The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - August 5, 2022

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses a federal judge striking down Texas’ residence verification for voter registration, a Dallas resolution to protect access to abortion, a new “sanctuary city for the unborn” in Texas, the boons for renewable energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, flyover inspections of emissions in the Permian Basin, a Texas lawmaker’s call for lower property taxes, a man who faces life in prison for smuggling drugs for a gang, the Texas lottery breaking its all-time sales record for the billion dollar Mega Millions jackpot, and a new Biden executive order concerning abortion. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses a federal judge striking down Texas' residence verification for voter registration, a Dallas resolution to protect access to abortion, a new sanctuary city for the unborn, the boons for renewable energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, flyover inspections of emissions in the Permian Basin, a Texas lawmaker's call for lower property taxes, a man facing life in prison for smuggling drugs for a gang, the Texas lottery breaking its all-time sales record for the billion dollar mega millions jackpot, and a new Biden executive order concerning abortion. As always, if you have

questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, hello, everyone. Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Hayden Sparks, and Rob Lausches. We are without Isaiah Mitchell this week for the first time in a long time. He is no longer an employee at the Texan. We're bummed. I just removed him from our Slack. I'm grieving. I know we all are. If you did not hear what is new in Isaiah's life and what he'll be headed off to next, make sure to go listen to last week's podcast. We really go into detail about all his adventures at the Texan and just talk about how much we love our guy.

So we miss you, Isaiah. And we had a farewell dinner with him earlier this week. He was awesome. But he will be sorely, sorely missed. And Hayden had to write on a sanctuary city for the unborn this week. That's a new beat for you, Hayden. It's a temporary beat for me, but it's good to visit

the social issues beat. Looking forward to getting back to our regularly scheduled articles here pretty soon. Once we're back to fully staffed. Exactly. And we will have a new reporter starting

next Monday. For now, we just are all working together as a team to make sure things are covered. That usually would not be a beat that maybe a certain reporter writes on, like Hayden and the Sanctuaries for the Unborn ordinances. So, Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. But we will have a new team member. Hudson will start next week. So we look forward to introducing all y'all to him.

He'll be a great addition to the team, and we're excited to have him join. Without further ado, let's get into the news. Brad, a federal judge struck down a recently passed Texas election law this week. Tell us the details. by the ledge and prohibits PO boxes and other non-residence addresses from being used as voters' registration addresses. Now, it was already kind of prohibited. This made it more stringent and specifically tasked county voter registrars with verifying with voters in their district, their county, that their address is tied to an actual physical residency rather than like a P.O. box. It also puts the onus on the voters to provide documentation proving that their voter address is tied to a physical residency. Basically, the law's justification is to ensure Texans vote where they live. And to prove that, voters can submit any number of different documents, official state documents,

whether it's a driver's license, state-issued ID, license to carry, a utility bill, things like that. I have them all listed out in the article. But that is the law itself. And as you said, that was struck down by a federal judge this week. Got it. So give us an overview of the suit and the decision. So six Blue County registrars were sued by two progressive Latino groups alleging that the law unfairly burdens the ability to vote. In a decision, Judge Lee Yeekle sided with the plaintiffs on virtually all of their claims and agreeing that it did place an undue burden on the voters' ability to cast ballots and register to vote. In reaction to the ruling, Voto Latino, one of the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, said the true intent of this discriminatory measure has always been about

voter turnout especially among young people communities of color low-income voters and other historically marginalized groups that is one side of the coin on the reaction to this the other from senator paul betancourt whose bill this was when this passed last year, told us the text. And this is a disappointing ruling because it flies in the face of common sense election practices. The law just requires that you register where you live. And without it, we'll have people registering to vote on the head of a pin. People cannot live in P.O. boxes. And one of the reasons that this bill was brought up is because Betancourt's home county, Harris County, according to him, there have been up to 8,000 voters registered at P.O. Boxes.

And the problem with that is you can have voters who don't actually live in the county voting in the county if that's where they're registered at. There's a lot more complication to it. I go into it in the article. But that is the gist of why this bill was passed last session. So let's talk quickly about this bill specifically. Last year, we saw, which is crazy, it's over a year ago, we saw Democrats flee Texas to break quorum and head to Washington, D.C. in protest of a GOP-backed election reform bill. Is this the same bill? Is this a different piece of legislation?

Where are we at in terms of what we're dealing with here? No, this is different. This is kind of supplemental to the larger omnibus bill that was the point of friction during those two quorum breaks. This is kind of a side issue and definitely, though, is part and parcel with the Texas GOP's larger effort to reform the election structure and, in their words, provide more election integrity. Got it. So will this decision be appealed? Where are we going to see this go? It hasn't been yet, at least as far as I'm aware. But you can bet your house on it being appealed. The Attorney General, Ken Paxton, is sure to appeal it to the Fifth Circuit Court. And that is historically pretty friendly to Republicans, conservatives.

