The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 18, 2022

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses the second anniversary of Governor Abbott’s COVID-19 disaster declaration, the head of the Texas Military Department being switched out amid controversy, a spike in youth suicides in the pandemic years, a pro-gambling PAC donating to Texas candidates, a recount being called for by a Texas House challenger, Texas’ senators criticizing the White House over its Ukraine response, two Democrats vying for the lieutenant governor nomination, and the Republican runoff for attorney general heating up. Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on next week’s podcast.

Howdy, howdy. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, our team discusses the second anniversary of Governor Abbott's COVID-19 disaster declaration. The head of the Texas Military Department means switched out amid controversy. A spike in youth suicides in the pandemic years. A pro-gambling PAC donating to Texas candidates. A recount being called for by a Texas House challenger, senators criticizing the White House over Ukraine response, two Democrats vying for the lieutenant governor nomination, and the Republican runoff for attorney general

heating up. If you have questions for our team, email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on our podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Farr and Hayden Sparks and Isaiah Mitchell, who's joining us remotely. We're all ready to go talk about the news. Brad once again has his March Madness up on his phone just to make sure he's up on the game while we're recording. Of course. Yes. What else would I do? That's a good question. I'm not sure, up on his phone just to make sure he's up on the game while we're recording of course yes what else would i do that's a good question i'm not sure but i did make fun of you last week for it on twitter so i figured i would just continue the continue the trend hayden and daniel do you all

care about march madness whatsoever um i am a huge sports ball fan and i i follow it very closely i was actually telling hayden earlier today that i'm considering uh becoming huge sports ball fan and i i follow it very closely i was actually telling hayden earlier today that i'm considering uh becoming a sports ball commentator because sports ball is so uh i care about it so much i support all the best teams and i'm gonna get grilled for saying what i just said yes you are yeah yes you are who uh what teams do you root for, Hayden? The green team and the blue team. Oh my gosh. The green team was

on my blood boil. Oh my gosh. I think they had a great season in the last basketball round. Yeah. Round? I'll tell you this, Max.

It's not easy to make Brad mad. You're lucky I'm here today because in the Johnson household the first two days of March Madness is basically a holiday. So you're welcome for taking on for the team. I really do appreciate you coming to your job. I will say that March Madness is not the only thing Brad has been watching today.

He also turned on The Price is Right. Are you serious? Because it was on before the game started. Oh. That's a likely story. So it's just like Friendly Fire. You just got caught in the... I just turned it on early.

That way I didn't forget. Okay. Yeah. Why is it an accusation to be watching The Price is Right? I just got caught in the... I just turned it on early. That way I didn't forget. Okay. Yeah. That's fine. Why is it an accusation to be watching The Price is Right? Oh, it sounds like someone here is a Price is Right fan. Price is Right fan? I can't English.

Isaiah, are you a Price is... I can't either. Why is that hard to say? Why are you... Are you a Price is Right fan? I've never seen a single minute of The Price is Right. Oh, man. i've never seen a single minute of the rice's pie oh man this is quite quite good well let's go ahead and start doing our jobs and talking about the news brad you can't keep us up who's playing right now let's not let's just make fun of brad watching michigan is playing colorado state oh this is a big game then for you. Yes, it is. Okay, well.

Which is why I'm watching. Godspeed. But it's not going well. I'm so sorry. It's not going well. I'm so sorry. So if I just stop watching that and focus more on the podcast, you'll know that the game is out of reach. I'll just read the room.

Yeah. Okay. And I won't bring it up. I'll leave it alone. On that note, Daniel, we're going to start with you. It has been two years since Texans felt the effects of government lockdown. That shutdown was ordered by Governor Abbott and it came on March 19th of 2020. Crazy to think that that was already two years ago. But about a week earlier, he issued something else that has been the focus of a lot of attention since. What was that? Yes. If you remember back two years ago, things were going kind of like a

rapid pace. There were a lot of local governments, different cities in Texas that were shutting down, having different orders. I don't remember the specific dates for all of those towns, but before Governor Abbott issued his statewide lockdown order that prohibited social gatherings of more than 10 people, it forced restaurants to close down to takeout only or drive through. And it did a bunch of other things. Before that, he issued a disaster declaration on March 13th. This disaster declaration is something that is issued under Chapter 418 of the Texas Government Code, which is the section code called the Texas Disaster Act. And it is kind of the underpinning law that has allowed Governor Abbott to issue all of his executive orders that are tied to COVID-19. And those are orders, whether it's the ones that were like the lockdown one at the beginning, or the ones later on where he's saying local governments can't issue mask mandates. So that has kind of been the basis of that. The thing about disaster declarations is that in order for them to stay in effect,

they have to be renewed every 30 days. So every month, Governor Abbott has consecutively renewed his disaster declaration for COVID-19. And it is still in effect to this day, unless suddenly while we're recording this podcast and before it goes out, decides to end it. But I don't expect that to happen. In like 20 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what are some of the ways that Abbott's response to COVID shifted throughout the pandemic? So if you remember back at the beginning of the pandemic, things were shifting quite a bit. You had the initial lockdown in March 19th, 2020.

