The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 25, 2022

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

This Black Friday and Cyber Monday ONLY, get an annual subscription to The Texan at this link: https://thetexan.news/register/?level_id=3&coupon=311628The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.  This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the entire reporting team joined for a special holiday edition of the Weekly Roundup to discuss some news from the week, a look back at some Texas history, and Thanksgiving traditions. 

Happy Black Friday, folks! We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving week and celebrated with friends and family. The whole crew joined this special holiday edition of the Weekly Roundup to chat through news from the week, a look back at some Texas history, and Thanksgiving traditions. And last but not least, I'm happy to let you know that today, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday only, we're having a special discount on subscriptions to The Texan. Normally $90. If you subscribe today, you'll get a year's worth of content for only 45 bucks. So don't delay. This offer is only available for two days, today and Monday. Go to thetexan.news forward slash subscribe to find this limited time 50% off offer. Thanks for listening and enjoy the

rest of this podcast. Well, howdy, everyone. It's Mackenzie Taylor here. We have Kim, we have Holly, Brad, Hayden, and Rob. We'll have Matt momentarily. We basically have the whole team for our podcast episode this week. Happy Thanksgiving. It is Friday. If you're listening, we recorded this earlier this week so that we can be spending time with our families and friends and enjoying this holiday. But team, we've been cranking it out and getting a ton of stuff prepped and ready. So we are able to take that time and enjoy some relaxation with our loved ones.

Are y'all ready for Thanksgiving? Anybody have plans that you're already juggling? I know, Kim, you just had one of your kiddos come home and you're expecting the other two. Yep. Mother's dream. Oh, I love it. That's awesome. Brad, what about you? You're staying in Texas this year, right? I am. And I've been spending the time watching the World Cup. I know, commie ball, Daniel. The U.S. had a nail-biter yesterday that was a really good game, but I'm anxiously awaiting the game on Saturday,

Michigan versus Ohio State, undefeated, number two in the country versus number three. That's going to be the highlight of my week this week. Provided we win, of course. The good guys. Of course. Not the evil empire. The evil empire.

My gosh, someone's a little biased. Rob is the sole office survivor this week. He is the only one. Daniel and I were in the office yesterday, but Rob is alone in the office today, and I hear he was singing Christmas carols. I was starting to lose my mind a little in the office all alone, but I suppose it's nice having it all to myself.

But yeah, I started singing Christmas carols at one point just to sort of, you know, be doing something in the middle of just working. Not feel as quiet or alone when you're in the office. Exactly. Hayden, where are you? Are you still in Austin or are you off to see family? I am here in the Rose Capital.

I came over to Tyler, decided to spend some time with family before our big family gathering, which is on Thanksgiving Day up in the Dallas area. So I'll be in East Texas and North Texas for the next few days. That's awesome. And Holly is tuning into some news right now. So she'll join us a little bit. So she's got her ear to the ground over in Harris County. And we'll hear about her Thanksgiving plans later as well as Matt's as he kind of comes back from an assignment he was on. So momentarily, we'll chat with them. But gentlemen, why don't we go ahead and jump in the news? And lady, Kim, I do. I need to remember that I have a delightful company. It's not just me and the boys. I'm so used to it. But Hayden, we'll start with you. Some Texas current and

former elected officials weighed in after the announcement of Trump's 2024 presidential bid. What were some notable reactions? Well, we had some familiar names weigh in and reactions that ranged from ambivalence to full-throated support. Senator Cruz, who was, of course, an opponent of Donald Trump in 2016, weighed in on his podcast verdict. In an episode of his podcast, he praised the former president and criticized Joe Biden and said, quote, Joe Biden and the disaster of the last two years deserves mocking because it has been horrific. It's hurt the American people and all across the country, people are suffering, end quote. Cruz went on to talk about how he was, in his opinion, the, quote, strongest ally, end quote, of Donald Trump in the U.S.

Senate, and that he was proud of the legislative movements that they made during Trump's time in office. But there was also some hesitation. Senator Cornyn, Politico reported, said that he would support the eventual nominee, but that he hoped that there would be a vigorous primary with competitive contests throughout the primary season. And then former Governor Rick Perry also didn't give his backing, but he said, quote, I'm of the opinion that this will all sort itself out, end quote. And the Texas Tribune reported that he said that at a conference last week. And Perry was Trump's secretary of him in the former president. So lots of different reactions from Texas Republicans. I do not think Governor Abbott has commented on it yet. At least I have not seen any comment from the governor. And eventually his silence is going to be more and more significant. But those are a few of the reactions that have happened so far. that it takes certain Republicans to jump in behind the former president or wait for an inevitable opponent like DeSantis potentially to jump in as well. What could this mean for that contest in the 2024 Republican nomination?

Well, Senator Cruz last time did not criticize Trump until late in the race. If I recall, it was after Trump and Cruz became the main contenders, and it was clear that those two were rivaling for the nomination. But as we talked about last week, DeSantis outdid Trump in a poll of likely voters in Texas. Brad reported on that, excuse me, likely Republican voters in Texas, and they preferred Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the president. So it could be a perilous road to the Republican

nomination for Trump. It's certainly not a given for him. 43% supported DeSantis in that poll, whereas only 32% in Texas supported Trump. And common sense would dictate that other states, DeSantis is also competitive. So it is not a given that Trump will win the nomination at all. And DeSantis has become a really a folk hero for conservatives. So he has a strong possibility of being a good candidate. And then other candidates are also on the table. Ted Cruz has been open about his aspirations. And former Vice President Mike Pence could also run. He's been doing things that would signal a possibility of running for president. So the 2024 presidential contest definitely is off to an early start. And it seems that the pro-Trump, anti-Trump, middle-of-the-road Trump crowds are starting to develop. Absolutely. Hayden, thank you for your coverage. Bradley, we're coming to you.