But in order to ensure that appeal, and this is something else I go into more detail on in the article I recommend you read. It's a very interesting wrinkle to this. But in order to ensure that ability to appeal by Paxton, he had to intervene in the suit. Because the state was strategically left out of the original filing all of these um the defendants were blue county registrars and most of which did not defend the none of which defended the law itself only one objected to the claims made by the plaintiffs uh the rest um either basically washed their hands of it, said, I'm just enforcing the law, or they explicitly defended. There was one that defended the lawsuit, the claims made by the plaintiffs. But it was clearly a strategic move by the plaintiffs to leave out the state whose very law this is, right?

And so this happens a lot in court cases and legal fights, so it's not the only thing that's happened like that, but it provides an interesting side aspect to this. Absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for covering that for us. We'll continue to keep an eye on what's going on there. Hayden, we're going to come to you. Members of the Dallas City Council took action to protect access to abortion. What are some of the parameters of the document that was adopted in committee? The committee that passed this resolution was the quality of life arts and culture committee

which is chaired by councilman adam basildua he called the meeting quote given the recent wave of attacks on reproductive rights across the nation and texas impending trigger law going into effect end quote That is the reasoning for him calling this meeting. According to Basildo and other council members, the city needed to protect a woman's right to choose and the access to abortion by city residents. The parameters of this particular document include deprioritizing the investigation of abortion and redirecting city

resources to protect people who seek abortions. And it also prohibits the city from creating any type of database or record of people who are seeking an abortion out of state or anywhere, really. The information that the city collects, according to this document, would only be for the purpose of protecting abortion rights and not for enforcing the state's newly minted laws against performing abortions. The city would not, quote, conduct surveillance or use any electronic surveillance device, hardware, or software, end quote, to capture information about women seeking abortions. So this resolution is more or less doing anything that the city of Dallas can do within its jurisdiction to push back on the new laws that Texas has passed. So the nature of this resolution is symbolic,

but it also has financial elements to it. And it is doing everything that it can to make the city of Dallas really an abortion-friendly jurisdiction. And all of, as you mentioned, these new laws, some of them in Texas were only becoming effective because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that basically left the question of abortion up to state legislatures. So does the city of Dallas have any real power on this issue? Dallas is a political subdivision of the state of Texas. Cities do not have the same relationship with the state that states do with the federal government. The U.S. government was created by a pact between the states. We are a federal republic. In other words, the U.S. government does not direct the

states the same way states direct counties and cities, which are subject to state law. And states have really general jurisdiction. The Texas Constitution is much lengthier than the U.S. Constitution, and what falls under a state's domain is much more extensive than what falls under the U.S. government's domain, and the U.S. government's role is more specifically defined. I make all those philosophical observations to point out that Dallas cannot override state law. Dallas cannot somehow go around the Dobbs ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court just made, which gives the state legislature the authority to decide this question.

Isaiah, you know, we're missing Isaiah this week. One of the last conversations I had with him on his final day with us here at the Texan was that it's interesting the language that some people are using on the abortion issue, acting like it's somehow in dispute that abortion is about to be almost entirely legal in Texas. That is factually the case. There is not a legitimate disagreement on that. Abortion is, in fact, about to be almost entirely banned in Texas, and the legislature does have the authority to do that. So Dallas can make it as difficult as possible for the state to enforce their new laws, but even the But at this juncture, it is unanimously passed by the special committee, and it awaits being taken up by the city council as a whole.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think your point is well taken that the states created the federal government, and the states also delegate power to localities and municipalities in Texas, or just throughout the country. That's kind of how our system of government is set up. It is not a stepping stone from one to the other in terms of size and power. Certainly, the federal government wields more power than the states in some ways and can supersede some of that lawmaking ability by the states. But regardless, the states did create both other kinds of government and levels of government. So it's a very interesting system we have. And you mentioned, Hayden, let's talk about the city of Athens. A pro-life ordinance will be on the ballot for city voters later this year. Tell us about the sanctuary city for the unborn ordinance.

The sanctuary city for the unborn ordinance is going to be decided by Athens voters in November. The Athens City Council had considered a document that would have prohibited abortion entirely except to save the life of the mother within city limits in the city of Athens. And that they had two options. One, they could have adopted it outrightly, or they could have sent it to voters and they chose to send it to voters. And they made that decision on Monday evening. So we just talked about how the authority of a city is different than the authority of a state. This would be the city more or less making itself a place where abortion is entirely banned except to save the life of the mother. And it would add additional consequences such as no health insurance offered in the city

