you've been so patient and waiting for us to come to you all these boys just sit here and gab and gab and gab. So I'm glad we get to talk now. Yes. Brad looks so indignant when I said that. Let's talk. This Texas based tax return preparer was banned from operating his business. You have a couple of very spicy stories this week. Tell us about them. Yes. Yeah, that was a very graceful transition. So this story is about a Texas tax return preparer, and he's been operating out of Fort Worth since 2010. And he just received a permanent injection against his business and working in the industry, which means that he can no longer operate his business,

which is Senbrera's income tax. And he also has to leave the whole industry of working with customers to do tax returns. So in early June, the United States Justice Department filed a complaint against him. His name is Ruben P. Gonzalez. And it recognized that he has been preparing and filing returns for customers since 2010. But it included that he was penalized by the IRS in 2013 for understating certain taxpayer liabilities and exaggerating certain costs. And the way they worded it was that he has been obtaining, illegally obtaining tax refunds to which the customers are not entitled. And for example, he allegedly fabricated and inflated business losses. He falsified charitable donation reductions and supposedly falsely claimed energy credits and COVID family sick leave credits. And the court found that through these allegedly false tax returns, he's costing the United States more than $20 million in lost

tax revenue. And this is between the years of only 2021 and 2023 that he's lost the United States $20 million. So a permanent injunction was issued against him. It was about a week ago. And so him and his business partners are no longer allowed to operate their business, and they have to leave the industry entirely. Wow, pretty wild there. And I encourage folks certainly go check out Mary Elise's coverage at the Texan for the full story. We're going to stick with you, Mary Elise. Nine massage establishments are facing a temporary injunction after the owner failed to comply with closure orders. Tell us more. Yes, I found this really interesting in particular. So

back in June, I actually reported about this individual, his massage establishment. His name is Andrew Chen. He also goes by Shineway Chen. And he was given an emergency closure order by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. And the emergency closure order meant that he had to close within a certain amount of time or face penalties. And he failed to do that. And so this was back in June. But the reason they gave him this order was because there were multiple, allegedly multiple examples or indicators of human trafficking that was occurring at these massage center establishments. And so evidently he owns multiple massage establishments. And so now the nine that he owns, since he failed to close that one, they must now all be closed. And he actually signed the injunction, which agreed that he would leave the industry and close his businesses, but failed to do so. So now all of his centers are facing a temporary injunction. And so the kind of the background on this is

the emergency closure order was made possible by a bill that was passed by Representative Ben Bumgarner. And what it did was essentially allow for the closure of massage locations, which is very specific if the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation or law enforcement suspected human trafficking at the establishment. And that went into effect in September. So then Bumgarner kind of commented on this to the Texan, and he said that as human trafficking continues to plague our state, we must each continue to step up and do what we need to do to stop it in its tracks.

And one particular impactful quote he said was, Texas will not tolerate these evil crimes. And so that was kind of the clear message he said he wanted to send with this bill. So there will be oral arguments heard regarding a permanent injunction against Chin, the owner of these nine establishments, on September 30th. There you go, Mary Elise. Well done. Great coverage and certainly interesting to watch. Obviously, we cover the legislature. We watch what happens during session, particularly interesting to watch bills passed so recently actually start to have

some sort of effect on what's going on in the state. So thank you so much for your coverage. Cameron, last but not least, let's talk about this story. The FTC alleged that multiple Texas car dealerships targeted Black and Latino customers with illegal sales practices. Give us the details. That's right. The Federal Trade Commission, they filed an administrative complaint against a group of Texas car dealerships alleging that they targeted black and Latino consumers with, quote, unwanted charged consumers for add-ons they did not agree to, misled consumers into believing add-ons were required, and charged Black and Latino consumers more than non-Latino white consumers for the same products, including add-ons. This administrative complaint also focused on a general manager of three different McDavid car dealerships. And these add-ons include extended warranties, maintenance plans, chemical coatings, temp protections.

