The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 8, 2021

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses our reporter’s firsthand account of a press conference with Gov. Greg Abbott and a litany of other GOP governors at the Texas border, the latest on the legal challenges to the Texas Heartbeat Act, updates on efforts to finalize redistricting maps in the legislature, why lawmakers are still talking about the power grid, candidates lining up to challenge Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, the House and Senate at odds over a new agenda item from the governor, comparisons between schools with and without mask mandates, a recap of the debacle in Del Rio, a GOP Texas senator receiving opposition from Trump, and an update on the sanctuary city for the unborn movement.

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on another edition of the Texans Weekly Roundup. Today, our team discusses a press conference with Governor Abbott and a litany of other GOP governors at the Texas border, which our reporter Hayden Sparks gives a firsthand account of, the latest on the legal challenges to the heartbeat bill, updates on efforts to finalize redistricting maps in the legislature, why lawmakers are still talking about the power grid, candidates lining up to challenge Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the House and Senate at odds over a new agenda item from the governor,

comparisons between schools with and without mask mandates, a recap of the debacle in Del Rio, a GOP Texas Senator receiving opposition from Trump, and an update on the sanctuary city for the unborn movement. Thanks for listening. We hope you learn a thing or two along the way and enjoy your weekend. I just go around the room. Intrepid is one of those words that is not an insult, but sounds like an insult. Does it? I think so, yeah. Okay. Well, you know, Brad, I'll let you determine what that meant. The shoe fits, huh?

I'm just glad we have Hayden back in the office after a trip yesterday down to the border. A treacherous drive. A treacherous drive. From Austin to McAllen. Yeah. I'm kidding. It wasn't very treacherous. Just long. my eyes widened and i got a little nervous i was like what happened that you didn't tell me it was fine no it was it was a nice drive okay that's that's good well on that note we're

gonna get right into our content this week hayden let's start with you about that trip but you went down to the border this week like we already, to cover a press conference between the governor and other governors as well that came down to talk about the border crisis. What was the atmosphere of the press conference beforehand? And where exactly did this happen? Well, this press conference was different than the last couple that we've been to. There was one with President Trump during the summer and another one with almost 20 United States senators in March that I attended. And this one occurred at the same location as that one in March, but it was a little bit different logistically. It was at Anzaldus National Park in, or not National Park, but Anzaldos Park in Mission, which is in the McAllen

area. And it was near the Rio Grande River, but not on the bank of the river like it was in March. This was in a field that was near the park and there was a heavy National Guard presence. So, this was very much- Shocker. Yes. It was a show of force for the governor's office they had humvees and state trooper vehicles and a semicircle and of course our around where the conference was around where the press conference was yes it was the backdrop for the the press conference so the governor was facing the media and behind him was a line or a semicircle of vehicles and service members who were there to show that the governor has deployed the Texas National Guard and state troopers to the border as part of Operation Lone Star. very different than in March when U.S. Senators were pretty much on the river and that when they finished their tour, they came out and spoke to the press on the dock. It was a little bit more,

the setting was, seemed a little bit more planned than the one in March. But the security seemed more intense at this one than it was in the past. Than with the U.S. Senators? Yes. Interesting. seemed more intense at this one than it was in the past the u.s senators yes that was interesting to me you had a large or you had a good uh number of american governors there and uh this was uh beforehand they were they were just they were discussing the border crisis with one another and um some came on helicopters i didn't see who all de-planed the

helicopters uh but this was do you still de-plane if it's a helicopter you know i think so i think that applies to all aircraft i think you're probably right i just curious okay continue um but that was the setting for this this press conference it was very much i heard one reporter say it looked like a scene from apocalypse now I think that's probably overstating it a bit. But there was a heavy military and police presence at this event. And, you know, we had to have our press credentials ready when we got there. And they were checking people off the list before they even let us on the premises. RSVP beforehand.

Correct. And before in March. And the security wasn't quite as heavy as when Daniel and I went down for President Trump's border wall event. You know, we didn't have to be bused there or anything, but they wouldn't even let vehicles onto the premises before showing RSVP and making sure we were credentialed and everything. Talk to us a little bit about the dynamic between the governors and their interactions at the conference there beforehand. It was interesting because they almost had a team huddle beforehand. They got together and... And these are all GOP governors, right? They are. They're all Republican governors.

And in terms of which governors were there, we had Governor Abbott, of course, and then we had Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. We also had Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. And I'll talk in a second about how it was interesting which governors actually spoke at the event. But they met beforehand with Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw. And he has been the point person for Operation Lone Star and a lot of the border security efforts that have marked Abbott's administration. And they conferred with each other and the Border Patrol Union President Brandon Judd prior to the press conference. And so they had an opportunity to visit with each other. And notably, Arizona's Governor Doug Ducey was there, and he is very much aligned with Abbott on the state level

effort against illegal immigration he was the one to speak at the conference right after Abbott and he indicated that the situation the border crisis in Arizona is as bad as it is in Texas which of course here we've been focusing on how it has affected Texasxas but he is eager to talk about border security as well but prior they they almost seemed like they were catching up like friends they're very much aligned on this issue and even the even the governors uh that there there are governors that were not there who are also aligned with this group for border security more than half there are 26 governors they said who are committed to this issue and to fighting this issue on the state level talk to us a little bit about the q a with the governors what kind of comments did they have to make and particularly

about one biden appointee the press is usually confrontational on this issue, especially with Republicans. But this event was in a way overshadowed by, of course, the shooting at Timber Lake High School in Arlington. Of course, we're all praying for the recovery of the people affected by that. But Abbott was asked if his border press conference with these governors was more of a photo op for a potential presidential run and he didn't answer that head-on in terms of the presidential run but he talked about um that he and governor ricketts who's the governor of nebraska who spoke talked about how you cannot deny that there is a border crisis And while he didn't address whether or not he would run for president or whether this was part of that, he said that any and all action would be taken

to address the number of illegal crossings at the state level. He was asked specifically about closing down ports of entry, but he said that most illegal crossings occur between points of entry. So it didn't seem like he was ready to commit to additional actions that he's taken this was more about hindsight and looking back at some of the things he's done governor abbott has done one of the most fierce criticisms that abbott offered at this at this conference during the q a is his statement that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, he all but called him a liar. He said that he is continuously misleading the American public on this issue. And he called into question his competence. He said that the word he used is disaster. Abbott said he should be investigated by Congress and that he should resign more or less because of

