The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 30, 2026

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Texas Congressman Calls for Investigation Into ICE Fatal Shooting in MinneapolisPaxton Confirms Comptroller Can Block ESA Funds for Schools Tied to Terrorist GroupsMuslim Legal Fund of America Files for Injunction Against Abbott's CAIR Terrorist DesignationAbbott Demands Paxton Shut Down CAIR Operations in TexasAustin City Council Proclaims January 22 as 'CAIR Austin Day'Abbott Speaks on State Examining H-1B Visas in Schools, Violence in MinnesotaGov. Greg Abbott Freezes H-1B Visa Applications for Texas Universities, State AgenciesPaxton Sues Out-of-State Nurse Practitioner for Allegedly Distributing Abortion Pills Into TexasFederal Judge Upholds West Texas A&M Drag Show Ban, Appeal Hearing CanceledDallas ISD Steering Committee Recommends $6.2 Billion Bond for May Election

We're going to make fun of you for this. I was in Paris and I couldn't watch the Olympics. I'm from my American platform. You're so, yes, you should. But I've been there. We've all had those moments. Howdy folks, McKenzie here with quite a crew on the weekly roundup this week. We've got Mary Lease, Meredith, and Hannah.

On another episode, guys, we have all survived the freeze. I think this was the big story of the week. I want to talk through that. But anybody lose power. Anybody get super cold? How are we all feeling? Well, I'm feeling a little bit disappointed, to be honest. There was just a little bit of ice on our cars and on the porch, but that was about it.

So a little disappointed. Were you wanting snow? Is that what you were wanting? Yeah, I mean, it was really hyped up, and I thought that maybe we'd be actually getting a blizzard. But nothing too impressive, although I am grateful we didn't lose electricity. Yeah. Yeah, bonus there for sure. We got maybe in like an inch and a half of sleet, which is like so fun when it first comes. It's obviously crunchier than snow. It's not as soft or fun or powdery.

But when it first falls, it's great. So my husband and I, we walked outside and played tic-tac-toe in the sleet. But then it just freezes and becomes this rock, solid, nasty sheet of ice everywhere. So even walking around the neighborhood is like a very precarious activity. So we kind of, you know, stayed very sedentary for a few days. Well, that all got melted. And we still have a sheet of ice in our backyard. But it was sleith's just not as fun as powdery snow.

It just does not yield for as many activities. It does not make it quite as fun. Meredith, how did you guys hold up? Well, same thing. I have never experienced the crazy freeze that you guys went through. So I understood why everyone was scared. But then it was pretty chill. We did get the ice, the like full on rain, sleep, freezing, a little bit of snow, freezing again.

So the roads in our entire neighborhood were total ice. So I didn't leave, I didn't drive until yesterday. And then I just sent you guys a picture. My dad and I bundled up to try to go to the grocery store just for fun because I wanted cookies, whatever. but we truly like put on our mountain, you know, hiking gear from the Northwest that we brought. My dad has like many little like cramp on things that kind of help you walk on the ice. So we were going pretty well. Literally I was sliding everywhere and then I fell one time and it was pretty painful.

Then by the time we get to the grocery store though, everything's normal. Everyone's been in their cars. They're wearing normal clothes and we're like bundled up like we've been climbing a mountain. So a little embarrassing. whatever it was a fun little adventure that's a total adventure that's what you have to do when it snows like that you just have to make it into an adventure um yeah i think Pacific north like it's not prepare you because if Northwest does not prepare you for like an ice storm we very rarely got those up in the you know Northwest it's either snow or it's rain like there's not

there is sleep occasionally but usually followed by snow or something much more powdery so yeah wild Hannah how'd y'all fare in college station college station It also just sweated, not very much, crunchy grass. What surprised me, though, was the night that it sleeted, there was thunder. There was a thunderstorm. And I've never in my life had, like, oh, wow. And, like, the thunder happening at the same time. It was kind of fun, though.

We walked to Walmart. That's wild. That is. All somebody wipe out. But it wasn't. It's like, that was me. That's awesome. I love it.

Yeah. Activities like that are so fun. We have, I think the highlight for us was we have a very steep hill to get into our neighborhood. It's like quite high. And we, neighbors on our Facebook group were very diligent about sharing who the stupid neighbors were and their license plate numbers, who decided to go up and down the hill and ram into mailboxes or lose control. Or there's one guy even had a drone that would go over and be like, but he's trying to come up Beaufort right now.

Like, he literally was kind of keeping an eye on the neighborhood, which cracked me up. And no one was too, you know, ridiculous about it, but it was quite funny. And one car, like, there were multiple accidents on the hill. People really tried to get up. It's a hill that even in rain is slick because it's so, so steep. And people thought, hey, now's a good time to try and get up a hill when it's sleeted. It was wild. And I think a garage door got, like, ran through a car just, like, slid into a,

garage door it was kind of dramatic but but that was the highlight was not not the damage but the Facebook group the comments from people being you know making sure everyone knew who was being active on that hill when they should not be it's quite entertaining well we have lots to get into this week lots of news mary lees we're going to start with you um this dominated the news cycle nationally um after a fatal shooting in niaapolis by by ice agents there's a Republican congressman from Texas that's calling for an investigation. Walk us through these details. Yeah, so like you said, it's dominated the new cycle pretty much for the past couple days. And so this happened on Saturday. Alex Pretty, 37-year-old man, he was carrying a concealed firearm. He was shot and killed by an ice agent

in Minneapolis, and that was on Saturday. And this is amid all sorts of escalation against ice there, lots of protests due to their deportation-related activity that they're doing there. And so we saw the shooting happened, and this was just a couple weeks after a woman had similarly been shot by ICE agents. Renee Good, it was a little bit earlier in January. Well, the DHS came out with some statements at first their message was kind of, you know, he, Alex Priddy was a domestic terrorist. It looked as though he was planning to ambush the law enforcement. They mentioned frequently that he was carrying a lot of magazines,

and that also sparked a lot of kind of separate conversation about the Second Amendment and whether that was a valid talking point for this agency. So the DHS came out with that, but there were some civilian videos of the incident that were floating around online, and so there's a lot of conversation about are they really giving us the correct message or is this kind of rapid response messaging? Well, President Donald Trump indicated support for an investigation. The Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to different agency heads saying, I'd like to see an investigation into ICE's recent activity. I'd like to have testimony from different leaders in these immigration-related agencies.