The FTC filing alleges that Ashbury employees would receive additional compensation for these add-ons. Moreover, the FTC complaint states that the dealerships have failed multiple audits due to payment packing and that some of the audits have, quote, uncovered substantial evidence that consumers are charged for add-ons without consent. And in the piece, I go through some of the data that they presented in a survey

and also the disparities and the allegations that these black and Latino customers at these dealerships were being charged extra or given add-ons onto their contracts at a higher rate than non-Latino white consumers. So if people are interested in that, they can check it out at the texan.news. And you should be interested. It's a a fascinating story cameron thank you for your coverage guys i'm still struggling a little bit to come up with the animals uh for y'all that i said i would earlier cameron what animal did i say you were he called me a chameleon a chameleon okay yeah i think that's i think it's only fair in some instances. So let me, let me, let me really think about this. I still have some thoughts. I did Google immediately upon, you know,

the request to come up with animal assignments for Brad and Mary Elise, the most cranky animals in the animal kingdom. And I will say, you know, I will specifically let folks determine whether I was Googling that for the sake of Mary Lisa Broad. I think you can figure that one out. Put it up for a Twitter poll. Let's move on to.

That's my new thing is Twitter polls about who said this at the Texan. Now we're going to take a break to hear a message from USLedge.ai. Are you tired of missing critical updates and legislative hearings? Frustrated by the overwhelming flood of new bills and the challenge of staying informed as they change? Introducing USLedge, the revolutionary software solution designed to transform how you track and analyze government meetings and legislation. With USLedge, you can search, pause, rewind, and review transcripts of public meetings live that's right live anytime anywhere no more endless scrolling through dense legislative documents with us ledge you can pinpoint exactly what you need when you need it with a simple intuitive search of our ai

transcription us ledge learns you or your clients, then leverages cutting edge AI to monitor and analyze thousands of bills in real time, providing you with personalized summaries and instant notifications based on your unique needs. Come check us out at USLedge.ai. That's U-S-L-E-G-E dot AI. Now back to the weekly roundup. Let's move on to the tweeter-y section here, folks. Cameron, let's start with you. There's fluoride in the water. That's my tweeter-y. Is it doing something to the frogs?

That's what I was just saying. Everyone get your tinfoil hat on. Get your Alex Jones experience ready here because the AP reported the story. Reading from the article, a U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children. And they found that there was this correlation between higher fluoride and lowering IQ. And what was interesting is that the report did not try to quantify exactly how many IQ points might be lost at different levels of fluoride exposure. But some of the studies reviewed in the report suggest IQ was two to five points lower in children who had higher exposures. And this report came from the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, and it did a review of studies from Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico,

and concludes that drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter is consistently associated with this lower IQ in children. And this is very interesting for people who are very health and wellness sort of conscious, and many for parents as well. You know, there's this big movement for people paying attention to the types of foods they're giving to their kids. So the report said that about 0.6% of the U.S. population or about 1.9 million people are on water systems with naturally occurring fluoride levels of 1.5 milligrams or higher. So it raises questions about how many people are being exposed,

what are the effects of this in the short, medium, and long term. So just, I'm not, it's just a very interesting report to come out. Yeah. People want to connect the dots, do their Charlie Day meme. I'll let them do that. I do that myself sometimes. Pepe and Sylvia. Talk about the mail. But this report adds to the crazy conspiracies, obviously, where sometimes the conspiracies turn out to be conspiracy fact. So just something interesting.

That makes me laugh. Also, Cameron saying, I sometimes do that too, also made me laugh. That there was a sometimes in that sentence. Do you guys remember the episode of parks and rec where people where pawnee was arguing over fluoride in water and one side was calling it like do you guys remember the episode i'm talking about where they they came up with very flashy marketing techniques to try and get folks on board with fluoride in the water. I'm trying to remember what they called it, like Razzle Dazzle or something. Yeah, they created like a app for it, didn't they?

