The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - December 10, 2021

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team talks through the Biden administration suing Texas over redistricting, the attorney general weighing in on gender modification procedures for minors, four Texas Democrats taking a stance opposite of the White House, recent border rescues by Customs and Border Protection agents, some Texas school mask mandates remaining, state officials wrestling with the strings attached to federal coronavirus money, a San Antonio school district voluntarily removing hundreds of controversial books from its library, nearly $700,000 worth of drugs seized by border agents, a new version of an annual defense bill making its way through D.C., and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX-02) defending a vaccine database vote.

Happy Friday and Merry Christmas. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here bringing you this week's News Roundup. This week, our team talks through the Biden administration suing Texas over redistricting, the Attorney General weighing in on gender modification procedures for minors, four Texas Democrats taking a stance opposite of the White House, recent border rescues by Customs and Border Protection agents, some Texas school mask mandates remaining, state officials wrestling with the strings attached to federal coronavirus money, a San Antonio school district voluntarily removing hundreds of controversial books from its library,

nearly $700,000 worth of drugs seized by border agents, a new version of an annual defense bill making its way through D.C., and Dan Crenshaw defending a vaccine database vote. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful weekend. We are so glad you tuned in today. Well, howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Brad Johnson on another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. Gentlemen, how are you?

Doing good. Anything exciting happening at the office today that our listeners need to know about? Well, we're having an interesting podcast experiment here. Yes, explain this. So we normally are all together in the same room. And on some occasions we do remote podcasts. This time we're doing something a little bit different and doing a bit of a hybrid. Since Matt could not be here in the office today. We're mixing it up a little bit.

Just making it a little bit different. We got to keep it, you know, we got to stay on our toes. Be ready for anything the cool guys are in the podcast room oh you're remote yeah but the advantage is that with a little four-track recorder now each of us can have a microphone because despite the breadth of our mighty media empire we have four microphones and five podcasters so and usually isaiah and hayden are basically switching microphones across the room the inviting to the desk for the chance to speak into the mic that's right but not today at any given point you will have the ability to speak freely well gentlemen

welcome to the to the club and mainly i just wanted to see if daniel could figure out this uh you know, technical puzzle. And he did so with ease. And so it was actually kind of boring. But on that note, we're going to go ahead and get into our news for the week. Daniel, let's start with you. The Biden administration is suing the state of Texas over some redistricting plans. What are the main arguments being waged?

So the main arguments being waged? Like those other organizations, the Department of Justice under the Biden administration filed a complaint alleging that Texas is violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by, quote, creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group. So that is what Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Monday when he announced this lawsuit. So it's nothing too different from the other lawsuits that are pending in courts already. This is just a little bit different in that it's actually coming from the U.S. government itself and not just some organization that are usually the ones that carry these lawsuits. Right. Are there specific districts that are being criticized? So there's a few different districts that are being criticized. The two maps in question are the congressional map and the statehouse map. For the congressional map, the big district that they really hone in on is Texas.

Texas is 23rd congressional district out in West Texas. This is currently held by Representative Tony Gonzalez. It stretches from El Paso to San Antonio. It's definitely, I think, one of Texas's biggest congressional districts. It might actually be one of the biggest districts in the country. But it is a wide swath of land, and there were some changes made. It was a very competitive district in previous cycles. And with the redistricting, it's shifted a little bit partisan wise to be more favorable toward Republicans. Part of that comes with also shifting the number of Justice is still arguing that essentially they're picking and choosing their Latino voters to make it harder for Latinos to have their pick. So it's an interesting argument. We'll see how it goes. The other two areas, there's not really a specific

district that they're zoning on, but there's two other areas of the state that they say there should be more another minority group, a Latino district or a black district in the DFW area or Harris County areas. That's also another argument that we've seen from previous lawsuits. So it's something that the courts are already considering, but that is being reiterated here. With the state house map, there are really three different districts that they zone in on again. And these are also, interesting enough, they're very battleground districts. Two of them have actually been picked up by Republicans in the past few months. The first one being House District 118 in San Antonio, which Representative John

Lujan just won a special election there a couple months ago. And then House District 31 in South Texas, which is held by Representative Ryan Guillen, who just switched his party affiliation from being a Democrat to being a Republican. Now, both of these districts were fairly competitive in previous cycles. And then the redistricting proposals that went through and were signed into law actually shifted their district back toward Republicans to be a little bit safer for Republicans to hold onto those seats now. And the third district that's kind of focused in on the lawsuit is House District 76, which is, it used to be in El Paso County, and I guess technically it still currently is. But under the new map, that district has been pulled out of El Paso and moved over to Fort Bend. That change happened because the population growth in El Paso

did not match the population growth of the rest of the state, and so El Paso needed to lose some representation, and so the way that they did that was they moved one of the districts into a more populous county that's rapidly growing. So the new district of HD76 is still a minority district, minority coalition district. There's about, I think, 31 percent Asian. And then there's about 25 to 30 percent with the other races that the state breaks it down in as well. But those are kind of the areas that they make similar arguments.

The DOJ makes similar arguments as they did with the congressional map. But those are the areas of the state that they focus on. Got it. Now, were there any districts that we expected to be part of this, to be cited, to be brought forth or criticized that were not? Yeah, I would say that there are some notable absences here. The first one, of course, is there's nothing about the Senate map, the state Senate map that was passed. That one has been a little bit controversial just over Senate District 10, which was challenged in previous in 2000 after the 2010 census with the changes that the state legislature attempted to make then that were actually struck back by courts. There's been similar arguments that have been made this time, but the Department of Justice didn't even touch on that at all. So that was kind of interesting. Then the other interesting area that was absent

were the changes that were made in House District 37 and House District 38, which is down in Cameron County. 37 is the district that Republicans also changed to kind of make that be a swing district, potentially being picked up by a Republican. That's kind of their aim that they're going with with that. But that was not mentioned in the lawsuit as well, which was also an interesting absence. Got it. Now talk to us about the timeline for this case. What does that look like, even in terms of the acceptance of the maps in the primary elections? Yeah, so the maps were already signed into law. And so they were signed into law. There's also a bill that set the filing deadline and the primary election dates to basically be what they