We saw our own Congressman Michael McCall throw his support behind that. He called for it. In an ex post, he quote tweeted this congressman who was writing to these agency heads. He said he'd like to see a thorough investigation of the invents and also would like to see the federal immigration leaders testify. So I'll just give a little bit, quote a little bit of Christy Noem here, Secretary of the DHS. She described the incident as saying, during the operation and individual approach U.S. Border Patrol officers with the 9mmy and the automatic handgun.

The officers attempted to disarm the suspect, the armed suspect violently resisted, fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers and agent fire defensive shots. And then White House Deputy Chief of Staff, and he's also Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, described pretty shortly after the event as an assassin who attempted to murder federal agents. This is something Vice President J.D. Vance retweeted as well as a message he was putting his support behind. Something else that got a lot of attention related to this incident was FBI director Cash Patel, went on a TV spot and responded to it. he said, quote, as Christy said, you cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any

sort of protest you want. It's that simple. You don't have that right to break the law and incite violence. So that was one of the statements that kind of sparked a lot of discussion around Second Amendments. But McCall, who's someone we spoke about recently because he'll be retiring from Congress come January 2027 after being in Congress for two decades, he issued a statement. And he chairman emeritus of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. So that evening after this shooting happened, he said, I am troubled by the events that have unfolded in Minneapolis. As an attorney and former federal prosecutor, I believe a thorough investigation is necessary, both to get to the bottom of these incidents and to maintain Americans' confidence in our justice system. Then he said

that he looks forward to hearing from DHS officials about what happened here referring to the pretty shooting. and how we can prevent further escalation in the future. So pretty significant that this Republican congressman was coming out and saying, you know, kind of on board with the folks that are a little bit concerned about this and at least want to see a further look into the details.

President Donald Trump, after this, announced that he was sending Bordersar, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis to manage things. Homan held his first press conference this morning, discussing how things are going and collaborating with the state's leaders to kind of de-escalate the situation. And as well, President Trump said he had a good conversation with Tim Walts, governor.

So we will see how this evolves. But the investigation is ongoing. And as of now, it appears as though maybe DHS is walking back the domestic terrorist statement and they're just going to wait and see kind of how this investigation unfolds. And Trump has been indicating that he also wants to see where the investigation. investigation goes to learn more about the situation before we make any determinations. The discussion is fascinating, seeing Republicans kind of hash through, okay, you know, the partisan leaning of, okay, yes, the Trump administration is leading this effort in Minnesota

and the ICE deportation effort, but also Second Amendment rights being at the forefront of this discussion because of the nature of the shooting. So interesting to watch all this go down and I'm sure we'll keep an update. We'll keep updated on it. Continue to keep an eye. But Mary Lees, thank you for keeping that. Just keeping your finger on the pulse here because it really is a wild conversation that folks are having. And I appreciate you, you know, delving into it.

Yes, for sure. Okay. Meredith, coming to you here. This is going to be a little bit of a trend with this podcast is some news with the Attorney General and statewide leaders. But let's start with, before we get into the meat of everything here, let's talk about ESAs. The Attorney General kind of came out and had a new legal opinion that dictates how this might be addressed. Walk us through how this impacts the ASA program. Yeah, so our ESA program is, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts is opening next week for people to apply to.

So it's in the process. And this week, Ken Paxton issues this legal opinion confirming that the comptroller's office has what he calls full authority to block tax care funds from going to schools that are tied to terrorist groups or foreign adversaries, and that was all in a January 24th press release. Background on this was last month, Comptroller Kelly Hancock formally requested this legal opinion from Paxton, asking if schools that have these ties to terrorist groups or foreign adversaries were the two that he highlighted are legally disqualified from participating in the Texas Education Freedom Accounts. He had raised some concerns about private schools,

that had been accredited by a specific group. So private schools in Texas are accredited by what we call the Texas private school accreditation commission, and they approve agencies that then approve the schools. So there's an agency, kind of the middleman called Cognia, that had approved private schools that hosted publicly advertised events that were organized by the Council on American Islamic Relations Care, which is, this is the trend that we will see in many articles throughout this podcast. So just that's what CARE is.

And Hancock had also highlighted that Kogne, that same group, had accredited schools that he believed may be owned or controlled by a holding group that was linked to foreign adversary, specifically citing a group that had an advisor that was connected to the Chinese communist government. So this is the reason why CARE is such a hot, like this lightning rod of an issue right now is because on November 18th, so a couple months ago, Grega Abbott had designated CARE as a foreign terrorist and a terrorist. transnational criminal organization. And so Paxton in his, what happened this week, what he said was that the comptroller's office was statutorily responsible for ensuring that school choice was protected from abuse by these groups.

And a quote from him was, let me be crystal clear, Texans tax dollars should never fund Islamic terrorists or American enemies. And so he just added, just the verbiage was very clear, exclusive authority for the Texas education freedom accounts in the framework go to the comptroller to stop any of these dollars from going there.

