The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 26, 2022

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at 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: A federal judge siding with Texas on a law mandating abortion as emergency care Pro-choice groups suing to overturn statutes preventing Texans from traveling out-of-state for abortions A new Samsung facility bringing big changes to the town of Taylor A disbarred Dallas lawyer sentenced for laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars A school district restoring the Bible and an Anne Frank novel to its shelves BlackRock making the list of companies listed by the comptroller as fossil fuel divestors A state representative being ordered to pay over a million dollars for legal malpractice "In God We Trust" posters flooding Texas schools after a new law President Biden proposing a new student loan debt relief program Governor Abbott alleging the EPA used faulty data to justify monitoring the Permian Basin 

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses a federal judge siding with Texas on a law mandating abortion as emergency care. Pro-choice groups suing to overturn statutes preventing Texans from traveling out of state for abortions. A new Samsung facility bringing big changes to the town of Taylor. A disbarred Dallas lawyer sentenced for laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars. A school district restoring the Bible and an Anne Frank novel to its shelves. BlackRock making the list of companies listed by the comptroller as fossil fuel divestors. A state representative being ordered to pay over a million dollars for legal malpractice.

And God We Trust posters flooding Texas schools. President Biden proposing a new student loan debt relief program, and Governor Abbott alleging the EPA used faulty data to justify monitoring the Permian Basin. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with the team. We got Brad, we got Hayden, we got Hudson, we got Rob.

The Hayden Hudson thing is like when y'all are back to back sitting right next to each other, I almost stumbled over my words. Not that I need much of an excuse to do so, but I almost did because y'all's names are so close. They are. Great. Hayden, want to uh to call you out right before we started recording this pod you were like man it's too early for these kinds of jokes we were making jokes it is 11 30. that is not what i said yes that is what you said i did not say i believe my uh exact statement was after you asked uh daniel to tell you how to do something and um he interpreted that as how do

you pronounce the word this yeah i said how do you do this and so he started to mansplain to mckinsey how to pronounce this yes to which i said it is too early for those smart bad word remarks and is that what you said no i didn't i swore last week i said i'm not gonna swear on the podcast this week but did you say that word earlier and i missed it dang it no well i did say it okay i'm censoring it so it's a family-friendly show yes for sure and uh i said it's too early for the smart alec remarks and and that's what i said and i meant that you know it's too early for the smart alec remarks and and that's what i said and i meant that you know it's too early in the day there are too many hours left in the day and we have to spread out the smart alec comments so that we don't get an overdose too early in the work day

that's really what i meant i don't know this is your sincere uh meaning behind what you said but regardless it was very good spin. If it was spin, if it was real, Hayden, that was well done. Thank you. You're welcome. Well, on that note, Hudson, we're going to get right into the news. A federal judge cited against the Health and Human Services Department. Give us some background on that lawsuit. Yeah. So after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and essentially said that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, the Health and Human Services Department released guidance aimed at ensuring that health professionals provide emergency abortions even if the state that the doctor practices in has strict abortion laws.

So HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra cites the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, as the legal foundation for the guidance. This law ensures that if patients come to the doctor and exhibit an emergency medical condition, the doctor must treat them or transfer them to another facility. They claim that under this law, emergency abortions qualify as emergency medical treatment. Interesting. Why did Texas sue them for this guidance? Well, Paxton and the Attorney General's Office argued that abortion is not a treatment listed in EMTALA to solve an emergency medical condition. They assert that under the law, when a pregnant woman is involved, the life of both the mother

and the unborn child are prioritized. Additionally, they believe that the HHS over interprets the idea of an emergency medical condition, and that under the guidance, more abortions will be performed than necessary in Texas. They believe that this was the goal of the department in the Biden administration with this guidance. Okay, so under Texas law, are there instances where abortions are legal? Indeed. Actually, every state with strict abortion laws allow for the procedure if the life of the mother is threatened, which is also an argument of the plaintiffs. Because this is already included as a legal

provision in Texas law, they believe that the guidance only serves to expand access to the procedure. So where does this case stand now? So the federal judge agreed with Texas on the merits and offered them a preliminary injunction that stops the guidance from taking effect. It is also interesting to note that the so-called trigger law making abortion a felony in Texas also takes effect today. So yeah, right now and as of today, that is taking effect. Very interesting. Hayden, we are going to come to you to stay on this topic of conversation. Tell us about some new litigation regarding abortion rights in Texas. There was a lawsuit filed the other day by a group of they described themselves as pro-choice support networks. They are asking for a federal judge to block Texas state laws that prevent individuals from helping people seek abortions, specifically out of state. This lawsuit referenced various social media posts and statements by Texas lawmakers and others that are trying to deter people from providing assistance to those who are seeking abortions out of state. Today, Thursday, the Human Life Protection Act of 2021

took full effect. In other words, it is now a first degree felony to commit an abortion on a pregnant woman unless it is necessary to save her life or to prevent serious bodily harm or irreparable bodily harm. Consequently, people are using these laws as leverage to try to prevent abortions from being performed. And this coalition of pro-choice groups clearly has a serious problem with that. The plaintiffs include Fund Texas Choice, the North Texas Equal Access Fund, the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, Frontera Fund, the Ithea Center West Fund, Jane's Due Process Clinic Access Support Network, and then a doctor was named in the suit as a plaintiff. She's an OBGYN at practicing. I'm not sure which area,

but she was listed in the lawsuit as one of the litigants. Got it. Did the complaint mention any familiar names? The class action lawsuit, I forgot to mention it is a class action, targets specifically Attorney General Ken Paxton and names Texas county attorneys and district attorneys, virtually all of them, because they would be responsible for enforcing some of these statutes. But ironically, it includes even liberal DAs like Jose Garza here in Travis County and probably Kim Ogg out in Harris County because they, despite disagreeing with these new laws, would be responsible, are responsible for enforcing them. But Briscoe Cain is mentioned a lot in this suit.

