The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 31, 2025

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Texas Sues Tylenol Manufacturer For Allegedly Endangering Pregnant Women Amid White House's Autism ClaimsTexas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt Launches Democratic Bid for GOP-Favorable Congressional DistrictTexas Rep. Nate Schatzline to Not Seek Re-election, Joins National Faith Advisory BoardTexas Comptroller to Freeze New 'Historically Underutilized Business' CertificationsTexas Representative Pushes to Sue Celina ISD Amid Teacher Sexual Misconduct AllegationsBitcoin Miner Sues Hood County to Preempt Ballot Effort at Setting Noise Ordinance Against FacilityTexas’ Lawsuit Against Yelp Alleging 'Misleading' Disclaimer on Pro-Life Resources Revived by Appeals CourtFermi America Announces Nuclear Reactor Deals for AI CampusAnderson County Court Halts Exploratory Groundwater Drilling Permits Sought by Dallas InvestorPhillips 66, Kinder Morgan Announce Texas Fuel Pipeline ExpansionGet Loew, Get Loew: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 22

Good morning, and welcome to this week's episode of the Texans' weekly round of podcast, Cameron. How's it going? It's going great. Love the intro today. Gets me fired up. Same as every week. Consistency is key here. That's right.

We can't be throwing curveballs like a certain senior editor who's on maternity leave does. McKenzie will be back, I think, next week for the pod. Okay. Taking over hosting duties, so I no longer have to do this. Yeah. But we'll see if she's a little rusty when she comes back. No, she has a good fastball. So when she comes back, she'll be leaning on that.

Maybe she'll, you know, after a few pause, she'll be able to bring in the entire repertoire, the curb ball, the slider. Yeah. You know, maybe we're not ready for the knuckle curve yet, but in a few months' time, she'll be ready. She'll be looking like Shohay Otani. Yeah. Out there.

Mary Lees, how are you doing? I'm doing well. It's good to be back after skipping last week. Yeah, you were negligent in your job and almost got fired, but Holly stepped in for you. Yeah, thankfully. Yeah, we were at the convention in San Antonio chatting it up with some of our subscribers and meeting new subscribers. It was a pretty interesting convention.

Yeah. It was actually Jaden, who was negligent at his job. which is why you are in San Antonio. But we're glad that you and Rob filled in. And it sounded like it was a good reception, good return. Yeah, it was pretty cool to meet a lot of different subscribers in person, because a lot of this work is just online, and you're never really interacting with the people

who are reading our content. But we had several people just walking by and saying, hey, I love the Texan. I read you every day. So that was pretty encouraging and fun to meet those folks. And we handed out some special swag at this convention. Oh, yeah, what was the swag? Well, we had these little, these were such a hit among the Republican women there.

The little handheld compact mirrors, and that's really nice for women just to have in your purse, and you can just pull it out if one put on your lip gloss or something. We had some hats and pens and lanyards as well. so next event we're at people got to come by our booth and see what new swag we have because we seem to change it up every every time we go to these events so I can't say I can relate on the excitement of those mirrors but hey maybe at the Republican Men's Federation Convention we'll have like a brandle openers or something oh yeah or like a comb or something maybe like we could start branding our own

clone oh the Texan clone what would are sent me. I will have no saying that. I don't count if I can't smell it. If you're listening to this podcast, comment below. What should the Texans sent me? All right. With that, let's get to actual news.

Mayor Lees, you had a good newsletter this morning in the 40, particularly the first section on the shutdown, where that stands, both policy-wise, but also politically, because this is a political football that both sides are thrown back and forth. Give us the rundown of that. Yeah, this is the ultimate fight over public perceptions. I put it in the newsletter. So we're on day 30 of the government shutdown.

And so we are actually four days, I believe, away from breaking the record for the longest government shutdown. I think the last one was in 2018. So this is kind of this fight between Republicans and Democrats, of course, over their public image and what the perception is of folks who are just regular constituents who are, serving this battle go on because of course either party is blaming the other for allowing the government to shut down for not coming to the table to negotiate. I put in there a little line from an interview I watched with White House Deputy Chief of Staff, James Blair, and he said the party that is really just asking for the government to open tends to end up on the right

side of public opinion. And of course it depends on who you talk to, which is the side that's just requesting, please open the government, please agree on this. What we've got before us is this, they call it a clean, a continuing resolution that the Republicans have offered, and Democratic members are wanting to include some things in there and ensure that different health care subsidies wouldn't expire. And so there was that disagreement there that was back at the beginning. There was one significant kind of blow to the Democrats this week that happened. The largest federal workers union came out, actually, in support of this Republican-led bill.

And they said, you know, they, of course, put their support behind, you know, we recognize what you're trying to do as a Democratic Party. They said both political parties have made their point, and there's still no clear end in sight, right? We're at day 30. And the president said, today I'm making mine. It's time to pass a clean, continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full board. back pay today. Of course, some of the Democratic members have been pointing fingers at President

Donald Trump. He's been abroad a lot of the time during this shutdown. He's, I believe he's currently in South Korea. He's been at a couple different spots. So they're saying, oh, he doesn't want to come to the table. He doesn't want to negotiate clearly. And I think that he would probably argue, look, I just want you to pass this CR and agree to it. And then we'll come to the table to talk about the different subsidies and different things that you want in here. But, of course, they know that the incentive isn't there if the government isn't still shut down, if it's not affecting Americans in that way. So it's a bit of a long section.

I would definitely recommend checking out in the 40, but we are, yeah, on day 30, and one thing I'll add that the Republicans are kind of having a way right now is if they want to pass some smaller short-term bills. but the question is, is that going to be kind of conceding to Democrats in a certain sense? One of these is our Senator Ted Cruz's bill that would pay air traffic controllers, and then there's a couple others that address the eventual SNAP run out, SNAP subsidies run out. Yeah, and the public sector worker union coming out for the Republican bill, CleanCR,

is pretty interesting, particularly because those people, vote almost unanimously with Democrats and here they are giving some grief to their favored party the other part is so when we first started this journey

30 days ago I said on podcasts it doesn't seem like I don't think it'll last that long and the turns out boy was I wrong now I was half right and half wrong and my theory was

that it would kind of peter out pretty quickly is that there wasn't a ton of attention being paid to this. Obviously, the DC media is talking about it. But this isn't like taking over every news headline, every cable spot, everything. It's not. It's not ubiquitous like that. Like it has been in past instances. But it turns out that's exactly the reason it's lingered on so long.

