The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - February 3, 2023

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

Get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription to The Texan: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundup The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast. This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Gov. Greg Abbott appointing a full-time border security “czar”Abbott’s support for “education savings accounts” as a school choice proposalOne Texas lawmaker’s goal to sunset the Texas Sunset CommissionLawsuits against a federal ATF rule that would criminalize possession of pistol braces in some statesA possible settlement in the lawsuit of “whistleblowers” against Attorney General Ken PaxtonA criticism of public education lobbyists by school choice advocates over inconsistency in their agendaA new bill requiring companies to label products containing ‘human fetal tissue’The Texas oil and gas industry’s recovery last year from its fall in 2021A provocative drag event in North Texas where children were in the audienceAn East Texas judge whose murder spree shocked a small town ten years agoPower outages in Central Texas during the winter storm

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLillo here, and welcome back to the Texans' Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Governor Greg Abbott appointing a full-time border security czar. Abbott's support for education savings accounts as a school choice proposal. One Texas lawmaker's goal to sunset the Texas Sunset Commission. Lawsuits against a federal ATF rule that would criminalize possession of pistol braces in some states. A possible settlement in the lawsuit of whistleblowers against Attorney General Ken Paxton. A criticism of public education lobbyists by school choice advocates over inconsistency in their agenda. A new bill requiring companies to label products containing human fetal tissue.

The Texas oil and gas industry's recovery last year from its fall in 2021, a provocative drag event in North Texas where children were in the audience, and an East Texas judge whose murder spree shocked a small town 10 years ago. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy, everyone. It's Mackenzie DeLulo here. I'm here with Hayden, Cameron, Matt, and Brad. My gosh, we are all recording remotely today and trying our best to report the news as we can with this storm that

came in this week, particularly in Central Texas. Austin's been hit pretty hard. Brad, you've reported on a lot of it and we definitely are going to get into that today. But we'll see how we do with our connection problems. For some reason, when all of this service goes down, or excuse me, when all this power goes down, service service does as well so we'll see how we do today recording remotely at least i'm not writing articles on my phone from my car this time that heralds back to two years ago hey yep yep that was a time someone's gonna call me canadian because i just said a i just know i'm gonna get an email um well you you're wearing a Seattle Seahawks hat. So basically Canada. That's right. Basically. Unreal. You would be surprised at how many people from Seattle have

never been to Canada. That's an aside. But Hayden, we're going to go ahead and start with you so we can get into the meat here before our service dies or something goes wrong. I'm just trying to preemptively say that that will not happen. But Hayden, we're starting with you. Governor Abbott announced a new border security official here in Texas. Tell us about his new border security czar. What a name. I'll talk fast since apparently this podcast is doomed. The other day, Abbott appointed a new position in his, I won't say cabinet, but in his office to oversee border security. He's calling it his border security czar. He said it is a full-time job to tackle illegal immigration in Texas. So he appointed Mike Banks. Mr. Banks is a retired Border Patrol official. He retired just a few weeks ago after 23 years in United States Border Patrol. He will be stationed in the West Laco area,

but will report directly to Governor Abbott's office. Banks said, quote, I look forward to continuing to work with our stakeholders, our law enforcement partners in the community, and leveraging everything we can do to further protect our great state of Texas and the United States, end quote. And at this news conference, when Abbott announced that he would appoint banks as border securities are, he referenced the letter that he hand-delivered to President Biden when the president was in El Paso just a few weeks ago for a border visit. So Mr. Banks, I believe, will begin right away, and he will be the point person for border security policy in Texas. Talk to us about the tangible impact that this could have on the border crisis.

At our session kickoff event, as many of you listening know, we had a border security and immigration policy panel. It was an excellent discussion. I was thankful for all of our panelists. And a couple of them had some thoughts on Operation Lone Star that I found interesting. Representative Terry Canales said that he believed that we are not getting a return on investment for the $4 billion spent. And others say that this is more of a political spectacle for Abbott to show that he's tough on the border, but it isn't really reducing illegal immigration or having a real impact on reducing illegal crossings, or at least as Canales put it,

it's not having the impact that we're paying for. Abbott is openly keeping his name on the table for a possible 2024 presidential run. He recently said he hasn't ruled it in yet, but he is certainly considering it. So there are political undertones to this, but this is just the latest in a series of actions. It's hard to believe that it's been almost two years since Operation Lone Star began, but it has been a considerable amount of time and we have an election right around the corner. But Republicans have repeatedly pointed to the escalating numbers of apprehensions and arrests and other encounters along the southern border under the Biden administration. So this is Abbott's latest step to use state resources to address that.

You saying an election is right around the corner gave my heart palpitations. We just started the session and we're already looking ahead to the election. But that's how these cycles work, right? It's just the nature of the game. And we saw reports that Nikki Haley is already about to announce her presidential run. So it's just, it's incredible. There's almost no gap now between election cycles. One cycle ends and you have another one starting already. So it is interesting. Gosh, I'm just not ready for it. I just want the session to go on with us being able to focus on that entirely. But that's a wish list item. Who knows if that'll be the case? Hayden, thanks so much. Brad, let's pivot to the governor here. He made a very big

announcement this week, kind of giving a hint as to what the legislature might be tackling, particularly what they might be tackling that the governor would sign and approve. What did he have to say? So after a year of hyping up school choice reform and the potential push behind it in the legislature, Abbott finally discussed his preferred method. And that method is through education savings accounts. It's an increasingly popular option over the old preferred medium of vouchers. They're similar, but not exactly the same.