Among the tasks in front of the Texas legislature next year is to appropriate the projected $27 billion surplus coming from inflation-driven record consumption tax collections. How is this shaken out so far? So the big question is how much of that sum will go toward buying down property taxes. Governor Abbott has called for using at least half that sum, which may actually grow larger by January to provide property tax relief. The foremost method of doing that is by compressing local rates, increasing the state's share of the school finance system, which then drives down local rates and either reduces the increase that otherwise would have happened in those local rates, or depending on how big it is, may actually reduce property tax bills. Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor, has said it may even be a larger portion than at least

half or than half of it. And some legislators, such as newcomer Kerry Isaac in HG73, want to see the entire pot put toward buying down property taxes. However, Speaker Phelan threw cold water on that suggestion last week. He said, let me just remind you, none of this money came from property taxes. It all came from sales tax. I just want to remind everyone that this money is in our coffers because of inflation, because of financial pain. Phelan indicated that he intends to put at least some of it towards infrastructural improvements, whether it's roads, water, broadband, education.

There are already a bunch of different interests lining up to get a piece of that $27 billion pot of money, essentially, that the legislature, because they have to balance the budget, have to appropriate. And so there's going to be a lot of hands trying to grab their piece of the pie here. How much of it goes to property taxes is a really big question that we do not know the answer to yet. How was this contention received? So in response to Phelan's statements, State Rep. Tony Tenderholt, who is challenging Phelan for the speakership, criticized the position saying the Texas Republican platform calls for us to move away from the broken property tax system and shift to sales taxes. This year provides

historic opportunity to do just that. And yet our current speaker is criticizing incoming freshmen for supporting Republican policy. The statement that I read of Phelan's was in tacit response to Isaac's statement from a couple weekends ago about using the entire sum for property tax compression specifically. However, it's clear that Abbott and Patrick both intend to use portions of it for other purposes as well. You know, those are the three big hitters in Texas politics, the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the house. And so the odds, at least right now, of the entire thing going towards property taxes is pretty slim to none. Patrick indicated in July that he wants to use portions for another 13th check for retired teachers to raise teacher pay and to continue the 2019 tax rate compression. I'm sure once we get closer to the session, these proposals will start getting hammered out a lot more formally.

Absolutely. Anything else we should know about this before we pivot? Yeah. So however this plays out, it's important to note that if all that's done is compressing rates, then it'll only last so long as legislators appropriate the funding for it. It's kind of a band-aid solution. If you don't fix the system itself, the mechanism for why the property taxes are the way they are, why schools lean on them so heavily, which will necessarily entail the state injecting its own funding in the long term if you were to do that. Unless you do that, you're only addressing the issue of high property tax bills one by any amount of time, because that's when the budget is set. Ideas have been floated to eliminate the ISD M&O rate, which is the largest portion of tax bills. But that requires, again, some level of increased state dollars. Lastly, Phelan is right that the sum comes at least partially from economic trouble. Part of it's coming from an economy on the mend after the government-mandated shutdowns of the pandemic.

But it's also the record levels are being driven by inflation as consumers pay higher prices for goods, as we see higher prices for oil and gas. The consumption taxes paid in those are also higher. And so that is a big reason why we're seeing such large sums here. Comptroller Hager has been clear, Glenn Hager has been clear that this doesn't just come from a roaring economy and cannot be expected to continue at its current pace. We'll see how long it continues. But it is not necessarily a sign. These record levels are not necessarily a sign of unabashedly good economic times. We've kind of been teetering on the edge of a recession for a while. We'll see if that actually comes to fruition. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, coming back to you,

some cartel members faced a federal judge in Plano. What sentence was handed down? There were two defendants. One was from California and another was from Mexico. They pleaded guilty in December of 2021 to drug trafficking charges. They, according to the Department of Justice, were nabbed through an operation that was launched in January 2010 to investigate criminal activity that was happening in the boundaries of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which is a bizarrely shaped district that stretches up into what is geographically North Texas, but this falls within the Eastern District of Texas for federal court purposes. And prosecutors accused the two

defendants of organizing a lot of the cartel, the Las Zetas drug cartels, trafficking activities. And these two individuals also handled the profits. And those proceeds were, of course, used to illegally purchase firearms and other materials and to perpetrate the cartels' crimes. But the individual from California was 43 years old. The Mexican defendant was 53 years old. And they were each sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. And in the federal prison system, prisoners are not granted parole. So even if they get time off for good behavior, they will serve the vast majority of that sentence and will be in prison until they are very old. How did the DOJ characterize their roles in the cartel?

