The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 22, 2022

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

This week on The Texan's "Weekly Roundup," the team discusses the Texas Democrats reelecting their chair but failing to pass a platform, lawmakers condemning the decisions made during the Uvalde shooting, the state’s lawsuit against the Biden administration for abortion guidance, Texas Democrats’ attempts to circumvent state abortion laws, the rise in volunteering and donations to pregnancy resource centers, a congressman’s harsh words for the president of Mexico, a 14% drop in encounters by border patrol, a man who smuggled dozens of illegal aliens in a trailer of onions, the arrest of a Texas congresswoman protesting in favor of abortion at the Supreme Court, the trial for an East Texas principal charged with child sex abuse, and the death of a prominent survivor of the Waco Siege. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at [e-mail] — we’d love to answer your questions on a future podcast. 

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses the Texas Democrats re-electing their chair but failing to pass a platform. Lawmakers condemning the decisions made during the Uvalde shooting. The state's lawsuit against the Biden administration for abortion guidance. Texas Democrats' attempts to circumvent state abortion laws. The rise in volunteering and donations to pregnancy resource centers, a congressman's harsh words for the president of Mexico, a 14% drop in encounters by Border Patrol, a man who smuggled dozens of illegal aliens in a trailer of onions,

the arrest of a Texas congresswoman protesting in favor of abortion at the Supreme Court, the trial for an East Texas principal charged with child sex abuse, and the death of a prominent survivor of the Waco siege. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, hello everyone. Mackenzie Taylor here with Hayden Sparks, Isaiah Mitchell, and Rob Lausches. We are here to talk about the news this week and Brad Johnson is notably absent. I do want to say as well that last week we talked about potentially doing an ice cream taste test of the new Bluebell oatmeal cream cookie flavor. Did I just butcher butcher it i think that's what it's

oh don't ask me i don't know aren't you the one that had it yes but do i remember the exact name no but it was like an oatmeal cookie variety of bluebell ice cream we were going to try it this week but brad being gone it just feels like we should have the whole team here. He's going to be deeply missed. I know that he's in a better place right now. Okay, I think you're taking it a bit far. In Ohio. He's in Ohio. Well, then he's not in a better place, clearly.

Obviously, Texas is where it's at. But Brad does have an affinity for very sweet things. So we also thought that it would be cruel, in fact, to have him not be around for that particular activity. Which is why I'm surprised that you didn't decide to do it. Like that seems like that would be the tipping, the factor that tipped it in favor of doing it was because you could use it as a way to torture Brad. That's true. Let's all take a moment and realize how kind I am. Yeah.

Okay. I think you get like 25 points. That's a lot of points. Yeah. breath that's true let's all take a moment and realize how kind i i am yeah okay i think i think you get like 25 points that's a lot of points yeah i think that's a probably a good thing are these percentage points or is this like a dumbledore situation this is a hayden made it up situation okay yeah that's pretty sweet well gentlemen let's begin talking about the news this week isaiah we we're going to start with you. You spent some time last week at the Texas Democrat Convention here. Was it in Fort Worth, I believe? Dallas. Dallas. What was the big headline from the convention? and they decided to stay with Gilberto Hinojosa, who has been the party chairman for quite a while. This was a much more contentious race than the GOP's party chair race,

which didn't even really materialize past some rumors that Cat Parks was going to challenge Matt Rinaldi. A lot of it came down to disputes over political strategy, regards on how to win. There were two other candidates challenging Hinojosa, Kim Olson, who I might remember ran for Ag Commissioner in 2018, and Carol Robinson, who is currently the chairman of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats. Olson was the more serious challenger. Carol Robinson placed third in the early round, first round of voting. And then after that, in a bit of a surprise, decided to throw support behind Hinojosa, who ultimately won with 58%. And so it kind of came down to Olson versus

Hinojosa. Olson wanted to focus more on borough counties west of I-35. And Hinojosa's strategy heretofore has been to mobilize voters in reliably blue urban areas instead of trying to chase votes elsewhere although he did promise at the convention to devote some more attention to the rural counties so got it now tell us what happened with the platform when these state parties get together the kind of two main items of business are electing their leadership their chairman and their vice chairman and then also dealing with the platform, talking about what exactly the party will hang its hat on for that year legislatively, or the next two years, rather, as these happen every two years. What happened with the platform for the Democratic Party?

The short answer is nothing. They did not adopt a new platform. There was some confusion over the process and by the time they got around to the platform business they did not have enough delegates in the room a lot of the delegates had left and so they lost quorum and so for those of y'all who have lives and don't know what quorum is you've got to have like a particular fraction of the total amount of people at the convention in the room in order to get business done and there's a delegate the cold point of order saying we don't have enough of the total amount of people at the convention in the room in order to get business done and um there's a delegate the cold point of order saying we don't have enough of the delegates

that are here that like entered convention in the room right now to do the platform so more specifically the way the process works is that um between the county conventions and the state convention um the hinojosa in this case, but the party chair points people to get to work preliminarily on the platform. And they do the lion's share of the work is what I've been told. And then at the convention itself, the delegates will elect people to go on the permanent platform committee, and they will continue the work in the platform. But it has to be finally approved with whatever adjustments the delegates want to make by the work in the platform but it has to be finally uh approved with whatever adjustments the delegates want to make by the delegates in the general assembly hall so

that's the big one with everybody there all the delegates and everything from all over the state and that is a stage where it broke down um there was there were a lot of complaints about unclear scheduling um since at every day i mean i i remember i was trying to find my way around and uh i would look at the schedule periodically on the little spreadsheet that they provided and um they would show the list of speakers for each day but not say really at what point they would get down to business because there's kind of a checkerboard pattern between you know speaker speaker speaker party business speaker speakers you know and um so the long and short of it is that a lot of delegates thought that things were over after the party chair race and just decided to head out.

Planes, trains to catch and so forth. And so then the platform could get done. So they're sticking. I mean, right now they have the 2020 platform in place. The way they work is that every two years they adopt a new one and replaces the old one. So the situation now is that they have not yet replaced the 2020 platform wow so what what are they doing going forward hinojosa said that he's going to form a new committee to work on revising the platform um so that's those are the gears that are moving right now i want you real fast

to give our listeners kind of an insight into both party conventions you went to the texas republican convention with our team and then you also were at the texas democrat convention what i mean both here's the thing you get a bunch of delegates thousands of delegates who care very deeply about their party together it's going to be unorganized right there were i mean even walking into the texas republican party convention there was certainly confusion over vendors, booths, how this was working out, where people could get press credentials, etc, etc. What was it like kind of looking back at these two conventions? And obviously, the Democrats, they're not passing a platform is kind of crazy. I mean, that's what they're gathering to do in large part.