So there's been just on a side note related to schools as well. Care had also made headlines recently because there were two public Texas schools that were hosting the Islamic Games, which was a group that had Care, New Jersey, as a sponsor listed on their website. And so there was a lot of online backlash. the Dallas the Dallas group with Great Brian Coleyville ISD they severed ties canceled that

and then there was one that was supposed to be in Cypress Fairbanks ISD in Houston and they are, they said that they don't even have they were listed but they said they don't have that contract with them and Governor Abbott even

had gotten involved calling that out specifically in Houston to make sure that that wasn't going to happen. And so, yeah, this is just one of several care-related stories that we've covered this week. It's definitely not the last issue that's going to come up. So we'll be keeping an eye on care. Yeah, well, speaking of which, Meredith, thank you. Hannah, let's talk about the governor, kind of stepping into this conversation with care.

Walk us through what happened earlier this week. Yes, continuing with care. So on January 22nd, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, or the MLFA, filed for a preliminary injunction against Abbott's terrorist designations of care. He also designated the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist foreign terrorist organization. They said that Abbott's proclamation unlawfully designated care as a foreign terrorist organization. And in his designation documents, he cited a laundry list of events in people throughout the past 20 years that were related or loosely related. to care. And so he claimed that care was founded as a front group for Hamas and as Hamas's

support network in the U.S. And so this legal foundation have rebutted Abbott and stated, sorry, legal fund that he's basically overreaching his authority as governor. And so they're citing the supremacy clause in the Constitution, which states that the judges of a state are bound to the federal government. So it's limiting state power. and a civil litigation senior staff attorney with the Muslim Legal Fund of America called it a pattern of escalating Islamophobia in Texas. So just, you know, more hot care news, but also a continuation of what Greg Abbott did recently. Yeah, absolutely. This is like you said, Hannah, just, you know, step two in our podcast here. So let's go to step three, Meredith. Talk about the city of Austin and what's going on with care.

in the city of Austin, and this is a different angle to this story. Yeah, so in the middle of all of these legal and controversial headlines, the city of Austin declares January 22nd as CARE or the Council on American Islamic Relations Care Austin Day. This was presented by council member Krista Lane, and it was part of this broader resolution that they have recognizing Muslim American Heritage Month in January, and so there were a few different, she made this proclamation joined by different council members, Vanessa Fuentes, Natasha Harper-Madison, Zohabe, Zoh, Codry, and Mike Siegel. And so this is, you know,

in response to what Governor Abbott had done, and I don't need to run through all that. But Care Austin, operations manager, Shaima Zayan, said the proclamation was really significant, given the timing, like we said, all this is going on. And what quote, her was that the governor's politically motivated proclamation is not targeting care only. It has been used since then to silence harm and discriminate against our whole Muslim community. She went on to say whether it's the school voucher program, which we just talked about earlier, the Islamic accredited private schools will not qualify for or the Muslim youth group with the Islamic Games. Denied the right to rent public school facilities to play sports and promote health and unity.

The list goes on. And so Council Member Lane said that care is a nationally recognized organization that has operated in the U.S. since 1994. She described it as a group that seeks to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. And just ended by saying that she believes care is committed to building bridges of mutual respect and understanding and working in a collaboration with organizations of all faiths and no faith. So this happens. So we've had all this buildup, we've had all these things happened. And then kind of the final thing this week, at least on Wednesday, that happened with this, was Abbott called on the Texas office of the Attorney General to use what he described

as existing tools to strip the Council of American Islamic Relations care of its nonprofit status and eliminate the organization's ability to operate in Texas. So this was a official release on January 28th and he cites obviously the known November designation of them as a foreign terrorist organization. And in this letter, he says that CARE presents a facade in their press releases. He said that they use their nonprofit status to as a shield for sponsoring terror, advancing radical Islam in Texas, and fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood. And so he points to some things that President Donald Trump has done to combat groups supporting terrorism. He talks about an executive of order that Trump had, that began the process to designate and deprive the Muslim Brotherhood

chapters of resources and thereby end any threat posed to the United States, nationals, or national security of the United States. And he talks about how the U.S. Department of State and the Department of the Treasury designated the Lebanese trading and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations earlier this month on January 13th. And so he also cites that there have been some federal investigations and court filings that identify care as a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood and a front group for Hamas and the United States and saying that there is ample evidence to establish that care is associated with these groups. He also goes into some more specifics in Texas. He talks about some discrepancies between the IRS and Texas records that have for five different care entities. and just that there, some things don't line up there.

And so he has a series of questions in the letter that are like right after another. Why should unregistered entities be operating in Texas at all? Why are supported or purported Texas nonprofits not registered with the IRS? More fundamentally, why should a group designated as a terrorist organization be allowed nonprofit status in Texas at all? So some pretty strong language here. And just fully telling the attorney general, he's the only elected official charged with regulating these nonprofits and he's very specific in telling him the tools that he thinks he can use inspecting records, seeking judicial forfeiture of nonprofit status, even placing liens on properties.

