The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 22, 2023

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week, the team discusses:State Rep. Tom Oliverson announcing his run for speaker of the Texas HouseThe legal twists and turns over Texas’ Senate Bill 4 that would criminalize illegal immigration at the state levelMexico declaring it will not accept illegal immigrants sent back to Mexico under SB 4Tucker Carlson criticizing Gov. Greg Abbott at a Tarrant County Republican event over the southern borderA Colombian illegal immigrant connected to a cartel found with torture images on his phoneA Lebanese illegal immigrant claiming to be a Hezbollah terroristThe Texas Permanent School Fund cutting its ties with the asset manager BlackRockTexas having eight of the 10 fastest-growing counties in the United StatesAbbott’s comment on a social media video criticizing private equity firms in the residential market

Well, this isn't on my tweeter-y, but today's the first day of March Madness. Oh. Well, the first full day. There were the play-in games that happened the last two days, but this is, at least in the Johnson household, it was a holiday. The amount of times that my dad took me out of school to come home and watch games during the first two days of the tournament. I thought you were calling you and Winston the Johnson household,

and I giggled for, in my head, I giggled. That makes me want to vomit. Howdy, folks. It's Mackenzie here with Cameron, Matt, and Brad, all in studio today. Matt, welcome back to the office. I'm glad to be here. You're making sure TPPF's policy summit is covered. You're there watching what's going on. Watching all the going-ons. You're making sure TVPF's policy summit is covered. You're

there watching what's going on. Watching all the going-ons. It's a lot of hustle and bustle. It's a big packed event this year. It's a crazy week all together and it's been a crazy day, but we'll get into that later. Right off the bat, we are recording on video. So our weekly roundup will now be available on YouTube, on different video platforms, which ones I'm not entirely positive, but YouTube I know for sure is part of that plan. So if you enjoy not just listening but watching us chat it up, go check it out. It'll also be on the website, available in most places. Yeah.

Video killed the radio. Regardless, if you want to see Brad's smiling face, you can go to thetexan.news and find that there. I'm busy right now. Nothing of substance happened at all. Off the bat also, this week is big for us at The Texan, not just in terms of news, but in terms of the evolution of our product. I want to talk about our new podcast, our new newsletters.

We have all sorts of things that we're offering. It's exciting. If you've somehow missed this in the hustle and bustle of us shooting a ton of marketing emails and social media, different excerpts out into the, you know, stratosphere. We are offering three new podcasts as well as eight new newsletters. Pretty awesome. Exciting stuff. A lot of cool stuff coming out. A lot of new content. Yeah. It's a lot of new content. And so far it has been quite, it's been well received. And so we're very grateful for that for those who have been engaged with the content. We appreciate that so much.

Let's talk about the podcast. Brad and I have an episode out right now of Smoke-Filled Room, kind of an insidery political chat. We chat about all sorts of insidery political things. Yes. Great. It was a, I believe as the title says, a postmortem for the primary. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, primary postmortem. Good first episode. We liked it. A little clip went, got some hits. It was fun. Brad and Cameron in next week will be recording the first episode of their podcast. Cameron, tell us about that podcast.

Yeah, it's going to be called Send Me Some Stuff. Send Me Some Stuff. Well, because we're always sending each other different articles that we come across online. And not all the time that it's not always related directly to Texas. Totally. But we want to talk about it. We like talking about the news. We like talking about what's going on in politics.

Yeah. So this podcast will give an opportunity for listeners to sort of get insight into stuff we're reading in the office, sharing amongst each other. Hopefully they'll find that interesting. And yeah, it'll be fun. It's very, very fun. And then if you've not already noticed on your podcast feed, we have a daily rundown that Rob Lauches, our awesome assistant editor,

voices each day, a five-minute rundown of just the news from that day. So a great tool for those who are looking to get a little bit of news in on their commute home and know what happened while they're at work. It's a great product. As far as newsletters go, on Monday, Matt, you released the docket. Tell us about the docket. Absolutely. We've had our first offering of the docket, and it kind of ties into one of my regular beats here at the Texan, covering Texas courts, all things pertaining to the Texas courts, whether it's a major court issue or public policy affecting the courts. So it will be highlighting active cases going on that we're covering here. Also taking a little bit of a look forward on what to expect. So yeah, it's going to be fun. Weekly product comes out every Friday and, or actually, I'm sorry, Monday. Monday. It's written Friday.

It's written Friday. Yes. So it'll be fresh first thing Monday morning. That's exactly right. That's good stuff. And Bradley, fourth reading comes out Tuesday. Tell us about that. First one went out on Tuesday. It's a kind of insider political newsletter about Texas politics, and the first edition is about the Bonin scandal from 2019 and how that

kind of dovetails with what we saw in the primary election earlier this month. And check it out. It's good stuff also. Thank you. You're welcome. And Cameron, Wednesdays we have Redacted. Yes, Redacted. It's my opportunity to kind of do some deep dives. Everyone knows here in the office, I like to go down some rabbit holes. We do call you Alice. Or at least we're now going to start calling you Alice. That's only behind my back. This is the first time I'm hearing that. Well, now it's very much in the past, apparently.

But no, this is more of a long form, deep dive into some topics. The first newsletter out is the question concerning TikTok. And the newsletter allows readers to sort of see what's going on behind the scenes in terms of what are some geopolitical implications? What are some of the academic research talking about different issues and more philosophical elements that I like to get into? So hopefully readers will enjoy. And that's coming out every Wednesday.

It's fantastic content. And today, Thursday, as we record, Daniel Friend is back reporting, at least in a limited capacity, and we're so excited to have him. He's writing The 40, which is a congressional newsletter detailing what's going on with the 38 members of Congress and the two Texas senators, aka The 40. It's a great newsletter, all sorts of federal news. Exciting. We focus on state politics here, but those guys in D.C. representing Texans are just as important to keep an eye on. Well, his newsletter is important right now because they're currently debating an omnibus bill. I'm for always.

Yeah. So if readers are interested, go check out Daniel's newsletter. He gets into it. Yeah. It's good stuff. And then I really need to stop saying good stuff. I've had hate emails before from people saying stop saying good stuff, and I haven't for a long time. And all of a sudden today I said it four times already.

Gosh. And then Fridays I'm releasing a newsletter today I said it four times already. Gosh. And then Fridays, I'm releasing a newsletter. It's called Editor's Corner. Very original. I know. Who came up with that name? Definitely not Bradley. Certainly wasn't me.

It was you. Are we sure about that? Roll back the tape. Throw the flag. Replay. Brad, what does it mean to spike the football? You really want to open that Pandora's box again? You really don't.

Editor's Corner comes out Friday. I go into detail about Scuttlebutt in the office, behind the scenes at the newsroom, some favorite stories from that week, a behind-the-scenes look at maybe, okay, a speaker candidate announced today. What did that look like for us in the newsroom? Interesting you say that. Here's the deal. here's what happens brad was like you should write a newsletter i originally was not going to i was like oh what would i even write about i've already i already have other things to do whatever brad was like no you really should and then i was like

fine i will and then he said you should write about these things and i was like oh i don't know and these things were behind the scenes of the newsroom. In Brad's words, how the sausage gets made. Favorite stories from the week, yada, yada. And I was like, maybe. Turns out that's exactly what I'm doing. And Brad just pitched my own newsletter for me. And I'm doing exactly what he told me to do.

I, as usual, did all the work for you. You did none of the work. But regardless, it's true. That's what happened there. It's exciting. It'll be fun. I do have a couple of quotes that might be damning to Brad of the work. But regardless, it's true. That's what happened there. It's exciting. It'll be fun. I do have a couple of quotes that might be damning to Brad in the newsletter, but it's, you know, we're on record here at the Texan, so.

Look, we had the Twitter files. We're going to have the Texan Slack files. That's exactly right. Pretty soon. That's exactly right. There may or may not be screenshots. Oh. Bring it.

Deal. We also have three. Those are all weekly newsletters. We have three monthly newsletters that will be going out as well, the first of which will be released this Sunday. Kim Roberts, the lovely Kim Roberts, will be releasing the Blue Bonnet Bulletin, essentially your dose of good news for the month. That's a great name.

Isn't it? Yeah. And the art is beautiful. And I will say it's, I think, a great just break in what news typically is. It's encouraging. It's fun. Kim does a great job with it. She's excited about it. I think Kim has so many ideas for how this can be done. She had the first draft written way in advance of what it needed to be. It's a very exciting thing. So we're pumped to have a little bit of good news found at the Texan. Rob will be writing Precedent in Times. We talk so often about, or we hear so often folks say we're living in unprecedented times. This is Rob's look back at Texas history, other historical trends to say, hey, maybe it's not as crazy as we all think it

might be. By the way, I want to claim credit for that one as well, because the initial working title was Unprecedented Times, and I objected forcefully to that. I did not even know that was the working title, so I don't think it ever was the working title. I remember when we first started suggesting names, Unprecedented Times was in Slack, and you can roll back the Slack files on that. This is really a great podcast so far, Bradley. You're welcome. And then Holly Hanson out of Houston will be releasing Ripples, really looking at how policy affects people. It's a great deep dive into how Texas policy affects those.

Another great name for a newsletter. Yeah. I think all of them are really great except the Editor's Corner. Hmm. Hmm. I kind of like it. Thanks, Matt. Listeners and watchers, if you have any alternative titles, let us know. Now that we have graphics made, the templates ready, everything. Oh, we should have put it up for a vote for all our readers.

Yeah, we put Smokefield Room up for a vote, and we did not go with a vote. We went with a different one. So I don't know if that's so effective. Regardless, we are pumped to have all of these new offerings. It's exciting. We're having fun. We've had great reception so far. So folks, thank you so much for caring about what we do here at the Texan. It's appreciated. And this is very much something we want to provide subscribers more value with. It's a way for us to say thank you for all the support that they've given us in the last five years while they were coming up on our five-year anniversary, just to kind of sweeten the pot and say thank you for everything and encourage others

to subscribe and support our work as well. It's good stuff. Couldn't have said it better myself. Wow, Brad, thank you. That's really nice. You're on a roll today. Wow. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's always another shoe to drop. Always. Oh, boy. Okay, Brad, well, let's talk about today. We always joke at the Texan that Thursdays are wild.

They're crazy, regardless if extra news breaks. We have a lot to do on Thursdays, and it seems that news, big news, always tends to break on Thursdays, knowing that we have other things to do. Today was huge news. It was. So you were, knowing that we have other things to do. And today was huge news. It was. So you were in the room for... A big shoe dropped. As, you know, some would say.

Some would say. It's true. So you were in the room for State Rep. Tom Olofson's announcement that he is running for Texas House Speaker. Give us a play-by-play. So I woke up this morning, I was taking my dog for a walk, and then I get a text from Oliverston's chief announcing a press conference at the same building that the Texas Public Policy Foundation's policy summit was happening in. And the topic of

that would be a major announcement in the Texas House Speaker's race. Pretty much knew what that was going to be, but obviously they were keeping their cards close to their chest or as close as they could in teasing this thing. And sure enough, at 10 a.m. today, Representative Oliverson, he's been in the legislature since 2017, anesthesiologist from the Houston area. He announced his candidacy against, at least for now, Speaker Dade Phelan, who of course is in a runoff against David Covey.

Should he win? Obviously, I'm sure he's still going to run for speaker. But, you know, there's been a lot of behind-the-scenes talk ever since he was pushed to a runoff, and even before then, really ever since the school choice vote about who might be the next speaker if Phelan still has the majority he needs to be speaker. Oliverson clearly believes he doesn't, and he didn't address whether he thinks Phelan's going to lose outright in the primary runoff. But he did kind of – he didn't go – it wasn't full-fire breathing against the speaker.

He criticized certain things. He said, quote, the dysfunction in the Texas House in 2023 highlights a need for change in leadership. And he cited the process of the impeachment and the school choice vote as the two biggest pillars of that. But he did say, you know, a lot of good things have been passed under Speaker Phelan, and he hopes voters in HG21 account for that when deciding who to elect on May 28th. And he did cite the primary results as part of the reason why he's jumping in. Sure. I think voters have made a statement in the primary, and so here I am. And one of the biggest takeaways he

has from that statement from voters is that the majority party in the House should hold all of the committee chairmanships. And I think that is by far and away the foremost pillar of Oliverston's speakership. And, you know, if anyone else jumps in, they're going to fall on one side or the other of that. And there will definitely be others that make the same pledge. You know, this issue has gotten a lot of momentum over the last few cycles, and especially with the results we saw in the primary, with a lot of these more centrist members losing, you know, the threat of a Joe Strauss-like majority with a dozen Republicans in the entire Democratic caucus joining together to select a speaker is at least in question. It may still be there. You know, and the threat of that causes decisions to be made in certain ways. So it's still there.

But Oliverson, he told me flat out at the presser that he thinks the environment has changed significantly such that that would not be a viable option. So that's another pillar. His top issue, he said, is passing school choice. And that clearly he has um he's getting out early he before the speaker is even you know loses his race or has his race and there's a world in which uh that the speaker returns to the house so for all intents and

purposes he's running against feeling and and while. And while a lot of people have said that his speakership is on life support, he's definitely on the ropes, but he's not done. He's still a factor to be considered here, and I think the people that are saying it's definitely 100% over for Phelan as speaker, they're getting a bit ahead of themselves, despite there being a lot of momentum against his speakership. As evidenced by this announcement. Yes. They're getting a bit ahead of themselves, despite there being a lot of momentum against his speakership. As evidenced by this announcement.

Yes. And it is not like Oliverson has been antagonistic toward the speaker in his tenure as a speaker at all. The last two sessions with Phelan at the head have not resulted in any sort of vocal or public opposition from Oliverson. He is a chairman. He carries big bills carried sp14 that was the child gender modification ban yeah yep that was a i would say you know a master class in handling a difficult bill on the floor of the texas house when you're dealing with amendments points of order all this stuff uh you know a lot of people walked away very impressed with how tom oliverson handled that um you know a couple lot of people walked away very impressed with how Tom Oliverson handled that.

You know, a couple other things that he mentioned in this. He wants action in the House in the first 60 days on emergency items. Why is that important? Governor Abbott lays out a number of emergency items. Usually it's like five to eight. It's really up to him. But the reason that's important is when he names those, any bills proposed on those topics are not subject to the 30- and 60-day lines, essentially, that prohibit action in the Texas House. And so basically it's an expedited process, or it can be.

Now, it's seldom used. Rarely do we see any movement in the first 30 or 60 days, and that's something Olofsen pointed out in his discussion. He also mentioned the House parliamentarians. He said he believes they have played an outsized role in the process. He didn't name Hugh Brady specifically, but Hugh Brady is the one that gets a lot of flack in his position for bills dying, the way things are run, things like that. You know, under Oliverson's speakership, I'm sure that he would not be in the position he's in.

And then Oliverson also mentioned, you know, on the process of impeachment, he was absent. And from my understanding, his son had a graduation. So he had an excuse, but he did not cast a vote in that. That was one thing he kind of touched on right off the bat, getting out in front of that and saying, you know, he disagreed with the process. Overall, though, he called for a December 1st meeting of the Texas GOP caucus, who has in its bylaws that the caucus itself should vote until they have a speaker nominee and not come with Democratic votes on the outside to kind of sway things one way or the other. I think there's a lot of momentum for that, and we probably will see something like that whenever they do it in December, if that's when it happens.

But overall, an interesting decision here to lead so early in this race. And we have a lieutenant governor who is obviously gunning for feeling. He's not said anything on this yet. But it's worth noting, Oliverson, and he mentioned this in his presser, he's neighbors with Patrick. He's very familiar with the lieutenant governor.

And they share the same consultant. Neighbors, like they live in the same neighborhood? They're neighbor-neighbors? From my understanding, yes. That's wild. I didn't realize that. Small world. And they share the same consultant, Alan Blakemore.

So a couple ties there. We'll see if the lieutenant governor gets as involved in the speaker's race as he has the speaker's re-election race against David Covey. But just a, you know, I was not, I did not expect to wake up this morning and have, you know, a public facing speaker's race already on board. It's been going on for months. The discussions have behind the scenes, but to have it, someone declare this early is pretty shocking. Yeah. Especially while the speaker is not, yeah yeah he's not out of the question yeah so a very wild situation yeah and and all of a sudden certainly somebody we heard behind the scenes was angling we talked about this in smokefield room this week about different members that are potentially uh well we just didn't name a ton of names i don't think we need anybody but but there are people behind the scenes jockeying for the speakership, either having conversations saying if Phelan loses, I'm running,

or if Phelan is in, I'm not running, or I am running. Regardless, they're all jockeying behind the scenes for this and saying I'll support this person versus this person, and the chips are falling. Well, and he's in a very solidly red district. That gives an advantage. He hasn't had a primary since he won, so that makes him less vulnerable to what's happening to Phelan right now as we speak.

And then he's an anesthesiologist, so he's independently fairly wealthy. I don't think he's a billionaire like Elon Musk. Not McKenzie Bezos or anything. That gives him the resources to handle this full-time job with very little pay. So there's that. Other names to watch, just quickly. There's Phelan lieutenants, Cody Harris, Dustin Burroughs. Their name is always in the mix for this discussion. You got James Frank, who finished second in the 2022 GOP caucus

vote on the speakership. He got the second most votes. Then you have members like Todd Hunter, John Smithy, and Trent Ashby ran against Phelan in the 2020 race after Bonnen announced his retirement. All these are names to watch. Nobody's announced. But believe me, they're discussing behind the scenes. They're in the running. And then, thing to not count out, Phelan. If he wins and maintains his seat, comes back with a vengeance, obviously, as he would.

No guarantee. In fact, the odds are probably not good for him to maintain the speakership, but it's not zero. Absolutely not. Absolutely. Well, certainly a wild day. Brad, thanks for covering it for us. Matt has a live stream up on his Twitter account as well,

so make sure if you want the full comments, go check that out. We have the press release in our article, all sorts of stuff to check out at the texan.news. Matt, we're going to come over to you. Another huge story this week, the legal battle between the state of Texas and the federal government over a new state law that outlaws illegal entry into the country has been a roller coaster, to say the least. With all levels of the federal judiciary at different points blocking the law or then allowing it to be enforced, walk us through this legal saga. Tell us what the status of the law is now. I saw a GIF on Twitter of that ping pong match between Reps Declan and Evan Smith back in the

day. And it was very appropriate to describe how this saga has played out. I sent that to Brad yesterday on Slack. And like five seconds later, he goes, Is that how he did it? No, it is. That's how he laughs when he's surprised. Well, the attire between the two is just hilarious. I know, those sweatpants. Stickland was in like a track suit and a sweatband.

Smith was in a button-down shirt and a tie. It's just two totally different people. It was an iconic Texas Ledge moment back in the day. It was. So it's a good memory to come up. But anyway, two totally different people. It was an iconic Texas Ledge moment back in the day. It was. So it's a good memory to come up. But anyway, so Senate Bill 4, major border security legislation that passed during the fourth special session of the 88th Texas Legislature. Real quickly, I'll recap how the law works. Senate Bill 4 creates a new criminal offense for a foreign national who enters the

United States illegally between the ports of entry. So it doesn't pertain to somebody who comes to the port of entry at the bridge and enters legally, that sort of thing. They have to cross between ports of entry or be illegally present in the United States, so to speak, and it creates a misdemeanor criminal offense for that. And it also creates a mechanism for state judges, as they're processing offenders charged with this law, to give them the opportunity to voluntarily be deported back to Mexico. So it's a state deportation mechanism. Opponents of the law say that it interferes with federal immigration regulation supremacy, and immediately the law was met with a battery of legal challenges,

lots of plaintiffs going after challenging the suit. Ultimately, whenever the law was about to be going into effect on, I think it was March 5th, a federal district judge issued an order, an injunction blocking the law from going into effect. Now, of course, the state appealed that to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, who issued an order staying the injunction but delayed its effect in case SCOTUS wanted to get in. Well, right before that administrative stay of the injunction expired, Justice Samuel Alito, who is the Chief Justice over the Fifth Circuit region, he issued an administrative stay of that stay, blocking the injunction. Stays on stays. Stays on stays. And it was set to a time limit, giving both parties so many days to file briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court so they consider the merits on whether or not they need to jump in, et cetera, et cetera.

So that goes along, and towards the end of the expiration of that stay, he issues another one extending it. And so that one was set to expire the day I was driving up to Austin. Yeah, I think that's what it was. Anyway, that was kind of an exciting one because it was set to expire at 4 o'clock. We're getting up to 4 o'clock. I'm like, oh, my gosh, SB4 is about to become law. Like, why hasn't SCOTUS got in and extended the stay again? Like, this is going.

So we're all preparing coverage. Every media outlet is preparing coverage, all that sort of stuff. And at 4 o'clock, SB4 goes into effect. The stay expires. And then at 4.05 and justice alito issues another stay and this one had no time we'd already sent out our breaking email yes yeah one of those you know media that you can't call back you know bitter at all yeah you know we're like well you know we'll give it five minutes you know just in case you know 406 ridiculous uh i think there was a plot to do that that's

my conspiracy yeah seriously they were up there scotus laughing about all us little journalists having to do a 180 and go the other direction uh so um so that one didn't have time limitation on it so we're like oh dang okay well they filed their briefs now they've issued a stay with no time limitation so that it's blocked during the pendency of the appeal. Like, did not expect anything else happening. Well, you can't hold your breath during the saga because the next day, here comes SCOTUS with a 6-3 opinion and order lifting that stay and saying, you know,

and the opinion was pertaining to the role of SCOTUS getting involved in issuing stays and injunctions and all that sort of stuff, and it had nothing to do with the merits of Texas's legal argument, so to speak, but it did in the context of we feel like we should give room to the Fifth Circuit. If they feel like the law should be in place while they consider it, then here you go. So pretty big gesture on SCOTUS's part to give that decision to the Fifth Circuit. Well, the three-judge panel that issued the first stay was not the three-judge panel that then picks up and considers it after SCOTUS kicks it back, and that three-judge panel in a 2-1 order decides to lift the other three-judge panels' stay and put the district court injunction back,

blocking SB4. So in case our viewers and listeners haven't gone cross-eyed yet. What about me? I'm totally cross-eyed on this. I am? No, I'm just making a joke. It's fine.

Anyway, so they scheduled emergency oral arguments at the Fifth Circuit, and we have not heard anything yet. But as it is now, SB4 remains blocked by the federal court injunction while the three-judge panel decides what they're going to do. Now, I'm working on figuring out, you know, what moves are at play for Texas because listening to the oral arguments yesterday, it didn't sound like the two who voted to lift the stay were being persuaded. So if Texas loses at this Fifth Circuit panel, right now I'm researching this, but generally you can appeal to the full Fifth Circuit, which is like 15 judges, something like that. You can get the entire court, which is generally considered a very conservative circuit. Or, you know, and of course everybody is saying that at the end of the day this is going to end up in front of SCOTUS and they're going to have to make a decision on the merits. Long story short, the law remains blocked for now.

We're waiting. Too long, didn't read. the law remains blocked for now. We're waiting. Too long, didn't read. We're waiting for the Fifth Circuit to decide what they're going to do next. As of 1137 on Thursday. On a Thursday. So knock on wood right now. 1137 p.m. But all that super valuable information that you just provided,

because it's been a very complicated legal saga to go through. So all that context, you know very complicated legal saga to go through. So all that context, you know, I was trying to sort through it. Well, I was trying to do a quick hit on one of those legal rulings, and I was like, Cameron's texting me. He's like, is this the correct timeline? What's going on? Yeah, I was talking to you. So, no, you have it all nailed.

The listeners, that was awesome. So take a bow.. So take a bow. Yeah, take a bow. What other context will be released by the Texan coming up very soon to give some background on the policy itself? So excited about this. So this morning, got to sit down with the author of the legislation itself, Senator Charles Perry from Senate District 28, large district in West Texas. He's from Lubbock. He carried this legislation during the fourth

special session. Of course, we got into the unique constitutional argument that I don't think has ever been raised about the source of law that they're citing to support the law. We also got into a bunch of different other areas relating to the law, what happens if the federal courts give it the green light, it goes into effect, relationships with Mexico on deportations, rural law enforcement resources to enforce it. It's a fantastic discussion, and we'll be publishing that next week. So very interesting insight, all the way from the legislative history on the bill to, you know, some of what their, you know, policymakers, key policymakers are looking at,

you know, going forward, in particular, if the federal courts rule in Texas's favor. Absolutely. Matthew, thank you. Lots of work to be done. Cameron, you've been covering a little bit of SB4 as well. With all the discussion focused on this bill, what has been Mexico's response? Well, I'll be interested to hear Matt's podcast interview if they talked about what Mexico has said, because while... Stay tuned. I know, because during this entire legal saga, I came across on Twitter, someone had put out that the Mexican government had a response to this entire roller coaster of SB4. And they lambasted how SB4 has, quote, encouraging the separation of families, discrimination, and racial profiling that violate the human rights of the migrant community. So they're just starting off just going straight out SB4 saying that they disagree with it

straight out. And what was even more interesting is they said they're not going to be accepting deportations that are part of this SB4 law. So I just thought this was very interesting in regards to this back and forth and the legal arguments that are going on. We've heard different comments from elected officials. And with this call out by the Mexican government, I'm not sure if we've heard Mexico say something similar to this before, because I haven't looked too much into it yet., but what will be the legal battle at this point if SB4 ends up being fully enacted and the Mexican government says, we're not going to be accepting these deportations,

where will that legal battle take place? Is that going to be in some international court? Is that going to be dealt with? How is that dealt with? Yeah, how is that going to be dealt with? How is that dealt with? Yeah. How is that going to be dealt with? And contested. It's definitely something I'm going to keep my eye on. And especially with everything Matt has talked about with the legal battle, the legal battle on the international grounds could be the next stage for SB4. And Senator Perry, you'll have to tune in. I'll have to listen. Have to tune in. Yeah,

it's so interesting. And I haven't seen any other remarks anywhere else about what the state's response is going to be on this. Yeah. Big, big, big news here. Like how it even worked. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Cameron, thank you. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Bradley, coming back to you, a totally different topic. Tucker Carlson came to Tarrant County and threw some bombs at Governor Abbott. Not out of character for him. This is certainly some history repeating itself here. But what did he have to say? So he came to speak to the Tarrant County GOP.

New chairman Beau French brought him in for a speech. During it, it was a typical discussion about Tucker's musings on the direction of the rights and the country overall and what conservatism needs to be doing and prioritizing. But he did take a hammer to Governor Abbott in this speech. And, you know, specifically, he said, quote, I don't understand how you can be governor of a state in 2020. And all of a sudden, the border opens up and you get invaded and you don't do anything about it. But on a more fundamental level, I don't understand that as a man and I don't understand that as a father. Like you said, it's not the first time Tucker has lambasted the governor.

Back in 22, when the governor was running for re-election, Tucker went at him multiple times, specifically on the border as well. That's kind of been the theme here. And he also had Don Huffines, who was then challenging Abbott on his show, to then hit Abbott even more on the issue. But the reason it was interesting to me, you know, Abbott was speaking to a room full of grassroots conservatives. You know, these are the activists that attend these kind of things. And a lot of his remarks about Abbott got resounding applause. Now, contrast that with Abbott's reception at, for instance, one that I was at, a rally for Mike Olcott, who is a local favorite among that group of activists, that sect of the party, right,

when he was challenging Glenn Rogers. And there Abbott was heralded as a hero. And for me, at that moment, it was interesting to see how he'd gone from a villain, both from COVID and by not immediately invoking the invasion clause of the Constitution when combating the border security issue. So now he's back in the bad graces, is that a saying, of this section of Republican activists with Tucker Carlson doing the hammering on this. And just an interesting, like the governor, I'm sure in his mind, he's like, I can't win. You know, like what am I doing here? I just put $6 million into this school choice crusade and was quite successful.

In the primaries, you're talking about. In the primaries, yeah. In the campaigns. In the campaigns. Also his change in strategy on the border. You know, he's using the invasion clause. He's talking about it. You know, there's still some that say it's not – he's not – the state isn't deporting people.

They've – state Republicans have kind of tried to find this middle ground where there's – through SB4 that Matt just talked about, taking individuals who have been found to cross the border illegally and either imprisoning them or taking them back to a port of entry for deportation. And so Abbott's tried to find this middle ground there, but he is using the invasion clause. He's citing it constantly. And so Carlson's speech here and the reaction therein, I wouldn't say took me by surprise, but it was interesting, interesting to see. Did you see this tweet yesterday from Abbott's former primary opponent, Don Huffines, on SB1? I only did not. Yeah, he said he tagged Governor Abbott in a tweet on, or a post on X, I think is how you say it. And he said, Greg Abbott's making Texas proud and citing this story on Abbott and SB4 and his border security efforts. So, you know, like, Hev Huns was a huge critic of his and big primary opponent and everything like that.

Now here he's, you know, singing his praises. So kind of an interesting dynamic there. Another case in point. Yeah, and we saw the governor and Huff-Huns on the same team on the property tax fight, notably against Lieutenant Governor Patrick once we hit the specials. It's been interesting, you know, The sands of alliances shift constantly. But at least with this speech, and it's one

thing, right? It's just one reaction in one room of one group of people. I think overall the broader scope is it would show a different response to the governor, such as what we saw in all these political events in the primaries. But it's among this specific kind of activists, this specific group, it's interesting to see

back where it started, you know, Abbott's out of favor with them, at least for now. Yeah, absolutely. Very interesting. We'll keep an eye on that for sure. Matt, coming to you, Border Patrol agents arrested a member of a violent cartel near El Paso and discovered some very shocking and disturbing images on his cell phone. Give us the rundown. That's right. Customs and Border Patrol Protection Chief Jason Owens announced on social media that their agents near El Paso had arrested a man attempting to illegally enter the United States. He was from Colombia. They shared images of him, including a number of tattoos that he had that connect him with the Clan del Golfo cartel.

I hope I pronounced that right. Now, the interesting point of this news release is that Owens pointed out that when agents searched the man's cell phone, they found numerous images and content depicting victims who were being tortured violently. on this cartel, and we actually found where one of their former heads was sentenced to federal prison in recent years, and the Department of Justice elaborated on the details surrounding this particular Colombian cartel. They said that it's one of the largest traffickers of cocaine in the world, if not the largest, and it's considered extremely violent. And we shared this quote. The CDG employed an army of sicarios or hitmen who carried out acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnapping, tortures, assassinations against competitors and those deemed traitors to the organization, as well as their family members.

The CDG murdered and assaulted Colombian law enforcement officers, Colombian military personnel, rival drug traffickers, and paramilitaries, potential witnesses, and civilians. And it's also considered a paramilitary-style drug cartel, extremely violent. These are bad guys. And it was alarming news to see one of them trying to sneak into the United States near El Paso. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely worth going and checking out that story at

texas.news. Matt, thanks for covering. Some more border news, Cameron, coming to you. Another shocking apprehension. Tell us what happened with your story. Yeah, there continues to be these individuals who are coming across the border that have some strange affiliations. Like Matt just talked about, there was another one that was apprehended, an admitted member of the Lebanese Islamic terrorist organization, Hezbollah. And this is an Iranian-backed group, just like Hamas or the Houthis. And this individual was caught by U.S. Border Patrol, Basal Basal Abadi. And this was a Lebanese migrant who was apprehended on March 9th, attempting to cross the border near El Paso. And he told a federal authority that he was going to try and make a bomb.

So he had also said he had trained for jihad and killing people, quote, that was not Muslim. So obviously this individual was coming across the border with the stated intention of causing harm. Very public about it, very public about it, because News Nation, because this story was originally published by the New York Post, News Nation followed up and confirmed the reports with CBP sources, where the border agents described Abadi as, quote, bloviating and acting with machismo. So what I wanted to touch on is what's interesting is there's been lots of comments about these military aged men coming across the border illegally. We've seen Trump make comments about the rise in the number of Chinese migrants coming across the border. We've seen the former CEO of Blackwater, Eric Prince, on a podcast episode

talking about the concern of a potential terrorist attack on American soil. Were you going to say something? Well, yeah, and I was just going to point out that one of the frequent statistics cited by state officials for Operation Lone Star is that to date they've apprehended about 58 people on the terrorist watch list trying to illegally enter the United States. And once again, these are just people that they're actually apprehending. There's tons of gotaways. That's a great point. Yeah. So there's no telling who's already in the country. Yeah. So this border crisis isn't just based on the fact of pure numbers that are coming across the border, but also the types of individuals that are

attempting to come into the country. So just something to keep your eye on. And as these events continue to unfold, we'll keep reporting on it. Yeah, no kidding. Cameron, thank you. Lots of border news this week. Bradley, coming to you. There was a big update on ESG and BlackRock this week. What happened? So the state of Texas' Permanent School Fund Corporation, which is the entity that runs the Permanent School Fund, that is funded by oil and gas royalties, and it is used to betress school finance, public school finance in Texas. So that corporation delivered a letter to BlackRock on Tuesday terminating its relationship

with a company that is the world's largest asset manager. According to Aaron Kinsey, who's the chair of the State Board of Education, who apparently was the one who directed the corporation to do this, that will remove about $8.5 billion in assets for the fund from BlackRock. And so it's the biggest announcement I've seen on this issue so far from a Texas entity. That's a lot of money, obviously. The pensions since SB 13 passed in 2021, which prohibits state dollars going to companies deemed to be oil and gas boycotters. This is the largest sum that I've seen, at least in one tranche, removed. But state pensions have been removing this ever since the comptroller created its list of these boycotters on which BlackRock rests and is at the top of it.

So it's another chapter in Republicans' fight against ESG. Kinsey said about this, today PSF leadership delivered the official notice terminating BlackRock's relation with the corporation. The relationship with BlackRock was not in compliance with government code, yada, yada, yada, commonly referred to as Senate Bill 13, which prohibits these state investments from being in entities like BlackRock that boycott energy companies. Further, BlackRock's dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state's oil and gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues for RPSF. Now, BlackRock responded and objected to this, saying that, you know, we have more than $300 billion tied into Texas-based companies, about $125 billion of which is in the energy sector.

As of a couple years ago, I think it was $90 billion in specifically oil and gas companies in Texas. So there's, you know, obviously wires are being crossed here. But the biggest reason that BlackRock is on this list and is facing this rebuke from Republicans is the comments made from people like Larry Fink, who's the CEO, specifically that they're engaged in this decarbonization push, especially on the global scale, joining net zero pledges, things like that. We're starting to see the needle move on that. A lot of companies are dropping their membership in these net zero decarbonization commitments. But BlackRock is still and has long been the face of this, something they obviously don't like. Behind the scenes stuff

I've heard, BlackRock has been among the more responsive to state officials when evaluating this. They don't want to be on this list. There are some that are like, they wear that as a badge of honor. BlackRock's not that. But you contrast that with the statements from Fink especially, and it's just totally different. The actions don't meet the rhetoric, and rhetoric in capital affects capital. It affects investments.

So, you know, there are loggerheads on this, and I think we're probably going to see more of this. But the other interesting thing that this ties into is Lieutenant Governor Patrick had a meeting with, a conference with BlackRock and a bunch of other investors to try and get enough capital to build more power plants in Texas. And that seemed to go off very well. Both sides were amicable about it. And the Lieutenant Governor will probably get the amount that he's seeking. And Fink was a big partner in that. But obviously that's not enough to keep them at the ESG arrows at bay. ESG arrows. New idea for a photo for an article.

Just saying. I'm sure AI could help with that, yeah. That's probably true. Nice, Cam. Riley, thank you. Cameron, we're going to end with two stories from you. Texas continues to see population growth big time, and some new census data provides interesting details.

What did you find out? Yeah, so the census came out with some new information related to the fastest growing counties in the United States, and eight of the ten counties that saw the largest gain in population were right here in Texas. Eight out of 10. Yeah. Well, obviously a county like Harris County was near the top of the list, over 53,000 residents. And that, like I said, led the entire country. Collin County was on that list. Montgomery County was on that list. They added some context that said states such as California, New York, Pennsylvania, all had counties with the largest decline in the 2023 population estimates. And

when looking at Texas metropolitan areas that also saw a rise in population, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington now has over 8 million residents as of the July 2023 estimates. Houston-Pasadena, the Woodlands also added over 139,000 people. And that brings that total up to 7.5 million. So lots of new people coming in to Texas. I was one of those individuals. So, yeah, just an interesting look. And it sort of leads us into the last story we're going to cover here. Yeah, it certainly does. Yeah. Dovetails quite nicely.

So Governor Greg Abbott made some comments online about addressing large investment firms that are purchasing, buying up single family homes here in Texas. You dug into this. Give us the details. I did dig into this because as everyone was discussing the comments online, I thought, how true these figures are that are being discussed. So just some background here. Abbott wrote on X in response to a video that he strongly supports free markets, but, quote, this corporate large-scale buying of residential homes seems to be distorting the market and making it harder for the average Texan to purchase a home. He goes on to say this must be added to the legislative agenda to protect Texas families. So this caused a storm of comments online and what was interesting if you listen to

the video that he was commenting on there was figures thrown around pointing to the claim of 44 percent of all single-family homes in America are being purchased by private equity firms. That same video made the claim that by 2030, private equity firms would own 60% of all the homes in America. So I went looking for those numbers. The 44% claim first appeared as a headline in a Medium article from December 2023. That story links to a 2022 Business Insider story that compiled numbers from a survey conducted by a consulting firm. And that consulting firm states, between both larger private equity and smaller independent operations, investors accounted for 44% of the purchases of flips during the third quarter. And so that 44% is related to purchases

of flipped homes during the third quarter of their analysis that was done in 2022. That 60% number claim could not find 60% anywhere. So I went back into that Medium article, which linked to a separate story on CNBC that read institutional investors may control 40% of US single family rental homes by 2030. And that was actually according to a separate analysis from December 2021 that said the institutionalization of single-family rentals, which began in the early 2010s, may near full maturation as an asset class by 2030. So a little bit of a misunderstanding in that video of what the numbers were actually presenting, because if you go back into that Medium article and you're looking to try to confirm some of these numbers, I went directly to one of the sources as well, the Housing and

Urban Development. They put out a report in 2023 that said 39% of single-family dwellings are rental housing units, and roughly 41% of the renter population lives in single-family homes. And then there was another, there's lots of analysis done on the state of housing. And so there's many different takes, but really going down to some of these sources, there was a report that shows, quote, mega investors, those with 1,000 properties represent 12% of all purchases of single family properties in Q1 of 2022. So a small percentage there in one quarter of one year.

And then there was another analysis that was done on single family rental properties in 2023 that found single family renter investors are concentrated in specific areas, primarily in metropolitan areas where almost 80% of the mega investors owned properties. And just a few more insights here, because it was interesting to dig into this, because with this article, I wanted to sort of allow the reader to get a full scope of the arguments that were being made. Because there was discussion online about it being a very small proportion or percentage of homes single family rental estates own just 0.19% of residential real estate in the U.S. And single family rental home companies own just 1.16% of the 23 million single family rental homes in the country. So, again, it seems as though it's a huge issue, which it is for some individuals.

Do they want their homes to be rented out by these large investment firms like BlackRock? That is the face of this. That is the apparent face of this or should the uh texas state legislature gov abbott step in and do something about it but with this story i just was hoping the readers could have the full scope of the argument so yeah that's it that's it folks well i i describe these types of stories in the office as a screen staring day. Because I'm sitting behind my computer with my eyes squinted for about four hours just reading tiny little print. Karen looked up and bleary-eyed over his computer yesterday and was like, what do you call it? A screen staring?

A screen staring day. A screen staring day. A screen staring day. Because sometimes you can write a story, you know, you do your research, you can lean back, have a cup of coffee, chat it up in the office, and then there's other days where you're sitting behind the computer just staring all day. There's two different, like, modes with that. There's research mode where you're digging into stuff, you don't have as much of a timeline, you can really get into it,

and there are other days where, like, your hair is on fire. Yeah. You have to get things out as fast as possible it's fascinating it reminds me back during the the primary i was uh you know we published so many stories and uh throughout the day i i uh i got to where i couldn't even read look at the computer screen i was just feeling terrible and it turned i thought i was i just way overdone it it turned out i had food poisoning so yeah yeah it's delightful that's what cut me short that was a a twist i didn't see coming i didn't expect it either amen food poisoning hit you when you least expect it okay let's move on to the tweeter section here gentlemen um bradley we'll start with you well this isn't my Twittery, but today's the first day of March Madness. Oh.

Well, the first full day. There were the play-in games that happened the last two days. But this is, at least in the Johnson household, it was a holiday. The amount of times that my dad took me out of school to come home and watch games during the first two days of the tournament. I thought you were calling Ewan Winston the Johnson household, and I giggled for, in my head, I giggled. That makes me want to vomit. Do you have food poisoning? Maybe.

But the thing I want to talk about is a gambling scandal in the world of baseball, Cameron. Is that right? Have you heard about this? Just a little bit, but I don't know everything. It involves the biggest name in baseball, maybe sports, period. And that is Shohei Otani. And his longtime interpreter was fired this past, I think it was Wednesday. I think that's when it broke. There's not a lot of details about it yet, but it's supposedly related to a really big gambling scandal.

Offshore betting and stuff, right? Yeah. And theft, specifically. I don betting and stuff, right? Yeah. And theft. Specifically, I don't know how to say his name, Ipe Mizuhara. Nailed it. Yeah, just killed it, you know. Is accused of, quote, massive theft of Otani's funds to place bets with an illegal bookmaker. So, huge scandal.

Huge. This is today's Babe Ruth, at least as he's compared. He pitches and... He just signed the giant contract. Yeah. He's a pitcher and a hitter, and he plays in the field. So he's a Swiss Army knife, and he's really good at all of that. So just signed a contract with the Dodgers.

Oh. Yeah. Your favorite team. Yeah, my favorite team. Great. You must be thrilled. And he made the very lengthy move from one part of Los Angeles to the other part of Los Angeles.

See, it means sarcastic, but it probably did take, it probably was like a very big hassle to move. Okay, but it's not like he moved states or coasts. You were driven in L.A.? It's the worst. No, I'm not, and I don't intend to. Please never do. Never, never.

But he was the biggest free agent this year, and he ended up signing with – left the Los Angeles Angels to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Massive story, massive figure. The guy is a god in Japan, which is a burgeoning market for, well, it's not burgeoning, it's always been there, for Major League Baseball. Trevor Bauer was playing out there.

Trevor Bauer produced guys like Ichiro Suzuki, one of my favorites. Yeah, he's fun to watch. Well, I'm wondering because there's people who are commenting online that the interpreter is taking the fall for Otani. Have you been seeing that? I have seen the theories, yeah. The theories. Do you buy it?

I don't know enough about it, though. Yeah. So I just like those fun conspiracies. Yeah. Well. It's made for some good memes. Listen. That's all you need.

If the guy can avoid jail time, he has a lot more time on his hands for placing bets. So always got to look on the bright side of life. That's a very good Bradley. Thank you. Thank you for enlightening us. That is quite a wild story. Yeah, you're so welcome. I was unaware of it until now.

And I really like the Uchiro Suzuki reference. That made made me happy he is a baller as the kids say oh yeah brother brother brother uh cameron what do you got well chip roy has been going off on twitter because like we mentioned at the top of this episode the omnibus bill was dropped in the middle of the night. In the middle of the night. And so Chip Roy's just been going off. Elon Musk put out a tweet for which Chip Roy responded saying, The battle to the death is right. Meanwhile, many in the House GLP are going to vote tomorrow to fully fund the continuation of open borders and mass release of dangerous criminals. And he's continued this lambasting

of what he is hashtagging as Swamp Omnibus, because there's been lots of things that appears to be snuck into this omnibus bill. All different ESG. He didn't go with Swampnibus. Swampnibus. That's pretty clever. Missed opportunity. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's been lots of stuff snuck into this omnibus bill, as it always is.

Right, Matt? Mm-hmm. So we'll see how this shakes out hopefully it'll turn into a good newsletter at least for daniel that's right because yeah we'll we'll see what happens it was just interesting to see chip roy is really uh planting his flag on not not voting for this trying to rally the troops not to vote for this. Interesting to see how it plays out. Exactly. It's true. Good stuff, Cameron. I mean, fine stuff, Cameron.

I'm trying not to say good stuff. I just really don't like hate emails. You could say well done. You're right. I don't know why my brain is still on good stuff today. And it's been like two years since that person sent me that nasty email. It's stuck in my head. Has it just been one email?

One email. And it still keeps you up at night. It sent me that nasty email. It's stuck in my head. Has it just been one email? One email. And it still keeps you up at night. It keeps me up at night. And I've received others since then. And I don't know why that one particularly. If you're listening to this and you like Mackenzie saying good stuff, send her a nice email. Wow, Cameron, that would be really nice.

Or a tweet. I do also, I think I'm becoming aware that as we offer new avenues by which to watch us or listen to us, it opens us up to more hate emails, which I say, bring it on. But also please be really nice to us. We already have some of the YouTube comments. It's interesting. So just remember we're humans.

Mainly I'm sensitive, and everyone else will be fine. I personally just loved the first bit of hate I got for my newsletter. But see the difference between you and I, I won't respond to the haters. You might. Oh yeah and this was a good one. I won't say it on here. Yeah, let's not get into it. It was in quite a stretch from one of the ne'er-do-wells of text-ledged Twitter. I'll just say that. Yeah. I typically don't respond, but I do type out my response and feel really good about it, and then I hit the backspace. I've been there.

Yeah. There you go. Matt, what do you got for us? Well, I'm going to point to my own Twitter. On my way to Austin from the great Big Bend Mountains of far west Texas, I stopped and hiked at Enchanted Rock State Park. Have you all ever been there? I have, actually. So it's just north of Fredericksburg.

It's a state park, and it's this giant granite dome. And there's actually granite quarries nearby where they mine the granite to build the state capital with. So it's all about the same color and whatnot. But it's this large hill, mountainous thing that's just solid granite. And it's a really cool state park. You can go hike up it. It makes for a really good hike. There's awesome views.

But I took a picture of some of the wildflowers. So'm here to report the texas wildflowers in the hill country in full bloom it's a great trip highly recommend it go check it out how long did the wildflower stay in bloom it varies depends on how much wearing we get and that sort of thing would they be there in mid-april probably if we get rain. I really hope they are. Like right now, it's just driving down like a blue carpet of blue bonnets. It's amazing. It's pretty cool. There's a school I ran by this weekend in Austin, and it had a running track, and all around the running track, there's green sloping hills coming down to the track filled with blue bonnets. Unbelievable. Just gorgeous. Yeah, it was insane. So there's your day trip tip well

amazing um i want to talk about kate middleton again oh no boy yeah that's a you and cameron or yeah yeah so you haven't you have you followed any of it matt i mean i see but that's just like you know it's not in your wheelhouse that's not my thing i get it yeah well actually yeah it's very much it only becomes my thing when it takes over my x timeline totally other than that i have no idea what's going on i just go in and and enter in you know mute keywords yeah dip your dip your toe in or you just have to dip your toe in you know you don't have to dive in the deep end of the royal family stuff yep m Mackenzie knows that though. Totally. Yes. I keep up a little bit with the Royals, but when something like this is happening. It's big. It's all I can think about. What's the

update? The update is that this week, supposedly, a video was released of Kate Middleton and Prince William walking out of a farmer's store, like a farm store, farmer's market kind of situation. It was a farmer's market. like a farm store, farmer's market kind of situation. It was a farmer's market. They weren't getting tractor equipment. Well, I think it was kind of one of those places where you could do both. Interesting. Now, don't quote me on that. Okay, that adds a layer.

Why does it add a layer? It just does. It just adds a layer. People are going to have to follow my newsletter to find out. Redacted people. Is this the image that I keep seeing of the horrible doppelganger of Middleton? So you think it's a doppelganger? Well, I don't know.

That's just what people are saying. Well, here's the problem. I love how McKenzie immediately was like, do you have a conspiracy theory? No, there's a conspiracy theory. Don't get me started. Basically, a video is released. It shows supposedly Prince William and Kate Middleton leaving the farmer's store. She is carrying a, what appears to be a bag that kind of has her leaning one direction, kind of heavy. The theory is if she had abdominal surgery, then she would not be carrying a heavy bag like that so recently, especially if she's not making public appearances. It also appears that she's not making public appearances.

It also appears that she's lost a significant amount of weight. Regardless, that's kind of where people start to get conspiratorial. And then people did side-by-sides of the prince and princess and their height difference. This video appears to show people with very different height differences than what is documented that the royals have. It's fascinating. Now, there are, to Brad's point, verified royal impersonators that live very close by to where the royals live who are hired to attend parties and such and appear as Middleton and William. It's a thing? Yes.

Oh, absolutely. And they look, have you not seen this, Brad? No, I don't follow this. Listen, we, back in 1776, won the right, I guess it didn't happen in 76, we declared the right to not give a hoot about the British monarchy. Interesting. She looks a lot like her.

Well, lots of world leaders have body doubles. Okay. Yeah, so. I'm being a bit sarcastic, but no, I did not know this was a thing, yes. No, it's wild. I mean, technically we have the right not to give a hoot about the royals, as you put it, but I guess you could also say that you have the right to give a hoot about the royals. To give a hoot about the Royals, as you put it, but I guess you could also say that you have the right to give a hoot about the Royals

if you want to. So which way are you leaning? Is it her or is it a body double? You don't have to be 100%. I don't think it's her. I don't think it's her either. The height difference is what really gets me but here's also the thing

people on Twitter on the internet have made have used it's also a very blurry video which is like suspect because in what day and age do we have very blurry videos

be version one of any video hosted online Bigfoot you know stuff like that don't get me started on Bigfoot I can combat that like nobody's business regardless

yeah you don't get me started on Bigfoot. I can combat that like nobody's business. Regardless, yeah, you don't. We just touched on something here. But the video is very blurry. Some people on the internet used AI to sharpen the images. And AI sharpening the images makes it look significantly less like Kate Middleton. So I don't believe that. But I do think it's suspicious. The height difference is really what gets me though. Cause I also think it's very possible to have some sort of medical emergency and have so many things about your body

change. I think that's totally normal. Has there been any official statements on that video or people? The, the, the, the Heidi Agin, who's the lady that everyone thinks it is, came out and said that it's not her. But the video, like she was, it was kind of unconvincing to some people because she stuttered and stammered. But, yeah, she denied it. She denied it. Where do you think she is, Mac?

I really hope she's okay. Yeah. My working theory is that, yes, it was a medical emergency a medical emergency and yes there was some sort of abdominal surgery and something you know she's recovering and something went wrong or is not great there's so many conspiracies flying around it's but also i i said this before i'll say it again the royal said she'll be back after easter so let's wait until after easter for some news we knew she wouldn't be around until after Easter. Who else had a big reveal after Easter or on Easter? Never mind. Ridiculous.

I saw that joke on Twitter. My gosh. Anyways, gentlemen, thank you for joining me today. Folks, we hope you enjoyed the video part of this. What do you guys think about being on video? Like it, hate it, don't care? I forgot we were on video. Yeah, I forgot about it. That's good! Maslin's in here doing good work, and I'm trying to forget that she's in here doing good work.

Thank you, Maslin. We can't break the third wall. We have to be professional here. The fourth wall? I've already called out the listeners and readers like five times. It's an age-old times. Well, folks, thank you for listening. We appreciate it.

Tune in next week. We'll be back. See ya. Adios. 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.