What did these conventions, like what were some similarities and commonalities between them as you attended both? And what were some differences differences uh well one thing to point out is that um i mean the ideological differences are obvious to everybody but in both cases delegates as a general rule are the loyal stalwarts of the party and so if you think about them as a sample size, they, the Republican delegates are the really Republican Republicans and same thing for the Democrats, which are the really Democratic Democrats. So the platforms that they come up with are generally not, it's not the same as if you're to just take a general poll of voters in Texas who vote one way or the other. It's usually a lot more specific, a lot more scrutinizing, attention to principle, and that kind of thing. A lot more like concentrated.

Concentrated is the best word for it. Yeah. And so that's a similarity between both of them. One big difference, of course, is size. I mean, as Texas elections for the past 20 years have demonstrated statewide, there are more Republicans than Democrats in Texas. And so the convention for Republicans was much bigger than the Democratic convention. So that was one big difference. But aside from that, it's the ideological differences that are apparent to everybody between the two parties.

And that materializes in the kind of vendors that you see there. Well, awesome. Isaiah, thank you so much for both going and covering that for us and for our readers. We appreciate it. Hayden, we're going to come right to you. Let's talk more about Uvalde. The committee investigating the Uvalde shooting recently published a preliminary report. What were some of the highlights? Well, Speaker Dade Phelan assembled a committee that included Dustin Burroughs, Joe Moody, and former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. And they published a report this past Sunday that outlined some of their preliminary findings and their investigation of the tragic shooting that took place on May 24, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas. And this was not a list of legislative proposals, but it was a fact pattern that they have assembled after interviewing law enforcement sources,

witnesses on that day, and people who had direct knowledge of the shooter's background and a myriad other sources of information that they have compiled and taken testimony at the Capitol as well as in Uvalde. But Burroughs had hoped to give the victim family members and others in Uvalde the first look at this report, and I believe that was accomplished. But he also produced a video of the 73-minute delay where officers are standing in the hallway waiting to confront the gunman. And that video was produced as well after being shown to the victim family members. But the Austin American Statesman produced another version of the video that included portions that Burroughs and others on the committee had hoped would remain under seal for the sake of the video that included portions that Burroughs and others on the committee had

hoped would remain under seal for the sake of the victim family members. And that included video of the shooter entering the school in the moments before he entered the classroom where he committed those capital murders. And the committee was disappointed that that portion of the video was produced for the public to see. But the highlights of the text of the report included a lack of diligence with school security and facilities maintenance. There were also lowered vigilance due to an increase in the school's alert system had been used more frequently. I believe it was about 50 times between February and May to alert staff of bailouts. And this is when a border patrol agent or other law enforcement is pulling over a group of illegal aliens and they all flee in different directions to avoid being arrested. And this, of course, has happened much more often

because we've had a spike in illegal immigration. And consequently, the staff at the school, according to this report, had become desensitized to the school being on alert. And there were other issues as well. The lockdown alert didn't get to everybody in time, including the teacher in room 111 where the gunman entered. And there were issues with the law enforcement response, including Chief Arradondo not establishing himself as the incident commander, even though the protocol that established him as the incident commander, he authored that protocol. He was the one who put together that packet, but he was preoccupied with searching for keys. This is a 77-page report. It's got a lot of content, but the crux of it, and I think one of the biggest issues that was reported in the factual conclusions, was that they did not treat this as an active shooter scenario.

And it was an active shooter scenario. There was enough information, according to the committee, that they could have concluded that there were, I mean, context alone, an 18-year-old with an AR-15 and a room full of children. I think with those two pieces of information, you could surmise that there are probably people injured who need medical attention. And they had taken gunfire. The initial officers who responded had taken gunfire, so they knew that he had been shooting. But when it was all said and done, 376 law enforcement officers were unseen. And just to give our listeners a picture, they provided a breakdown of the different agencies that were there. There were 149 Border Patrol agents, 91 Texas Department of Public Safety officers, 25 Uvalde police officers, 16 San Antonio police

officers from their SWAT team, 16 Uvalde County Sheriff's deputies, 14 feds from the DHS, 13 United States Marshals, eight DEA agents, and then about a dozen, a couple dozen more police officers from area police departments and sheriff's offices. So they had hundreds of law enforcement officers there. Nearly 400 people were there responding to this. And it still took 73 minutes. And that door, Mackenzie, that door was probably unlocked while they were looking for those keys. And nobody tried the door. And that's why I just, reading this report, it is jaw-dropping. It's astonishing. And I have the report, or we have the report on our website, that those, just those few things are just some of the shocking things in

this report. And we also have a link to the video of the 73-minute delay. Yeah, absolutely. So the report calls the gunman the attacker and refrains from using his name. What did we learn about the gunman specifically in this report? Well, and the report goes over some of his background, but the essence of his life up until that point was that he was spiraling out of control. He fantasized about violence. He talked about hurting people and it culminated with him purchasing firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The report said that he lived in relative poverty and though his teachers or his fourth grade teacher disputes this um he his family says that he was the subject of bullying and um you know none of this is to make an excuse for him

and the report doesn't doesn't do that but just to paint a picture of the type of person who went in and did this, you know, no one just snaps. Uh, he was a very disturbed person and, uh, the report notes that this setting was important to him. He attended fourth grade in that classroom. So this was not just a random, you know, building that he, that he chose. And, uh, you know, none of that, uh, is, is presented as an excuse, but as, as a, um, explanation for what was going on in his life when he chose to commit these murders, but the report does not name him. It does not give him any unnecessary notoriety, but it does point to many of the factors that could have contributed to him being someone who would do something like this. Some have called for gun control and hardening of Texas schools, did the committee make any legislative recommendations?

