The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 2, 2022

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: Austin Mayor Steve Adler’s last State of the City addressThe former Athens mayor facing prison for sending obscene content to what he believed was a 15-year-old girlTexas Democrats putting abortion at the center of their campaigns23 Texas Republicans’ failed petition to knock Libertarian candidates off the ballotThe Port of Corpus Christi’s future as it marks 100 years of serviceGovernor Greg Abbott rejecting proposals to ban firearms for adults under 21Texas’ plan to spend $85 billion on transportation construction projectsThe State Board of Education scrapping its social studies standards draftsAccused MS-13 gang members facing the death sentenceBorder agents in the Rio Grande Valley rescuing people from stash houses

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Austin Mayor Steve Adler's last State of the City address. The former Athens mayor facing prison for sending obscene content to what he believed was a 15-year-old girl. Texas Democrats putting abortion at the center of their campaigns. 23 Texas Republicans failed petition to knock Libertarian candidates off the ballot. The port of Corpus Christi's future as it marks 100 years of service. Governor Greg Abbott rejecting proposals to ban firearms for adults under 21. Texas's plan to spend $85 billion on transportation construction projects. The State Board of Education scrapping its social studies

standards drafts, accused MS-13 gang members facing the death sentence, and border agents in the Rio Grande Valley rescuing people from stash houses. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at thetexan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie Taylor here with Brad, Hayden, Hudson, and Rob. Gentlemen,

thanks for joining me. Brad, I really want to tease something that's coming out in the next few days or the beginning of next week at some point. You just had an interview in office with Luke Warford, the Democrat nominee for Railroad Commission. Talk to us about that. Tease it if you can, and we'll start on the news. It was interesting. He came in, talked about why he's running the energy industry in general, his philosophy on it, on its direction. Yeah, I thought it was an interesting chat and glad he took time to come visit with us. we'll have uh chairman wayne christian whom luke is running against some point yeah probably next month uh for his own podcast but

um yeah people should be watching the railroad commission race if for no other reason than it's energy and i tell you to i say it's important listen to bradley it was interesting hearing him talk about his tour across the state which he did via train yeah which is hilarious as he's running for a railroad commission and the commission does very little if nothing with railroads at all anymore which is i thought that was a pretty fun little uh uh campaign option for him as he runs for statewide office yep yeah, and he's heading into the general and it seems like he's pretty bullish on his chances,

but all candidates are. They kind of have to be if they're going to convince themselves to run a statewide race. Oh my gosh, yeah. That's a huge undertaking. But yeah, we'll see where the chips fall and it has already been

the most fun race to watch this year and it probably will continue to be. He's a very energetic candidate and has very interesting answers. So definitely go check it out, folks, once that podcast interview drops. Gentlemen, let's go ahead and jump into the news. Brad, we're going to start with you. The Austin mayor, Steve Adler, delivered his last State of the City address last Thursday after recorded the podcast. What was his parting message?

So in short, his message to those gathered was an assessment on his tenure that it was quote disruptive, which he meant as good disruption, disruption of the status quo to that point. Obviously, there are differing opinions on this, but he further said that the city must continue pressing forward on public transportation projects, progressive bailiwicks like abortion facilitation and diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives, and its marquee reforms of policing and bail policy. He touted all of that as successes that need to be continued in austin um i don't think the people at the the state legislature in the state capitol would agree with that they've been feuding with with uh the mayor of the capital city for quite a while but

that was his assessment and um now eyes move towards the race to replace him how did he address questions about public safety during his address so oddly symmetrical just minutes before his speech apd officially announced two homicides that occurred within the previous 24 hours that's bad timing yeah now over 50 on the year i think as of the time i was writing this it was exact exactly on pace with the numbers through august now at that point there were multiple days like a week probably between then and the end of of the uh of the month of august um i don't know if there have been any more but um it at least was on pace with last year's and easily has a shot to outpace it at the end so that was an interesting development that um that kind of prefaced his message on public

safety and after the speech i asked him about the city's public safety and he said quote i think our city is much safer now than when I first took office and I say that because the underlying issues that lead to crime are things that we have fundamentally addressed in that response he is referring to things like the bail policy

being more lax on who it is you let let out of jail before their trial the sentencing itself when people are convicted of a crime who it is you let out of jail before their trial, the sentencing itself when people are convicted of a crime, also policies such as injecting more money into housing and things like that, initiatives like that, that he believes will prevent people from being involved in crime down the road.

Once again, a place of serious disagreement between the mayor and many people on this issue, but that was his opinion. That was his assessment. One thing he did admit that the camping situation was handled clumsily by the city, but he backed the intention of the city's policy to eliminate penalties for camping and lying on public property that was what we saw get so much national attention in 2019 yeah um and it's not gone away uh like they they reinstate after a vote after a city-wide vote they reinstated the bans but it's not like homelessness is done you know it's it's still

a situation plaguing the city. They haven't done an actual count in two years. So we really don't know what the population is. Um, it was like 2,500 in 2020 before the pandemic hit when they counted and the mayor is convinced that they are pretty close to ending homelessness. There are, he flat out said uh austin is poised to be the first city to end homelessness which is pretty ambitious of a claim um and then you have the people on the opposite side of the issue who including police um who believe that the actual homeless population is between 10 and 15 000 and that is a remarkable discrepancy between what the mayor is saying and what other people on this issue are saying regardless if you walk around austin you will

still see homeless people camping and lying in places not nearly as many as in 2019 but this is not something that is gone and i have a hard time believing this will be eliminated anywhere in the near future how was the speech received generally so those in attendance primarily made up of his supporters applauded the speech in his time as mayor his chief of staff declared him the most progressive mayor in texas that's something that's hard to object to. I think that is pretty accurate. If he's not the most, he's one of the most. And that's something he wears proudly. The crowd also included the top two candidates vying to replace him, former state Senator Kirk Watson and state rep celia israel um they he has not endorsed one of those yet he said he will endorse

