The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 12, 2021

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team covers how critical race theory implications affected the November election, developments in the federal vaccine mandate lawsuits, a state representative opting to run for Congress, a congressman eyeing a run for attorney general, how illegal border crossing numbers in Texas are trending, the governor again wading into concern over obscene materials in public school libraries, Navy SEALs filing suit after being denied religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine, a dispute between rural telecom providers and the state which has led to rising costs for Texans reliant on remote service, a deputy sheriff being investigated for bribery, Elon Musk and Tesla adding to their Texas operations, and deer season opening in Texas.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here, bringing you this week's News Roundup. Our team covers how critical race theory implications affected the November election, developments in the federal vaccine mandate lawsuits, a state rep opting to run for Congress, a congressman eyeing a run for Attorney General, how illegal border crossing numbers in Texas are trending, the governor again wading into concern over obscene materials in public school libraries. Navy SEALs filing suit after being denied religious exemptions for the COVID-19

vaccine. A dispute between rural telecom providers in the state, which has led to rising costs for Texans reliant on remote service. A deputy sheriff being investigated for bribery. Elon Musk and Tesla adding to their Texas operations, and deer season opening in Texas. Thanks for listening. Let's get to it. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad Johnson, Daniel Friend, Hayden Sparks, and Isaiah Mitchell.

Brad and I switched seats today, and it's already thrown us off. At least, it's thrown me off. I don't know about you, Brad. This is an attack on every fiber of my being. Wow. All your fibers. All your fibers. It might be the last straw.

That's a good play on the fiber thing. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. That was unintentional. Isaiah, happy birthday. Thank you yeah you're welcome that was unintentional isaiah happy birthday thank you you're so welcome thank you for still gracing us with your presence on your birthday well yeah i mean it's it's a thursday i know i'm just i'm just making small talk here oh yeah yeah but happy birthday we're excited how old do you turn today 23 wow yeah that's crazy it is your year. Wait, who's the youngest?

Are you, Hayden, are you the youngest? You don't have a mic. You're 24. Got it. Okay. Daniel. Yeah. And Brian.

Okay. Isaiah's the baby here. It's me. It's, yeah. Yeah. You're the young one. If we're counting everyone in the room, technically it's Winston. That's very true.

And dog years. He's, he just turned 14. How old? 14. He's two. I get it. In case you couldn't do the math i don't understand why i totally calculated that before you said it i don't understand why we equate dog years to seven years no matter the breed of dog or the size of the dog that's a good point because older dogs die much younger than small dogs. Wait, older dogs die much younger. What? Oh my gosh,

I messed that up so bad. Larger dogs die much younger than smaller dogs. Did I get that right? I mean, I don't know if that's true, but it's logically possible. It's not contradictory.

It's not just innately contradictory oof well there you go now we only have two listeners left oh my gosh well on that note let's actually get into the news birthday boy let's start with you last week we talked about an election for the texas house but we did not mention school boards as much what happened in local school district elections last week? Well, we had some coverage from writers that don't appear on this podcast. Holly and Kim wrote about a couple of prominent districts in their respective corners of the state. Cypress Fairbanks ISD, which is the third largest school

district in Texas, in Houston, and Carroll ISD, which is in Southlake in North Texas. And those are just two very prominent, but I'm sure by no means the only examples of school boards that got a bit shaken up on election night when candidates running on platforms of opposition to their respective districts, diversity and equity plans won their races. So in SciFair, there are actually three candidates that build themselves as a slate, a conservative slate that ran on opposition to the district's diversity plan and other tangential issues regarding transparency. And they swept the races. We also saw a fair amount of local coverage that showed voters in some places approved

city and county bonds, but rejected school bonds in the same place. And school bonds usually pass, which is interesting. So in some cases, they oppose school bonds explicitly because of suspicion related to critical race theory and transparency concerns in the classroom and a couple that i mentioned in the articles about this are fort worth fort worth isd actually and leander isd um there's a group that organized in leander specifically against the bond saying no to critical race theory yeah no to some other stuff that's related yeah they kind of linked those issues that are very hot in a lot of school board meetings and just locally to these bigger bonds. And it seems to do the trick in terms of those groups' desired outcome. Now, the state also seemed to see a bit of a trend here in terms of school district bonds

being defeated. What does the data show about how Texans voted on school bonds this November? Well, we don't like to, I mean, you see some of their outlets drawing, they conjure up these big trends from like rhetoric or a smattering of stories or whatever. It's like, oh, you know, anyway, but I was interested to see if all the suspicion and mistrust towards schools and these scattered stories were materialized into some kind of broad trend in the data. And that may actually be the case with bonds. So for those of those who don't know, bonds are tax funded debt issued to pay for particular projects. Local governments will ask voters for permission to borrow money. And it's usually for construction or building renovations or something like that to be paid back later with low interest. And the November 2021 election was the first time

voters rejected most school bonds on the November ballot since 2001. And the November 2021 election was the first time voters rejected most school bonds on the November ballot since 2001. And I actually looked up all the November election results since, oh, excuse me, since 2011. I looked up the results since 2001. And the only times that voters rejected most school bonds on the November ballot was 2010, 2011, and and 2021 so it's been a decade since this has happened again usually they pass yeah and potentially because of some new law passed in the 86 legislature schools proposed much more bonds this year than last year but we had we had elections in may of 2021 this year and you know just months ago even then in may voters approved most school

bonds along with most other bonds. But in November, for every other category of local government, cities, counties, utility districts, voters still approve most bonds, but not for schools. They were the only category where voters rejected most of the bonds on the November ballot. So November 2021 is a pretty glaring exception for schools compared to both other local governments and other years in the past decade. Yeah. So give us some details about how much school bond debt did pass this election. What did make it through the ballot box? So even though voters rejected a majority of bonds themselves on the ballot, 58 to 52, they approved most absolute debt. So there were some more expensive bonds that did pass.