So the biggest quote that came out of this to me that stood out was he said, you've used these tools before. I urge you to use them to combat care. So one thing that was also mentioned was that in December Abbott asked the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to suspend care tax exempt status. And they had responded to that. Care sent their own letter back regarding that claiming that Abbott was targeting them, saying he does not have the right to trigger witch hunts into American organizations that he disagrees with based on debunked conspiracy theories. They even filed, they said they filed a fourth lawsuit to block implementation of his proclamation. And so, you know, and they also claimed that they have never been an agent, affiliate,

offshoot, subsidiary, partner, funder, or representative of any foreign group. And they also added that less than 1% of their donations come from foreign individuals. So the situation's moving towards the Attorney General's office where Abbott is urging further action. So we will be keeping an eye and see how long this will keep going on. I think we're going to be in this for a while. It's just my, if I look into my relatively, you know, unreliable crystal ball. I'd say this will go on for a while. I mean, we're seeing so much primary messaging on this among Republican primary candidates on whatever the issue may be, Islam in Texas. And however that's framed, however that's messaged, it's different per candidate, but it is at the forefront of a lot

of the discussion between Republican primary candidates. You know, I think about the Attorney General's race. I think about even a railroad commission race. So this is, you know, certainly talked about a lot. Does the railroad commission deal with this? They're always. and gas. Like it is, it's very interesting to see this, um, messaging proliferate and is certainly at the forefront of some of these campaigns. Not all of them. It's not as prevalent as school choice was last cycle. It's not throwing down the gauntlet other than, you know, you know, against his fellow statewide Republican here in Paxton. But regardless, this is still being talked about in the primary cycle. So we'll, we'll see how that changes once front off season comes. And then we head toward the general where

it's, you know, Republican versus Democrat as opposed to Republican on Republican violence. But still, it's interesting to see this be a big part of the discussion as we head toward March 3rd. Meredith, thank you. Mary Leas, we're going to come to you here. Let's talk about the governor previewing a big move this week during a radio interview. Tell us what he spoke on. Yeah, Governor Greg Abbott had a particularly interesting radio spot on Monday morning.

And he talked about a number of issues, but some of the kind of biggest issues that he covered had to do with the H-1B visa program, as well as the shooting in Minneapolis that we talked about just at the jump. But so Governor Greg Abbott talked about, he kind of previewed this big move that he made this week, which I think that Meredith is going to expand on a little bit more later. but he talked about, he responded to some reports over the weekend, I believe had been published by a quorum report that had internal communications from Abbott's team to the Texas A&M university system. And they had been instructed to compile a list of employees on H-1B visas and report back by Monday. So that news broke over the weekend. And Governor Greg Abbott was asked about it when he spoke on the Mark Davis show on Monday morning. And so Abbott confirmed when he was asked about, you know, what are you doing here with H-1B visas? He said that he was looking into the extent to which Texas taxpayer dollars are being used to pay for any of these people referencing H-1B visa holders. He said, whether it be candidly in our public schools in the state of Texas and our universities and colleges in the state of Texas, and then said that they're also looking at other angles as well. He noted that it's a federal program. So he said as a state, we're kind of looking at our public school system to see, you know,

what do we actually have jurisdiction over when it comes to these H-1B visas. So this program is a pathway to legal residency in U.S. for employees hired by companies who need workers that are in specialized occupations. But it's gotten a lot of attention recently. It's become really a hot political issue recently in the recent months. Some are arguing that companies are abusing. this program to be able to hire immigrants for very low-wage, unspecialized jobs, which is not with HOB visa program was originally intended for. And then they're saying that this is kind of

sidestepping American workers, and that it's been abused. So Abbott spoke on this further on the radio show. He said, we have inquiries out right now to all of those agencies, gathering the information that we need and are hoping to be able to make an announcement later this week on an action plant, Texas is beginning to take in addition to that. And I think Meredith will go into that next. But he said that they are in communication with the Trump administration. The President Donald Trump and his cabinet have spoken a bit about H-1B visas and the abuse. And they've made a couple different, taken a couple different actions to try and cut down on the abuse in his visa program. Abbott said, we want to make sure that our communities are safe. And then he said he wants to make

sure that our communities don't have people coming in and taking jobs that Texans can easily fill. One of the more notable statements that he made on the radio show was when he said, for example, what job is it in our public schools in the state of Texas that these H-1B visas personnel are fulfilling that we can't fulfill here in our own public schools? He said he doesn't see any reason why we need any H-1B visa employees in our public schools in the state of Texas, but then he said they are going to look into if there's some unique skill set or whatever the case may be there. He also talked a little bit about that some of these visa holders may have been let in under the Biden administration, and he said that maybe they have overstayed their visa or some of them have not been properly vetted due to just the very different immigration policies under President Joe Biden versus now under President Donald Trump.

And then he kind of shifted gears and talked about the Minneapolis shooting, which, as we were saying, really dominated the news cycle. He had some interesting things to say about that. He said one of the things he first highlighted was that this is not happening in Texas. He said, you know, Texas has a very high number of deportations, but he said that the leadership here is not pushing back against. immigration, law enforcement. So he was kind of highlighting that Texas is not having that problem. He said, whether it be the governor, local mayors, or other local leaders, no one's trying to incite violence here in the state of Texas. This is truly the problem in Minnesota. It's more about the lack of leadership and the lack of calming and order by the governor, by the mayor, and he said that

he thinks that they want it that way. Abbott then went on to say that he believes that the White House needs to recalibrate on what needs to be done and that there needs to be this respect for law enforcement that is not there that he thinks needs to be reinstilled. He said it's not an easy task, especially under the current circumstances, but I know that they're working on a game plan. But he said that the administration might need to start working from a different direction to make sure that they're fulfilling the original intention, which is to remove people from the country who are here illegally, especially those who pose the most danger, Abbott said. So this is another statement from him. He said, maybe work from a different direction to ensure that they get back to what

they wanted to do to begin with and go about their job in a more structured way to make sure that they're going to be able to remove these people without causing all kinds of problems and fighting in communities that they're experiencing now. So that radio show is really chalkful of interesting statements from Abbott, him kind of previewing some actions he may. made this week, as well as giving his thoughts on the Minneapolis shooting, which we've had all sorts of different takes on this situation. And Abbott's was that the administration might need to kind of start working from a different direction, maybe recalibrate. So very interesting. Go read the full rundown at the Texan News that Mary Lee's put together for us.