originally were slated to be. So the filing period for candidates is already going to end on December 13th. So in order for this case to be. So the filing period for candidates is already going to end on December 13th. So in order for this case to be successful, the courts have to move pretty fast on this. And so far with these redistricting lawsuits, the courts have been moving quite slowly. They haven't really taken fast action in issuing any kind of injunction to halt the process of this filing period and potentially delay the primary elections, which is slated for March 1st. So we'll see what the courts do. It's up in the air, but I expect that if something is going to happen, it needs to happen pretty quickly in order to provide clarity as far as the election and for candidates to know when they can file and what district they can actually file in. Certainly. Well, Daniel, thanks for breaking that down for us. Isaiah, we're going to come to you now. For some time, Texas Republicans, many of them at least, have been

attempting to ban child gender modification. And now the attorney general broke his silence on this topic. What did he have to say and what kind of moves were made? So Ken Paxton sent a letter to the Texas Department of Family Protective Services. And that's the department in charge of the foster care system and investigating child abuse and neglect. And in his letter, he said, to be clear, this is his words, I trust that DFPS is investigating and taking all appropriate actions against child abuse that may occur through gender reassignment surgery, chemical or surgical castration, puberty or telling them that they already have the duty to investigate at least some of these procedures as child abuse. Got it. Now talk to us about the background of this letter. So the background is what makes this baffling.

I was fixing to say the background is where you need to understand it, but it's the opposite. It just confuses you more. Makes it more complicated. Yeah. So last week, there was a series of interviews that left the governor, the attorney general, and a member of the legislature kind of in a finger-pointing triangle over the immobility of proposals to ban child gender modification. So these were proposed in the legislature, and they failed. So afterwards, Governor Abbott sent a letter to the DFPS attempting to convince them to treat actual genital surgeries, gonadectomies, as abuse when performed on children.

And the DFPS agreed and said in a pretty quickly returned response that they would investigate those procedures as child abuse and treat them as such. And so afterwards, there were a couple of lawmakers, Brian Slayton and Matt Krause, and they were not alone, but these are the ones that actually sent communication along these lines that inquired whether or not the same could be said for other procedures. And so what this new action was by the DFPS was saying that under the existing law, the existing definition of child abuse unchanged, that gonadectomies, these actual genital surgeries would count as child abuse. And Brian Slayton, the state rep, asked them, can the same be said for mastectomies

or other cosmetic surgeries or puberty blockers or counseling as well? And state rep asked them, can the same be said for mastectomies or other cosmetic surgeries or puberty blockers or counseling as well? And state rep Matt Krause sent a similar request to the attorney general. And that was an official opinion request, meaning that the attorney general receives that from another elected official, and he's got 180 days for his office to digest that and return a legal opinion. in this case interpreting the existing child abuse law and whether or not that it can include puberty blockers. So that's what's been anticipated. And last week, the governor said that there could be no action, that he had another letter prepared for the DFPS that would include puberty blockers and abuse,

but he's waiting on Ken Paxton to release that opinion as a response to Matt Krause. And Ken Paxton, the next day in an interview on the same radio show, said that after he received this opinion, he was waiting on the legislature before issuing his opinion. And then I spoke to Matt Krause, and he said that he was expecting Ken Paxton to issue his opinion in hopes that it would buoy the legislative efforts, which could not continue in the regular session because they weren't on the special session, because they weren't on the agenda. So there's a triangle of blame going on here.

And this letter they just sent to the DFPS seems to already assume that the basic question of Krause's opinion request is resolved, even though he has not resolved it yet. My gosh, it is so complicated for so many reasons. Let's elaborate a little bit on the specific legislative proposals that we've talked about throughout the year that the legislature came forward and basically offered as a solution to these problems. Sure. So during the regular legislature, which means every two years, the legislature can act on whatever they want to act on. You can file bills on whatever, they can pass out whatever. And this topic, banning child gender modification,

is putatively a popular one among Republicans since it's a party priority. So there were a number of bills that were filed to ban these procedures and they had slightly different definitions and mainly differed on by what means they would ban these procedures there were some that would classify them as child abuse and there are others like matt krause's bill that would make them a prohibited practice for doctors meaning that if a doctor cares these procedures administers puberty blockers performs a gonadectomy or whatever for the purpose of gender transition then the medical board would have been able to revoke their license. That was Krause's bill in a nutshell. And I mentioned his bill because it got the farthest out of all of

these several bills. All of them wound up in the House Public Health Committee, chaired by Representative Stephanie Click, and only Krause's passed through. The rest of them just languished there without passage or action. But after Krause's passed through, the Calendars Committee, chaired by Representative Dustin Burroughs, set it too low on the House's agenda to receive a vote. So there are some of these bills that came from the Senate and they got voted out of the full chamber there, But none of these bills got a vote on the House floor. Krause's came the closest, but they had something like two or 300 bills in front of them that they had to address. And so it was just set too low to receive a vote. At that time of the regular legislature, he had, I want to say, somewhere between 30 and 50 co-authors. And he filed these bills again in each of the three special sessions that followed.

And in the second one, he got over 70 co-authors, including Stephanie Click, Dustin Burrows, and Tom Oliverson, who rejected an amendment by Brian Slayton that would have... I won't get into all that background. That's more specific. Anyway, important thing to know is that the legislature mustered majority support for this, but only once passage became impossible. Because it wasn't on the special session agenda. Very, very good.

Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us from start till now. This has been quite a subject this year in the legislature. Brad, let's move on. Some Texas Democrats took a position opposite of the White House this week. Tell us about that. Members were Veronica Escobar, Henry Cuellar, Mark Vesey, and Philemon Vela. So the issue was the letter itself asked the Biden administration and CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services to reinstate funding for certain categories of uncompensated health care. This is under the Medicaid program. And right now you have a lot of hospitals that are not receiving this funding because of what the Biden administration did earlier this year in retroactively rescinding approval of Texas's Medicaid section 1115 one, one, five waiver. It's a very complicated. Basically, it boils down to this program allows hospitals and especially rural ones, because those are ones that are more reliant on this kind of funding to get paid through the Medicaid

program, i.e. federal dollars. And that's one way that they balance their books. A lot of people view this as, most Republicans view this as a push by the federal government to try and get Texas to expand Medicaid, which of course it hasn't in the now nine years that it's been an option since Obamacare and since states first started expanding Medicaid. And so there's a fight right now. It's in the courts. We don't know how it's going to end up. But it's notable to see four members of the Democratic Party kind of pushing back against

the head of it. And it's not just, you know, the conservative moderates. Yes, you have Henry Cuellar and Philemon Vela, who are more conservative Democrats among the Texas delegation. We also have Veronica Escobar, and Mark Vesey is also fairly progressive. Escobar especially is very progressive. So I think what this shows is there's a lot of tightening of the purse strings on local hospitals and other healthcare entities in these poor communities, especially, that rely on Medicaid reimbursements for uncompensated care. So something to watch. I'm not sure how much it's going to move the needle. I think by far the more substantive update will be whenever a court makes a decision on this, but we'll see what happens. And it's certainly notable to see kind of a moving away from the party line on this issue by a handful of Democrats.

Certainly. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, let's talk about the border. Talk to us about some recent rescues by Customs and Border Protection agents. Well, there have been a couple of incidents lately that are notable, one of which involved a two-year-old child who was separated with his mother and I believe a sibling. The Customs and Border Protection Agency said that a mother and two children were separated. It didn't specify whether or not the two children were siblings or cousins or how they were related, but it did say they were a family unit. And about a week ago, they were separated from a group that was illegally crossing into the Laredo sector and ended up by themselves and the toddler was suffering from dehydration.

So Customs and Border Protection EMTs rescued that child and ultimately transferred him to the custody of the city of Laredo medical personnel who treated him for his injuries and condition. And that highlights, and that's just one example of something that is not uncommon for children, unaccompanied children or family units, illegal immigrants in general to be injured or suffer from the elements when they're really traversing the wilderness down there in South Texas, crossing illegally between points at ports of entry. It's an extremely dangerous. CBP highlights over and over again that it's one of the most serious risks associated with illegal immigration is the risk to human life and health of the people who are, in fact, crossing illegally. And then, of course, when

border agents are tending to that, they're unable to take care of their enforcement duties to the degree that they need to in order to prevent further smuggling and further illegal crossings. But there was another incident that I will mention that involved a Guatemalan child who was abandoned by his mother on the American side of the Rio Grande. And he was identified by the Guatemalan consulate as a missing juvenile migrant is the phrase that CBP used. He was pictured in documents that were provided to American authorities, and the Guatemalan consulate, in fact, provided an approximate location. And once they were able to find this juvenile whose age was not given in the CBP press release, they actually found with him documents that contained a false name and a false date of birth. Again, going to some of the fraudulent activities that

are associated with illegal immigration. They were able to unite that child with his mother. And so thankfully, there were happy endings on both of those fronts. Yeah, absolutely. Now, how many, let's talk big picture here. How many unaccompanied children and family units have been encountered in Texas sectors lately? It's important to remember that while enforcement actions are an important piece of the puzzle, they do not reflect the total picture, which would include people who are evading custody and people who are undetectable for whatever reason, especially because of the humanitarian piece that I mentioned. And there are reports of encounters with family units and unaccompanied children, but we do have to remember that that doesn't include the entire picture. So that, I just wanted to mention that before I give these numbers, but CBP did note that there was a 98% increase in encounters with unaccompanied children

in the Del Rio sector in October as compared to October in 2020. According to the statistics that were provided by CBP for October, which are current as of November 3rd, those are the latest numbers that they provided, there was a combined 9,827 encounters with unaccompanied minors in Texas Border Patrol sectors. So we're talking about from El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley. And then there were 804 encounters in the Del Rio sector and 320 in the Laredo sector. And I mentioned those sectors because those are the ones that these incidents took place in, and so they're just good examples. But in October, there were more than 26,000 apprehensions of individuals who are part of a family unit. And so while a majority who come across, I believe, still are single adults, the family

units and the unaccompanied children are an important consideration when looking at illegal immigration. For sure. Well, Hayden, thank you for breaking that down for us. Important to remember that these are people's lives and policy affects their lives very intimately. So thank you for that. Isaiah, let's talk about Texas school mask mandates. First, before we get into all this, remind us what the Fifth Circuit ordered regarding mask mandates in Texas. Yeah, so just as a brief refresher, these federal cases go to district court, then the appellate court, which in Texas goes to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then if they'll take it, the Supreme Court. So the district judge, the first one in the process, had issued an injunction against

Governor Abbott's prohibition on school mask mandates. And specifically, he enjoined Ken Paxton from suing to enforce the mask mandate. And if you heard me hesitating before the use of the word enforce, that's because that's kind of central to Paxton's argument in the court. And there's a lot of argument over who's actually enforcing it. And that matters for this injunction. So the Fifth Circuit overturned this injunction, restoring Ken Paxton's ability to sue and the state's ability to enforce this mandate. Paxton's lawsuit seemed to be the only tool that the state has in the toolbox to enforce this mandate. There is the Texas Education Agency, which oversees, you know, charter schools and school districts in Texas.

And they have issued guidance from time to time telling schools to follow this executive order banning mask mandates. But they haven't actually, you know, engaged in any disciplinary action. So far, the only adverse action that school districts receive for mandating masks is a lawsuit from Ken Paxton. Yeah. Okay. So then let's talk about what schools are requiring masks still. Right. So after the Fifth Circuit overturned this injunction, said that the state can enforce this mask mandate. In general, the same schools that had already been requiring masks just kept those requirements for the most part.