Like in Fort Worth ISD, for example, voters rejected three out of the four bonds on the ballot, but the one that they approved was the most expensive one. So with school bonds alone, not regarding city bonds or county bonds, stuff like that, about $5.3 billion of debt was approved in November. And about $3.4 billion of debt was rejected. So in other words,

voters approved most debt, but rejected numerically the most bonds on the ballot. Got it. Well, Isaiah, thanks for delving into that data for us. Daniel, we're going to come to you. Last week on the podcast, you talked about Texas's legal challenge to the Biden administration's vaccine mandates specifically for federal contractors. But you mentioned another lawsuit could be seen against the administration's vaccine mandates for private businesses. And this is where a lot of the attention has been drawn even from lawmakers. What's come of that? So to give you a little bit more background on the differences between the federal contractor one, which was specifically for people or businesses that do contracting work with the federal government. And this reached out to even private businesses like Southwest Airlines was talked about under that umbrella. But there's other umbrella of vaccine mandates

specifically for private businesses that have 100 or more employees. So that's a lot of mid-tier big businesses that covers two-thirds of the workforce, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is under the Department of Labor, the entity that's actually issued this rule that is requiring those businesses to implement a vaccine mandate for employees by January 4th. And people who opt not to be vaccinated then would have to do weekly testing and wear face coverings, other things like that. So this rule was announced last week.

I think it was announced the same day that we were recording our podcast last week. We had the federal contractor lawsuit set to talk about that, and I mentioned on our podcast, maybe there'd be a lawsuit out by the time that we have our podcast released. Turns out I was right. And who would have thunk we had another lawsuit from Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, bringing a legal challenge to this rule in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, he was not the only one, hardly the only state to do it. There were dozens of states, dozens of states and entities, you know, different ministries that were doing it and private companies, just lots of different organizations petitioning the courts to take action on this. And so there are dozens of petitions filed.

Now, how have the courts acted thus far? It was, they did act almost immediately. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on the rule over the weekend. That was Saturday, whatever the date that was, Saturday, November 6th. They issued a stay on this rule. And then Texas and other states filed a petition with that court the following day, kind of going into a little bit more detail about, you know, why they wanted to have this stay in place and why they were asking the court to actually, you know, rule against this rule. Rule against that rule. Yeah. I like that.

Yeah. That was really good, actually. Now, talk to us about how the Biden administration has responded. So the Biden administration, to no surprise, they're actually defending this measure. Yes. They're the ones who implemented it, and they're saying that it is legal, that they do have the authority to do this. Basically, a lot of the arguments center around whether or not the executive branch, and specifically that agency, the OSHA, has the authority to implement this rule if they've been given that authority by Congress or if they're kind of overstepping their bounds. So the state of Texas, all the other petitioners are, you know, that's one of the core arguments is that they are overstepping their bounds of what Congress said that they could do by implementing this rule,

which is a lot more wide sweeping than they say that the federal law allows them to do. Now, the Biden administration is saying, no, that's not the case. We're totally acting within the federal law. This is not an overreach. It's completely legal and within the powers delegated to the executive branch by Congress, which Congress has delegated a lot of authority to the executive branch. So there's that. But this is still something that the courts

will need to sort out. Now, in addition to filing a reply in the court case, the Biden administration has also kind of taken a stance in rhetorically, you know, urging businesses to continue following their timeline for this rule and get those mandates in place by January 4th, despite this declaration or this stay that the court ordered. So they're still, you know, urging businesses to follow the rules and make sure that their employees are getting vaccinated. Now, what kind of next steps will we see? Or is it just kind of a waiting game at this point? It is a waiting game. Lawsuits, you know, in my experience covering different cases the past few years, especially around COVID, you know, things either happen really fast or really slowly. You know, based on the Fifth Circuit's stay, that was just,

you know, pretty immediate. I expect that this case will move pretty fast. There have already been a few different motions filed or replies and responses filed, briefs. There's also a lot of people just jumping in this case, weighing in. But I do expect that this will go pretty fast, especially since the Biden administration is trying to get this in in just a couple months in January. So kind of a tight timeline there that the administration wants. I think the courts will prioritize this. We'll see something fairly soon. Yeah. Well, and even knowing the timelines for a lot of the businesses here in Texas that are already laying off employees, et cetera, they're working with a little bit different timeline and a lot more affected entities. So we'll see what happens. Daniel, thank you for that. Bradley,

let's go to you. Another Texas House member opted not to run for reelection and instead run for higher office. Who are we talking about? the district that current incumbent Lloyd Doggett is effectively vacating to go run in the 37th congressional district, which is one of the new seats that Texas picked up from the census numbers. Which is more of his district where he lives, right? Yes. That's typical in a redistricting cycle. Yeah. And, you know, Doggett has been an Austin political staple for literally decades. And so he's got the name ID to basically run wherever in the city and win.

So he kind of had his pick of the litter, but that leaves this seat open. And Representative Eddie Rodriguez, who had been mulling a run for a couple weeks now, he officially jumped in made his campaign uh officially official as it were because there's already preliminary paperwork filed right is that yeah last week last week he filed with the fec and that basically confirmed what was going to happen it just he hadn't uh come out and said explicitly so the press, the announcement had been made official. But that became official this week at Joe's Bakery in East Austin. He launched it and then he followed it with a tour of San Antonio, which is another pocket of the district. It kind of has a thin strip stretching through the other two counties between Travis and Bear.

The two population centers are Austin and San Antonio. So it was a very heavily Dem district. Rodriguez, during his announcement, was surrounded by, I believe it was every single Austin, Texas House member, all Democrats. There were five um and so all of his tech sledge colleagues were backing him as opposed to uh the other the other candidates got it well yeah talk to us a little bit about the other candidates so the biggest name is greg cassar i think we talked about him last week uh now former soon to be former austin city council member um he is famous for his very very left

positions uh advanced in the city of austin um he has he is a self-described socialist and um you know he has definitely taken the left flank um in this in this race the left of the left flank and everyone in this district is going to run as a progressive because that's how blue it is. And so, yeah, Kassar, when Rodriguez announced, he said, I'm eager for the conversation with voters about who will truly fight and deliver on raising wages, passing Medicare for all,

protecting reproductive health care, and fixing our grid uh shortly shortly after that came out at uh rodriguez's san antonio announcement he was asked about his support for medicare for all and he said he does support that and so um there is another candidate claudia zapata uh she's a progressive Austin activist. And right now those are the three biggest names in the race. There are a few others that have filed, but I think maybe two others, but they're kind of not entities at this point. But that doesn't mean more people won't jump in. Especially when in an open seat.

Right. These things tend to go in primaries. They tend to be filled to the brim with candidates. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's fair to say right now, Rodriguez and Kassar are the two biggest names in the race. Definitely. And one thing to watch during this is how the quorum break during the summer plays into this. Obviously, it's a very Dem heavy district. And so the voter base is naturally going to be more in favor of the quorum break that occurred does that give rodriguez because he participated in it he was a texas legislative member does that give him a competitive advantage against greg cassar i i don't know we'll see how it plays out yeah absolutely and that was again for in an attempt from democrats to stop or halt the election reform bill that was pushed by a lot of Texas Republicans after the 2020 election. Well, Brad, thank you for that. Daniel, let's talk about the attorney general's race in an already fairly crowded field where we have some pretty prominent candidates.