Right. Because the pressure is mounting, but it hasn't been there. It hasn't raged fully. throughout this to reopen the government well both for both of you guys do you think um with the snap benefits um being withdrawn when is it going to come to ahead on november 1st um is that going to ramp up the public pressure when when people start actually feeling the effects of the government being shut down i don't know how many millions of people are are beneficiaries of the snap program but I feel like this is causing, you know, we saw, I believe it was Josh Hawley came out and said something,

so a Republican, you know, voicing his opposition to how SNAP benefits are being handled. So do you think if that actually comes to fruition here, SNAP benefits not being handed out, that's going to increase the pressure for both sides to come to the negotiating table, or I think they're just going to let it play out? Yeah, I think it probably will, and for the fact that to this point, the only people that have been affected by this are federal government workers, right? Now they're going to get furlough, they're going to get money back, back pay, eventually whenever this opens back up. But now you have a larger segment of the populace actually being affected by this. And that, of course, will add to the pressure, right, Maryle's?

Yeah, I would agree with Brad. I think that it's going to definitely at least turn up the knowledge. quite a bit on the public attention to it, as it already has, like you said, because now it will be affecting regular Americans. When it's just affecting the politicians and their staffers and government workers, it's not quite the same, but now it's really going to be hitting home. So we'll see what happens, but I think it will turn up. Well, I just think it's going to be interesting to see the Republican messaging after SNAP benefits aren't handed out because not just SNAP benefits, but any sort of these welfare-style programs have historically been the bane of Republicans wanting to roll those back.

And this is going to be really one of the first big instances we've seen in recent years of that actually happening. And so are Republicans going to be like, this is what we wanted, or are they going to feel the pressure and have to counter message and say, we need to bring people to negotiate on the table because our constituents are upset. We'll be interesting to see. Yeah. Well, check out the 40, not just today, but every Thursday morning for all updates on Congress. Thank you, Mary Elise. We're going to stick with you.

Texas filed a lawsuit against some major pharmaceutical providers this week. And what is probably, if it weren't for campaigns, the biggest story in the state at the moment. Give us the details. Yeah, so Texas is suing manufacturers of Tylenol on the basis that they marketed, allegedly marketed the product towards pregnant women, despite knowing potential risks that could cause for prenatal development. And this follows President Donald Trump's announcement along with other members of the administration that the drug has increased evidence that's been linked to autism and children when pregnant mothers take it. So Texas Attorney General Paxton filed this lawsuit this week, and it's specifically against Johnson and Johnson and Kenvoo, the pharmaceutical companies. So it was on Monday, and he's saying that these manufacturers hid the danger of the product's active ingredient, acetaminophen, to pregnant women, and then they're instead marketing it as their safest painkiller option.

It's kind of understood for pregnant women that Tylenol is overall. it's recommended to pregnant women in general that that's a relatively safe painkiller you can take. Of course, there's the typical warnings with any other drug, but that's oftentimes recommended to pregnant women for painkiller options. And so this announcement that was made by President Trump was back on September 22nd. I think we talked about it a little bit on the pod a couple weeks ago. And so he announced it alongside RFK Jr., and he said that there's been major progress made in investigating the causes, potential causes of autism. He said, we're closer to understanding the root cause of it.

And he said the evidence is suggesting that mother's use of acetaminophen during pregnancy, particularly with an emphasis on a later term in the pregnancy, could be linked to neurological effects on their children, including developing autism. And so within the lawsuit, Paxton both alleges that they were, recklessly offering this as a safe alternative for women as a painkiller but he also alleged that Johnson and Johnson after they recognized what he called a reckoning on the horizon they transferred their liability associated with over-the-counter products and allowed it to be absorbed by Kenvue and Kenvoo split off from Johnson and Johnson and became its own company in 2022 so that was

one of his other claims within there is that they saw this coming. and then they transferred liability. So Paxton said that he thinks Johnson and Johnson violated the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act through this transfer, this ownership transfer, and he says that they were doing that in order to shield their assets against lawsuits arising from the harmful impact

Tylenol had on children. That's a quote from Paxton. I talked to a spokesperson from the company and they said that Johnson and Johnson divested its consumer health. health business years ago and confirmed all the rights and liabilities associated with selling their over-the-counter products, including Tylenol, are owned by Kenvue. And then a Kenvue spokesperson said, they offered kind of a long statement saying, nothing is more important to us than the

health and safety that people use our products. They went on to confirm that acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout the entire pregnancy. They said if women don't have access to Tylenol, they could face dangerous choices, you know, going through high fevers and pain that are potential risks to pregnancy themselves if they're left untreated. And then the company did encourage expectant mothers in their statement that they should consult with any professional health care providers before taking any over-the-counter medicine, including Tylenol. So we'll see where this lawsuit goes, but it was filed in the beginning. district court of Pnolla County. And within his claim, he's saying that the district court can exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants as to Tylenol manufacturers since they do business in Texas, although they are technically based out of state.

Just a quick question for you, Mary Elise. A couple weeks ago, like you mentioned, how Trump and RFK held that press conference, were they just making the announcement? Were they just making the announcement that there was new information coming out linking the autism with pregnant women taking Tylenol? Was that just a general information announcement or did that actually change any sort of FDA recommendations regarding pregnant women? What was what's the deal there? My understanding of it was that it didn't formally change anything, but it was more so of providing general information and also in a sense kind of directing at different agencies and different companies to look further into this and different

folks associated with it but it didn't make any concrete policy actions I've seen some internal pushback internal being within the Republican Party to this whole thing generally first of course when the announcement was made about it by Donald Trump and RFK Jr., but I saw after the lawsuit was filed, I saw an interesting tweet from State Rep. Tom Oliverson, who is a doctor. He has handled a lot of the medical bills that come up during the legislative session. One of them was the child gender modification ban in 23 that he shepherded the through the lower chamber.