Let's rewind here and talk more about each one, B visa applications, Hannah. You wrote a story read this week about this move from the governor in relation to these visas for state agency and universities. Tell us what happened. Yes, so all the things that were predicted from this interview have come to pass. Abbott announced a freeze on H-1B visa applications. So universities, colleges, and state agencies will have to submit reports on their H-1B data in the pause is supposed to happen through January 27 when legislature will address the matter. So like Mary Elise said, these visas allow for entities to hire,

specialized non-immigrant workforce under the premise that an American is not able to do the same work. So often it's private hires for their employee sponsored, employer sponsored for skill work. So Canada and the U.S., Australia and Germany all have similar visa programs for a specializing. labor. But Abbott was expressing criticism about the ways it was being used, and there was rumors of fraud. Actually, the Attorney General Kim Paxton announced yesterday that he is starting some investigations in three North Texas businesses. So that's, I guess, see where that goes in relation to H-1B visas. And so universities, colleges, other state agencies will be a by it online, I think it's had, it's fair share of support. The criticism has come from

considering research and teaching institutions and hospitals which fall under this umbrella, like the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But the pause will last through January of next year. So there you go. We'll keep an eye on that and see if there's any re-up there, but that's a significant pause and for a significant period of time. So Hannah, thank you for covering that for us. Meredith, let's talk about the Attorney General. Again, this week. The Attorney General and the governor are just

or Humaria at least are just really going after it this week with news, making news. But the state is suing a nurse for allegedly shipping abortion pills to Texas women. Give us these details. Yeah, so the state of Texas is suing an out-of-state nurse practitioner for allegedly providing

chemical abortion pills to women. And this was a big focus of legislation during the last 89th legislative session. So this individual is believed to have been shipping chemical abortion pills to women in Texas through her telemedicine company called Her Safe Harbor. So Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against her. This is defendant, Deborah Lynch. She is based out of Delaware, and she works with her safe harbor to ship chemical abortion pills to women who order them online. And so she ships them to all sorts of states.

Within the court documents, Paxton is specifically saying that Lynch is in violation of the Human Life Protection Act, which is Texas's nearly total ban on abortions with exceptions for cases when a medical professional. determines that an abortion is medically necessary to save the mother's life. The lawsuit reads, this illegal operation in dangers lives of unborn children and their mothers and must be stopped. And then it notes that it is Paxton's responsibility to be protecting unborn children through enforcement of the Human Life Protection Act. And then ask the court to move very quickly here to enjoin the defendants from continuing

with their alleging is in a legal scheme and impose the highest civil penalties authorized by law. Something that we have covered inaudium on this podcast was a law passed during the summer of 2025 during the 89th legislative session, but it didn't get across until the second special session. But it was aimed at cracking down on this very thing. The distribution of chemical abortion pills into the state

which are most commonly ordered online and then they'll just be mailed to women's doorsteps. And so this bill in the end allowed civil liability to be used against those who are distributing these drugs into Texas. And there's up to $100,000 or rewards available depending on the filers' relation to the affected child. So that is $100,000 in rewards may be available, but it does depend how you're related to the child, how much of that you would actually receive yourself if you filed such a lawsuit. The kind of the catalyst for this lawsuit was an opinion article published by the Austin American Statesman. At the beginning of last year in January 2025, it highlighted Lynch's work to, quote, defy state bans by fulfilling online orders via mail shipments.

And it was just highlighting how she was sending these chemical abortion pills to all sorts of different states, particularly ones with a lot of restrictions like Texas. noted the destination for some of these drugs that she had in her setup was going to Beaumont, Fulcher, Tomball, Houston, and El Paso. In the court documents, it says Lynch's operation is a part of a growing network of out-of-state abortion traffickers that deliberately target Texas residents in the five of states duly enacted protections for unborn children and their mothers. And then it notes it says that she's been boasting to media outlets, including Austin American statesmen that she mailed a lot of abortion drugs to Texas. And so that was, that article was mentioned several times throughout this lawsuit. Paxson had sent C-sendesis letters to a couple different companies, including her Safe Harbor, who he believed were sending chemical abortion

pills to women in Texas. And he sent those letters in August of 2025, so a couple of different separate letters he sent to them C-Sycindicist letters. And he noted that the article is what tipped his office off to the activity. And within these letters, he referenced the fines that could go up to $100,000. And a press release that Paxton put out announcing, okay, I'm suing this individual. He said, the day of reckoning for this radical out-of-state abortion drug trafficker is here. He noted a couple different cases that we have seen recently in Texas related to chemical abortion pills, one that reporter Kim with us has covered. There was a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August 2025.

It was filed by a mother who was claiming that her preborn child had been murdered by the child's father, who had allegedly dissolved chemical abortion pills. He'd obtained them and then dissolved them. her drink without her knowing she had wanted to keep the child. And Paxton noted this as one of two tragic cases in Texas in which radical abortion activists and organizations facilitated men illegally purchasing abortion-inducing drugs. And this came up several times when that law I mentioned that was just recently passed, came up several times during committee hearings and when it was taken up on the House floor before it was ultimately passed.

Paxton said no one, regardless of where they live, will be freely allowed to aid in the murder of unborn children in Texas. So he, of course, came out swinging with this one. We reached out to Hersey, Farber. We weren't able to get a response, but we'll see how this lawsuit progresses. And I wouldn't be surprised we saw more lawsuits like this being filed by Paxton against maybe the other telemedicine groups that he had sent cease and desist letters to earlier. Absolutely. And this is like you said, or Mary Lee is a longstanding policy debacle. And I think it seems like it was just yesterday that the life of another act is being worked its way through the legislature. So while to watch this kind of the other end of a law like this going into effect start to make its way to the Attorney General's office. Thank you for your coverage there. And I'd encourage folks go read all of Kim Roberts coverage on that case. Mary Lee's covered this. This has covered. This has come. this issue extensively, so make sure and go read all that for all the backstory, because there is a lot here. So Mary, Elise, thank you. Hannah, we're going to come to you. Give us an update on the

big pivot here, West Texas A&M drag banning case. Yes, a federal judge upheld West Texas A&M Drag Show ban. An appeal was canceled last week. So U.S. District Judge Matthew Casimir upheld a previous ruling in favor of West Texas A&M University's decision to ban drag shows on campus, and it effectively canceled the appeal hearing that was set to take place. So in summary, the case has been going on for three years. It started when West Texas A&M canceled a planned on campus drag show. The group hosting the show, Spectrum West Texas, or Spectrum WT, raised a case against the president of the university, and they cited the First Amendment.

