The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 5, 2024

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Take our survey for a chance to win a free hat or t-shirt of your choice: https://form.typeform.com/to/cehHQka0Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:SCOTUS Rules Presidents Have Immunity for Official Acts, Remands Criminal Charges Against Donald Trump for ReviewTexas Democrat Calls on Biden to Withdraw From 2024 Presidential RaceU.S. Supreme Court Unanimously Rules Against Texas Social Media Censorship LawFederal Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s LNG Export Permit PauseU.S. Supreme Court to Review Legal Challenge to Texas Age Verification Law for Pornographic WebsitesEl Paso Judge Rejects Paxton's Request to Close Catholic Charity Accused of Facilitating Illegal Border CrossingsEstimated $700 Million Cost of Texas Anti-ESG Laws Based on Faulty Data, New Report Asserts

All of us here think Biden's gonna remain the nominee. If he does end up stepping down, is there a replacement that you guys see could be a potential threat to Trump being elected? Who would be, if the Democrats were gonna choose the best candidate to run against Trump, who is the best person? I could tell you who the internet says.

Who? Michelle Obama. Well, she's continually denied that she wants to do it. But everybody does that, you know, like every candidate from state politics on up. You know, are you going to run? No, I'm, you know, I'm content doing this, all this true stuff. Next week, vote for me. Yeah.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a special hashtag boyscast episode of the Weekly Roundup here at the Texan. I am Brad Johnson, senior reporter here. I'm with Cameron Abrams and Matt Stringer, both reporters in your own right. I believe you're still, Matt, you're still technically a reporter, right? I still have my badge. Or should we downgrade you to contract writer? Okay, that does it. I'm going to stand in for McKenzie and be the antagonist for this podcast. It is just us today.

Mackenzie is, as everyone knows, is in Europe right now. I don't know what exactly she's doing today. I think she's touring the Scottish Highlands or something. I think she's running around to those different stones trying to find a portal. Is that right? Yeah. There's a Netflix TV show or something like that, right? Yeah. What is the name of it? I remember whenever I had Netflix. is that right yeah there's a netflix tv show something like that right yeah it's what is

the name of it i remember uh whenever i had netflix um highlander highlander yeah so my uh netflix just randomly brought it up uh one day and it was going and i was like it's pretty good is this like a hallmark movie this is gonna be like a hallmark movie and i was busy like doing stuff chores around the house or whatnot and after a little bit i'm kind of watching this show develop on and then i and then and then out of the corner of my eye like i turned and i looked at the tv and i was like this ain't no homework this is pretty this is pretty graphic well um you know before we jump into the news of the week, I figured we'd talk a bit about the big news that happened last week.

After we recorded our last podcast, Cameron's been rearing to talk about this. The first debate, it was quite the spectacle. I wrote a whole newsletter about it. Yeah, you did. Cameron, give us your take. What the heck happened in that train wreck of a debate? Well, I think you just summed it up right there. It was an absolute train wreck, your words.

But that's been echoed by, it seems like, every liberal pundit out there, which is it appeared to be a surprise to them, but everyone else who just takes a glancing look at X or social media has known this was going to come, right? Like the cognitive decline of Joe Biden has been quite apparent. I love how there's this tweet where they took a screenshot of a New York Times headline from like a week before the debate. And it said, far right conspiracies perpetuate this narrative of President Biden's cognitive decline. And then the day after the debate, Mr. President, it's time to step aside. The thing that was so interesting is it happened

immediately after the debate. So quick. Because if people were watching the debate on CNN, they cut to commentary right afterwards and every single person was saying that was a disaster. There was panic.

So, the fallout from then, though. Oh, yeah. Isn't that crazy? All the polling. Commentators and talking heads that you thought would have been bending over backwards to, you know. Van Jones, Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough. Yeah. No, it was very, it was brutal.

It was brutal. And it's it's been hilarious, though, to see this pivot now where first it was talking about the debate, but now it's transition to who is going to replace Biden. And he hasn't even said he's going to step down or he's going to not campaign. He hasn't done any of that. Obviously, there's been reports of him. There's these growing voices of people having conversations behind the scenes, like telling him behind the scenes he shouldn't campaign. We saw Dodgett come out. Doggett.

Doggett. Texas congressman democrat he he came out and said biden shouldn't run um thanks for stealing my thunder on the first segment here but go ahead continue we'll dive deeper into the details but what's been interesting if people have been paying attention to social media there's been lots of postings about potential replacements. You know, there's been the obvious Michelle Obama. Her name's been floated around, but she's consistently said she's not going to do it. Right.

Gavin Newsom, he was showing up to all the Republican debates. He was at the presidential debate and he was doing the press gaggle afterwards as well. He did a debate with Ron DeSantis. He did a debate with Ron DeSantis. Then, you know, names like Pete Buttigieg has been thrown around. Even people are saying Hillary is going to make a resurgence. Who knows? But there is someone waiting in the wings with executive experience right there. Well, there's Vice President Kamala Harris.

So for people who have been paying attention over the past 48 hours, there has been a groundswell of support for Kamala Harris. Whether there's all sorts of memes and videos coming out and the hashtag K-Hive. Are you familiar with hashtag K-Hive? No. So like Beyonce has the beehive. Kamala has her own group of supporters. They call themselves the K-Hive.