could cover abortion and abortion-inducing drugs would also become contraband. I'm sure that all of this would be challenged in court, and it could be decided that some of this is not legitimate for a city to do, but that would be for a judge or a jury to decide. The Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance has passed in dozens of other cities in Texas and across the country. I interacted over email and over the phone with Mark Lee Dixon, who Isaiah's talked to Mark extensively, and he's been mentioned before on this podcast. He is the leader of a Right to Life group in East Texas and has been spearheading the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn movement. Mr. Dixon told me via email that they were disappointed that the council didn't just adopt this document and be done with it, and that it is going to the voters. He questioned whether

the council is truly representing the will of the people. And there's some discussion that this resolution is not wise from the standpoint of the city attorney's council. And the mayor is also opposed to it because she doesn't believe it's legitimate for the city to create a scheme where residents sue one another. in this proposed ordinance, much like the Heartbeat Act, which calls on citizens to sue one another to enforce the law against aborting an unborn child with a heartbeat. This ordinance would create the same type of enforcement scheme, and the mayor is opposed to that. But the question will ultimately be decided by Athens voters in November. So Texas has already prohibited abortion with the Human Life Protection Act from last session in 2021. What is the reasoning for still passing

this ordinance? This ordinance does not have this, has a narrower exception than the Heartbeat Act or the Human Life Protection Act. It does not include the exception for severe bodily impairments or bodily injury. So that exception is not contained within this ordinance. It also, as I mentioned, it makes abortion-inducing drugs more or less a contraband within the city. And it is designed to protect an unborn fetus or child from the point of conception forward. And the Heartbeat Act only protects unborn children from the point that a heartbeat or cardiac activity is detected. So the historical significance of this is, according to Mr. Dixon and the ordinance that is being considered, there was an illegal abortionist in the 1960s and 70s who performed thousands of illegal abortions prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v.

Wade, and the city did not take action at that time. And according to the supporters of this proposed ordinance, this would rectify that and send the message that Athens, in this time where states get to decide the outcome of abortion legislation, that Athens is not going to be a destination for abortion like it was in the mid-20th century. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us, especially as we are still mourning the loss of Isaiah as he is headed off to greener pastures, as he would say. But we appreciate you covering that so diligently and you did a great job of breaking that down for us. Brad, Congress is set to vote this week on the Inflation Reduction Act, a new deal struck on the previously stalled Build Back Better Plan. One section focuses on energy, your bread and

butter. Can you tell us what's in it? Yeah, so like you mentioned, the Inflation Reduction Act is kind of a, it's a revision of the Build Back Better plan that the House of Representatives passed last year. This is the Senate twist on it that would basically replace language already in what was passed. And so this section on energy specifically is worth $369 billion. That's quite a big chunk of change. It creates a medley of subsidies, including a $30 billion extension of the production tax credit. I've talked about that quite a bit, dealing with the Texas power grid. It includes also a $10 billion extension of the investment tax credit. The

production tax credit is given to wind generators. You get a certain amount of tax dollars back per megawatt hour produced of electricity. With the investment tax credit, it's a tax credit on the amount of capital investment you make on the front end. So that is something solar generators can get. I believe wind as well, but that's just more on the front end capital expenditure side. It also carves out a production tax credit worth about $30 per megawatt hour produced for advanced nuclear generation. And then it also includes $60 billion in subsidies to companies manufacturing renewable generation, whether it's making wind turbine blades, making solar panels, all these things that go into

the generation of renewable resource electricity. It also includes tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles. That is $7,500 for a new electric vehicle purchased, $4,000 for a used one. And kind of the concession that Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia got on this bill was the restart of drilling leases on federal land. That was something that the Biden administration suspended on its first day in office. It suspended new and renewed. So basically everything that is in existence would be allowed to run its course before it would not be allowed to be restarted or renewed. And that is something that Manchin got, more of the moderate side of the Democratic Party received in this deal. And then additionally, there is about $27 billion in subsidies for things like carbon capture. The bill is like 700 pages long. So there's a lot of stuff in there, a lot of

essentially pork to various industries, all of which are friendly to the administration. And it's just a very large expenditure on top of the last two years of very large expenditures from Congress. The reason this failed or didn't move through the Senate last year was Manchin, and now he's out of the way and backing this proposal. What does this mean specifically for texas so i mentioned the the two tax credits the production tax credits and the investment tax credit um the production tax credit is is the big one that affects texas and its power grid. It allows renewable generators to provide electricity at negative prices. Not just this, but all the other taxpayer subsidies that go into this, whether it's like Chapter 313 tax abatements that I've talked about a lot, or various other subsidies. But this is the biggest one. This is the biggest contributor. And that has allowed this massive influx of renewable generation into the state. And as we know with renewables, they're dependent on the weather. And so especially wind,