So, for example, Austin ISD, Houston ISD, and Dallas ISD will all continue to enforce their mask requirements. And generally, if they put out statements to accompany this decision, they argued overall that the Fifth Circuit's order does not apply to them because they're not a party to the lawsuit. So what an Austin ISD spokesman told me was that the Travis County District Court's order upholding their mandate remains in effect and is pending on appeal to the Texas Third Court of Appeals. So that's in state court, not federal court, like this other case. And Houston ISD made the same arguments generally. And for those of y'all who haven't been following this case that led to the injunction and then this order from the Fifth

Circuit, a group called Disability Rights Texas sued the state on behalf of seven children with disabilities or fragile immune systems. And the group claims that these children's conditions render them, it makes, without a mask mandate in place at their school, they are thus effectively barred from going to school. And so they're generally arguing that Governor Abbott's ban on school mask mandates inhibits their access to school. And so that's the case in federal court that led to the injunction and then this order from the Fifth Circuit. And so because these schools aren't a party to this lawsuit, they say that the Fifth Circuit's order does not apply to them. Got it. Now let's talk about San Antonio ISD for a second. What happened with that district's mask mandate? Well, I'm sure they weren't the only one because there's a little over a thousand school districts in Texas.

And I want to say 50 to 70 to them are still requiring masks. But they were the only major school district I heard about that actually decided to end their mask mandate after the Fifth Circuit's order came out. So, you know, the day afterward, they said that they're going to end their mandate to comply with this order. But then six days afterward, they had done some analysis and determined in their reasoning that it did not apply to them because, you know, for the same reasons, X, Y, and Z, they weren't a party to the lawsuit. They weren't involved. So they determined less than a week after the order that they were going to reinstitute their mask mandate. And anyway, so yeah, same legal reasoning, but it just took them a little bit longer to align themselves with a lot of the other major school districts in the state.

Yeah, for sure. Why is this district significant? Well, it's significant because they're actually the last school district in Bexar County to keep requiring masks. We published another piece different from this one a little while ago on the efficacy of masks according to government data. And something that we included in there was the DSHS has been measuring COVID trends in schools specifically. So we actually know statewide how many students and how many teachers have been testing positive. And those numbers, fortunately, have been trending down since September 5th. And so with that downward trend, a lot of school districts, combined with, in some cases, the threat of Paxton's lawsuits, have been shedding their mask mandates.

But San Antonio ISD is kind of the last holdout in Bexar County. They've also been particularly aggressive with their COVID response. They were the first major school district in Texas to attempt to enforce a vaccine mandate for staff. And they're actually one day away from enforcing that before the state Supreme Court barred them from doing that. But in general, they've just had a particularly aggressive COVID strategy, even among other major school districts. Yeah, certainly. Well, Isaiah, thank you for following that for us. We appreciate it. Bradley, we're going to come back to you. You wrote another article on the federal

COVID funding and its attached strings. Talk to us about the story here. Yeah, so a month or two ago, I wrote a story about the city of Brady rejecting their COVID funding, and it was mainly due to this provision in the U.S. Treasury's Terms and Conditions document. It reads, recipient agrees to comply with all applicable federal statutes, regulations and executive orders and goes something a lot of people were watching and hoping weren't implemented, hoping to avoid, especially for the smaller localities. And so that was the local side of this. But the state also, with SB8 during the special session, I think the most recent one, they approved COVID funding as well. And it is accompanied by the same exact terms and conditions. It's the same basically

contract that the state is entering with this federal government that these localities are for this funding. And so one thing that kind of triggered this was the Texas Municipal League on a November 5th advisory memo to its members, municipalities, they had in there originally that the, quote, the agreement does not create a contractual relationship between the non-entitlement recipient city and any department or division of the federal government. Now, somebody questioned this and TML removed it. If you go look at the – I have the link in the story. If you go look at it now, it's not in there. But I also linked to the screenshot of it.

So, you know, that evidence is there as well. But that was removed. And I reached out to TML. They didn't say anything back to me. They had no, um, no explanation for that and no X, no additional legal guidance on, on this for their members. So there's that. Um, but more to the point on the state funding, when Governor Abbott signed SB8, he cited legal advice from the AG that said specifically it would not lead to VAX mandates in Texas. Now, obviously, executive orders and other similar types of dictates from the federal government, those are not just limited to VAX mandates, although VAX mandates are kind of the topic at hand right now. But Governor Abbott in the legislative statement said that the AG assured him this would not lead to VAX mandates in Texas. The thing is, there's no record of an official AG opinion on the matter. Now, those opinions are not legally binding themselves, but it's a more formal analysis of the law in order to give actual legal guidance to whomever it is that is seeking

out this opinion. But he did put out a letter, the Attorney General did, that didn't take any position on the contract, the U.S. Treasury contract itself, but it does say that the governor's executive order banning private and public vaccine mandates in Texas has the force and effect of law. And so, you know, there's no real answer on this, whether this one clause in this terms and conditions part of the contract has any effect whatsoever. Now you also have how much do, this is a legal argument, how much do executive orders actually apply to everybody here, whether they're working for the government, a local government, or a contracting agency with the government. We've seen that come up with vaccine mandates.

Or also the supremacy of a state order versus the federal order. And We've seen that come up with vaccine mandates or also the supremacy of a state order versus the federal order. And we've seen courts kind of hash that out a little bit right now. All of the federal vaccine mandates have been struck down at least preliminarily by the various courts. But Governor Abbott, he tweeted after the court struck down the final one, um, temporarily, he said that, uh, his executive order banning vaccine mandates is now effective. So that, uh, you know, that indicates that the, uh, until the court order struck down the, the federal government, um, uh, executive order or policy that the, it would overrule the states. And so, you know, there's a lot of questions that are being asked about this and very few answers being provided.