Governor Abbott said during the event in Corpus Christi, parents should not be held helpless. They should be able to choose the education option that is best for their child. The way to do that is with education savings accounts. We've seen them work in other states and we've seen them work in the state of Texas also. What he's referring to there is kind of a much smaller pilot program

that the governor instituted with COVID emergency orders to establish some sort of ESA program for students with disabilities. And so I think it's either $'s either 1200 or $1,500 per enrollee in that these parents can access that money and use that for whether it's tutors or tuition or a number of different education costs for their children specifically that are, that have special needs.

But the governor wants to expand that to every student in the state. What's the difference, technically speaking, between these ESAs, these education savings accounts and vouchers, which we hear a lot about in policy discussions? So non-substantively, the difference is that ESAs are not as politically charged of a term. Vouchers are kind of a third rail, a political third rail condemningly of, quote, vouchers. And so, that itself, the messaging side, there's the difference. But on the two functions themselves, where vouchers are typically checks given to parents from the state for specifically tuition purposes often exchanged just between the the state and the accredited institution esas are accounts funded with state dollars with which parents may direct toward any number of educational purposes including tuition but could be used for

school materials, laptops or tutors, things like that. It's much more broad in scope. And then the other big thing is that while ESAs are generally more flexible in purpose, they do not allow families to simply pocket the dollars, depending on the kind of voucher program you have, whether the parents actually get a hold of the physical check that they then use for tuition. ESA's parents never have. They can't just use that to supplement their own income, basically. Talk to us about any legislation that's been filed specifically relating to this preferred item that the governor's talked about. Yeah. So Senator Mays Middleton has filed a Senate bill 176. That's, at least as far as I'm aware,

the only ESA bill we've seen so far. We might see one, considering with how much oomph the governor and lieutenant governor are putting behind this. We might see one, considering with how much oomph the governor and lieutenant governor are putting behind this. We might see the blessed version put in the Senate's priority slate of bills. But this bill by Middleton would create these things called parental empowerment accounts, essentially ESAs. These accounts may be used for a wide range of purposes, such as tuition, class materials, tutor fees, or devices such as laptops and calculators. Middleton said after the news broke of Abbott's statement, he said, thank you to Governor Abbott for fighting to pass educational choice for every child in Texas. Parents matter. Education savings accounts will allow money to follow every child and allow parents to decide which educational options work best for their children's unique needs. We're going to see a big fight on this in the legislature.

We've talked about this recently. The Lieutenant Governor addressed concerns about how this would affect the funding for rural school districts. That's generally the biggest criticism of school choice reform, although not the only one. But the state officials seem to be pretty, at least the top two, lieutenant governor and governor, seem to be quite really behind this issue and will, I think, push it until the very end. I'm excited to see how it all ends up and what the final bill on the table, whether it's confirmed and passed both chambers or not, but the last bill that folks kind of settle on what that ends up being. Thank you, Brad, for your coverage. You also published a piece this week

on Texas's sunset review process. Give us a preview of that piece. So at an oil and gas industry meeting last summer, representative Tom Craddock, the former house speaker who's been in office since the 1970s, said, we need to quote sunset the sunset commission. So that kind of got me. i heard that and i was like oh story idea there we go um so i looked into it and this piece lays out the history of the sunset process uh and the commission that oversees it has been in operation since 1977 when the legislature established it in response to events that eroded public trust in government such such as the Vietnam War and Watergate and the fiscal turmoil that we saw happen in the 70s.

So they established this and every agency or board that is sanctioned by the state must be reviewed and renewed every 12 years. It's a lengthy process. The review usually takes up to and sometimes more than a year to complete. Um, and so the agency, the sunset advisory advisory commission, which runs this is, uh, quite large and they deal with, uh, list fielding comments, reviewing the agencies themselves, taking comment from these agencies, um, self-analysis. And so then they basically present the findings to the legislature and the

legislature can either, uh, renew it outright, make changes, things like that. So, uh, but when it gets to that point, we see a lot of, a lot of things happen as, as usually occurs, like, especially on the house floor, uh, legislators have broad, um, discretion to, you know, amend bills, these included. And so we see a lot of legislation kind of, um, attached to the sunset renewal bill, renewal bills, you know, like barnacles to a ship. They hang on there. Previously dead legislation also is attached to these.

And that, along with the actual rejection rate or sunset rate of these agencies, is kind of what encompasses the criticism by Craddock and others like him. Representative Briscoe Cain is one that's criticized it. But generally, the criticism is of what the sunset process has become, not that it exists in the first place. That's generally something that everyone likes about Texas. It is a pretty unique process and it's a lot more robust than many other states. And it for a long time was unique. No other state has anything like this. So I get into a lot more details in the piece. Recommend you if that interests you, check it out. Another person that's criticized this was former speaker Joe Strauss. And i mentioned that in there so it's an odd array of of critics on this but regardless i don't think we'll see any actual

legislation to sunset the sunset process occur uh it hasn't picked up steam previously even with a speaker behind some sort of reform but it's an interesting situation nonetheless, especially because of how much it deals with during a session. Absolutely. Definitely worth checking out. Thank you, Bradley. Matt, we are coming to you. The federal government issued an administrative rule that outlaws millions of firearms currently held privately. Tell us about this sudden change in federal law and why gun owners are not happy. That's right, Mackenzie. On Tuesday, the ATF, which is the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, published an administrative rule that includes firearms

with pistol braces under their interpretation of the statutory definition of a short-barreled rifle, which is what is known as an NFA weapon or the National Firearms Act. Now, NFA weapons, which include machine guns and silencers, require the payment of a $200 tax when they're purchased, an extensive background check that can sometimes take over a year for the federal government to perform before you are allowed to take possession of an NFA weapon that you're trying to purchase. Now, gun owners have one of two options register their firearms uh right now uh by them directly by themselves which limits who they can allow to shoot the gun uh or if the gun was placed in a trust before tuesday they could place it in a trust which allows you to add trustees and allow more people to shoot the gun.