The committee noted that there are so many public schools in Texas and so many students that in the context of talking about hardening schools or implementing sweeping policies to make schools safer, it's important to remember the volume of what that would mean. So you may implement one policy, but it would be expensive and it may not be as easy for a smaller district with fewer resources as a larger district. So it did note that the scope of the reforms that would have to be implemented, but this was a factual investigation. It did not necessarily propose the phrase we used, what that was used was no legal impediment to him purchasing these weapons. And part of Senator Cornyn's bill was to include juvenile records in background investigations. And this gunman was 18 years old when he made these purchases, and his family had demanded that he remove, his grandparents had demanded that

he remove these weapons from their home. But the, I'm sure there will be a discussion about what schools need to do in the future. But I will end this segment by saying this, there were, the report really highlighted the fact that there were there wasn't a locked door between those kids and the attacker he there there was a known problem with the lock on room 111 and many people knew about that problem and no one had had submitted a work order to get that fixed and there was just a general a general relaxed attitude towards security, people propping open doors. It's a small rural community. And I remember a few years ago, I worked at a church that was also a preschool, and I was on the facilities team. And you get distracted with

things, you start working, And we would sometimes prop open doors when we were carrying things in and out. And I remember being admonished by somebody who worked at the church being asked, can you please go close that door? And sometimes you just get wrapped up in work and you prop open a door or you forget to lock a door. And that's why they noted in this report that there were no villains. The only villain was the person who murdered 21 people. But there was a tapestry of things that went wrong that might have prevented this, not the least of which being if the exterior door of that school had been locked and if the classroom door where he entered had a

working lock that had been engaged because these teachers had been properly notified which they weren't because the alert system was was not working adequately because of poor wi-fi and a lowered a lowered sense of urgency because of these bailouts. So there were many things that went wrong. And the report has a lot of substance. I would recommend our readers view it on our website, thetexan.news. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you for breaking that down for us. Isaiah, we are coming to you. The Attorney General here in Texas, Ken Paxton, has sued the Biden administration once again, shocker, this time over some executive actions regarding abortion. What exactly did the administration do?

So it started off with an executive order shortly after the Dobbs decision from President Joe Biden himself. And then later on, on July 8th, specifically, Health and Human Services Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put out these guidance documents that says doctors must perform any abortion needed to stabilize an emergency medical condition under this law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. So I'll just read verbatim from that guidance here.

This is from Health and Human Services Department Secretary Javier Becerra. If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department, including certain labor and delivery departments, is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by the EMTALA and that abortion is a stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment. So, in other words, Becerra and the Center for Medicaid told health care providers around the country that if they do not perform abortions needed in emergency situations as defined by this law, then they could risk losing their Medicare funding. Got it. So, what is the general argument of the state's lawsuit? Well, it's a bit confusing, I'll admit, because as we'll get into when we discuss state law itself,

state law allows abortions meant to save the mother's life. Explicitly noting ectopic pregnancies is one example. And an ectopic pregnancy, for those who don't know, is when the pregnancy forms outside the uterus, often in the fallopian tube. And that is a life-threatening condition. And so we'll get into that real quick. But so state law at a glance seems to jive pretty well with this executive order. But Paxton is arguing, arguing for one the procedural stuff is pretty central um he says in the lawsuit in the state of texas lawsuit that no federal statute confers a right to abortion this law the emt ala is no different it does not guarantee access to

abortion and as a matter of fact the law actually contemplates harm to the unborn child as one kind of emergency that they would address. So as Paxton writes here, it is obvious that abortion does not preserve the life or health of an unborn child, that being one of the goals of the law. So in addition, like I mentioned, the procedural stuff, Paxton is claiming that this guidance is at heart a new agency rule, even though the document and the language of the document purportedly means to clarify existing rules. So agencies are required to notify the public and have this public comment period before they adopt a new rule for recipients of federal funds or agencies or whatnot. and Paxton is arguing that this guidance is making real changes to the Medicaid system without going through this process, just by saying that it's clarifying existing rules, even though it's materially different from old rules before. So he's generally arguing that administration didn't follow proper procedure. And lastly, it's just classic, you know, first

three articles of the constitution business regarding the differences between the executive branch and the legislative branch. Paxton's arguing that this is more fitting of, you know, legislation passed by Congress. Another quote from the state's lawsuit says, the executive branch cannot impose conditions on spending that the Constitution would prohibit it from imposing directly, because that authority belongs to Congress. Remind us how the Texas abortion ban just works in general. Right. So the one that's in effect right now is the one that was previously deemed unconstitutional in Roe v. Wade, and that punishes the administration of an abortion drug or the performance of a surgical abortion with two to five years in jail for the doctor and not the pregnant mother herself.

It also makes exceptions for procedures meant and not the pregnant mother herself. It does, it also makes exceptions for procedures meant to save the mother's life. Additionally, there is a law that is on the books, but will not take effect until 30 days after the U.S. Supreme Court's judgment in Dobbs, which is separate from the opinion, so hasn't happened yet, that will also ban all elective abortions in Texas. Again, making the same exception for medical emergencies on the mother's part. But it kind of ups the punishment to making it a state jail felony, which can result in a lot more jail time than just five years. And it comes with civil penalties as well that the Attorney General can bring

against the violator of the law and medical professionals that violate it can lose their license because of it. So that's, that's how the two, the two abortion bans work. The former one is in effect now, the latter one hasn't taken effect yet, but both do make exceptions to evacuate ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages. So a lot of the conflict between these laws and the emergency guidance from the Biden administration has got to come down to the federal law's definition of emergency medical condition, which is slightly different from the particular procedures laid out in Texas law. In other words, the state's definition of emergency pregnancies is a little bit tighter than the broader definition of emergency medical condition that the government is going with. So a lot of the actual conflict on the merits is going to come down to those two definitions of what an emergency pregnancy is.

And the rest of it is procedural. Got it. Well, let's continue talking about this topic and move on to another story you wrote this week. So at the Democratic Convention, a few politicians and activists presented a plan that they believe could get around Texas abortion laws. Tell us about some of those points. Yeah, Wendy Davis was there kind of leading this crowd, but there are a lot of others there as well, abortion funds and elected Democratic officials and so forth. And it proposes five strategies that the officials believe can work under existing law, even now that the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.

And so, if you all remember, that just triggered the laws that we just described in Texas and a lot of other states as well. We're primarily dealing with Texas here. These are all Texas Democrats and activists. So they're presenting this as kind of a plan to the Biden administration. And the five strategies are declaring a public health emergency, supporting abortion funds, creating a federal program for abortion providers, invoking federal supremacy over state law, and protecting abortion funds from legal action. So in addition to the Texas abortion bans that we described, there's another bit of a hurdle on the federal level known as the Hyde Amendment. And every year when they pass the budget, they've got this amendment that has been around for a long

time that prohibits the government from spending federal money on abortions. So the Texas officials believe that the White House can create a federal program for abortion providers to dispense abortion drugs without violating the Hyde Amendment, if the program is funded by private donations and everybody that works on it is a volunteer. So that way, the federal government would not actually be funding it, but they would be administering this program. So that's one example. Do we know any kind of next steps that might be taken for that kind of plan? As far as I know, the Biden administration has not decided that they're going