Then you had the more federal government push for everybody to stay home to have the 15 days to slow the spread. About a month after the 15 days started, we were still in the 15 days for quite some time. Case numbers were not skyrocketing nearly as much as people had anticipated at that point. And so things looked like they were really under control around the beginning of May. There were, of course, a lot more cases than, you know, the 30 when Governor Abbott issued his disaster declaration to begin with. But it was not, you know, hospital rooms were not filling up to the brim, as had been predicted by a lot of people. And so at that point, Governor Abbott started rolling back some of his regulations throughout May. And also, as he was beginning to issue these executive orders to open Texas, he actually included some provisions in his code saying that local governments could not issue mask mandates on individuals. Now, in about June of 2020, midway through, as COVID cases were actually

starting to go on the rise, and we're seeing more and more hospitalizations across the state, that's when his stance kind of began to shift. And so about midway through June, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolf discovered a loophole in his executive order. And he's like, we're not going to issue mask mandates on individuals we're going to issue them on businesses to issue them on individuals and so governor abbott came out after that saying this was totally acceptable and actually all part of the plan all along and nelson was a hidden gem for local officials to find yeah now one of the interesting things uh at that point uh the governor did say during an interview he said quote we want to make sure that individual liberty is not infringed upon by government and hence government cannot require individuals to wear masks

that was said in june of 2020 if you remember in july of 2020 right before uh july 4th he issued a another executive order infringing upon the rights of individuals and requiring them to wear masks so that was kind of an interesting very big clear obvious flip-flop on policies yeah now when the legislative session started a year ago or you you know, give or take a couple months, regardless, the legislature convened the big topic at hand in large part was the TVA, the Texas Disaster Action, and its potential reforms that could be enacted by the legislature. Did anything happen legislatively to change the Disaster Act? So there were some small changes that were made to the Texas Disaster Act. There were different constitutional amendments that we saw with respect to whether it be essential caregivers or kind of protecting churches or guns. There were different things like that, small little policies that were basically codifying what Governor Habit had done throughout the pandemic and kind of his response to it. Now, there were a couple different approaches that

the legislature attempted to make to address the Texas disaster act more broadly and greatly reform it. There was a lot of concern from some lawmakers of saying, hey, like, you know, back when this pandemic started, it was like right after the year after a legislative session. So lawmakers didn't have an opportunity to weigh in. Since lawmakers can only convene at the request of the governor, if the governor didn't actually call them into session, they'd have no way that would require greater oversight for these disaster declarations, particularly the ones that were on a large widespread scale. Now, this would apply to things that happen statewide, which doesn't actually happen too often. There are situations, of course, in the past few years that we've seen this, like the pandemic or the statewide freeze. But beyond that, the largest ones are usually about hurricanes, which cover a pretty vast amount of counties.

All that to say, this legislation was approved by the Senate, but it went to the House and died there. Dustin Burroughs pushing forward another piece of legislation that would have kind of essentially just codified Abbott's response again to the pandemic as it was originally introduced. Then it kind of shifted and changed to this thing where it would actually go in and add another provision in state code next to the Texas Disaster Act called the Texas Pandemic Act or Pandemic Disaster Act. And this would specifically outline how the government was supposed to respond to pandemics and there would be some legislative oversight in that i think for like 90 or 120 days after a disaster declaration for pandemic was declared

so the house passed that version of his bill it went over to the senate birdwell took it up and replaced that legislation again with his own legislation saying, no, like we need to have something for all disasters. That addresses this. Yeah. Addresses everything, not just pandemic specifically, because this is a major portion of code that could be used in other ways. And so the Senate passes that again. It goes back to the House. Birdwell or Burroughs in the House rejects that change. And so then it's basically dead it goes to a conference committee but nothing came out of it yeah it really became

a house versus senate yes battle with the house appearing to be a little bit more pro-abbott's pandemic response that's how it appeared to the public and then the senate being a little bit more willing to rein in the powers of that particular part of code yeah right that's kind of how it ended up looking yes um which was very interesting to watch who knows we've talked about whether or not this will be addressed in the next session we doubt it i think that a lot of the political capital there has been um squandered it probably won't be brought up again but regardless it's still nothing's changed there and the governor's response to covid is still um protected in that portion of code well daniel thank you for that brad this week uh continuing to talk about the governor governor abbott made a change at the

texas military department what are the details so major general thomas swelzer not sure exactly how to pronounce that that sounds good good to me. Good enough. Close enough. Give it a college try there. He was appointed to head up the Texas Military Department, which is the parent agency of the Texas Army National Guard, the Air National Guard, and the State Guard. It oversees all of those. He succeeds Major General Tracy Norris, whose term expired in February, and she was not reappointed to the position. Governor Abbott said, General Swelzer brings a wealth of military experience to this new role, and I am confident that he will uphold the integrity of the Texas military department. department um swells are most recently served as the deputy adjutant general heir for the texas national guard um he went to the air force academy graduated i think it was in

94 um at some time in the 90s and served in various capacities in the air force and then the air national guard um and now he takes over the texas military department now what's the importance of this what's the surrounding context why is this particularly noteworthy yeah so tmd has been overseeing operation lone star they oversee a lot of stuff but the chief thing right now is operation lone star which is the border security mission initiated by abbott last year in response to the spike in border crossings. And we saw that really, really jump, really come into national attention when that massive

caravan of, Hayden, was it Haitians? It was mostly Haitians. Mostly Haitians. About 30,000. In Del Rio that were basically camping underneath the international bridge in Del Rio. Yeah. About 30,000. But over the course of the last year, Norris has been criticized from different fronts, from generally the more left side, but also this has been a criticism from Abbott's primary opponents as well, on troop morale and allegedly poor conditions at the border. troops not getting paid on time, troops just not having the resources necessary to complete the mission, accusations like that. More on the right side of the political spectrum,

right-leaning side, there's also the criticism that the TMD and its branches are complying with the federal vaccine mandate right and um that has caused a lot of members to be at least at risk of getting kicked out of the national guard so um norris has been under fire uh for various things for a while. And it's not too surprising that she wasn't renewed, reappointed. But that was made official this week and it's moving in a new direction. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. We'll continue to monitor it. But the governor appoints a lot of people to different positions. And this one was particularly noteworthy because of all the reasons you listed. So thanks for following that for us. Isaiah, let's go to you. A state agency released a report at the beginning of this month regarding the deaths of children due to abuse or neglect.

How does this relate to the pandemic? Yeah. So, this report came out of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. If y'all aren't familiar with them, they run the foster care system. If you report child abuse or neglect, they're the authorities that investigate that. And if necessary, remove the child from the family. That's their gig. And every year they release a report on maltreatment deaths. So these are from abuse or neglect. Overall, in 2019, maltreatment deaths increased and then they decreased in 2020 and 21, so that's some good news. When we look closer, we see an uptick in deaths by physical abuse in 2019, followed by a downward trend, always good news, but also a much bigger spike in deaths by neglect in 2019, which continued to rise in 2020 before falling in 2021, though still not back down to 2018 levels or pre-pandemic levels.