the way this has turned out. But those are the highlights of some of his criticism of Biden and of his overview of his border security actions. Did all of the governors get to speak and were there any major players who did not speak or weren't in attendance? Well, I mentioned Governor Ducey spoke right after Abbott, but there were other governors there, including Brian Kemp of Georgia, Brad Little of Idaho, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Greg Gianforte of Montana, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, in addition to Mark Gordon of Wyoming. Interestingly enough, Governors Ricketts and Reynolds spoke, Nebraska and Iowa, but the Governor of Oklahoma didn't speak, which of course is our northern neighbor,

and Governor Kemp didn't speak, and he's a Republican governor who presides over a very populated state, Georgia, and I'm sure that they've been affected by fentanyl overdoses as well, Atlanta area, I'm sure. And that was the theme of the remarks of the governors who were able to speak about how illegal immigration affects their states and drug trafficking and human trafficking affects their states. So they were all, they were friendly with each other at this event, but not everyone had a chance to speak from the podium. And of course, Director McCraw and the National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd,

as I mentioned before, spoke to the media and addressed some of the border crisis issues. And Governor DeWin said at least 80% of the overdose deaths in Ohio are due to fentanyl. He did make sure to mention that. And there was one person who was originally slated to attend Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, but she later was, when they followed up with the details of the event, she wasn't on the list anymore. So I called and asked her office why she was taken off the list, and they didn't get back with us. So we're still not sure why Governor Noem backed out of the event. But ultimately, they laid out what they called a 10-point plan. But these items were primarily things that they have already advocated

in the past, such as continuing Title 42 and securing the border with additional federal resources. But all of these things were with the backdrop of the Del Rio surge. And at this event, there was not the cast of state legislators and members of Congress that there were at Trump's border wall event during the summer. So those are the things that made this event different than those in the past. And we'll have to see if the Biden administration ultimately acts on any of those 10 points they laid out. Yeah, I'd be shocked if they did. But who knows, right? Even from a political standpoint, there's not too much there to gain for the Biden administration from from that perspective. Thank you, Hayden, for covering that for us. We'll continue to keep an eye on all of that. Isaiah, we're going to come to you

shocker, but the heartbeat bill is back in the news. Let's get the big news out of the way. First, what happened with the heartbeat act on Wednesday? So federal judge Robert Pittman issued a preliminary injunction that halts enforcement of the heartbeat act. And this is part of the lawsuit against Texas from the Biden administration. This is not the case between the group of abortion providers and the state, mainly the state court system that nearly went to the Supreme Court and is now proceeding at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the two cases are intertwined. Pittman was the same judge in that case before it went to the Fifth Circuit, and he partially used the Fifth Circuit's reasoning for accepting the appeal to issue his injunction. What do you mean by that? How does the injunction work?

So the Biden administration requested an injunction against private citizens, which Pittman granted. And the reason for that was because of, everybody knows by now how the heartbeat act is enforced, is through private lawsuits. So it bars state judges and clerks from hearing or even accepting lawsuits under the heartbeat act. And it also stops private individuals from pursuing those lawsuits. This is related to the other challenge to the heartbeat act. It's not the fifth circuit after passing through Pittman's court, because that case involved a private defendant, Mark Lee Dixon, whom the abortion provider saw as a likely enforcer of the act. The fifth circuit accepted his appeal along with the state defendants, because it said

that the heartbeat act made state and private actors inextricably intertwined. So let's talk about the state level for a second. Talk us about what happened with planned parenthood's challenge at the supreme court of texas with the heartbeat act right so this is a totally different case it was going on in state court uh planned parenthood like uh 13 not 14 other plaintiffs had sued texas right to life a prominent pro-life lobbying group which had encouraged citizens to sue into the Heartbeat Act once it was passed. The state Supreme Court denied Planned Parenthood's request to unbind their lawsuit against Texas Right to Life from the other 13 similar cases against them. All of these 14 lawsuits in total came from groups or people attempting to challenge the Heartbeat Act in in state court but also were to shield themselves from enforcement lawsuits by texas right to life so the group moved

to consolidate all these cases which in turn moved them out of travis county district court and into a statewide court so that for one slowed down planned parenthood's lawsuit and all these 13 others and also you can do the math on a move from an Austin court to a Texas statewide court, the multi-district litigation panel. Do the math on how favorably that will work out for Planned Parenthood. Probably not so great for Planned Parenthood. Well, Isaiah, thank you for covering that for us. We'll continue to watch how this all shakes out.

There's a lot of action and movement around the Heartbeat Act all together. daniel we're going to come to you and talk about the redistricting battle all sorts of things happening and it's becoming a little more politically contentious but talk to us about the texas senate map that was voted on earlier this week what was the outcome of that yes so we've talked about the senate map and all the other maps on previous podcasts. The Senate map was actually voted on this week, like you said, and it was voted in favor of in a 20 to 11 vote. You know, when you first see that vote, you see 2020, which is above the number of Republicans in the Senate. So you know that there's at least two Democrats who voted for it. But it turns out there are actually three Democrats who voted for it and one Republican who voted against it.

Ooh, spicy. So those three Democrats are all border Democrats, Senators Chuyo Hinojosa, Judith Zaffirini, and Eddie Lucio Jr. They all voted in favor of the bill. And then one Republican, Senator Kel Seliger, up from Amarillo, voted against it. He had some issues with the changes to his district, which we'll get into later because that is a whole nother story entirely. Also spicy. Yes. But going back to the Dems, even though they did vote in favor of this bill, they provided a statement in the journal regarding their record of the vote. And this was actually all the dems democrats the 13 democrats

in the senate included this and they said any of our votes in this process whether it was the final vote like this or even votes on certain amendments doesn't show that they affirm all aspects of the bill and they're especially critical of the changes in senate district 10 in tarrant county yeah so give us a quick recap of those changes made to sd10 and the rest of the changes in Senate District 10 in Tarrant County. Yes. So give us a quick recap of those changes made to SD 10 and the rest of the map, too. But SD 10 has been the center of a lot of controversy, even in the past redistricting cycle. So this is nothing new. SD 10 is definitely going to be the focal point again.