as we've seen, as I've written over the summer, has a tendency to disappear on hot summer days in the afternoon, which is when peak usage is in Texas. And so extension of this, this is something that people like Jason Isaac at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Robert Bryce, a writer in Austin, but he writes nationally, various like the Heritage Foundation, I think, has talked about this. They've all been trying to kill this. And it has been renewed multiple times, and now it just is going to get renewed for 10 more years. And so odds are, down the road, there will be a push to renew it then but this subsidy keeps getting revived essentially and that affects texas and the kind of energy generation that is brought onto the grid

and as we as we know since 2021 there is new urgency surrounding the reliability of the Texas power grid. It has since withstood all of the cold and heat that it has faced. But as population grows, so too will the demand that people are pulling from the grid. And so we'll see how this plays out down the road. This is going to continue to probably contribute to the same phenomenon that already has undergone with the influx of wind and solar generation. But there's going to be a push in the state legislature next year, probably the session after that, and continuing until they get something to try and offset the effects of the production tax credit through some sort of reliability penalty mechanism at the state level. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but if you're not bored as heck already, then you're interested in this topic, and it'll be something to follow. Absolutely. Well, let's keep talking about energy here. So the EPA announced inspections targeted at the Permian Basin this month. Tell us the details. Yeah. So the agency will use, they announced this month, they will use helicopters and

infrared cameras to survey oil and gas operators in the Permian basin, uh, specifically looking for methane and volatile organic compound gas leaks. Um, the region six EPA administrator oversees the region that encompasses the Permian basin. Uh, Dr.

Earthia Nance spelled E E-A-R-T-H-E-A, just a perfect name for a position like this. He said that the Permian Basin accounts for 40% of our nation's oil supply and has produced large quantities of dangerous VOCs and methane over the years contributing to climate change and poor air quality. Hearing that, it's pretty obvious where the administration is coming from on this. Actions like this were first initiated under President Obama, then they were kind of suspended under President Trump, and now the Biden administration is revamping them. And it's conducting these inspections at the behest of environmental groups like Earthworks, which have been lobbying for actions on this, especially in the Permian Basin for years.

And they've been doing their own inspections. There was a piece I wrote on this, I think it was in 2020, about this specifically, them filing a lot of complaints against operators in the Permian Basin, alleging emissions violations. The state already regulates these things. This EPA effort is in addition to that, and the EPA says it will fine companies they find in violation. But the one problem is that these infrared cameras that they're using cannot tell the difference between methane VOCs and simple water vapor that is not a regulated pollutant. And so they take these pictures and they look really bad. I've seen them. It's in these off colors and you can see all this stuff flying above whatever facility they're taking a picture of, but you don't know what that actually is. And they're making these allegations without being able to prove. They just kind of assume that it's methane or VOCs. And some of it probably is.

But they don't really, they're not able, because they're not the facility tracking what's being emitted, they can't really know for sure. They just have to go off of this kind of anecdotal evidence that isn't data-based. And even since he's been in office, this tug and pull between, you know, even in Texas, we see this a lot. And the Democrat side is folks who are more oil and gas friendly and those who really want to do away with oil and gas. This is a broader question. But in your mind, from what you've observed, how is the Biden administration kind of towing that line between, you know, the Green New Deal progressives and the more, you know, establishment members of their party who see oil and gas having utility yeah this was just a continuation of his um his campaign where he was trying to find the right balance to strike there as well uh between these you know traditional blue collar uh often heavily reliant on oil and gas jobs part of the party, and then the very progressive

environmentalist left that essentially, as you said, wants to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. And they're not shy about that. They'll say it. I think it's been pretty clear that while he hasn't gone full bore into that end, he has definitely, he hasn't Biden. President Biden has definitely, um, given the environmentalist wing of his party quite a lot to work with, um, especially on the regulatory side. And even though Congress,

I mean, we just mentioned all the stuff that's going to, that they're passing or will likely pass probably over the weekend. But, um, other than that, stuff that's going to that they're passing or will likely pass probably over the weekend but other than that a lot of this stuff has been done on the regulatory agency side he reinitiated the the methane regulation that the trump administration had withdrawn that was originally issued under obama and many of these types of things, I think, points to the fact that he is deemed those progressives on this issue to be the ones that kind of get their say more than any other.

He is cracking down on a lot of this. And I wrote a piece, what was that, a week or two ago about the refinery situation. That really has no end in sight. And the Biden administration has really made it known, at least domestically, that they want to try and move away from this, the use of fossil fuels, and they have a goal of reducing emissions by 40% compared to 2005 levels by 2030. Now, one thing that's not mentioned is we're already halfway there without any of these laws or rules really having any effect. The biggest part of that is natural gas supplanting coal as a mainline generator of electricity.

And we're already halfway there. The oil and gas industry has been because it's product they're losing, they could be turning this into beneficial or profitable stuff. They've been

improving their own methods for reducing these kinds of emissions uh all that to say the biden administration clearly has has staked its claim on this uh foreign policy wise that's been a little bit different he's asked uh opec to ramp up its uh oil and gas production to offset the price, to try and lower the high price of oil around the globe. And he's trying to have kind of have both ways, one way domestically, another way globally. And I guess you who know different people have different opinions on how well it's working out. Well, thanks for summarizing that for us and giving us an update.

We so appreciate it. Let's pivot to a different subject. Now, a state lawmaker came out this week with an interesting note on property taxes. What happened? So State Rep. Brian Harrison penned a letter to elected officials at each of the political subdivisions in his district asking them to adopt the no new revenue tax rate or one lower now that rate is the point at which no new property taxes are collected compared to the year before save for any new property added to the rolls in writing to those elected officials he said our constituents are suffering some are

considering selling their homes because they can no longer afford the taxes and inflation has only I go into a lot of detail on this in the story. Basically the same stuff I've been writing with this property tax situation for a long time now. But essentially you have these local officials who are soon going to set their tax rates for the next year. They have in front of them the appraisal information. They could set the no new revenue rate if they wanted. It's not like they often try and cast the blame for rising taxes, property tax bills on the appraisal district. But they're the ones that set the rate. They ultimately decide how much your property tax bill is going to be worth, going to reach. And so he is kind of taking the aim at them and

specifically requesting that they keep their constituents in mind when adopting this. And it kind of sets the table for what I think will be a feature issue next session, property taxes overall. The governor just said today that he expects the largest tax cut in the history of Texas. We'll see how that turns out. But specifically, I think my focus is on the M&O rate, the maintenance and operations rate. That is the largest component of property tax bills, the school one. And there are a lot of people that are, Representative Harrison is one of them who wants to eliminate that. So there's going to be a big push for that. This is kind of setting

the table for it. We'll see if we have another Super Bowl session specifically relating to property taxes. It'll be interesting to watch what reforms actually come out of the session. I think the governor truly has been talking a big game with the M&O rate, with school vouchers or school choice or whatever vocabulary you choose to use on any given day. But it'll be interesting to see what actually comes with the session and, you know,

how willing Republicans are to jump on board with these reforms. So it'll be interesting to watch. Um, and while you appreciate it, Hayden, we're going to come back to, Oh yeah, go ahead.

I was going to say, and while he's, he's been, he's talked a lot about those two things. We haven't seen any specific, um, uh, plan or details laid out yet so we don't know which direction he's going to go 100 that's all i wanted to totally talk over you i'm remote this week folks so if there is a lag or if i'm accidentally talking over brad it is

unintentional i wanted to i want the record to reflect that it is entirely unintentional on my part. Brad, did I totally just step on your toes? Yeah, but it's par for the course. It's not always unintentional. I mean, you do harangue Brad intentionally on occasion. On occasion is a very generous way to phrase that. I appreciate that. His grandmother would beg to differ, I'm sure. Well, Brad, thank you. I appreciate it and appreciate your patience with me haranguing you. I can't believe you would do that.

Hayden, who is usually on my team, Hayden, we're going to go to you, even though I'm a little salty that you did point out my ability and affinity for haranguing Brad. But let's talk about the border. A member of the Mexican mafia was busted for drug trafficking. How many years behind bars is he facing? He is facing as many years that are left in his life. Oh my. um so my yeah that's a life imprisonment and 10 million dollar fine um i i can't imagine being given a 10 million dollar fine i don't know how one goes about paying a 10 million dollar fine but that is the maximum penalty for the drug smuggling and illegal weapons charges that he

is facing having been convicted of similar offenses in the past. The Department of Justice said that he was found with illegal weapons, including pistols, a rifle, a shotgun, high-capacity magazines, as well as body armor. He also had ammunition, and those were just the illegal weapons and weaponry type materials that he had. He also had 11.2 kilos of cocaine. He had 1.5 kilograms of meth and 3 kilos of marijuana and more than $120,000 in cash. Did they say how he got caught? Because that's a lot of stuff. Yeah, he had a lot.

And they found, I'm not sure how they were able to detect him, but he worked for the Mexican Mafia, which is a bit of a misnomer because it's not a cartel. It is a prison gang that operates in the U.S. and I believe originated in Arizona. So he's 28 years old. So I guess, you know, a little bit older slash around our age. And he had in his possession different ledgers that he kept to help the Mexican mafia distribute drugs, and he had proceeds with him. But the Border Patrol agency reported a 62% increase in the

seizure of cocaine from May to June, and there was also a 14% increase in seizures of methamphetamine. But heroin seizures dropped 49%, and fentanyl seizures dropped 41% from May to June. And that's the most recent month that data is available. So some big picture stuff to accompany that. Mexican Mafia, I was going to ask for your clarification, and you already gave it to us. some big picture stuff to accompany that. Mexican mafia. I was going to ask for your clarification and you already gave it to us, but is this a cartel adjacent, uh,