During that, he referenced a lot of studies about this, about that issue. And so he's very high. He's always looking for data on this stuff. I say that because he responded to a tweet from Nicole Safier, who is also an MD. Looks like she is a contributor to Fox News. But she tweeted out, quote, my son has a high

fever and I'm angry that I'm now questioning giving him Tylenol. Do data exist showing harm to kids that haven't been shared with the public? Or is the Tylenol, quote, controversy, purely hyperbolic and conjecture? Needless to say, I'm mad. And Oliverson, quote, tweeted it with the eyes emoji, indicating that it piqued his interest in any of the tweets. So that's not coming out and saying this is BS, right? But it does show some, some, some, level of skepticism about the claims generally and the lawsuit hasn't played out yet the changes and the agency policy hasn't played out yet at the federal level it's all in very early stages yeah that's why i asked if there was actually any policy consequences of that announcement or if

like mary alice clarified it was more just a general information press conference and From Mary-Aese's explanation about what the lawsuit is actually about in regards to Tylenol transferring liability to a subsidiary, or Johnson & Johnson transferring the Tylenol issue to a subsidiary to where there's... Ownership of the product. Yeah. So I think it's sort of a different angle than saying, oh, this medicine is bad, but rather where does the liability of those impacted by that medicine lie?

And, of course, the question is on the health side of things, like, where's the line drawn? Is it mostly safe enough for people to use? Is it not? Is it specific individuals like pregnant women, or does it apply to kids? Like that, a pundit asked on Twitter. There's a lot of question marks on this right now. Thank you, Mary Elise. Next, we'll move on to a piece I wrote on...

state senator Sarah Eckhart jumping into the 10th congressional district race. She's a Democrat from Austin used to be the Travis County judge and she's been mulling this for a while it's

it's a bit of a head scratcher to a certain degree because the district is I think are 62 percent so no Democrats winning that race. But But it is an open seat, and there's no telling who the – yet who the Republican nominee is, so maybe Republicans nominated a bad candidate, which then if Democrats get their – for them,

beneficial cycle next year in a midterm, they can overperform in that race if it's possible. And, you know, she's got good credentials, a good resume, so she is trying to provide a – a reputable. achievable challenger from the Democratic side to whoever the Republican is. Well, what do you think this says about how the state Democratic Party is viewing this upcoming election? Maybe, do you think they might have encouraged a Democrat like Sert-Eckard to jump in this race, even though, like you mentioned, it is solidly a Republican district? But is this indicating something about how they see the, the, current state of the state?

I would say maybe partially. So first, she has a free shot. She can run for Congress without giving up her Senate seat. So it's easy to do from that regard for her. Also, it will increase her name ID in a part of the state that she isn't currently elected in. So both of those things for her are good. It's also an excuse to fundraise for her as well.

the other side of it is from the democratic point of view it avoids a nasty primary in the 37th congressional district which is currently Lloyd Doggates this is Mary Lisa's talked about this before in the pod this is the one that one of the Austin Travis County seats that was moved slightly and then Greg Casar another congressman his district was moved down to San Antonio

entirely and is one of the projected flips for Republicans. So there was a possibility for a bit that we would have a Kassar v. Doggett and v. Sera Eckhartt, congressional primary. Crowded. Which would cause them to spend a lot of money in there for whoever the favored candidate is for the Democratic apparatus or just cause all those candidates themselves to drain their coffers in that primary.

what this does is Doggett's already said he's not running for that seat provided the map stays right right because we're still waiting on the court ruling from El Paso so dog gets out Sarah Eckhart was considering

a bid for that now she's running in the 10th and so that gives her some of what she wants with raising her profile while avoiding a nasty primary fight in 37th district with Kassar. And the State Democrat Party can say

we're fighting Republicans in every district in every race with Eckhart jumping in for this seat. Yeah, and I think from an analysis standpoint about the election cycle next year and whether this does anything for it, I think because you have a high-quality candidate, you can get a true measure on how good or bad, next cycle ends up being for Democrats across the state. Because if she

outperforms the top of the ticket in this congressional district, wow. I mean, that will show not just that they had a good cycle, but that'll show maybe in some of these districts that are R-60, roughly R-60 that are generally out of the hands of Democrats, that you can at least make Republicans sweat, make them spend money, divert resources from elsewhere. That is the litmus test, potential litmus test I see as a possibility next year. I mean, it's not going to decide who wins the Senate race or if Democrats flip a statewide seat. Yeah, but I think that's important to mention is a lot of times we'll see Democrats jump into these races where they know they're not going to win, but it's. it's causing the Republican to spend more money on a race they wouldn't have otherwise.

Diverting those funds away from the more toss-up races or maybe top of the ticket type races. So it's pulling down the coffers for the Republicans and showing the Democrat base also that we're fighting in all these different races as well. Yeah, and last cycle there were a lot of races that didn't have Democrats. in them, and it's been a big item for Democrats to at least feel the challenger for as many races they possibly can. So this is one less they have to worry about. Not only is it one less, but

it's better than just a random filer, right? And so that's that will help them organize in the lower ballot districts that are within the city 10. Well, it helps build up a party apparatus

and maybe a district that didn't have one. there previously. And it buttresses Eckhart's profile across the state in more places than she already has. So Democrats have a short bench. We have for a long time. We're seeing a couple of the people that they do have on the bench go at it, potentially another one in Jasmine Crockett, at the top of the ticket. So this, building a

formidable bench for a party is more than just, one candidate going to run for Senate, right? It takes a lot of different decisions like this in order to build up the profile of candidates. And so that's a part of this too. Yeah. Okay, let's go to another campaign decision. This one went the other way.