The ATF also says they're waiving the $200 tax for a 120-day period since the publication of the rule and allowing gun owners to register their guns within that period of time. And then after that, they will enforce the law as an unregistered firearm, which is a felony. in gun laws and gun rights issues, and that since most federal gun control laws came into play in the 30s and in the 70s, you have an entire new era of firearms designs that have kind of fallen between the cracks, as some gun rights activists describe with what the current statutory definition says. A classic example is the very commonly held AR-15 rifle, which if you put a barrel on it that's under 16 inches long, it becomes an NFA weapon. But if you remove the stock and put one of these pistol braces on it, the federal government for the past 10 years has recognized it to be a pistol, which does not fall under the NFA. Under pressure from the Biden administration, the ATF reversed its years long stance and decided to issue this administrative rule, stretching the application of the statutory definition to these firearms. We spoke with a gun store owner and Second Amendment rights activist, Michael Cargill, who recently prevailed before a full panel of the

U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, striking down a similar rule that was imposed by the Trump administration banning bump stock devices. And if you compare that case with this case, there were so many similar circumstances. The ATF for many years had said that the device was completely legitimate. And then under public pressure, political pressure, the administrations tried to apply the statutory definition to apply to the weapon. And the full panel of the Fifth Circuit in that instance said that that wasn't allowable and they struck the rule down, thusly legalizing bump stocks within the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit. Now, Cargill says that the precedent he said in his case, Cargill v. Garland, is great precedence for

several lawsuits that have been filed, and I'm hearing that more are on the way, on behalf of two Texas residents, one from Amarillo that was filed in the Northern District of Texas and one filed by attorneys with the Texas Public Policy Foundation on behalf of a resident in the Eastern Federal District of Texas. And they will be seeking to have the rule blocked, citing essentially the same similar arguments that Cargill prevailed on. While these cases have not been referred to judges yet, eventually they will, and we'll be waiting to see whether or not the judges block this new law or how long it will take for gun owners, if they do, to prevail in courts. Spicy stuff, Matthew, as always. Thanks for reporting on that. As our Second Amendment reporter, we appreciate it. Hayden, we are going to come to you. This is fascinating. It's been a

decade since the beginning of a series of very shocking murders in Kaufman, Texas. Tell us about the murders of Mark Hosse. I think I said that correctly. Mike McClelland and Cynthia McClelland. so shocking because it sounds like something that might happen in a third world country or in some war-torn part of the planet. But this happened between Dallas and Tyler, which made it feel really close to home because I remember seeing all the media coverage about this when it first happened. I grew up in the Dallas area and in East Texas. So it was a lot of the geography of this case is familiar to me. But on January 31st, 2013, a former judge who had lost his law license after he was convicted of theft and lost his office as justice of the peace, gunned down the prosecutor who participated in his prosecution in broad daylight right outside the county courthouse. Mark Hasse was brutally murdered as he was on his way to work on that Monday morning. And he, as I mentioned, was one

of the people who had prosecuted Eric Williams for stealing about $600 worth of computer monitors from the county. Eric Williams had been a member of the Texas State Guard. He had grown up as a Boy Scout. He had been in Kauffman for years. This was his fiefdom almost. Obviously, he wasn't in charge of the whole county, but he had a lot of influence there. He had an arsenal of weapons, and he had made comments that had disturbed people. There are so many details about this case that I wasn't able to get to in the piece, but suffice to say, he had originally been elected in 2010. He was a Republican who defeated a Democratic incumbent for justice of the peace. And he murdered Mark Hasse on January 31 of 2013.

Two months later, he barged into the home of District Attorney Mark McClelland and his wife, Cynthia, and he brutally murdered them with an AR-15. And Mike McClelland and Eric Williams also had a long history as political opponents. They strongly disliked one another. And Mike McClelland was, of course, in charge of the prosecution of Williams for that theft from the courthouse. And it's hard to imagine that a case that began with a theft case worth about a few hundred dollars ended with three people being senselessly murdered. But that's the nature of this case. And it's unfathomable. It's hard to wrap my head around the loss that that community suffered.

Yeah, I think the takeaway there is just like you were saying, the response for this, you know, $600, several hundred dollars worth of theft being prosecuted, being the murder of three people is just unfathomable and absolutely unbelievable. You spoke with a bestselling true crime and mystery series author. I lost my mind when you told me this. So cool. What did Catherine Casey have to say as she reflected on this case? Well, like you said, Catherine Casey has many bestsellers. She's written about more true crime cases that I can count on both hands. In Texas specifically, she's from the Houston area. And it was a privilege to speak with her about this. When I originally messaged her, she messaged me back and said, has it really been 10 years? Because it doesn't seem like that long ago.