Well, these individuals were high-ranking officials in the Las Vegas drug cartel, which is known for its brutality and controls major portions of the border in terms of human trafficking and human smuggling. But there are more or less two leaders of the Los Zetas cartel, the primary leader, and then his main deputy, who is, according to the DOJ, seen as an equal. And these two defendants were answered directly to those two men, and they were part of a group of three who were the main enforcers for this cartel. So they were very much at the highest levels, almost to the highest level of the cartel. And in cases like these, that will leave a vacuum and almost certainly there will be

somebody else who will fill that role. But as far as these two people concerned, they are headed to federal prison in the United States for trafficking drugs. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering the border as always. We appreciate it. Brad, we are coming back to you. A long running redistricting suit has met its end. What happened this week? So the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the legislature's drawing specifically of Senate District 10, which is up in Tarrant County, portions of it outside of Tarrant County, at least in the new drawing. The court dismissed the case this week against that. It dismissed it because the appeal of the Fifth Circuit's decision that came on February 1st, I think it was, was filed well after the 30-day window for appeal after that initial ruling that they were thus appealing. The appeal came in early June, well after the 30-day window. The suit had been on its last legs for a while as Senator Beverly Powell, who occupies the seat, but declined to run again eventually due to the GOP favorable drawing

of the district. After she was no longer a party to the suit, there were some other lesser known elected officials that were part of the suit in suing the state over it. But they were alleging that the drawing of the district broke up communities of interest, violated the Voting Rights Act, various things. And ultimately, merits of that were not decided upon by the Supreme Court because the filers did not meet this deadline.

Now, legislators must pass redistricting maps this session because of how delayed the census was. The state constitution requires maps to be passed the first regular session after the census. So it may just be as simple as repassing the current ones, but they're going to have to do something on this. So it's not like redistricting is done for another 10 years. They're going to have to come back. Republicans might decide to try and adjust the South Congress, South Texas congressional districts.

I don't know if they will, but that's something they could do to make it more competitive in the two seats they lost down there that they were really eyeing. So we'll see what they do. But this case as it, as it currently stands, is dead. And I think there's one more that half of the case was chopped off in state court earlier. And so that involves a South Texas congressional district. And the legislature allegedly breaking the county line rule.

But this was a big one and the court has dismissed it. So it is done. Thank you, Bradley. Folks, this Thanksgiving, don't forget to go to the texan.news to take advantage of our Black Friday slash Cyber Monday deal. If you subscribe to the Texan today or on Monday, you will score a whopping 50% discount on an annual subscription. These usually cost $90. And with that 50% off, it'll come to

just $45 a year for the highest quality reporting in Texas. Hurry and don't miss out on this limited time deal and subscribe today. Hayden, the district attorney of Dallas County recently canceled a controversial policy regarding theft prosecutions. Tell us about his decision. systematic policy of declining to prosecute theft offenses unless they involved an amount of more than $750 or were committed for economic gain. He rescinded the policy after pledging on the campaign trail that he would reconsider it if he won re-election, and that is exactly what he did. He described many of the components of the policy saying he wanted to implement something to decriminalize poverty is the phrase he used. And he was seeking

to do something to adopt a more restorative justice approach to theft prosecutions instead of simply prosecuting anyone for committing theft. This policy, according to him, applied to misdemeanors, theft of $100 to $750. And according to him, the municipal courts handle thefts under $100. So that was not covered by this policy. But as of Monday, the policy is rescinded effective immediately. What were some of Cruz's complaints about opponents of the program? Well, he said, according to him, that there were myths spread about the policy, including that it was used to justify everything from any misdemeanor theft wasn't prosecuted or that he wasn't prosecuting thefts of catalytic converters. I'm not exactly sure why that particular item was singled out, but that was

something that was addressed in his news release. But he said that, in his opinion, the policy was targeted toward people stealing essential items out of desperation instead of people stealing things for economic gain. But it was criticized by his Republican opponent in the DA's race, Faith Johnson, who was formerly district attorney from 2017 until she lost in 2018 to Caruso. She criticized it as being a blanket policy. I spoke with her months ago when she gave us an interview and she described it as a blanket policy and bad for the county. But Caruso pushed back against many of the characterizations of his practice of not prosecuting this, what he characterizes as a narrow set of crimes. Could Caruso still decline to prosecute occurrences of theft?

He stated that he will continue to use prosecutorial discretion to prosecute and pursue charges against those who deserve it, in his words. So theoretically, he still could decline to prosecute these types of offenses. But this sweeping policy of his office is ended, according to this news release. But he's not in any way giving up his authority as a DA to choose which occurrences and to what extent he prosecutes. He's also said that he won't prosecute certain types of crimes against state abortion laws. And he said that in the wake of the Roe against Wade ruling. That was one of the criticisms that Faith Johnson had of his campaign was that he was declining to prosecute certain crimes. So he will continue to use prosecutorial discretion. But as far as the sweeping policy goes, it ended on Monday.

Well, Hayden, thank you for that. Kim, we are now coming to you to talk through a story you wrote this week, a very incredible story. A North Texas family found itself at the U.S. Supreme Court. Tell us about the issue that took them there. Well, Chad and Jennifer Burkeen, they are a family that live here in rural North Texas, sought to add to their family through the foster to adopt process. They went through that process in 2014 and never knowing that eight years later they would be in the United States Supreme Court. And they found themselves sitting there on November 9th, listening to the nine justices of the Supreme Court and all the attorneys representing the various parties discussing their adoption of Native American children.