In addition, the DFPS notes an unusual rise in suicides over both of the last two years, as well as an increase in the share of kids aged 10 to 17 in the overall count of maltreatment deaths. So when I say unusual, if a number of suicides, these are suic suicides let me back up the deaths that they track in these reports are maltreatment deaths that they have investigated so this isn't a total count of all the youth suicides in the state what happens is that if there is a child that commits suicide and there is an allegation of abuse and neglect involved in that death, and the DFPS investigates, and then that death is included in this report. In the years leading up to the pandemic, each of those years had fewer than six youth suicides, which means that they weren't even tracked

on their own little column at the chart, to put it one way, because they mask the data under, if it's like six are under suicide to protect the children's privacy, then the data is not elaborated. But in 2019, 2020, and 2021, there were above, excuse me, there were 13 suicides in 2021 that were included in the report. In fiscal year 2020, there were eight. So in the years 2016 to 2019, again, there were under six. So this is something that actually the report noted was unusual, was this rise in youth suicides. Something else is that the share of kids under the age, under school age, like under three have constituted an increasing share of the maltreatment deaths throughout the state. And so we've got these charts visualized, the data visualized in the article, and you can take a look at that and notice that the bar representing that age group has steadily grown in 2019, 2020, and 2021. We're loathe to, you know, the whole correlation versus causation warning, we're keeping that in mind. And so, you know, we're loathe to say, oh, the pandemic has,

you know, incited these suicides and these deaths among teenagers. But that is an element that the DFP has noted in the official report. And it's a little bit of a vague illusion, but the report just says that the impact of the past two years, as they put it on youth, is emerging in the data. And so it's a pretty unusual rise in suicides and deaths by neglect, which had this incredibly high spike, especially compared to deaths by physical abuse, which have decreased every year since 2019. So, the pandemic, anyway, we'll leave this data up to interpretation for the readers. Certainly.

Yeah. Yeah, proceed with caution as always when interpreting data, but there is a correlation. Now, how closely does this state data correlate with federal data? Well, as I noted, the deaths that are included in these reports are not the complete count of suicides in all of Texas for children. These are just deaths that have some kind of allegation of maltreatment that caused the DFPS to intervene and investigate. The feds, specifically the CDC, do count all suicides, and you can differentiate that by age group in a CDC data tool. However, this data does not actually go up to fiscal year 2021

as the DFPS report does. What we can see, it goes up to 2020. And with that data, what we can see is that if you take a chunk of about a decade and look at recent years, in the article, the chart that we've gotten there starts at 2013 and lasts to 2020, the most recent year for which that is available. And in that span of time, Texas youth suicides hit a peak in 2020. And the year 2019, there was an uptick from 2018 in the number of suicides. We can also differentiate by county. And if we look at, again, like the DFPS, they mask the data if there aren't enough suicides to protect the children's privacy. So the CDC's threshold is 10. If a given county in a given year has fewer than 10 suicides, then it just doesn't show up on the county data. But we can see results

greater than 10 suicides per year in Bayer, Collin, Dallas, Harris, Montgomery, Tarrant, and Travis counties. And so in four of those seven major counties that have federal data available, youth suicides in 2020 rose from 2019. And in three of those counties, Dallas, Tarrant, and Travis County, youth suicides actually peaked in 2020 in that same span of time, beginning in 2013. So there was a precipitous increase in suicides in a lot of areas of Texas and across Texas as a whole in 2020 and the thick of the pandemic and the pandemic response. Well, Isaiah, thank you for breaking that down. And as you noted, folks, make sure to go to the texan.news and check out all the data there. There are very

helpful charts and graphs that just kind of help interpret the data and give you all the details you need to draw your own conclusions. But Isaiah, thanks for breaking that down for us. Hayden, what is the Texas Sands Pack and where is its funding coming from? Well, believe it or not, it's not a sandbox manufacturer. Thank you for that. I appreciate the pity laugh. It made me think about the skate park that was covered in sand during the pandemic. Oh, yes. We talked a lot about that yesterday. Texas Sas sands pack is um really a child of las vegas sands corporation in out in las vegas nevada a child um i don't know if child's the right word but it's a creation of of las vegas sands um that was formed in january to move along the efforts in

texas to legalize what they call integrated resorts, i.e. casinos with other venues and amenities around them. Texas Sands received all of its funding, all $2.3 million of its funding from Dr. Miriam Adelson, who is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, who was the CEO of Las Vegas Sands and a prominent Trump supporter. In fact, the Adelson family has been a supporter of Republicans over the years. Dr. Adelson, as I mentioned, gave $2.3 million to this political action committee, which they, in which the PAC, and when I say PAC, that's PAC, Political Action Committee, which was used in part to fund Texas legislative races prior to the primary election.

Got it. Now, let's talk through who those donations were made out to. Well, just to set the stage for who these donations went to. These were mostly people in competitive races. They were incumbents. Some of them were candidates challenging incumbents, but they were mostly incumbents on both sides of the aisle. There were three senators that received money, Donna Campbell, Angela Paxton, and John Widmer. Again, Campbell and Paxton are both Republican, Widmer is a Democrat. Speaker Phelan, for instance, was not onxton are both Republican. Widmer is a Democrat. Speaker Phelan, for instance, was not on this list, but he didn't have a competitive primary. He was all by himself on the ballot. And Democratic caucus leader Chris Turner also didn't receive any money. But again, he's in District 101. He was the only Democrat running.

He didn't have a primary opponent. But also receiving money was alma allen steve allison ernest bales cecil bell reda bowers dustin burrows giovanni capriglione harold dutton mary gonzalez ryan guillen who and guillen of course switched from democrat to republican recently justin holland lacey hull kyle casal ken king, Brooks Landgraf, Jeff Leach, Ray Lopez, Andy Murr, Claudia Ordaz-Perez, John Rainey, Richard Raymond, Ron Reynolds, Mike Schofield, Brian Slayton, David Spiller, Aaron Zwiener, Phil Stevenson, and Stan Lambert were the candidates who received money and then went on to either advance to a runoff or win their primary outrightly. And how many total was that really fast?