In the episode. Yeah, they did. Yes, like Tom Haverford created an app for it. Oh gosh. Now I need to go back and watch that episode. It's so good. Parks and Rec is, I think it is the,

one of the shows out there for sure that a lot of folks working in the political realm love to watch because there's definitely a thread of truth and all of the hyperbole. It's hilarious. I remember one, gosh, now I'm really getting off topic. There's one episode where they have a public grievance day where folks can come in and ask Ron Swanson about something. He accidentally schedules all the meetings for the same day ron swanson an ardent libertarian hates meeting with constituents and people that he is um hilarious because well in that episode too it's isn't it after they've done the office redesign

so he has that circular desk in the middle of the office and he can't hide in his office can't get away from people yes it's so good and so he's just slowly turning in a circle to try and avoid people but then the woman who's yelling about snails is just chasing him around and i crack up because that woman who comes in to complain about snails she's like i have snails in my driveway i don't want all of them gone i just want some of them like she's has all these odd requests and she's like i don't want you to be too inhumane but kill them like all these different requests it's hilarious and it reminds me of calls that we get at the capital office of different legislators i've worked for in the past like there are so like a lot of it is obviously so

hyperbolic and ridiculous and written by comedy writers but there's such a thread of truth to just how humanity can act sometimes that it really makes me laugh and i'm sure any staff are listening can resonate with that anyways total aside but fluoride in the water really got me on that cameron um okay mary elise coming to you what you got my dear yes okay this is very random, but I saw an ex that this funny video of supposedly where Putin brought his dog into the room in front of two journalists to supposedly intimidate them. And I don't know if that's very accurate or not. The comment below says that it was a different reason that the journalist had gifted the dog to Putin. But I thought it was kind of funny because as a journalist walking in to speak with your interviewee, I think if they brought their puppy with them, it would just make you feel a lot more comfortable. But maybe that's just what I think. Well, Mary Elise, I'll add here. This is something Putin has done before.

Really? Yes. He learned that Angela Merkel was afraid of dogs and so when he met with her he brought out a dog and to essentially scare her during this meeting so this is part of the playbook okay wow i had no clue this is this is world news i was completely unaware of so thank you both for bringing this to my attention wait what kind of dog is this i was gonna ask that see if any of you knew i don't know maybe we can find that out while we go to the next thing maybe that will be maybe i we need to look that up see if we can figure it out that's an interesting story

um thank you mary lee's that's a fun one and cam thanks for your input there it's a good context for us to know i had no no idea that was like a past thing that had happened so so just so people know that stuff just floats around in my head all day long just random facts i think i would be so surprised if folks listening to this podcast regularly do not understand that about you yeah yeah it's one of your best qualities cameron it's the absolute best okay bradley um coming to you i'm going to continue the theme of my podcast appearances so far today and talk about the Texas Senate race. Oh my gosh. A new hobby school poll was put out this morning. It has Cruz up about two points on Colin Allred. It has Donald Trump up about five points, roughly. 4.9 on Kamala Harris.

That's the first poll we've seen with her on the ballot since Joe Biden dropped out. RFK is down at 2%. Sounds like by the time this is even released, he might have dropped out of the race, or he'll do that later in the day on Friday. So it'll be interesting to see how that happens, like how that affects things. Does that 2% still vote for him even though he's not in the race but still on the ballot? Who knows? But the crosstabs had some interesting comparisons. So in the last iteration of this poll in June, Trump was up four points among women,

while Harris in this one is up six points. Trump was up four points among Latinos. In this one, Trump's up one point. Independence, Trump went from up 24 points to up two. So this is in Texas. So that's a pretty stark shift. And, you know, add all the caveats with polls. You know, maybe their sample is wildly off.

Maybe they oversampled independent, lean Democrats in this. That's certainly possible. I don't know. The polling has been all over the place, but it looks like it's a competitive race to one degree or another, whether it's within the margin of error, like this one says, or if it's at five points, I don't know. But it's another example of, well, maybe the earlier polls showing a 10-point cruise lead are not accurate. Well, Adam Lowy, Austin's favorite lawyer on Twitter, he responded to... Depends on who in Austin you're talking about. If you're talking about those in City Hall, I think that's

probably not the case. Well, let's say Austin's more popular. People know who he is. Oh, yeah. Everyone knows his face. So he responded to this poll saying, it's incredible how gullible Texas media is about an obviously shoddy poll. And he said, it certainly does make sense that Greg Abbott won re-election by 11% against a well-funded Dem with sky-high name ID. But Ted Cruz may lose re-election to a Dem.