She talked about her memory of being the only person to interview Eric Williams on Death Row. Spoiler alert, he was sentenced to death for killing those three people. But she told me that Williams did not strike her as someone who would kill three people. And sitting down with him when she visited him on death row, he seemed like a normal person having a conversation, cracking jokes. And then she would remember what he had done. And it's hard to believe that somebody who can do something that horrible can seem so normal when you're talking to them face to face. Eric Williams' wife is also in prison because she participated in planning the murders. She drove the getaway car after Hassee's murder. And she was also present with Williams in the car

when he killed the McClellans. So she is serving a 40-year prison sentence for her crimes as well. But one of the parts of my conversation with Casey that was interesting to me is I asked her if there were any lessons that the average person could take away from it. And it's always hard in cases like this because you don't want anything to sound like victim blaming or any kind of shifting of responsibility. Because Casey emphasized this over and over. There is no excuse or justification for what Eric Williams did to those three people. And she made that abundantly clear to me. This case, however, is a cautionary tale of what can happen when law enforcement becomes personal. And that's what Casey imparted to me in our conversation. This town, she described it as an incubator of all of these vendettas and resentments

between these two guys. And I'm still working my way through her book about this case. But dating back to McClellan's first run for district attorney back in 2005, eight years before he was killed, Eric Williams had written an editorial in the newspaper opposing his first run for DA, and he had lost by 60 or 70 votes. So they went way back. Everybody involved were Republicans, but they still had a long political history of being in opposition to one another. And when Williams stole these computer monitors, it became McClellan's responsibility to prosecute him. And he did his job and Williams chose to commit capital murder. And now he will likely pay for it with his

life. And as you just said, you know, a judge sentenced Williams to death in 2014. What is the status of his appeals? This case has been all over the court system. In 2018, his lawyers made sweeping arguments against capital punishment. Like most death penalty defendants do, they tried to get the Supreme Court to intervene in this case, but they declined. And the Texas Supreme Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has declined his appeals multiple times. And at this point, it would take something extraordinary to spare his life from the Texas death chamber. So his case has, he's been on death row for almost a decade now. And there are very few issues left in the case to debate. So I don't see an appeal being successful. And his time is probably running out.

To say the least. And folks, as Hayden said, this is a very fascinating story. And I would very much encourage you to go to the text in and read the full story that Hayden wrote this week. And just unbelievably fascinating. And like he said, it sounds like something that would happen somewhere besides Kauffman, Texas. It does not sound like something that would take place in a small rural town, just murder in broad daylight for a much smaller crime committed beforehand. So, fascinatingly tragic. Definitely go and check out that story and even that book by Catherine Casey. Hayden, thanks for your coverage. Matt, let's go back to school choice here. It's quickly rising up to be

one of the big issues this session. And supporters of school choice have some interesting observations and things to say about the legislative agendas of those who oppose school choice. We have both sides going at it rhetorically and factually. What is this contradiction rhetorically and factually that seems to be in play here? That's right, Mackenzie. And it's going to be a hard act following up on a story after listening to Hayden's remarkable tale. I'm still sitting on the edge of my seat after listening to that. But this was an interesting issue to research as well. Major opponents to school choice this session include Raise Your Hand Texas, which is a lobby organization. And they highlight in their legislative agenda

that their opposition to school choice is due to several reasons, including a lack of fiscal and academic transparency that private schools have, essentially saying that they don't measure up to the same levels as public schools. that calls for reforms or alterations to those current academic accountability mechanisms that public schools are presently subject to, namely the STAR test and similar types of testing that are requirements for graduation, etc. Now, supporters of school choice, including the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is a conservative think tank based in Austin, with their expert on education, Mandy Drogon, that we spoke with, described these agendas as being in conflict with each other and pushed back on the overall narrative, saying that school choice policy they will support contains both fiscal and academic accountability metrics. Specifically on the contradiction that seems to be in play here is that, in a nutshell, they oppose school choice because they don't have the same testing standards that the public schools use, yet they are advocating against those present academic testing standards for themselves. Now, we reached out to Raise Your Hand Texas for comment regarding this story, and they did not respond to our questions. But we did talk at length with Drogon over this issue. And we highlighted a lot of the more in-depth details

and exactly what is being said and go into a little bit of detail on exactly what these tests are that K-12 education is subject to and what some of these advocates are wanting to transition to. All that can be checked out on our story on the Texan.news. Awesome, Matt. And we'll continue to talk to opponents of school choice and advocates for school choice that we can provide best coverage we can as the session moves forward and these policy proposals begin to take shape. So, Matt, thanks for this beginning story. We appreciate your coverage. Cameron, we're coming to you week two of the pod. We're so excited that

you are once again joining us. You wrote a story this week that Senator Bob Hall, Republican from North Texas, has recently filed a new bill that would require the labeling of all food, medical and cosmetic products that may include human fetal tissue. So what's interesting about this is the FDA has actually made statements before. They actually had an email statement to the Associated Press where they said they were not aware of any company ever putting fetal cells in a food product. So that's the FDA stating that. But we know that cosmetic products have used fetal tissue in their products before. There was a controversial case by a company called Neocutis that they put out a statement admitting that they had used cultured skin cells of an aborted fetus in some of their products, along with we know pharmaceutical research and development commonly use the fetal cell lines to develop and produce a variety of their pharmaceutical products. So this will be interesting to see how this goes along. Absolutely. Thanks for your coverage of that issue.