In 2020, in 2023, Judge Kasmaric ruled that drag shows are not expressive speech under the First Amendment. And in August 2025, a Fifth Circuit panel of judges blocked the drag show ban and concluded that it was likely protected under the First Amendment as brief speech. But the litigation continued. Spectrum announced that they were going to host another on-campus drag show at West Texas A&M in 2026 and filed for a summary judgment because they, claimed they didn't want the show to be canceled by the university president again. And it was intended to go to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals this past week. But the judge ruled, Judge Casimir ruled that the First Amendment rights were not violated in the ban, and he paused the progress of the case in doing so.

So his reasoning was that the aims of the group in their performance were to be provocative and to perform sexually explicit acts in a limited forum. So he distinguished the university's forum from a typical public forum as a limited forum in which minors could possibly be present and in which the university has more say over what is and what isn't performed there. He stated that the university forum is not designated public forum, and so the president has the right to protect the forum from inappropriate behavior, including racist, sexist, and overly sexual conduct.

he encouraged the group to pursue a forum outside of the university to host the event this spring. But the case continues and an appeal is expected to be filed soon. Perfect. Hannah, thank you for your coverage there. Case you've been following for a long time. So another great rabbit hole to go down on the Texan. News. Meredith, let's talk about another hard pivot, a big bond, Dallas ISD. Walk us through this proposal. So the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees heard a proposal for a $6.2 billion bond proposal.

It is the largest bond proposal in state history. It's funny when you're listening to these meetings, you're talking about billions of dollars, and then they kind of start talking about millions of dollars, and you have to remind yourself, like, just this is a lot of money, you know, because somebody's like, oh, just some millions. So it's just interesting to see it in the billions. So a couple weeks earlier in the month, they had heard, the board had heard this briefing from the steering committee about these two options. It was a $4.9 billion bond or a $6.2 billion bond. So the $6.2, they're both made, the $6.2 is made up of these four propositions.

So the four propositions, they say if they accepted this, it would result in a one cent tax increase to the tax rate. So for an average home value at $500,000, the increase is projected to cost. an additional $33.48 a year. So just as a reminder, it's always good to kind of refresh these things. School bonds are repaid through the interest in sinking or INS portion of property taxes. So we have maintenance and operations, which keeps schools running, pays teachers, keeps the light on,

and then we have the interest in sinking, which is buildings and long-term facilities debt. And so the bond steering committee implied that Dallas ISD has enough capacity within the current INS tax rate to support the smaller $4.9 billion bond with what they called a zero cent tax increase, so no increase. And then the $6.2 billion option would exceed that capacity and require a one cent increase to the tax rate. So from the 6.2 one that the steering committee was advising that they accept, there's four propositions. The first one is the largest and it's $5.93 billion. So it's the big chunk.

of it is this Prop A. And the two larger parts from Prop A are $1.88 billion for new replacement campuses and then $2.39 billion for district-wide renovation. So mainly facilities-related new schools, renovating things, new classrooms, all of those things. They talked about specifically portable removal was really big for them to get rid of all the portables that they're using. $210 million for science lab and furniture replacements, PE facilities, playgrounds. Additional allocations are things like in Prop A were technology, making things more energy efficient, security, transportation, things like that. So that's the first one.

We got four. The second one, Prop B is $144.7 million for basically new devices for staff and students and classroom devices. So that's the prop B, Prop C, $143.3 million for debt service refinancing, and that's the service refinancing and so they said specifically they believe that this would save the district $10 million, allow it to pay off debt sooner and free up $100 million in operating cash. And then our last one is Prop D, this is the swimming pool one, $26.3 million for repairs to swimming pools. So those are the four that they're recommending and then if they did go with the, I say the single smaller, smaller, it is technically smaller, the $4.9 billion bond, they take out the swimming pools

and then they would significantly decrease some of the building, like new building, taking off some of the new buildings or the new renovations. So those were the major changes between the two bonds. So trustee Lance Curry acknowledged the historic size of this bond. He said that he knows that the number 6.2 billion is going to get a lot of headlines. And he just talked about how he believes that the bond reflects community values specifically and asking the board and the public to support the students and it's learning. That's what the bond is doing.

He specifically said, our ask is small. and our gain is large. And so facilities and student experiences were a very large focus when the board members were, the trustees were discussing this. And trustee Byron Sanders talks about the idea of how you feel when you go into a building. He said one of the things that I think sometimes we don't get enough credit to is how it feels walking into our buildings. So he talks about this imbalance that there's this beauty of learning going on in Dallas ISD and that these facilities and the facilities that it's happening in. He doesn't believe that they match up. And so he thinks that this bond is an opportunity to bring those things in line.