We're seeing that another potentially very prominent candidate is considering a run there. Talk to us about the announcement that Louie Gohmert made this week. So Louie Gohmert is the congressman from East Texas, Texas Congressional District 1. I think that covers the Tyler area. And it was also changed recently in the redistricting proposal to cover a lot more East Texas counties, kind of along the Texas, what board is that, Louisiana. Get my geography straight. So Representative Gohmert held a press conference in Tyler where he announced

that he's exploring a run for Attorney General, the Office of Attorney General, against current Attorney General Ken Paxton. But Gohmert wants to see if he can raise enough money to launch a solid campaign before he officially jumps into the race. So when he held this announcement, he said that he was going to try to raise $1 million in 10 days. That would be the cutoff date would be November 19th, I believe. And if he does raise $1 million in that time, then he'll run for attorney general against Ken Paxton. He'll also be joining several other Republican

challengers to the incumbent, which includes Land Commissioner George P. Bush. You have former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. And then you also have State Representative Matt Krause. All three kind of big names in the race trying to tear down Paxton's polling numbers and, you know, at least bring a runoff or, you know, win him and win against him to be the Republican nominee in 2022, which is just around the corner. Absolutely. Now, what did he say his motivation for running was? So like the other candidates, both Republican and Democrats, the big issue that Paxton has pointed to or that Gohmert has pointed to is Paxton's internal problems, the controversy there in the office of the attorney general under him. Like the other

candidates, he pointed to the scandal that happened last year when several of Paxton's top aides raised criminal allegations against him, saying that he was using his office abusively to benefit real estate investor Nate Paul. So that is something that has been in the news quite a bit over the past year. That is one of the big controversies. There's a whistleblower lawsuit against him from several of his top aides who were fired from the department. And Gohmert said that if Paxton wins the Republican primary, it's kind of putting Republicans in a potential danger zone of losing the attorney

general's race. He said that if Paxton does get an indictment or criminal prosecution by the FBI, who have launched an investigation into Paxton. Then after Paxton would win the Republican primary, there's no way for Republicans to put someone else on the ballot, except in some very specific scenarios which aren't likely to happen. So it could lead to Democrats potentially winning the attorney general's race, which would be very significant in Texas politics. It's a very influential position. Um, so Gohmert is saying that, you know, a different Republican should be in that place, uh, for the general election, um, just to make sure that, um, that stays a red position. Um,

and that, that's kind of Gohmert's, uh's saying that the other candidates in the race haven't done enough to bring down Paxton's polling numbers. So another candidate might be necessary. Got it. Now, he's very critical of Paxton's controversies, but what kind of policy arguments has he made thus far? So one of the things that Gohmert said was that, you know, comparing the two different policies between himself and Paxton, they would look a lot similar. There's a lot of lawsuits that Gohmert said that he appreciates from Paxton and things that he would agree with, things that he would file similar lawsuits about, especially, you know, as we see the fight between Texas and the U.S. under the Biden administration. That would not change under Gohmert.

One of the things that he did note, though, was that he disagreed with the big election lawsuit that Paxton filed about a year ago now after the general presidential election against several of those swing states that were on the line. Gohmert said that he had talked with some others about the election problems that they saw and the concerns that they had about those states, and they wanted to file a lawsuit. That essentially was what Paxton had filed, where he was saying that these states changed their election laws unconstitutionally by kind of circumnavigating their legislatures using different COVID regulations and whatnot and saying that that was unconstitutional. The thing was, Gohmert said that he didn't think Texas should be the one to file this because Texas did the exact same thing in changing our election laws for that 2020 election without going to the legislature. It was just an executive order from Governor Abbott. And so, you know, he said that was kind of a hypocritical thing to do. And he would have

rather seen another state like South Carolina file that lawsuit. Interesting. And that's a very nuanced argument. And I'm sure, you know, if and when Gohmert enters the race, we'll see a lot more of these kinds of policy conversations happen. That's just kind of what happens in these in these contexts. Now, if he does raise a million dollars by his deadline or decides to run regardless, what are who are some potential candidates that could potentially fill his his congressional seat? So there are several state representatives that are well known in that region of the state in East Texas. Of course, this is – Commerz District is very Republican, rural Texas. It's very unlikely that a Democrat could win.

But there's a lot of big Republican names being talked about, whispered. State Representative Matt Schaefer, who is the author of the constitutional carry bill that passed this year, actually said that he was considering a run for the seat. Another big name that has been mentioned quite a bit has been Senator Brian Hughes, who has, who has a big role in the heartbeat bill and also the election bill. Lots of big policies there that he played an instrumental role in. And he lives in the district. There's been talk about him potentially running. It could also be that he runs for the congressional seat and Schaefer runs for the Senate seat, or we'll have to see how it plays out. But there's whispers about that, those two names especially. There's other state reps who also live in the district,

including Representative Cole Hefner, Representative Jay Dean, and Representative Chris Patty. And I believe Gary Van Deaver does as well. At least most of his town is within Go-Murts district. So those are other possible state representatives who could run for the seat. But we'll see how things shake up. I like it. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that. We'll keep an eye on Go-Murts movement here. Hayden, we're going to switch over to you. You wrote a piece this week detailing a lot of the different illegal immigration and border numbers. It was just a great piece. Go to the texan.news and make sure to read it, folks. But let's dive into this. How did illegal immigration affect Texas during 2021, fiscal year 2021? Well, you're right that it did affect us in a very important way. And one of the important things to keep in mind is this fiscal

year that we're discussing was October of 2020 until September of this year. So that would be just a few months before President Biden took office. And of course, by March, we were seeing a huge spike in the number of illegal alien apprehensions. And then these numbers are through the end of September, which are the most recent numbers that have been reported. And of course, in fiscal year 2021, we saw 1.66 million apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the Southwestern United States overall. Now, when you break those numbers down to only include Texas sectors, that's 1.15 million plus that were apprehended in Texas sectors. And of course, those sectors are El Paso, Big Bend, Del Rio, the Rio Grande Valley. And I think I'm forgetting one, but I'm sure I'll

remember it in a second. There were 1.15 million in Texas sectors. And I spoke with a couple of individuals who have vast amounts of experience in this area. First was Chief Rudy Karish. He was a border agent for more than three decades. He began his law enforcement career in the 1980s in El Paso and then joined the Border Patrol. He has been the sector chief in three different Border Patrol sectors, including the most recently the Rio Grande Valley sector. And he was in fact, in that position when President Trump implemented the remain in Mexico policy. And he indicated to me that during his time as a border agent, there were an estimated two people who got away for every arrest. So when we talk about 1.15 million apprehensions, those are just the people who got caught. Right.