It's more than a couple dozen. I think it's about 30. I'm sorry, I don't have the number off the top of my head. But there was also a candidate in Senate District 14, Angelia Orr, who won the, pardon me, that's Pete Flores in SD14, who also received money and then made the republican runoff and then angelia or who won the republican primary in hd 13 and then representative tan tan parker also won the

nomination for sd 12 so those are those are candidates who are not running for their same office but they're running for a different office or they're not incumbents and they're just running for the office they're seeking. So they were successful. And I know that there were a few or a couple that received money and were not successful, like Art Fierro. During redistricting, Claudia Ordaz-Perez and Art Fierro were drawn into the same district. And so they kind of had a friendly competition with each other, Democratic primary out there in El Paso and Ordaz Perez was successful, but Fierro also received money from Texas Sands. So that's an overview of some of the candidates who received money from

this new pack. Now, what's the likelihood that we even see casinos in Texas in the near future? Well, they definitely, Las Vegas Sands, Miriam Adelson, definitely want it to happen. Rob Goldenstein recently, pardon, I think it's just Goldstein, recently told the Las Vegas Review Journal that they're hoping to break ground in 2024 on these integrated resorts if it's passed in 2023. And just to kind of give you an idea of the weight of the Adelson family's support and their scope of influence, they actually own virtually the Las Vegas Review-Journal. So, this newspaper that is reporting on this issue actually belongs to the Adelson family and Las Vegas Sands. So they definitely have a lot of money, a lot of influence.

Miriam Adelson is the, I would think, the 36th wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes estimates. She has a net worth of something like $30 billion. It is definitely, they have a lot of influence. $38.2 billion is the estimate for Mary Maddison's net worth. They would need to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2023, which is what they're attempting to do, to authorize integrated resorts, casino gambling, and perhaps the DFW Metroplex. There were proposals to have that authorized for a limited number of casinos with a dollar amount for investments. Of course, while this effort has a lot of money behind it, and there are lawmakers who may be

interested, it hasn't really been center stage. It hasn't really been a huge debate because Lieutenant Governor Patrick shut it down in February. He said that's not going to see the light of day last legislative session. And while it may not be that people have been speaking out against it a lot, it also hasn't been in the debate a lot. 2023 may be the year that it starts to get more media coverage and people look at it a bit more. But I know there are groups such as Texas Values and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, well-connected local organizations that are opposed to this and will advocate against it. And it also goes to that clash between, in a state that is controlled by Republicans,

the clash between more traditional conservative social values and the capitalism and liberty type conservatives that would be their overriding values and they would be more amenable to this. And there's some polling that suggests, or there was some polling last year that suggested that Texas voters would be open to this. And it may be a very interesting debate next year if the legislature decides to get to it. And they're spending a lot of money in Texas, which is fascinating, makes sense. The market's huge for them,

makes all the sense in the world, but it really comes down to whether state leaders have the appetite for it, right? So we'll see what happens. Thank you, Hayden. Isaiah, back to you. There was a big spike in the number of Republican incumbents facing primary challenges in 2022 in the Texas House. And one of those Republican representatives had the narrowest primary victory. My gosh, I can't speak today. I couldn't say potential. I can't say victory. I'm just struggling.

Just don't go on the rightest price. The rightest price. That does make me feel better. This coffee's not healthy. I need to drink more coffee. Regardless, Isaiah, the narrowest victory out of any sitting Texas House member was Lynn Stuckey's. Tell us about his primary and where we're at now. Yes, as you so succinctly noted, Lynn Stuckey had a really, really slim margin of victory, 0.27%, amounting to about 100 votes.

When I wrote this article, the Secretary of State's office showed him leading his opponent, Andy Hopper, or competitor Andy Hopper, by 101 votes. Obviously, the state gets its data from the county. And Andy Hopper, who announced that he was going to request a recount, says that absentee ballots, as they rolled in, had narrowed that gap to just 88 votes. So Hopper's requesting a recount. This is the slimmest primary for an incumbent to win in the Texas House so far, Republican or Democrat. Second place is Dutton. There's a bit of trivia, I believe. His margin of victory was 0.85% if I remember correctly. But yeah, this happens from year to year with cycles. And as you mentioned, 2022 was a big year for Republican incumbents in the Texas House trying to stave off challengers. And Stuckey was just 88 to 100 votes away from a runoff.

Or not a runoff, from losing. There were only two candidates in the primary. Yeah, absolutely. Now, what is the matchup here? What's the breakdown in terms of the characterization of these two candidates? It's really the classic establishment versus grassroots mold. If we look at a lot of the other heuristics that you can use to characterize candidates in Texas politics. So in his press release that he put out announcing that he would request a recount, Hopper accused Stuckey of being a moderate, noting him on his F-grade on the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility Index scorecard, his middling position in the Texas GOP, according to Mark P. Jones's ranking of House members from most liberal to most conservative, and his acceptance of a whole lot of money from Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan. And so associations with Phelan obviously invite, in certain Republican circles,

accusations of being a moderate. Stuckey was also endorsed by Greg Abbott, which again, in some circles carries the same accusation, as well as the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association, Texas Alliance for Life, and the Texas State Teachers Association. Brad wrote a good back mic a little while ago comparing the endorsements of Texas Alliance for Life to Texas Right to Life. There's a similar dichotomy there between Stuckey and Hopper and the Republican Party in general in Texas. So Hopper, on the other hand, has the endorsements of Go Notos of America, Grassroots America, the Texas Homeschool Coalition, and Texas Eagle Forum. Two that I would point out there is that, you know, having the Homeschool Coalition on Hopper's side versus the Texas State Teachers Association on Stuckey's side is very illustrative. Yeah, certainly.