And how that came to be is that the legal issues involved a law called the Indian Child Welfare Act that was passed in 1978. It's also referred to as ICWA. And it was passed by Congress to prevent the century of Native American children were homes, first of their family, then of families of their tribe, and then of families from other Indian tribes, and then actually an approved institution before an actual non-conforming family. And that's what the Perkins would be considered because they are not Native American. So they would be considered what is called a non-conforming family. Wow, quite complicated.

And the legality of it is something that I know you really dug into. What is the current status of this case? What do we expect going forward? Well, the Burkins got involved in 2016 when they had their son placed with them. And they were told at the time that he was a Native American baby and would likely only be with them for a few months. And so every time they met with their caseworker, they would check on the status of whether they had found a tribal placement for him.

And none came up. And so after a year of him being in their home, obviously bonding with them and their other children, they filed to adopt him. His biological parents have had their parental rights terminated, and his biological family actually supported the adoption by the Brickings. That was not the beginning of a family. It was the beginning of legal problems. And after a year, it was a complicated legal battle. But after a year, the Perkins were able to finalize the adoption of their son after they got a letter from the tribe that they would not object to the adoption. But then a few months later, they discovered that their son's biological mother had another child, a daughter, so their son's sister. And they knew that in Texas, there's a preference to keep siblings together. And so they sought, she had been removed from the mother. And so they

sought to have her come and live with them and proceed with her adoption. But the matter has been both in state and federal courts. It's gone up to the Supreme Court of Texas and back down to the district level, and it's proceeded all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Reed O'Connor, who's a federal district judge in the Northern District of Texas, first heard the case at the district court level, and he found in favor of the Brookings and the state of Texas, who's also a party to the case, that parts of ICWA are unconstitutional, violate equal protection, and violate the 10th Amendment by requiring the states to commandeer their resources

to serve federal purposes. So you don't often hear a 10th Amendment case. So that was kind of interesting. The Fifth Circuit then heard the case on appeal on Bonk, which is fairly rare. And then it was appealed to the Supreme Court, who spent three hours on oral arguments. That's three times longer than the average. Most cases get an hour of oral arguments. But there were multiple longer than the average. Most cases get an hour of oral arguments. But there were multiple parties to this case, the state of Texas, the United States federal government, tribes, and families. So, the Brookings heard the Supreme Court, but while they wait on that decision, they're also facing another hearing in the state court

system to find out if their foster daughter, their son's sister, will remain with them. She's been with them since she was an infant. She's four and a half now. They are the only family and home she's ever known, but they're facing possibly her being moved to Colorado. So there's more detail in this story at the Texans website. I hope people will go and read it. It's a pretty compelling story, in my opinion. And in mine as well. Kim, that was a phenomenal story. Thanks for telling it and diving into the intricacies. Certainly a story that requires a legal mind and a perspective, but also a lot of heart. So thank you for telling that story for our readers. Holly, we are coming to you. In the small town of Kima, the city council has voted to replace the longtime city attorney and is now working to remove a well-known attorney from all cases.

Why is this attorney well-known and what are some of the concerns? Well, the city council is looking at removing the services of a law firm known as Louis Brisbane. But the main attorney that's been working with the city is an attorney by the name of Bill Helfand. He's best known for being part of the legal defense team for Attorney General Ken Paxton in his whistleblower lawsuit that is still pending in the courts. But in this case, there's a lot going on in this very small town. I think the population, residential population, is less than 3,000, but it's a little tourist town, if you will. And they have a number of legal issues pending before them. They've had an investigation of their police chief. And this attorney, Bill Helfen, was tasked with looking

into some allegations against the police chief. He did deliver a report to the city council and a citizen requested that report through public records requests. But the city tried to block the release of this report and appealed to the attorney general's office. The attorney general's office ruled that they had to release the report, but then Bill Helfand turned around and sued the Attorney General to continue to block release of the report. So that was one of the issues and the City Council was concerned about what was happening there. But another bigger case is this federal lawsuit that's been pending since January. Bill Helfand represents the city in this particular lawsuit. Now, at one point during discovery, they sought

some documents from the city and under Helfand's guidance, the city produced these two large troves of documents, but then later tried to claw back some of the documents that are communications between the mayor and the former building administrator, a man by the name of Brandon Schoaf, the federal court judge rejected Helfand's request. So these are still part of the documents that are now available online and now publicly available that the city did not want to be made available. Another interesting twist in that story is that this building code administrator, Brandon Schoaf, is no longer working with the city. He resigned earlier this year. He was wanted as a witness in this particular case. And when the plaintiffs had trouble locating Mr. Schoaf, they finally found him and issued a

subpoena. At that point, Helfand jumped in again and said, no, actually, I am representing Mr. Shoff individually. And now Bill Helfand is billing the city for his representation of Brandon Shoff. So there's some consternation with the city council about how this case has been handled and about some of how these other things have been handled. Last week, the city also voted unanimously, excuse me, not unanimously, but almost unanimously to break off their relationship with a long-term law firm, Gregg & Gregg. Dick Gregg III has represented the city for quite a long time as the city attorney. But they are very concerned about how these attorneys are representing city interests and how they are communicating with the city council about what's in the best interest of the city.