It just kind of seems like it's being pushed away and kind of ignored, you know, the true implications of this, especially of this terms and condition. And, and, um, you know, that terms and condition, if an entity, whether it's state or local government agrees to take this, this funding, and they are found to be in violation of whatever, uh, policy, the, the contractor, um, uh, sets, then they will have to pay back the funding. So, um, you know, that's something that is, uh, that should be watched and how much does that actually get implemented? How much, how much is it actually triggered? I don't know. Um, but it is a hypothetical that it doesn't seem as being taken very seriously. This whole thing is so funny to me because you've got, like Paxson's the chief legal officer of Texas. Abbott had that same position. He was a Supreme Court justice, too. The Texas Municipal League, they employ people whose whole job is to pour through this code and answer the question, like, if we take this relief money, does that mean we have to do what the White House says? And all of these experts whose whole job it is is to answer questions like these and just kind of throwing up their hands. Yeah. Yeah. Or pointing in another direction. I asked the Texas Department of Emergency

Management because they're the ones that basically oversee the funding, handing it out to these members. And, you know, they have legal counsel. There's no way they don't. And I asked them and they said they pointed the finger towards the AG. And, you know, I mean, not entirely incorrectly either because the AG is the one that provides legal guidance in the form of his opinions. But there's definitely discussion about this behind the scenes. None of it's out there. And so these cities don't know what to do. And there's not much actual legal guidance out there on this issue.

Yeah. Now let's talk about what this means for the state and local governments that do accept this funding. Yeah. So we've already seen about 70, at least as of the writing of this article, about 70 reject it. Now they're not very large cities. The city of Brady is pretty small and most of the others have been in that category of smaller localities. But like I said, if they are found to be in violation of the terms of this contract, if it is indeed enforceable, then they will have to pay back the money if that is what the federal government decides. And, you know, it's not like we have two, a state government and a federal government that are on the same team here. They're in opposition on most issues. So there's a lot of contention. And I think overall what this means is there's a lot of, there's not a lot of clarity. And these places are having to choose between taking the money or protecting themselves from a vague hypothetical that they aren't really sure

if it is even enforceable or not. But it may be. And so, I think a lot of consternation is really what this comes down to. And the one, the people at the city of Brady that I spoke to, this was the big reason they rejected $1.3 million in coronavirus aid. And that was, you know, that's not a small amount of money for them. That's a very small city. And so that could help them defray the costs of a lot of things that they took on during COVID. So it's a tough decision in front of these places. Certainly. Well, thanks for breaking that down for us, Bradley. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Let's talk again about another San Antonio school district, but this one caught the attention for the sheer volume of library books that the district temporarily pulled from their shelves.

What's going on? Yeah, so this story comes from the Northeast Independent School District, which is actually my alma mater from the fifth grade. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that's where my mom taught art. We didn't quite live there, but she taught there, so that's where I went. Anyway, they pulled 414 books or titles from their library shelves in order to cull what they would call vulgar content. And I reached out to a spokeswoman for the district, and she confirmed that it could be vulgar text or images. And it is a temporary action.

They intend to, it's a review process, is what she said. They're not pulling them permanently. And they've already returned, I want to say say a little bit more than 100 to shelves. And she says that they anticipate the majority of the others will be returned as well. She also elaborated that this is a voluntary response to an investigation launched by State Rep Matt Krause into books that he deemed to be potentially sexually explicit or racially charged. Got it. Now remind us of the background of Krause's investigation. So acting as head of the General Investigating Committee of the Texas House,

State Rep. Matt Krause launched an investigation where he asked the TEA to get information from the school districts and charters in Texas on books that they have in their libraries. And specifically, he attached this 16-page list. I want to say there's something like 800 titles on the list. I don't quite know. 16 pages of book titles that he suspects could be vulgar or racially charged. And that was kind of the crux of his argument. And so he launched

this investigation with the hopes of learning from school districts how much they've spent on these books and how many copies of each title they have. And he did not ask districts to actually start this review themselves or pull them from their shelves or anything. So this is, it's interesting that any ISD would do this since they weren't compelled to do it by the investigation. Yeah, certainly the voluntary action is very interesting in all of this too. And Holly Hansen has a piece that will be going up very soon. It will be out by the time this podcast is out about parents' response to this

inquiry and how they're responding and taking matters into their own hands. So very interesting, Isaiah. Thank you for that coverage. Hayden, let's go back to the border. Let's talk about a big drug bust at the Brownsville Port of Entry, but specifically talk to us about what were the narcotics that these border agents seized and who were the suspects? There were multiple drug busts, actually, and it totaled almost $700,000 worth of narcotics. And obviously, that's a substantial street value. But there were a few different incidents that happened over the course of two days. The first one happened at Los Indias International Bridge. A 42-year-old man was driving a 2009 Dodge vehicle. And what

these press releases usually say is that they were flagged for secondary inspection, and then they use um either canine units or non-intrusive imaging systems uh or both to detect illegal contraband um i guess that's an oxymoron illegal contraband um but uh in this first incident which happened on wednesday the first of this month they found 24 pounds of alleged cocaine it was separated into 10 different packages. And the suspects in all three of these cases were American citizens. But that was confiscated. And then the other two occurrences took place the next day at the Matamoros International Bridge. There was a 47-year-old male suspect who was stopped in a 2000 Ford vehicle, and he allegedly had 21 pounds of cocaine in nine different containers.