by the time by the election um interesting i don't know which way that's going to go yeah but we did see workers to front defense project come which is a group that i've written about before effectively a labor union for an activist group slash labor union for um how would you describe the workers that are in uh like hourly wage jobs and especially heavily like construction and whatnot but they endorse watson which i was surprised about i'm surprised by that too um i thought israel being uh i mean they're both liberal right both these candidates but i thought israel was more more progressive slightly further left than watson which is where you think the workers defense project exactly yep uh this this is the group that gave rise to soon-to-be congressman greg cassar former austin city councilman who out and out described

himself as a socialist so like that's the kind of group that that uh that's the priorities that this group has so i was surprised to see that but um we'll see where the mayor comes in on it his critics after the speech objected forcefully uh save austin now the group that spawned after the camping uh prohibition was rescinded and we saw all those problems um they put out a draft of the speech that adler should have delivered full of criticisms of his time as mayor taking accountability for issues and whatnot um not the least of which is homelessness and as as I mentioned, that is not going away. It's still incredibly prevalent in the city and on voters' minds. Very interesting, particularly as Kirk Watson most recently in elected office was a state senator, previously mayor of Austin.

And the position is term limited in that regard. That's why Mayor Steve Adler will be is you know that stipulation placed on the office itself and celia israel state house rep um very interesting to watch those two candidates kind of go at it and i'm very curious to see where the political lines are drawn and as you said very uh unsurprised or very surprising to me that the workers defense project would come out for kirk watson specifically um it's no secret that Austin is very liberal, right? And so progressive,

progressive, very progressive. And so you will, these two candidates reflect that. And they're both Democrats in the state legislature, but Watson, you'd think just based on record in the last like 10 years of what he's done in elected office and Celia Israel and her position might be, you know,

Watson would be considered the more moderate candidate so interesting to watch that develop at least relatively more moderate yeah yes um so it'll be interesting to see where the political chips fall as the campaign progresses in texas's most progressive city yeah and as they say the the times they are changing so it's no uh 80 year old brad has some things to say here i guess it's no 80 year old Brad has some things to say. I guess it's not that surprising that Kirk Watson running for Austin mayor is at least somewhat different than Kirk Watson in the state Senate. Yeah. You have surprisingly little gray hair for how old you just sounded on that. It's because all of the gray hair that I've gotten, I've just lost. And so instead of instead of gray hair, it's just balding.

Got it. So that is that's the hand I was dealt. That's a really great picture for our listeners. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, we're going to come to you. Tell us about an East Texas politician on his way to federal prison for very gross criminal behavior. Very gross is right. In a world of people disagreeing, we can all agree that this is a good thing that he is going to prison. The former mayor of Athens, Texas is facing a decade behind bars after he pleaded guilty to

a charge of transferring obscene content to a minor. He was busted in an operation organized by state police and the FBI in which they posed as a 15-year-old girl on social media. And he had inappropriate conversations with this fictional child over the course of a year, and just disgusting interactions that he wanted to do to this child and he pleaded guilty last week in a federal courtroom in Tyler and could be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. There were other individuals who were caught in this operation. He is 64 years old, and he committed these crimes while he was mayor. In fact, he did so as he was running for re-election. And the youngest defendant, I think, that was caught in this sting operation was 23. So,

a large age range of accused perpetrators, and he's not accused anymore. He has made a judicial confession, so he is off to prison for at least 10 years, but his sentencing will take place after a pre-sentence investigation by the federal government. What is his history with the city, and did local officials have responses when he was arrested local media reported there that he was first elected in 2017 and re-elected twice as i just mentioned one of those times was the month before he was arrested on these charges and the when he was arrested he had arranged to meet this fictional 15 year old child to sexually assault her. And when he arrived at the undisclosed location, undisclosed to the public, not obviously undisclosed to him, there were police waiting there to take him into custody. And this was just weeks after he was re-elected mayor of Athens with 88% of the vote in a low turnout election. When I say low turnout,

the article I saw said that there were something like less than a thousand people voted in this election. So it was a very low turnout election, but city officials expressed dismay and the city council replaced him with mayor Tony Clay. She has been in office since he left office. And at the time they put out a statement that said, quote, we were shocked to learn yesterday of Mr. Montgomery's arrest in Longview. These are very serious charges, excuse me, allegations, and the city of Athens does not take them lightly. We are committed to the protection and safety of our children, end quote. There you go. Well, thank you, Hayden, for covering that very gruesome beat there. Brad, let's talk about a little bit of a lighter

story here. Texas Democrats have found a new political centerpiece of their campaigns. What issue have they chosen? So the top three statewide Democrats, Beto O'Rourke, Mike Collier, and Rochelle Garza have made abortion the centerpiece of their campaigns, at least for the moment. Each released abortion focused ads and aurorix first two ads aired of the cycle were hitting governor greg abbott for signing the abortion laws one explanation for the gamble is illustrated in a poll that i mentioned in the article put out by defend texas liberty pack a pack run by former state rep jonathan stickland uh the poll overall showed republic generic republican was up on generic democrat in texas 59 to 41 i think i

believe the uh the where it came out but on this specific issue um of of abortion and which side of the political aisle these newly registered voters agree with more, those polls sided with Democrats 69% to 16% of Republicans. So that may explain why these Democrats are taking the gamble on this um planting their flag as it were and um but when you compare it to other issues such as border security election integrity gun rights property taxes and education each of those issues republicans or those polled agreed more with republicans on those things so newly registered voters in texas tend to agree more with republicans on those issues but abortion seems to be the one sticking point for republicans on it yes and texas has had i think it was 1.1 million people register since 2020 so these are people that have no voting history outside of the 2022 election so they

may have voted in primaries but they did not vote in the general election so this is by focusing on on this issue it's a gamble these democrats hope pays off and there hasn't as we were just discussing with with luke warford who's running for statewide position there there hasn't been a democrat that's won statewide for like 30 years. So that is a tough hill to climb based on our Texas partisan index ratings. Texas is our 54%. And we're in a midterm. And we're in a midterm. With a Democrat in the White House.