No one really knows. And who isn't campaigning much? And then said okay with the okay hand sign. Do you think, like you just said, you don't know if it was oversampled or undersampled and the polls have been all over the place. Is there certain polls that you put more trust in? Is the University of Houston Hobby Poll usually pretty good in the long run? Or is this really just a snapshot, maybe since we don't know how they weighed um or the sampling that it's just

sort of all up in the air you gotta just gotta take everything collectively hobby is not one i would dismiss out of hand okay i think they had the trump margin in 20 almost correct almost exactly correct i think they um they overestimated abbott's lead over Beto in the governor's race, if I recall correctly. But they've been pretty accurate overall. I don't know. Maybe there's something different here. All this hinges on what is a likely voter. And I wrote a whole newsletter on this.

Yeah. But it's difficult to figure out what exactly is an likely voter especially at this point when so many voters are just not paying attention that may change things significantly when we get closer but it's all about the modeling and you know I'm not knowledgeable enough in especially how they did this one yeah but you know they've been consistent that this is a ever since they started pulling likely voters this is a lot closer than it first looked okay i think that's i think that's really good context absolutely well done guys um my twitter this week is not even on twitter

it's in my text messages for my parents i uh while we're abroad my two little dogs uh one particularly much smaller than the other, are staying with my parents. His name is Milo. He's about four and a half pounds, teeny tiny dog. The folks in the office are well acquainted with him, but he has been escaping through the slots of my parents' fence. Obviously, this can be very frustrating when you're watching your daughter's dogs and you don't want them to escape or get hurt on your watch. And it's just annoying generally. So my mother, the brilliant, phenomenal woman that she is, said, hey, let's make him, let's make him a little bigger. So she found a neck donut to put around tiny Milo's neck

that has, and I'm getting these texts while I'm on the podcast and trying to focus because they're so funny these videos but it it stops him from going through the vents it's like it's inflatable it looks like one of those uh pillows you wear on an airplane to try and sleep around your neck but for dogs and it's completely stopping him from going through the fence and it's so funny and he tries like and he kind of bounces kind of bounces back he looks so mad yeah i know oh so it's really making me laugh and i shared it with everybody in slack so the anyway y'all know what i'm talking about but it it's making my day watching him really try to escape and not be able to it's like the donut of shame instead of the cone of shame yeah it's so true i think this is a lot of people are using now when their dogs have surgery to avoid their you know licking wounds

or like problems in that regard they do this instead and honestly it's 10 times funnier than the cones it's so funny but anyway i'm gonna be watching this for the rest of the foreseeable future um brad well now you have to tweet this out max no no brad unlike other people i really try hard not to cite my own tweets on the podcast i could have cited the mean girls poll oh yeah you just cited your own text messages okay that's totally yes i'm not trying to go out and be like hey this section is called tweetery right thanks not text yeah or slack i really just wanted to talk about this ridiculously funny video okay

brad even you find ways well we're talking on a podcast face to face quote face to face to also just go after me in slack it's like i can't i can't find peace no matter what well no matter what medium i'm dealing this is total war all directions oh man mary-lise what do you think about all this bickering that we have on our team? I love it. It's pretty fun. It keeps things interesting. Well, that's a good answer because I don't see it changing anytime soon. So I'm glad to hear you say that.

And we haven't scared you away so far. We'll take it. Awesome. Well, gentlemen, thank you for joining once again. Mary Elise, thank you particularly for joining us and being a know a safe space for me on this podcast i appreciate it folks we appreciate you tuning in each and every week and we'll catch you on the next episode thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you want more of our stories, subscribe 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 an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.