And I believe we do have confirmation from the Texas GOP, the parties run the elections in the primaries, that the recount is going to be moving forward. So we will certainly keep an eye on that. Isaiah, thanks for following that and covering it for us. Daniel? Right. And just to clarify my verbal mistake from earlier, there are two candidates in the primary. So a simple majority will decide the nominee at this point. And so there's there's no runoff going on that was a verbal mistake on my part there we go got it um wonderful thank you isaiah daniel on wednesday the ukrainian president addressed members of congress amid the ongoing attacks his country is facing from russia what did zelensky zelensky have to say yes v, Vladimir Zelensky, when he addressed Congress, he addressed them virtually. He spoke for about 20 minutes and included in that he shared also a video that was kind of comparing Ukraine before and after Russia had attacked them. A lot of his speech was kind of trying to appeal to Americans by comparing the attacks that Ukraine is facing

currently from Russia with the attacks that the U.S. has faced previously, such as the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in World War II and also the attacks on 9-11 across our country. So those two events was kind of what he compared it to. He also made some other allusions-fly zone, which would essentially require American forces or allied forces to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent Russian planes from flying over. In order to enforce that, of course, you have to have U.S. military there actively in combat with Russian fighter jets, which people are saying that would obviously escalate things quite a bit. That's the, yes. Having direct conflict between two world powers, Russia and the U.S. or EU troops. Now, the other thing that he did ask for after that,

which is probably going to get a little bit more attention, is, of course, asking for more military equipment. So he's requesting different anti-aircraft systems to essentially shoot down planes that are flying over Ukraine, as well as planes themselves so that the Ukrainian fighter pilots can fight back in the air. He did make a big emphasis on needing to take control of the skies. That's obviously where Russia probably has a little bit of an upper hand against Ukraine, but Ukraine is pushing back and trying to fight to make sure that the bombings and that kind of stuff stopped happening from the sky. Another thing that he did mention was he kind of said that the old international institutions like the EU and NATO have kind of fallen short of doing what they were meant to do in preventing a war like this from happening.

And on that note, he asked for kind of a new international association to really be able to respond to events like this or other humanitarian crises that we could respond to a little more rapidly in the future. Now, after Zelensky's address to Congress, several GOP senators held a press conference on the war in Ukraine, and our two Texas senators were particularly critical of the Biden administration. What did they have to say? So Senator Cruz had two complaints against the Biden administration. The first one that he mentioned was the withdrawal of Afghanistan, which was pretty botched last fall. If you remember, you know, seeing the images of Afghanis trying to escape on planes, hanging off the side, dangling, and there were lots of

other disastrous things that happened with that withdrawal. So he said that that is something that emboldened enemies of America. And then the other thing that he did was a little bit of an I told you so moment for Ted Cruz, because he had over the past probably six months or so really pushed back against the Biden administration for waiving sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was a pipeline from Russia to Germany. There was a lot of concern about that from Ukraine, and Cruz had pushed back that in different ways. Even back in January, there was actually a vote on a bill from Ted Cruz to require these sanctions to go back in place. It was shot down by Democrats and didn't get the 60

votes it needed to pass. Despite Zelensky back in January, before this war actually kind of kicked off into the full gear that we've seen recently, before that Zelensky was calling on U.S. senators to vote for Cruz's legislation, and that was shut down. So Cruz said that those were the two things, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and also waiving the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are things that kind of spurred Russia to invade and launch their attacks on Ukraine. Senator Cornyn was also critical of the Biden administration and said, quote, the Biden administration's timidity in the face of this evil needs to end and end today. He was very critical of the administration for essentially dictating what

weapons Ukraine gets. That could have been a reference to a plan that the Biden administration has faced pushback on. Poland had offered to send some MiGs to Ukraine, funneling them through the U.S. in exchange for other fighter jets from the future, like F-16s, to go to Poland. And the Biden administration did not want to go through with that plan. And so they faced a little bit of pushback on that. And then, of course, the administration is also facing pushback for not giving enough military support to Ukraine. And so those were some of the criticisms that the two senators from Texas had against the Biden administration. What did the senator say we should do about the situation going forward? One of the things noted that has been noted by Cruz before he actually said this in an interview before the speech on Tuesday from Zelensky.

He did say that he was opposed to any kind of direct military intervention such as no-fly zone. He doesn't want, you know, if the Polish jets are to go to Ukraine, he doesn't want U.S. pilots being involved in that. He says that it should be Ukrainian pilots fighting for their homeland, that there shouldn't be a direct escalation between the U.S. and Russia, which could spark World War III. And so instead of that having direct military intervention, he does advocate the increase of military equipment going to Ukraine, of course, like I mentioned. Another thing that Cruz mentioned was something that has also been in the news quite frequently, and President Biden actually did take action on this last week of cutting off Russian oil supply. Of course,

there's a little bit of a time window, I think 45 days from that executive order that he signed before it's in full effect, cutting off Russian oil imports to the U.S. And of course, Cruz also echoed some things that we've been hearing quite a lot from Republicans of needing to bolster U.S. production of energy. And one of the things that he did note in his speech at this press conference, Cruz said that the U.S. needs to be able to bolster its oil production so that we can actually get the oil and gas contracts in European countries where those countries might have been relying on Russian gas before. And he wants us to step in and kind of fill that gap so that they're not relying on Russian oil. Yeah. Well, thank you for breaking that down for us.