His tweets and letters to organizations that help people get abortions, trying to discourage them from doing so, are attached as exhibits. One of these letters ended with him just saying, conduct yourselves accordingly. Pretty foreboding. They claim in this suit that their people, so to speak, have been the subject of threatening remarks. And I don't doubt that. I'm sure that there have been some threats made against them as they speak out in favor of abortion as all these new laws take effect. But of course, opponents of abortion are now empowered by state law in this new Supreme Court decision to protect unborn human life or to prevent access to reproductive health care. However,

the speaker wants to characterize it. And the Texas Freedom Caucus is named in the lawsuit because they sent a letter apparently to a law firm outlining different legal consequences that could happen if they help their employees by reimbursing their travel costs to go out of state for an abortion. A lot of different controversial points in this lawsuit, and it will be settled in the Western District of Texas here in the federal courts in Austin. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Brad, we're going to come to you.

The largest economic development deal in Texas history is bringing a whole heck of a lot of change to the city of Taylor. It's a good name. What is happening there, and how is the community reacting? You soon won't have it anymore. What did you say? I said you soon won't have it anymore. Yeah, that's true.

Samsung is building a $17 billion microchip plant in Taylor. That is in Williamson County. I think the population is under 20,000 people, so a pretty small town compared with especially Austin, which is close by. Samsung's building a $17 billion microtrip plant there, expected to begin operations in January 2026, and the city's trying to quickly finalize its zoning plan

in preparation for the growth that the plant will bring. City Council is in the process of designating certain land for expected development and identifying areas of restricted development. This drawing of lines has separated Taylor residents into winners and losers, as any kind of line drawing does. One of the winners is Mayor Brant Rydell's mother, who sold a plot of undeveloped land that a large portion of which was in a restricted area to a developer for double its market value the developer was then prioritized for rezoning into the permitted development zone and that caused quite a stir in the community you can see more details in the article about that

situation but on the flip side resident bill albert had an offer for over 10 million dollars withdrawn for his property that is only 1200 feet from the expected development area after the council's plan came out leaving him in the restricted area a lot of technical jargon there but basically when they're trying to draw these zoning lines some people are winning out some people are losing and they are trying to get this done so hastily because samsung is coming that they're not taking a lot of time to prepare and it's being noticed by the community yeah so let's talk about that in your research what did you find that taylor residents have to say about samsung coming to town just in general yeah some are very supportive uh those who mainly those who see an

opportunity for more economic wealth and prosperity they're ecstatic about it um you throw in the government officials who will see a windfall of more property taxes coming in. Of course, they're going to be for it. I'm sure many local officials don't mind that at all. Yes, of course. Rydell himself called it the single most significant and consequential development for the local economy since the International and Great Northern Railroad laid tracks here in the 1870s some see this see the opportunity for a lot of business expansion and general prosperity for the community but they believe the council's botching it for example albert who i mentioned

a couple seconds ago he said that a developer told me that there's 1500 acres in the restricted growth zone and it's worth two billion dollars people in taylor could really get tax cuts with this if they were smart and commercial commercial businesses would come in and pay more in taxes and then you have the third category that wish samsung wouldn't come and uh john kitzmiller posted on on a facebook group and voiced this opinion he said well over 16 years ago we bought a little slice of heaven on cr 405 40 acres we have a little cattle horses etc we always said we would die and be buried here not now samsung is building their monstrosity only two miles from our ranch everyone keeps saying well now your land is worth a monstrosity only two miles from our ranch everyone keeps saying

well now your land is worth a bunch we would have rather stayed here without samsung and so when big changes come to towns when you see this rapid fluctuation of property values that's going to cause some people not to be able to afford to live there anymore we see this happening in austin a lot because of property taxes specifically is that what you're saying uh just the overall cost of living which property taxes feed into so um this is only going to get more heated i think um as we sit here recording the city council is going to meet later today on thursday to discuss more amendments to the zoning plan. But I expect a lot of people to show up to that.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, tell us about an attorney in Dallas who just received a prison sentence on money laundering charges. 52-year-old Rayshun Jackson is going to federal prison for five years after he pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy charge in september of 2021 right out of an episode of ozark it sounds this undercover dea agent gave him a black backpack full of cash that he was to launder. And this attorney had promised, according to the feds, that he could launder up to half of a million dollars every month in exchange for a 4% fee and a 1% cash bonus up front. Once he was given this backpack, he laundered the first $300,000, but he kept his fee for himself, and then he was given another $100,000

to launder. So in total, he laundered $380,000 and kept $20,000 as payment to himself. This undercover DA agent, he thought, was part of, quote, a large-scale opioid distribution ring, and somebody in this ring vouched for the undercover agent adding to his credibility and making it more likely that he would be duped by this ruse and the feds got him indicted him and now he's off to prison for five years they got marty bird that's what it sounds like to me did you watch the the latest season of ozark did. I watched the last season and the ending was kind of disappointing, actually. I watched maybe the first couple of episodes of Ozark of the latest season and I stopped because I can't watch it at night.

It's too scary. So I need to go back and watch it with somebody or when it's not nighttime. Is this person still a lawyer? No. Unlike Ozark, he did not get away with everything. He had his law license revoked by the Texas Supreme Court two months after he pleaded guilty. So he is no longer an attorney. He is also forever prohibited from practicing law in the Lone Star State.