And certainly something that will follow throughout the rest of the legislative session. And like you, I think you mentioned in this story, Oklahoma has passed something or tried to pass something very similar. So we've seen this before just in different states, but I don't believe it passed there. I don't believe it even made it out of committee in Oklahoma. Is that true? That's right. They proposed something all the way back in 2012. So as you can see, this has been going on for years and other states have tried to pass similar things. Oklahoma didn't get out of committee. So we'll see how far it gets here in Texas.

There you go, Cameron. Thanks so much for your coverage. We appreciate it. Brad, a Texas Oil and Gas Association released a report on how the industry of dollars coming in. Looking back at the previous year's GRPs, the one this year really, well, the collection of the three really illustrates the economic disruption caused by the pandemic and the government-mandated shutdowns. That GRP total in 2020 was $278 billion. The next year in 2021, it dropped to $200 billion. And then now it has since last year jumped up to $320 billion. And so that is quite a bit of volatility over three years. The overall employment total in the industry is currently at about $347,000, with an average annual wage of $140,000. It's a pretty high average wage for an industry.

But the largest portion of the added jobs came in support services for oil and gas operations that would seem to indicate that operations are obviously growing and all the ancillary type of jobs and operations that assist that need to ramp up as well and adjust for that growth. And similarly, the production of oil and natural gas is on the rise. As of October, it was on pace to eclipse its production levels from 2021 in both oil and natural gas. So overall, the oil and gas industry had a pretty good year, especially compared with the previous year that featured a lot of turmoil. Absolutely. So what does this mean going forward? So while challenges still lie ahead, the oil and gas industry, and particularly Texas' oil

and gas industry, has rebounded quite well from the depths of the pandemic. Then it saw oil futures prices plunge toward negative $40 per barrel. We saw that in April, 2020. That was quite shocking. But overall, we've seen gasoline prices increase. Of course, a lot goes into that, but at root, it is tied to oil and gas production. That's the most easily understandable for the average person. But we saw a lot of companies, at least during the latter half of 2020 and maybe the first part of 2021, either shutter operations or struggle to to grow operations and then since then last year especially we've seen the opposite happen really featuring a lot of growth so overall it seems pointed in the right direction but when you add in feelings about supply chain disruption uh federal government regulation. There's still some

potential bumps in the road toward a huge influx of investment in the industry. Thank you, Bradley, for breaking it down for us. Cameron, we are coming back to you. You wrote a story on a very provocative drag event in North Texas for this week. What was different about this event compared to others that have happened in the state? So this event was a bit different just because of the social media attention that it got. So we saw this event was being advertised for 18 and over 21 and over but uh it was actually attended by the a blaze tv host sarah gonzalez who who had video of the event that showed minors in attendance at this drag event and um what caught fire on social media about the video is a lot of the language was very explicit. You could see the children in the video grabbing money off the ground and running around. So it

was very plain to see that this was a event that was with families, had children, so there wasn't any cover-up or hiding what was going on. And what we also saw as well was it was being guarded. As it was being reported, it was being guarded by armed Antifa members. So this is, again, something we're continuing to see across Texas. We've seen similar events. I know the Drag Your Kids to Pride event that happened in Dallas was quite a shocking thing and caught fire again on social media and had a lot of comments and actually prompted a state investigation. And so we've seen comments from legislators and public officials saying they want to do something about these drug events with children present that continue to occur here in

Texas. And we've actually seen Nate Schatzlein out of Fort Worth, he actually recently introduced a House bill that would update the definition of what is a sexually oriented business to include drag performances. So you can see there's some steps being taken to help protect children around these types of events. Well, thank you for your coverage there, Cameron. We appreciate it very, very much. Hayden, we are coming to you. The attorney general is reportedly negotiating with those who accused him of firing them

for reporting their suspicions of abuse of office. It's been an ongoing battle for years now. Could this be the beginning of the end of Paxton's legal troubles? I didn't realize how dramatic that question sounded until you read it back to me. I would just be the beginning of the end, the beginning of the end. The apocalypse is nigh. No, I don't think Paxton will ever not be ensnared in some kind of legal controversy. So I'm going to say no on that count.

But one of the whistleblowers in this reported mediation agreement that is in the works is not participating because he does not want any type of settlement, apparently. And this was first reported by the Dallas Morning News. I believe these are publicly available court documents. But the Texas Supreme Court is not beholden to what is being negotiated. And they don't have to obey what the parties say anyway. But he still has the securities fraud indictment that has never gone to trial. And that's separate from this to give everyone a brief rundown on what these whistleblower allegations say. A few years ago, he was accused by many employees of using the office of the attorney general to benefit a friend of his who was a real estate developer named Nate Paul. It was also said, alleged that Paxton had an affair with a woman who was later hired by one of Nate Paul's companies. So that allegation

hangs over this case. But four of these so-called whistleblowers were fired by the office. Paxton says it was because of things that you fire employees for and that it's not illegal for him to dismiss employees to who he believes are not performing their jobs well. But these employees say that he fired them out of retaliation. And this case has made it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which is where the settlement negotiations are taking place. But like I said, only three of the four whistleblowers, as they call themselves, are in negotiation with Paxton's legal team. So I doubt that it will be the end of Paxton's legal troubles by a long shot. Certainly. And even to your point at the beginning