There was a big lawsuit last time with Wendy Davis, and she was actually pretty successful in keeping the map the way that it had been before 2011. And so the Republicans have come back this time. They're doing it a little bit differently. You know, the numbers are not quite what they were in 2011. The changes are not quite that much, especially in regards to the demographics of the district. But it does change the partisan leaning of the seat so that it's not this kind of toss-up purple seat, but more of a solidly red, safely red Senate district, which would pull in a lot of Republican votes, not just from Tarrant County, but also from a bunch of rural surrounding counties. So it reaches out and pulls those in to shift it red. Now, something interesting that they did do on the floor in regards to Senate District 10 is it's in Tarrant County. The changes that had already been proposed would add Parker County to it, which is where State

Representative Philip King is from, and he is actually running for this seat now, kind of launched a campaign, uh, on the basis, assuming that this map is going to go through, uh, Lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, the head of the Senate, um, also endorsed him. And so, uh, there was another candidate who is, uh, potentially going to join the race that a lot of people were calling for him to join. And that'd be representative David Cook from Mansfield. But something interesting that they did on the floor was basically completely draw mansfield out of the district uh which i don't know exactly i think there's a small little portion of mansfield that might still be in there um but it likely draws a representative cook out of that district so he can't run for that um i almost said open seat it's technically not open open, but in Republicans' eyes, it will be.

Yeah, they're seeing this as fresh meat, basically. Let's get down to business. Now, I think one of the interesting parts on the Senate floor, one of the Democrat senators was asking Senator Huffman, the chair of the redistricting committee whose bill this is, was asking if it was going to basically basically give up um senator powell's seat in sd10 she's like well it depends on what the voters decide you know the classic response so of course everybody knows that this is going they're trying to turn this into a red district

there's no secret there but of course rhetorically they will dance around that yes um now the other changes that were made uh the map, of course, we've talked about this previously, Senate District 24, which is Senator Dawn Buckingham's seat. She's leaving. She's not going to be in this district anymore. It's actually going to now shift down to help out a former state senator, Pete Flores, and give him an opportunity to run for an open, safely read seat. Other changes that were made, of course, it did shore up a lot of support for incumbents. One of the big takeaways, I think, watching redistricting the session, in some sessions, Republicans will go out there and they make it a priority for the party to pick up as

many seats as possible. We're not seeing this this time in the chamber only in in either chamber there is of course some some consideration given to that and uh republicans do want to give something to the party like sd10 but overall both maps in the house and the senate and congressional is really about shoring up the support for the incumbents and and bolstering them so what this map does is definitely shores up the republican votes for incumbents shores up also the blue votes for democrats and that includes the three border democrats that we talked about you know the interesting thing the democrat who actually loses some democratic votes would be uh senator lucio but in a way that actually supports him because he often gets a lot more challenges from the left than he does from the right.

Yeah, particularly in that district. Yeah, those are the big changes. Now, talk to us about what the next steps in the process might be as the Senate has already passed this bill. So tell us where the maps go from here. So real quickly, just like any other piece of legislation, it still has to go through the House. They still have to sign off on it. Traditionally, Senate maps don't really change in the House. The House kind of does hands-off, and the Senate does the go through the House. They still have to sign off on it. Traditionally, Senate maps don't really change in the House. The House kind of does hands-off,

and the Senate does the same with the House map. The only changes that we might see is, you know, if the Senate says, hey, we need to make some more small adjustments, they might tack on an amendment. But that probably won't, I mean, there won't be any major changes I don't expect. I could be wrong. And Democrats will certainly try to push amendments, especially with sd10 um but it'll go through the legislature

in the house and then uh be agreed to and then it goes to the governor the governor still has to sign it just like any other bill previous uh decades the state has been required to obtain pre-clearance from the federal government for the maps to go into effect. That's no longer the case, but that doesn't stop lawsuits from happening. There will be lawsuits. There already are lawsuits. And so it wouldn't be surprising to see an injunction from a district federal court saying you can't use this map. Then that'll be appealed. The Pell Court will probably strike that down, probably go up to the Supreme Court.

Who knows what will happen after that? Well, I think this whole process is interesting, too, because you have legislators very much redistricting for the short term, right? So if there's somebody specifically who lives a precinct or two away, they're going to, you know, district that person out of any sort of contention. So they're dealing with the short term as well. But then they're also looking at long term and thinking, okay, well, how is the state you know demographics changing how can we shore up our majority for future legislature so it's an interesting combination a very short term sometimes petty uh you know map drawing and trying to shore up support for future legislatures because republicans are in the majority and

they're trying to make sure that they stay that way. Very interesting. Well, let's talk about the House. Now, as seems to be the habit with the legislature, the House is a little bit behind the Senate. Where are we at with the House maps? So the House maps still haven't gone to the floor. That will happen next week on Tuesday. But it was approved by the House Redistricting Committee earlier this week in an 8-7 vote. That's party line vote. And in that process, there were also several amendments that were adopted to the map, so some changes since we last talked about it.

Some of those amendments would include, I think the biggest one to not bury the, would be the changes in Collin County. This is the only change that will really affect the final partisan makeup of the legislature in the next regular session. Which originally, with the first map that had been introduced, it would make all these seats in Collin County red. Pretty much a safely Republican seat with around, we'll say like 55 to 57 percent leaning Republican in most of these districts. The new map, which apparently was agreed to by all the delegation in Collin County, which they're all Republican right now, but the map that they agreed to, which also adds in a seat, would actually turn in one of those open seats and make that probably pretty competitive and slightly leaning blue. It's possible that a Republican could win in 2022. It really depends on who comes out to vote. If we have another, you know, bitter or work factor, like in 2018, that brought out a lot of Democrat voters. If there's something like that, it could

definitely go blue. So it does lean slightly toward Democrats, but it'd be a toss up. So that would actually be the biggest change in the map. Partisan wise. There are also a bunch of other smaller changes. One of the ones that was contested by Democrats was changes made to representative Hugh shines district up in like the temple and clean area. The legislature had originally with the first map, they were opting to shore up support for Representative Brad Buckley, who is also in that neighborhood, and give him some more of the

red votes from Representative Hugh Schein. But that also brought Schein's number of Republican votes down. The amendment that was adopted in the committee would actually make Buckley seek the more purple district this time. I think it builds him up a little bit more than what it had been, but it also takes away splitting some of the black communities in Killeen, which they say, you know, that's illegal is what they're saying. So I imagine there will be some more opposition to that. It will probably come up in lawsuits, too, if this continues to go through. Some other small changes uh there's a swap in travis county between uh representative vicky goodwin and representative donna howard's district so that they would be put back into more of the area of austin that they had represented um and then they also renumbered

hd 60 and 61 um i believe 61 was representative phil king's district he actually got paired with rogers but of course king is running for the senate so his seat is going to be open and so it provides more flexibility so they'll just give rogers his old number keep that the same a little bit less complicated um and they also the the members of the house committee also rejected some Democratic proposals to make some changes in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley. And they also rejected some changes that would have probably flipped back the seats for Representative Michelle Beckley and Representative James Tallarico. Those were both counties or districts in more Republican counties

that had turned blue. And so Republicans in this map are trying to turn those back red. There we go. Those are the changes for now. Yep.

And as you said, this will be brought to the floor this coming Tuesday and we'll see what happens there. But as in, you know, the Senate had their process, the House will be much more fiery. There will be much more debate

and it will likely take a much longer process for that to be worked through. And probably some tears, too. You never know. There were some in the committee hearing, so. Okay, so we have the precursor. We know we have the prequel. Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you, Daniel, for bringing that down for us.

Brad, let's talk about ERCOT. Shocker. But as temperatures drop, finally, it's fall here in texas even though you may not know it by walking out your front door they drop soon yeah they're starting to on any given day it might drop like 15 degrees which is just wonderful um what has the state done to prevent another cold weather disaster like that that occurred in february so this entire summer there have been a lot of deliberations, both within the PUC, within ERCOT, within the legislature on what to do, how to prevent this next thing from

happening. The biggest thing that has been done so far is designating the wellheads and the pipelines all as critical infrastructure. There was an oversight during the February storm. Many of them were not designated critical infrastructure. And so they had their power cut. And so you had this compounding effect of you can't get the gas to the generators to create electricity because the electricity has been cut off on the front end of this. So that was a very simple thing that was done. You know, that is something that was a man-made problem. It's a governmental oversight, but that has been fixed. And I think that will do a lot to prevent certainly things from getting as bad as they were back in February. But, you know, a lot of other stuff, there's new oversight,

there's this new Energy Reliability Council that is supposed to oversee the direction of the power grid and different policies that may or may not be implemented. One big thing that's going to happen in December is the Public Utility Commission is going to issue its decision, its ruling on how to reshape the ERCOT market. Specifically, they want to incentivize more dispatchability. And by that, they mean power that can be turned on or called upon in a short amount of time rather than be left to the whims of the weather. And so, obviously, that stuff can still fail as we saw back in February, but they want to incentivize more of that. Various other things have been pushed, such as a more higher level reform of keeping all the PUC officials in Texas, keeping the ERCOT board members in Texas. That's in-state residency. I don't know how much that's going to do,

but it is going to ensure that everyone is in the same boat if things hit the fan. Yeah. But the big thing is going to be what comes out of this market reshaping discussion. And we don't really know. They're keeping their cards close to the chest, but you could see some sort of financial incentive to build more dispatchable power. And does renewable power fit into that at all? During the hearing that I wrote about that happened last week but we wrote about this week um there was a lot of argument over that how much does does renewable energy deserve to be called that some people believe not at all others believe it should deserve some consideration

and there was one concession made that if it's you know in battery storage then that would count as dispatchable because you can flip that on um but one thing notable with battery storage then that would count as dispatchable because you can flip that on but one thing notable with battery storage is that it's very limited right now the technology the amount we can store is not even close to the amount that you need to power the grid so all those things are in discussion right now once we hit december we'll really start to see what the puc has decided here so really the moral of the story is we know what they're discussing the big broad 30 000 foot view perspective but we don't necessarily know what they're coming to the table with in terms of actual solutions. Yes. Right. And part of that, we already do know the legislature put forward some of their own reforms.

But I mean, is that basically why people are still talking about the greatest? Because we're still in the process of figuring out these solutions. And now it's up to the agencies themselves to kind of put these into place yeah and there was the winterization mandate and that is at various levels of uh accomplishments um the gas side the uh the the railroad commission is not required to enforce that um at the current date like it is in on the generation side and so um we'll see how much progress is made on that. I think, you know, the larger thing in this whole discussion is that what are the chances that we face another storm like we did this past year? Um, not just how cold it got, but how long it lasted. That was the real thing that broke the grid, uh, that Texas was not prepared for. And these reforms are hoping,

they're hoping that, uh, it will prepare texas for that they hope that better management of the electricity um will will better prepare prepare texas but really um the odds that we face another storm like we did are slim to none yeah well and you know a lot of texans are rightfully saying it was unacceptable what happened in february the response was you know even just the fact that the grid could be that vulnerable to this kind of weather even though it's so rare that it happens in and of itself as a failure right but okay when will it happen again happen again a lot of this political response is due to pressure and it's costing a lot of money so there's always that side as well right it was horrible it was horrendous and

that is why people are still talking about it and you know probably will take a couple winters to get through before people um you know let it go a little bit and um it certainly won't happen this winter it'll be on the back of everyone's mind in the front of everybody's minds i mean a lot of general general election opponents to statewide officials are bringing this up as a reason why they're running as Democrats in Texas, citing Republican, the failure of Republican leadership, whether or not that is legitimate or not is up to each voter. But that's the talking point, right? We're going to see this going into 2022. Well, thank you, Bradley, for that. Hayden, let's talk about speaking of statewide elections, the lieutenant governor's race. We've not talked about this much up until this point, but talk to us about who the candidates

are and what the tone of the race has been so far. Well, one of the primary issues in the lieutenant governor's race will likely be border security. And I should mention that the governor's office just announced that they are appealing FEMA's decision to deny a state of disaster for the border crisis. And that leads us into the four candidates who are running for lieutenant governor next year. And that would be Dan Patrick so far. He's the incumbent. He's been the incumbent for a number of years now.

Since 2015, he was elected pretty decisively in 2014, but then by a much slimmer margin in 2018, when he almost lost to Mike Collier 51% to 49%. Patrick has been upping the ante for advancing conservative policy priorities, including even willing to go to battle with Texas House Republicans over what he perceives as them being less willing or eager to advance those legislative items. And Patrick also has a long career in media, and he, I think, relies a lot on those instincts when judging his political future. So that's Dan Patrick, who's the incumbent in the office, the Republican incumbent.

And then as recently as Tuesday, we have Tracy Bradford, who has emerged as the Republican primary challenger for Abbott. She's running on- Or for Dan Patrick. Pardon me, for Patrick, not Abbott. Important distinction.

She's running on a platform of liberty and limited government she was the president of texas eagle forum and is the vice president of christians engaged so she has launched her candidacy and the republican primary uh hopefully will be happening in march and depending on um if everything goes as planned with redistricting. But once those primaries wrap up, then we'll have a Democratic opponent for the successful Republican candidate. So those are the two prominent Republican candidates, Dan Patrick and Tracy Bradford.

Then on the Democratic side, we have Matthew Dowd, who is, of course, a former strategist for President Bush, who was incidentally governor of Texas before he became president. And he is running on a platform of opposing what he calls a culture war. Mike Collier, the other Democrat, has also said that as well. But what's interesting is Dowd wrote an op-ed or an opinion piece when he was at ABC News, and the sentiment of this piece was, and this is the demographic he named, was that white male Christians should not be in leadership as much, the 30,000 foot view of that. And that

white male Christians should step back and give more space for women and minorities to take leadership positions. So, this, that isn't, and this isn't like he wrote this in high school or college and then years later is now running for a statewide political office. He wrote this three years ago around the time that Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and now is launching a candidacy for lieutenant governor. So it will be interesting if Bradford ends up getting nominated as the Republican candidate. That'd be quite ironic to have a Democrat who's taken this position than running against a female Republican candidate. But of course, that'll depend on the outcome of the primaries. seating lieutenant governor patrick in 2018 and he's running on liberal issues such as uh supporting climate change reform or things to address climate change and uh he also supports roe v wade and abortion rights as well so they are supporting the field democratic uh causes he's also uh talked a lot about the grid as you know we mentioned a couple minutes ago that's who i was thinking of when i mentioned that earlier almost every other press release says fix the

damn grid yeah exactly so um and as brad just mentioned that's probably going to be at the front of people's minds this winter so yeah that'll be an important an important issue uh and of course it's that's going to be a bread and butter issue in texas politics for a while i think um but those are the four candidates and those are are just a taste of where they stand on the issues absolutely and definitely these three opponents right now that uh the lieutenant governor has all in their own way have some sort of name id with a portion of the voting populace. How formidable they will be is yet to be seen. You know, Tracy Bradford has come out and it will likely be a challenge from the right.

I'm sure the Lieutenant Governor is going to make note of the more conservative social policies he's pushed in comparison to the House throughout these legislative sessions for his past four-year term. We'll see how that ends up being part of the discussion and if bradford can raise money and actually pose a challenge to the lieutenant governor and these two democrats will be very very interesting to watch

them navigate the rhetorical battle as well but hayden thank you for that daniel we're going to come right to you talk about the house and the senate speaking of the house and the senate being on different pages the senate again has been quick to pass legislation this session these special sessions they've moved very quickly through the process and even started voting on an item that abbott just added to the special session agenda last week what was that item so when governor abbott added this to the agenda hayden actually wrote the article on this. And basically what it would do is raise the penalty for illegal voting back up to a felony, returning it to what it was before SB1, which was the major election integrity bill that the Republicans passed in the last special session. In that bill, there was a provision that actually lowered the penalty for illegal voting.

So Governor Abbott has added it to the agenda to raise it back up to what it was. And the Senate acted quickly on this. I think he put this on the agenda Thursday of last week. And they filed the bill the day after they had a hearing this week, and they voted it out already. So now it's headed over to the House. Now, talk to us about the support and opposition to this legislation. Is it similar to stances that folks took on the major election bill that was heard earlier this year and the subject that, you know, made a lot of Democrats want to flee the state? Yes, I think for the most part, and there is one huge caveat on there that we'll get to. But for the most part, yes, you know,

people on the right see this as something that's necessary to really kind of make sure that people aren't going out and voting illegally. If they have this threat of a higher penalty, if they know that they're going to get a felony for doing this, they argue that it'll deter more illegal voting. So, you know, a couple quotes here, one from coming from the right, and then one also coming from the left, where people are like, no, we shouldn't be doing this. And so Alan Vera, who has been very outspoken with the whole election integrity legislation, he's involved a lot in Harris County and election reform. Is he an activist? Is that his role? He works with the Republican Party pushing for election reforms. And he said at the hearing, he said, we believe the primary purpose of criminal penalties for serious violations of the Texas election code is as a deterrent. Those considering or planning serious violations of the code may be less likely to actually commit the offenses if they know there is a serious penalty attached to the violation they are considering.

Other people on the left really kind of scoff at this measure, and they say the bill was agreed to. You know, why should we go and change what you guys already agreed to? And one person who testified, James Slattery, who I believe he's with the Civil Rights Defense Project, an attorney, more of an activist attorney type person. At the hearing, he said, it is richly ironic that during the debate on SB1 that supporters of SB1 routinely accused the opponents of the bill of not having read the bill. Yet some of those same supporters of SB1 now claim to be surprised

that it contained provisions reducing some criminal penalties related to voting. Because some people have said that they really weren't, they thought it was a mistake that this lowering the penalty was included in the bill in the final version that was passed out um and so he's kind of saying that's kind of ironic yeah um so that's kind of the two perspectives that we have so the perspectives are remaining largely the same what about the division between the house and the senate what kind of chance does this bill have in the house yeah and that's the big caveat because the top member of the House, Speaker Dade Phelan,

has expressed opposition to the bill, basically saying that we've already done this, we're going to focus on redistricting, that's it. And he said, quote, with much acclaim from elected officials and voters, Governor Greg Abbott signed SB1 into law. Now is not the time to relitigate. Instead, the House will remain focused on its constitutional obligation to pass redistricting maps, and members look forward to fulfilling this critical task. So the bill is likely dead on arrival in the House if Speaker Phelan has his way, which the Speaker usually does. He has a lot of power in that chamber specifically well uh daniel thank you for that we will definitely keep an eye on uh that going forward isaiah let's talk about schools with and

without mask mandates when comparing covid positivity rates how do texas public schools with mask mandates compare to those without them yeah so overall from the beginning of this school year to the end of september 1.89% of students in schools with mask mandates have tested positive compared to 2.93% of students in schools without mask mandates. So a difference of about 1% in positivity rate. And this data comes from schools themselves that they report to the state, and that's released in reports every week. There are a few gaps in it because for very small districts, once you get below a certain threshold of students, they hide the results in the local spreadsheet,

but include it in the overall count. But when you're looking at all the local data collated, there will be some schools that just don't have data there because it would be obvious which kid got COVID in a district of 15 people. Right. There's a little bit of, you know, discretion that has to be used. Now talk to us about statewide trends. How do those look for COVID infection in schools? It's looking like they peaked in around the beginning of September and have gone down since then. So if you look at the beginning of August, all up through August, you've got positive student cases increasing. And then for the week of the 5th of September, that's when they're the highest and they've been rising pretty,

excuse me, lowering pretty steadily since then, which is an encouraging trend. Absolutely. Now talk to us about the risk that COVID poses to children. So according to state data, 88 Texans under the age of 20 have died with the disease since they began measuring. And that accounts for 0.14% of the state's total fatality count. A little over 700,100 Americans have died with COVID-19. And out of those, the feds report that 499 of them were under the age of 18. An interesting little fact that Time reported a little while ago is that fewer children under the age of 15 died in 2020 overall compared to prior years. So the child mortality rate actually went down over the course of 2020, even after accounting for COVID deaths. So overall, COVID presents a very small, vanishingly rare risk of death to children.

Thank you for reporting on that and parsing through that data for us, Isaiah. Hayden, let's talk to you. Let's do a little bit of a recap of the Del Rio situation that you have covered from the get-go, but talk to us specifically about the condition of haiti um so many of those who were underneath the del rio international bridge were from haiti were haitians why were people so desperate to leave there um talk to us you know a little bit through those details well i think it's safe to say that anyone would probably not choose Haiti as a place to live. It is a country ravaged by natural disasters and a kidnapping crisis right now. Their kidnapping rate has been through the roof. And of course, their president was assassinated over the summer. So, the nation itself is just in a state of disarray, which precipitated why individuals are trying to get

out of there. But that's not the entirety of the equation because many individuals who are or were in Haiti after they left in the 2010 earthquake so many years ago, they went to Chile and Brazil. And those countries, especially Brazil, facilitated the transport of Haitians to Brazil so they could have a better life where they weren't starving or facing the issues that go with living in a country where hundreds of thousands of people died in an earthquake. And I know that there are disputed death tolls over the 2010 earthquake, but they had another earthquake in August, making Haiti even more unlivable. And of course, the United States, we've had our own problems with crime. And we, after the COVID-19 pandemic, undoubtedly have had our own economic challenges. But of course, it is different for us. And we have more resources than a country like Haiti, which I believe is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. So the,

the associated press summarized that the, what they, the, what they reported as the well traveled route or the well worn route, I think is the term the AP used of my migration from Haiti to Texas was they flew to South America and then came up through Central America on foot and or by bus to Mexico and then would wait in the vicinity of the US Mexico border for a time to cross over. And that is the 30,000 foot view of why they ended up so close to Del Rio and why they wanted to avoid deportation so badly.

Talk to us real fast about how many Haitians actually ended up in Del Rio. Well, and again, they're not all Haitian, so it's not a matter of 100% of these individuals. But Mayorcas, Secretary Mayorcas reported the Friday after all of this was starting to wind down that 30,000 people had been encountered since, I believe, September 9th, early September, in the Del Rio area. But the encampment had about 15,000 or 16,000 people at any given time throughout that case, that surge. And part of the fallout from this was Val Verde County, their commissioner's court voted to, and the county attorney of Val Verde explained to me that

it wasn't voting to initiate a lawsuit, but it was voting to get together with other counties to see if there's interest in the lawsuit. Of course, I can't get out of my head when I talk about lawsuits on the border now that the US Supreme Court has ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the migrant protection protocols. And they're still focused on trying to redraft the memo abolishing it so that they could get another bite at the apple of abolishing it and they've said that they are making a good faith effort to restore it but it's clear that they still want to tear the the remain in mexico policy down permanently and they're still trying to figure out a way to do that so i think it'd be difficult for an organization to make a good faith effort to

restore something that they are actively trying to abolish. Perhaps they are, and they're just working on it in different their order of operations is different. But so I'm not sure how much of a lawsuit, an impact a lawsuit would have because that decision was last month. And then we had the Del Rio surge. So one thing after another

one thing after the other and so i'm not sure how much good a lawsuit would do but that is part of the fallout of this surge are we headed for another surge like we saw in del rio at this point i don't see any indication and of course you know i'm not a border security expert but from what i hear from the people who are experts is that all signs point to yes you know chief kerrish told me that if the deportations only apply to haitian illegal aliens then that only mitigates that one crisis and it won't have any effect after that and the border patrol union president brandon judd said at the the conference yesterday that nothing has changed that would prevent another incident like del rio in fact

mayorkas is reportedly concerned about there being 350 or 400 000 illegal crossings this month so and the remainder mexico policy has not been re-implemented, which was a major part of deterring illegal crossings. So the Biden administration may be, perhaps they're making some progress on long-term things like working out policies of Central America. I know they've said that they have, that that's what they're working on. Also, the White House has contended that there's been a lot of talk among Republicans about addressing this crisis, but not a lot of action. And, of course, some of Abbott's Republican primary opponents would agree with that. But the crisis itself, really, I would say, from my perspective, shows no signs of turning a corner. Well, thank you for all your coverage of that issue, Hayden. It will certainly be something that, you know, unfortunately, we have to continue to cover. Daniel, let's talk about a Texas state

senator who is in the news again, and really kind of is a lone wolf in the Senate in many ways. Kel Seliger, a Republican from West Texas. Like you mentioned earlier, he was the lone Republican to vote against the Senate redistricting maps. And he also voted against an election audit bill this week. To top it off, former President Trump endorsed his opponent. Walk us through this drama and tell us a little bit about these redistricting complaints that you alluded to earlier. Yes. So Kelton G. seliger is his full name uh and bring that up because it's it's kind of interesting that there's also a an unincorporated community up in the panhandle called kelton uh like his first name so and it all comes back to the town of kelton at least for

this uh his redistricting vote uh because his big complaint with redistricting was that it took a lot of the counties up in the panhandle not a lot just like probably like five or four or five maybe six counties up in the panhandle including the one of wheeler county which is where kelton is and it would actually give that to sd 28 which is the other West Texas Senate district belonging to Senator Charles Perry. So, and in place of those panhandle counties, Seliger's district would get a lot more closer to the Permian Basin, kind of more in the traditional West Texas, you know, west of Austin, those counties. And so, he actually offered an amendment on the Senate floor when it came to the floor, and he was requesting that the Senate shift those counties back around

so that he gets more in the Panhandle and less down in the Permian Basin. But that was opposed by Senator Joan Huffman, and he ultimately pulled down the amendment, saying that he didn't want to force, uh, senators to make a tough vote. Um, but he also said on the floor, I believe members that really what this is about is to take counties out of the panhandle and move them closer to Midland because a member of the board of the Texas public policy foundations is running. Now, uh, there is a, actually he's a former board member of the of tppf uh the think

tank in austin uh kevin sparks who is running for sd31 and in the midland area as a republican yes um as a republican against a sitting republican now zilliger hasn't actually announced that he's running for re-election he He hasn't made that decision yet. But it's kind of presumed that incumbents will run unless they say otherwise. But Seliger was saying that this is not about agriculture or oil and gas. He's saying this is really about a partisan, not a partisan, not even partisan. It's intra-partisan. An intra-partisan fight to kind of push him out of the legislature and get someone new into his seat. Now, it's not news that he is voting against his party.

He's done that quite frequently in past years. He's actually rated as the most liberal Republican in the Senate by Mark P. Jones and his ranking of members. And so, you know, he is oftentimes on the outs of the party, but now he's really kind of getting pushed there and he's going to have a significant primary challenge. Well, any GOP big ticket item, you know, the lieutenant governor has his majority of Republican senators that he will deal with to try and get his items passed or even brought to the floor. And Seliger can be a wild card in that regard. I mean, even the property tax bill from previous sessions, all these different kinds of big items Lieutenant Governor wants to pass.

Seliger can be a wild card. And he's been very vocal about opposition to certain even social issues previously and just has a different leaning on some of these things. Speaking of which, talk to us about the election audit bill. So just a little bit of background on this election audit bill. This is different. This is not the same bill as I was talking about earlier that would increase the penalty for voting. This is actually a bill to audit the 2020 election from Senator Paul Betancourt. He offered it in the previous special session. It passed the Senate. It did not go anywhere in the House.

Now, former President Trump actually sent a letter to Governor Abbott asking him to put this back on the agenda for this special session, urging him to do that. Abbott, or the Secretary of State's office, then announced that it was going to do an audit of four of the biggest counties in Texas. But Abbott has not added this item to the special session agenda. Nonetheless, the Senate has decided to take this up and approve this legislation once again. So Senator Paul Bettencourt filed this bill, which is actually explicitly mentioned in the president's letter to Trump.

In the president's letter to Abbott. He didn't send one to himself. And so they voted on this, but there was one Republican who voted against it, and that was Senator Kel Seliger. So again, he's kind of voting against it. Now, why he was voting against it, it's not really clear. I haven't seen any statements. He didn't say anything on the floor when it happened. Now, it could be just because it's not really clear. I haven't seen any statements. He didn't say anything on the floor when it happened. Now, it could be just because it's not on the special session agenda. And there's a question about whether this would actually pass in the House, because I'm sure a point of order could be raised and actually agreed to because it's not on the agenda.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. Now, has Lieutenant Governor indicated that he wants Seliger replaced? He hasn't said anything explicitly, but we know that Lieutenant Governor has been very active in kind of orchestrating who he wants to be in the Senate in the next regular session. He has endorsed candidates in all the two open seats and also in SD-10, which is going to turn Republican if they have their way. And, um, then you also have Kells Helger's district, which like you were mentioning, they kind of butt heads on a lot of these big issues. And so Patrick, uh, did say in an event in the Permian basin, uh, at a, at a meeting, he was a keynote speaker and he said that the Senate does need someone from the oil and gas industry, which kevin sparks the the candidate who has trump's backing um and apparently he's going to come out with a few more endorsements from uh selger's primary challenges from the last election um pretty soon and so he he is in the oil and gas industry this could be who patrick was referring to who knows

and it is notable that that lieutenant that the lieutenant governor was i believe it was the chairman for president trump's re-election campaign here in texas or i forget the exact title but held a position of prominence in the president's campaign or former president's campaign again in in 26 2016 and 2020 both um and you know trump endorsed sparks so interesting in that regard not necessarily tied but interesting to note nonetheless thank you for that daniel isaiah let's talk about uh update on the sanctuary cities for the unborn here in texas three more towns voted to outlaw abortion in city limits where are they uh the one that i find most interesting is impact it is just north of abilene and it has around 20 to 30 inhabitants so when it was added it single-handedly shrank the average

member population of this initiative from 10 000 people to about 9 800 people which is just kind of funny to me um brownsboro voted to outlaw abortion on August 16th. Impact voted September 11th. The most recent addition is the town of Nazareth. It is the northernmost sanctuary in Texas so far. It's a town in the panhandle of about 300 people. And they adopted the ordinance on October 5th. So those are the three, two west, one east.

Tell us a little bit about what happened in San Angelo. Yeah, it was interesting. The guy that has been spreading these ordinances around from town to town is Mark Lee Dixon. We mentioned him earlier in passing. He's a named defendant on the lawsuit of the abortion providers against the state court system he's the only citizen involved in it and um anyway his involvement in this story like i said is that he presents these ordinances from town to town and um he goes personally to all these towns even impact and other such small towns and he's had his eyes on san angelo and Abilene and Odessa for some time and has presented or, I guess, pitched the ordinance to San Angelo a number of times already. And just earlier this week, actually shortly after we published this piece, the San Angelo City Council, instead of voting on the ordinance, decided instead to pass a resolution in support of the Heartbeat Act act which is obviously not an enforceable law

and what's interesting about that is that the heartbeat act explicitly provides in one line that it does not touch the ability of municipalities to regulate abortion more strictly than it does so in other words it strictly allows the sanctuary city for the unborn type ordinance and um but san angelo indirectly speaking rejected that ordinance yeah in favor of the more symbolic resolution yeah very interesting well isaiah thanks for covering that for us and continuing to keep an eye on an eye on all of this we appreciate it boys let's talk about um social media outages we had facebook and instagram both go down for a long time uh for many hours this week which was interesting i think was it was it tuesday or monday monday tuesday i think it was monday monday okay i can't keep my day straight i can

barely keep my um you know my own name straight as you all are fully aware. But what would the world be like post Facebook? That's our fun topic for this week. Hayden, was this you? I think this was your topic, wasn't it? It was my idea the other day after Facebook went down. It was, however, not my idea to destroy Facebook. So I'm going to give. Got it. You're right, that was Daniel's. That was, yeah. I plead the fifth. I played the fifth. Got it. Well, walk us through your question, Hayden. What exactly are you getting at here?

Well, I think my question is an important one due to the number of friendships that have been destroyed by Facebook. Wow. Sounds like you have some personal experience here. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm kidding um facebook feeds into or well we won't put all the blame on facebook we'll just say social media in general but it brings the worst out of people at times and that's why i think facebook went on a campaign to try to restore its reputation oh so you think ads facebook is this benevolent um monstrosity that just decided to uh you know allow folks to talk to their uncles in peace again it's a monstrosity for allowing them to talk to them oh no i'm saying it's a benevolent monstrosity

that decided to shut itself down yes in favor of allowing you know extended family relationships to flourish once again i don't i don't know if they shut themselves down or who the prime suspect is and what happened. I actually haven't read what truly happened. Or it's probably a bold assumption for me to assume that I would even understand why Facebook went down. Because I'm definitely not a tech person. But a world post Facebook, you might have a harder time keeping up with friends and family, but there'd probably be a lot fewer political arguments and arguments over other silly things.