There you go. Thank you, Hayden. Hey, listeners, if you enjoy hearingxas news without the spin on our podcast each week consider subscribing to the texan we're not funded by big donors or corporate interests so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday texans to keep churning out news when you subscribe to the texan you'll get access to stories like all the ones we've been chatting about as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription

for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And right now we're running a promotion. New subscribers will get a free long sleeve t-shirt with this snazzy John Steinbeck quote. Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now back to more stories from the week. Okay, Hudson, we're coming back to you. Keller ISD made headlines last week for their new library book policies. Explain that situation to us. Yeah, so prior to the school year, Keller ISD sent an email to staff informing them

they needed to remove a list of 41 books from their libraries and classrooms. Two interesting texts on the list were the Bible and an adaptation of the diary of Anne Frank. And almost immediately, the media got a hold of the email and the list and had a field day and made headlines claiming that Keller ISD had banned the Bible and Anne Frank. These stories caused an uproar and led to threats against Keller ISD school officials and a lot of hullabaloo on Twitter. Yeah, so let's spoil the hullabaloo. Did they ban the books? What happened? So no, they did not. The removal of the books was in line with a book review policy the school had recently adopted. If the book is formally

challenged by a parent, it must be temporarily removed for content review, not banned. If the book passes the content guidelines, it will be returned. And this last weekend, the Bible and Anne Frank were reviewed and deemed acceptable and are now back on shelves in Keller ISD libraries. This story is simply evidence of how easily fake news spreads and takes hold. Even after the books were returned to shelves, headlines continued to be published asserting that they were banned. Oh, wow. Well, it goes to show how important it is that, you know, you read a headline. I mean, I saw the headline. I was just as guilty as everybody else and immediately thought, gosh, we need to write about this ASAP. This is crazy. And come to find out there's a lot more to the story. And so we're

grateful for you for breaking that down for me and for the rest of our readers so that we can kind of understand what's actually going on. Why did Keller ISD adopt the new content review policy? So over the past year, parents and lawmakers in Texas have started to look into the content of library books available to Texas students. And they have been alarmed to find supposed obscene sexual content present in a lot of these books. So just last week, lawmaker Jared Patterson filed official challenges to 23 books in Frisco ISD libraries. And so one could assume that Keller ISD's policy seems like a proactive measure to get in front of the controversy that they see occurring in Texas

school districts. Got it. Well, thank you so much for covering that for us again. So important to be able to parse through the details of these stories and figure out what is actually happening, especially in the school districts. It's so hard to find out what the actual story is. So thank you, Hudson, for covering that for us. Bradley, after a year in the making, it's so hard to find out what the actual story is so thank you hudson for covering that for us bradley um after a year in the making the texas comptroller released his initial list of financial companies divesting from fossil fuels you've long been reporting on this it seems who is on the list and what does it mean so the headliner of this list which has long been suspected is black, the world's largest portfolio manager. The other nine companies, there are 10 total on this list, are all foreign banks.

Wow. The investigation by Comptroller Glenn Hager found them to be harboring policies of divestment from fossil fuel companies and financially sanctioning those companies through refusing or discouraging financing or investments. This has been a long fight since the legislature passed SB 13 last year. And the fight to pass that bill had been in the making for a while. Comptroller Glenn Hager said about this list, uh,

the research uncovered a systemic lack of transparency that should concern every American, regardless of political persuasion, especially the use of double speak by some financial institutions as they engage in anti-oil and gas rhetoric publicly yet present a much different story behind closed doors. Uh, now Texas state pension systems will begin the process of removing any investments

from these companies or funds they manage. The list will be running every, it may be updated with additions or subtractions as much as frequently as every quarter. And so we may see some added, we may see some drop off depending on how they react to this. Got it. Why does BlackRock feature so prominently among these? So first, it's the fact that they are the largest financial manager in the world and they manage trillions of dollars worldwide.

And that puts a big target on their back. But it also means they have a lot of influence over the movement of capital which um funds quite literally everything that goes on in our economy you know what go funds anything from oil and gas development whether these companies are speculating for more more oil drilling wells uh or pipelines or whether um there's an influx of renewable generation. That's something we've seen in Texas. So all this kind of goes back to the money. And that's the biggest reason why BlackRock is the poster child for this. Second reason is that they've been very aggressive at promoting the push to a net zero economy.

They have a big tab on their website that says uh the push for net zero or something like that has net zero on it um they're like on their about us page or something along those lines um it's it i think it's just generally on their website wow yeah they're advertising it that prominently um because uh know, the economy, if people believe it is doing well, then it will do better. If people believe it's doing poor, then it will do poorer. Right. Because it determines how people spend their money.

And the same applies to, um, just investments period in, in single companies or single sectors. If people believe that renewables is going to provide them a better return on their investment more money will follow there same in the reverse you can apply that to like fossil fuel and so blackrock with the influence it does have has a lot of sway with if they encourage their trillions of dollars of assets to move towards certain things, the ones that they pick and choose are going to do better, at least in the short run, financially. And the ones they spurn are going to do worse. this global push for less carbon emissions to kind of funnel their priorities of investment towards renewables, especially renewable investment, other things like carbon capture, and away from the fossil fuel industry.

Now, they say, they objected to this list, they say they are not divesting from fossil fuels and they have over 100 billion dollars invested in texas energy companies but because of its especially its public positions taken especially statements by ceo larry fink it has become the face of the esg movement and as the comptroller stated he found an incongruence between what blackrock and similar companies say to the regulators and what they say to the public and do behind closed doors. And that ultimately is why BlackRock is the poster child and on this list. What's next on the issue? So the legislature will undoubtedly take up new actions against the ESG movement, that's environmental, social, and governance. It's essentially a push by

progressives of many different stripes to pressure um capital towards policies they like and away from policies they don't like we see it happen on environmental stuff on energy stuff quite a bit but we're seeing it move more into like social policy like abortion um trying to push companies to pay for travel traveling for abortions things like that so texas republicans do not approve of that and they are going to try and tamp down on it um state rep steve toth plans to file a bill prohibiting banks operating in texas from refusing to issue financing to fossil fuel companies writ large that's a similar bill to what was passed last year on gun manufacturers. I think it was Citibank did something.