to pick up on this yet. I mentioned earlier that there was an investigative, excuse me, executive order shortly after Dobbs and Biden gave some statements to accompany it, saying that his administration is going to take action to protect abortion access in his words but as the texas democrats note in their letter they say that we know no strategy can fully substitute for a constitutional amendment or congressional action codifying abortion rights under federal law so roe v wade has been the stopgap for supporters of abortion for 50 years now. And with that gone, there's not an actual law in but pregnancy resource centers have taken on new importance in Texas after the Dobbs decision. Tell us a little bit about how they operate. So these centers offer practical and moral support to pregnant women, usually women facing unexpected or crisis pregnancies. And services can vary from

place to place, but they generally hold parenting classes and counseling. They offer sonograms and pregnancy tests for free. They give away baby items, that kind of thing. There are some that have additional services on top of that. Like there's a center called Choose Life Midland. It's in Midland. And they help women pay for their doctor's appointments. And I spoke to a lady at living alternatives in tyler that actually has a maternity home um not all those have those kinds of services but that's the general model

they are funded uh by donors they're typically non-profits and uh the state of texas also runs an alternatives to abortion program that has that also gives money to a lot of these centers around the state. So they get government money, some of them, and private donations. What kinds of changes have these centers noticed in the past month since Roe has been overturned? The ones that I talked to said they've noticed a lot of heightened interest in volunteering, donating money, donating baby items. As a matter of fact, the lady that I spoke to at Living Alternatives said that the interest in volunteering and helping out is actually outpaced interest from clients themselves looking for services. And so the actual women that are

showing up at the center, she expects an increase, but there's been a more immediate and more heightened increase in people just looking to help out. She said that's been the biggest change. So the metric that she used is that they do tours when anybody wants to volunteer. And they say, come meet us, we'll give you a tour of the center. And they're doing like 20 to 25 tours in 10-day periods for people who wanted to help out, which is a big increase from what it previously has been, again, since the Dobbs decision. So Living Alternatives and Tyler went in the other corner of the state. I talked to another one in Lubbock, the nurturing center, and the lady I spoke to there says that

they've actually received more donations from more donors in recent weeks. And because of that, they've been able to reach more clients because they've been able to boost their advertising more. She said, and Lubbock is in a little bit of a different situation because of the sanctuary city for the unborn ordinance that they passed. So abortion has been illegal in Lubbock for a long time now. This didn't start with Dobbs in Lubbock. But she said that she did notice an increase in abortion-minded clients around that time in Lubbock. But in recent weeks, she's seen a big increase in donations and donors. So I've seen that kind of news elsewhere as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's a very worthwhile story to go and read, Isaiah. Thank you so much for talking to so many folks and getting a little bit of a picture of what has been going on at these resource centers throughout Texas, particularly after the overturning of Roe. And they've been there for decades, right? I mean, these are organizations that have been around for a very

long time. So thank you so much, Isaiah. Hayden, let's pivot and talk a little bit about the border now. Congressman Chip Roy recently challenged the Mexican president. What prompted his comments? Well, the Mexican president made remarks that the Abbott campaign interpreted as an endorsement of Beto O'Rourke. So Chip Roy responded to that. And just a little bit of background, Chip Roy has butt heads with Abbott over the border for months now because he believed that Abbott was not doing enough and should declare it an invasion. While Abbott finally did that to a degree, he issued an executive order that directed state police and guardsmen to send illegal immigrants back to ports of entry, not back over the border.

And that's an important distinction because Abbott has been clear that he is not going to circumvent federal law and federal court precedents on this. And Chip Roy aligned himself with that characterization and said to the Mexican president to listen to Mexican President Obrador say he's going to endorse Beto O'Rourke over my governor, Governor Abbott, because he's daring to secure the border, take steps to secure the border? Let me say something to President Obrador. If you want to come have a skirmish with Texas, you can meet us in San Jacinto. Okay, we're going to secure the border of the United States and we're going to do it now. End quote. So Congressman Roy referencing the of the border, Customs and Border Protection published its monthly report of border statistics. Tell us about the drop in encounters with illegal aliens. We've got a flurry of border stories, so just a little forecast. There's a 100% chance of border coverage. But there was a 14% drop,

both in Texas sectors and nationwide. There was a little bit of an increase in unaccompanied minors being in federal custody. And there were 153,000 unique individuals encountered nationwide, and then 207,000 encounters total. But 26% of them had at least one encounter in the last year. So that's nationwide. But the figure for last June in Texas sectors, forgive me for switching back and forth a little bit, but last year it was 127,000. This time it was 128,000. So pretty comparable. And of course, 2020 was a wild card because of the pandemic. But last month, there was a historic 223,000 plus encounters nationwide. So the 14% drop is a drop from a historic high. So not to oversell the drop, but that doesn't include the there was also another, I believe 17,000 nationwide

encounters at offices of field operation. So just to distinguish between apprehensions by border agents and then encounters at field offices where they're they're turned away. But that was 128,000 border arrests by border agents in Texas sectors in June. And that's the highlight of the report. I know I asked you this yesterday, but I kind of wanted to tee this up for you to tell our listeners. Nothing's really been said about the temperatures or the weather having anything to do with that, correct? To my knowledge, human smugglers are going to do their best to exploit people, regardless of how hot it is outside. I'm sure that the temperature does affect it, and it could be that people are less prone to take that journey from northern Mexico into, Northern Mexico into the country with it being so hot outside. But Commissioner Magnus of CBP has said before that even in the summer, human smugglers are going to do their best to take advantage of people and to go after the fees, the exorbitant fees that they charge, and they're going to continue to extort people and take advantage of them. So as I mentioned, it's, it is a, it was a historic high last month,

most illegal immigrant encounters ever reported. And it's a 14% drop, but even Commissioner Magnus noted that fluctuations are normal in illegal immigrant apprehensions. And another important factor to keep in mind is it's only a fraction of real illegal immigration because most of them don't get caught. So this is not a surefire gauge of how much illegal immigration there is. This is just how many the feds were able to catch. Got it. So like we're talking about human smuggling here, and as you say, human smugglers can get pretty creative. So tell us about a recent human smuggling conviction. Well, there's so many opportunities for bad dry jokes on this one. So I'm just going to pass those up.

There was a smuggler who pleaded guilty to smuggling 68 people in an onion shipment. An onion shipment. And believe it or not, this is not the first article I've written about somebody smuggling people among pallets of onions. Was it the same onion truck? If it was the same onion truck, I would laugh.