Yep, exactly. So they are trying to cling to basically the one appeal they have that seems to be gaining some ground with some voters but uh you know does that outweigh all the others we'll see well i think these voters and again this is one poll we always clarify on the podcast polls are just polls they are a potential indication of something and not anything in finality whatsoever regardless it's interesting and i think the number in this poll was at like 90% of those polls agreed with Republican border security policies, which is an astonishingly high number. Yeah, I was surprised at how high that was.

And we see Republicans hitting that issue very hard as well, especially at the top of the ticket. So we'll see what happens there. But interesting to watch abortion, an issue that has been largely dealt with by a non-elected body here in the U.S., the Supreme Court, kind of be the issue at large that Democrats are clinging on to in a difficult election year for their party. So thank you, Bradley, for covering that. Definitely worth a read, folks. Rob, we are going to come to you. Earlier this month, we reported that 23 Texas Republicans were trying to knock their libertarian opponents off the November ballot.

Try not to split the votes there. That's kind of their concern. Can you refresh our memory on that story? Indeed. So Republicans and Democrats are not the only parties running in the November election. On August 8th, 23 Texas Republicans running for election or reelection, as some of them currently hold office and some of them are just candidates uh they filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the supreme court of texas to have uh the 23 libertarian opponents of these republicans knocked off the ballot republicans claim that these libertarians are ineligible because they have not paid the filing fees as

are required of convention-based parties like the libertarians. The libertarians used to not have to pay, and all convention-based parties, parties that choose their candidates through conventions instead of through primaries, did not have to pay these filing fees until 2019, when a new law made it required that they pay into the state's primary fund, which helps offset the cost of primaries for Republicans and Democrats, which are the two parties that use primaries. The libertarians say that this is unfair because as a convention-based party, they don't receive money out of the primary fund. So therefore, many of them have chosen not to pay the fees. Has this sort of thing happened before? Indeed. In the last election cycle

in 2020, Republicans tried to knock a number of ineligible supposedly libertarians off the ballot for the same reason, but it failed because the Republicans apparently missed the deadline. There was a deadline to file a petition for writ of mandamus to have this done, and they did not meet that deadline. So this time, the Republicans claimed the deadline was August 26th. They filed their petition on August 8th. You know, that gives a three weeks time for this to get processed. The Libertarian candidates were declared back in April. And so Republicans tried to give them a few months to see if the Libertarian Party of Texas would declare these candidates ineligible before they filed their petition. What was the Texas Supreme Court's response?

So on August 26th, the case summary came out stating that the court would not be issuing the writ of mandamus to have these libertarians declared ineligible because they claimed that the Republicans had waited too long to have it done. Petitions relating to elections like this require what is called unusual dispatch, meaning basically you have to do it with haste because of the importance of elections. It seems that the court wants to err on the side of not restricting the number of people on the ballot. So they said that they would not be issuing the petition to force the Libertarian Party of Texas to declare these candidates ineligible. So in 2020, the Republicans missed their deadline. In 2022, they were too close to their deadline. So we'll see if maybe in 2024, if the same thing happens, maybe they'll be filing as soon as they can or giving it some kind of time. But it'll be interesting to see if this repeats yet again in the next election cycle.

Awesome. Thank you, Rob. Brad, we're coming back to you. The port of Corpus Christi is nearing its 100th birthday and is currently the largest U.S. port. Very interesting that that's in Texas and of all places, Cor corpus christi give us a preview of your article on that the port was authorized in 1922 began a operation in 1926 and now leads the nation in tonnage moving through its channel um its renaissance has largely paralleled the fracking revolution and oil and gas explosion uh it also really took off when the oil crude oil export ban was rescinded by congress in that deal between obama senate democrats and congress and house republicans and uh since then because of the port's proximity to the permian basin which is the most prolific oil and gas producing region in the country it's been a natural um uh lifting

off point for crude oil and natural gas going to other countries or to other states. And so that is a large reason why it has kind of come into its own and now it leads the nation. But despite that, it's still expanding its operations. I talked to a couple of guys at the port, told me about some of the things they're working on. The main one is the port's undergoing a dredging project to make its channel even wider and deeper

to allow more boat traffic. More boat traffic and larger size of the channel allows more goods to be shipped, and therefore more money exchanged in these transactions, which makes it more profitable. I recommend you give it a piece of read to see more about what they've got going on down there. I thought it was very interesting to hear and see about. It's not something that people talk about much.

You know, airports get a lot of attention. Seaports do not. Absolutely. Thank you, Bradley. Hayden, let's talk about some news coming out of the governor's office this week. What are some of the features of a transportation plan announced by the governor this week in austin texas the traffic was unbearable on wednesday and anyone who drove 15 hours from north austin to downtown austin knows how bad it was um this piece was only

written hayden specifically requested help from the governor's office and so he was like i gotta write about this i did yeah i speed dialed governor abbott and that's why this was fast tracked through the process um i've got connections that y'all just you know don't know about we can't we can't write you off uh no this uh the Texas Department of Transportation's commission unanimously passed a plan that is to last over a decade and cost 85 billion dollars in funding uh for and 32 billion in additional maintenance funding for a total of $117 billion. Abbott's office called this an unprecedented level of projected transportation funding. I joked earlier about Mopac. There were some accidents and some congestion that just created a nightmare

backlog of traffic all the way back, I think, almost to Cedar Park here in the Austin area. And Texas keeps a list of the most congested highways, for instance, 35 here in Austin, and then loop 610 or I-610, which loops around Houston, the DFW area, you've got 635 and all kinds of highways that are just a nightmare to drive on, especially during rush hour. And this plan is intended to alleviate some of that congestion and create more capacity for traffic. But $14 billion of it is focused on rural areas. And there is also an economic development aspect to this plan. There is estimated to be 58,500 jobs to arise from the project. The governor's office also published data from Texas A&M University that indicates there could be a financial benefit to the state of Texas to the

tune of $15.5 billion annually. And that is according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. So there are economic benefits that the governor's office expects to arise from this. Of course, these are just projections. But the chairman of TxDOT's commission, J. Bruce Bug Jr., said that he hopes it will, quote, improve top choke points in our largest metro areas, end quote. So it's possible that there could be some pushback from local officials. For instance, Harris County last year sued, or not last year, but years ago sued the state of Texas for seeking to expand certain portions of I-45. So there could be some pushback from local officials. And the level of funding that is in this plan is the highest ever.