But that's my take. Yeah. Daniel, thoughts? I'm trying to think them. You're trying to think them? Yes. Great. Brad? them you're true yes um great brad i think there is one premier benefit gosh for facebook i already i already hate whatever he's gonna say like i already hate it since graduating high school

oh i have been contacted by no fewer than half a dozen i guess former friends for class former high school classmates who are trying to recruit me for their danged pyramid schemes and it's always these super long messages hi brad hope you're doing well dude we haven't talked in eight years has been that long i don't even know but anyway um i haven't talked to these people at all yeah and they're trying to would you like to earn some money on the side chris uh set your own hours blah like no dude no i don't i don't want to do this i don't want to talk to you uh there's a reason that i haven't spoken to you in many years wow um this is sad this is i think this is a lot about you brad does it yeah oh is there just a

large contingent of people that like getting these messages like being recruited for pyramid schemes i think it might be an ohio thing because i don't really get these pyramid scheme invites yeah i don't either maybe you just had fewer friends in high school like me maybe we just weren't as popular in high school yeah we were homeschooled. We were homeschooled. That's very true. Popular, yeah. Yeah, Brad was. Totally. That's definitely true. I think Brad was pretty well liked in high school.

That reminds me, Brad. I've been meaning to tell you about this exciting investment opportunity that I want to get you on board with. Just kidding. Oh, my gosh. Does it have anything to do with air ventilation systems? Huh. Thank you. I see what you did there.

Thank you. Appreciate that. No, but I agree with you brad facebook gives you the wonderful opportunity of being contacted by people who otherwise would not have been able to find your contact information yeah like your phone numbers change people move and but facebook one search and they know where you live, where you work. That's why on my Facebook, I, well,

I deleted Facebook in October and then I had started another account earlier this year and I set all of my settings so that you can only see my information unless you're, you can only see my information if I friend you. Of course, most people could find out easily where I live and where I work online, but at least they won't find that out on Facebook. Of the people that messaged me, most of them were, this wasn't really a surprise.

It was exactly the kind of people you'd pick out before graduating. Oh, these people are going to fall for Ponzi schemes. Oh my gosh. If they listen to this, Brad, that's going to be really harmful to them. Not a single one of them listen to this. Not a single one of them listen to this. Not a single one. But there was one guy with whom I played baseball growing up. Why does everything he says sound pretentious?

How is that pretentious? Okay, just keep going. But I was very shocked to see this guy fallen so far from grace and joining this parasitic organization that is, you know, positive. This is so aggressive. You are so aggressive. Watching Mackenzie's facial expressions while Brad talks is an emotional rollercoaster. It's every time I open my mouth.

Oh my gosh. It's just condescension upon condescension. I haven't given you grief on this podcast in a long time. I would like the record to reflect. I see we're bringing back the bashing brad segment it's been dormant for a while a while and i missed it i didn't realize you disagreed i just didn't realize you loved getting these messages i don't get them because my friends don't uh involve themselves in ponzi schemes bradley are you saying you have better taste in friends yeah i would just like to say that the you know i don't have this problem okay okay good talk thank you um daniel yeah do you have any more

thoughts on this yeah i don't think much would change okay i think people would find other ways to have their partisan fights i think people will find other ways to contact people and find out about their birthdays and their new kids and all this other stuff like i think the babylon b did a good report on this where they're like utopia broke out after facebook goes down and then at the end of the article they say at the end of this article, they say, at the end of this article, they were saying that now people are discovering Twitter. And that's exactly what would happen. That's true. There's always an outlet.

Yeah. Isaiah, thoughts? You know, I kind of lean that way because human nature is human nature. It doesn't really change. But I don't think you can overlook how entire movements form on social media because people with wildly rare beliefs or thoughts all of a sudden are now not like, you know, one in a town of however many people. But there are 2,000 in a world of however many billion. But you can find those other 2,000 people real easy on, you know, social media. Anyway. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's true. and Facebook has certainly proliferated that. But I also think that even if you got rid of Facebook, we can't go back and undo it because there's going to be Reddit, there's going to be Twitter, there's going to be YouTube, there's going to be other places now already. Where online discourse can take it. The only way that we can actually do it is, like, if you just destroyed the internet, which.

That'd be nice. Isaiah would no longer have to have twitter and that would make him very happy yes well then you lose all your followers no oh you got a long way to fall this is really brutal all of you it's brutal out here um anybody get that reference no it's brutal out here brad you listen to olivia rodrigo you should have yes yes she has a song i don't know what you're talking she says it's brutal out here it's literally a song called brutal oh well good for her yeah okay well on that note um i would like to say that i would love if facebook was

gone because the people who wish you happy birthday on facebook are the people that you don't know it's like that random person you friended back in college that you had one class with spent one quarter with and don't know now or but you would never know that they're thinking about you that's so true but the happy but the but the token uh timeline post where they say happy birthday with no punctuation warms my heart not in iota you know not one kelvin no you can turn off the notification for your birthday and then you won't get any of that yeah that's or you can delete your facebook and be like isaiah i would also enjoy that that's my really only thought if oh my gosh hayden just hayden looks so tired he just wiped his eyes and rubbed his eyes. And he looked like so tired and sad.

Well, on that note, folks. Yeah, Brad. Oh, dear. Sorry. Yes. If you have words to say, you can say them. Yes, I have a shout out to give to Ben Wright, one of our listeners. I ran into him yesterday at a coffee shop up in Cedar Park. He lives in Leander.

Came up to me, recognized our logo on my polo. And so it was cool. It's cool to talk to him, get some feedback from him and hear what he cares about in Texas politics. And so if anyone runs into us in the real world, do that. Ben Wright is his name? Ben Wright. Well, Ben, thank you for listening. That's so awesome.

Sometimes it feels like we're siphoned off in a room speaking to ourselves alone, which is true. But sometimes we forget this actually goes out into the world and people listen to it well ben is right there listening to us i was i knew there was going to be a pun involved in poor ben's name hey i do it to my name all the time so there you go that's true daniel friend what a friend you are well on that note folks thanks for listening we will catch you next week thank you all so much for listening if you've been enjoying our podcast it would be awesome if you would review us on itunes We'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes.

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and God bless Texas.