In another case that's pending before them, there's a property owner who has alleged that the city kind of, you know, gave her the runaround about permitting. And at some point they told her that in order to get permits to build on her property, she would have to bring in loads and loads of dirt to raise the level of the property 18 inches above the level of the street, which is really unusually high. Once she did that, then they came in and said, well, your property's too high, and now you have to remove all of this dirt. And there were some other, you know, miscommunications and things with this particular property owner. and they ended up denying her permit and telling her she had to start all over again after almost two years of fighting with the city about this. Now, this particular woman has now sent a demand letter to the city that tops $600,000 over her difficulties in trying to get her property moving forward. And that has also involved

these attorneys that the city is now looking at. There is one more twist to the story. There are three different mayors involved in the story. There's a former mayor by the name of Matt Wiggins involved. There's a former mayor by the name of Terry Gale involved and now the current mayor, Carl Joyner. The city council has voted to ask the FBI and the Texas Rangers to investigate Mayor Carl Joyner over some of his participation in these permitting decisions and deciding who's going to get the permits and who's not going to get the permits. In addition, the previous mayor, Matt Wiggins, also seems to be involved in some of these scandals. And there's an affidavit in relation to that federal lawsuit asserting that Matt Wiggins may have had access to files of some

of the properties inappropriately. Wiggins has also been indicted on felony charges of abuse of official capacity, and he will have a jury trial next month. So small town, a lot going on, a lot of legal conflict, and now it looks like the city is going to move to adopt all new legal representation. Such a spicy story for such a small town. Holly, thanks for covering that from start to finish. And we'll certainly keep an eye on the developments. Folks, we're going to pivot here to some festive stories at the Texan.

Matt, we're going to come to you. You're writing a very, very festive story about turkeys. Give us an inside look at what the story is about. That's right, Mackenzie. So before I tell you a little bit about what this story is going to be about, I should tell our listeners a little bit about how this came about. So within the past couple of weeks, I did a story about the opening of hunting season and all of the different seasons that were opening up.

And we noticed that there was a relatively new fall season for turkeys. And my boss has said, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we did an additional turkey story for Thanksgiving? And I said, well, I'm doing a hunting story about everything now. And they said, but wouldn't it be cool if we had a turkey story for Thanksgiving? And I said, I get the message. So I'm reading up everything there is to know about turkeys in Texas. I've been reading and there's been some great resources. I've been reading about the different species. I've been reading about their habitats and what their populations numbers are and the history of the hunting season and gathering information about actual turkey associations and just all kinds of fun stuff that I almost have done here in a story. So it gives

you a little bit of a sneak peek on what we're looking at. And I think it'll be a very appropriate story for the coming holiday. Absolutely. We love and our listeners and readers certainly love these stories that detail how Texas operates in terms of hunting seasons and different times of year. So it's always fun to publish those for our readers. They really appreciate it. So Matt, thanks for contributing to that. Hayden, let's talk about Texas history here. Texas reached a compromise about 170 years ago, relinquishing land in what is now New Mexico.

What were the parameters of this deal? Well, in 1841, according to the Texas State Historical Association, the president of the Republic of Texas sent an expedition to what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico, to try to reclaim the territory in that area. And ultimately, the expedition was unsuccessful after they were captured by Mexican troops. And according to the Historical Association, there wasn't even a shot fired. So the Texas expedition was easily overtaken by the Mexican government, and Texas ended up losing that territory. But eventually, the US government reclaimed that territory during the Mexican War. And that was a few years after Texas became a state in 1845. And New Mexico, of course, did not become a state until many, many years after that in 1912. But Texas became a state in

1845. And the US government was able to wrestle that territory, that area back away from the Mexican government. So Texas, what is now that portion of New Mexico, is the land that was in question. Does this have any wider implications for Texas history? Texas legislature always seems to have a role in Texas history. And that was the case in this instance. And shortly after the U.S. government was able to take this territory back, the Texas legislature divided it into or established what was called Santa Fe County. And then after that, divided it up into four different counties, which was El Paso County, Presidio, Santa Fe, and Worth County. And then ultimately, a compromise was reached where a portion of Presidio and I believe El Paso County

were then ceded to what is now New Mexico. So lots of juggling back and forth between those two territories, but all of that, the anniversary of the Compromise of 1850, which included Texas giving back a portion of those counties that they had created, was on Friday, November 25th. So that is the anniversary of the 1850 Compromise. Wow. Well, Hayden, thanks for covering that. Folks, we really do care about Texas history and telling just y'all facts that you may not know or just commemorating big moments in Texas history.

It's very important to us here at the Texan and we love to do that, especially around the holidays. So Hayden, thanks for your coverage of that story. Bradley, let's talk about one more Texas history story that we have up our sleeve this week. Thursday, yesterday, is a significant date in the history of the Texas Rangers. Tell us why. So, on this day in 1835, the provisional Texas government gave official authorization to that point, loosely formed band of lawmen known as the Texas Rangers. This set the organization on the path of more official operations, for which they've become known in the centuries since. And now, obviously, they're under the Texas Department of Public

Safety. They serve an investigatory role. They investigate all numbers of different things, whether it's currently there's some investigating the election down in Harris County. There's also they investigate crimes and they served a role in the allegations in the legislature of sexual misconduct among lobbyists that turned out to be entirely fabricated. They looked into that a bit. And they just have an allure about them. They're fabled in Texas, obviously. Until this date in 1835, though, they had been operating in a loose form. They came and went.