Does TxDOT have any other irons in the fire? They do. They are currently working on creating a network of electric charging stations after the federal government enacted a law last year that allocates $408 million for that purpose. And there have been some other controversies that have centered on TxDOT. They had to terminate a contract with one of their billing vendors because the vendor had overcharged by millions of dollars some of their customers for toll fees. And everyone knows paying toll fees is annoying enough, but paying toll fees that you didn't accrue that's just outrageous talk about things we can all agree on right yeah speaking

of which uh but text dot has not had a perfect record the past few years but they are embarking on this very expensive very monumental project and they were all on board with it absolutely well hayden thank you for covering that and we'll continue to watch that issue. Bradley, spicy story here. Governor Abbott made a very notable statement this week about gun policy. What did he have to say? Governor Abbott was asked about proposals to restrict the ability of adults under 21 to purchase or possess firearms. Specifically, people have talked about rifles such as the AR-15.

His opponent, Beto O'Rourke work has also included ak-47 in that uh basically that's the policy people are calling for a policy change after the uh the uvalde shooting and this was the context in which he was asked this question um abbott came out against the suggestion that this would be something that could be done um he said that it's not well it's not the first time he's come out against such proposals but what i found most interesting about this was the implication it held for a court ruling that we talked about last week i think we talked about last week um we at least wrote about it uh texas district judge ruled unconstitutional the state's prohibition against under 21 adults from carrying handguns citing the history and text of the second amendment as evidence that such restrictions cannot be implemented uh the reason abbott's

statement is noteworthy here is that the state was is the defendant in that case and so with the ruling going against them they would have to appeal the decision to challenge the ruling and i guess it's possible i'm not sure on all the minutiae but it's possible that a third party can try and intervene and uh try and preserve that law but my question right after that was does the state actually defend this this law or do state republicans say all right that's the that's the ruling the court has spoken we're not going to do anything on it yeah and it seems like based on the wayott talked, that at least if he has his say, it will be left as is. They will not challenge it.

The Texas DPS was the agency that was sued. The Attorney General's office represented them. So they have say in the matter as well. But the governor holds a lot of sway. Yeah. the governor holds a lot of sway yeah and so i think that that particular wrinkle to this is most interesting because especially because habit has come out against such gun restrictions whether it's red flag laws or um seriously restricting the ability of adults under 21 from purchasing or obtaining firearms and so i didn't see much much new in that but this definitely and i don't

know how it's going to affect the legislature um will they repeal this section of constitutional carry that was passed last year that precluded under 21 adults from um from carrying handguns i don't know um will they just kind of let the court ruling speak for itself and hope nothing changes on that end we'll see but uh definitely a notable update on that situation from the state's top executive absolutely and interesting to watch both democrats and republicans on their respective important issues to their party, kind of navigate the age of adulthood and what constitutes, you know, the rights that an 18 year old can exercise versus those at 21. The concerns about 18 year olds being in high school and therefore access to guns or alcohol being something that could be, you know, infiltrating high schools and that being a lot of the rhetoric that's thrown around.

Interesting to watch. And some people are rightfully pointing out that the state a couple years ago banned um e-cigarettes right for people under 21 and you know there's a there's at least some bit of a conflict between those things obviously cigarettes and um and firearms are not the same thing but the uh the philosophy there is it's the difference is clear you know so um i'm sure that will be thrown in republicans face quite a bit as we move forward on this but yeah very interesting bradley thank you hudson we are coming to you you wrote an awesome piece about the state board of education this week talking about its social studies program and the proposed social studies TEKS caught knowledge and skills or TEEX, or they were going to revise them. And they were, that was their, one of the first opportunities for them to see the final

drafts of those, to move them towards a first reading and hopefully to pass them and put them in place in Texas public schools by the end of the year. But, you know, there was a lot of backlash there in the public testimony period, which was the majority of the meeting lasted well over seven hours. And there were countless points of contention regarding the controversial social studies teaks. And so at that point, the board was faced with a difficult decision because of this mountain of opposition. So instead of moving forward with the drafts to have them pass by the end of the year, the board actually voted to throw them out altogether and wait to change them. So they

decided at that meeting that they will add some provisions to the TEKS that satisfy the requirements of SB3, the critical race theory ban. And that involves adding a civic engagement program and clarifying some of the other stuff, but really nothing more than is absolutely needed to to fix to to model that legislation. Yeah. So what was controversial about this proposed standard that was being floated? Yeah. So, I mean, it would really take hours to discuss every issue raised. I mean, regarding hundreds of pages. Yeah. Yes. Like hundreds and hundreds of pages of curriculum. And even parents even pointed out that there was much more meat on the teaks this time around than the last time. Whereas in the last time there were maybe about

150 total pages of teaks from the from the K through 12 social studies curriculum. I think that there was probably over 500 pages of teaks. And so it was very interesting to see. But there were some major themes of opposition that were raised at the meeting. The first and foremost was the severe lack of Texas and American history within the drafts. So students in Texas had previously engaged in Texas history studies for an entire year in the fourth and seventh grades. And those standalone courses were gone. You know, there were some mention of Texas history, but really nothing more than discussing the Alamo. And even on that topic of the Alamo, there was one really

criticized teak that made students consider the opposing perspectives of the siege of the Alamo, looking at it from Santa Ana's perspective. And that raised a lot of hell with some of the people that came and testified there. But additionally, for most of elementary school, students would focus their time and their studies on world history, not American history. So outside of the Celebrate Freedom Week, where teachers are legally obligated to discuss the founding documents of the United States, American history studies are severely lacking in the K-8 curriculum. So another serious point of contention was the alleged presence of critical race theory in the TEEX. So like we said, SB3 was proposed to end that concept in Texas public schools. But at the beginning of the meeting, one of the TEEX drafts

worker leaders asserted that CRT was not present in any of the standards, but many people disagreed throughout that meeting. Those people pointed to the negative characterizations of law enforcement in the discussion of institutional racism as evidence of the concept within the TEEX. And so finally, testifiers raised serious concerns about the characterization of American history and the lack of emphasis on American exceptionalism. So they asserted that the United States is a special place where we are giving unique levels of freedom and economic ability, and that the teaks drafts did not reflect this uniqueness to students. And they also claimed that if students were not taught to love their country, they would

not grow to be engaged citizens who cared about the success of the nation. Wow. A lot of controversy going on there. So when will the State Board of Education return to talking about the social studies teaks? Yeah. So Tuesday was only a preliminary vote, but all signs point to the motion passing on Friday, which will be the final vote to table the discussion. So if the final vote passes, they will begin discussing the teaks again in 2025 when they must be revised by Texas law. There you go. Well, Hudson, thank you for breaking that down. Hours and hours of testimony, and you wrote it all in one succinct article for folks who are interested in the discussions and controversy at large. So thank you for that coverage. Hayden, tell us about a group of

accused MS-13 gang members indicted in federal court last week. Well, there were 10 of them, and most of them were from Houston, according to the Justice Department press release. They were indicted on charges that include murder, attempted murder, racketeering and murder in aid of racketeering. They are also charged with obstruction of justice and related firearms crimes. It is said to have occurred from about 2015 through the time of the arrests of these people, and the murders were committed between 2015 and 2018. There were seven victims. One of them was killed with, or at least one of them was killed, was a police informant. Another one was a child.

They were extremely violent, involved dismemberment with machetes. So extremely violent murders committed by a gang that's been around since the 70s. Which is characteristic of MS-13 violence, if I'm not mistaken. I believe so. I mean, not that there aren't non-violent drug cartels, but this cartel is particularly brutal. They use extreme violence to enforce their more or less discipline in their organization the quote was here in the news release was quote leaders in el salvador and elsewhere allegedly authorized the acts to ensure individual members and cliques followed the customs rules and protocols of the larger ms-13 enterprise end end quote. And two of these people were in El

Salvador, but it didn't mention if they had been arrested yet. It just mentioned that they were in El Salvador. Wow. So talk to us about the ages of the defendants. They were, the youngest one, surprisingly, was 22. And then there was one, the oldest one was 37, but most of them were 30 or younger. So they said that some of these people were leaders in the cartel. I guess the leadership doesn't necessarily have to be, excuse me, street gang, not cartel. But I guess the leadership does not necessarily need to be older in a gang like this one. But they are facing capital punishment on the murder charges and the extensive other charges that they face could send them to prison for decades to life in prison. And they're facing conspiracy under racketeering laws and using firearms illegally in furtherance of the racketeering

enterprises. So very violent people are now awaiting trial. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for bringing that to our attention so folks kind of understand the severity of what's going on. Let's talk about the border and a little bit different angle than we usually talk about. Border agents often rescue humans, or excuse me, victims of human smuggling. What are some of the recent examples of this? And you're right about that, because a lot of people think of border agents as just out there arresting people and processing them in detention facilities, and that's not the case. They are often out there as first responders because they are arresting people between ports of entry. And a lot of the time that entails discovering people who are in distress. And recent examples are in Hidalgo County. There were two stash houses announced last week that

were disrupted and more than a dozen illegal immigrants were arrested. At one stash house in Mission, the subjects were from Mexico and the Dominican Republic. And then there was another stash house in Hidalgo County that involved three people who were in the country illegally. But they also tangentially to that announced a rescue of someone who had tried to get over the border wall with a rope ladder and when he got on top of the wall he dropped the ladder and got stuck so the border patrol had to rescue him from being stuck stuck on top of the border wall my gosh just a day in the life of some of these border agents who are coming across all kinds of bizarre situations that they have to take care of. Yeah, absolutely. And controversy has certainly surrounded border

patrol agents, especially during the Biden administration. So tell us about the results of a recent investigation related specifically to the Del Rio surge. It's been said before that firefighters will always be more popular than police because police have to make choices that sometimes involve using force and those can be criticized by politicians and people in the community and i highlight these rescue efforts because they are often they act as first responders but president biden and other high-profile political leaders brought Border Patrol into, they derided Border Patrol after its response to the Del Rio surge. And one of the reasons was a viral video that seemed to show these horseback patrol officers

whipping Haitian illegal immigrants with long reins as they were trying to cross the Rio Grande. And it was later discovered or it was later illuminated that they had not done this, but the Office of Professional Responsibility for CBP still stated that they were criticized for unprofessional conduct in this investigation. And while they did criticize the actions of those particular officers and said that they were revisiting some of their protocols, they highlighted that most of them did the right thing. Most of them were professional and executed their duties the best they could given the situation. And that was the opinion of the agency that released the report.

So that's why we highlight these rescue stories. It's not a situation where they're only doing enforcement and they're only deporting people. often they are down there saving people's lives and rescuing people from being ensnared in these human smuggling operations. Yeah. Well, Hayden, thank you for bringing that to our attention. And certainly something we'll continue to keep an eye on. So thanks for your border coverage. As always, we made quick work of those news stories, gentlemen. So real fast, I'm going to take the time and highlight three stories from our regional reporters that border coverage as always we made quick work of those news stories gentlemen so real fast i'm going to take the time and highlight three stories from our regional reporters that um unfortunately

can always join us on the podcast so real fast holly hansen down in harris county has a great series of stories about controversy about defunding local law enforcement down there in harris county the legislature passed a bill that would essentially punish localities that in any way defund their law enforcement. And it is capped at certain populations. But regardless, that is in effect now in Harris County, of course, being the largest county in Texas and one of the largest in the U.S., hits that cap very easily. So very interesting to watch the Texas comptroller and local officials in Harris County kind of go at it. And especially after the passage of this law, very much worth your attention. Go to thetexan.news to read all about that. companies offering support to employees for birth or adoption costs. We hear a lot about different companies offering support for women seeking abortions. And two Texas companies, one technology company, Rex, and then Buffer Insurance as well, are kind of taking the opposite route. And so

very interesting to watch their policies that they're instituting on a company level. So certainly go and kind of read about those options that they're providing their employees. Very interesting story and underreported from Kim. And then Matt Stringer out in West Texas wrote a story that has gained a lot of attention from folks as, you know, recording on September 1st, the podcast here today. And that is kind of when a lot of these new hunting and fishing regulations take effect. a lot of these new hunting and fishing regulations take effect so those who care about hunting and fishing regulations ahead of this uh this season make sure to go read that article from matt he outlines all the changes kind of what you'll need to know ahead of the

season very interesting story and i learned a lot i don't know much about this and matt does so thank you matt for reporting on that gentlemen let's get into tweetery brad why don't know much about this and Matt does. So thank you, Matt, for reporting on that. Gentlemen, let's get into tweetery. Brad, why don't you start us off? So something that caught my eye was our friend Van Skin over at TPPF, Texas Public Policy Foundation. He's the chief economist there. News that he was leaving. He is going to, among other things, probably spend more time with his family. It sounds like he's going to do some

economics analysis on his own outside of the think tank that he's been with for a decade but Vance has been just a wonderful person b he's been great helping me understand the budget process and just all the

very difficult finance issues so just want to give him a shout out good luck on the next uh endeavor and we appreciate um you know your knowledge yeah all the work he's done on all these budget issues that are so hard to parse through for us is where we have so many things on our plate and he is so dedicated to that specifically something coming up next session we may see a very um big push to eliminate the maintenance and operations rate for school districts. And one of the proposals is to buy it down with surplus money. 90 cents of every dollar of surplus money goes to buying down those M&O rates into elimination.

But Vance has done a lot of work on that specifically he put out he's probably not the first person not the last person but he was one of the central figures to come up with that plan and I don't know if that's going to be the one the legislature adopts but it's just interesting to see you know

he'll still be around but if that gets across the finish line you know that for him that's a huge win and uh he would no longer be at the you know the think tank that he was at where he talked about this so much yeah absolutely well um yes good luck to vance wherever he ends up next and um we might still have some budget questions for you so don't lose our numbers hayden uh what did you see on twitter this week speaking of electric vehicles and traffic uh the cruel irony for people in california this week was their energy grid was not doing well and um after this was a tweet from bill melligan with Fox News.

He said, in anticipation of stress on the power grid due to a heat wave, California's grid operator is asking Californians to avoid charging their electric vehicles and to voluntarily conserve energy just days after the state announced a plan to ban the sale of gas vehicles by 2035. I'm not sure how they're going to manage if they are not able to charge their electric vehicles when the power grid is overloaded. I'm sure that there will be plenty of debate about the efficacy of electric vehicles in view of power grid issues, but that did catch my eye, especially given Texas creating this huge transportation project that will involve more lanes and more highway space. It doesn't seem like we're moving away from people driving or running cars being our primary mode of transportation. And anytime we see some of these announcements to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles or to move away from them, it's always years in the future.

I don't know a lot about this topic, but if there are continually problems with people not being able to get around, I doubt that this is something that the public will suffer for very long. So even in liberal California, I wonder how long people will tolerate this kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Well, in Texas and California, they're the two biggest states in the US. Always comparisons that are drawn between the two of them with two very different kinds of leadership at the helm of each state and um yeah the more i hear about even some things that are enacted on the local level in california it just makes sense why so many texans are just so allergic to hearing that you know californians are moving here but to brad's uh point a little bit earlier

about new movers coming to texas a lot of them are conservative very interesting so um there's a lot of data out there that shows uh or that show excuse me i know we get into the form of data and whether it's plural or singular in this office and i i wasn't going to bring that up but i saw in your eyes i saw in your eyes no i was not reacting to that at all i just i'm always i just know things will be if i if i however i saw there you go i saw him like jump into position to correct you i think he appears very chill right now but we'll take that um all that to say that there is a lot um a lot of data that shows that we specifically are having um a lot of folks who like the policies that texas leadership has you know implemented um or just even you know led on that they're moving

here because they like what they're seeing and that's interesting to watch specifically in elections where it's been closer electorally um it's just interesting we'll continue to watch and kind of see what the numbers show but that's what we've seen up to this point well you know since hayden did invoke the magic word for me power grid um brad perked up when i as soon as i mentioned three times and brad will appear um you know it it does draw an interesting dynamic you know we have a lot of people advocating that texas connect to the national grid and saying that that would have at least helped prevent what happened in 21 california is connected to the national grid and for a whole host of reasons they have issues whether it's some of its policy some of its geography some of its the fact that

they're reliant on energy from outside their own state and obviously that doesn't fit texas but you know it it's it's a fair point to raise that you know california is connected to the national grid and they're still having issues and they have had issues they had issues in 2019 they were blackouts uh rolling blackouts and there may be now uh we'll see how it develops there but i think the point i want to drive home is that this is not a black and white issue there's so much complication to this and people that act like it is black and white need to just stop well it was funny even watching you after your interview with Luke Warford today. You and him immediately got into the nerdy talk about energy in the state. And Brad got on his soapbox so quickly about, you know, nuance and the importance of having.