I will let you go this time, but don't do it again. It's like a border. Does it again? Yeah, the border agent's standing there. I told you last time you were not to come back through with this onion truck. But yeah, this guy's looking at five years in prison. You know, we talked about smugglers before,

but we had that smuggling incident recently where tragically more than 50 people lost their lives because they smuggle people. We just talked about the temperatures and extraordinary heat and vehicles that don't necessarily have air conditioning. Or ventilation, much of all. Or ventilation.

And so they suffocate to death. And these people are abused by these smugglers. And this guy's looking at five years in prison. Those guys that we talked about a few weeks ago, they're looking at the death penalty because they engaged in alien smuggling and people died as a result of that. So this is extremely dangerous.

Onions or not, these people could have died. And they ship people in all kinds of weird cargo. So this is just one example of the bizarre and extraordinary lengths that these, what have been characterized as glorified Uber drivers drivers will take people will do to take people across the border illegally yeah absolutely well hayden thank you for that now the governor recently issued an executive order directing state police and guardsmen to return these illegal aliens to ports of entry like you just mentioned um what has congresswoman escobar uh specifically said about this escobar comes from a different philosophy on this issue.

Than the governor, specifically? Than the governor, yes. And there are those who believe that for all of its enforcement efforts, the feds have not successfully reduced what they call irregular migration, i.e. illegal immigration. And Escobar believes that many of these acts that Abbott has pursued is contributing to inappropriate animosity toward immigrants and people who are really just trying to seek a better life. And she said, Governor Abbott, quote, knows it isn't an invasion, and he knows it. And she has been very assertive in the past with opposing actions that she perceives to be putting the blame on asylum seekers and people who are

innocent bystanders and being characterized as terrorists and being invaders when in fact they're not trying to hurt people, they're just trying to come in. And that these sweeping security measures are not doing anything to help people. So that's where Escobar is coming from. And so she has been an opponent of Abbott making so much political hay out of this issue. And she has supported legislation that would decriminalize crossing the border illegally, not legalize it, but take away necessarily having criminal sanctions there. And she's also supported reforming the US government's immigration policy to make it less arduous for people to immigrate to the US. So her stance is more that the onus is on the government to help these people

instead of, you know, sounding the alarm and making it sound like an invasion. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that. Rob, we're going to come to you and continue talking about Congresswoman Escobar. What happened on Tuesday in front of the U.S. Supreme Court? So according to CNN, on Tuesday, July 19th, some Democratic members of Congress marched from the Capitol to the Supreme Court to protest in favor of legal abortion. They wore green bandanas inscribed with the words, won't back down, and they sat on the street. 35 people, including 17 members of Congress, were arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police, which includes Texas Representative Veronica Escobar of El Paso. There were other members of Congress who were there but were not arrested.

So why did Capitol Police get involved? So the protesters were sitting on the street and they were blocking traffic, which is against the law. Capitol Police discusses this on their Twitter feed. When people started showing up, they said, you know, you're blocking traffic. This is against the law. We're going to start issuing warnings. They issue their standard three warnings. And then they said, we are now going to be you know making arrests uh according to i believe it was cnn the as the people were starting to be led away by the police um the protesters chanted the people united will never be divided it's a very catchy slogan that actually is very catchy who else was arrested that was notable so several prominent democrats

um including uh the members of the so-called squad, a group of progressive Democrats in the Congress, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Cori Bush. Congresswoman from Texas, Sylvia Garcia, was present, but she was not arrested, according to the Texas Tribune, which spoke with one of her spokespeople. Got it. So what happens afterwards? Specifically, like, you know, are these arrests happen? Are these are these folks still sitting in jail? No, I do not believe they are. I've tried to find more information about this. From what I've seen from their Twitter feeds, they are back to back to their regular jobs. But they it seems like they were arrested,

which as far as I can tell, means they were moved off the street, but it does not seem they've been hit with any kind of charges or anything like that. They were simply relocated away so that traffic could resume. Got it. Well, Rob, thank you for covering that for us.

Hayden, we're coming back to you. We have two stories that we're going to try and get in in like three minutes. I'm going to try and get us through these very quickly because we're hitting almost a record number of stories in this podcast in a record number of times. So we're doing awesome. But a school principal in East Texas, Kimberlyn Snyder, is going on trial next month after being placed on administrative leave. What charges are she facing? Is she facing?

Excuse my, yes, conjugation yeah i think i i had trouble with that one too um briefly kimberlyn snyder is was the or she is on administrative leave and still getting a paycheck so i'm gonna say she is the principal of niches elementary school fair um even though she is not having to go to work because some she has been replaced at the school. She's facing charges of oppression and evidence tampering that could put her away for up to 15 years for allegedly obstructing an investigation into child sexual abuse. And she was allowed to keep her job for many months after she was indicted on these charges.

Wow. So what could have led to her keeping her job for so long? She's married to the superintendent, or she was. She's still married to him, but he's no longer the superintendent. He has been replaced. That was the most shocking part of the story was that her husband made the recommendation that she be kept on the job and that she remain in a place where she interacts with children directly and is in a leadership position over them while she's facing charges of official oppression and tampering or modifying evidence in a child sex abuse investigation. So she was indicted in January of last year and remained on the job until last summer. And she is currently on administrative leave awaiting trial,

which is scheduled to be take place in Palestine next month. A very spicy story. I'll go read it at the texan.news. A little piece of Texas history you wrote about this week, Hayden, a prominent survivor of the Waco siege passed away very recently. Tell us a little bit about Texas history you wrote about this week Hayden a prominent survivor of the Waco siege passed away very recently tell us a little bit about Clive Doyle. Clive Doyle was one of David Koresh's right-hand men I would say when he was at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco that burned to the ground after a 51-day siege by various federal agencies.

He led a remnant, I believe it has been characterized as, of the Branch Davidian sect even after the siege. And he passed away last month at the age of 81. Wow. Well, another great story to go read at thetexan.news. Hayden, thank you so much. Gentlemen, let's move on to our tweeter-y kind of i'm kind of bummed that we aren't gonna have ice cream this week not that i could even boycott or not boycott not that i could even change the plan here and go get ice cream from the freezer because i didn't bring it from my house but it's gone isn't it i'm a little sad about yeah honestly the self-control i've had to not break into it myself has been quite something. It still exists? Yes. Oh.

So you haven't eaten all the ice cream yet? Correct. Now, have I eaten other ice creams? Yes. I've eaten other ice cream. But I have not eaten the oatmeal Blue Bell one. I'm waiting. Okay, Isaiah, why don't you talk to us about what tweets you found interesting this week? Well,

it's usually a struggle. But this time, there was something a bit interesting after the Democratic Convention, where there was a little bit of a conflict among delegates especially, and just Texas Democrats in general, about whether or not to criticize the party openly for failing to adopt a platform. And this is just a political phenomenon that you see with Republicans as well. When there is a substantial portion of the party that sees a procedural or ideological problem, you know, do you put on a united front or do you try and fix it?