Some of their commissions lasted days. Some of them lasted months. They're not really this formal thing. They were originally founded in 1823 by Stephen of Austin. They were contracted. He contracted 10 frontiersmen, the Rangers, as they would eventually become known as an unofficial law enforcement body to mainly repel Indian attacks on the frontier. And so, um, I recommend if you want to learn more about the Texas Rangers,

and if you haven't done this yet, you definitely should go to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and museum Waco. It was actually one of the first things I went to when I moved down here and, um, you know, Waco is not too far from Austin. So a friend of mine and I just went up there, spent a day there,

spent most of that day at this museum and it was really cool. Another famous chapter of the Rangers was Frank Hamer getting contracted to go by the governor of Texas, Ma Ferguson, to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde. And so there's a really good Netflix movie about that. I'm sure there's some historical inaccuracies as all of these Hollywood movies tend to do.

But it was really good, I thought, and from what I understand, stuck to the history pretty accurately. But it's fascinating. I'd recommend those two things. And the piece we're recording in advance, but the piece will be up on Thursday. So you can read that. I've got to add in something, Brad.

Do it. I went to the Ranger Museum at Waco one time to actually research my mom's great uncle, who was a Texas Ranger. And it was absolutely fascinating. You can go to their archives, especially if you're like trying to research a Ranger that was family member or research connections. And the research librarian will sit down and help you. And they were able to pull a file and show me old newspaper clippings and all of that sort of stuff from his career as a ranger. And one of the strange things that just makes it such a small world is I grew up in Alpine, Texas. And my whole family was friends with Joaquin Jackson, the famous one ranger. And Joaquin actually took my mom's great uncle's spot on the Rangers whenever he died, guarding somebody who was known as the caveman bandit, which was this episode back in the, I guess, 1950s or 60s, where there was this caveman living in amongst the hills of

West Texas and was getting into shootout with local police and all of that sort of stuff. And they got into a shootout and the caveman bandit was wounded and in the hospital. And my great uncle was gardening whenever he was, or my mom's great uncle was gardening whenever he's in the hospital and he ended up getting sick and died. And that's whenever the vacancy came about. But it was so fascinating going to Waco and looking through all the museums, seeing the seeing all the guns. I'm a big gun guy. And also just looking at the from the personal family perspective to being able to research all the history. Oh, yeah, that absolutely brings it to life, Matt. That's awesome. So cool and awesome that

they have that option for y'all to to be able to go in and research your family history. That's amazing. Okay, well, let's wrap up here with tweetery and our fun topics for today. So Brad, why don't you start us off with a tweet that caught your eye this week? So the tweet was from Senator John Cornyn. He was tweeting out an article from the Trib about the UT Board of Regents adopting the Chicago Statement, which is a paper in academia that has been circulated and adopted by some schools and entirely written off or shunned by others. But the whole purpose of it is to plant the institution's flag on protecting free speech and ensuring that differ the inmates have kind of started to run the prison on college campuses. don't like. They pressure administrations into canceling speaking events of speakers they don't like. And it's really become quite a problem. So UT System has decided, the Board of Regents has decided to adopt this Chicago statement. Now, it is just a statement. It's not like passing a law,

but it does express their position on the issue, something we're not seeing at places like Yale. They're especially bad. Cal Berkeley would be another one. So I think it's notable. We'll see if they hold themselves to it. But it's certainly something of note that occurred this week. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, what about you? I noticed the Associated Press tweet that referred to Mike Pence as a likely 2024 presidential contender. I thought that was a bold statement, not because it's not true, but because it doesn't seem like many people are. Mike Pence is not the primary names that is not on the primary list of names when it comes to 2024 yet. It's primarily been Trump and DeSantis. But he wrote a book about January 6th and his parting ways with Trump. saying it's increasingly likely that he's going to run is significant. It is always significant when major media outlets start to refer to someone as a likely candidate or a probable candidate. Yeah, fascinating to watch the field start to solidify a little bit, even if it's not solidified at all.

Rob, what about you? I know that there was some other Texas history that caught your eye this week. Indeed. So actually, this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. But also this day, and if I recall correctly, 1969, for music history fans out there, the Beatles released their ninth album titled The Beatles, but also known as The White Album. So it's a big day in general. Wow. Well, thank you, Rob. Holly, coming back to you, what did you see on Twitter?

I actually, as we're recording this podcast, have been watching what's happening at Harris County Commissioner's Court with accepting the canvas. There was a late ruling from the Supreme Court of Texas about these questionable ballots that we're not sure if they're going to count or not in the final totals. But what's at stake here are these provisional ballots that were cast after a local district court judge ordered that polls remain open for an extra hour on Election Day. Those are in dispute now. And the court has said that they're not entirely throwing them out, but they're telling the county to provide them with separate counts showing how many they were and whether or not they're going to affect these election contests. So the tweets I'm watching as we're recording this are from the county's attorney, Christian Menefee, who is celebrating the fact

that the court did not literally throw out these ballots. But also we're seeing the Harris County Republican Party saying that they applaud this move by the Supreme Court and believe the elections administrator needs to be held accountable for repeatedly violating the Texas election law, which exists to protect the rights of all Harris County voters. So we'll continue to watch this story and see what happens as everybody fights it out in Harris County over how we're going to conduct our elections. Oh, my gosh. As per the usual. Thank you, Holly, for your coverage. Now, Kim, you are the holdout on the team in terms of joining the Twittersphere. Talk to us a little bit about that. Well, I didn't see anything on Twitter because I don't go on Twitter.