Me getting on a soapbox? No. It's true. It's exactly what happened. But regardless, it's interesting. And as you know, people think outside of the state that Texas is a lot more conservative than it is. And there are a lot of very progressive voters in Texas as well. And so the split between, you know, your more traditional moderate blue dog Democrats, however you categorize that in your mind, whatever, you know, whatever makes you comfortable in terms of the characterization there and the progressives is becoming wider and wider. You know, we just talked about Austin and how progressive they are here. And, you know, it's there'sin and how progressive they are yeah here and you know it's

there's a lot of people in this state and therefore that means there's a lot of different views yeah and a lot of different parts of the state so yeah population centers a lot of complications and nuance bradley in terms of who's voting um rob what did you see on twitter that caught your eye so right before i jump into that i want to say i did not perk up about the data datum debate as far as i there are many grammatical hills i will die on and i could not care less about this one does anybody say datum nobody said that no i don't think i've ever heard someone say like a datum as in refer and like i understand in science right but if you're not like in a laboratory i don't want to hear the word data coming out of anybody's mouth i'm asleep i'm boring okay bradley you have no ground upon which to stand when it comes to what's boring you have absolutely no ground upon which to stand indeed so my actual

interesting there you go my actual interesting thing is that battleship texas has been dry docked in galveston uh it is undergoing repairs it's very interesting this is a ship that served in both world war one and world war two uh i believe it became the first museum ship or it might be the only museum it might be the only surviving museum ship something like that but it's a fascinating history of battleship texas and i have a fun personal story which is that when i was in the boy scouts of america or the cub scouts i can't remember which one i got to spend a night in Battleship Texas I got to sleep in the cops. Did you get seasick? I did not get seasick um however I slept very poorly because

I was used to sleeping just in my room and here I was in a cot that was a little small for me even when I was a child I was still rather large and surrounded by just like rows and rows of snoring people how tall are you rob gives you some i am six foot four mckenzie six foot four yep good grief tell me about it oh how how when you're on an airplane do you go for the aisle or do you go for the window so i normally go for the window because usually there's actually a little bit of it's a bit concave on the window so I can sort of lean in there and make space for people. Sometimes I have to take the middle seat and people sort of do that thing on the airplane where they're sitting down and look up at you and then they look back down. I'm like, I'm taking this middle seat. You guys can move if you want to make space for yourselves, but I'll make myself nice and comfortable.

So you're that guy. What am I supposed to do? I have to take a seat on the airplane. They can move if they want to make some more space for themselves. Don't get Brad started on being stuck in the middle seat. If you get me on the side, I'll move over as much as possible to give space. But if nobody's willing to move for me, I'm not going to punch and fold my shoulders up and break them so that I can just be purely... Yeah.

That sounds completely petered out. There you go. I'm not as tall as you, but I feel the height difficulties on airplanes very deeply within my soul. Wow. Yeah. Deeply within your soul. Yes. Although I am much less, not that Rob in any way what he said is confrontational, but I will go out of my way to be as small as possible when I'm not a small person to be not in people's way. See, that's actually how you, how you lose space on an airplane. What I like to do is if I'm on

an airplane on like the aisle seat, I sort of like relax a little and kind of sit up tall. And then people walk by and they're like, Oh, I'm not sitting right there. Cause that's like a big person, right? I sort of stick my gut out a little and people walk by so that that way I can keep my space on the airplane i have heard a good remedy for those problems it is drinking multiple old fashions before you get on the plane i honestly wouldn't really care about space if i had if i had had a couple of old fashions but i could pretty much do anything the problem is i might actually start like making small talk with people on the airplane. I don't think anybody wants to do it.

Yes. Do you guys like old fashions? I don't know if I've ever had one in my entire life. Well, we'll need to. I don't think I've had one either. Here on the next podcast. Maybe they'll give me a few old fashions before we get started. Okay.

I'll take my mic away. We'll have we'll have you guys over to my house and I'll have Andrew come over and make you guys old fashions. That's one of his things is he makes really good old fashions sounds lovely yeah there you go and brad speaking for no particular reason on that issue and no none whatsoever yeah there's there's no backstory to that at all um hudson what did you see on twitter that caught your eye this week so i saw a tweet from uh it was kind of a thread it started with greg price and he posted a video from uh from the white house and it was fox white house correspondent peter ducey asking uh uh press secretary jean-pierre um uh essentially why novak to chovak the uh the famous chokovic chokovic yeah some european guy um why why he uh why he wasn't able to go to the u.s open because he was unvaccinated and essentially fly in a plane but then people can

walk over the border unvaccinated and allow them to go run freely amongst the united states um and jean-pierre essentially, that's not how it works. It's not like someone is walking over. And then continued to talk about how the border is incredibly secure, which is obviously not true with the record numbers of illegal immigrants coming into this country. And it was very interesting because it feels like there's this really big disconnect between the federal government and then what's actually happening at the United States border and the crisis that's going on right now. Yeah, that disconnect is so ridiculous. Oh, my gosh. And a very fair question, I think, posed to the press secretary. Did any of you guys pay attention to the U.S. Open?

Saw Serena Williams won a second round last night I just saw clips of it it was interesting I'm more interested in the golf US Open I'm interested in week one of college football I was going to close the show with that we can definitely close the show

with that we've literally scattered four different fun topics throughout our twittery section so we're just going to stick with that real quick before we get into college football and serena williams i'm going to give a shout out to holly my twittery uh my tweet of this week is a holly hansen tweet go holly and um she's basically i'll just read it and then i'll tell you specifically why i'm bringing it up but holly says yesterday houston's elected controller told city council revenue projection decreased for fiscal year 2023 by 8.1 million due to a 0.71 percent decrease in population interesting to watch these numbers

in harris county kind of come out but my uh my gripe with this tweet is that the elected um controller in harris County is called the controller. We're on the state level. We have the comptroller. And that difference messes with my head every single time. And they're different offices. But it's just ridiculous that these two words are different.