We'll continue to watch, certainly. Hayden, we'll talk to you about a campaign update and move to Daniel for one as well, but let's talk about the Lieutenant Governor's race. Who are the two Democrats who made the runoff for Lieutenant Governor? Well, if anyone listened to our marathon post-primary podcast, you're familiar with Michelle Beckley and Mike and mike collier beckley of course is the outgoing uh representative from carolton who was redistricted so to speak out of her district due to the district being drawn to include more republicans and she launched a bid for congress sought to unseat beth Dyne. That district was also

drawn to favor Van Dyne, and her residence was drawn out of the congressional district she was seeking, so she dropped that bid and sought the office of lieutenant governor. Mike Collier is not a stranger to the lieutenant governor's race. He ran in 2018 2018 came within five percentage points of unseating Dan Patrick. Of course, that was the first midterm election, so to speak, after President Trump was inaugurated. So there was definitely a lot of political energy on the Democratic side. And Collier came pretty close to unseating Patrick for a statewide race. And that was also the same here that Ted Cruz barely held on to his seat when Beto O'Rourke challenged him. But these two candidates advanced to a runoff after nobody received a majority. And the third candidate, Carla Braley, did not make it to the runoff.

But this has not been necessarily the most friendly runoff, although Collier has focused his criticisms on Dan Patrick and he is he is focused on the general election. Beckley, however, is fighting hard for the the to to win the runoff. And a couple of days after she called on Mike Collier to drop out of the runoff. And usually when a candidate is called on to drop out, it's usually because of, I think this would be fair to say, it's usually because of some kind of misconduct or alleged misconduct, an affair, or somebody's got financial dealings that they don't, that are under suspicion or something untoward or or suspicious is happening and that's usually when candidates call to drop out beckley didn't say anything like that her point was that he doesn't inspire the base um but i think a lot of people uh in politics probably would not

consider it the most uh sportsmanlike move to call on someone to drop out over simply wanting to win. And so that's really the context of this race and the backdrop for the most recent endorsements. Wow. Now, there are Democrats in the Texas House who've gotten involved in this race. Who did they endorse? Well, these 17 Democrats did endorse Mike Collier.

And that's notable because these individuals have, in fact, served with Beckley in the Texas House. So not a majority of the Democratic caucus by any means and definitely not a majority of the House. alex dominguez donna howard anna hernandez and johnson armando martinez terry meza joe moody victoria niavi ron reynolds eddie rodriguez john rosenthal james talarico gene wu and armando wally all endorsed mike hollier's bid with uh for lieutenant governor and that runoff is scheduled for may 24th do you happen to know if any of the members of the house have endorsed beckley like the democrat caucus not off the top of my head yeah i haven't seen any but i'm not i'm not positive i i'm not sure i don't i don't think so um but definitely uh not a list of not a list this long certainly and there's also a difference between, you know, declining to weigh

in or offering kind words of support versus an official endorsement. That can be like used on a mailer. Right, right. Because there's, and you know, candidates oftentimes they'll pull, you know, such and such person said this nice thing about me, but, you know, the word endorsement carries a lot of weight, a lot more weight than just, you know, a friendly working relationship in the past. Certainly. A very spicy Democratic runoff, and we will continue to keep an eye on it. Thank you, Hayden. Daniel, let's continue talking about campaigns. Another update. It's been a few weeks now since the primary election ended, and Ken Paxton and George P. Bush moved toward a runoff.

Have there been any notable developments in that race? There really haven't been a lot of big developments in this race. Of course, after the primary election, I think everybody has kind of taken a little bit of a break from campaigning, just a few weeks to rest up and get ready for a big runoff race that will sure to be pretty heated, especially as we get closer to the May 24th election. There were, however, some notable endorsements that Attorney General Ken Paxton has rolled out in his efforts to run for re-election. I think the biggest name on this list of endorsements would be Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Um, I guess he had previously stayed on the race, but after the runoff, uh, he did back him. Uh, of course, uh, the Lieutenant Governor has been,

uh, one of, uh, former president Donald Trump's, uh, best friends in Texas. And, uh, Trump has endorsed both Patrick and, uh, Paxton as well. Uh, another notable endorsement from the Senate is, uh, Senator Brian Hughes. Of course, that was the author of the Texas Heartbeat Act. And of course, he's also did, I think, the election bill as well. Lots of big legislation comes from him. And he endorsed his former colleague, Attorney General Ken Paxton. And then you also had two congressmen endorse Paxton as well, Lance Gooden and Troy Nels.

So those are some notable endorsements that have come out since the primary election. And I'm sure that we'll see some more endorsements moving forward. We'll see who that comes from, though. Yeah, let's talk about that. What are you expecting in terms of endorsements? Who's come out even in the field of challengers before the runoff was decided? What are we looking for in terms of endorsements in this race? Of course, two people to be watching, of course, are the other challengers to the runoff was decided. What are we looking for in terms of endorsements in this race? Of course, two people to be watching, of course, are the other challengers, Tupacson,

who are in the race but did not make it to the runoff. I have not heard anything from former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, but I have heard from Congressman Louie Gohmert. He was on the Mark Davis show the day after the election, giving him his thoughts on the race, which was kind of interesting to sit back and listen to, because, of course, Gohmert has been no fan of Paxton and was very critical of him on the campaign trail. And it was interesting, as Gohmert was campaigning, he was not really critical about his other challengers in the race, whereas Guzman and Bush did go back and forth. Gohmert was campaigning, he was not really critical about his other challengers in the race, whereas Guzman and Bush did go back and forth. Gohmert really focused on Paxton. However, during this interview with Mark Davis after the election, Gohmert said that he did have some of

the same concerns about Bush that Guzman had expressed. He said that if Guzman had been the one to go to the runoff, he would have been quick to endorse her. Uh, but he was a little bit hesitant to endorse, uh, George P. Bush in the race. Uh, so it'll be interesting to see if, um, if he ends up endorsing someone or not, he might just stay out of the race completely. Uh, some other people to be watching of course would be, uh, governor Greg Abbott. I, I would be surprised to actually see an endorsement from him in this race. But it is worth noting that on election day, he was asked by a reporter how he had voted in the primary election, and he did not disclose that. He said that he was going to leave it up to voters to make up their minds on who they wanted to vote in this race. And then another

big supporter of Abbott and also someone who bankrolled Guzman's campaign with well over $2 million, which is a substantial amount when you're campaigning, is the Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC. They did give me a statement explaining that they were still fully behind Guzman and were looking forward to see