He said specifically, I do think it says a lot about a city the way that it treats its youngest. And this is an opportunity to bring ourselves up to scale. The steering committee chair, his name is Drexel, Awusu, and he actually had chaired the prior bond in 2020, their $3.47 billion bond that they passed then. He's the chair for the 2026 bond as well. And he talks about the idea that people will feel this pride and joy and excitement to have a Dallas campus in their neighborhood and he specifically highlights even that he thinks realtors are going to talk about these campuses as assets for people that want to move there. So they're kind of looking at it holistically in that sense. One

thing that also came up was this idea of the visibility of repairs. A Wusu emphasized the importance of it being visible and he said you know how can we continue to pour into our communities into our neighborhoods in ways that show up that are not just I fix the plumbing in the walls and I couldn't see that. So they really wanted to highlight that they wanted people to see these changes. Trustee Ben Mackey describes the trade-off from the smaller $4.9 billion bond and the larger one. He said, functionally, you might get the classroom updated, but it's not going to be expanded to current sizes.

Or you might have the roof repaired in the library, but the library will look roughly the same as it did beforehand instead of turning it into a modern media center. They also said, hey, we left some things out of this bond proposal. They wanted to highlight that they wanted three additional schools, they wanted stand-a-old own special education school, even teacher housing. There's a list that we included in the article along with both of these bonds and everything that's laid out and taken out if you want to go ahead and take a look at that on our website. But he just said, you know, we got everything on our needs list and some of our wants list, but we wanted to be responsible so we didn't include everything

on that. One of the things also that was unique in this was some of the discussion between the board members about how choosing the larger bond they believed would give them credibility with the community. Superintendent Stephanie Elise Alde said that the ballot language tells everyone. Every bond, it says like there will be a tax increase. It's legally, they have to say that. And so even if they took the 4.9, she said that people didn't believe that the smaller bond would result in no tax increase. And she said that choosing the larger bond gives them this credibility, specifically saying, Our surveying said that we actually gain credibility if we have this one cent increase. Kind of like this idea that people are saying,

how in the world are going to get a $4.9 billion bond without a tax increase? And she said, so we actually lose trust if we choose the smaller one. So the steering committee recommends that the bond is placed on the May ballot, and the superintendent said they have to vote by February 13th for the bond to be included on that ballot. And so that's the final decision. It'll move to Dallas voters who will ultimately decide whether they, approve this historic and very large bond. Historic for sure. Meredith, thank you.

And your write-up is great and a great way for folks to get all this public comment, you know, in their brains as well. So go read all of that. Okay, let's move on to the tweeteries section, y'all. I would get excited about this portion of the podcast. Mary Leaves, so why don't we go to you? Okay, well, I thought I would highlight something interesting. been happening at the federal level.

Nikki Minaj has recently become an active part of Trump's presidential administration. But she's been, you know, it's kind of started out with Trump was signing different orders to try and respond to the Christians that have been slaughtered in Nigeria. and she could appreciate that and was really on board with that, which was kind of unexpected. I mean, I wasn't aware of her blow up blingings before now,

but she came and spoke with him and some of his leadership, and then she just was back on the stage with him, you know, holding his hand for a couple minutes on the stage and giving a speech. I think she also spoke at a trip. Turning Point USA event recently. But so she was speaking.

They were kind of launching the Trump accounts, the investment accounts that we've discussed before that Trump is starting for American babies. So Nikki Minaj was there. She gave a little speech. She spent some time with Trump. And then she posted a photo on X, I guess, as she was leaving. And it was showing she had a Trump gold card indicating, I believe, that her citizenship process is complete now.

And she posted and said, finalizing that citizenship paperwork as we speak, as per my wonderful, gracious, charming president, thanks to the petition, I wouldn't have done it without you. Gold Trump card free of charge. So, of course, people that follow Nicky not have been crazy over this and like, what the heck,

you know, you're just given this card and this is crazy and I can't believe you're so politically involved now. not super important information, but very entertaining for sure. I've been very entertained just watching this happen and seeing the White House posting photos of Trump with Nikki Minaj. And holding hands, like you said, and there's a close-up of their hands. And of course, Nicky Manash has long, intricate nails and Donald Trump. It's just wild to see that, like, this is real life. Trump said something really funny about the nails.

Well, I think some people thought it was weird. I found it kind of humorous and a little bit odd. He was saying, he was looking at her nails and he was saying something about how wonderful her nails are and that he's going to start growing out his nails too so that he can also get those wonderful long nails. But I would guess that those are actually acrylics, but that's, I digress.

Yes, they are. I think this is the ultimate, like, this was not on my bingo card. And also, it just shows that Trump, whoever's in the room with him, he will say something nice to them. Literally, like, I'm growing my nails out like you. Okay. It's just like,

oh, and also gross. Yeah, very gross. I hope he does not. I saw that picture of them holding hands on stage and they call us like, like, if only he would hold my hand like this. gosh. I'm good. I'm good.

Unreal. Um, Mary Lisa, that's a great one. Hannah, why don't we go to Unix? I'm very curious what yours is. I see the note here in our docket and I have no idea what this could possibly mean. Okay, honestly, this is like so dumb. So I'm sorry.

I said that this for so long this week. I brought it back multiple times when I was on Twitter, because I just couldn't believe, okay, it's cold spaghetti during the freeze. Someone in Minnesota, some cold Midwestern state had a big old plate of spaghetti in a fork, and they froze the fork in midair. And it's like connected to the spaghetti. So it's just like this floating fork of forkful of spaghetti like on this plate.

And I had genuine awe. Like I had awe in my heart over this. And I just kept thinking, how did they do it? that's not cool it's I saw that too and multiple times I went to the cut like the replies just to be like

is this AI? Like are people saying this is AI? Can somebody smarter than I decode this for me? And it was not. I think that's like totally real but it's just frozen

like suspended spaghetti in mid air. It's incredible. Wild. Um, okay. Meredith. Another cold,

another cold, another cold, tweet here. What do we got? Well, mine was, we kind of talked about it as a group on Slack, but mine was the video of Sean White snowboarding in Central Park. It was, we came up because as a group we were asking if people knew about Apollo Anton Ono, and unfortunately, we found out that Mary Elise and Hannah too, or no? I don't know. Hannah-Jon-O-ant-O-ant-O-N-O. Do you know Apollo Antoine? No. Okay, so this is, and I'm an Olympics, I'm more of a summer Olympics, but the Winter Olympics, there's always the superstar that dominates.