Mary Elise, a Texas state rep announced this week that he'll be leaving the Texas House after this term. Give us the rundown of that. Yeah, this was state rep. Nate Schatzline, he announced that he will not be seeking re-election to the Texas House. He had previously announced that he would be. His re-election campaign was endorsed by President Donald Trump,

so it came to, as a surprise to some, and not to others who knew that he had been invited to join the National Faith Advisory Board. So he'll be serving underneath President Trump's Senior White House Faith Office Advisor, Pastor Paula White. As Shatzline said in his announcement, It has never been more clear that the battle for a nation is not political, it is spiritual. And he posted a video in front of the United States Capitol. He said he's excited to join this board to equip pastors a step up and speak out about religious freedom to fight for life at all stages,

to stand for family values, and to promote a strong America that puts God first. Shattsline explains, so because of that, because I'm joining this board, I won't be running for re-election in the Texas House. And he talked about what an honor it's been to represent the House District 93. He said, fighting for our Texas conservative values. So he's currently in his second term representing HD 93. This is a seat that he originally won in 2022. He was followed former state rep Matt Krause,

who had held the seat actually for a decade. And then he left to run for Tarrant County District Attorney. among the many people that were congratulating Schatzline saying, you know, we'll miss you in the Texas house, but this is a great move for the country. Krauss thanked him for his service for serving of such integrity. And of course, Schatzline focused very heavily on social issues when he was running for office, but also during his time in the Texas house, very heavily on social issues, such as opposing child gender modification, abortion, and then other similar conservative priorities that he really focused on. And he mentioned during his video explaining that he'd be joining this board something interesting. The assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, which we talked about on the pod,

that happened just about seven weeks ago now. He mentioned this assassination and said that this is one of the more recent events that made it apparent to him that the church needs to rise up. and be a bold voice in American government. He said, in fact, I'd venture to say that church, if we don't get involved in politics, politics will most certainly corrupt the church. So we will not be seeing Schatzline in the Texas House once he concludes this term. But it's interesting because it definitely came to a surprise to some

because he had already announced he's running for re-election. I think had a re-election event actually scheduled for this week that was canceled. Yeah, and we saw he already had a primary opponent, Steve Sproles, who comes from the more moderate side of the party, at least in terms of, I think he was anti-school choice or anti-ESAs, vouchers, and that was a basis for him getting in. Although, you know, talking to people about the race, like they viewed him as a high-quality challenger. He wasn't just a nothing burger as a challenger. So there's that. But then we have Alan Blaylock who jumped in. He's a Fort Worth City Councilman.

Seems to have the backing of Schatz line. We'll see what his coalition looks like because it seems like he has some crossover appeal in terms of getting both of the warring factions of the Republican Party on its side. But those are the two entrants so far. Maybe we see another one. The more interesting part of this, I think, is that with Schatzline's departure, you now have,

of the four guys who made up kind of the elder statesman side of the contract with Texas wing of the Republican caucus, that's Schatzline, Tony Tenderholt, Steep Tooth, and Brian Harrison, three of those four will now not be in the House next session in 27. Not only that, the one remaining Harrison has not ingratiated himself well with anybody. Yeah. He has made, he's pissed off even, you know, members of the freshman class who came in on the anti-house leadership wave, right? Yeah. And so who's going to lead that group?

and we saw during session, Tony Tinderholt especially was leading at Toth and Shatsline were there involved as well. And, you know, they've been around at least sometime, Toth a while, Shatsline, a cycle or two. But there seems to be a changing of the guard. Changing of the guard. And we saw someone like Mitch Little step up and be a loud voice on the back mic fighting on a lot of these issues. Who else do you think is going to be this new coalition? Well, the person that I think will take over. what was going to be

Schatzline's role going into this if you'd stayed in the house is Brent Money. I think Mitch Little and Shelley Luther will have a bit of a different role. That's what it sounds like to me, what I've heard. That doesn't mean they won't be calling shots for whatever we call that caucus anyway. But I think Brent Money, from what I understand,

will be kind of a lead on that and taking what was going to be Shats' lines role going in the next session. So, thank you, Mary-A-Lise. That was some news I had been sitting on for about a week. The brumbling started and we were just waiting for it to drop, and it did. Cameron, you had a good scoop this week. Give us the details.

Yes, the Texas Comptroller's Office, they're suspending new certifications to the historically underutilized business program. and this is a program that started way back in like 1993 under a different name, has gone through a few different iterations as it's been expanded and changed a bit throughout the legislative sessions. I note that a bit in the piece we put out. But the reason why they're doing this rollback on the program is because of some of the different court rulings that have come out in regards to.

DEI, some different executive orders. And the reason for that is because this program requires that businesses, or rather state agencies, use a good faith effort, it says in the state code, to reach out to businesses for procurement of services that have, and these businesses must have 51% or more of a sort of minority class, and these minority classes include women, blacks, Hispanics, Asian, Pacific, Americans, Native Americans, veterans suffering from disability. So this is a rollback of some of these DEI initiatives that we've been seeing over the past, you know, a few months since the Trump administration has stepped in in January, and especially here in Texas. There's been lots of legislation and executive orders directed at that. So, yeah, we got sort of the scoop on this and put out the piece. And if people are interested, they could go check it out on the texan dot news.

That is, of course, a policy implemented under the new acting comptroller, Kelly Ancock, who is, of course, embroiled in the primary for the same position that is going to get a lot of attention next year. Yeah. And he's going to use this on the campaign trail, of course, right? Of course. They did tell us that this was in the work since August, I think. Yes.

Although it had been highlighted recently on Twitter by Brian Harrison. Correct. The HUD policy that is. So they'll argue until the cows come home about who caused that change and who didn't. But the wheels of government moves slowly. So it's understandable that the Comptroller's office was working on. this since August yeah right it takes a while for them to get all their ducks in a road to get something like this implemented well it is a long existing policy it

is right this is this is not something that was enacted yesterday that you can just pull back immediately right you have to work through all the the planning and that think through the steps of tape removing it whatever it entails right yeah it's not a simple uncomplicated process right so thank you Cameron let's go to Mary Elise you in You and Meredith have been covering this issue, both this specific instance and also the general topic of the law related to it that was passed. There's been a huge scandal involving a teacher and coach at Salina ISD. There was a press conference held up in Collin County this week involving Mitch Little.

Give us the details of that. Yeah, so something like you said, Meredith and I have been tag teaming on. But at this press conference that was hosted by State Representative Mitch Little, he spoke on this incident that's happened. Salina ISD has to do with Coach Caleb Elliott, who was arrested and charged with invasive visual recording and possession or promotion of child pornography. So at this press conference, Representative Little announced that he intends to file lawsuits on behalf of the families that were allegedly hurt by this. former Slina ISD teacher and coach. This is Caleb Elliott. He said at the press conference, I, like you, am horrified at the reports that Caleb Elliott was passed from school to school within the district. He talked about how Elliott had allegedly tried to place cameras at the

school a week before prior to working at Moore Middle School. And then he had been banned from the Moore Middle's locker room before his arrest and resignation. Little talked about the need to investigate and determine whether the ISD grossly, negligently, or recklessly continued employing or failing to supervise Caleb Elliott in a way that allows him to cause harm to children. The district announced on October 24th in a letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton that there's an attorney specifically that will be investigating the district's handling of this individual's hiring, his supervision, and then any failures involved to act

while he was employed there. They also sent a letter to parents on October 24th and told parents that the district is conducting an independent third-party investigation into the situation and talked about their collaboration with Salina Police Department and how the police department had told them to hold off on the investigation into this matter to avoid any potential conflict. So the district complied with the directives,

But then with other independent third-party findings, there was Elliott's father. So the individual at hand is Caleb Elliott. So his father, Coach Bill Elliott, and then an employee, Allison Gann, were placed on non-disciplinary administrative leave. This was for their alleged involvement in Elliott's hiring and in his supervision. So this first, the story got statewide attention after state representative Jeff Lee. sent a letter to Paxton that was on October 23rd and he asked his office to conduct an investigation into these shocking reports he said out of the ISD and Cullen County and then Paxton confirmed that he had directed his office to investigate and so this all and this is

something that state rep Mitch Little talked about a lot at the press conference comes on the tail end of this bill that was passed this new law those passed during the regular 89th legislative session and it specifically addresses this issue of school district's liability in such cases as these where you have an employee that allegedly committed sexual assault or harassment against students so this was House Bill 4623 and it removed school district sovereign immunity and acts of workplace-related negligence and then it did this this was made possible through It's striking a previous state law that protected public schools from civil liability

with incidences related to employees' sexual misconduct with a student. And this was something we watched on the House floor as it went through when it was in the House floor. There were a couple different amendments, but one that's notable that was introduced by State Representative Gina Hinojosa. She wanted to put a cap on damages to make sure that school districts don't just get sued out the Wazzi. zoo. And she finally agreed with Little on a final cap of $500,000 in damages. And then it actually passed the Texas Senate unanimously in May. So we'll see how this develops in the end. But Senator Angela Paxton weighed in on it. She was one of the sponsors of the bill in the upper chamber. And she said, this is exactly why I worked so hard with Representative Mitch

Little to pass H.P. 4623, which increases school accountability for student safety by removing legal immunity. So it's very interesting to see after the session these different laws. And I mean, there's all sorts of things happening with these new laws that were passed, but this one's really being put into action shortly after it was passed. And like Representative Little said, of course, we wouldn't wish that it would be needed so soon after the session. but it's definitely interesting to see it be relevant so quickly. And Representative Little stated that he will be counsel to some of the plaintiffs if and when a lawsuit is filed. And he was also giving this press conference alongside, first the investigator, forget his name,

but then also Jack Walker, who is a well-known trial attorney across the state, and he runs the trial attorneys, Texas Trial Lawyers Association in the state. So some big legal guns there on this issue, and clearly this is a very serious matter, and it is causing a lot of uproar and for good reason up in DFW. Yeah, and I just want to hit on the point. that Mary Lees finished with as well is this is the outcomes of legislation that was passed during the session and how important the close coverage that Mary Lease was doing on this bill during this session seeing it having a real-world impact so soon to the session ending.

So that way, you know, she is aware of what's going on and is able to get on it. It's just really interesting to see, like she mentioned, how soon some of this legislation has taken effect. Yeah, going from concept to pass bill to implemented bill and applied law is, in this case, it's very short. It only took a handful of months. So thank you, Mary Lees. I'll mention a piece on a very interesting local fight going on right now. Cameron, you actually had written on this before. I didn't even realize that before I took it.

So sorry for stealing your name. thunder on the piece, but there is a fascinating fight going on in Hood County right now. It involves a Bitcoin mining facility, residents in unincorporated Hood County. This is on the outskirts or outside of Granbury. And there is an election next week in order to incorporate this part of Hood County. And the whole reason they want to incorporate the people behind the petition effort is because this Bitcoin miner is noisy, and they want to be able to establish a noise ordinance against the Bitcoin miner.

These facilities are large, first of all, basically just a bunch of computers running constantly, right? And those computers require fans to keep them cool. Very big fans. Very big fans, which are loud. And so the neighbors around the area have been complaining about this for a while. This has been going on for a couple of years now. new, they're just now getting to this point.

So there's ballot proposition up for election next week on Tuesday, and if it passes, they will be incorporated, and then they will be able to – one of the guys who's slated to be the new mayor of this who's behind the petition effort will be able to push forward noise ordinance. And so this week, the Bitcoin mining facility, Mara, owned by Mara Holdings, used to to be Marathon Holdings, filed a lawsuit to try and stop the election. They're alleging that the petition effort was fraudulent and flawed. They're also alleging that it's targeted at them improperly

and is violating multiple of their constitutional rights. And we haven't seen any action yet from the court. By the time this goes out, the defendants, the county, should have filed their response. They haven't filed it yet that I've seen. But it's this weird little conflict that is playing out with an interesting twist being the ballot initiative.

But there's this conflict happening all over the state because we're seeing a lot more data centers, a lot more crypto miners coming into the state. First of all, there's fairly cheap land, low regulations, and these, especially if they're flexibly, loads like crypto miners do provide a benefit for the state power grid because they can turn off their electricity in times of need. And then they can make money off of it while other

retail electric providers save money because they don't have to go in and buy more electricity when scarcity pricing shoots the price for electricity way up. So there's some mutual benefit there. But you get to the other point that these people moved to a, sparsely populated part of a small county in order to get away. They want the silence. They want the silence. And then they have this massive, freaking, basically a giant fan dropped in the middle of their area that they can't escape.

And you look at some of the stories that some of these people don't even go outside anymore. They used to just sit on their porch for hours. Now they don't even go outside because they can't stand the noise. So both sides are going to fight this. The people who were behind the petition said, we'll fight this, told me they'll fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to. I'm not sure if he'll get that high because the election is next week, but I suppose it's possible. Well, I think this is going to be a great case study, though, because like you mentioned,

this is happening all across the state, but all across the country. And it's an interesting tension that's coming out because there's been this big push, not just from the state by lowering regulations and incentivizing these data centers and Bitcoin miners to come to the state. But that is also coming from the federal government. They've appointed an AI czar to oversee a lot of innovation in this space, really encouraging these big tech companies to onshore a lot of these technologies and really encouraging a lot of development in data centers and crypto mining. So we're seeing a big push from the state, seen a big push from the federal government, but there's some push

back now coming from people who actually live in these communities and where is where a thing is going to lie in this outcome is really going to come down to test cases like this but also the court's going to have to determine where the authority lies here yeah like you said this will this will determine a lot going forward because we'll see if it works similar challenges filed And if it doesn't work, we'll see similar ballot petitions probably filed where these things are cropping up. And it's because the state is welcoming this growth so much, as with everything, there are tradeoffs. Yeah. And the state has to – the politicians don't like to talk about the tradeoffs.

They love to just tout, oh, the growth, the growth, the growth, all the prosperity. And yeah, that's great. There are difficult problems that come of all this. Well, you know, and I've been seeing discussion as well is could there be some sort of tradeoffs that come from, let's take the Mera example, where they offer something to the residents of these communities saying, hey, we're going to build this giant crypto mining facility, but we'll offer you this in exchange. We know it's super loud or whatever, but so you don't incorporate or pushback. We'll pay your electricity bills for, you know, a decade. or something like that. So you put up with the noise, but we'll do this for you.

I think this might open up some new opportunities for maybe some of these businesses. I think that's a Pollyanna view. I think they're going to claw it out and somebody will win and somebody will lose. But hey, I'm a cynic, and I will readily admit that. Let's move on to the next piece. Mary Elise, you wrote about another lawsuit filed by the Attorney General's office. office involves the Yelp, which makes me think of the South Park Yelp episode, where it just goes off on a wild tangent that I won't get into, but it's hilarious. But anyway, Mary Lees, give us

the details of this lawsuit. Yes, yeah, this is a case that started back in 2023, but it's just been kind of re-earthed a bit because an appeals court just ruled on October 16th to read, do a dismissal, excuse me, of a prior court's ruling. So this is Texas's case against Yelp for alleged manipulation of information regarding pro-life resources, pro-life pregnancy centers, similar resources. So the 15th court of appeals found that, well, Texas doesn't have general jurisdiction over Yelp. It did successfully establish its specific jurisdiction over Yelp, which is based in California, because Yelp's actions. do directly involve Texas consumers.

And so, like I said, the lawsuit was originally filed in 2023, and Paxton was seeking injunctive relief, civil penalties, and damages for this alleged violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. And this followed accusations that surfaced about Yelp, posting misleading and disparaging disclaimer labels, is what Paxton called it, on crisis pregnancy centers in Texas. So this occurred just after the leak of the United States Supreme Court's eventual decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, the reverse review wade, and then sent the legal issue of abortion back to the states. So that was when the leak happened. And in the lawsuit, it noted a statement made by Yelp CEO in 2022.

And he urged business leaders, this is what the lawsuit reads, urged business leaders to use their platform and influence to help protect. reproductive rights. And then they also put in there that there was a consumer notice, and this is kind of the basis of the suit, that Yelp issued on all Pregnancy Resource Center pages in Texas, you know, it stated, this is a crisis pregnancy center. Crisis pregnancy centers typically provide limited medical services and may not have a licensed medical professional on site. And then a letter was sent in response to this disclaimer from Paxton and then 20 other state attorneys general, and they asked Elp, they demanded that Yelp revised that notice, and then they did. They changed it to say, this is a crisis pregnancy center, saying that they

do not offer abortions or referrals to abortion providers, so a bit simpler. But Paxon's lawsuit was filed seven months after that. And so Yelp responded to this lawsuit by asking for a special appearance in a district court. That was granted and eventually resulted in the dismissal of Texas. case. And then Texas went ahead and appealed the trial court's decision and argued that the ruling was erroneous because the state had established both general and specific jurisdiction over Yelp and Texas. And the appeals court reviewed it. They issued their opinion on October 16th and said, while they hold that the state did not plead facts establishing general jurisdiction over Yelp, the state did establish specific jurisdiction and then added that it would reverse

this prior dismissal and then remand the case for adjudication on the merits so send it back and I spoke to a Yelp spokesperson who gave us a statement and said you know we're disappointed with the appellate court's decision which prolongs this meritless lawsuit on flimsy procedural grounds they said that their consumer notice that's concluded in the lawsuit was truthful accurate and intended to help people make informed decisions about reproductive health care options. And then they said that they think that this case represents a troubling attempt by a government official to retaliate against speech with which he disagrees. And of course, Paxton was saying that Yelp was trying to play politics and steer users away

from pro-life resources. But he said, being based in the criminal-loving state of California won't shield them from accountability. So we'll see where this goes next, but this is something hadn't gotten much attention since it was filed two years ago, but now it's headed back to the lower court. So we'll see where that one goes. Thank you, Mary Elise. Cameron, let's touch on this last one quickly. Energy investment group made an announcement about nuclear power plants.

It's pretty groundbreaking. Give us the details. Yeah, and this is actually a follow-up on a story that I wrote a few weeks back because former U.S. Secretary of Energy and former Texas governor, Rick Perry. He is part of this investment group called Fermi. And as part of this Fermi group, Fermi America is building this giant energy campus to really deal with AI and focusing on data center. So a little bit of touching on what we talked about earlier. But they have just inked some partnerships with two South Korean companies to initiate the construction of four nuclear reactors.

So some big news there that there's going to be new construction in regards to this campus that's going to be done in partnership with Texas Tech University. And they didn't outline what the cost of this program is going to be, but I did try and find some numbers on how much this actual investment company is worth. went public just on October 1st. They had a $16 billion market cap. So they have a lot of money to spend and they've been encouraged a lot by the Trump administration to begin focusing on building up data centers and domestic production of unlocking energy, alternative energy resources. So just a bit of an update on a prior story that I wrote here.

Forgive me if he said it, but I think Governor Perry is involved. Former Governor Perry is involved in this. Yeah. He's sort of the face of this Fermi America group. He's been the face of a lot of things in the last couple of years. I remember him selling the, during COVID, using the House press room to, speaker's press room, to, for basically an infomercial about glorified humidifiers for schools during COVID. It was an interesting trajectory. Yeah, he's got, you know, he's in a lot of different areas around here, because he was, I believe he was talking about some, like, psychedelic research stuff as well. Yeah, Ibegain. Yeah, Ibegain research.

He was also involved in the, he was the face of the sports betting alliance for a bit. I think that's done now. And then he is this, he's always been big in energy, and of course he was the Secretary of Energy. for a while. But yeah, he's popping up in a lot of different places. Former governor. Thank you, Cameron. Last, before we get to tweeter,

I'll just plug my interview with Adam Lowy, Austin personal injury attorney. I thought it was a good discussion. He had some interesting takes. He always does. Yeah. And I've got good reviews on it so far. So check it out.

It's the latest Smoke-filled Room podcast episode on our feed. With that, let's go. go to tweeterie. Cameron, yours sounds interesting. Let's start with this. This New York Post story, I'll just read the top here. Wild video shows a monkey in a diaper running loose inside a busy spirit Halloween store in Texas where it invaded capture for 30 minutes while swinging from the raptors. So yeah, it's a hilarious video. Someone brought their pet monkey into this store and apparently it got loose and they couldn't get it down from on top of the shelves swinging

from the rafters just a hilarious story but it's always changed to me the types of pets people choose to keep because it's like a monkey would be very low like would not even make my list I would never have a pet monkey you know a dog a cat goldfish you know get a normal pet Why you need to have a monkey? Why you got to put a monkey in a diaper? Did it say what kind of monkey it was? Oh. Are we talking like a haller monkey or we spider monkey or?

Gosh, I didn't see in the story. A tiny little thing. Yeah, it's a... It's a boomafoo. It's not a gorilla or anything, but, you know, monkeys are, you know, they're aggressive as well. You know, there's those horror stories of people being attacked by their pet monkeys. Generally, are chimpanzees, but yes. Yeah.

Yes. Mary Lees, what you got? Well, oh yeah, this is big news for Catholicdom. Yeah, that's one way to put it. The Daily Wire I saw is just, I guess you could call it, just bought a show, a Catholic show podcast, Pines with Aquinas. Very well known amongst Catholics. Matt Frad hosts it.

So very interesting. Non-Catholics alike. I like it. Cameron said he likes and he's not Catholic. Oh, okay. Awesome. Well, yeah, so Daily Wire obtained Pines with Aquinas

and the course there was a lot of uproar about that from different folks. I thought, well, there are some Protestants that were upset that they're kind of have a lot of Catholic people on their team now and then also some people that were just upset that a Catholic would be

joining a company that's owned by a Jew. So just a lot of lovely discourse on the online as it usually is on X, but kind of interesting media move. I thought the host, though, Matt Farad, he took it in stride, though, because he was posting some funny videos, one where he's wearing a yarmica, and, you know, he's a, he's a fun guy, so it didn't seem like the online commentary was getting to him. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty good way to respond to it, his response video with

the yamika. Well, now you have a new, well, it doesn't sound like he's going to produce more now. Yeah. With it because Daily Wire will help him on the back end with the support system. Yeah. Go to DailyWire and listen to Pinesville and Quineas. It's pretty interesting. I like it.

Yeah. I don't listen all the time, but when I do, it's nice. I'm going to talk about the SD9 race that everyone wants to hear about right now. I've been waiting for this. Yeah, Cameron has been chomping at the bit. It's been just tugging in my leg constantly. Like, come on, we've got to get to it. When are we going to talk about this?

Well, it is coming. The special election for Senate District 9 is on the ballot next week. There's been a lot of money if you live up in particularly that district, but you probably get it if it's spilling over into other districts, if you live in the particularly Fort Worth area, it is a titanic clash between John. John Huffman, former South Lake Mayor, and Lee Wamskons, who, at least until she ran for this, was running the Patriot Mobile Pack, which got involved in a lot of local elections, particularly

school board, and it has been contentious, expensive, and basically has become a bit of a proxy fight on the issue of gambling, where Huffman is for having a statewide vote, Wams Gons is not, But Kim Roberts with us has covered this race. You can read some of her pieces. All about it. Some interesting dynamics there. But I'm going to focus on the money coming in. We're seeing a lot of money come in for Wams Gons at the last minute.

And, of course, this is a jungle primary. There's also a Democrat, Taylor Remit. It is expected that he will make the runoff. All the polling that I've heard, he's around 30%. And the question is, which of the two Republicans will join us? join him there. The reason is, because all the Democrats are uniting behind one candidate in the vote while Republicans are splitting between two. This is a Republican-friendly seat. I think it's around R-60. So not like massively, overwhelmingly Republican, but certainly Republican

favorable. Yeah. And then the runoff will happen in about a month with whoever wins it. Well, where's this money coming from? Well, it's pretty much all coming from either the pro or anti-gambling interests. Huffman's getting bankrolled significantly by Las Vegas Sands, Mira Madelson, and Hurline groups. We've seen the Texas Defense Pack come in with a lot of independent expenditures in this race, attacking Wams Gons and supporting Huffman. On the Wamsgan side, you have Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor, who has endorsed her and supporting her. She's also endorsed by Donald Trump, so we'll see if that has a factor to play here.

It usually does. The question is how much. And then you have the kind of instance of strange bedfellows here. You have two groups who are typically at war with one another. That's Texans for lawsuit reform, the business community, and the Tim Dunn apparatus, Texans United for Conservative majority. They are very much against gambling expansion, and that's why they're heavily involved in this. But they're on the same side here. They're both behind WOMS guns.