I mean, this divides every political movement. Anyway, so in this case, the division here, as I said, regards their failure to adopt a platform. And there are some of the delegates, an outspoken party member or party stalwart is Sarah Spector, who's a Midland defense attorney. She commented on a post by Patrick Svitek over the Texas Tribune about how the Texas Democrats had not adopted a platform. I assume that Patrick was already aware of that. But in any event, there were some other Democrats that piled on to her saying, why would you say this openly? You're just giving the Republicans oppo research, you know. And there are others that sided with her saying, well, we need to fix this.

And it's a problem that our party didn't adopt a platform and so forth. And there are others that corrected her saying, well, we still have a platform. It's just, you know, the one from two years ago. Yeah. It's not a new one uh but it's there and um anyway so there was a a big knockdown drag out on twitter uh among texas democrats about you know whether or not you a lot of them felt like oh you're airing our dirty laundry about this and they just thought like well you know we need to put pressure on the democrat leaders for not being better about the

platform. There are also some, I mean, I'll just read one. Yeah, here it is. There was one, Dr. Jenny McDonald. I don't know if she was delicate or not, but she claimed that the Texas leaders of the Texas democratic party blocked her for asking questions. She said, how is that helpful? I wanted to know why they didn't adopt a platform. Why was he hinojosa reelected when he has done nothing for 10 years i can't verify any of these claims i only bring this up to give you a sample of the kind of division that they kind of divide among the party over you know are we going to tell everybody about this or

are we going to pretend try and put on a united face, you know, and say, hey, let's drop the trivialities and just work together to defeat Republicans. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I feel like, I mean, Legacy Media in Texas has long reported the divisions among Texas Republicans on the party level, right? So I feel like a lot of folks are much more familiar with that situation than they are with democratic infighting but it happens in any political movement just as you were saying any political

movement and there will always be this divide between okay how can we be effective versus how can we be principled yep and the definitions of those two things are different for both sides they both think they're being effective and principled. But the primary arguments are those two things. Yeah. And it's interesting to watch it in the Democrat Party as well. And thank you for bringing that to our attention. It'll be interesting to see what happens next, you know? Well, yeah, I mean, like you pointed out,

it's almost a universal dynamic where typically once a particular wing of any political movement grabs the helm, then usually their message to the rest of the party is, I hear your concerns, but if you don't get on board, then we're going to fail. Yeah. Right. And so it becomes this whole my way or the highway thing. Anyway.

Yeah. Yeah, it happens in all political moods everywhere. And like you pointed out, people draw their popcorn when this kind of thing happens at the gop yeah this is in really recent memory since the gop convention was just last month and that was a topic of you know there's a lot of ink spilled over gop infighting oh yeah always is it happens in the party it happens you know we see that kind of coverage when it happens in the actual capital and um it's happening here as well and again and not that it's even not worth reporting it's worth reporting oftentimes yeah sometimes it gets a little petty but most of the times it's worth

reporting but so is the democrat side as well particularly in a state that's as close politically as texas is and certainly the gop to be totally fair has been the leading party in texas for decades now so there is more infrastructure in terms of political infighting to be had but it's very worthwhile to talk about both sides and what's going on you know within each party particularly for those who may not be involved or going to these conventions it's just kind of interesting and helpful to know what's going on. Well, one thing we forgot to mention is that the Republican Party of Texas put out this statement criticizing the Democrat. I mean, they do that a lot. They put out a statement criticizing the Democratic Party for after failing to adopt a platform.

Now, as they framed it, their platform is going to be written by party bosses behind scenes. So the delegates from the details the limited details that hino hosa has given us the delegates are not going to be the ones casting a final vote like they do traditionally i have to look more into the party rules to know if that can actually be the the case ultimately yeah but under the plan that we're given now uh hino hosa's selected personnel are going to be drafting the platform going forward. Interesting.

Very, very interesting. Well, I say, thank you so much for reporting on that. Rob, we're going to come right to you. What did you find on Twitter?

That was interesting this week. Um, so political analyst, Nate silver tweeted out a, uh, an interesting graphic that I found. He described it as, um,

the more closely people follow COVID news, the more likely they are to think that the pandemic is going to get worse rather than think that the worst part of the pandemic is behind us. If you follow COVID news, in other words, very, very strongly, you're going to sort of going to have a more pessimistic outlook on it. I believe Isaiah mentioned something about this earlier before we started the podcast that something like 90% of the coverage of covet in

america has been negative is that right yes and i i read that weeks and weeks ago and so there has been more introspection about it since then but um another thing that i do remember from that point was there there was polling from one to two places nationwide polling um asking amer, and it was differentiated by political ideology. You can figure how that panned out. But generally, Americans vastly overestimated the percentage of people that got COVID and passed away from it. You know, people were getting up into like double digits as to, you know, like, if you get COVID, what are the chances that you're going to pass away from it? And the average American greatly overestimated the lethality rate of COVID. So again, that might have dropped since then too, but to your point. Yeah. It's interesting how it's, it's one of those

things where sometimes they say the best thing you can do for your mental health is just sort of turn the TV off and take a walk outside maybe. But it's just one of those interesting things that sort of, what's the word I'm looking for here? Makes me believe stronger that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to turn off the news. Not the Texan, of course. Absolutely. We do as objective reporting as we can. Never stop looking at us. Cable news, for example.

Yeah, never ever. Have us up on a tab on your computer all the time. Every article open. When you get to the end of this podcast, loop it until next Friday. Listen to it as you fall asleep. Yeah. Let it be the last thing you hear before your body falls into REM sleep. I like it.