They refused to finance gun manufacturers, and Texas passed a bill responding to that. Also, we've seen AG Ken Paxton. He's part of a coalition of states currently investigating BlackRock specifically, which I'm sure will extend to others over its esg policies and statements so this is far from over and it will continue especially it will ramp up once the legislature gets back in session well you've written about every little part of this whole story and it's interesting to watch it all kind of coalesce into one yeah it's it's very complicated because it is like investments you know i don't understand all of it myself and i cover this but it is very

very smart people moving the um the pillars of of financial investment um while using you know policy as an excuse for it and some of them are good some of them are bad and people fall on both sides of that yeah absolutely well thank you bradley hayden we have a very spicy story that we're going to talk to you about here about a state lawmaker who is sergio muñoz jr and what is the political leaning of his district state representative sergio muñoz jr has represented a south te district. Since 2010, it covers portions of Hidalgo County. And according to the Texas Partisan Index, it is D67%, if I recall correctly. So it is heavily Democratic. He faced no opposition in the Democratic primary and, of course, is expected to win handily in the November general election.

Interesting. So why are we talking about him? What is the outline of this kind of legal battle he's been facing since 2014? On Tuesday, a federal jury ordered Representative Munoz to pay $1.2 million in damages because of a legal malpractice charge for which he was found responsible. It was not a criminal charge. It was a civil case. And this occurred last week, pardon me, not this Tuesday, but last Tuesday, a federal jury ordered him to pay 1.2 million. But this case has been in the courts since 2014. And it all began when a lawyer's wife asked him for a divorce. And this attorney had cases on his docket in which a litigation financing firm called the Law Funder had a financial interest. The Law Funder hired Munoz to help protect its investment in this divorce proceeding so that

they could protect their $1.2 million that they had invested in these nearly two dozen lawsuits. In the end, however, it came to light at some point in the litigation that Representative Munoz, as he was representing this litigation financing firm, had formed a law firm with the state district judge on the case back in 2008. And he did not disclose this apparent conflict of interest. After this came to light, another judge forced the presiding judge off of the case. In other words, he didn't recuse himself voluntarily despite this conflict of interest.

And the lawsuit went back to square one. They had to wipe the whiteboard completely clean and start all over. But by then, the law funder was virtually broke and they could not afford to fight for this. The investments that they had put in these nearly two dozen lawsuits. That's when they sued Representative Munoz because they clearly believed that he had botched his representation of them and was responsible for them not only losing their investment, but all of the attorney's fees that they had paid him over the years and the other attorneys on the case because the case was trashed after that. In the end, a federal judge found him liable for legal malpractice and ordered him to pay $3 million in damages. And that was Judge Michaela Alvarez. But the Fifth Circuit U.S.

Court of Appeals determined, in their opinion, that Judge Alvarez had not properly calculated the damages and that she should not have assessed him the $1.2 million investment that they had lost and the attorney's fees as well. The court believed that if he was liable for one, he couldn't be found liable for the other. So they sent it back to the trial court with the modified parameters of the jury instructions, I believe is how that worked. And the jury more or less decided that he was going to pay the investment that would have been recovered if the lawsuit that the law funder had been involved in would have been successful. So Representative Munoz is closing this chapter of his life that

has been ongoing since 2014 and is now on the hook for quite a sum of money. That is quite a sum of money. I wonder what this means for him. He doesn't have, I assume, any sort of opposition in November. And I don't know that for a fact, but I think that's the case. And this is one of those Tex Ledge scandals that has kind of gone under the radar in a lot of ways. And of course, it's different. It's not as flashy as other scandals we've seen gone under the radar in a lot of ways and of course it's different it's not as flashy as other scandals we've seen in the ledge but still it's a huge sum of money it's a legal challenge has been going on for eight years i mean there was even coverage before then about you know some stuff going on with with the representative so there were so few articles

on it i know it's crazy do these in instances like, does the full sum tend to get paid back? I'm not sure. I doubt he has. Texas lawmakers are, I mean, I guess they're pretty well off, but not like one and a half million lying around well off. So I don't know. At least not most of them. Yeah.

I don't know what his financial situation is. I kind of doubt he has a million two to write a check. Maybe they'll form an installment plan. I, I don't know how much of that money they will see, but I reached out to his district office and they said to call his lawyer and I called his lawyer and they said they didn't want to say anything. So here we are being pretty quiet about

this and it hasn't received a lot of coverage. It's really, really interesting. Yeah. Well, thank you for providing that coverage Hayden and we'll continue to watch what goes on there. But yeah, I guess this is kind of the end of the road and there's, and I were asking you so many questions here, but is there any appeals process that could happen at this point or is that all done and said and done as well? Because this could be appealed. Yeah. Yeah. But the last time it was appealed, they were successful.

So I'm sure they will appeal this again and see if they can get it thrown out again in hopes that time will be on their side. And maybe at some point the, the individual who filed this lawsuit, who was a co-owner of the Law Thunder, I think he is 77 or 78 years old. So he's aging and it could be possible that this case will just die of old age, so to speak. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that everyone involved is tired. Legal battles make you tired. We'll see. And to your point, I think lawmakers make about $7,000 a year on their state salary

is what they make. Now, you'd argue that in order to hold public office in that regard as a state lawmaker, senator, representative, you would have to have some other significant source of income or a spouse who has a significant source of income where you can actually go down to the legislature and conduct business at the state capital without it being a detrimental financial decision for you or your family. So oftentimes, you know, it's business owners, it's lawyers, it's people who have practices or just a means of making money that's pretty sustainable who are also able to then hold public office or be able to balance kind of both jobs

because it's a full-time job to be a state legislator, even if it's not a full-time legislature. But you never know. It's interesting. There's a lot of lawyers in the ledge, and this is just one of them. Yeah. Well, thank you, Hayden, for covering that for us. Hudson, back to you. Signs with the national motto are popping up around Texas public schools. Why is this? So last year, Texas Senator Brian Hughes authored and passed a bill that mandates that if a poster with the national motto, In God We Trust, is donated to a Texas public school, it must be placed in a prominent location around campus. So multiple organizations have begun to send in a bunch of these posters to school districts around Texas, and it seems to be having the effect that Hughes wanted. He tweeted last week, the national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God. So in Carroll ISD and Cy Fair ISD specifically, the posters are up in pretty much all of the

schools, and other school districts in Texas have also received the posters. Wow. So what do critics of the bill have to say about this? Well, critics of the bill claim that it's an infringement on religious liberty and intertwines church and state. But Hughes and other supporters believe that it's simply an affirmation of the motto, which has stood since 1956. So and some other groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations believe that the law will foster discussion among students regarding their various interpretations of God and will be beneficial on the whole. Wow. So do other states have similar laws? Yes. Texas is not the only state with legislation like this.