I represent, I'm sure there's a portion of our readers and listeners who join me in thinking, vacillating between considering Twitter a black hole and a sewer pit. So I just stay off Twitter. So hello, all our readers and listeners. I'm not on Twitter either. Rob is giving you a big thumbs up. I have to say I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. I think you can get a lot of late-breaking news and a lot of on-the-spot information, but you don't want to delve too much into some of the comments and some of the, how would you say it, less positive commentary that shared on Twitter. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brad will vouch for the statement that social media

commenters are his favorite people in the world. So last night, I was looking on Twitter and Elon Musk made a tweet. He said, wait, if I tweet, does that count as work? And I was like, oh, that's kind of a funny observation there, Elon. And then I was like, wait a minute. Oh, my gosh. I'm in the same boat. Exactly. And for us, tweeting is a big part of our job. So, you know, there's some definitely some understanding there. Okay, well, let's move on to the fun. Follow us all on Twitter. Yeah, follow us all on Twitter.

Absolutely. Holly, do you want to jump in here? I was just, if it's work, can we get paid per tweet? Because I think I can drastically increase my income. Holly has a very big Twitter audience as well. So hats off to Holly. She's by far our most followed reporter. Okay. Not that it's a competition, but boys, get on it. Let's pivot to our fun topic here and talk through some Thanksgiving traditions. Are there

Thanksgiving traditions that y'all enjoy and recognize each year with your families? Walk us through that. I would say in our family, each person always has an assigned dish that they make. So I make the sweet potatoes. That's always the dish I make. My sister makes the stuffing. I make the cranberries. My dad usually makes the turkey. There's kind of a rhythm to which we make everything. And we're also pretty protective of the recipes. We don't trade them. We kind of stick with what we know because we've found recipes we really love. So I don't know if that's necessarily a tradition. We also usually watch a Christmas movie in the

evening, which I know some of y'all may have hot opinions on, or hot takes on. But that is something that we tend to do. I think it's Elf that we will watch on Thanksgiving. Kim is shaking her head at me. We already have talked about Christmas movies. Oh, man. Okay. Well, Kim, what are some traditions in your family for Thanksgiving? Well, we are going once again to the Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium. And I'm a little nervous because, Brad, I'm bringing up football. I know you already have once. Oh, don't worry. I was about to bring it up again, too. Okay. Well, the Cowboys had a commanding victory on Sunday over the formerly eight and one Minnesota Vikings.

But they're playing the Giants on Thursday. It's only three days, short week. I'm a little concerned that they gave it all on Sunday. And I really want them to play a good game when we're there on Thursday. But they have a similar record to the Giants. The Giants did lose to the Lions on Sunday. So that's... Hey now, there's no need for that, that pot shot. Yes, that is just weighing into what we're looking at. But anyway, that is what we're doing on Thanksgiving. We're going to watch Cowboys. I'm a Cowboys fan. I've been watching them since I was a little girl. And I've roped all my children into the strange obsession with the team that hasn't won a Super Bowl in almost 30 years.

Well, a lot of teams join y'all in a lot of ways in their droughts. I think it's more the Cowboys expect more wins and Super Bowl victories. So regardless, Holly, what about you? Sorry. Yeah, we don't have a whole lot of you know diehard traditions but we're looking at making a new tradition this year so my sons and i are going to head over to fredericksburg and the day after thanksgiving we're going to spend the day at the incredible national pacific war museum there which is great fun if you haven't been there. Another great museum. Oh my gosh. It's such a great museum. Yep. Well, that's so fun. Holly is amazing. I love it. I absolutely love that.

Bradley, what about you? Well, similar to, to Kim, my NFL team always plays on Thanksgiving the aforementioned and derided Detroit Lions that Kim had to go and take a pot shot at. Deservedly so. Kim, we are on a three-game win streak. Don't count us out when actually, I can't remember the last Lions Thanksgiving game that they won.

So the tradition has been to watch them get their butts kicked every year, and then we go and stuff our faces. We normally have – I'm not going home for Thanksgiving, but normally my family gathers in my grandparents' town of Jamestown, New York. And we have a big, on the Saturday after, we have a big feast of filet and crab. But because of inflation, crab legs are like $40 a pop now. So that's not good here. Yeah.

So, but I would be missing that anyway um so this year i'm just gonna watch watch some football watch uh the lions lose again and uh look forward to saturday for the better football game delightful uh hay, what about you? Well, usually we go to my grandparents' house in Garland, which is what we're going to do this year. And of course, we all eat and then the afternoon gets sleepy. And usually somebody goes and gets a Sunday paper and we all start clipping coupons for Black Friday. And it's only a handful of us really get into it. But for the rest of us, it's fun to watch those who get really excited about Black Friday deals.