how her career goes moving forward. They say that she'll still play an influential role in Texas politics in the years to come. And with regards to this runoff specifically, they said that they'll be considering their decisions and deciding whether or not they want to weigh into the race in a few weeks. So we'll see if something comes from them. If that does happen, they could potentially go with George P. Bush, which would be a boon to his finances for his campaign, potentially. I don't know that they would necessarily go in as much as they did with Guzman, but you never know. Who knows? So that will be something to watch. Absolutely. And I'm sure there are polls in the field. We'll see what happens. They've been talked about a little bit, but now new decisions at the state level are affecting individual families. Tell us the latest news about this lawsuit to

stop the state from treating these procedures as child abuse. So you might have already heard about a lawsuit filed by a DFPS employee. That's the agency that's tasked with investigating child abuse, who became the subject of an investigation herself shortly after the statewide announcement to treat these procedures as child abuse, and joining her in the lawsuit, which she's filing on behalf of her family, of her transgender child, as a Houston psychologist named Megan Mooney, the mother herself, the DFPS employee, is remaining anonymous. Got it. Now, what are the general arguments for each party in this lawsuit? procedure are unconstitutional because they technically count as promulgating a new rule and so forth, which requires this whole process under the Texas Administrative Procedure Act that requires public comment. And there's a whole form of process that they say should take place,

that would take place with the promulgation of a regular new rule. Whereas what's going on here, they claim is effectively the same thing. Additionally, they note that all of these new decisions are happening without action from the legislature, which, as we've talked about often, failed to pass legislation criminalizing child gender modification, though several bills were filed. The state, on the other hand, is saying that Paxton's opinion, which argued that these procedures do constitute child abuse, then Abbott's directive that followed to the DFPS, and the DFPS acknowledgement of that directive, all these things actually do not characterize all gender-affirming procedures, which is the term that they use, the state, in their court briefs. They do not characterize all these procedures as child abuse, which is interesting, given some of the campaigning that's been done on this topic at the state level in the gubernatorial election and the election for attorney general for the state to take a position that this new understanding of current child abuse laws, they're throwing the needle a little bit. So, those are the two

positions for the plaintiffs and the defendants in this case. Yeah. Well, Isaiah, thank you for breaking that down. We'll continue to keep an eye on this. Gentlemen, we are going to move to the portion of the podcast where we talk about Twitter things that we find. Well, Hayden, I want to go ahead and start with yours. We're going to jump in right in. We're recording on a very special day of the year. Why don't you go ahead and start us off with what you found on Twitter? I just want to point out that I would have totally forgotten that today is St. Patrick's Day unless Annie had reminded us yesterday afternoon. I am not wearing green and I saw a tweet on um i saw a tweet that captured my thoughts on this and uh this is from uh vince lebowitz on twitter he said i'm one-fourth irish and i'm not wearing a single thing today that is green a i forgot and b my green clothes are not business and it's a committee day if anyone pinches me today, there will be consequences.

I'm an adult and I can afford my own bail. So be warned. And then he put the laughing emoji, which that made me laugh because I, you know, every year I dread all the threats of pinching if there's no green worn because I don't have any good green clothes. So I either, I guess I either need to go find something green that i actually want to wear or just plead ignorance like i usually do and say oh i had no idea it was saint patrick's day so yeah i'm with you i'm like an eighth irish or something my mom and my grandparents very irish

folks and they my mom's maiden name is o'reilly and we never really cared about it no really no like the auto parts store yes or like the fox news host without the first i'm not no without the first e so not like the auto parts store okay yeah yes certainly um well i like that that's that's a good one i don't think I have any Irish heritage. Is anyone wearing green hair right now? Yeah, I didn't think so. My socks have a little bit of green on it. Oh, do they really? Yeah.

Are you just trying to avoid a pinch? Yes. Okay, got it. I like it. Okay, Isaiah, we're coming to you. What do you got for us? Well, I don't know if this counts for our little Twitter section here, because this will develop into a story or an article, but stay-ripped Matt Schaefer has been on Twitter calling out Citibank for promising to aid

employees travel to get abortions if they live in a place where they can't get an abortion at whatever stage of pregnancy they're at. So he's done this in several tweets, several posts. And in one, he actually posted a section of Texas law, Texas statutes, quoting that it's a criminal offense to furnish the means for procuring an abortion knowing the purpose intended. And this is from the Texas revised civil statutes. So these are old, but not necessarily repealed swaths law. That if you go to the current Constitution and Statutes page, and you try and search them up, you're not going to be able to find them.

You've got to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole. And so in the article that we put out on this, I'll post the link to the PDF file that Matt Schaefer was able to take a screenshot of. And that file is from the 1974 statutes. So 73 was the Roe v. Wade year. And in 74, the statutes are still in the books, because that's the nature of judicial review. There's a whole constitutional law lesson to be taught there about how deciding the law is unconstitutional, it's not a race, it still exists, but cannot be enforced.

And that was the status of the law in 74, which is the year that Schaefer screenshotted. However, if you go to the most current, well, relatively speaking, most current civil statutes PDF, which is for 1984, you'll find a little footnote underneath the statutes, which still exist regarding abortion, noting that the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional. So Schaefer dug back to 74 to take a picture of the same law that was on the books in 1984. But in the picture, there would have been a footnote saying that this was ruled unconstitutional. But anyway, that line between the constitutionality of a law in the eyes of the Supreme Court and the enforceability of the law is a very important distinction with regards to the Heartbeat Act, which obviously forecloses

government enforcement, but still has a very real effect. So anyway, it was interesting. Schaefer had to do some digging for this one. And it was some very selective digging. But as Jonathan Mitchell has noted in the ordinances for the sanctuary cities for the unborn, which he helps draft, and in the heartbeat act, which he contributed to, Texas has never repealed these statutes. So the laws are still extant, but are not being enforced because of judicial review and Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood versus Casey. Wow. Well, very interesting. And we'll, yeah, like you said, we'll have an article out about that. Definitely go to the texan.news to read all about it. Thank isaiah daniel what do you got i found this really interesting thread uh from this reporter i guess he works at this place called the texan he's kind of like an obscure

reporter yeah he kind of tweets you know random stuff random stuff sometimes he's usually like random sports stuff about some basketball game or something national debt yeah yeah he had this really interesting thread that i found uh and it was interesting because i was actually reminiscing about this with some of my co-workers about just like strange strange emergency things that happened in 2020 uh from local governments responding to covid emergency things i like emergency things you know all this disaster power stuff um you, we mentioned earlier one of the things that he actually started to start off with, with the Wiley City Council actually or the Wiley City government covering up skating facilities, you know, a skate park for high schoolers who want to skateboard. They just brought in a lot of dirt and piled it all over this place, which is just like one of the most bizarre responses to COVID.

Absolutely. And then, you know, there were, there's a lot of other things that we wrote on throughout 2020 of just like city thing by city thing. There's in Laredo, one of the articles I wrote on was the police in Laredo actually conducted a sting operation on women who were doing nail and

hair services in their homes. They had advertised on Facebook this was against the city disaster whatever. Yeah. Emergency things, disaster whatever. Yeah. We really are great with my vocabulary we all are today we're doing such a good job but i mean yeah there's a there's a list of things here

this is a really interesting list actually it actually is and who which reporter are you talking about daniel the reporter oh um so people can go check it out brad johnson oh man well you really kept with this bit for a while i'm saying i was waiting for you to chime in but he's like so focused on his attention it's a really close game right now well let's talk about this because throughout the podcast i have bitten my tongue multiple times because brad's over there doing tiny little fist pumps. Every time something good happens,

he's just over there. Like I saw him do it a few times and like, is he responding to what we just said? Like, this is fun. We're getting like feedback. It's like we have a live audience, but no,

he's just doing little fist pumps every time something good happens. Yeah. And every time it makes me jump a little, I startle. I love how that, that little workplace or our Wednesday morning conversation coalesced into a Twitter feed. Or maybe you were already making the Twitter feed. No, I can't take all the credit. It was our discussion that spurred that.

I can remember if you had started making the thread, but it was, you know, a needed thread. Yeah. And Daniel and Hayden participated in throwing some or suggesting some of the articles that I posted. It feels weird. It feels weird that COVID was only or it only started only two years ago because it feels like feels like it's been longer than that but i just i will never get over the irony that one of the primary uh comorbidities with covid was obesity and yet one of the first things they did when covid hit was shut down the gyms and fitness centers but keep the fast food restaurants open that's fascinating and so putting Wood blocks around basketball hoops.

Absurd. Yeah. It just goes to the fact that, you know, a lot of the time when people are in emergency mode, sometimes decisions, and this goes for everybody, sometimes decisions are not necessarily the most logically sound. But I enjoyed your thread. It's a good thread. Solid thread. From that obscure reporter. Well, speaking of obscure reporters brad johnson what do you got for us mine is not nearly as serious as the other two um i will say however or the others you are citing yourself i am citing

myself again yes i do that should we outlaw this going forward or should we let it happen i only did this because it goes with the theme of the day, which is March Madness. So the athletic online sports publication, they picked a beer for each NCAA tournament team. And as it happens, there are, I think, six, seven, seven Texas schools in the tournament and so i listed out each one that uh the athletic picked they they asked they picked the brewery and the brewery sent them a beer of choice and so i listed it based on seeding baylorlor, which is the number one seed. The athletic pick, Southern Roots Brewing Company. And the beer they chose was Straw Hat Summer Day Hazy IPA.

I am not an IPA fan, so if that floats your boat, go for it. But I'm going to avoid that one. Texas Tech out in Lubbock. The brewery was Two Docs Brewing Company, and they picked the buddy hoppy ipa houston tech was a three seed houston's a five seed they picked the holler brewing company dollar pills dollar pills y'all pilsner oh get it yes they should add another should have been dollar dollar pills. OK, but they did not miss missed opportunity there. Then UT, who is a six seed, was Live Oak, which I'm a big fan of. But they picked the golden gold German style Pilsner. I prefer the Weizen, but it is what it is.

TCU's was Bankhead Brewing. The audio. I can't say that one on the podcast. A Lager. Okay. And then the Texas A&M Corpus Christi, which was in one of the play-in games, I believe, was the Nueces Brewing Company. They picked the Nueces original 001 lager. And finally, Texas State, which won their play-in game,

was For the Culture Brewing. And that's down in San Marcos, right? That's where Texas State is. Yes. I thought I had it right. Second guess myself. It was the strawberry wheat ale so the athletic is recommending any of those beers wherever you are in texas um and uh yeah i thought

that was fun and ties in with the holiday as it were as it were, the holiday that sports ball fans like me and Hayden really are into. Oh, man. If you guys were to be into sports ball, which sports ball would you be into? Can you stop calling it sports ball? Okay. It's kind of the worst. It is the worst. And I will confess, I was messaging Brad while y'all were talking,

and I said he did one of his little fist pumps, and, um, I said, I said, he did one of his little fist pumps and I was like, so did your team make a goal? He replied, actually in basketball made shots, shots made are called field goals. So yes. And I said, oh, they didn't teach me that in upward basketball. Cause that was my last encounter with sports was upward basketball when I was probably like in second grade so i guess if i were to be involved in a sport it would be basketball which is humorous because i am five foot five so hayden i feel like in upward you would get the christ-like star i don't know if i should take that as an insult or a compliment because i know that you know you hate uh brad you're just a rock star

that's all i'll say about that you're amazing that is a rock star harsh but fair it is yeah truly very true everyone agrees consensus reach well folks thanks for bearing with us as we stumbled over our words here and there we appreciate you listening each and every week and we will catch you next week thank you all all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter. Tweet at The Texan News. We're so proud to have you standing with us as we seek to provide real journalism in an age of disinformation. We're paid for exclusively by readers like you, so it's important we all do our part to support the Texan

by subscribing and telling your friends about us. God bless you, and God bless Texas.