Around a dozen states have similar laws mandating the display of the national motto in some regard within society. Interestingly, some groups have actually donated posters that have the national motto in Arabic instead of English to oppose the new law. Hughes assures that the text of the law prevents the display of these specific signs, but groups and other media outlets in the last couple of days have asserted otherwise, saying that the signs are acceptable under the law. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with that. Yeah. Well, and it's fascinating that a law already in place is all of a sudden making, you know, national news, local news, state level news here in Texas is something that's noteworthy because, you know, folks don't really realize something's in effect until they see the results of it. So absolutely. Thank you, Hudson, for that. Rob, we are coming to you to chat through a little bit of a federal story here.

So President Biden proposed a new plan to relieve student debt up to $20,000 per person. What is in this proposed plan? Break it down for us. Sure thing. So the first part of this plan is that the student loan payment pause, which has been extended several times as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, will be extended through the end of 2022, and student loan payments will resume in 2023. Now, as for what the actual plan is to help relieve student loan debt, federal debt holders will have $10,000 of their loans forgiven. If you've received a Pell Grant, which is for undergraduate students with financial need, you will have $20,000 forgiven. Excuse me, and

this only applies to students making under $125,000 a year. So if you're making more than that, you would not be receiving any student loan debt forgiveness. Biden has claimed at the press release where he spoke about this that 90% of eligible beneficiaries of this forgiveness program make less than $75,000 for each family. So he wants to frame this very, very clearly as something that is not helping the wealthy Americans, which is a claim that conservative and Republican critics of this program have claimed. The other things that this does is it will cap the monthly payment for student loans at 5% of discretionary monthly

income previously, or I should say at the moment, it's 10%. So now it'll be capped at 5%. And if you pay it off for 20 years, then your entire debt will be forgiven. If your loan was less than $12,000. Originally, though, you only need to pay it off for 10 years before it is forgiven. People making around $15 an hour will pay $0 a month for their monthly payment. As Biden said, he wants to cap it at 5% of your monthly discretionary income. But if you make a low enough income, then that number that you have to pay might end up just being zero a month. And people making $15 an hour, this is as he estimated the amount of money that it would take to get $0 a month, you won't have to pay anything until you get a higher income. The plan will also cover

unpaid monthly interest on income-driven repayment plans, so the balances will not grow as long as people are making monthly payments, even when that monthly payment is $0 because they have such little income. Some people have said that this is outside of the president's executive authority. How is Biden and the Department of Education justifying this program? So according to a Department of Education memo dated August 23rd, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students or HEROES Act, which was passed, I believe, in 2003, allows the Department of Education to relieve student loan debt obligations in the wake of a national disaster to ease the

economic and financial tensions of that disaster. And they're claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic counts as one of these natural disasters. Previously, there was some confusion over whether or not Biden had the authority to do this, whether or not the executive branch had this authority. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said back in July 2021, that Biden does not have the authority to simply relieve student loan debt, only the Congress has that authority. But after Biden made his announcement, Nancy Pelosi is basically expressed that she's on board for it. So she might not view there as being a constitutional problem with it anymore. On 2021, at a CNN town hall, Biden said personally, he believes he has the authority to forgive

something like $10,000 per borrower. But in response to a question, somebody asked where if he could do $50,000 per borrower, he said he does not believe he has the authority to do that. How does the federal government intend to pay for this expense? So it's estimated to cost around $300 billion. That's the indeed, that's the money that won't be coming back through um the student loan payments but according to biden the inflation reduction act will reduce the spending uh the federal spending deficit enough to pay for this program with increased taxes and by reducing the prescription drug costs for medicare which biden claimed will bring in over

a trillion dollars in the next 20 years by reducing those costs that medicare pays for prescription drugs as well student loan payments will be resuming in 2023 so that will bring in more money back to the treasury biden claimed that independent economists said that basically this will not have a big effect on inflation he said that because they are doing the inflation reduction act and are going to be resuming student loan payments soon, that's essentially going to balance out the cost of this debt relief. Very interesting. Well, Rob, thanks for breaking that down for us and explaining what's in that bill. I always get confused with what's going on federally because I'm so zeroed in on Texas. So thank you for educating me. I appreciate it. Bradley, let's zoom back in on here on Texas.

Governor Abbott has been incredibly combative with the White House over immigration, but he's increasingly setting his sights on energy, which is interesting ahead of a general election. What did Abbott do this week on that issue? So Governor Abbott sent a letter to the White House criticizing the EPA's impending rule to redesignate the Permian Basin or portions of it under the Clean Air Act. That's hard to understand, but the reason that's important is if that designation occurs, that opens the door for more regulation. More regulation creates more costs to comply with that regulation. Producers fear this will shy away more investment in the region.