I like it. Well, Rob, thank you for sleep. I like it. I like it. Well, Rob, thank you for that. That's awesome. Hayden. I'm very curious to know what this exactly is. I feel like I'll be very interested to hear about your tweets specifically,

but talk to us about what you found on Twitter this week. There was this thread on, well, okay. Train of thought, leaving the station. We're all a little tired today. I don't know what we all wanted that

ice cream i know we're all prepared and it didn't happen we were ready for some blood sugar to hit this i don't know what was in the water today but you know it's kind of off um anyway uh this thread put together some of the uh new google documents features and use Google Docs every day in this office. Most of our work happens over Google Docs and Slack. And it was a thread with all these features that I didn't know existed. But my two favorite, and I may have to go to the mat with Rob over this one,

but was the pageless feature where instead of having different pages on your document, like in a word document, Rob is already shaking his head at me. Um, you can just have a blank canvas and there are no page breaks. And so it's just this continuous scroll and it's beautiful. No, it's not. It is, it is the perfect solution. And I, you know, you can suck it up because I will be using Pageless every time I turn in an article. And it's just, it makes it so much more convenient and easy on the eyes when you don't have these

ugly borders on everything. So there's that one. And there's also emoji reaction that I didn't know you could use. I'm going to have fun with that one. Yeah, you can react with emojis instead of, and you don't have to add it onto the page. You can just add it as a comment. And that, I just think that makes it more fun,

but I don't have any reason to, sorry, go ahead. I think that this is just another example of your hypocrisy, Hayden, because I thought you were a fan of borders. Now you're calling borders ugly. Wait, what? Can you explain? You said ugly borders around things.

So you don't like borders. Am I understanding you correctly? Around my Google documents? No. Hayden hates the great wall of China. Hayden wants open borders on his Google documents. I have no stance on borders. I'm just the border reporter, except for borders on Google Docs.

Borders on Google Docs, I am opposed to. I'll let other people debate border on other things. I will say, Hayden, when I opened your doc, I understand that it's far prettier, but I looked at it and I was like, oh my gosh, I was disoriented at first. Like I was like, especially as someone who goes into, I was, I don't know, what does it say about me is that I was disoriented. first. Like I was like, especially as someone who goes into, I was, I don't know. What does it say about me?

Is that I was disoriented. It was a strange forest. If you don't like it, I'll change it. But if Rob doesn't like it, then he'll get over it. I was also very disorientated, disorientatorized.

I had no idea where I was, what was happening. Disorientator tots. Is that what you just said? Disorientatorized. Okay. I don't think that's a word that's in the dictionary yes it is i'm loving it okay well you can keep it i just need to get used to it and if i can't

get used to it i'll tell you but i'm totally cool with maybe maybe you know to just be nice i can i'll write it without the page pages and then i'll change it back right before i turn it in so that it's not too jarring you know like doctors without borders it's like reporters without borders without borders isn't that a real organization it is doctors without borders reporters without porters oh my okay we're off the rails thank you hayden also there are a lot of other interesting features that i'm going to scroll through this thread and read because i'm excited to respond to emojis of things and annoy you guys um there's one where you can add a watermark too yeah i like the in progress one i think we might

change our docket anyway exciting things um let's do my tweets for the week gentlemen um i've got two now because i um just feel as though it's easier for me to affirm Brad if he's not sitting in front of me, I'm going to talk about a tweet that was tweeted that said a lot of nice things about him. So, again, let's hope he does not listen to this podcast so that I can get out of this scot-free. I'm going to hopefully not butcher this gentleman's last name, but Adam Lowy, a lawyer here in Austin, he's very active in Austin Twitter, quote tweeted Brad and said, Brad is one of the best reporters on the ongoing grid issues. He just lays out the facts and more facts. It's a nice break from reporters who just politicize every take on this issue. And it was fun to read through the replies to this tweet

um holly hansen we don't know her at all she's totally not affiliated with us at all exactly said he really is the best on grid issues no hyperbole some cynthia m says it's refreshing just the facts and there were just a lot of really awesome replies to this tweet i'm trying to find the rest of them twitter is being odd oh here it says show more replies. I might want to click on that. Matt McCobiak agreed. Chad Wilbanks, Brad is always fair and strives to be accurate. Does great work. Brian Thornton, Brad is one of the best reporters, period. Fixed it for you. It's not just in Austin, but just in general. It was just cool to see. I mean, this is something that all of y'all do here at the Texan is just report the facts and do so with such accuracy and objectivity and just commitment to the whole process. So I think this is a compliment to all of y'all who are reporters here.

Another I love this one. This is kind of our whole motto here. But Dennis Ferris replied and said, yes, he is and reminds me of old school reporters which i think is so much what we're trying to do is just kind of go back to the basics of what makes good reporting that is useful to folks um i just thought that was a great a great tweet no in all seriousness brad is a machine and he really does uh do an excellent job on the the grid coverage yeah um and his reporting is insightful but um it is not he doesn't go on and on about you know he basically he does what we seek to do here which is he doesn't go on a tirade and and try to advance a narrative he just lays it out what's going on with the with the grid um and that's important and it's lacking in texas oh yeah

especially the grid issue has become so much more politicized than i think we ever could have thought and he does a great job of slicing through all of that isaiah why would you ever laugh when uh hayden says brad does not go on tirades well i don't know it's sometimes uh things are funny because they're true you know no and i when i that, I mean he doesn't do that on Twitter on this issue. Yes, exactly. Well, if your full sentence was exactly accurate, but to say Brad does not go on tirades made us all laugh. It made us all laugh.

He's gone on tirades on this podcast. He goes on tirades about, like, chili. And parking garages and things like that. I was not as sad about that but uh that was that was my favorite podcast when we dared allude to the fact that alexander hamilton has is like a political symbol and brad's like how what you're like what can move on he's like explain it but yeah well and i think he thought i was saying because i that was a again a brad and and i think you were helping me a little bit on that because thought i was saying because i that was a again a brad and and i think

you were helping me a little bit on that because all i was saying was that like he influenced the founding of the united states and had a lot to do with how like money is handled within our government and our banking system exactly and i was like i just i just did i think he had a little more than just influence he is one it was one of the founding fathers which which was my point but brad thought i was saying that he was like i don't know brad thought i was in something different and we actually had conflict resolution after the podcast off mics because we were both so mad at each other um i remember that i left the room quickly can i please leave before what's about to happen? Yeah.

Oh, it was something else. The moral of the story is that Brad does not go on tirades. The moral of the story is Brad never goes on tirades. Now I said some nice things about Brad. Some people on Twitter. I said, I was trying to think of a noun for Twitter users.

The Twitterati. Perfect. I look at Isaiah cause he always has words for things. And now I'm going to disparage him just a little bit. Okay. Oh, Isaiah was moved by that. You do always have words for things. Thanks.

That's the nicest thing I've ever heard. Well, it's true. But Brad tweeted. Okay. Here's me disparaging Brad. Based on my back of the napkin math, the in-state breakdown of these halls for governor of where money was given to the two top gubernatorial candidates, Greg Abbott, Beto O'Rourke. He basically broke down how many of the contributions were from out of state and how much of the total sum that was raised was from out of state versus in state. It's actually a great tweet.