So there's a ton of money being pushed into this. The eight-day election reports, I think, if you added it up, a totaled $3 to $4 million being spent on both sides. Quick question. It's obvious why Las Vegas Sands is getting behind the pro-gambling candidate. why are these other groups getting behind the anti-gambling candidate? Is it just because on a principal stance that they're against gambling or is there some sort of interests that they have in Wamskons

being the one who gets the nomination? Well, first of all, Patrick has picked Wamskons. And this actually relates to a story we talked about earlier with Nate Shat's line because he was in the race. And then he dropped out. And then she jumped in. Yeah. And then Patrick endorsed her, and then Shatsline endorsed her.

I think you can tell the pattern here. Patrick wanted Wamscons. He chose her. And so she is in the race and has been. So Patrick wants to protect his own endorsement. First of all, he wants the person that's on his side to be in the Senate, right? Of course. I mean, it makes total sense.

So it's just alliances? Yes. And Patrick is also heavily aligned with TLR. Mm-hmm. There's some interesting news I'm told breaking on that end next week that I can't say right now. Hopefully people listen all the way to the end of the podcast. Maybe I will have tweeted it out by the time this podcast goes up. It's possible.

But the – so Patrick has that incentive along with TLR. And then the Dunn group really doesn't want Huffman to win because of the gambling interests. They're just against gambling on principle? or do they have some... They're against it on principle. Oh, okay. Yep. And so on the other side,

the gambling guys want to try and take back some momentum that they lost during the session because their bills went nowhere. Yeah. Also, they saw Kelly Hancock, who's now the acting comptroller, as a soft ally on the issue. Not someone who's going to go out there and really campaigned for it, but if the time came to cast a ballot on it, presumably with Patrick not in the lieutenant governor's seat whenever that comes because

he's against it and he has been so far shows no sign of letting up on that but Hancock was a soft ally he would he would vote for it if under those circumstances the bill came to the floor right so they don't want to lose that seat because that would be losing ground in the Senate for them at least in terms of their internal thinking goes so there's a lot at stake here and a lot of proxy fighting oh yeah going on and the biggest one is, of course, on the gambling issue. But the interesting thing is, none of these candidates, neither of these candidates, have made this about gambling. Yeah. Because they want the voters from both sides, right? They want both the pro and anti-gambling voters to back them.

Yeah. So neither side, even though all the money is coming in because of this issue, or almost all of it because of this issue, it's not a big theme messaging-wise because they don't want to alienate the people who either are forwarded or disagree with it. Well, what's the, this will be my last question. What is the, what's maybe another issue that you see these two candidates being split on? Obviously, the gambling has been the huge focus,

but is there another issue? No, there really isn't. Like with most of these primaries, last year's been of an anomaly because we had the school choice issue as such a bright red neon example of a difference between it doesn't really exist

and particularly in this like they'll vote they get in there they'll vote probably the same way on most things except for this issue well all right just one more well because it seems like you have really big names in Texas

politics really falling on either side of this and they have a lot of money so they can throw a lot of money at these candidates but in terms of just general polling of the election From what I understand, it seems like they're on the pro-gambling side. Am I correct in that assumption? Who?

The general electorate. Oh, yes. If you look at polling of Texans or registered voters, overwhelmingly they're supportive of at least a vote on the issue. Yeah, they're supportive of a vote on the issue. They're also supportive of the issue generally. Now, when you break it down to Republican primary voters in particular, particularly the most avid Republican primary voters, it gets more dicey, and you start to see the opposition portion increase.

So this is a Republican primary. Yeah, well, actually, this is a special election, but we might be doing this all over again next year in the primary if the loser here decides to continue running, which could happen. I think that probably will happen if Huffman loses. If Wonsonsonsons loses, I don't know. I don't know. but um well it's interesting when when the uh percentage of the general electorate gets

smaller and smaller and the ones that are actually going to the poll in these you know off cycle mid mid election year um elections the the split on these on these issues um becomes much more pronounced yeah right and so messaging on either side of this can really yes you know fall and in your favor or against you. Well, or it may come down to one of two other things, Trump endorsement, right? That's possible. Or just like whether someone has a good ballot name.

And John Huffman has a good ballot name. Lee Wamskons does not have a good ballot name. Does it matter? I don't know. We'll find out. But those are two obvious facts that whether you agree they should be a factor or not are always a factor. Yeah, you have to think about it.

these races, particularly when it's a lower ballot race that people don't really know about. And the statewide for this constitutional election, the turnout so far is like 4%. Yeah. 4% or 5%. It's nothing. So there's just not a lot of interest here. The other thing I'll mention, last thing on the Democratic side, Remit wants to use this.

like Democrats have in Texas with all kinds of special elections, they want to use this to send a message and send a signal that will turn into momentum next year to have a good cycle. They're not, they know, they're not going to hold this seat, even if Remitt somehow does win this special election. They're not going to hold this seat under normal circumstances. It's just not going to happen. But if they have a good finish here, let's say he finishes first in this election.

election and then either wins the seat in the runoff or perform nearly loses yeah they'll be they'll be like hey look at us we can do this in Texas yeah national money come in right yeah so that's it's kind of like a they viewed as a force multiplier or a potential force multiplier to show momentum next year interesting when they hope to maybe flip a seat you know but yeah there's there's no there's no delusion that they're going to win hold this seat for good it's just not going to happen no but everyone's got an interest in in this race yes it's fascinating yeah if you want to see some of the

financials i tweeted them out you can go go to my twitter look at it um there's a lot of money being pumped in at the last minute and particularly on the wamskan side and that usually tells you that they're not seeing they're seeing something bad in the internal polling now there's money coming in for huffman too right but um this last push that generally tells you they're something about it right as usual though late breakers will probably decide this yeah for the republicans so there we go enough you get enough uh sd9 injected in your veins there okay okay well with that we are going to conclude the podcast and we'll talk to you next week thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate and review us on apple podcast Spotify or wherever you listen to

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