I talked earlier about esg pulling investment away from fossil fuels well this they fear this would continue that trend and the permian basin itself is the most prolific oil and gas producing area in the entire country the epa is justifying that redesignation by pointing to ozone readings that are above 70 parts per billion. That's just the line at which air quality is deemed unsafe for humans according to the EPA and the way they regulate this thing. The problem is those readings are either not in Texas or not in the Perm the permian basin the agency points to readings in el paso which is not in the permian basin but is in texas obviously and carlsbad new mexico

which is in the permian basin but not in texas abbott says both those readings are are faulty data at least to justify using for this new rule. A reading in Hobbs, New Mexico, which is on the corner of, what would you call that part of Texas? Gosh. The armpit? Yeah. Careful there.

Careful. That 90-degree point at which texas and new mexico meet that's where yeah that's where this this hobbs um reading is the county at which they're in uh that reads only a 66 parts per billion like the shoulder maybe the shoulder the shoulder that's a better that's better than the arm well I think it also is more anatomically correct. Not that Texas has any sort of human form. I shouldn't use that because I use, I call Toledo, Ohio, around where I'm from, the armpit of Ohio. You should not have weighed this area. Yes, I should not have weighed it into that.

Anyway. The shoulder. The shoulder, yes. the shoulder the shoulder yes um so that county is closer to most of the texas counties in the permian basin and that only reads 66 parts per billion as of the latest measurement um and so abbott is objecting to using these other two places that are further away to justify this rule and ignoring the reading in mexico texas oddly enough doesn't have any um permanent measure measuring devices of this of ozone and i don't know if that's going to change but i've been told that spot checks and abbott

referenced this in his letter but spot checks by tceq the texas commission on environmental quality show reflects more what you see in hobson mexico not what they're seeing in el paso and carlsbad one of the reasons that abbott suggests is that those two readings are influenced more by emissions from mexico uh obviously something we have we can't do anything about. And so Abbott is kind of turning the, turning the fire back at the federal government on this, especially he further said that he will challenge the efficacy of the rule on procedural grounds. I don't know when that's going to come, but the rule is expected to come at the beginning of next month.

He alleges that they basically skipped a couple steps necessary in the rule making process which requires so many days of notice and then public comments and then other various hoops to jump through but he's alleging that they the epa uh did not adhere to that and so we'll see if anything comes in court and um we'll see if the epa actually levies this new rule yeah well bradley thank you let's talk about some tweetery gentlemen um hayden i'm gonna start with you what did you find on twitter this week well i cheated and i didn't because i'm gonna use my own tweet but it is a tweet of someone you're pulling a brad yeah you're pulling a brad but it's somebody else's words it's's not my words. That's good. I did want to mention, though, that three more counties passed, quote unquote, invasion declarations this week.

Ellis County used particularly strong language and asked Governor Abbott to remove or prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the state, which is notable because many of the invasion declarations do not say that. They just call on him to take all necessary steps and invoke the Texas Constitution and U.S. Constitution, but don't specifically call for state deportations. But Brian Harrison lauded the move by Ellis County commissioners, and his district, I think, is strictly Ellis County. District 10 is just Ellis County, if I recall correctly, the map. He said, quote, the United States is supposed to be a nation of laws and a nation of borders. President Biden wants neither. I am proud to have encouraged Ellis County to stand up for our shared constituents and all Texans and thankful

for the leadership displayed by the Ellis County Commissioner's Court today in requesting Governor Abbott declare an invasion. While unprecedented, given that Texas is the first impacted and the most impacted by the Biden border crisis, we must do the job Biden refuses to do and secure the border ourselves using every tool and legal authority available, end quote. A little bit of a unique situation because not many state reps, in fact, I'm not sure if there is another state rep. I'll have to double check that. But Ellis County commissioners or the Ellis County judge and Brian Harrison represent the same exact group of people, which is unique. But of course, critics would say that this is not legal because Biden is the only one with

the authority to enforce immigration law. And that's not something Abbott can just take from him, even if he disagrees with how he's doing his job. But many people see it differently, including Ellis County commissioners and about a dozen other counties at this point. Very spicy. Thank you, Hayden. Rob, we're going to come to you. What did you see on Twitter this week that caught your eye? So a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article on a church in South Texas that performed an unauthorized performance of the Hamilton musical with their own original Christian lines written into the show. That church in McAllen has now apologized to the Hamilton team. They issued an apology on Tuesday saying, you know, we acknowledge that we did not have

permission to do this. Uh, we are sorry to the Hamilton team. We should not have done this. And they're going to be, I believe, making some kind of payment to the Hamilton team as restitution for, uh, this, this affair. So it's certainly been an interesting thing i remember this absolutely took over twitter yeah i said mac what do you think is this a good thing to write on you were like yes absolutely we have to write on this and then i missed the podcast where we talked

about it but do you want to give us your honest thoughts now that you have the opportunity yeah well here's the thing i don't really care so much about this story i just really like hamilton hamilton is a pretty good work of art it is i would agree that's really my important that i really just missed an opportunity to gush over hamilton brad it looks like you might have an opinion on that do you have no i have nothing to say really okay not a thing i thought you might have something negative to say about hamilton don't you like hamilton oh i mean yeah doesn't care yeah i'm just i'm having flashbacks of a no blowout argument don't don't that's exactly why i wasn't gonna say anything tangential to this and i think that that may be bubbling back up brian was that our biggest fight continue this conversation it definitely was our biggest fight that y'all's biggest fight was over Hamilton.

It was over the person of Alexander Hamilton. And no, we're not going to get into anything more than that. If anybody wishes to go listen to it, I don't know where to direct you. I don't remember which podcast it was on, but we really got into it. It was after the podcast was over that the real fighting began. But it was genuine. Brad and over that the real fighting began like but it was like genuine like brad and i really were mad at each other like not just playfully angry we were genuinely angry at each other well that's the sad thing is nobody will ever get to see that fight

because we weren't there in the room where it happened oh that's good oh my gosh that's good i appreciate it i cannot believe you just said that oh man okay well that's really fun um hudson i'm gonna come to you let's talk about what you found on twitter this week and i also like this little note you have in the docket that is extra um yeah so i i was just seeing the tweets this morning and this is uh the five years after Harvey made landfall in Texas and in Houston. And I just thought it was notable because, I mean, it was such a big event and it had such wide reaching effects on the city of Houston and Texas and captivated the nation. And this was when I was beginning my college experience at Trinity University. And many of my friends were Houstonians and were severely affected by this. And essentially they're starting their freshman year while their houses were literally flooding and getting destroyed by by one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory.