The third incident was interesting because the suspect was considerably younger, but at the Gateway International Bridge, there was a 23-year-old woman who is from Laguna Vista, and she was taken into custody for allegedly transporting 17 pounds of methamphetamine in 13 different packages, and she was driving a 2011 Dodge vehicle. She had the most expensive haul of narcotics, totaling an estimated $333,776 is the estimate for the third incident. But altogether, they were $681,596 in estimated value. And again, we talked about illegal crossings by family units and unaccompanied minors earlier. But another big piece is the drug piece. And that's one of the reasons why drug cartels are so sophisticated is because it's a multi-billion dollar business. And there were 33,530 pounds of illegal drugs seized in October, according to the most recent CBP statistics. And of course,

much of that was meth and marijuana. And then of course, there were still thousands of pounds of cocaine and fentanyl seized as well as heroin. But that, of course, as we talked about earlier with the illegal crossings, that would only include the narcotics that were detected and seized. So that gives a little bit of a picture of how serious the drug problem is. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Hayden, for that. Daniel, let's move on here. The U.S. House passed a version of an annual defense spending bill several months ago, but now a new version has been passed. What were some of the big differences between these two proposals? So the big thing that's different between these two proposals, or at least very notable, is that the new provisions in the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act,

that was kind of compromised between the House and the Senate after some negotiations. Now it's still pending in the Senate, so we'll see what goes on there. There might be some more changes to this. But the big controversial items that were taken out included some things like adding women to the draft and also a quote red flag program for military members which would essentially through the military judicial system would allow courts to basically confiscate guns from military members those were two controversial provisions that kind of got some republicans a little bit shy from voting for it and they voted against it for those reasons but they took those votes or they took those provisions out and then republicans Republicans a little bit shy from voting for it and they voted against it for those reasons. But they took those votes or they took those provisions out.

And then Republicans were a little bit more open to voting for that. And there were a lot more Republicans who voted for the second version than for the first one. Now, as far as the price of this proposal, it's about the same price tag is going to be $778 billion, which is a pretty hefty sum for funding the military. It's actually $25 billion above what the president requested in his budget to Congress when he makes his congressional budget request. And so that's kind of the overall big picture of the differences between the two versions, the one that passed in September and then the one that passed just this week. Got it. Now, what were some of the policies contained in the new version of the bill? So there were several different policies that were contained in the new proposal that is now going to the Senate. Some of the notable things, it did talk about COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Under the proposal, the NDAA that just passed the House, the Secretary of Defense can still mandate COVID-19 vaccines for military members. Now, he can also list out what are the exemptions to those, whether it be medical or religious exemptions for that mandate. But the big difference here is that it's no longer allowed for dishonorable discharge. So a military member who doesn't get an exemption granted and is actually discharged from the military, it's now going to be, it has to be an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions if they're removed just for that sole reason of not having a vaccine. And that would be effective, it would be backdated to, I think, August 24th, and then two years after the bill goes into law. So those are the big differences with the COVID-19

vaccine that's still in the bill. So military vaccines still allowed, it just wouldn't be a dishonorable discharge. Now, as far as foreign policy, there's also some items that are interesting in there. One of the big debates has been with regard to Russia, especially since Russia has been building more forces around Ukraine. And there has been talk about a Russian invasion in Ukraine coming sometime soon. There's also has been talk about a russian invasion in ukraine coming sometime soon there's also been a big talk about the nordstream 2 pipeline which is a pipeline run running from russia to germany essentially what that pipeline does geopolitically germany wants that a lot of other european countries would benefit from it as well but uk Ukraine does not. And Ukraine is kind of at the mercy of Russia

in this situation. It also impacts Texas because Texas has had a lucrative operation of shipping over liquefied natural gas to these European countries who, and so you have, do they rely on Russia? Do they rely on the US and Texas heavily for their source of LNG? So, yeah. And for that reason, we've had several members from Texas, especially Senator Ted Cruz, and also Representative Michael McCaul from the Austin, Houston area. And he, and both of those members have really pushed for these economic sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the pipeline, the people who are making this, the companies that are involved in that construction. President Biden actually removed those restrictions. And so now there's been a push to put these back into the bill. That has not been put into the bill as it currently

stands on Thursday afternoon when we're recording this podcast. So we'll see what ultimately comes of that. But under the compromise that was released by the two House and Senate committees, that is not in there. Now, other foreign policy things that are in there, it also requires the president to make a withdrawal that the U.S. had earlier this year. There is going to be a required report under the bill that kind of dictates how successful the U.S. was in its mission over the past 20 years. Now, there's not a lot of focus on this report with the actual withdrawal itself and what went wrong there. There's some details, but it's not to the extent that there had been some amendments offered by Republicans to really get a more in-depth look at the withdrawal itself. Now, one exception to that, of course, that's kind of notable is that there would be required

an analysis of equipment that was left in Afghanistan and then also what the U.S. is going to do, what the policy is going forward. So those are some interesting things that are in the bill. Yeah, certainly. Well, talk to us about how Texas members voted on this bill. So like I mentioned earlier, because of the provisions, the controversial provisions that were moved out, such as the red flag provision and also the women in the draft provision. There were a lot more Republicans who voted for the bill this time. And so there were only actually four members from Texas who voted against the bill. Two of them were Democrats,

Representative Lloyd Doggett and Al Green. Some progressives were opposed to the bill for different reasons. And then you had more two Republicans, Representative Chip Roy and Louie Gohmert. So those two members also voted against the bill. Representative Roy actually released a statement that was a lot more detailed than the other members, kind of explaining why he voted against the bill. He said that he was grateful for a lot of the provisions that were removed and thanked the Republican leadership who really pushed to remove that. And he was actually one of the people who was pushing really hard to get the women in the draft provision removed. And so he said, quote, I cannot and will not in good conscience rubber stamp an NDAA that is 2,100 pages long that have had less than a day to review

and that contains so many provisions unrelated or even contrary to our national defense. Our service members deserve better, and so does the republic they defend. So that was his reasoning for voting against the bill. Okay, well, thank you for that. Now talk to us about next steps. Where are we at? Where does this bill head to next? So the bill still needs to go to the U.S. Senate and be approved there. There has been, you know, this was the text of this bill was released by both the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee. So this is seen as kind of a compromise in the final bill.

But there are Republicans who are kind of using this as leverage for different policies that they want to see implemented, such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions or some other different stuff. There's also been some concern about the military judicial system by Democrats in the Senate. So it's not a done deal yet,

but it is going to the Senate. It could be approved sometime soon. And we're kind of keeping an eye on that. Yeah, good stuff. Well, Daniel, thank you. Let's continue on with you. Let's cover a story that our reporter Holly Hansen wrote this week after she went to a campaign event featuring Representative Dan Crenshaw, as well as candidates Wesley Hunt and Morgan Luttrell. But the big story really that came out of that event was what Crenshaw said regarding his votes for funding a vaccine database system and military spending. But what exactly was it that he said that made headlines?

And so one of the things that he talked about at this event, he kind of took some shots at some other members in Congress and different people in the Republican conservative movement. He said, quote, we have grifters in our midst, not here in this room, I mean, in the conservative movement. And so he was really pushing back on the accusations that were made against him for voting for this legislation, HR 550. And, you know, people are saying, oh, he just, he wants to create a federal vaccine database system. And he said, quote, unfortunately, many Republicans are, many Republicans you trust are lying to you. They want you to believe that they stood strong against a,

quote, new vaccine database, but they're lying. There's no new database. Uh, he said, we just made current databases secure against federal government tracking. Um, so his argument was, uh, essentially that this is a legislation that was actually included in one of the, uh, COVID relief bills that was passed earlier this year by Democrats, um, that no Republican actually voted for. Um, and so he's saying that this bill is kind of revising something that was already done in that legislation and working really with state immunization record systems. And so he was saying, he says, quote, it is explicitly designed to improve data security and privacy protection. Republicans were rightly worried about this, which is why H.R. 550 was crafted with clear privacy safeguards to correct it.

We didn't want authoritarian blue state governors transmitting personal vaccination information to the CDC or have a hacker steal personal vaccine data. Yeah, absolutely. Now, there's a lot of confusion about what's actually in this bill and Crenshaw alleging that grifters are criticizing it for reasons that aren't legitimate. But talk to us about what these critics also something that the bill author has also emphasized, which the bill says, quote, or the bill says that the bill

authorizes grants to improve, quote, the secure bidirectional exchange of immunization record data among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governmental entities and non-government entities. And the bill author, Ann Custer, from New Hampshire, stated in a press release that the bill would actually enhance the security of

bidirectional exchange, and also said that the systems could be used to, quote, remind patients when they are due for a recommended vaccine. So essentially, the arguments against this bill is that it does kind of centralize these different state systems that are already existing texas does have a system like this where you know if you go to get a covid19 shot the doctor is required to put your data into a system that keeps track of that now there's some privacy measures put in place to try and safeguard that. But these systems are something that exists. And so people are concerned that this legislation would, by really emphasizing the quote, bidirectional exchange between different entities, would kind of centralize that in a way that could be used harmfully. Yeah, certainly. Now, he also, and we're running out of time here,

but very quickly, he also brought up a vote that we talked about earlier today, correct? did include that red flag provision and also the women in the draft provision. And he said, quote, the truth was that was not the final bill, and there was already a deal that there would be no such provisions in the final bill. We're actually voting on the final bill this week, and guess what? No red flag laws in there. And he said, again, he's calling some people grifters, specifically calling up the Congress of America, who pushed back against the NDAA and the red flag provision in there, saying that they were just trying to fundraise money with pushing back against this. Now, the Republicans didn't actually need to vote on the first bill in order for it to pass. The Democrats are a majority in the House.

But Crenshaw went ahead and voted in favor of the NDAA that had those provisions in there anyway. And his argument was that it's not the final bill. It was not the final bill, in fact, and that there was going to be certainly some disagreements in the Senate about the provisions in there. But the bill that he did vote on did include those provisions. Notably, he had also suggested previously that states should consider implementing red flag laws. After the shootings in 2019, he tweeted out a thread kind of saying that we do need to work on solutions for kind of curbing gun violence, saying, quote, the solutions aren't obvious, even if we pretend they are,

but we must try. Let's start with the TAPS Act. Maybe also implement state red flag laws or gun violence restraining orders. Stop them before they can hurt anyone. So that's just his position on red flag laws. He voted in favor of it in the ndaa but he said that he only did that because he knew it would be taken out got it well a lot of controversy

with all those comments thanks for breaking that down for us and holly hansen our houston reporter harris county area thank you for attending that and writing such an incredible piece on that boys let's move on to a fun topic it is christmas time in case you were unaware i want to make sure you are aware that it is officially christmas time and none of y'all can give me heck about it so no one told me that that it was christmas time i'm shocked and i'm so sorry i personally have dropped the ball so i apologize for that that's okay i forgive you nothing okay there you go isaiah is sticking his foot out into the air wearing some christmas socks

isaiah i'm so proud of you are they santa are they christmas tree are they what do we have they're snowmen snowmen that is awesome i specifically wore regular shoes today instead of boots to show these snowmen and see that that's important because it's unlikely or or a low probability that we will be building a snowman in texas anytime soon so i mean knock on wood right now hayden but and if we do it'll be like once or twice, maybe even in late January or something. It'll be like two feet tall. Yeah. And it'll melt in three hours. So we have to do things like snowman socks to make up for it.

I mean, I do have pictures of snowmen in front of the Texas Capitol. So it could happen. It could. I mean, that's pretty cool. Crossing our fingers. Okay. But the question for today, what is the best city to be in at Christmas time or just a city you want to visit at Christmas? I think cities can take on a whole new life, um, at

Christmas time, the decorations, the weather, whatever it might be kind of can change it. So what city is the best to be in at Christmas time or what cities you want to visit? Well, I always enjoyed being a bit of a homer here in Cincinnati. First of all, it actually has snow there. That's a big benefit. But we would always go to

the Christmas lights at the zoo, which was only a quarter of a mile away from where I lived on campus. And notably, you know, the zoo at the site of the horrendous murder of Harambe. May he rest in peace.

Oh, Lord. But yes, I was a short bit away from that when that awful murder occurred. You were in round zero. So going to see the lights there, that's always fun. We did that when I was a kid, too, only up at the Toledo Zoo. So I guess any place that has a zoo that puts lights up, I will add to my list there. But Cincinnati is also a heavily German town,

and so they have a lot of German Christmas traditions that are fun, much of which include beer. A favorite of yours, personally. I love it. What else, gentlemen? Well, outside of Robert Lee, where my grandparents live, the land is still there, obviously. I don't know if the same owner has it, but there used to be, every Christmas or December, I guess, they'd set up this big Christmas village looking thing out of lights. And it wasn't any of the physical plastic displays.

It was all shaped, drawn out with Christmas lights. But there was a nativity scene and stars and trees and everything. And that was always a really cool drive-by at night when we'd visit the grandparents. And it was right across from our field. And so that was cool. And in Robert Lee and Bront when they hang up, I guess there are a lot of towns that do this, but like the candy canes or holly light decorations, whatever, and every street light. But if I had, it had to be like an actual city city.

I feel like one of those European cities like Moscow, that'd be cool. Or does Moscow count as a European city? It's on our side of the, the Euro mountains, right? Is it? Okay. I don't know. I'm not looking at it. Considered Asia. Was I wrong about that? the euro mountains right is it okay i don't know i'm not looking at it considered asia was i wrong about that well there's a chunk of it where most of them live that's on the european continent

air quotes and then the big swath of it where not so many people live in asia where napoleon tried to invade oh really i don't know it was probably with the population centers I could just if if a whole army is going to freeze to death you'd think it'd be

the the eastern portion of Russia but the western portion is pretty cold too yeah well

I just want to see those big onion towers Russia is primarily in Asia too it's so easy for me to forget that fell for one of the classic blunders.

Never get involved. That's why I asked. I was like, I want to make sure that we know what we're talking about here. That would be cool. Moscow would be cool. Are there any other European cities that you would loop in with that and say? Well, I don't know their names, but they have big towers. Like Paris?

No. No, I'm imagining like cathedrals,rals i guess that's what i'm thinking of they probably got one yeah they do have a big one in paris how could i forget wait no no they don't just stop listening to me talk i don't know anything about geography i don't know hayden i'm enjoying this no is please continue. Didn't they have one that caught on fire? Yeah. Notre Dame. Are you talking about the cathedral in Paris? Yeah.

Yeah. Notre Dame. That was heartbreaking. Did the hunchback die in it? Brad, you are so irrefrentive. It hurts my soul. Goblin's mouths or gargoyles. Yeah. Makes me so sad.is would be up there i've been to paris never been there at christmas but that would be a really fun city to visit

hayden you should just take this away why me you're you're always because i trust you to save these kinds of conversations oh okay thank you. So I'm considering visiting this place. You might have heard of it. You might have not. But I think Seattle might be a fun place to visit. Should I visit Seattle, Mackenzie, during Christmas time? You know, I really think you should. Seattle is a wonderful place to visit at Christmas time.

Do they decorate well? I'm biased, certainly, but it really is lovely. I've been to Spokane around Christmas time, but not Seattle. I haven't been to the western part of Washington, only the eastern part. Okay. The eastern part is really fascinating, and Spokane's a cool town in a lot of ways, but Seattle is much cooler in that regard. I wish you'd been able to visit it like five years ago. It was totally different then, but it still is a great town to visit. I like that very much. I hope

the weather's good for you. It can get a little too rainy up there for a lot of people's taste. Why are you pronouncing it wrong? It's Spokane. What are you saying? You were pronouncing it wrong. It's not Spokane. It's Spokane. Everyone knows oh my gosh unreal um especially the guy from from texas or from

the dallas area who is nowhere who's from nowhere near spoke spoke how do you keep saying it spokane spokane that's not what you said a second ago. It's Spokane, Hayden. You had it exactly right. You're just coming up with different ways to mispronounce it now. Spokane. He's just messing with you. So Daniel, tell us what cities you would want to visit. Well, I would not say Spokane or Spokane or Spokane or any of those. One of the towns that I would like to visit again, and I don't think I've been there around Christmas time. I've been there in the fall, but not at Christmas time, is Branson, Missouri, which. Really? It is a random town. It's a, basically, if you think about going to Disney World, except it's like too expensive to go to Disney World.

So all these families from the Midwest, or I guess Brad wouldn't say the Midwest, but Arkansas, Oklahoma, even people from Texas. It's not the Midwest. You know what, Brad? Go away. We've had this debate. Maybe this should be our fun topic next time. Anyways, that's like their Disney world. They've got Silver Dollar City there, which they go all out with Christmas decorations and with the Christmas lights and trees and Christmas singing and just the whole shebang.

So that'd be fun to go to. That's awesome. That sounds incredibly fun. And what about you? I'd say my top city to go visit would be New York. I've never been to New York and visiting it at Christmas time is on my bucket list. I would just love to do the whole cliche ice skating christmas tree all that would just be on the top of my list to basically do all the things elf does in the movie

buddy the elf does in the movie that would be my dream um and then in another city i'm actually going to nashville this weekend and it'll be really fun to see nashville at christmas time so i'm excited for that um yeah and paris or london would be cool to go internationally but those are both pretty cliche choices as well but regardless i'd love to see them um cool but gentlemen any final, any final words for our listeners, things to add? Not one. Wow. Merry Christmas, I guess. Yeah. Merry Christmas.

Are you guys still there? It's too early to say Merry Christmas, though, because we're going to have a couple more before Christmas. Yeah, but you can say Merry Christmas now. It's December. Matt's been literally saying Merry Christmas all year. You can wait until our last podcast before Christmas to say to all a good night.

Oh, okay. Okay, so in the meantime, Merry Christmas. That's right, yeah. Did she get disconnected again? I think she got disconnected. Her last words were, are y'all still there? Yeah. We're still here.

She's not. We could just end with brad saying merry christmas yeah slowly fade in some jingly music i think it's gonna do yeah merry christmas are you guys still there okay well awesome um folks thank you so much for listening we so enjoy recording this podcast for you thanks for tuning in and making it worth our while we will catch you next week and merry christmas thank you all so much for listening if you've been enjoying our podcast it would be awesome if you would review us on itunes and if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News.

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