operation or is this specifically just in prisons of those who are, you know, being held? I mean, I think any, any drug distribution crime has a cartel nexus to it, but this is primarily a prison gang that controls other predominantly Hispanic prison gangs in the United States. But it's composed, I understand,

the membership is primarily Mexican American prisoners in the U.S. Got it. Well, Hayden, thank you for that. And the name Mexican Mafia will never not be spicy. So I appreciate that so much. Let's talk about the Texas lottery, which has seen remarkable financial success lately. Tell us about sales and the days leading up to the Mega Millions drawing. Their last week was a historic $1.33 billion jackpot for the Mega Millions drawing. And the Texas Lottery participates in Mega Millions. Mega Millions is a nationwide game that a lot of different states participate in. And I think the U.S. Virgin Islands participates as well as D.C. and then 45 states, I believe, is the number. So only a handful of states do not participate

in Mega Millions. And it's one of the games that the Texas Lottery offers. The Texas Lottery has operated since Governor Ann Richards bought the first lottery ticket in 1992. And last week was the highest number of sales ever reported by the lottery in a single week, in part because of the historic jackpot for Mega Millions. It wasn't the highest jackpot that has ever been distributed, but it is one of the highest. And the Texas lottery has been doing remarkably well, and this was not an exception. We did get a quote from Gary Grief, who's the executive director of the lottery. He said, quote, the uptick in sales from the recent estimated $1.33 billion Mega Millions jackpot and the continued success of the $100 scratch ticket game, $20 million Supreme, have the Texas lottery

on pace to break last year's record sales total, barring anything unforeseen occurring in the final month of the fiscal year, end quote. So we're about to hit the end of the lottery's fiscal year. And last year was the best year the lottery ever had with a total sales, I believe, of more than $8 billion. And through the week before their historic week, the lottery was outpacing last year's sales with $7.343 billion, and that's before the $264 million week last week. And as we learned in 2020, anything can happen. So they still have the last month to go, but it looks like they're going to have another record-breaking year for the lottery. Didn't, if I saw correctly, the guy who won the Mega Millions,

what was the total jackpot again? The cash value for the jackpot was projected to be 780.5 million of course that's before taxes though right yeah if i if i remember correctly i saw something that he got like 400 million out of the one point whatever billion the quote jackpot was right because astounding yeah brad and i were texting about this the other day the odds of winning mega millions for an individual are one and 302.5 million but the odds of uncle sam winning oh my god the odds of uncle sam winning are one to one yeah um so yeah the government's gonna get it's cut but i think the the winning lottery ticket was sold in de plains illinois at a gas station like i said ill Illinois is one of the states that participates in Mega Millions. And if I understand correctly, you have the option of taking the cash or setting up an annuity where it pays out annually over the course of a number of years. i think most people take the the cash benefit so that that

between that and the taxes that you know one and a half or so billion drops down uh considerably well on my on my road trip i unfortunately didn't time it right and had to buy gas in illinois and i think that guy's jackpot total winnings could buy him like maybe three fill-ups of his car because it was insane how expensive I've never seen gas that high yeah that's um you know par for the course these days but that's so true it was especially bad real fast go ahead bro I just said it was especially bad in Illinois. Well, Hayden, real fast. Go ahead, Brad. I just said it was especially bad in Illinois. That's what I'm saying. Got it.

Well, I'm glad then him of all people won the lottery. Real fast, Hayden. The lottery is one of the few forms of legal gambling in Texas. Who benefits from the cash spent on lottery tickets? You wrote a piece about this previously, but let's review exactly where this money ends up going. Well, the two groups that claim to hate gambling are the church and the state. But the two groups that are allowed to gamble in Texas are the church and the state because we have the state lottery. And then we have charitable bingo, which many churches participate in. And we also have, you know, other licensed organizations that do charitable bingo. And so one of the ways that the state benefits from the lottery is through

the proceeds that they put into the foundation school fund, which the most, when the lottery reported its record sales, I believe a quarter of the sales went to the Foundation School Fund, and then only 1% went to Texas Veterans. So those are the proportions we're talking about when we say that the veterans and education benefit from the lottery proceeds. But last year, approximately two-thirds of the sales went to paying winners, and then only about 3% went to administrative costs. So the vast majority of it does go to pay prizes, but then there are portions that go to the foundation school fund, and then a small, very, very small portion goes to veterans causes. Got it. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that. Rob, we're going to come to you on a story that you wrote this week. President Biden issued a new executive order concerning abortion. What was it about and what could it mean for Texas? So this is the second order that Biden has issued on this topic since Roe v. Wade was overturned