saying this is likely not the end, he is the state's lawyer. So he is in fact involved in a lot of these kind of legal battles. Anyways, this is a totally different nature than the things he as an official in Texas engages himself in. But he's in the news. He's sued all the time. This is just part of the deal. This is very different though. And so to your point, I don't think he'll be out of any sort of legal heat anytime soon because of this very personal matter or because of his, the nature of his job. So those are two different things that we're talking about here. What has been the focal point of Paxton's service as attorney general? Well, you're right that there's a major difference between Paxton being sued or indicted personally and Paxton doing his job as the chief law enforcement officer of Texas

and acting as the government's attorney. And the reason that this has a nexus to his official role is there are those who say that all of this is a political hit job because of his political stances. And he has sued the Biden administration nearly a dozen times over illegal immigration. That has been one of his main projects, especially since January of 2021. He's also done things like gone after companies that are responsible for the opioid crisis. And like Cameron just talked about, he's gone after some of what he calls woke guidelines for requiring, as proponents would frame it, equitable or equal treatment of those of all sexual orientations and gender identities. So he has made social issues and

border security prominent parts of his administration. And some say that there are politics entangled in this. Supporters of Paxton specifically believe that he is being pursued relentlessly because of his political stances. Meanwhile, many of these, his personal legal troubles remain unresolved. Two very different things. Thanks for your coverage and breaking that down for us, Hayden. Brad, we're going to come to you and talk about the elephant in the room for us here in Austin and those throughout Central Texas. This weather that we've been having, and all across the state, there have been outages and freezing weather. But I think the vast majority of this particular storm hit central Texas pretty hard. The hill country and the surrounding counties and areas.

Talk to us a little bit about what we're hearing about what happened, what caused this specifically, and what we can expect going forward. Let me put the cart before the horse a bit and say, first off, this is not a power grid issue. Despite what I am seeing some people on the Twitters say, the ERCOT power grid has had a surplus of power this entire week. of about 10,000 megawatts of wind generation icing up, as the Public Utility Commission chairman said, out in West Texas. That said, this week we saw a cold blast come through Texas, and it caused power outages. Currently, there are about 400,000. Actually, now it has dropped to about 350,000 across Texas, customers out of power. And if you look at the map, it generally goes from about San Antonio

northeasterly up towards the edge of the DFW Metroplex all the way up to the very north part of Texas. And central Texas has been hit hardest with outages. Austin Energy is getting a lot of the attention and rightfully so because of the 350,000 customers currently out of power, 150 are within Austin Energy. And the second most in terms of raw number is Encore. Encore services about 3.8 million compared with Austin Energy, about half a million. So the percentage breakdown there is just astounding.

Additionally, something I just saw a little bit ago, Milam County actually has the highest percentage of outage, but more than half of customers in Milam County are out of power. So on Thursday, two days after state officials, including Greg Abbott, held a press conference on the inclement weather and emergency conditions. City of Austin officials held a press conference and they discussed why this is happening, all due to downed power lines,

localized issues, power lines down from either ice accumulating on them itself or tree branches with ice accumulation then breaking and falling on power lines and so that is the the main cause of this uh again no issue with the power grid there's plenty of generation on online and uh we just saw well, actually at first Austin Energy estimated that these outages would only last 12 to 24 hours. And that was on Tuesday. Then this morning when I was at their press

conference, they stressed that they expected power for everyone or almost everyone to be restored by Friday at 6 p.m. And now this afternoon, they released a tweet that said, actually, we don't know when this is going to be resolved. So the goalposts are moving. I'm sure they are learning things that they didn't know before about the situation. Uh, but we keep seeing the estimated time of restoration or point of restoration change. And that is quite frankly, pissing a lot of people off.

Um, and so, uh, that's totally understandable. Um, but there's a long road to go on this. Uh, it is not even close to as bad as the 2021 blackouts

here in austin we are now back above freezing so everything is starting to melt road conditions are at least when i went out earlier today totally fine um but there has been a lot of, a lot of issues caused by something that probably shouldn't cause a lot of problems. Um, but we see, you know, power lines coming down and, and there is no way getting around that. So, um, crews are working overtime to try and fix that. And crews are working overtime to get this through over the line. They've actually, Austin Energy has contracted with surrounding utilities to bring in their own crews. But we don't know when the power is going to come on on and there's going to be a lot of fallout,

I think from this, but we shall see where it goes. Fun for the new mayor, Kirk Watson to be introduced to some, uh, big responsibilities, right? As he's entering his office,

a note about that. He was at the presser and he started off saying that the cities and Austin Energy's communication during this has been unacceptable. He said that the presser they held today was held two days too late. And so he was quite upset about what has gone on, especially in terms of communication. But I'm not sure if that snowball is going to roll down the hill. We'll see. Who knows?

Okay, well, we're going to move on to the tweeter-y section here and wrap this up at a punctual time here. And Hayden, since you're making me laugh on this podcast by sending things in the chat, I am making you go first. What is your tweeter-y from this week? I'm sorry.

I'm distracting everyone while they're trying to do their jobs. I saw a very helpful Twitter thread about the Notes app and iPhone. I did not know that you can scan documents with the Notes app and upload them to your phone as a PDF document. So thank you to Marius Hocken on Twitter for pointing that out in a very helpful thread about Notes features and other iPhone bells and whistles that I did not know about. I think you can actually, from your notes app, also sign documents. There's a ton of features of things you can do. I know because I used it this week to sign something that Matt needed. I had to use my notes app to make it happen.

Very helpful. Well, and you redeemed yourself. So thank you very much. Brad, I'm going to you next because yours is in all capital letters and that obviously caught my attention obviously right uh so i have actually two animal related tweets i want to discuss uh first of all they have finally located the escaped monkeys in the dallas. They were missing. Um, they are tamarin monkeys and they had been missing for a couple of days. I think it got so bad that the zoo offered a $25,000 reward for finding these monkeys. And so I don't know if that's,'s uh if someone cashed in on that i hope someone did

just because you know that's quite a bit of money and uh it's it's funny um but we should have gone to north texas as a group and and hunted some tamarind monkeys we could have done it the last time i will say john parks Rec, the radio show that appears a couple of times. I think Hayden might be the only one who gets this reference. Oh no, Parks and Rec is not. Hayden, you know Parks and Rec, right? No, it's The Office. You know The Office.

Dang it. But there's a radio host who goes thought for your thoughts and speaks really quietly and it's hilarious. Cameron, do you know what I'm talking about okay he does Brad's tone talking about the monkeys reminded me of that character because the way Brad

was speaking into the mic and kind of looking off into the distance made me think of this Parks and Rec bit it really made me laugh I hope somebody listening understands what I'm talking about anyway Brad you can continue thank you for interrupting me cameron thank you for laughing i appreciate you laughing even though it's on mute some people think i'm all alone this uh

this monkey business comes after uh a uh some sort of uh exotic cat got out of the zoo too so uh it was a leopard leopard leopard yeah i hey i said some kind of cat they said the leopard wasn't dangerous and i didn't believe yes that's right that's right hayden did talk about this a couple or a week or two ago um the other animal related tweet that i just had to mention is that there was a beached whale that popped up and it was in on long island actually and so a humpback whale and so it reminded me of the greatest video in the history of recorded video in 1970 a whale washed up on an oregon beach and it was dead and so what did the residents of this small small Oregon town decide to do to get rid of the carcass? They stuffed it full of dynamite and TNT and blew it to smithereens. And so you should definitely, there's a video of it, a live recording.

There's like a local reporter recording the explosion and then it's just raining down with whale guts and blubber yes it is the funniest thing I've ever seen and so yes but it's like the local newscasting

again is like what's cool about it because they talk so factually about it as if okay we're going to blow this whale up here and it's like the local newscasting again is like what's old about it. Cause they talk so factually about it as if, okay, we're going to blow this whale up here. And they talk, it's just amazing. Everything about it is incredible. I mean,

they probably didn't have a lot of resources, certainly nothing to get rid of a freaking whale carcass. So what would you do? Especially, I'm sure this idea came, was decided on by a few guys that were drinking at the bar just uh talking about this this whale you know what you know how we should get rid of this thing let's just blow it up blow it to smithereens and you know what they that's what they did

and the fact that it's from the 70s and grainy uh camera footage makes it even better too it's true now you're gonna have to tweet this podcast out when it's uh released with that clip i'd be happy to it's a phenomenal video we all love it um okay well thank you bradley for that it truly is a delight um cameron why don't you go next? Yeah. So I know everyone just thinks today is Groundhog Day and they pay attention to Pennsylvania. Does the groundhog see its shadow or not? But in true Texas fashion, we have created Armadillo Day and we have our own predictor and his name is BK Bob. OK, BK Bob. And this tradition started up 10 years ago. Had no idea. I was just on Twitter, saw this pop up, thought it was hilarious. For some reason, though, I've been glued to BK Bob's Twitter.

No, I don't know what's going on, but it's been canceled the past two years because of the weather, because of the shutdown. So this was going to be the first year in three that we were going to get a prediction from BK Bob. But I haven't seen it yet. We know the groundhog saw a shadow, or it didn't see a shadow. Which one was it? I have no idea. Six more weeks of winter. What does that mean?

I forgot. I have no clue. We'll have to look it up, and you should tweet that out tomorrow. If he sees a shadow, he's supposed to run back in his little burrow, and that is supposed to be six more weeks of winter. Okay.

So he saw a shadow. So that's what the groundhog's saying. But here in Texas, we have our armadillo, B-Cave Bob. Update us, please. Let the tech know. The three greatest instances of

pop culture-ness related to groundhogs are uh um groundhog day the movie of course then um that's the movie caddyshack and the other one is the fact that

bill de blasio murdered punxsutawney phil by dropping him what was it like four or five years ago he was holding up the groundhog and dropped him and it killed the ground oh my gosh i did not know that unbelievable okay well on that note that delightful little note matt we're gonna come to you what is... Wrap us up with something good. What's your tweeter-y from this week? Well, I was just going to mention a historical aspect. But since we're talking about animals and everything like that, I thought I would mention something else that I saw

that's been rather amusing. So there are these viral short videos uh by this girl that is just simply kind of known as the texas bee lady and uh she has this um very uh interesting captivating voice where she um shows this little video where she gets called out because there's some bees uh and she collects them and and she doesn't wear any protective gear uh and um and during this time she'll be like i found the bees here and the bees were so calm and i was calm with them and i gently scooped up the bees and I put the bees into the box and then I found the queen and it's just very very captivating and uh the most hilarious thing that I saw was a video posted by actor Chris Pratt where uh uh he uh he has a big swollen eye