The K-Hive. And people are now saying they are coconut-pilled. Coconut-pilled? Is that a reference to what is a how? So like the Matrix, there's the red pill and the blue pill, white pill, black pill, whatever. But if you take the coconut pill, that means you're all in on Kamala. And it's in reference to her in a video saying uh

you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree and then you exist within the context of your life something like that but this video has been making the rounds on social media people have picked it up and ran with it just just saying, I'm coconut pilled. But this, it's an interesting mirror to what happened in 2015, 2016 with Donald Trump, where he had this groundswell of internet support essentially being memed into a presidency, some people said. So you think Kamala Harris is getting that too? Well, are we going to be seeing something similar happen right now? Ride the coconut wave?

Who knows? It's just been interesting seeing how over the past three years, everyone on social media, everyone who's a right-leaning individual, a conservative Republican who has been calling out the issues with Joe Biden's cognitive ability, that was all on display during the presidential debate. Now we're seeing the media establishment flip and essentially give credence to those arguments.

Okay. One, I'm glad I did not bet you a pork chop on this. But even though the media narrative and everything like that has gone from criticizing this conspiracy to now calling for it to happen, there's still the legal aspect of it. I saw, I think, an op-ed, and I think it was the Daily Caller by Trey Traynor. He's an election attorney on the Federal Elections Committee. And he said, even if they wanted to at this point, there was all these legal hurdles, procedural and everything like that, of getting somebody else replaced on the ticket, et cetera, et cetera. One of the things I didn't even think

about was all the money that they've raised to this point would be locked in to be that they can only spend it to the benefit of Biden. Well, is it specifically for a Joe Biden campaign or is it a Biden-Harris campaign? I don't know on that. Well, I think that would be an interesting distinction to explore because if it is just purely Biden, then it would complicate things much more. But if it's a Biden-Harris ticket and Biden drops out, that money could still be used. Maybe they can use half of it. It was interesting watching the debate. It was clearly a very bad performance for the president. Democrats hit back. Well,ald trump lied constantly throughout this um and that was kind of the

rebuttal afterwards um it but the the general dynamic within this reminded me although to a much uh lesser degree of the first 2012 presidential debate, where Romney really took it to Obama as the incumbent and emerged. Everyone came out saying Romney won the debate. Now, obviously, those later debates, a lot of the punditry said Obama won, and obviously Obama won the presidency. But this was, while I was watching this unfold that's what was coming to mind watching that obama romney debate the first one um and seeing you know a an incumbent

kind of get run over during it by their opponent obviously different dynamics at play obviously play. Obviously, Biden's age is playing into this massively. But the longer it takes, there's a lot of talk about Biden being replaced. But political inertia is a very powerful thing. And the longer it takes him to actually step aside, the less likely it is he's actually going to do that. And that, you know, we mentioned Congressman Doggett. The longer it takes for more officials on the Democratic side to come out and say Biden needs to drop out, the less likely it is the avalanche Doggett hoped to cause is going to actually happen. And the status quo is a powerful thing. People can reason themselves into all kinds of justifications for it.

It happens in politics all the time. You know, we see it in the speaker's race. Right now, nobody thought after the primary that Dade Phelan would be the frontrunner for speaker. Right now, he's the frontrunner for speaker. I apply the same line of thinking to Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. Not to say, you know, the opposition to his candidacy can't build up enough. It certainly can, but it hasn't yet. And the longer that takes, the less likely I think it is to happen.

Yeah, I think, you know, there might be momentum increase to replace the president. But once, you know, the convention comes and goes, that goes off the question. And then everything just translates to what his polls look like in the matchup in November. And, you know, I think in that second presidential debate, I think it's in September. You know, he's going to have to have a strong showing. Otherwise, those numbers are going to continue to crater in key states. Well, you know, you mentioned polling. CNN's latest poll they released this week, it was done immediately after the debate on the 28th through the 30th.

It had Donald Trump up six points on Joe Biden. That's a national poll. Obviously, you know, stipulate the fact that what's really important are the swing state polls, the swing states themselves, because we've elected president based on the Electoral College, not based on the popular vote. That's where you get those 270. Yep, exactly. And so, however, so that six points is unchanged from the last iteration. But interestingly enough, there was a negative eight point swing in Biden's approval rating between this version of the poll and the last one done in April. Now, maybe there's other factors.

There's probably other factors at play there. But in an immediate, the immediate aftermath aftermath we saw a negative eight point swing for for biden on that um also trump posted a 10 point advantage among independents that's pretty big um and then well you know if we're gonna add rfk junior into this like just this week too there was all sorts of attacks but with that vanity fair article that came out and then you had this moment where everybody was like well what's the third option look like or whatnot and then vanity fair comes out with this article and it's just like well and then so bad but so he he so the what we're talking about is there was a picture of RFK decades ago of essentially holding up like a barbecued animal.

And Vanity Fair says it was a dog, but he says it's a goat. But then there were other accusations of sexual assault, let's say, in the article. And he had opportunities in an interview with Sagar and Chetty on Breaking Points to kind of dismiss them, and he didn't really land his response very well. About the worst response I've ever heard to accusations of something like that. And so— I'm not a church boy or something like that so just everyone knows i have a spotty pass like yeah that's not a it's not a denial yeah so just so many things happening with the presidential candidates and none of them

have to do with trump that's the interesting thing because like well he's been quiet he's been quiet since he hasn't announced his vice presidential. I was just about to say that is because there was all this hype about who was going to be the VP nom for Trump. Like, oh, the person's going to be at the debate. You know, he's going to announce it after. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He's just letting things breathe. You know, I think that's been very tactful on his end, just letting people run with what's going on. What's the latest that somebody announces their VP pick typically? I have no idea. I'm not familiar enough with enough campaigns.

So let's go around and ask, do you think Biden will step down? Yes? I don't think so. No? No. No? But I'm not willing to bet a pork chop on it. I don't think he will either.

I don't. of what I've been reading, there's pressure internally from people he trusts, whether it be Hunter Biden, Jill Biden, want him to stay as the nominee. Will there be enough outside voices, whether it be elected officials or media pundits trying to advocate for him to step down? But ultimately, it's going to be up to him and the people he trusts. Also, the other aspect of this is we have a long way to go until the election and things get forgotten, especially if more pertinent events occur closer to the election, right? October surprises.

There's always an October surprise. The DNC is August 19th. Okay. Gives you a timeline idea here. They've got an uphill battle. The Trump campaign announced fundraising totals for the most recent quarter. And obviously this includes post-conviction in that New York trial. I think it was something like either close to or over $100 million the Trump campaign raised, more than what the Biden campaign raised.

It was something insane. So they are going to have— Outraising an incumbent president is a pretty interesting statement. Yeah. So it's—let me see if I can find the exact numbers. Okay, so it was $331 million for Trump and then $264 million for Biden. So not $100 million. It's, what, like $70 million 100 million, it's what, like 70 million?

Still, that's a ton. And, you know, just as momentum is a powerful thing for the status quo, you know, it acts other ways too, and that's, we see it in fundraising. You know, like they're going to build on that and carry that into uh you know once we hit august after this july dead period and it's going to be um you know if if the biden campaign cannot slow trump down at all in any manner you know it's going to be running away with this especially considering the uh i mentioned swing states swing swing state polling. Following the debate performance, this was an internal poll leaked from the progressive open labs. It shows Biden's support in swing states waning pretty significantly in a bunch of different states, you know, going from in, let's see, what's a good,

Minnesota, 2.4% up before the debate to 0.4% up on Trump after the debate. And then, you know, Wisconsin going from down 2.2% for Biden to down 4.2%. So there's other states in there as well, but that's a very bad sign if that is true. That was leaked to Puck News. But bad signs right now for the Biden campaign. Yeah. It's just interesting if all of us here think Biden's going to remain the nominee. If he does end up stepping down, is there a replacement that you guys see could

be a potential threat to Trump being elected? Who would be, if the Democrats were going to choose the best candidate to run against Trump, who is the best person? I would be, if the Democrats were going to choose the best candidate to run against Trump, who is the best person? I can tell you who the internet says. Michelle Obama. Well, she's continually denied that she wants to do it. But everybody does that, you know, like every candidate from state

politics on up, you know, are you going to run? No, I'm, you know, I'm content doing this, all this true stuff next week. Vote for me. Well, you know, I don't know who the best would be. Probably Michelle Obama looking at polling that I've seen. She was up big on Trump in some of these prospective polls. But if Biden does step down, it's going to be Kamala.

Yeah. She is the closest option at hand and you know add in the money aspect it's either biden or her yeah and i don't see them having this uh knock down drag out fight at convention and you know making republicans look united you know we talk a lot about how divided Republicans are here in the state. Well, at the national level, if that happened, Republicans will look far more united than Democrats in this. So, yeah, I don't see anyone other than Kamala being the nominee to replace Biden. Yeah. Kamala being the nominee to replace Biden. I agree

with you Matt that I think the best person they could put up is Michelle Obama. It's not my opinion, it's the internet's. I agree with the internet's opinion. You're reading the tea leaves of the internet. But I agree with Brad, it's

Kamala or no one. And with that I'll move into the segments. We'll start off with a very much related story about Congressman Lloyd Doggett. This week, he became the first federal Democratic official to call on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race. That coming after the debate performance that we all just we spent 15 minutes discussing dog it said in the statement quote president biden has continued to run substantially behind democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed donald trump i had hoped this debate would provide some momentum to change that it did not instead of reassuring voters the

president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump's many lies. Further, our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang. I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same so dog it's been in congress since the mid-90s before that he was a long time legislator in the state and state um in the the texas legislature and uh it hasn't like we said it hasn't caused the avalanche of support withdrawing from Biden that he probably hoped for. At least it hasn't yet.

But it was particularly notable. And Doggett is, you know, he's been in Congress a long time. figure in DC and as one of the Texas delegation members. So that was significantly notable. It was significant, full stop. We'll see if it has any further effect. Another interesting wrinkle to this is it came after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi told MSNBC, I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition about Biden and the debate performance? She went on to say, and so when people ask that question, it's legitimate. And then she added of both candidates. So she didn't withdraw her support from Bideniden but clearly leaving the door open for others to to question that and you know if uh biden's allies were really going to circle the wagons

like pelosi you know they would she would have said biden is capable he's our nominee full stop and that's that but she didn't so uh you So a lot of questions up in the air right now. And as we talked about, probably inertia is on Biden's side at the moment. But, you know, anything could happen. Yeah. And I think the context you provided in terms of how long Doggett's been in Congress, he's a respected member among Democrats. The fact that he was the first one to come out kind of provides the space for others to fall in behind him.

They haven't yet, but at least him coming out first. I've seen a few here and there, ones I'm not familiar with. Yeah, but at least providing a space for people who want to jump on that bandwagon as well. Well, you know, we've seen Julian Castro. He's not in an elected office right now, but he's been a Democratic figure for a while. You know, he ran for president in 2020 in that Democratic field. He also called on biden to drop out and uh you know he it also has been pointed out that back in one of the debates he kind of hit biden for forgetting something on stage forgetting it just said something or contradicting

himself that's what it was i think about medicaid reform um so you know it's not just doggit there are others doggit was just the first one currently in congress to do so but maybe it's a watershed moment maybe it's not i found an interesting tweet just now michelle obama's office confirms she will not make a 2024 presidential run. Quote, it is not in my soul. So strike that contender out. Well, you know, like you said, they always deny until they don't. It's not in my soul, even though I have a strategist on my office who's putting together. It is a pretty firm denial, I will say that.

So it's very unlikely that she jumps in. But we did see Marianne Williamson declare candidacy. She's ready and willing. Yeah, ready to become the nominee at convention. So I'm sure that'll go swimmingly. But, yeah, it was very notable for Doggett to say that. We'll see if it has the effect he hopes for, but it's not looking like it right now. Cameron, we'll move on to you.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the state of Texas' social media censorship law, sending it back to a lower court. Tell us what happened. Yeah, so this was Net Choice v. Paxton, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in this case. And it was in regard to a 2021 Texas social media transparency law. And like you mentioned, it's going to be sent back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. And this legislation would have mandated greater transparency from major social media platforms and prohibits them from censoring users based on their viewpoints. And NetChoice v. Paxson was

brought to the U.S. Supreme Court in conjunction with a similar case that was stemming from a Florida law. In the opinion delivered by Justice Elaine Kagan, she wrote, what's that? Elena. Elena Kagan. Sorry. She wrote, quote, Texas has never been shy and always been consistent about its interests. The objective is to correct the mix of viewpoints that major platforms present, but a state may not interfere with private actors' speech to rebalance the speech market, that unadorned interest is not unrelated to the suppression of free Eleventh Circuit to perform essentially a deeper analysis to the extent of the content that either law would cover. That was the main justification for this opinion is that would these laws cover things like private messages

and how would these laws moderate those sorts of things. So just an interesting sort of wrinkle here. Texas has taken, let's say, shown a spotlight on a lot of tech and social media censorship. So this is just another development in that. And we'll see if in this additional analysis that goes on in the Fifth Circuit, if anything happens. I'll leave you here with how Texas Attorney General Kim Paxson responded. He said, quote, this year I went before SCOTUS to defend our landmark Texas law that forbids social media companies from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. He continued saying big tech censorship is one of the biggest threats to free public discourse and election integrity. Today, SCOTUS has set this case back to the lower courts.

I will keep fighting for our law that protects Texans' voices. No American should be silenced by big tech oligarchs. So that's the latest on NetChoice v. Paxson. And I think it's important to emphasize that this was a unanimous ruling. This was not a divided ruling or a very narrow one. It was pretty prolific. So we'll see what the state of Texas does after that. Maybe they try and pass an adjusted version next year if this thing truly does get torpedoed in courts fully. It hasn't yet, but we'll see where it goes.

Thank you, Cameron. Moving on to another one of my pieces. The Biden administration's pause on liquefied natural gas exporting permits has been itself paused by a Louisiana federal judge. Finding the plaintiff states, including Texas would refuse to approve permits henceforth on construction of new LNG exporting facilities. It was part of the administration's plan to, quote, tackle the climate crisis at home. Louisiana, Texas, and 14 other states sued the administration over the directive, saying it, quote, flouted the regulatory process and upends the oil and gas industry. Judge James Cain wrote in his opinion, considering that the DOE will be allowing a 60-day comment period through an announcement in the Federal Register

after they update their studies, which have already been updated, this court is concerned that the DOE's actions are no more than a backdoor scheme to circumvent thevent the apa he added this also appears to be a breach of the constitution's separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch i believe what he issued was a temporary injunction and there will be further consideration of this. But based on the way the judge wrote, this thing's going to get slapped down pretty hard by that judge. Now, maybe appeals and Biden could appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit, which itself has not been a very friendly venue for the Biden administration. And then the way when you look up at the Supreme Court, the makeup of that court is not friendly to him either on particularly this issue. So not a very friendly pathway. I think it's probably pretty likely that the administration just drops this thing, particularly because DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in March that the pause would effectively be in the rearview mirror within a year.

Clearly, this was a campaign ploy and tactic, which is not something that's rare in presidential administrations. Happens all the time. Biden is not the only one that's done it. But particularly for Texas and Louisiana as well, states on the Gulf, these export facilities have been pretty beneficial economically. Obviously, Texas produces a ton of natural gas. And then there are a few facilities on the coast and then more in Louisiana that turn it into LNG and then ship it overseas. That's very profitable for these companies, for this industry, and for the country. But, you know, they see this as just another barrier to them expanding that output. And, I mean, it's true. There are multiple facilities under planning stages or permitting stages for along the Gulf. And this would have, this just stalls them for a year at least, and under the guise of a political maneuver.

Something we've continually heard in the discussion between Trump and Biden is Trump will say, under my administration, we were going to be energy independent, or we were on our way to be, you know, he, you hear him say this. Is there validity to those claims? And then what, how does this relate to America and it's in just energy policy more generally? Well, energy independent is a misleading term. Okay, tell us. Because what he really means is a net exporter because it would be incredibly inefficient

to totally be independent of other countries' energy sources. You know, take South Dakota. They import oil from Canada because it's closer in proximity. So it's cheaper. It's more cost effective. You know, when people say

energy independent, what they think of is Texas made in America, used in America. And it does go everywhere. You know, it's just there are certain places where it's less cost effective. And it's more efficient to use Texas

oil and gas here or even in this case, LNG, ship it overseas to Europe particularly with the Ukraine-Russia conflict going on. And a lot of these European countries have either been totally cut off

or had their supply curtailed of natural gas because Russia is a big supplier out there. So this is a way for the American industry to get a sizable chunk of that market and keep it. So in terms of the energy industry globally, this is where that comes into play. The oil and gas industry hated this and they love the oil and gas exporting because it's incredibly profitable for them. So yeah, it's just the energy independent term is a bit of a thorn in my side. Just because it's not descriptive of what the actual environment is. Well, I'll throw one other little fun fact on energy whenever it comes to the petroleum industry. our refineries are not tooled to only process one type of crude.

Like, you know, a lot of people say, I don't know why we import, you know, any crude from Saudi or this or that. Well, you actually have to have the blend that comes from import cut in for it to be processed in our refineries. And we haven't built new refineries in eons. So before we could just cut off. Well, question about that then, why hasn't there been new refineries built? Is there just federal regulations that are preventing people from

or companies from building these new refineries that can process these certain types of blends? I'm told it's regulations. I'm told. And permitting. The chief reason is it's too expensive. And a big part of that is the regulations. And that's coming from federal regulations.

Yes. Okay. By and large. But, yeah, the refining industry is kind of plateaued. Not kind of. It has plateaued for a long time. About the only expansions we see are expansions of existing plants there was there was discussions in odessa to build uh this one uh new plant which would have been the first one since like the early 80s

um but i don't know they haven't they haven't really made any ground on breaking ground on that plant so i'm not sure if that one's it's called the nissero project yeah and um they've they've been having some problems meeting deadlines and things like that so i'm not sure if that one's going to actually happen in uh i think in 22 this was a really big issue uh because chiefly that the i think the chev Chevron CEO came out and said he doesn't expect another plant, another new refinery, large-scale one, to ever be built again in the U.S. Say that again. He doesn't expect or he doesn't want? He doesn't expect.

He doesn't expect. Because the price signals, the ability to turn a profit, a return on investment, are not there right now because of how costly it is to build the thing in the first place. So that leaves us locked in with this worldwide trade. Yep, and shipping it overseas for it to be refined. There are places, I think, in the Caribbean that do that, but also the Saudis, they do it as well. They have a lot newer refineries that can handle more of this stuff. Um, America's fleet is, is very aged and it will be until, you know, you can put a shovel

in the ground on these things, but that's kind of the general dynamic. And, um, but overall this, this permit pause is like, it's just a nuisance for the industry, especially with the administration just outright saying they have no intention of making this a permanent rule. So this thing will probably get slapped down pretty handily by the courts permanently. Please don't sue us. It was just a campaign thing. Yes. Exactly. All right.

So we'll move on. Cameron, coming back to you. Texas' age verification law for pornographic websites has undergone prior legal challenges, but it will now be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. Tell us about it. Yeah. So the case is Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which began after House Bill 1811 was passed during the 88th legislative session. And that law requires a website that intentionally publishes, quote, sexual material harmful to minors to verify the user's identity through a digital identification, a third-party verification system that uses

government-issued identification or a, quote, commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an individual. So, like, for example, if you go to any website, like, whether it's alcohol, tobacco, things like that, you get a little pop-up screen that says, are you over 18, over 21, you have to click yes. So the Free Speech Coalition, which is an adult entertainment advocacy group, filed this lawsuit claiming that the age verification requirement. That's an interesting name. Free Speech Coalition. I've been to deceptive branding there. A little bit, but it plays well, you know, if you just read the name. But they filed this lawsuit claiming that the age verification requirement present in the law is, quote, overbroad and fails strict scrutiny.

A judge for the U.S. District Court of Texas, Austin Division, initially sided with the Free Speech Coalition, but Paxson appealed the district court's injunction to the fifth circuit court of appeals we're just mentioning them which stayed the injunction allowed the law to go into effect i'm sure people have seen if you're following texas politics there have been lots of press releases and different discussions about how different pornographic websites have ceased their operations in the state of Texas. We've seen we've seen Kempaxon file lawsuits against companies like Pornhub or Chatterbait and we've actually written about some of those instances

because it is actually pretty interesting. And it was big news at the time. But now we're seeing that the Supreme Court is going to be reviewing this case. And I reached out to the bill's author, Representative Matt Shaheen, and he said, quote, I have a high level of confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold this vital piece of legislation to protect children from harmful materials. So I'm not going to give any predictions or anything, but it's just interesting with how the recent social media censorship Supreme Court decisions came out. And now they're taking up an adjacent case like this. Will there be a move in another direction by the Supreme Court justices? I'm not sure yet. We'll have to see

what the oral arguments entail. So we'll keep following this for you guys, and yeah, that's the latest update. It is an interesting dovetail with that NetChoice case, although also a very different set of circumstances. Well, because a big question, and it's interesting, Texas lawmakers are attempting to do things in regard to preventing children from accessing the sexual material. We've seen it with this law. We saw it with HB 900. And a big question that continues to come up is how the legal definition of prurient interest. Prurient? Is that how you say it?

Prurient. Prurient. And so this question is going to have to be. As Matt looks up the definition. I like learning new words. And so. Oh, that's not a good word. Don't read that on the podcast, please. Okay.

So what is allowable within the free speech confines and what is going to be accessible or allowed to be accessible by people under 18? This will be an interesting case for the Supreme Court to review. Right. And the practical application of this, the law that requires age verification, it's not shutting these websites down. No. But it has caused certain websites to basically shut off their services in the state of Texas because they don't want to you know well follow the well that's one aspect maybe

they that could be an army oh they just don't want to follow the law or they don't want to find themselves subject to litigation if someone under 18 is able to access their site by some sort of means okay yeah so um it doesn't have to be some nefarious malicious sort of thing it's just they don't want to be subject to lawsuits gotcha gotcha okay well thanks cameron move on to another one of mine a texas judge in el paso has shut down the office the attorney general's attempt to shutter Annunciation House, a Catholic charity operating in El Paso that the office, the agency accused of, quote, facilitating illegal border crossings. What Annunciation House does is take in migrants that have crossed, and they don't really check. Allegedly, this is what the Attorney General's

office has alleged in the case, they don't really check whether they're illegal or not. And that is, according to Paxton and the Office of the Attorney General, kind of facilitating this broader problem at the border. And originally this lawsuit stems from Paxton demanding documents and Annunciation House objecting to it. Went to court. The Attorney General sued. After it failed to turn over requested documents

he believed would show it assess foreign nationals in breaking the nation's immigration laws. Judge Francisco Dominguez, who blocked paxton's original subpoenas while the legal process was ongoing sided with annunciation house and as i said it's a non-profit charity that quote accompanies the migrant refugee and economically vulnerable peoples of the border region in a tuesday order granting the defendants their summary judgment request. Quote, the judge said, quote, the Texas Attorney General's Office disregard for the constitutional rights of Annunciation House employees and its guests vindicates the Supreme

Court's concerns over statutes that fail to provide a process for pre-compliance review. The judge, just like Judge Kaine in the LNG case, really slapped down the Biden administration's rule. The judge here didn't hold back against the Attorney General's office in this case um he went so far as to say that is clearly uh this case is motivated by paxton's retaliation against enunciation house's exercise of its first amendment right to expressive association that first amendment rights as the judge says is to not to not turn over these documents in the hopes of getting its operations shuttered so overall this thing is probably gonna be appealed in fact I'd be surprised if it hasn't already been appealed as we sit here on Wednesday but that would go to I believe Eighth Court of Appeals if it does.

Well, this was an interesting case that I've been following for a little bit. Just because I've seen so many reports about how these NGOs, non-governmental organizations, are facilitating migrants coming into the country, whether it be by legal or illegal means in some allegations. And something that I highlighted in a previous report that I wrote about this case, that back in January, the Center for Immigration Studies had produced reports about how the Biden administration and the United Nations, quote, have poured taxpayer money into NGOs, including Catholic, Lutheran, and Seventh-day Adventist groups. This is done as the CIS, that's the Center for Immigration Study. mainlining taxpayer funds to these groups, which then distribute them to keep hundreds of thousands of migrants comfortably moving toward illegal U.S. southern border crossings. And people can go check out my previous reporting because I kind of dug into that report a little bit.

It's just an interesting wrinkle to this entire conversation surrounding illegal immigration is that it's there's these individuals coming to the border, trying to cross it illegally. There's cartel organizations that are helping facilitate this. But this wrinkle is that there's actually U.S. taxpayer money going to NGOs that are helping facilitate this, as it usually starts down in South America, moving up through the Durian Gap up to Mexico, to the southern border. So it's a long process, and there's lots of organizations involved in this, lots of money. Just, you know, illegal immigration is a talking point and something that people are concerned about.

You can see it in polling. It's one or number two issue for registered voters. So this is just an interesting angle to what is facilitating the illegal immigration at the border. And it also should note it stems from a request by Governor Abbott, I believe in 22, that the OEG evaluate whether nonprofit organizations were assisting in some in flouting the nation's immigration laws. So it starts from there. And now we have a lawsuit. Like I said, it's probably gonna be appealed. And by the time this goes out, it might have been. So we'll keep an eye on that. Moving on to one more of mine before we hit Matt at the very end. So earlier this year, there was a report released by Texas Association of Business. The report, the evaluation was done by this group called TXP.

Estimated the cost of Texas's pair of anti-ESG laws, and it pegged the cost in economic losses at close to $700 million. Well, a new report comes out that alleges this was based on faulty data. The March analysis actually changed lanes there for a bit. American Energy Institute and that says that the data published in this original report is faulty because it's based on oddly weighted data. So the bond review board publishes these local bond assessments and it tracks the costs associated with municipal bonding cost money to loan money um you know interest rates and whatnot so um this uh there was a the bond review board published the data the tab study was based on that bond review board later came out and said that um they had weighted it differently than they did in the past.

So when you're comparing these numbers, the cost associated with it looked a lot higher, doubled. The cost associated with municipal bonding doubled after the passage of these two anti-ESG laws, one of them SB13, which prohibits, among other things, localities from contracting with companies deemed to be boycotting fossil fuels. The other one is the same thing, only with companies deemed to be discriminating against gun manufacturers. So those are the two laws there. The business community feels that those increase their cost burden. It makes it harder for companies to participate in these kinds of areas, whether it's municipal bonding or on the pension side of things, managing assets, things like that. So they're opposed. The state legislature passed it in order to try and cut down on companies deploying ESG, whether it's net zero goals, whether it's assisting with abortions, things like that.

The ESG umbrella is pretty broad, and it touches a lot of different things, but it all comes back to the world of capital. So with this report, the Bond Review Board, they updated the numbers after the fact, and it showed that the cost associated with municipal bonding since the passage of these laws, it's really about the same of what it has been in the past seven years. So there's a big fight brewing again over ESG in the legislature next year. There were a few proposals that some pretty high profile ones that did not pass. And so we're going to see the legislature probably take another swing at those. And, you know, we'll see opposition on various fronts to those.

But, you know, this report gained a lot of attention when it was put out there. And it has been used elsewhere and in other publications. Ultimately, you know, the TAB was using numbers that it thought were the correct ones originally. And those since have been adjusted. But the American Energy Institute is calling for the TAB to adjust its study. TAB did note in its, once the numbers were changed, that did note in its study that it was based on the originally published numbers by the Bond Review Board. Overall, is this really going to be that big of a talking point? I don't know.

Going into next session. But it has caused a bit of a stir and a horn's nest has been kicked. But who knows how long that lasts. So, Matthew, we will come on to you now um you know long-awaited presidential immunity case was released by supreme the supreme court on the last day of its spring term give us a rundown of the decision what the majority looked like and how it will impact politics at large, given the elephant in the room being the presidential candidates. Yeah, so the big, long-awaited Supreme Court case that, like a good showman,

the Supreme Court saved all the way to the very end, not just the last day of the spring session, but the last case to drop. It's a very suspenseful morning, and that was the question of if and current GOP presidential nominee and leading presidential candidate Donald Trump was charged by a special counsel, Jack Smith, with four indictments relating to the 2020 election. Specifically, the first count dealt with his communications with the Department of Justice demanding that they investigate election fraud. Whenever they didn't do what he wanted, he threatened to fire the Attorney General. They indicted him over that. Another charge was his communications with state and party officials over the administration of the election and the appointment of electors and et cetera, et cetera. They indicted him over that. There was two more charges, but excuse me, what they the normal certification process during the reading of the electoral votes.

They indicted him over that. Anyway, the Supreme Court majority opinion was 6-3 along what you would call ideological lines. So the six that you would typically call conservatives and the three that you'd typically call liberal-leaning justices, completely opposed to each other on this. The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts. He basically created a legal doctrine where you have these three buckets, if you will. The first one for core constitutional powers and duties of the president, so think issuing a pardon or commander-in-chief of the military, et cetera, et cetera. In those circumstances, he is absolutely immune to any prosecution or questioning of his decisions.

You can't look at his rationale behind it. Nada. He cannot be charged. The second tier is for, or the second bucket, I would say, is for things that they call outlying powers. So not necessarily something expressly codified that something he's supposed to do, but through rationale or reasoning, you can say, okay, yeah, it's reasonable for the president to be involved in this. And whenever he's doing it in his official capacity. In that circumstance, the court said he has at least presumptive immunity. And what that means is before you can bring a charge,

a prosecutor has the burden of showing to the court in a very high threshold standard that the action was not an outlying power, etc., etc., that it falls outside an exception. So they have basically this defense that they can throw up to avoid a charge being brought. And then the last one is unofficial acts, which the court wrote that he absolutely has no immunity for unofficial acts. But in the fiery dissents from the court's three liberal judges, they explained how some of the precedent doctrine that the majority set can affect his private acts. For example, out of New York State, Trump is charged with numerous felonies relating to his business capacity, where they say he was convicted for forging business records that he cited as, he called them legal services.

They say it was illegal to do that when it was actually paying his attorney to pay a non-disclosure agreement fee to Stormy Daniels. the court wrote that while he was president, a prosecutor can't examine the rationale behind president's decisions, involvement, et cetera, et cetera. And there were circumstances used in the New York case where they took into consideration decisions and actions that he made while he was president. And so because of that, they've had to postpone sentencing in that case, kick it back to September, where the judge has to decide whether or not this court opinion impacts the New York state charges. And if so, what are they going to do about it, whether or not they have to kick the whole case out or redo it or et cetera, et cetera. On the federal charges, the Supreme Court absolutely kicked out one of them.

The charges relating to his communications with the Department of Justice to investigate election fraud, threatening to remove the attorney general, all that sort of stuff, core constitutional powers of the president, they kicked that charge out. The remaining ones, they remanded to the district court under strict instructions to review whether or not these were official or unofficial acts. And they basically describe some elements that the judge is going to have to go by in deciding whether or not these are official or unofficial acts, including you cannot take into consideration his reasoning for any official acts.

And you also can't consider it an unofficial act simply because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. So extremely high threshold here. While it wasn't an outright win for Trump in that they didn't strike down all of the charges, it, A, hands him a big victory in being able to say, you know, here is major precedent pertaining to presidential immunity, and here's a really good chance to go back to the trial court and get all of these charges kicked. Interesting, interesting. So part of the ruling was focus on official acts, right? Distinguishing between official and unofficial and setting up basically instructions for judges and trial courts in future situations to basically metrics how to determine

what is an official and unofficial act. And when it's not something that's just so clear-cut like pardon power, commanding or chief, things like that that he did, something that's not necessarily that you're not pointing to in statute or in the Constitution, how to determine whether or not it's technically an outlying power. Yeah, it's something reasonably that because he was president, that's something that he could have or should have been doing. Okay. Thank you, Matt. There you go. Thank you for that analysis.

People were saying Nixon is vindicated. Any validity with this new immunity case? Well, Nixon, so once again, whether or not you can charge a president has always been kind of a legal gray area. Some people always thought you could. Some people thought you couldn't, et cetera, et cetera. you could argue that the breach of the party headquarters was a private or official capacity sort of thing. I don't know. I'd have to go back and look at the fine point details. Maybe we could look forward to a docket newsletter on presidential immunity, a look back at Nixon Watergate.

That would be fun, actually. Okay. You've given me a very good idea. And also, thank you for the plug on our newsletter, The Docket. Check out all of our awesome newsletters at The Texan that our subscribers get to check out. Okay. And with that, I will call an audible here. First, I've got to plug the survey.

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And then I'm going to end quickly. Today is July 3rd, the day before Independence Day. Guys, what is your favorite July 4th themed movie? Go ahead, Matt. Actually, it's not a movie. It's a series, the HBO John Adams series. Great one. Man, where they depict Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson

sitting around in the subcommittee to do the initial draft on the Declaration. Like, God, they did such a good job. They did not think about that. That's great. For that scene. And the whole series is great. Now I'm going to have to go watch it again. Yeah.

Cameron? I was going to say Independence Day. Because there's just the scene where Will Smith punches the alien in the face. Welcome to Earth. But July 4th theme, national treasure. We're going to be stealing the Declaration of Independence. And then, like, at one point, he, like, pulls out a $100 bill, and he's, like, using a water bottle as a magnifying glass. Like, you see the time?

It's like a clue. Everything's a clue. It's a great movie. I went to the National Archives in, like, 2019, and I was looking around and had to laugh because in the movie they have that box of declarations of independence or whatnot that uh in the movie he's in the gift shop at the National Archives and she's like are you gonna pay for that sir and he looks down you know because he's got it

wrapped the declaration wrapped up in plastic and sure enough they've got a little bill of declarations just like in the movie in there I think think I'd go with two good options. There's the Patriot. There's the Sandlot, which has the great scene where they're playing under fireworks at night. Awesome. But I'm going to go with Independence Day. The speech from the president is awesome. And just blowing the heck out of aliens,

just destroying the scene where the very end, I forget the actor's name but he's flying up in with the with the bomb that's a quaid randy quaid oh randy quaid yeah um yeah he's in christmas vacation right yeah flies up into it blows it up just great love that movie cousin eddie destroyed the aliens yeah yeah what did y'all think of the sequels that would independence day yeah it was oh see that. It was just one sequel, right? I think it was just one. Okay, maybe. Liam Hemsworth, yeah.

It was fun. Not as good as the last one. I thought it was a little, it was hard to believe. They made things way too out of proportion. Like the spaceship, the entire size of the continental United States. Like, come on.

Fair enough. Well, you know, you can't beat Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith blowing up some aliens. Well, you know, you can't beat Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith blowing up some aliens. Oh, gosh. And with that, we will conclude this episode of the Boys Cast. I hope everybody enjoys the holiday. Happy Independence Day.

Enjoy the burgers and beers. Hopefully buy some water or in some water. Fireworks. Fireworks, the whole gamut. Check out the Federalist Papers if you want some themed reading. Or watch Independence Day. You can get the same message from either one.

Or the John Adams HBO series. That one too. So with that, we will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, With that, we will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics.

And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.