back in June. He had one order, which was on July 8th, directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to try and expand abortion access, make sure that abortifacient drugs were available, promote education on the issue. This new order, which was issued just yesterday, has three main goals. The first goal is to advance access to abortion, including through Medicaid if necessary. So this is something that's got several people up in arms about. They're not very happy about that. This is for people who would have to cross state lines to receive an abortion in a state where it is legal. After all, it's going to become illegal in Texas on August 25th when the trigger ban kicks in. And there are already lawsuit-based

enforcement mechanisms for preventing abortions, which might even get stronger with time. When we get into the next session, new policies might show up to make it even more restrictive. So if people were leaving Texas to get an abortion, that this executive order is directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make that happen. The second goal of this executive order is directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make that happen. The second goal of this executive order is to make sure that healthcare providers comply with federal non-discrimination laws. And the third point is to evaluate and improve research, data collection, and data analysis efforts at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on maternal health and other health outcomes to see what the effect

of Dobbs will be on women's health overall. In the executive order, the Biden administration described there being a women's health crisis in the wake of Dobbs. So they want to upgrade their ability to collect data to see if such a thing is really happening. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Gentlemen, let's move on to the Twittery section of our podcast. Brad, what caught your eye on Twitter this week? So I saw a reply from John Lira, who is the Democrat challenger to Congressman Tony Gonzalez. Gonzalez said

just had a tweet about securing funding for the police department in San Antonio mental health unit, things like that. Run-of-the-mill stuff that politicians tweet. His opponent replied with a particularly incendiary uh retort and said 99

days until the great people of texas 23 abort an unwanted congressman obviously with everything going on that is uh particularly notable but the um what stuck out to me is the fact that the vitriol is beginning so early and you often see it at these more local races more

acutely but that was just a kind of a wow moment for me seeing that actually put out on Twitter. It seems like it has since been deleted. I haven't I didn't see it on his Twitter account at all, but I saw the screenshot. So, yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, during the summer after the legislative session, with the exception of last year, as we hadorum breaks and then the uh summer between the primary

and the general it's kind of when there's slow news and specifically between you know primaries or runoffs and the general the campaigns really don't start ramping up a ton until in the early fall right so we're kind of in a hurry up and wait portion here to watch some of these attacks start to be waged against candidates, with the exception of maybe the governor's race that is certainly already a very heated contest. But it's interesting to watch candidates spar on social media. Even if you aren't seeing commercials or advertisements or digital ads, you're definitely going to see Twitter activity. And that's kind of where a lot of the news is generated right now as campaigns are kind of waiting to spend big bucks. So interesting to watch and certainly a very

notable tweet there. We'll continue to watch that and see how the race shapes up. But interesting nonetheless, and interesting that it was deleted as well. I'm curious what the behind the scenes was with that. Thank you, Brad. Hayden, what did you see this week? A name that's familiar to us here at the Texan is Seth Dillon, who is, of course, oh, forgive me. I forget. He's the CEO of Babylon Beat, correct? Or is he executive director? Yes. Yes, indeed. Just completely drew a blank on his title. I believe he's the CEO. Yes. Sorry about that, Seth. No, he tweeted the other day, he tweeted that, quote, adults should not sing happy birthday to each other, end quote.

And that really made me laugh when I first saw it because I haven't thought about this. But I think he might have a point. I don't know if adults should sing happy birthday to each other. It's kind of awkward. And the person hearing, Isaiah said this the other day, nobody knows what to do when everyone's singing happy birthday. And I think it might not be a bad idea if we sunset the happy birthday song. So I'm going to propose that we do that. Sunset. I like your phraseology there. I think Hayden is completely missing the point sunset the happy birthday song so i'm going to propose that we do that sunset i think i like your phraseology there i think hayden is completely missing the point of the happy birthday song the whole point is to make the person whose birthday it is feel embarrassed in a public space that's

that's what makes it fun fair okay so sorry my my my tweet was not didn't spur deep intellectual discussion, but I just thought that was funny and amusing. Well, I will say that the folks at The Battle on Be have been very friendly and generous with us here at the Tech Center. We're grateful for that. And I will say as well, which we'll talk about in a minute here, but we had our CEO, Connie Burden, in the office this week and are planning on attempting another in-person event at some point. Details will be figured out later on,

but we're venue shopping. The last big event we held was the Babylon Bee up in North Texas and we're looking at having some event soon. So keep an eye out for that. But Connie was in the office and we were looking at having some event soon. So keep an eye out for that. But Connie was in the office and we were venue shopping, which is always fun to do. So just folks keep an eye out for that.

And the wheels are turning. We're seeing what kind of events we can have and sponsor the Texans. So the Babylon Bee mentioned and Seth Dillon just made me think of that because he was our headliner at our last big event. Hayden, thank you. I think it sparked intellectual discussion. I have many intellectual thoughts in my brain after hearing your thoughts. So thank you for that. Rob, why don't we go to you? What caught your eye on Twitter? So what caught my eye on Twitter is somebody had posted on Twitter a video of Alex Jones during his trial right now for defamation.