And every time Holly writes about this, I almost edit it to comptroller. Like controller. It just drives me crazy. I thought those two were synonymous and comptroller was just a pretentious way of saying controller that might be the case i don't know that anybody really knows controller yeah but i don't think that's how you spell it controller so i actually know why these are spelled oh my gosh this is actually a quirk of etymology in fact the word... Did you just Google this?

Yes, I did. Is that why you know? Oh my gosh. This derives from the late Latin computus, which in French becomes compte, and I have no idea if that's how it's pronounced. And then in English, controller. But yeah, in the late 15th century, it was a variant of comptroller by erroneous association with the French compte, meaning calculation, or its source, late Latin computus.

So it was English people who were trying to make themselves sound fancy by talking like they were speaking French. You can make a lot of money as an air traffic controller. You're right, it is spelled the same way. I don't know why it looked different, but that's how much

this word messes with my brain in this context. I thought you were going to say that Rob could make a lot of money reading Wikipedia into a microphone. Unfortunately, I do not think that he could. But an air traffic controller... That's basically Joe Rogan's podcast. Salary. Oh my gosh, that's really funny. Sorry, I interrupted you like twice.

What were you saying? That's okay. I was just saying you could make a lot of money as an air traffic controller like six figures which i mean it's a very important job can you imagine the stress of being an air traffic controller though oof i can't imagine needing an old-fashioned at an airport yeah a hundred percent okay real fast college football serena williams did anybody care about serena williams when does anybody follow tennis yeah i don't really care i think she's incredible greatest of all time she's a little bit uh um full of herself for me not that she doesn't deserve to be because she's so good at what she does like ridiculously good but some of the like press statements and

things just kind of irk me a little bit that's just kind of my style not that i could ever do 0.1 of what she does she deserves the greatest of all time uh title but well i guarantee you she couldn't uh mark up my draft as well as you do you know right you've never said anything nicer to me you're welcome thank you um okay well let's move on to college football then. Brad Hudson. I am stoked. What are your games you're looking at this weekend? Well, unfortunately, the evil empire of Ohio State is one of the most notable matchups against Notre Dame. So I'll be watching that.

The coach of Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman, actually just, he was the former, well, I was in, I think there was in school yeah um he was the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati so that's of interest to me yeah but of course I'm watching Michigan and then I think is Texas and Alabama is that this week or the next weekend next week I tried to get tickets but even standing room only um was four hundred dollars oh my gosh. That's crazy. Well, hey, that'll happen when Texas is back, you know?

Oh, my gosh. We'll see if they are. Quinn Ewers is starting for the Longhorns, and Steve Sarkeesian is already telling people to temper their expectations because they have a very young team. And that's not good to hear as a semi-fan of Texas, a T-shirt fan. I was going to say, who do you root for in Texas football? So I'm a very young team. That's not good to hear as a semi fan of Texas, a t-shirt fan. I was going to say, who do you root for in Texas football? So I'm a Baylor fan. I've had a lot of family members that went to Baylor

and have followed their football team through the highs and the lows. Sikkim. Yeah, Sikkim Bears. It's actually funny. My Snapchat username is Sum bears 12 when i was like 12 years old and made that my username and so it's still that so i'm a diehard fan but i think a game that i'm looking at specifically is oregon versus georgia that's a big name matchup uh georgia is on the heels of a their first national title since 1970 and and i'm excited to see them in action again and then i mean we got you rooting for in that in that matchup oregon i think so nice i think i'll root for oregon uh because i think you know i want to see i want to see alabama go back you know i want to see him win the it's

it's unpopular opinion but that is a very unpopular once again i like winners i like winners i like nick saban i like tom Brady. I like them all. Are you a Yankees fan then also? No, I don't like baseball. I don't care for baseball. Another one game to look at is we have Cincinnati versus Arkansas, another ranked matchup. We're going to be watching.

We've got a Cincinnati native here. I'm not a native Cincinnati, but that's okay. But you're a grad. You're excused. Grad. Yes. Ohio-in. Yes. I'm not a native Cincinnati, but that's okay. But you're a grad. I'm very excused. Grad. Yes. Ohio-in. Yes.

I'll be watching UC. I'll be watching Michigan. I'll be watching Ohio State Notre Dame. All righty. And yeah. I don't see any other. There's not really anything else good, but I mean, it's going to be good to watch all these other teams beat up on little people that they spend a million dollars to beat up on

yeah it is you can make a great windfall for getting the crap kicked out of you yes yes it is great for it's a great deal for these small teams yeah but anyway my contribution my roommate's a florida gator and she was like okay i really want to go see um a movie this weekend but it has to get out by six o'clock and i was like why six o'clock she's like florida gators so that's what we'll be doing at six o'clock on saturday and it's fun because i i mean brad knows well i i love watching sports but i'm not going to be the one to like follow all the details or turn on a game myself unless it's like this e-awks like I'm just kind of I liked I like to be around people who love sports and I can learn enough to contribute little bits to conversation

but I'm not like a sports fanatic by any stretch of the imagination um my fiance is very much not a sports guy at all and so when my roommate is like yeah I want to watch this game I'm like oh sign me up I just want to be around people who like to watch sports it's so fun for me so um that's kind of where i'm at with this how's washington looking this year oh gosh i'll wear my hat all the time and root for them i also have a jersey i've got like a jake locker jersey from back in the day but jake locker that that's a trip down memory lane for sure but i mean go Huskies. We'll see what happens. It's just usually disappointing to be a Seattle sports fan, at least these days.

We've had our moments of glory for sure. Yeah, I don't feel bad for you. You have won championships. Yes, we have. In your lifetime. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, you're welcome. Oh my gosh.

So good. Regardless, the most wonderful time of the year is back and starts Saturday. Well, folks, we're excited. It actually started last week, but we don't count those games. I'm glad, Brad, that you have Hudson now to be able to kind of banter back and forth about this information. Because as you know, I'm unable to keep up with you. Yeah. We'll make football fans out of all of y'all.

I like it. I like it. It didn't happen, but okay. Well, folks, thanks for listening to our news and our banter, and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts,

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