We just, for the entertainment value, we just like to watch everyone go crazy about Black Friday. That's so fun. I love that. Well, that'll pivot into our next topic matthew do you have any fun uh will you guys be cooking up a turkey or or grabbing turkey now that we have some hunting season news to to look up here well uh um since um turkey season isn't open in my county uh for the fall i can't bag one until the spring, but I am going hunting.

Actually, my oldest brother is going to meet me at a fringe ranch in Balmoray Thanksgiving night. And the next day we're going mule deer hunting. And we might do that for a day or two and then pop over to our family's land in Fort Davis and hunt whitetail for a day or so. And yeah, should be a lot of fun. So fun. That sounds like a blast and a classic Texas Thanksgiving. Wonderful. OK, well, last topic here before we move on. And this is in light of or basically allows me to plug again our 50 percent off deal. If my beautifully canned ad from earlier

was not spicy enough. That's what I get for writing my own ad. Usually it's Daniel who does it. But I literally sounded like an infomercial. So folks, we're just going to keep it more casual and talk about the best Black Friday deals we've ever seen. But I will say, make sure you go to texan.news today and Monday and and get that 50 off subscription to the texan okay um hayden it sounds like you have fun black friday uh activities you enjoy watching the spectacle i'm with you i don't necessarily partake but i like to watch have you ever had a really great black friday deal you've taken advantage of or is there something you've seen that's been crazy on Black Friday? Yeah, I'm sorry. I kind of jumped the gun on our Black Friday podcast. Not at all.

Honestly, that's what I think of when I think of Thanksgiving. No. Years ago, I think I went to Walmart with my younger sister, and then I went somewhere else with my younger brother. Um, and we maybe got, we maybe got a, a Christmas gift for my younger brother on discount, but that's pretty much the closest thing to a blowout black Friday deal that I've ever gotten. It's not, it's not really my thing. So I'm not necessarily all into it like everyone else is but um usually i like scrolling the internet and watching the clips of people acting like idiots um after it happens they've ruined it though because everyone everywhere starts to open on thursday night um instead of friday morning so fewer people participate and then they're just open all night or the big deals are on Thursday evening.

So I guess that's cut down on some of the insanity that happens with people diving over one another and stampeding into Target for, you know, $50 flat screen TVs or whatever. But if there are $50 flat screen TVs, somebody send me that deal because that's a heck of a deal. Okay. You can go rush a poor teenage cashier at Target for it. No, never. I literally... Okay. I went one year and actually went to a mall on Black Friday because family friends of ours that we had over for Thanksgiving wanted to go, like their kids wanted to go. I have never hated being in a place more than I did being at that mall on Black Friday at 2am. It was awful. Inventory was just strewn everywhere.

I felt so bad for the employees. Everyone was rushing around. I just hated the whole... It was not my thing. I was not a fan. I don't like crowds to start with so black exactly yeah but cyber monday i'm all about cyber monday i got a good airpod deal one year which was awesome i can't live without airpods anybody else have a good black friday

deal or black friday story that they want to share kim yeah mine's more a story we were gonna get a good black friday deal when my children were younger they needed new hiking boots because we like the vacation in the mountains and we went to academy to try to get these boots that we thought were such a great deal and it was a nightmare and like you described everything was everywhere and people everywhere. And come to find out after we got them, like they didn't have one of my children's sizes. They were just regular price. Oh my gosh.

It wasn't even a deal. That's ridiculous. We could have gotten them anytime and not dealt with that crowd and that mess. And so it kind of burned me on Black Friday. And I don't really go Black Friday shopping. I like shopping. I'm actually a shopper, but I don't like to go on Black Friday. I like to go after Christmas and get all the after Christmas deals. That's way better. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's more spread out. And I think too, it's something that requires a lot more preparation and research than I would

be willing to do, especially in a busy week like Thanksgiving week. It's usually very packed with like family stuff and just preparation. And I don't want to really sit around and prep for my Black Friday like plans, especially if you aren't can't guarantee that you'd get something. So again, Cyber Monday is where it's at. Holly, yes. What about you? Well, I just want to say that Black Friday is an appropriate day to put up your Christmas tree. You should not put up your Christmas tree before Black Friday. I'm just saying. I agree, Holly, wholeheartedly. My Christmas tree is a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

So it doesn't take too long to go up. Well, it's charming. We love that. I already have my Christmas tree up. I knew it. And I will not apologize for it. I love it. Just admit it. You had your Christmas tree up in January. I took it down for two days. So I could say that I took it down.

No, my roommate put it up like two weeks ago. So I didn't even do it. I just came home one day and it was up. Now I would have done the exact same thing. And that was my plan. But regardless, it was pretty awesome. Why were people like declaring that November 1st was officially the start of Christmas season? Like, when did that become a thing? I was like, what?

I don't know. We pass a law banning the Christmas ordinance until like at least after November 15thth oh my gosh this is this is this is so tyrannical i cannot get on board with any part of this it's not tyrannical this is democracy i think if we take a vote then um we're gonna we're gonna some majority rules huh what's tyrannical is the monopoly that christmas has on all of our time i should be walking into a walgreens in october early october and seeing christmas stuff out i could go down the capitalism road but i'm not going to get into a capitalism argument with a hillsdale grad i know better i know better okay folks well thank you so much for tuning in to this thanksgiving episode of the texans weekly ronda podcast we appreciate you listening each and every week. Enjoy your Black Friday. I hope you enjoyed your of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us

on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas.