The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - January 5, 2024

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free Gonzales Flag t-shirt 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. This week, the team discusses:Some of the biggest themes to watch in Texas politics this yearA new record for how many times U.S. border guards encountered illegal immigrantsTexas receiving a “D-” from March of Dimes for its maternal and infant health outcomesGov. Greg Abbott calling the U.S. Homeland Security secretary “pathetic” over his comment on the border crisisThe Biden administration suing Texas to block a new state law that would criminalize illegal immigrationThe judge from the viral Zoom “cat lawyer” video retiring and flipping a Southwest Texas judicial seatThe Americans that came back home after a prisoner exchange with VenezuelaThe new state laws that took effect on January 1The death of former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, who represented Dallas for 30 yearsThe McKinney home of Attorney General Ken and Sen. Angela Paxton falling victim to a “swatting”

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie DeLulo here, and welcome back to the Texans' first weekly roundup podcast of 2024. This week, the team discusses some of the biggest themes to watch in Texas politics this year. A new record for how many times U.S. border guards encountered illegal immigrants. Texas receiving a D-minus from March of Dimes for its maternal and infant health outcomes. Governor Greg Abbott calling a federal official pathetic over his comment on the border crisis. The Biden administration suing Texas to block a new state law that would criminalize illegal immigration.

The judge from the viral Zoom cat lawyer video retiring and flipping a Southwest Texas judicial seat. The Americans that came back home after a prisoner exchange with Venezuela. The new state laws that took effect on January 1st. The death of former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, who represented Dallas for 30 years. And the McKinney home of Attorney General Ken and Senator Angela Paxton falling victim to a SWATing. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad, Cameron, Hayden, and Matt, the whole team

back together again in 2024. Our first podcast of 2024. It feels good to be back. It does. Glad to be back in the office and around the water cooler again. I do feel like we were out of the office for a little while there working remotely and it was nice. It does make getting back into the groove a little bit harder when you've been gone for a while. A little bit. Like it's been maybe two and a half weeks since we've even recorded a podcast. Cause we prerecorded some stuff.

Right. It's just different, you know? Well, we were on the ball with doing it ahead of time and we all remembered our podcast mics. So we were able to do one remotely. And by we all, you mean everybody but Mackenzie, but that's okay. I totally forgot mine and

got called out by Daniel, but all good. But folks, happy new year. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's celebrating with loved ones. We have all sorts of news to get into today. So without further ado, Brad, we're going to start with you. You wrote about the top eight stories to watch this year in Texas. Give us a teaser of some of those themes. So I went through eight. There were top is the bloody primaries to come. We've talked about this quite a bit. But you've got Governor Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, opposite sides of this point.

Almost two dozen House races. Abbott focusing on school choice, Paxton focusing on the impeachment vote against him. You've got Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick maybe hinting that he's going to jump in on a few, specifically at the behest of Speaker Dade Phelan. And he's flat out said that voters should ask their representatives if they plan to vote for Speaker Phelan as Speaker. And if so, then vote them out. Then you have the Speaker himself not only dealing with his own primary, but trying to preserve his majority and helping his incumbents, his Republican incumbents return.

So there's just so many crossing lines of fire in this primary. And I think we talked about last week or the week before some of the top house races, so I won't go through those, but there's just a lot happening. And this is going to be a bare-knuckle brawl in every direction in many parts of the state. So there's that. And of course, you have the top of the ticket, the presidential slugfest. Right now, it's looking like it's going to be a rematch for 2020, Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.

Things can change. But if the polling is to be believed and it all is basically reflecting the same thing, Trump is up 50 points on the nearest competitor, whether that's Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis. We'll see what happens in Iowa this month and then New Hampshire next month. But until then, Trump is pretty much assumed to be the winner of the GOP nomination. Biden as well for his primary. We'll see also if that does happen, how these indictments against Trump affect things down the road, closer to the general election. But of course, that's the top of the ticket and that's going to be what most people are watching.

Then you have a non-election one, Paxton, back in formal court. The whistleblower lawsuit against him has been revived. And we, right now, are going to have depositions of various individuals, including Paxton himself and some aides. I think it'll be interesting to see how this turns out because either way, someone's going to end up with a lot of egg on their face. Either what the Senate found or didn't find in the impeachment charges is going to be supported again in this outcome. And then you'll have the Speaker and the House Board of know, the house board of managers, uh, just basically left holding the bag again. But if it goes the other way, you're going to have

Paxton and his backers, um, in the Senate left with some egg on their face. So, uh, either way, it's gonna, it's going to be interesting to watch that. And then you have Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz back in the crosshairs of Democrats. They took a big swing at him in, in 2018, nearly took him out. They're back trying again. We'll see who the nominee is. It's looking like it's probably Colin Allred. He is a massive fundraising lead over state Senator Roland Gutierrez.

Either way, though, the dynamic, the political environment is not as favorable towards Democrats as it was in 2018. I kind of alluded to this, but the Patrick versus Phelan feud is going to continue, and that has shown zero sign of letting up. We'll see how much Patrick does get involved against Phelan in these races, but it appears likely that they'll be back in 2025 uh with another opportunity to uh throw any number of uh you know insults at each other um driving their relationship further into the ground maybe we'll see some more photoshopped memes that's always a possibility you never know and then lastly that i'll talk about is the how does the state shift in terms of, you know, we use the Texas partisan index. There's any number of ratings. Texas is basically an R 56 state at the moment,

but, um, you know, if Ted Cruz does run up the score in the Senate race, uh, if Donald Trump performs better than he did, uh, presumably Donald Trump performs better than he did in 2020, you could see that grow. So, um, those are are the two the only two statewide races on the ballot other than the Railroad Commission. But those are the top two. So can Republicans make the states even redder or can Democrats cut into the lead at the moment? So there's some more in there. Recommend you check it out. Absolutely.

Great piece to go read at the Texan dot news, giving just a pretty in-depth rundown of what to watch this year. So, Brad, thanks for that teaser. Hayden, we're going to come to you. What was the grim milestone reached in the border crisis last month? The illegal immigration crisis on the southern border shows no signs of getting any better. In December, there were multiple reports that more than 300,000 illegal immigrants were stopped in December, which would be an all-time record for a single month. Customs and Border Protection typically does not publish their monthly operational update until about the middle of the month, sometimes later, depending on the circumstances. But the report that more than 300,000 were stopped was confirmed by multiple outlets with sources inside CBP who were able to access internal documents there in the agency. Republicans obviously say it's indicative of the Biden administration's failure to reduce illegal immigration, while the Biden administration points to other causes. This is amid many legal fights that we'll get into in a little bit, but the busing program that Governor Abbott started back in the spring of 2022 is still sending thousands of non-citizens out of state after

they receive federal paperwork to travel about the country. The border crisis is still sending thousands of non-citizens out of state after they receive federal paperwork to travel about the country. The border crisis is still racking up hundreds of thousands of encounters every month. And there were, of course, many encounters last year as well. Give us insight into the broader context. How do these numbers compare to previous months? Well, the last record was set in September. There were approximately 270,000 encounters that month. Remember, enforcement encounters includes both arrests between ports of entry and stops at legal ports of entry where potential immigrants are turned away, deemed inadmissible during the pandemic. well afterward. The COVID-19 Title 42 guidelines were

still in place. There were rapid expulsions. Now, the government is operating under the normal Title VIII protocols, so they go through the normal process and they are expelled in that legal process. But there were millions of illegal immigrants stopped in fiscal year 2023. We could always pick the raisins out of the raisin brand, but the big picture is there is still a raging crisis at the border and even big national outlets that were hesitant about using the term crisis. Even the New York Times has started using the phrase border crisis. It really is undeniable at this point. And the Biden administration continues to point to causes such as global displacement of people due to authoritarian regimes and poverty around the globe, especially in places like Afghanistan, where the Taliban took control a couple of years ago, in Haiti, where there is widespread extortion

and infrastructure failure, all of these things that are pushing people here, according to Biden's White House, is the root cause of this problem. And simply shutting down the border or addressing those things there won't solve the crisis. So they're still focused on the big picture part of it. Meanwhile, there are still hundreds of thousands of encounters every month, and December was an all-time record. Hayden, oh yeah, go for it. Is there any estimates on the number of people who come across the border that evade any sort of detection? Because those are shocking numbers that you're bringing up.

But is there any estimates on the number of people who just aren't encountered, aren't stopped? So there's evading detection and there's evading arrest. And I'm going to group all of those together in gotaways. I believe the estimate is for every person, migrant, illegal immigrant, whatever term that you'd like to use, is stopped at the border approximately two to three getaway. So if we're looking at 300,000 enforcement encounters, that's potentially up to 900,000 that are not stopped because they avoid being detected or they are not arrested. They are able to get away from the border guard. However, and I phrase this the way that I do, because these are enforcement encounters. So when I say 300,000 encounters, that's not 300,000

people necessarily. When somebody is stopped at the border and they're taken back across the border especially during title 42 with these rapid expulsions there are people who would make multiple attempts within any given year even a given given month so that doesn't mean that 300 000 real persons unique encounters unique people came across the border it just means that there were 300 000 encounters so when i don't want people to get the idea that we have a million illegal immigrants, new illegal immigrants coming to the country every month. But as I understand it, based on the experts that I talked to a couple of years ago, actually, it's about two to three gotaways for every encounter. Do they track the number of just unique encounters that they have?

They do. And I would need to go back and look at what exactly those numbers are. I think they are probably shifting a lot since the end of the Title 42 protocols. They also did not. The agency also did not want to give the impression that there were all of these encounters represented unique illegal immigrants who were coming here and staying. Well, Karen, those are great questions. I'm going to follow up with a great question of my own. Hayden, what's your favorite breakfast cereal? My favorite breakfast cereal? Raisin Bran. raisin bran yeah i love raisin bran a lot of the others are a little bit too sugary for me so i'll have cinnamon toast crunch but you have to eat it fast because it becomes cinnamon toast squish if you don't it's so true and all the cinnamon sinks to the bottom of the bowl yeah although it's fun to drink the milk after you finish it's it's so good like cinnamon toast crunch, Reese's Puffs. It's delicious. But when you're done, your mouth is just tore apart. That's true. It's too crunchy.

Pretty crunchy. It's very true. There was a, I was in Nashville over Christmas and there was on 12 South in Nash, there was a breakfast cereal bar where you could make breakfast cereal, like ice cream sundaes or just breakfast cereal in a bowl with milk, like your choice of milk. They had lattes that were all breakfast cereal themed, and it was called a want a spoon. But it made me think of that, Hayden, as soon as you said, pick the raisins out of the raisin. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Okay. Well, I'm going to stop us from getting any more derailed. Cameron, we're coming to you. Texas has made tremendous strides in protecting both the lives of the unborn and mothers, but one organization sees things very differently. Tell us about this end of year report you came across.

Yeah, that's right. A lot of organizations as we pass into this new year have published analysis and reports. Looking back over the 2023 year and the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization that's focused on the health of mothers and infants, published its 2023 report card in which it gave Texas a D minus grade. And this organization looked at, quote, collective factors that contribute to maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. So they were using data coming from the National Center for Health Statistics, and they found that Texas's preterm birth rate in 2022 was 11.3%, 0.1% lower than it was in 2021. And they contribute that to factors that are showing can cause preterm birth, things like smoking, hypertension, diabetes, the unhealthy weight of the mother. So

lots of factors can contribute to preterm births. But like you mentioned, Texas has done a lot to save and protect lives in the state. Texas saw 9,799 more babies born as a result of the Texas Heartbeat Act, which was passed in 2021, with a study by John Hopkins University finding that in just the first month of Senate Bill 8 going into effect, the state saw a 38% decrease in abortions. Also, Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn have been a successful initiative here in Texas, with also many counties joining in that movement, instituting local ordinances that outlaw abortion within that jurisdiction. And the low ranking from March of Dimes appears to be a result of the organization's goal of reducing the rate of preterm births to 8.1%.

There you go, Hayden. Thanks for your, or I just said Hayden because I'm looking at Hayden's name as the next person. I'm sorry that you had to endure that insult, Cameron. I don't know if I'll ever recover. I mean, that will probably haunt you that she accidentally called you by my name. I just used to always give my mom such grief for mixing up our kids' names. And I just did something far easier. It's far easier to call you guys by your individual names than that.

I need to call my mother later and ask for forgiveness. Cameron, thank you so much. You're welcome. Hayden, we're coming back to you with some more border news. Where did Secretary Mayorkas place the blame for the illegal immigration crisis? Secretary Mayorkas appeared on MSNBC to discuss what we just talked about earlier, the 300,000 record number of encounters. Western Hemisphere, but across the globe. I am involved in bilateral and multilateral meetings with my counterparts from foreign countries in Europe and Asia, the Indo-Pacific, all over the world, and migration. The challenges of displaced people is a subject that comes up in every single conversation. We have the effects of climate change, poverty, increasing level of authoritarianism, the very many challenges that are at the root cause of displacement of people around the world, end quote. Mayorkas is ascribing

the border crisis to principally climate change, poverty, and increasing level of authoritarianism, as opposed to policy failures on the part of Biden. Republicans clearly take issue with that, but as I mentioned earlier, this is a theme that has emerged in many of Mayorkas' public statements about this. When CBP published its year-end report, it indicated that this is the largest global displacement of people since World War II. two. So the U.S. is implementing policy amid a once in a generation movement across the globe of people. And it's because of all the international factors that I talked about earlier in Afghanistan, the Hamas-Israel conflict in Haiti and Central America. There are so many things going on around the world. And Mayorkas is pointing to those issues. But the one that stands out here is climate change, because the cause and effect that he drew between climate change and the illegal immigration on the border is the point of contention here. So the governor had something to say about this.

Walk us through Governor Abbott's response on social media. Abbott said, quote, climate change. Mayorkas is pathetic. The real all caps reason illegal immigration records are being set is because Biden refuses to enforce immigration laws. We will see more buses and planes. We will continue building the razor wire walls that Biden wants to tear down. End quote. referring there to the lawsuits that are pending because of federal border guards tearing down razor wire and because of the busing program, which, as I mentioned earlier, is still seeing tens of thousands of noncitizens being sent to, quote unquote, sanctuary cities across the country. Big city mayors are pushing back against that.

And Abbott is saying, too bad, so sad. And we're going to continue to do what we have to do. So talk to us about the timing of this quarrel. Well, a new law is set to take effect soon that would criminalize illegal immigration at the state level, or at least it would purport to. And the Department of Justice is initiating litigation about that. We're about to talk about that here pretty soon. But there were myriad changes in border policy throughout 2023, in addition to the record number of encounters. So there are so many things culminating in this. And the conflict that we're going to see in 2024 between Secretary Mayorkas and Governor Abbott is likely to be extreme.

Absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for your coverage. And Hayden, we're going to continue to talk with you. So I hope that's okay. That's fine. Okay, great. So you mentioned the lawsuit. Tell us more about it and where we're at with all of this. Well, the Department of Justice filed a complaint against the state of Texas at the federal courthouse in Austin. and they alleged that the state of Texas is, in fact, overstepping its bounds by trying to criminalize illegal immigration and that it's a clear conflict with the supremacy clause of the Constitution. The supremacy clause of the U.S.

Constitution indicates that federal law trumps state law. In other words, if the state passes a law that is in conflict with what is in federal statutes, then the state's law falls to the ground and the federal government's law is supreme. And this lawsuit was foreshadowed in a letter that higher-ups in the Department of Justice sent to Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicating that if the state did not agree to stand down and decline to enforce Senate Bill 4 before it takes effect in March, in fact, the deadline for the state to make that commitment was on Wednesday, then there would be legal action. And the Department of Justice has said that the SB4 enforcement mechanism is clearly unconstitutional

and a blatant violation of the separation of powers. So what could be the implications of this lawsuit? Well, if the lawsuit is in the federal government's favor, Texas will more or less have to go back to the drawing board and say, what can we do to continue to address illegal immigration without running afoul of additional rulings by the Supreme Court that say immigration is strictly a federal responsibility. In the complaint and in the letter that the DOJ sent to Abbott, Principal Deputy Attorney General pointed to Arizona v. United States, which stated that immigration is a federal responsibility. And that was in response to Arizona's state law that directed law enforcement to stop illegal immigrants on state charges on suspicion of crossing the border illegally. So the similar cases have been

considered like this before. And if SB4 is deemed to be unconstitutional, then Texas will have to come back in a future legislative session and try again if that is the course of action that Republican lawmakers choose to take. Lots of border news to start off the year, which makes sense. But Hayden, thanks for covering it all for us. Matt, we're moving on to you. And I'm really looking at the docket to make sure I'm saying the right person for each each segment. Matthew, you're next. Are you ready for it?

I'm ready. I'm so glad. A judge who gained fame during the height of COVID for an online court hearing featuring a cat lawyer will not seek re-election. Now the next judge will be decided

in the Republican primary. Give us some background on this and what do you mean when you say cat lawyer? Well, it was a lawyer cat. I'll, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll start with the facts at hand and we can decided against seeking a fourth term in office, and he's presided over the rural judicial region for over the past 10 years. Ferguson is known as the cat lawyer judge after he released a short video of a court hearing in which a lawyer joined the Zoom meeting with a cat filter accidentally turned on.

In the video, Ferguson can be heard calmly trying to coach the attorney into how to turn the filter off, telling him where to find the button, where to click. And it's kind of an amusing video because the cat filter is sort of nervously, frantically looking around the perimeters of the Zoom video footage, trying to find the button. During this time, the attorney can be humorously heard saying, I'm not a cat judge. And that's earned a tremendous reaction online and across the world with, I think there's still Twitter accounts and people selling t-shirts and mugs featuring the cat filter saying, I'm not a cat. Anyway, or I'm not a, I'm not a cat. I'm an attorney. Anyway, the video was seen something like over a billion times all over the world, just crazy views. And it was sort of a much needed light point during the difficult days

of the COVID lockdowns. Anyway, Ferguson, who was a Democrat or is a Democrat, did not file for re-election. No other Democrats filed in the March primary election, meaning the next judge of the rural district will be chosen in the GOP primary, with two Alpine attorneys, Monty Kimball and Bill Parham, facing off. The district includes Brewster, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, and Presidio counties. The district attorney covering much of the same region,

not all, but most of the same region, will also be determined in the Republican primary with incumbent district attorney Ori White facing challenger Jess Gonzalez. Both men are attorneys from nearby Fort Stockton. Matt, this is such a fun story. And folks, you definitely should go check it out.

And I, for one, just wanted to go back and watch the cat lawyer video again because it is so fun and hilarious and just a very lighthearted and entertaining thing to watch. So definitely. I get a laugh out of it every time oh it's so good it's so good the lawyer's just like i'm not a cat like sir we didn't think you were but it's so i'm not a cat it was absolutely priceless and the filter is nervously kind of looking around trying to find the button, you know, and you can hear, you can hear the attorney and his assistant, you know, trying to, to turn it off and Ferguson just patiently trying to coach them through it. Um, but it was hilarious too. There was, there was like good morning America segments after that on, you know, if, if you want to use the cat filter, here's how to find it, you know, and things like that. And, and, um, it's, it's still, it's still something that's, uh, pops up on social media frequently.

And if you go follow Judge Ferguson on Twitter, um, he's, uh, his, his Twitter handle is, um, I think it's a cat lawyer judge. Anyway, he still gets, gets a kick out of it. Oh yeah. They all leaned into it. It's pretty awesome. Well, Anyway, he still gets a kick out of it. Oh, yeah. They all leaned into it. It's pretty awesome. Well, Matt, thank you for your coverage. Cameron, coming to you. Several Americans were detained as prisoners in Venezuela, and they've landed in Texas after a deal was brokered between the Biden administration and the Venezuelan government. Give us the details.

Yeah. So 10 Americans landed in San Antonio on December 20th in exchange for granting clemency to Alex Saab, one of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's allies. Maduro also agreed to release, quote, at least 20 opposition-linked prisoners from prison. This was according to Reuters. And in a press release from the White House, of those 10 Americans, six, they said, were wrongfully detained Americans. Also in exchange, Maduro extradited Leonard Francis, also known as Fat Leonard, described by NPR as a, quote, notorious and once portly defense contractor. He was involved in one of the largest bribery scandals ever involving the U.S. Navy. The White House in their press release also reminded Americans of its, quote, longstanding warning against traveling to Venezuela, saying Americans should not travel there. The U.S. government's negotiations with Maduro and the opposition party Unitary Platform were successful as the U.S. suspended certain

sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas operations, its gold sector, secondary market purchases of certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds and equity by individuals in the United States. And sanctions have been placed on Venezuela since 2005. And in October, 2023, the Biden administration attempted to use that pressure to create an opportunity for, quote, restoration of democracy and the rule of law, as well as the release of, quote, wrongfully detained US nationals from Venezuelan prisons. So Venezuela has been a place with a lot of turmoil, especially with their government. And it has been called by the U.S. State Department an authoritarian regime. And there has been, quote, fraudulent 2018 presidential elections. And there has been turmoil during their 2020 elections. And this turmoil has relating to

a lot of what Hayden's been talking about in terms of the illegal immigration and migrant activity. 7.3 million people since 2014 have been subject to a mass exodus of the country. They've seen annual inflation rates as high as over 9,000%. The country's been subject to international criminal court investigations, and this all because of human rights violations, including mass starvation. So Venezuela has had a lot of turmoil in that country, but the Biden administration has been able to bring home some wrongfully detained Americans. There you go, Cameron. Thank you. And certainly worth going and reading all the details at thetexan.news. Bradley, it's been a while. We're back, though.

But Texas is not. Oh. I can't believe you just said that. Well, my condolences to fans. We'll get into this later. It was a good season. But I'm a Washington fan, so I am gloating slightly. Oh, we'll get into it.

And tweeter-y. No, and Texas had a great year. And I was rooting for them for a long time until they were against my dogs. For a long time. I love the caveat. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, until they were against the dogs.

Anyways. And the dogs won. I'm probably going to get some hate emails. I hope you do. I probably will i'm glad you fell on that sword for me though so i didn't have to do it we have a lot to yeah we have so much to get into later okay right over 30 new state laws went into effect on new year's day this week what are some of those so some of the run of the mill ones are hp 614 which requires

homeowners associations to write out and provide sufficient notice of policies and fines. Another is an emphasis of creating a diversion program for minors convicted of Class C misdemeanors. Another is a mandate that appraisal districts create and maintain an online database and schedule of protest hearings. Another is a mandate that tax officials converse electronically with taxpayers at the latter's request. Creation of an offense for marketing e-cigarette products to minors and a directive to the comptroller of public accounts to create a database that tracks local economic development agreements under Chapter 312 of the tax code. That's different from 313.

313 dealt with school districts. 312 deals with counties and cities. To date, well, until this passed, there had not been a database tracking those. Next to impossible to find out how many there actually are out there. So this one will change that. Most of these bills were tax-related or rather unremarkable, even though many of them will have an actual impact on various things. Most of the notable bills that passed during the legislature, the 88th legislature, either went into effect on September 1st or immediately upon signing from the governor. But the most notable one that went into effect on January 1st from the regular session was SB 17. That's a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices at universities.

That one is kind of a response to this growing, growing list of examples of what conservatives and Republicans deemed to be improper use of university resources, the pushing of certain ideological agendas. Cameron's written on this a lot, so if you want to describe it more, go ahead. But that one went into effect, and that's probably the most notable one. Another one that went into effect that I think is notable is the franchise tax component of the legislature's property tax deal. That was one component of many. This one is the only one that went into effect on January 1st. It increases the franchise tax exception from $1 million to $2.47 million. So any business that brings in revenues in a given year below that line no longer has to pay the franchise tax. That's something that small business owners are very happy about.

And it's, as Senator Paul Betancourt called it, it's basically a nuisance for those businesses anyway, because the amount of tax they have to pay for that is pretty low normally. So they're having to jump through all this paperwork for largely no reason. So that was another big one. Why was the DEI ban such a big priority? So they mentioned, you know,

it's a response to these universities and the, especially administrations therein, what they're pushing generally to advance progressive orthodoxies on race and gender through admissions policies, trainings and other miscellaneous methods. It also prohibits those institutions from compelling persons to provide a DEI statement or to give preferential treatment to those who do so, either in hiring or admissions. DEI training programs with similar aims are also banned. So there's a lot of concern about whether, similar to the critical race theory ban, whether it just will be repackaged under a different name. I guess the jury's still out on that.

We'll see what happens there. But yeah, this is similar to this critical race theory ban just at the university level. Yeah. Anything to add, Cameron? Well, two things. The University of Texas at Austin, they made a change to the naming of their DEI offices. It's now, I believe, something involving community engagement. I mentioned that in an article, I think about two weeks ago. So like you said, we're going to see what happens if these ideologies are moved out

or they're just repackaged. Jury's still out on that. But as we've seen over the past month with how these Ivy League college presidents have been brought in front of congressional hearings, we're seeing how this ideology, what started initially decades ago, just sort of lingering in different departments at universities have made their way all the way to the top. And that slippery slope might have reached its bottom with the Harvard president's plagiarism scandal and all the exposing of that online by Manhattan Institute's Christopher Ruffo. And she has resigned, the Harvard president. And it's just an interesting highlight of what DEI can do is if you're going to hire an individual

just based on certain aesthetic reasons, whether it's race or gender or sexuality, there has to be some merit behind that. And the Harvard president's resignation really highlights that because there was forward if you're publishing a lot of papers. And apparently this Harvard president had not published hardly at all. And as we saw, a lot of those papers were plagiarized. So just an interesting thing for people to see. Well, it's also interesting how the definition of plagiarism has changed since that came out. The AP, yeah, the AP article was saying that conservatives are now weaponizing plagiarism. It's like, no, plagiarism has always been bad, guys. It's like the cardinal sin in academia. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. Like original work is what academia has been built on for as long as it's been around. Cameron, it really is. Like original work is what academia has been built

on for as long as it's been around. Cameron, thank you so much for adding that in. And Brad, thanks for your coverage. Hayden, we're coming to you. Talk to us about the former Dallas Congresswoman who passed away on New Year's Eve. Former Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson passed away on New Year's Eve at the age of 88. She was a progressive icon in North Texas, a congresswoman who served the Dallas County area for three decades in Congress. She represented a deeply Democratic congressional district there that is currently situated in downtown Dallas and mostly there in Southern Dallas County. The district is currently rated D77% on the Texans Partisan Index, and that's the 30th district. Johnson was known for advocating for racial equality issues, infrastructure funding, and progressive causes. She led the charge on a lot of different fronts and is a high profile

figure in North Texas, especially Dallas. Absolutely. What did elected officials say to pay tribute to Congresswoman Johnson? There were comments on both sides of the aisle, but obviously her primary, most of the comments came from other Democrats that she partnered with in her years in Congress. Her handpicked successor, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, talked about how honored she was to be endorsed by Johnson. Crockett called her a trailblazer. Lots of people have called Johnson a trailblazer for her work on racial equality issues. President Biden, who served with Congresswoman Johnson in Congress, called her, quote, an icon and mentor to generations of public servants, end quote.

He said that she left a legacy of resilience and purpose was the phrase he used. And Vice President Harris called her a visionary, a pioneer and a fighter. So and even those who disagreed with Johnson politically, even Senator Ted Cruz, who would probably be considered opposite her on many issues, had good things to say about her and working with her. So it's always it's always I suppose nostalgic might not be the best word, but reflective when somebody who was so involved in politics in an area that they were able to create relationships, even with people who staunchly disagreed with their policy stances. And some people spend so much time in public service and commit themselves to one area. They don't jump around. And she stayed in Dallas and represented for Dallas so long that she really became a brand name in Dallas politics.

Oh, my gosh. And she has a fixture in Texas history in that regard. Absolutely. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that for us. We appreciate that so much. Cameron, coming to you. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Wednesday morning that his home in McKinney was victim to a swatting event. Give us some of the details.

Yeah. So the swatting took place on New Year's Day, according to Paxton. He took to social media to say him and his wife, Senator Angela Paxton, were not home at the time and that they are both safe. And for context, SWATing is when you make a hoax call to 911 to draw a response from law enforcement. Usually a SWAT team arrives. And from the FBI, they said it's a serious crime and one that has potentially dangerous consequences. And Paxson seemed to imply that his swatting incident was a result of House Speaker Dade Phelan and, quote, his lieutenants and the Dallas Morning News doxing his address. Because back in October, Paxson filed criminal complaints regarding a document dump related to his impeachment trial last summer. And at the time, those documents were unredacted and included personal information, including the address of Ken Paxson and Angela Paxson's Austin home.

The McKinney home address, however, where the swatting incident did occur was not included in those documents. And doxing, for our listeners, a string of swatting incidents have occurred across the country with Republicans really being the primary target. We've seen Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she was swatted for about the eighth time. The conservative activist Jack Posobiec, he went on X or Twitter, however you want to call it, saying his parents were swatted. And there was actually a few Democrats as well who were swatted during the holiday season. So hopefully we don't see this trend continue because swatting can potentially result in very bad outcomes.

Yes. To say the least. There was also this week a string of bomb threats made at state capitals across the country and it sounded like that also happened

at Texas Capitol. It wasn't as publicized but there was like a soft evac this week. But I'm not sure if What's a soft evac?

I don't know. Okay. That's just the term I was told. Was it actually a soft evac? I don't know. Okay. What's it actually mean? A soft evacuation? As in soft evacuation? And hard evacuation. I don't understand. Yeah, I don't know. You have one foot in the building and one foot inside

or outside. I mean, you can leave if you want. Well, it's just an interesting problem that law enforcement is going to have to deal with because they have to respond with appropriate force in these potential incidents because it could be real, it could be not.

And so people online are abusing this, abusing law enforcement to go after their political opponents. And I don't know what law enforcement can do to to try and quell this but um yeah it's a dangerous thing yeah and i saw a couple news stories that although they didn't go into explaining how or why they kind of linked the two the the threats at capitals and the increase in the number of swattings at officials homes so it's probably all just part of the same yeah you know it's just so dangerous because when you have law enforcement showing up somewhere and they have bad information about what's going on that someone could die in a case like that that's the whole reason no knock warrants is such a

controversial issue right now because people have died but yeah it's horrible it's absolutely horrible but camera thanks for covering that for us and i'm sure we'll continue to hear about this going forward my goodness okay well ending on that delightful note let's move on to tweetery you're in transition a little bit oh who do i start with matt i'm gonna start with you yours seems kind of fun light-hearted i love this. Tell us what your Twitter is this week. Well, for those fellow Lord of the Rings fans out there, I took note that yesterday was author J.R.R. Tolkien's 132nd birthday. And according to the Tolkien Society's Twitter page or whatever you want to call it, there is a tradition

going way, way, way back where on J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday at 9pm, everyone raises a glass and does a toast to quote the professor. And so

of course I participated. Anyway professor i like that i thought that was a fun that's so fun matt do you have a favorite tolkien um work you know i um i kind of like them all equally yeah all of them have interesting, unique attributes. I just like his style of writing. And a lot of the quotes really stick with you. Yeah. And have a lot of deep meaning. And he was actually a very interesting guy.

I don't know. There's actually a movie based on the life of J.R.R. Tolkien that's outside of the Lord of the Rings franchise but it's really interesting just kind of goes talks about you know his his life leading up and being a

professor and being a you know lifelong student of history and the origin of words and everything like that. Just how incredibly intelligent this guy was. And, you know, it's just fascinating to, you you know the imagination that he has creating the this entire world basically that's why so many people like myself are Tolkien fans yeah absolutely yeah Cameron one of J.R.R. Tolkien's good friends was C.S. Lewis it's's very true. Fun little fact. I forget who else was part of their little club they'd come together. Yeah, there was like one other person.

Yeah, a few gentlemen and they'd come together and I think they'd smoke their pipes or cigars and talk about their work. To be privy to those conversations would be unbelievable. Apparently the actor that played Saruman in the movies, I cannot remember his name off the top of my head for some reason.

Major actor. Yeah. Anyway, apparently he was friends with Tolkien. Oh, my gosh. That's crazy. Yeah. I'm going to look that up. Well, Matt, thank you for that.

That's so fun. Cameron. Yeah. Tell us what you got. So, U-Haul. That elicited the perfect reaction because Texas again netted the largest number of movers in one way U-Haul equipment in 2023, marking the third consecutive year it has finished atop the U-Haul growth index. Florida was right behind Texas,

followed by North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. And I'm sure we can all guess the number one in net loss, California. But people were also leaving Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York. You know, this is just a reflection, again, of what was happening during 2020 and 2021. People leaving a lot of these blue states looking for more freedom. Yeah. In cheaper costs. In cheaper costs in places like Texas and Florida.

So. I'm fascinated that Washington is in the top 10 states for growth because like a lot of the cost of living and political background, like all of that's the same. It's all West Coast driven stuff. So that's fascinating. Washington. The growth. I'm from Washington.

So I get it. You're from East Washington, right? No. Like Seattle area. like oh like suburb why did i think that you that the town i guess i thought the town you grew up in was closer to spokane yeah that would that we went over to spokane a lot we did a lot of road trip type stuff and explored all over the state but no i was like um woodenville washington where all the wineries are so you know what i did know that i just forgot yeah because you've talked a lot about that i do i'd nausea i do like to talk

about it forget me it's my favorite um that's fascinating cameron thank you for bringing that up bradley we're gonna go to you and we're gonna end on Hayden in minds because they're related so the Epoch Times put out a projection of like potential vice presidential picks for Trump which obviously is looking increasingly likely like that will have to be a decision and there were two Texans on that but neither of which are

who you're thinking. On it is Wesley Hunt, the congressman from the Houston area, freshman congressman. And then the other is John Ratcliffe, a former congressman who served as Trump's director of national intelligence for a bit. I think Pat Fallon currently holds his seat. He resigned that spot to go be the DNI director for Trump. But interesting that those two were, Hunt has been very outspokenly pro-Trump. I think he might have been the first congressional member, sitting congressional member to endorse Trump. Yeah.

If not the first, he was among the first. So. Who's on the top of their list? Who do they think? They had the primary candidates, the Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy among them. Other ones they had, they mentioned Doug Burgum. Burgum.

Yeah, that would be interesting. The way you said that. And then various other random people. Mike Pompeo was one. Oh, wow. So it's kind of all over the place. But the fact that those two are the Texans that were mentioned, I think is very surprising. Yeah.

The fact that it's not Ken Paxton. Yeah. Or Greg Abbott. Or Dan Patrick. Or Dan Patrick. Yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah.

I'm surprised Abbott's not on there. Yeah. Me too. I mean, maybe he jumped on the endorsement train too late and Trump's like, hmm, no, sir. Yeah. Gotta jump on sooner. Who knows? Okay.

Never mind. Proceed. Proceed. I don't know why I'm doing this. When I tell people to go today. You're ready to land the plane, the podcast plane. I am. I feel like these were birds.

I'm doing weird stuff with my hands to direct people to their tweeter-y since we're not a video podcast and I'm thankful for that today. Hay what do you have for us actually my name is cameron well we've already touched on this and i feel like i'm about to really open a can of worms here you are but this is like a But this is a good soft evac. I don't like that phrase. Let's retire that one. Matthew McConaughey was reportedly a little bit unruly during the Sugar Bowl the other day.

He was very passionate, cheering on the Longhorns, but maybe got a little bit out of hand. And I'm just looking at a picture of him and he's just the picture is just amazing he's just got his mouth open he's like he looks like he's like shouting something ah you know get it together but that that hit me funny it is this is intense and is he still the minister of culture at ut i think he is i haven't checked who the minister of culture is lately yeah it's not on your on your daily uh your daily checklist yeah i usually don't log in and go oh gotta know oh my gosh yeah haven't people pressured him to run for public

office he's publicly said that he's open to running for president. For governor. Governor. Governor. Excuse me. Governor. Governor. Right. Two very different offices. But yeah, he said he's open to it. And he was teasing it and doing interviews a year or two ago about it. Interesting.

Which is really fascinating. And I think this was after he became minister of culture. I believe you're right. It also sounds like a Harry Potter position. Like the minister of Magic. It sounds a little bit Orwellian if we're being honest. The Minister of Culture. At UT, not of... At UT, not in the state of Texas.

For a moment, there was a dream, a hope of a Governor Abbott, Beto O'Rourke, and Matthew McConaughey face off. That would have been unreal. That would have messed up the whole political landscape in texas so badly well that's what he was trying to do is like yeah he was gonna do an independent right i don't imagine yeah i don't know why anyone like that who is beloved by people all over the place would jump into politics like that yeah alienate themselves from half the country uh you know there's a famous quote from michael jordan of republicans buy sneakers too back when he was uh being criticized for not jumping into a north carolina senate race or

something but you have this across the spectrum appeal why Why would you throw that down the tube? I don't, I think it works better for athletes than it does actors or actresses to run for public office. Typically when it's like a home state thing and they may already have their political views known, but it's not like they're losing the base as much. Like Michael Jordan's different.

I mean, he's a household name and will be for ever, but you know, like the Colin all reds of the base as much. Like Michael Jordan's different. I mean he's a household name and will be for ever. But you know like the Colin Allreds of the world. Right. Who had a successful career. But then come into the political scene. I don't think they lose as much by entering. Well the counter to that is Herschel Walker.

Yeah. Totally. Who is a legend in Georgia. And then. I was just thinking about that. His reputation just. Amongst certain. I'm sure Georgia fans took a plunge yeah absolutely

well and the big red flag there was his family did not want him to run which that's always a red flag when a candidate's family does not want that person to be on the ballot yeah it's rough I hate seeing family drama spill over into politics it is sad the news cycle

sucks it's horrible and I would say family drama spill over into politics. It is sad. The news cycle. It sucks. It's horrible. And I would say this for a Republican or a Democrat, but a lot of that is on him. Because if you run for office and you've got a lot of that going on and your own family thinks it's a bad idea. And you still go for it. And you still run and put your family on the line. That's. That's rough.

Questionable. Yeah. Yeah. questionable yeah yeah his son went from really supporting his candidacy to talking trash especially on twitter constantly about it so sad because when you run for office it doesn't just affect you it affects the people around you i think it was some stuff came out that he was unaware of and yeah that's horrible oh i hate that okay well let's get into this my tweet i have two things to say about this before we actually get into the meat and potatoes of this, Bradley. One, I walk into the office Monday and Brad just dead on looks at me, says, we are enemies in more than one way this week.

Oh, wow. That's the first thing he said to me on the first day back in the office and of course he's referring to michigan vub next monday yeah it's coming very soon it's like four days away it's gonna be a great game i think i think so too and then i was going to read dave portnoy who's retweeted you before founder of barstool sports oh i forgot he did that yeah yeah remember that really that was crazy what was it what did he retweet? I didn't know who he was at the time. And now I feel like we kind of watch what he says.

It was a poll. It was a poll. Oh, yes. I got sent a poll about the Buffalo Bills renaming their stadium Barstool Stadium. That's what it was? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Some consultant in Texas did a poll on it for some reason.

Maybe he's a Bills fan. I don't know. That's kind of a crazy thing to do as a fan. I got the email. So I tweeted it out and Portnoy responded. That's why you tweet out everything you get. You never know who's going to retweet you. But he's a huge Michigan fan, obviously.

He went to Michigan. Huge fan um this is a tweet from him on new year's day michigan versus washington will be a war the two best teams in the country washington is great and they have been disrespected all year great team very classy and i appreciated it it's gonna be pretty you should see his tweets about ohio state no i've seen them it's a very different thing that. You should see his tweets about Ohio State. No, I've seen them. It's a very different thing. That's why I think it was... You can't read them on this. But that's why this really caught me off guard is because it was a very interesting move.

No, I mean, Texas played well. Washington just, their passing attack was unstoppable. It was crazy. But Michigan's also looking so good. Makes me nervous. Our defense is a juggernaut. Our offense is, running game especially, looking so good. Our defense is a juggernaut. Our offense is running game especially is quite good. But also how fun is it that it's like we were I mean, it could have been Bama in the national championship.

Right. I mean, it could have been an entirely different situation. And obviously, Texas, like Texas had a shot at the end. That would have been a huge deal. Yeah, it was a great game. Texas was so close, but I think Michigan and Washington, like those are two programs that you don't often see in this position and it's really fun to see. Michigan more so than

Washington for sure. When's the last time Michigan was in the national championship? 97. 97. They played each other in 21 in Michigan. Shellacked you guys. It's the year. They played each other in 21 in Michigan. Shellacked you guys.

It's true. But in the 1998 Rose Bowl, there was a. Yeah, they played each other. Oh, that's Washington State. No, I'm saying like when's the last time Michigan was in the net like dealing with a championship or faced with a championship opportunity? It was 97-98, but that ended up being split with Nebraska because they didn't have a championship game like they do now. So this is their first real... Well, since like 1948 or something.

Okay. The last time Washington and Michigan squared off in the last time washington and michigan squared off in the postseason was the 1992 rose bowl and i think that was that's it yeah um you guys won 34 14 although maybe there was another one i want to hear hayden's prediction for the national championship since he is our newest sports analyst here at the Texan we're not going to go there you guys won the first one Michigan won the second

one oh my gosh also this year this is a sad story I have I had this UW hat that I have I wore like every weekend for like 10 years and I left it in my car and it started to get sunstained and like, so it would just got gross enough where I had to throw it away. Right. As we had the best season ever.

So I Amazon, no, I Amazon where we got one already back again, but it's like my backbone of this economy. It's my nostalgia. Maybe that hat was cursed after you threw it away now they're winning that's actually i'm gonna be superstitious about my hat but i will say brad brad cares more about michigan than i do about washington so if michigan does win i will be sad but excited for okay i can

compartmentalize my sadness and be happy for you. I will be so miserable if we lose. I know. I think your passion for Washington is proportional to your agitation with Brad. That's interesting. Interesting hypothesis, and it could be true. Yeah. I think the latter goes a lot further. I suppose we should mention Texas on this Texas podcast. Maybe it's not a one-to-one ratio But their correlation is there

Yeah Texas though is back Finally They really are Sarkeesian had a good year Quinton Ewers As the guy who interviewed Hayden He's never watched a game of football in his life

If he's calling Quinn, we're not going to go there. Let's stop. Anyway. Anyway. Um, but you know, next year,

absolutely. Next year, longhorns are going to slaughter. You know why? Because they're going to build off the momentum from this season. And it's going to be a bloodbath. They probably will. Yeah.

Is Arch Manning going to ride the bench? That's a big question, right? Does Quinn go pro? I'm sure Hayden has an opinion. I think he has a lot to consider right now. He's still emotionally processing what happened. And that in his own time, Brad, don't't rush my longhorn fan friends say they don't think he had a good enough season to go pro and he should come back but also arch manning said

when asked he has no intention of transferring so maybe a qb battle setting up camera that's wild and i don't hate ut for the record people that was just a snarky joke that came to mind immediately and I didn't filter and I said it. I'm sorry about it. I'm still riding the high of the wind. So my apologies. Again, like I said, I was very excited that Texas was back this year. Is that your formal apology? It is my formal apology.

I already received enough. Please don't unsubscribe from the podcast. There are emails from people that are angry at random things. That one is not random. That one's very, very blatant. So I feel the need to get ahead of it. Okay. Let's real fast before we end.

Brad, if Michigan wins. Are we doing predictions? No. If Michigan wins, you get to, we'll wager. I'll do something embarrassing. And if Washington wins, you can do something embarrassing. Hayden and Cameron, help us brainstorm what this is. If Michigan wins, you have...

Brad gets poncho for a month. No, that's actually sad for me. I get Winston for a month. How about that? No. How about you each bring your ugliest sweater to the office and whoever loses has to wear it for the day. I like that. I don't really have an ugly sweater.

Oh boy, do I. I was confused. Brad has to be really excited and peppy for an entire podcast and compliment people and accept compliments himself. No, do not agree to that deal.

Do you remember when I had to go around and say something nice to everybody? That was the worst thing ever. Oh, I remember. Whoever loses has to prepare a bowl of oatmeal for the other. Oh, wow. That's a very vulnerable cut right there. Nobody knows what we're talking about. wow that's a that's a that's a very vulnerable cut right there nobody knows there's so many inside jokes flying around right now my lanta well let's noodle on it if we can't think of anything right now we can noodle on it we can come back next week tell folks what

what's on the what was on the line and what each person had to do okay sounds good okay we'll brainstorm now my mind's really going. Folks, we so appreciate you tuning into this podcast. Happy New Year. Happy 2024. Thank you for tuning in

to our first podcast of the year and we will catch you next week. Go blue. Oh dear. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts,

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