And there could be millions, potentially more, depending on how many people got away. And of course, we can't detect all of those individuals. I spoke to another gentleman, Supervisory Special Agent Victor Avila. He's retired from the Homeland Security Investigations Division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And he has an incredible story. He survived an attack by the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. We've talked about the events that he went through back in 2011. I encourage everyone to include a link to his biography, and he has an incredible story to tell, lots of experience in border security. And he gave a similar estimation these individuals, we think, might think that because it's the border between the US and Mexico, that these are mostly Mexican individuals. There were roughly the same amount of Hondurans who were taken into custody as Mexicans. So during the fiscal year 2021, an average of 26,010 Mexican nationals were arrested

each month, and an average of 24,529 Hondurans were taken into custody in Texas sectors as well. Sorry, I'm going on a little bit. But the one more note of context is the individuals who turn themselves in to Border Patrol, they approach border agents and surrender themselves to custody. What Special Agent Avila explained to me is they are also counted as apprehensions. So not all of these people are ones who were necessarily pursued by border police and then taken into custody in some dramatic event. Many of them have turned themselves in, such as with the Del Rio search, but I know we have more points to get to. It's a lot of information. But let's talk about some of the factors that could be contributing

to these historic numbers. Well, anytime we're talking about the number of apprehensions, which were an average total of 95,984 in Texas sectors each month, what Chief Karrasch reminded me is the cartels are extremely well resourced, unfortunately. The narcotics trade, the narcotics business is, according to Chief Karish, he said, a multi-billion dollar business is the phrase he used. And they have the resources to infiltrate our border. And that's one reason it is so difficult to get a handle on this, because they have have the resources and many times that the jurisdictions on the border just don't have to get over our border to get past the fencing that we construct. And that is one reason why we have so many illegal crossings is because there are so many threats to

deal with. One of the things that retired Special Agent Avila explained to me as well, is when you look at the event of the Del Rio surge, which in September, the last month of the fiscal year, 72% of the apprehensions were listed as other as it relates to their nationality. And that's because there was that influx of thousands of Haitian individuals in the Del Rio sector. And he said that if something like that were to occur in multiple sectors at the same time, it would basically collapse the system. Yeah. Because that's just too much for border agents to deal with. So that's one factor is multiple caravans coming. But really what I want to emphasize as well is the federal policies that could be sending confusing signals.

And I'll just tell you exactly what Chief Karish told me. He said, quote, so there's going to be a lot of different factors, which I will talk about. But as long as the administration sends mixed messages on enforcement and does little to consider the information that people abroad are receiving and how they perceive federal policies. And that definitely could be, and according to Chief Karish, is contributing to the surge. And Special Agent Avila echoed similar sentiments saying that we in effect have a catch and release policy. And of course, we've reported before that individuals are being released pursuant to a parole program that was previously used on a more narrow basis. So those are just a

broad view of some of the factors that are going into this. Got it. Now, what does this mean going forward? Are we by any means out of the woods yet? Are illegal crossings likely to decrease? Where are we at? Well, in terms of those federal policies, it would follow logically that there would need to be some kind of policy shift in order for the tide to turn in favor of fewer illegal crossings. policies, humane treatment. They want to try to get our policies consistent with American values of welcoming strangers and providing help for sick and needy individuals, like we saw with the Haitians that came to Del Rio and the humanitarian needs that presented there. And in doing so, there, of course, are often unintended consequences. And the mixed messages was on the paperwork to again challenge that in the courts and to seek to tear down that policy. And another factor to consider, and Special Agent

Avila pointed this out to me as well, the Remain in Mexico policy and many portions of our border security policy require the cooperation of Mexico. Yeah. And his words were, quote, the cartels control Mexico, not just the border of Mexico. Of course, the border of Mexico, they have a clear control of that area. But keep in mind that they have control of the most of the country in Mexico and the Mexican president has done nothing about it, end quote. So the Mexican government piece and the federal policies here in the states are likely contributing to this. And unless there is a major policy change, of course, I'm not the expert on border

security, but we'll have to see if there has been any decrease when the border numbers for October of 2021 are reported. And of course, they were possibly going to be up to 400,000 according to the DHS if the Title 42 policy had been rescinded, which it ultimately was not. But that I think will tell us more information about if this next fiscal year is going to be any better or if it's going to be another record-breaking year. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you so much for delving into all of that and ensuring that we have accurate information. There's just a lot to get into. So thank you so much for that. Isaiah, another story that has a lot of different moving parts, but some Republicans have been up in arms about allegedly pornographic material in Texas public school libraries. How is Governor Abbott reacting? What's the latest on this? If y'all remember previously, he asked the Texas Association of

School Boards to encourage members to address the issue. And again, despite their officious name, some people assume that, you know, oh, that sounds like a governmental organization. But they're an association, a private association of school board trustees across the state. And so Abbott's request to them was largely voluntary, you know, encouraging them or requesting that they have their schools set up these processes to where parents can see how libraries acquire their collections. And they responded with some bewilderment and said that this wasn't their responsibility. They agreed to some degree that this was a problem that parents were concerned about that should be addressed, but instead directed Abbott to other branches of the state government. And so Abbott redirected his request to these government bodies, the Texas Education Agency,

the State Board of Education, and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Excuse me. So the Texas Education Agency is the head of all the school districts in Texas. They're the ones that disperse federal and state funding. They make sure that they're in line with statute. If a school, they run all the metrics for school performance, financial performance, things like that, and all these accountability measures.

And if schools fail those accountability measures, the TEA is the one that appoints a monitor over them. So they're the head of all the school districts in Texas. And they are an agency headed by Commissioner Mike Marath, who was appointed by the governor. So you can see their relation to the governor's office. The State Board of Education doesn't have the was appointed by the governor. So you can see their relation to the governor's office. The state board of education doesn't have the same relation to the governor. They're a democratically elected board of members, again, elected by just citizens across Texas.

And they, they're the ones who actually set curriculum and decide instructional materials for schools. So when people discuss, you know, what's being taught in schools, practically, we know that, you know, that can vary from teacher to teacher, but the actual statewide standards and curriculum are decided by the SBOE. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission is an agency that sets standards for Texas public school libraries. Yeah. Well, thanks for that explanation. Let's talk about the governor's exact request. How is it different from what he asked TASB, the School Board Association? Well, he asked the SBOE and these two agencies to, in his words, immediately develop statewide standards to prevent the presence of pornography and other obscene content in Texas public schools, including the school libraries. The goal of these standards, Abbott says, would be to ensure transparency about the materials being taught in the classroom and often in school libraries.

He also wants these processes to ensure that the schools have some kind of, that parents have some way to see how school and library materials are being vetted. What's different about this request is that it's a little bit broader than what he asked Tasby. His letter to TESB only regarded library books, while this request involves classroom materials as well. Yeah, okay. So, in that way, that, you know, remind some people, you know, this might remind some people about a new law that has passed that specifically addresses critical race theory application in the classroom, how it can be taught. How is this related to this request? That law did not apply to libraries, but it did have a provision for classroom materials, mainly having to do with transparency. It takes effect

in early December, and it requires schools to give parents access to the same online portals, instructional materials, what have you, that their children use, so they can see the same materials that their children see. All of the so-called critical race theory limitations regarding concepts that teachers cannot inculcate according to the code, which also apply to sex as well as race, those only affect teacher training and classroom instruction and not libraries. Got it. Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us. Again, a very nuanced story. Daniel, you've been covering a lot of the vaccine lawsuit, mandate lawsuits in Texas and, you know, between the federal government in Texas. Let's get back to that. But there was another one filed this week in a Texas federal court

that did not involve the state. Talk to us about that suit. So while the other vaccine mandates relate to federal contractors and business mandates, and I believe there's another one in the works still with more medical related stuff, Other vaccine mandates relate to federal contractors and business mandates. And I believe there's another one in the works still with more medical related stuff. But there's also another one from the Biden administration specifically for members of the military. And that was actually, I think, the first of these vaccine mandates to come out. It was done much sooner than all the others. But this was in the department of defense. Um, and it was, it was pushed very, very hard, um, in requiring military members to, uh, be vaccinated. Um, and so the, they haven't provided as many, they, as many religious exemptions though.

Uh, first Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Naval seal Navy seals, and also some other Navy officers, uh, who were denied religious exemptions to the DOD's vaccine mandate. And they kind of faced different types of punishment for that as well, just because the military was not really allowing any religious exemptions. Got it. Now, talk to us about whether the Navy has granted any exemptions for the vaccine. Yeah, so they have granted some for medical exemptions. But according to the First Liberty Institute, again, that the DOD, the Navy has not granted any religious exemptions. And so, you know, while they might, you know, if you're allergic to something in the vaccine, they've granted some exemptions to that. Now, apparently, according to the lawsuit, the Navy did indicate that there could possibly be a way to be granted a religious exemption.

They also did note in those indications that it would come with harsh penalties, you know, that they wouldn't be able to be deployed or they'd have different benefits cut back, things like that. They'd also have to follow different protocols. But the requests for religious exemptions have all been denied. And this is even the lawsuit states that these members, they'd be willing to do alternatives like weekly testing, like the face mask requirements that the Biden administration is kind of pursuing with more the private business route. They said that they'd be willing to do those things as they had done, you know, throughout the pandemic when the vaccines were not available. Right.

But even still, despite all of that, the Navy has not, uh, granted any of these exceptions, uh, for, you know, religious reasons of why you don't want to get the vaccine. Got it. So then what is being requested of the court? So the first Liberty Institute is requesting a wide sweeping number of things. Um, you know, first and foremost is specifically for those plaintiffs, those Navy SEALs, uh, who, you know, have not been granted the exemptions, you know, to give them those exemptions and also to give them, you know,

the actual costs of the pay that they've lost, different damages of that sort. And then they also wanted to do things more broadly, asking the court to declare that the policy, the vaccine policy in the DOD is unconstitutional and enjoin the government from enforcing it. So, you know, it's not just about specifically these cases. It is about these specific Navy SEALs and trying to get them relief. But it's also about, you know, more broadly pushing back against this rule. Got it. Well, Daniel, thank you for keeping track of all these moving parts. We'll continue to watch this for sure. Brad, we're going to come to you on another story that was pretty unique that we published earlier this week. But there's an ongoing dispute between the state and rural telecommunication providers. Can you give us a bit of a recap of the issue?

Yeah. So the state is facing a lawsuit from a group of telecommunication companies and co-ops, nonprofit providers. And it has its origins in the Texas Universal Service Fund, which is a fund that finances expansion of telecommunication infrastructure and service to very remote rural areas that otherwise would not be able to don't have the customer base to support organic business expansion and so the usf helps finance that basically defrays cost of of expanding these operations and last year there was a change in what kind of calls are are effectively taxed for this fund every um on every bill statement every month um someone that has a phone bill uh they pay

a very small amount um currently it's 50 cents but the puc was being lobbied to increase that to 95 cents because the array of types of calls and calling plans that have this fee was diminished. And so you have a drop off in the amount of money it brings in. And that's caused a lot of these telecom companies to bleed tens of millions of dollars every month. And so a lot of them are under threat of falling through financially. And so they have sued the state to get the state to force the state to sure up its end of the bargain. It is in state code that there's a mandate that everyone in Texas must have access to a telephone connection. And so these companies are the ones who are tasked with expanding that out. Yeah. Now, this week, one of those rural providers announced significant changes to its plan

because of this lack of state funding. Tell us what happened. Yeah. So Dialtone Services, a satellite phone company that has about 3,000 clients throughout Texas in all very remote areas, because it's a satellite phone, it's designed explicitly for the remotest of the remote. And so they have a lot of people out in like Brewster County down by Big Ben National Park along the border. That's where most of their client base is and operates.

But they announced last month, or sorry, it was in September that they're they would be increasing their prices about 140% for per unit, so per satellite phone. And so some of these clients, they have multiple satellite phones. And so that massive rise in price has caused a lot of concern among these clients, the customers, because a lot of them can't afford that kind of price increase. And so the company feels it's been backed into a corner because of the state not upholding its end of its obligation in terms of state code.

And now they are forced to increase prices in order to make up for the loss in revenue from the state. And so they offered to kind of exempt certain members, certain customers based on special circumstances. And we got a hold of letters from customers to Dial Tone Services and had some interesting stories. I linked to the list of letters in the piece. I recommend you go read them um some of them are very very um fascinating and kind of uh heart-wrenching in terms of the situations they faced for example there's a non-profit ambulance company in brewster county that relies on six sat phones um and they operate in like 80 to 100 hundred mile radiuses. And so, uh, at times away from the hospital, they have to bring patients to.

And so they can't ask, they can't communicate unless they have these sat phones. Um, there were a couple of people that wrote in and said that they, they interact a lot with border crossers. And so like they run into illegal immigrants quite a bit. One person ran into one that an illegal immigrant that had been um basically assaulted and left behind from its group from the person's group and so um board he called board patrol they were able to get there and save the person's life and so um you know without if this person did not have the sat phone that would not have been the case and that person would have died so um this is a very sticky situation you definitely feel for the

people that are facing these massive price increases and the company's trying to figure out how to best approach this well and i think it's hard for a lot of texans who don't live in those parts of the state which is most texans to actually understand the application of what this means and i mean us without cell phones what would that look like and then you know factor in the uh distance at which a lot of these people live from other folks in their area it's just it's very very fast yeah and i think the reflexive response especially from you know people of more conservative opinions is oh it's government another government program yes and they say you know we shouldn't finance it.

But the state has mandated this. And so the state, that's what this is the case that the TTA is making in court. The state is literally not upholding its bargain. Right. That's the argument. If it's literally a mandate in statute, then someone is legally required to exercise it. And so that's the situation we're in. So what does resolution look like for a case like this? I think it's going to come down to exercise it. And so that's the situation we're in. So what does resolution look like for a case like this?

I think it's going to come down to the lawsuit. And from what I've heard, it seems like basically all the major players in this agree that the state is legally required to finance this, adequately fund it. But there, the state is also worried about not having enough money to do that. And so first we'll see a resolution in some form in the lawsuit, whichever way it goes. But I think it's probably pretty likely that the TTA wins on its merits. From that point, I don't really know.

The tech sludge tried to pass a bill that would have required VoIP calls, which is essentially calls over the internet, to be subject to this fee, which are some of the things that were taken out of what's essentially taxed that's causing this financial issue. But that was passed by legislature and then vetoed by Governor Abbott because he said it would have imposed a new fee on millions of Texans. And so that was his reasoning. And oral arguments are set for the case in December, but we'll see what comes of it. And it's certainly something to watch.

It's a very niche issue, but I think it's, especially for a sizable portion of Texans, it plays a big role in how things may play out. Absolutely. Well, thank you for covering that for us. Very important story. Um, and one that we're glad is not going unnoticed. Um, thank you for your reporting. Hayden, let's talk about, uh, a very interesting and semi scandalous situation in Maverick County. Um, but talk to us about this person in question, what he's accused of talk to us through the details well it looks like in south texas there is an investigator being investigated wow you did sorry that was that was my best attempt at saying something clever before my segment i think it was clever yeah well

i'll give you credit my last one went long so i promise this one will be a little short but there was a former Maverick County Deputy Sheriff who was in that position from November 2014 until October 1st of this year. According to the charging documents in this case, Fernando Lionel Chacon Jr., who is 41 years old, had been promoted to the position of investigator at some point during his employment. The indictment does not specify when that was, but according to the criminal allegations, the bribery scandal was said to occur from January 2015 until the point he left the sheriff's office last month. And he would allegedly remove criminal warrants, pending tickets and criminal cases from the National Crime Information

Center, NCIC, which I believe is the system that they run everyone's information through when during traffic stops and such to ensure that the person they have detained does not have a criminal warrant or some other criminal action pending against that individual. So he would remove damaging information for people allegedly, and the criminal complaint specifies or the indictment specifies that he accepted bribes from an informant. And then it lists out some of the bribes he accepted, although they are not necessarily limited to the ones that are listed out in the charging documents. So, of course, this criminal case is in its preliminary stages, and we'll have to see whether he is offered or accepts a plea deal or what the outcome of this criminal case is.

What the result of the investigation into the investigator might be. Yes, we'll have to see. So, I wanted to jump on the bandwagon with you, Hayden. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I'm here for you, my friend. Brad, we're coming have to see. So I wanted to jump on the bandwagon with you, Hayden. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I'm here for you, my friend. Brad, we're coming back to you. Elon Musk and Tesla are in the news again, specifically in terms of their Texas operations.

What news broke? So Elon Musk, Tesla, and a subsidiary of the company has been authorized to sell electricity in the state of texas and it's tesla energy ventures it's the name of the subsidiary the puc approved their certification this week and so it approves them to be operated as a retail electric provider which they uh they're the companies that purchase electricity on the open ercot market from generators and then sell it then to the um the the consumer and so uh they operate on the back end of the electricity generation process and um it comes this move comes after the grid catastrophe catastrophe in February.

Although the company had applied for certification before that, it had kind of been stalled because of what happened with the grid and all the fallout that came with that. Any time now someone thinks of the grid or here's the name ERCOT, that's what they go to. And so I'm sure there were some hoops that had to be jumped through. Minor panic attacks. Yes. So I'm sure there were some hoops that had to be jumped through from that i reached out to the president of the company uh she did she offered no comment i did get her on the phone but um she did not want to talk about anything so um they're being they're holding their uh their hand close to close to their chest and um we'll see how it unfolds i'm not sure uh exactly all that they will be delving into, but this is just another step.

Yeah, well, talk to us about whether this is part of a broader effort by Musk in Texas. It's certainly a broader effort to expand his overall operations, whether it's Tesla or SpaceX or just whatever other Musk ideas are conjured up. He's definitely moving more into Texas. And I think it's a reflection of the friendly business environment that the state has, especially compared with California. We saw the big breakup between him and I think it was the city of Fremont

that he has his Tesla headquarters in currently over COVID shutdowns. And now he's moving the headquarters to Austin, which he announced last month, mainly because of that. And so this is definitely a broader strategy on his part. But it's also, you know, this isn't the first time he's waded into the energy situation in Texas. After the winter storm, he announced that another subsidiary was building large-scale batteries to serve as kind of a safety net for the Houston area. So, serve as a safety net for that area in case another such disaster occurs he also his company is they

actively market solar panels and so they market it to tesla customers to put solar not these large scale solar farms but on houses to allow them to bring in generate their own electricity and they have battery storage as well so there's kind of this this broader um strategy that he has and he thinks that the energy side of tesla is going to surpass at some point his automotive sector of the business and based on his track record he's probably probably correct but we'll see how he diversifies that we know solar is part of that but does he join into anything else we don't know yeah well they're just main in the world is coming back to texas in another new way yep i will say that it's interesting that on your point tesla can now sell energy in the state of texas but it

cannot sell cars yes yes that is a yeah very interesting point i'm sure that is going to be addressed in the next legislative session far more aggressively i'm really surprised that it wasn't addressed more in the previous one yeah but now that he has moved his headquarters here or is in the process of that uh that comes with more political sway i bet but who knows if it's enough to get across the line it's very interesting well thank you bradley isaiah let's talk real fast about hunting season it's now in full swing here in texas when did it begin and what are the details modern gun season for white-tailed deer and wild turkey began november 6th in texas

archery season already began on october 2nd and muzzleloader season begins January 3rd. And there are other animals you can hunt, but white-tailed deer are the most popular big game in Texas. And most Texans that hunt them do so with a regular modern rifle. When we post this article on social media, I had one guy comment that say like, well, I've got a hundred year old black powder musket. Can I have that? And I thought like, well, yeah, you can,

there is a muzzleloading season. It's, it's kind of cool. My relatives in Arkansas, their, their muzzleloading season happens before modern guns. And so they've been doing that already with their, I guess,

muskets. I don't know what exactly they have, but they've all got muzzleloaders. So they've already been having fun over there. So, but yeah, the most popular, this is like, this is the anticipated one you know you can hunt whitetail with rifles which is what most people do so it's the most broadly exercised season likely um talk to us about the

health of the animal populations and what state biologists are saying so there was some doubt because of the february freeze but biologists are mostly optimistic. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department puts out predictions for these kind of seasons ahead of the start, and they estimate that the statewide whitetail population is around 5.4 million deer, which is down a little bit from previous years, but they are optimistic about antler quality and fawn recruitment, which is the technical term for the number of fawns that survive from birth until fall. Their predictions for turkey were not quite so detailed. Again, partially because, for one, they're not as popular because you can't hunt them as widely as deer.

In all but two counties, you can hunt whitetail. And turkey season is only in 177 of the state's counties and we've got 254 counties um anyway so but similar predictions for turkey um despite the severe freeze in february the subsequent rainfall and mild summer should have made for a strong recovery by now according to state biologists i like it well i say i thank you for following that for us a lot of our readers are certainly excited about this well gentlemen um for our fun topic today, I think this is very interesting. I want to know who came up. Actually, I'm going to guess who came up with this question.

The question is, what get rich quick scheme are you most likely to fall into? Oh, Daniel. It was Daniel. Do you want to know why I suggested this though? Here's the thing. I didn't know who it was. And it took one scan across these four gentlemen's faces to know that it was Daniel.

He's over there smiling like the Cheshire Cat. But I have a reason why. I'm ready. Because before we started the podcast, we were talking about how you were angry at Brad

or something. Just generally. In other news, the sky is blue. Yeah. Certainly. It made me flash back to our conversation

when we had that one fantastic debate about what business we would start and brad set a parking garage i did not know what i was walking into with this question i feel i feel trapped i feel like that star wars still an eminently reasonable and just great position to take i uh but here's the thing okay continue i'm not going to defend my, well, no, I will.

I, I will defend myself if necessary, but to continue Daniel, was that it? That was basically it. Now, I guess you could say like a parking garage isn't really get rich quick. It's just like a easy cashflow business.

Certainly. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Yeah. Okay. What gets you? Yeah. So let's answer the question. What get rich quick

scheme that's hard to say thanks guys are you most likely to fall into i could see isaiah doing uh um one of those like jewelry businesses those multi multi-level marketing jewelry businesses just going from one um one lady's house to another selling jewelry. See, based on the sweater he has on, I could see him trying to make it big with a makeshift hacky sack business. What is that called? It's called a, oh gosh, I can't remember. Is that what it's called? Yeah.

Okay. Or a drug road, colloquially. Oh, got it. that's good to know well the phrase the terminology fall into does this mean i'm like i'm being duped or i'm gonna engineer this get rich get rich clips game you're being duped i believe i mean we can ask the author of his original intent i i was just thinking of either way oh okay huh well it's hard for me to pick which one i would be duped into because I am so gullible. And it could be any one of them, really. Social security. That's amazing.

I don't know which one I would engineer. I'm going to come back to me. I'll think about it. Okay. Daniel, did you have something off the top of your head? I did. It was one that I actually fell into or that I'm currently in, I suppose.

Oh, stocks. Um, well, not just stocks in generally, but one specific stock. GameStop. No,

not GameStop. Um, you know, as we've been covering Texas politics, there's one, uh, primary candidate for governor. Chad Prather has tweeted about this stock several

times uh it's the stock handle or it's tggi okay um like thank god god it's friday no no it stands for trans global and something got it okay cool um somehow it's connected to china it's not officially on the stock market rumor is they're trying to get it put on NASDAQ. But right now it's like a penny stock. So the current value is about two cents per share. Okay. But there's speculation from some people that it's going to go up to, you know, either a dollar or four dollars by the end of the year. We'll see if it pans out or not.

I may have bought some shares. How many? More, more shares than I have in anything else. You're the majority stakeholder in this company. No, no. Far from it.

Penny stocks. Penny stocks will do it. There's a lot of stocks in the penny stock that are going around, but. Wow. Interesting. Okay. So you currently have fallen into that one.

I have currently fallen into that one i'm still waiting for my return but okay i see we'll see maybe maybe i'll end up a millionaire in a few months if you do you should you should buy us lunch okay just lunch just lunch that's all i ask lunch yeah sure i'd like a coffee you know just a cup of coffee that's what you're gonna have for lunch no just like in addition to my lunch. Oh, yeah. I've got a meal, Jerry. Bradley.

Well, as I mentioned on a previous podcast. Oh, dear. I a friend or not. I wouldn't call a friend. Someone in high school from high school reached out to me and tried to get me involved and get rich quick. That's right. And if he ever finds his podcast, he will be so offended. I'm sure he'll be so offended. Someone from high school reached out to me and tried to get me involved in Get Rich Quick Scheme. That's right. If he ever finds his podcast, he will be so offended.