And I just thought that was that was notable. And also I've seen tweets that tom brady is back at training camp and i think everyone needs to know that and also in a bigger note that football season is coming um so get ready there you go why was he not at training camp people don't know some people say it's he was filming the mass singer other people are saying that's hilarious but he he doesn't he he said no and he said there was also no like medical emergency but some people think that uh there's some trouble on the home front between tom brady and giselle i don't know something is developing

their conspiracy theories as usually happens probably interesting i hope he wins another super bowl i do too are you a huge i guess tom brady your favorite quarterback of all time yes okay i love tom brady who's like second favorite quarterback uh nobody compares you know i like tony romo oh interesting i'm a big tony romo fan why brady how'd that happen he's a winner winners do what they want okay that's really funny okay that's quite the reason well i'm going to refrain from giving any tom brady takes because that has also been a source of contention between oh yes i remember that one hitting a lot of sensitive points today. But we're going to leave it alone.

Brad, what did you find on Twitter? So I saw a tweet by Alex Berenson, who is a former New York Times reporter who got kind of shunned by his former employer and much of the journalism industry over COVID stuff. But he tweeted out a picture of this ad from the Austin American Statesman that says, in quotes, pull that up, Jamie, doesn't count as journalism. That a reference to joe rogan his very very famous and well-watched podcast listen to podcast um i think it's the we're almost on that level yeah this podcast is almost getting there just a couple more million tens of millions yeah but

that is something that joe rogan says quite bit. He's talking to people on his show. He has his producer, Jamie, pull up articles so he can quote stuff and things like that. Fact check. Yeah. And then next to that, next to pull that up, Jamie doesn't count as journalism. The ad says journalism by journalists, not comedians. Now, I have zero issue with them being competitive and having pointed advertising against someone who is one of their competitors. In one way or another, he is a competitor of theirs. Yes, absolutely.

But I take issue with the message they're sending that what Joe Rogan does doesn't count as journalism. It absolutely does. He interviews many, many figures, whether it's politicians or medical doctors, experts in certain fields, a a wide array of people and that didn't develop out of nowhere there was a desire for that because people weren't getting that from their legacy outlet intake and um the the statesman is totally missing the point they but we see this from many in the journalism industry gatekeep is overused but it fits here they try and gatekeep what counts as journalism and what doesn't we see this with project veritas who is kind of sloppy on some things but what they do is absolutely journalism

right um and there's this idea that unless you went to j school and work for a flagship organization what you do is not journalism when journalism is an action. Anybody can do it. Uh, you don't have to have the job title to do it. Um, and I just find this message by the Statesman really, um, sloppily done and not well thought through, uh, because they are are they're doing the same thing that has put them in this position to be outdone by joe rogan in the first place and in in that respect it's a terrible ad um it might be effective for the people that are already bought into their their line of thinking on this but it's not going to do anything to move the needle bring in more people it reminds me a

little bit about that survey that we completed that was sent out by the pew research center about the state of journalism and one of the questions was about professional licensure and should the state license people to be journalists? And ironically, there were other questions about fears of the government encroaching on the fourth estate. And I don't remember what the percentages were, but a good portion of journalists said that there should be professional licensure. It was not close to a majority, but it was still a sizable portion of them and to your point that's exactly why so many people are tired of reporters and journalists and are so reticent uh or excuse me hesitant to accept what we write because it's almost a a snobbish view that this is an elite profession that only a certain people can yeah type of people can grasp but you're exactly right it's not it's not a an inherent

trait or something that you're you're you have to be licensed or given the rubber stamp to do anybody can you know write their perceptions and and uh and exercise their first amendment right i an example of that so like um the license to do for journalism is the First Amendment. It is not a J school degree or a title. An example of this, I mentioned the, talked about the Taylor piece earlier. And one of the people that really brought this up, the issue, especially with Mayor Rydell and his family financially benefiting from this and getting priority um was an anonymous person anonymous resident on substack and they found this and they went they were the ones that initially went through and through the 400 page agenda of the city council and saw something that didn't look right and looked at it more and found a pretty substantial piece of information and if if you

were to ask the people at the Statesman, they would say, no, that's not journalism. And it's like, it actually really is. And, uh,

you, it is. Yeah. Anyway, this ad just, I have no issue with them being combative with someone who is their competitor. This industry needs more of that

there's too much kumbaya yes um especially at legacy outlets but you know it just and if they're kind of tacitly acknowledging rogan as a journalist by attacking him as a competitor you know exactly so it's just and it does slightly remind me of an ad that we ran like three years ago i can't remember exactly what our ad was but let's just say that it caused i know what you're talking about it caused a ruckus and um like we're certainly not criticizing the nature of the ad and the um like you said the competitiveness of it or calling out your competitors it's more the um intellectual inconsistency of the claim. Yep.

Absolutely. It certainly doesn't make you look very secure to have to call out someone who's not called you out as far as I'm aware. I mean, it doesn't exactly speak to confidence. Sure, but that would be ignoring the financial realities of the news industry. So I don't see that as an issue it's it's more of the the lack of understanding that of what constitutes journalism and that is inherently a problem in the news industry and why they're in the financial turmoil

that they're in for sure very good okay well we spent a lot of time on that. I will quickly talk about this tweet from Hudson though. Um, because as I was writing Slayton tweet in the docket, Brian Slayton called me like, as I wrote down state rep Brian Slayton's name to be able to go and talk about this tweet, he called me. I don't know if I just summoned a call from him or what, but it's like Beetlejuice. Seriously. That's what, that's what it felt like felt like um but this is a press release from state rep brian slayton up from northeast texas basically talking about texas medical schools or alleging that texas medical schools are teaching child gender modification to students walks through a lot of what's going on here hudson did a great job putting this out on twitter so folks can take a better look at it so make sure to go follow hudson on twitter as well it's just a shameless plug for his Twitter. But very interesting stuff.