He's being sued by the parents of a child who died in the Sandy Hook shooting for claiming that the shooting was a hoax and didn't happen. So Jones had claimed that he had not texted or sent any messages from his phone about the Sandy Hook shooting in years. And the opposing lawyer revealed that he had in fact received a copy of all of Alex Jones text messages from the last two years from Jones's lawyer who apparently sent it as a mistake. And Jones had claimed, I believe it was in deposition that he didn't have those texts under oath because she said, you know, you, you cannot claim that you are bankrupt because you're not,

you've only filed for bankruptcy. It's an interesting trial so far. It'll be more interesting to see what happens going forward, but it's, it's definitely a funny video. The lawyer almost incredulous that he actually received this incredible evidence from the other lawyer on the other side of the, of the case. Is this happening in Austin? That is wild. I believe this is happening in Austin. Yes.

So it's, it's just very interesting to see. Yeah. Well, Brad and I were talking about it a little bit today because I was behind on what had happened this morning during my flight. And very interesting to watch this all go down. And we're definitely keeping an eye on it. It's a fascinating case. And for those who don't know Alex Jones of InfoWars, definitely, he's a character. Look him up and I'll let you come to your own conclusion on what kind of guy we're dealing with here in this case, but fascinating to watch and unbelievable. I think that this Twitter video that you linked specifically has like 13.6

million views already, Rob, which is just wild. So fascinating to watch. Um, and the memes on the internet are pretty crazy. This is also what I was going to talk about, um, today with these tweets, but definitely fascinating to watch how this all go down. And for, I think it's also fascinating as Alex Jones is a very bombastic figure to watch him kind of operate within a courtroom setting and have to be, you know,

silent during moments where I'm sure he has plenty to say is also very kind of just interesting to watch him have to operate in that environment. you know, silent during moments where I'm sure he has plenty to say is also very kind of a, just interesting to watch him have to operate in that environment. So it might even prove to be a, I was going to say, I was going to say it might even prove to be a more interesting case than the, the, the depth herd trial that you followed so closely, Mac. Ah, that is a, that's a tall order, Rob. That is a tall order. And I will say in the DepHER trial, more documents became public in the last couple of weeks and it has become even spicier than it was before, which I thought was impossible, but alas, it is not. So anyways,

definitely go look that up, folks. Very interesting stuff happening. But Rob, thank you. That's also what I was going to talk about. So we'll just move on to our fun topic. I want real fast, we kind of got twofold options here. But I want to say, as I said, Connie was in the office this week, our founder and CEO. Gentlemen, what can folks expect? Or what can you expect when Connie comes to the office? Give our listeners a little bit of insight into what it is like to have Connie Burton in her full form enter the office on a work day to not get any work done why rad why is that the case because her personality is larger than life and she commands attention now she's you can hear interacting with her and you know we don't get from outside the office we don't get to interact with her every day

because she's living up in North Texas and obviously we're all in Austin so catch up and vent about the political happenings of the day that she and I tend to do that quite a bit oh yeah and

yeah I would say that not getting any work done. She buys us food very often, which I always forget and still bring food in, but that is always so kind of her. And you're right, we really very rarely see her in the office. She's just not down in Austin very often and is, you know, running her own life up in North Texas. Or she's around the state. She is in the office.

Or she's around the state selling the Texan. Yeah. Traveling, speaking to groups, talking to folks about why we exist and why it's important that we do, which is a huge part of where she spends her time. So we're grateful for that. Robin Hayden, what do you notice the most when Connie's in town? What sticks out about Connie Burton being in the office? I think that the best part about Connie being in the office is, as Brad said, you don't get any work done because Connie talks to everybody and Connie can talk about anything and it's great.

And the best part about it is that everybody gets to be in on the conversation because it doesn't matter what room you're in in the office, you can hear Connie. She's loud enough to be heard everywhere. She projects very, very well. That is so true. Oh my gosh. Well, you can hear her laugh from outside.

You know she's coming before she arrives because you can just hear her coming. And her voices are hilarious. I hope one day to have her do some, I don't know, voice acting on the podcast and so folks can hear all the array of crazy voices that Connie Burton just has in her arsenal and something else. What about you, Hayden? Anything to add? and trying to report the things that matter to everyday Texans and not just the corporate media and the legacy media. So let's always enjoy Connie's reminder to keep our vision clear that we're here to serve our readers and that we're here to report things that will help people make good decisions at the ballot box yeah absolutely and all the fun and games of having Connie around she is a great centering

force in that regard and keeps the the big things the big things and I think that's such a great point Hayden too well gentlemen I appreciate you guys joining me. Thanks for jumping on the podcast this week. As Brad would say, despite you being contractually obligated, I appreciate your time and your coverage. Folks, thank you so much for joining us 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 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

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