I'm sure he'll be so offended. I caught a whiff of it from a mile away and obviously knew what kind of garbage it was. So I didn't fall for that. But I think if I were to fall for something, it would probably be trying to start a bar and you know how many how much money people pour into these things and how many of them go under that doesn't really qualify explicitly as a get rich quick scheme but because any sort of like yeah food or beverage operation is not a get rich quick that doesn't happen quick you don't get rich quick depends on how popular it is but with how much money you invest first up front to get it off the ground it takes a lot longer i'm saying this because i can't think of a

get rich quick okay so this is what you're gonna get answers to these questions that was brutal thank you they're horrible and chose violence this is this is the this is the conflict that i was hoping for oh well good it was pretty pretty uh can't wait to see what uh you know grade a answer you come up with oh yeah well let's go to hayden next who's over there i feel like i'm caught in the crossfire over here um i i don't know what y'all are talking about with get rich quick schemes because i um am in the process of rescuing the nephew of the deposed king of zimbabwe and all i had to do was send my social security my checking account information routing number everything probably your blood type just in case i did include that information just you know better safe than sorry or any side of caution

and when that family gets back into power in zimbabwe they are going to send me a 25 billion dollar fortune oh my goodness and remember that episode where we talked about winning the lottery yes that pales in comparison i'm going to going to buy so many lake houses a dozen lake houses so y'all missed out i was it was a personal invitation to me michael scott oh well no i believe the office where he talks i believe he rescued a nigerian prince okay very big difference yeah major difference one is just you know that's not gonna happen but zimbabwe a little bit more realistic there wow i'm looking at my stocks i have like 100 bucks of bitcoin not even that like 50 bucks that's no i have no i have oh my gosh guys my bitcoin's doing really well that's my garage quick scheme is like 200 bucks currently of bitcoin you're as excited

as daniel gets when he checks his stocks app and he has made money yes he gets more excited when he makes money then he gets sad when he loses money though so the high well you better have it's better to have higher highs than very low lows you know that's true if they if they don't yeah that's my argument when daniel checks his phone though and he looks around the room and he goes guys guess what i just asked how much money did you win or how much money did you gain today you know one of my really low lows was well guys thanks for your i don't sorry when um yeah i was but um when isaiah hid in my closet and uh i knew he was hiding i knew he was somewhere in this building ready to jump out and scare me and this is just an honor of his birthday i'm just bringing this back up because i think it

was a good moment for you and a bad moment for me but he hid in my closet he jumped out i immediately collapsed onto the floor and uh the grin on his face said it all i want to draw attention to a couple words you said this building just to clarify it was in this work building i didn't jump out of your home closet or anything like that there were many people around this was not in the dead of night it was not that much of a covert operation and other people were informed of the operation before yes well i walk into the office and one he's not at his chair which back in the day would make me think immediately of some sinister plot to just weaken my person and then all three of these boys faces who are not Isaiah, were grinning with unsuppressed, or they were suppressed in their best attempt to smile. Oh, Hayden wasn't here.

Were you not here at this point, Hayden? Oh, that's right. Yeah, you weren't. Wow, this is pre-Hayden. This was, yeah, this was before Hayden. Anyway, but I felt something was happening. Something was wrong in the force but i wasn't sure what it was yeah i've kind of i was telling them i kind of ran out of places and um they and

i was just talking about this i told them i'm gonna have to like i don't know start using firecrackers or something because no i've used all the hiding places in the office so i just have to keep waiting until you forget them no minor explosives will be uh kept or oh that's what i meant to say is that that won't happen. Got it, thank you. Yes, that's just one. You can rest assured. That will not happen in this office.

If it does, there will be severe consequences. Severe consequences. Yes, that's true. No firecrackers. Just putting that out into the ether. What if you light them in and you like, you toss them in the air right before they blow up so there's no scorch marks on the ground or anything? Oh, you know what would be really good you know like how they have those parties this is like this it's a little thing and with a string attached and you pull the string and it pops the party yeah yeah that's

that's as long as there is no gunpowder type substance in this office that could potentially isaiah is mocking me Yeah, that's not allowed. Thanks, guys. Any other favorite Isaiah memories? How did we get to this? I spawned it. Just made sure it happened. Wow, guys.

Well, I learned that Isaiah is the only one in this office who appreciates my movie references so that's awards him many points in my book regardless of how messy his desk is not so much today not so much today he says the weather is clear oh my gosh i love when um uh he puts different photoshopped pieces of art into our slack channels where someone's face is photoshopped into someone else's face yeah oh yeah give it give the mic to hayden he has something to add i thought i had something to add and then i withdrew him anyway he no he put my face on four bales of hay yesterday i don't well you did that prior and and brought it back but i don't i just i don't understand i think i said hey hyphen den as like hey den yeah i mean i get it

but i don't get it like i said i said to earlier, you know, some of his memes make me laugh and others, my brain, I'm trying to understand them. And it's like trying to start a car that won't catch. So that's my dilemma when I'm trying to understand Isaiah's memes. But others of them are very funny. So I will, I will give him that credit well good i'm glad about that they provide a lot of entertainment i think you saying i get it but i don't get it encapsulates who isaiah is as a person great hi yes daniel one thing that i've noticed not noticed it's interesting his

his choices in food oh because he has some really fantastic barbecue sometimes which makes me really jealous yes because he brings it in heats it up in the microwave and it just smells delicious i'm getting hungry thinking about it but um then i also remember like the first day that he came into work and he brought a potato oh my gosh i was not prepared for that yes well yes and sometimes the brisket which oftentimes he may i mean he he's a prolific prolific uh cook and barbecuer and biscuit baker which i was not aware of homemade biscuits um but sometimes they're heated up at you know 10 30 a.m it's like oh gosh, you're eating brisket at 10 30 AM. Any thoughts, Isaiah? Think of all the people on the Titanic. You saw the dessert cart going by.

They're like, no, watching my figure. You want to go that way? It's like, Oh no, it's 10 30. I can't. You could die right then. That's true. With that brisket still steaming. Well, I guess if you're not prepared to, forget about it. You've got to live for the now. I don't think we ever will forget about it. Let's end the podcast on this tweet from Isaiah at 1021 a.m. How do people forget food in the fridge for weeks?

I come to work. I put my lunch in the fridge and think about it it nonstop until 10.59 a.m. Yes. And then around 10.40, I asked him, hey, Isaiah, what are you thinking about? He said, this article that I'm working on. I said, well, then you lied. And he said, well, no. I ate my lunch at 10.30.

Oh, my gosh. Isaiah, that's amazing. Okay, folks, well, thank you so much for listening. Isaiah, happy birthday. Thank you. And, folks. Well, thank you so much for listening. Isaiah, happy birthday. And folks, we will catch you next week. Thank you 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.

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