And Apollo Antonona was from Federal Way where I grew up from most of my childhood in high school. But Sean White is a legend. I think we all know Sean White, the Flying Tomato with the red hair. He was very young. Anyway, so he's in New York, and he is going off some jumps and things, and he's jumping over Shane Gillis, who's a really famous comedian. And it just, it made you feel like everyone's kind of having a sense. snow day all at once like we're all even as adults we're just enjoying ourselves and

having a good time and even hearing some of the backstory from some of these other comedians that were there that he had a mask on and people didn't know who he was initially and they just thought he was good and he was having a good time and then he kind of revealed himself and we're like yeah and someone in the comments said oh this is a this is not what we need right now is someone who's because there's serious things going on in the world which is true but for me i was just like actually no i'm sorry this is kind of what I need right now I want to see Sean White jump over Shane Gillis in Central Park and feel like you know us millennials are having a really good time

today and people in general but it just made me laugh because there's always going to be someone that just doesn't want I would prefer a little break in Twitter from some of the horrible things that are happening it's nice to have a little bloop of oh an Olympian like showing off a little bit you know and everyone getting to see him so I that was a little break for me. An Olympian among the people. That's like straight out of a movie. I love it.

I'm glad you're an Olympics girl, Meredith, because I, I'm counting down the days. I, there's just a lot of cool sports. I should have, actually, I'm going to make the Seahawks a big part of my personality over the next few weeks. But like with the Super Bowl coming up, obviously Meredith, we have a lot to root for in the Super Bowl, but also just the Olympics. Like, they're coming so soon. I'm so excited.

It's going to be, ugh, incredible. This is a gripe I have with the Olympics. I'll try to make it short, but the Olympics are not the same once they have been on, once we have streaming. I find the Olympics of the 90s and the early, the 2000s were so good because you would all sit down at the same time. And you would, they would do these amazing back stories where you'd be crying about some wrestler you never knew about before and all of a sudden, then you watch him win. They just did such a good job and everyone kind of had to watch all of the same things.

And yes, you couldn't go to demonstrate. and get all the gymnastics events or this or that or whatever you loved. But I I don't like it now. Actually, it makes me kind of sad. I'm like on peacock trying to watch. Oh, watch a clip. Watch a clip. I don't know. It just makes me kind of bummed out for the nostalgia. Yeah. Yeah. It does feel very different. I the streaming part of it's hard. I'm so glad that cable's not part of the equation, but the streaming does make it hard. I do, I mean, like, while on Carmier River, We were in Paris for a portion of the Olympics last year, which was, yeah, literally, Crying River.

But what was wild about it is we had American Peacock, and so trying to watch it while, trying to watch the Olympics while over there while it was happening live, it was so hard. Like, it was weird because it was happening live, but it wasn't, I wasn't able to watch it yet. Does that make sense? Like, it was really, really interesting, how it was all, like, the timing of the uploads. It was very, and also I think Peacock is an inferior streaming platform, which sucks because they have such good content. But there are just issues and bugs. We're going to make

funny for this. I was in Paris and I couldn't watch the Olympics. I'm from my American platform. You're so, yes, you should. But I've been there. We've all had those moments. Yeah, literally. Again, cry me a river. Crime me river. But I can't wait for the Winter Olympics. I think some are superior, but I just, I don't discriminate. I love the Olympics. I'm so excited. excited. It would be the best. Meredith, are you a big Seahawks fan? I'm not. I have never, I've watched one football game in my entire life all the way through, and I'm talking any kind of football game. I am not a, yeah. So I, the Mariners, I loved and cared a lot about tons of nostalgia with that, like, a lot. I knew all of them in the 90s. I, like, wanted to play on the Mariners briefly.

I didn't understand how it worked with girls and stuff, and I sucked at baseball, but the Seahawks, I mean, I feel like I'm missing out on like a Seattle party that's going on. Like, oh, everyone's having fun back, you know, in Seattle. But no, I don't care. Okay. Good to know. I want us to win if I have to choose, you know. Even during our like, you know, back-to-back Super Bowl heyday, I'm surprised.

You didn't get swept up in the craze then because it was such a big deal. I am interested in football. Someone described this. I don't remember why they were talking about it, but they said, like some women, If there's interpersonal reasons to be involved, I'm like, oh, I heard him speak or like, he has a cute wife on Instagram that has fun kids. There's things if I, I'll get involved in football for interpersonal reasons. So with Seattle, you do hear about their personalities and how fun they are and the interaction with the city and all of that. So yes, I do. I'm aware of quite a few players

and things like that. Okay. I was going to say, I could help with that. You know, we could, we could get some interpersonal, you know, I'll continue some videos. Like I watched the video of, Is it Cooper, the guy, the last game? Everyone's like, from his other team was coming to hug him, and they just love him so much. He obviously is a pretty good guy, I'm guessing. And I was like that. I like that. I don't know anything about his playing.

Well, you've got a whole history with the Rams played for him. I think they cut him. Yeah, I learned that. So for him to win then against the Rams, it's just like a big, it's exciting for him. But, yeah. Well, I could go off on tangent. I'll stop myself. I already have a little bit here.

But ladies, thank you for joining the podcast. as always, folks. Thanks for joining us on another edition of the weekly roundup and we'll catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. 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. Okay, I have got to buggy.