And we'll have a piece on that up today. So make sure to keep an eye on that. But very interesting, especially as the legislature or the legislative session becomes a very stark reality as January is haunting us to watch this continue to be something that's brought up in the legislative conversation. So we'll keep an eye on it. Gentlemen, before we wrap up here, I want to move on to a little bit of a fun topic. Isaiah Mitchell, we all miss him, delightful reporter who used to work for us and has now gone off to get his PhD in literature. Has been a PhD dork. That is exactly what it stands for um but he has been you know he has very little access to most uh he basically doesn't have a smartphone so it's not like you can

just text us in a group text and it be seamless like it's complicated to contact isaiah unless you call him or email him um and how he did this job for three years without a smartphone i don't know so well i have no clue um but he's also just used to it like he's just used to having a flip phone i can't i can't get over it and watching him text like clicking at one number like three times to get to the letter that he wants it's like a flashback it's literally a flashback like my first my first little ruby red flip phone i had when i was like 15 my first flip phone was also red but it wasn't a it wasn't a flip like this it was where you slide it oh yeah and i had i thought i was you were fancy i was fancy because i had the longer keyboard but i still had to press the button three times so did you flip it up or yeah you flip it up so that it's like a almost it's the it's tinier but

the shape of a game controller got it okay the first phone i had was a mygo which had five pre-recorded numbers in it and you definitely couldn't use that in this job but and i what oh i see what you're saying i just had to i had to process those words it's been a long time back then i hated that i had that but i'm increasingly seeing the wisdom of my parents yeah it's great though about those flip phones because they were like indestructible i remember when my sister and i got our first flip phones we were at dinner with uh my was my family and some family friends right my dad's like look at how great these kids' phones are. And he grabs my sister's phone out of her hands

and just like drops it in her drink. Oh my gosh. And leaves it there and takes it out. Works perfectly fine because it's waterproof. You can't do that with an iPhone nowadays. Oh, certainly not. Oh my gosh. So anyway, back to Isaiah.

Back to Isaiah. So I really want to, yeah, he basically has been emailing us to keep in touch. And I received this really funny email from him that was like because i believe in bigfoot it's this long it's this whole thing and he sent me a like a video i don't know if it was vine or tiktok or i don't know vine doesn't exist anymore i'm 75 years old i don't know what's happening but um he sent me this video of a bigfoot and thought it was hilarious it was totally the most isaiah thing ever and then i emailed him i was like how is school but and we were going back and forth so i'll read that email thread but i want y'all to tell what you've been getting in your inbox from isaiah uh well we all

got this very odd video this morning of these green dudes riding a bicycle. What would you call it? A five person bicycle. I have no idea. A five cycle. It's like a tandem bike. It was like a sleep paralysis dream. And the tagline on the video was important. Long story short,

it was not important. It was in a subject line of the email too. Important. So there's that story, I guess. That's pretty good. But it was very rare. He sent it to our press email. Yes.

Which is just ridiculous. Oh, do I have it? Oh, no, I don't have a new email from him. I got excited. So I emailed Isaiah and I said, how has your first bit of school gone? And he says, which is the most, it's just all classically Isaiah. So I'm just, I'll just read. Well, our orientation was moved to Zoom, which is something I learned upon being the only one to show up to the originally scheduled building.

An employee assured me I could conveniently join the orientation from my smartphone. Also, my Jane Austen professor is bringing victorian snacks to our first day of class so i've got that going for me i said i sent this one i sent this to everyone in slack and we all laughed not at you just with you what constitutes a victorian snack also did you end up figuring out orientation isaiah i did end up getting into the zoom call thanks to the library computer lab but i had to explain where I was once I got called on to introduce myself in the god-awful breakout room. Also, did y'all get my note? Which I assume is the crazy email with the green guys on the bike.

That's what I assume to be the note. It's important. It's important. And Hudson, I want it because you had a little bit of overlap, like two days of overlap with Isaiah. And I think you see why he looms so large. He's like a legend because he's just an interesting fellow. Yeah. What was your impression of him upon meeting him? He he left a lasting impression on me for the short amount of time that I was in the office when he was here. But I think some highlights, he took me to Sweetwater's,

the coffee shop around here, in his car, and had to move mountains of cups and stuff in the car that didn't have air conditioning and didn't have electronic locks. Oh, my gosh. He had maps of the entire entire united states and that was when i realized that he didn't have a smartphone that he had this like really like nasty like flip phone that was probably 12 years old and and i was just taken aback i was like how have you been a journalist like and operating as a person how have you been a journalist? And operating as a person. How have you been a person and a journalist at all?

And he kind of like brushed it off. He didn't really give me a good answer. So he's kind of an enigma. He's got Hank Hill stickers from King of the Hill all over his computer. And if there was anyone that had a bunch of Hank Hill stickers, I think it would be him. Yeah, that's very true.

He was an interesting fellow. He's a very interesting fellow. And it sounds like we're talking about somebody far older than he is. I mean, Isaiah's what, 23, 24? 24? Isaiah's a young guy. I think he's a little bit younger than me. Than you?

Yeah, he's probably 20, 22, 23. 22, 23, okay. Yeah, because he graduated college right as we hired him. So we hired him right out of school. He's probably 23. He's probably 23. Anyways, delightful stuff. Well, any other things to add on that?

I think we pretty much covered his email exchanges. I think we beat the dead horse. Yeah, that's true. Okay. Well, folks, thanks for listening, and we will catch you next week. 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.

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