and he's all so I've been watching thisas bee lady and her out there not wearing any protective gear and he's like so i saw a bee and i thought well bees are friendly i'll go up and say hello to this bee just like the texas bee lady sees the bee and he's like and this is what it got me you know the bee stung me right by the eye and so it was rather hilarious but yeah they're they're very hilarious videos uh the historical aspect that i was going to mention, though, was the fact that today in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago was signed, which designated the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico as the southern% of its territory, including what is now modern day parts of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, a number of different states. And so it's always kind of fun to go look at a little bit of early American history. Well, there you go. Folks, we really have gotten through this podcast without as many bumps in the road as I thought, except for y'all making fun of each other and me and everyone in the chat. So that's delightful. I'm going to get my cat privileges taken away after today, probably. you made me cough um our fun topic this week is really just a delight it's this winter weather

we're having all of y'all have power right you guys all have power matt you have power even though you're having some trouble with your connection i got the power there we go i'm currently sitting i have i have survivor's guilt with winter storms because i didn't lose power during the 2021 freeze and I have not lost power once this week. I'm very excited for you. That's really nice. The resentment in your voice is palpable. Well, I think I'm the only one still without power. Me and my husband have been hopping around coffee shops a lot. Yesterday, we worked out of a Chili's that had... Which was delightful. We had the best time ever.

And Rob actually came and joined us and I'm podcasting now from Rod's apartment. So yeah, he's been very nice to host me. I will say he's wearing Crocs right now. Yeah. Anything to say about that, Rob? Do you have anything to add about your, your outfit choice here? They're very comfortable. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them. I'm in

the privacy of my own home. I'm an American and I think I can wear whatever I please. Okay, that really is fantastic. He sounded very defensive. Yes, he did sound defensive. That's exactly right. And now he can't hear what everyone's saying and we're just going to talk

about him. But Rob kindly invited me into his home because at my house, my my husband at my house we cannot okay why i don't know what's happening in the chat again but we i could not use my hotspot to get service like i could not even load a web page on my computer so we'll see how i handle um the rest of the workday and the rest of the week so hopefully we get power again soon. I think most folks in Austin have power. If I accidentally called Rob Rod, it's because I'm still... Are you serious? You said Rod.

Did I say Rod? And now we're raking her over the coals in our chat. Well, if that's the case, it was because of my sinuses. I got sick earlier this week too. I've had a great week. Just because my nose is stuffy.

And Lord in heaven, Brad in the chat says, you called him Rod, you doofus. Anyways, thanks, y'all, so much. Appreciate this. Any takeaways from your time at the freeze? That was one of my highlights, was sitting at a Chili's with Andrew with andrew and rob just

hamming it up our neighbors came we had like the whole side of one of the chili's um sections was like our people it was like me and andrew and rob and our neighbors y'all have any fun stories from the freeze at all. Awesome. Not really. I mean, there have been all the, the, the freeze after, um, as everything thaws out, I can just hear cracking noises outside and I can hear things falling from trees and I keep looking outside to see if everyone's car is okay. My car is not directly under a tree. So unless the tree completely fell over, my car will be fine. So I decided to leave it where it is.

But other of my neighbor's cars are under the tree branches. And if one of those branches broke off, it could shatter their windshield. So I'm rooting for their cars not to be destroyed in the aftermath of this winter storm. Yeah, for sure. It's odd. Like running around Austin and seeing all the downed limbs everywhere.

It's crazy. Cameron, what do you have to add? Well, this being my first time living in Texas experience in a winter storm, I got an email to make sure I see big quotations around winter storm. Well, I was going to say, I got an email saying, be prepared for a boiling water warning and to fill up your tub with water.

We don't get that in California. Fill your tub with water in case you need to boil water. That's it. That was something strange, something new for sure. I do think the Austin water, uh, Twitter account just put out something and said like,

that was not supposed to be sent out. I think that's what I just saw. So don't take me, but they sent it out. I think so. From Austin water camera before this goes out as a podcast. Oh, your apartment.

Oh, your apartment. Okay. Austin Water did tweet that there were rumors that the city of Austin was about to shut off the water, and they tweeted that that was not true and not to panic. There we go. Yeah.

We encourage all of our customers to consider cutting back on water usage. This will help ease demand on the system while we work through intermittent power outages. There you go. Well, let's hope it gets better as time goes on and power comes back on. Also, Austin Energy said that the Friday 6 p.m. deadline of everyone having power again is out the window now. So who knows when the rest of us will get power? I totally said that during my segment yes i'm just reiterating okay you said it like it was new uh i was downtown on tuesday and the roads were totally fine um but it was interesting seeing downtown with absolutely nobody there. It's quite wonderful not having anybody. I suppose that's my takeaway.

I've had power the whole time. And yeah, so. Yeah, good for you, Brad. That's nice. Okay. Well, on that note, Brad throwing it in my face again, I'm going to go back to my. I certainly didn't offer you. You did.

Everyone's been so kind and has offered us a place to stay, so I'm very appreciative. I hope your power stays out for the rest of the weekend. Thank you. Two can play at that game. I'm so exhausted. I'm going to hang up now, this podcast. Hang up this podcast? What am I

talking about? Okay, I'm going to end this podcast. Folks, I always thank you for sticking with us while we blather. I especially appreciate you sticking with us this podcast because it has been a journey. We appreciate it. We will catch you next week. Thank you for listening.

Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.