But my main thing is that I just want to point out that our founder, Connie Burton, replied and said, I'm sorry that we don't provide you with anything but napkins to write on. And her reply to his tweet got more engagement than his tweet. That's really all I wanted to say. That was actually about something substantial. Yes, exactly. She got, yeah, she got 22 likes on that reply. It was funny.

It was. And Brad did get a bunch of retweets and some likes, but it was very funny to watch Connie's reply about napkin. We do need to make a run to the napkin factory. Well, then Hayden replied and his got a lot of likes too. Hayden said, what did he, what did you say, Hayden? I can't remember what I said. I've slept since then.

No wonder we're always, oh yeah. Then Brad says, wasn't the gettysburg address written on a napkin or is that urban legend i think that's true i think i think abraham lincoln did write the address on a napkin on a train on his way to gettysburg will you fact check that for me there are a lot of napkin writing legends supposedly the the guy that came up with the laffer curve did it on a napkin oh and there are other things that are written on napkins and which is where the phrase comes from, certainly. But I think the Gettysburg one is true.

I think it's true. And then Hayden says, no wonder we're always running out of napkins at the office. And Connie, please order more napkins, Hayden. Yeah. That's kind of like, don't complain about a problem unless you want to be the solution. I love Isaiah's reply to these kinds of tweets that he's basically, I don't know how to, like you, I don't know how to describe what I'm looking at. She says that she gazes at Isaiah. I'm like, can you help me? But basically this verified Twitter blue checkmark person said, newsroom people who work at paywalled news sites,

does your employer give you a free subscription to your own site, or do they make you pay for it like any other customer? I edited this poll visually to say one option is, you know, yes, we get it for free, and the other option is I asked for a subscription and Connie laughed at me. And I made sure to hover my mouse over the free one so that connie wouldn't reprimand me you know like yeah i'm clicking the right one you know but yeah i mean to be clear actually yes we do get free subscriptions wait you guys get free subscriptions

okay wait to be fair though my favorite thing that has happened on twitter was i believe somebody complained about the paywall and isaiah responded with one of our articles with everything blotted out except for the prepositions i was trying to give him a good deal he wanted i can't give it all for free right but yeah i was trying to give him a good deal bargain and he responded like that mean best i can do is give you the prepositions well let, let's talk about that for a second, because I don't want to get on a soapbox on this podcast, except for maybe when it comes to our business model. And I think it is worth explaining to folks why we are the way we are and why we're set up the way we are. We specifically have a paywall

so that folks who believe in our reporting can pay us for a product that they believe in, or just find useful or find informational that can provide them more, again, information so that when they go to the ballot box, they can make a decision that they're confident in. That's why we offer a subscription. Also, so that folks aren't looking at our stuff that's influenced by advertisers or donors. We don't have either of those things. We don't have folks who advertise with us and we don't have donors who are behind the scenes writing us big checks. We don't have that system. We'd have to change our entire business model if we wanted to do that legally. And the reporting would look very different. And the reporting would look entirely different. There's nothing innately wrong with

saying we're going to be a non-profit news organization. But does it complicate things? Absolutely. You have a donor come in, write you a six-figure check. And then that donor becomes part of a news story? Yes, absolutely. And you can't say that. And I know that, yes, you can say that technically you may not be asking somebody's permission to do a story, but the people who are putting food on your table and keeping your lights on are going to influence the decisions you make. I don't care who you are. I don't care who you work for. The people paying the bills do have an influence over what happens. A hundred percent. And you can attempt to insulate yourself as much as possible from that as an organization. And it can be done. But will it be done most of the time absolutely not

and i don't even think that it should necessarily i think people who are paying to have certain things operate should have more say in what is done that is kind of just how this works yeah and generally like variety is good it's good to have different models run by different kinds of people you know different publications have people that believe different things yeah our i mean our main goal is just not have this unanimity in journalism right and so it's i mean i don't want to like eliminate opposing models um no they produce one kind of product and we produce another and the only difference is that there really is not another publication doing what we're doing and that's something to celebrate is that there are other organizations that do things differently than we do there should be options for folks we are just

one option now do i think we're a pretty awesome option absolutely but we're not out here saying this is the only way to do it this is how we've decided to do it because we do believe that there should be some incentive or competition right um and we really want folks to be able to say yeah we believe in what you're doing and we'll pay the nine bucks a month or the seven something a month if you do it annually to support that and to receive a product that we believe in, right? That's the cost of like a fast food meal a month. And it makes, and it makes our jobs, um, less complicated because when I, like when I'm writing a piece, all I have to think about is what would interest our readers?

What do our subscribers need to know? And that's all I need to consider from the vantage point of selecting material. What's important to the story and what do our subscribers need to know? That is so rare to be working in a newsroom and have that be the only like instigating factor in your writing and your reporting. Working for free places is the worst it is it is the worst um i've got one of my friends from college is he's an apolitical guy and uh he is right now like getting this graduate degree in publishing to go in that field

but uh before he started doing that he was writing articles articles on pop culture stuff for this online outlet. And we were talking to each other, and he asked me how many I write a week. And I'm like, oh, it averages about three. And he was doing like four or five every day because to meet the content hunger and to get money off ads to make the business sustainable, you have to get so, so, so many clicks. And the only way you do that is by writing new stuff all the time. And that has to outpace inevitably the substance of things going on now it's different for him like we're doing news of a political thing so it would but i have i have worked at a news organization that

was free and we made so many listicles so so many listicles it was terrible but yeah yeah and i will say too when folks are like oh well how can you you know how does your business operate off of subscriptions connie and phil burton and i'll turn i'll toot their home their horn for them here have put their money where their mouth is and said hey there is a dearth of reporting in texas that serves its readers exclusively and have literally written checks to start up the company and that's where any other money aside from our subscription service has come from is Connie and Phil Burton. And really, that has allowed us to be insulated from all of that hubbub around us, right? There's a lot of opinions about what we do and how we do it. And really just allowed us to report on what is happening in Texas with objectivity, which is

so, so rare. We have no other interests aside from our readers, and that is an incredible gift. Okay, off my soapbox. So in other words, if you ever log onto our website and you see 20 pop-up ads and articles like top 10 craziest things Governor Abbott did that made us go, OMG, just unsubscribe. We don't deserve your subscription anymore.

We deserve to die. Speaking of objectivity and reporting, I was able to dig up a little bit of research, which is that Lincoln, in fact, wrote the Gettysburg Address. He worked on it for several weeks before he actually delivered it. It was not written on the back of a napkin or an envelope. He put quite a bit of work into it. Oh, wow. Well, there you go. Then never mind.

I was totally wrong. That is an urban legend then. Well, folks, on that factoid, we are going to bid you farewell. Thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.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 for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.