The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 26, 2025

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Shooting at Dallas ICE Facility Leaves Detainees and Suspect DeadWhat Comes Next for Texas Pro-Lifers After Recent Republican Policy VictoriesHere’s a Look at Texas’ Five Projected GOP Pickups After Congressional RedistrictingTexas' Classroom Ten Commandments Law Faces Another Lawsuit from Parents, ActivistsHouston ISD Temporarily Blocked from Implementing State-Funded Performance-Based Teacher RaisesTexas State Senator Requests State Agencies Create New Regulations on Hemp-Derived THC21-Year Age Minimum for Purchasing THC Products Adopted by Texas Alcoholic Beverage CommissionTexas Man Charged in New York for Terroristic Threats Against Zohran MamdaniState Officials Request Information from University of North Texas After Kirk Assassination-Related Student ControversyEli Lilly Latest Recipient of Texas JETI Award, Totaling $6.5 Billion Harris County InvestmentVIDEO: Commissioner Sid Miller Talks 2026 Re-election, Hemp and THC, Screwworm, Kirk Assassination

Good morning and welcome to this week's weekly roundup podcast with the Texan crew. I'm Brad Johnson. I'm here with Cameron Abrams. Meredith Dyer in studio and Mary Elise out in Houston. Welcome, y'all. Thanks for having me, Brad. Yeah. Thank you. You sound like I have you chain to a radiator in the basement and only bring you up every time we do a podcast. Well, it's just you have my ankle monitor go off anytime I try and leave the office. It's apt to, yeah.

Well, Connie Burton, our wonderful founder and CEO is in an office, but I had to tell her to quiet down because the mics were picking her up. We'll see how long that lasts in this podcast. Big week, guys. You know why? Why? This is Rider Cup week. Whoa.

This is when the red-blooded Americans take on the dirty Europeans in golf. And it's a rowdy time. This one is on Long Island and, of course, Bethpage Black. And the team is led by none other than Scotty Schaeffler. What is a rowdy golf situation? They kind of like a little bit louder than usual? No, they're yelling at players and whatnot. Yeah, it'll be, it's always great.

Great fun. Is this a tough course? They shifted it up since last time they played a big major there from what I understand it. I'm not sure how it plays now, but, yeah, it's not an easy course. I don't think it's the toughest course, but it's not easy. So that starts tomorrow. By the time this goes up, they'll probably be off for the races. And let's go Team USA.

How about that? Do you have any plans for where you're going to watch it? Is this a couch situation? Or is this a go out to the bar and watch? Bar, but also buddy mine is having his son's first birthday party. And it's golf themes because it's on Ryder Cup weekend. And so that will be on there. The guys need an excuse to watch the golf game.

So it'll be a weekend full of that, especially as baseball is being horrible to me right now. But anyway, I digress. Let's get started. Cameron. There was another big item of news this week, another shooting. Give us the details of this in Dallas. It unfolded at an ice facility. What happened? Yeah. So just to give people an understanding of how this went down for us as we were attempting to parse the details of the story, we came into the office here around 815, 830, and we are immediately inundated with updates on our phone about there's been a shooting at a Dallas ice facility. And so we immediately turned on the breaking

news and we're going online trying to figure out what is really going on because as things were unfolding, lots of information was coming out. And it wasn't until we had a, there was a press conference that we really got some concrete information. But what ended up happening is in the morning on Wednesday there was a shooting. Like I mentioned at a Dallas Ice facility that left two detainees dead. One of them, a third individual was injured and the suspect who committed the shooting died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And we have some information on the shooter, but as policy, we don't mention any names or anything here at the Texan. Ice acting director, Todd Lyons, very interesting at the time was giving an interview on CNN as all

this was happening and was providing information as things were unfolding. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chrissy Nome had stated earlier in the day that there was no motive known for the shooter. It wasn't until Cash Patel released information on X that showed that the unspent bullets on one of them was written anti-ice. So that's really all we know about the shooter in this situation. This is still an evolving situation. And I'll mention there has been previous targeted attacks on ice facility, Specifically, here in Texas in August, a Dallas ice facility was the target of a bomb threat, according to DHS.

And then there was an attack on an ice facility in Alvarado in July, which resulted in 10 suspects being arrested on charges of terrorism and aggravated assault. So it's sort of a pattern that is emerging here with these attacks on ice facilities. But again, I'll mention this is an evolving situation where more information is sure to come out. And we don't know who he was exactly shooting it. We know who got shot, but we don't know who he was shooting at, correct? Correct. And there, it was the shooter shot into a van. Okay.

And that is probably why if you can say this was, they do say this was a targeted attack. You know, there's assumptions that can be made about targeting a van thinking there was going to be ICE officers in there, but it was mistaken. There was detainees in the van. Oh, okay. And again, there's more information that's coming out. Casper tell released some information on X earlier this morning, recording on September 25th, about some of the details of the social media and search history of the alleged shooter here.

So, again, FBI is going to be conducting a thorough investigation because, as I mentioned, this seems to be a pattern emerging with attacks on ice facilities. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Lees, coming over to you. You've been working on a piece for a while a couple weeks on this, you know, future of pro-life policy in Texas, given all the very very, notable in marquee policy items that have passed, whether it's the trigger ban, whether it's the one that just passed the chemical abortion pill ban. You know, the premise of the piece was what's next?

So what did you find out in the process of writing this article? Yeah, well, I had a lot of interesting conversations with some of the folks that have had really a key role in passing all of these pro-life pieces of legislation, one of which was kind of a capstone moment for the pro-life movement within the Texas Capitol that we've talked about a lot. We've followed throughout the various sessions, but that was the chemical abortion pill bill that allowed for civil liability to be able to crack down on the folks that are producing these pills, distributing them to women. And that was House Bill 7. It was called the Texas Woman and Child Protection Act. And that You know, we covered that it, it failed in the regular session, but it did ultimately make it across here in the second special session and was just, I believe it was last week, the Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law. So it was a big moment and people are looking back at, okay, all these pieces of legislation that we've passed, right? The pro-life policy arena has been very successful in Texas politics. You know, after Roevey Wade was overturned in 2022, we saw.

saw our trigger ban go into effect. We also already had, I'll clarify that that went into effect 30 days after the court's judgment in Roby Wade and it essentially prohibited abortions with several criminal penalties attached for offenders of that law. Texas had already passed and it Bill 8, which was a Texas Heartbeat Act and that banned abortions after a detectable poll. So I think Cameron covered that a bit when that was happening. So we had that, the heartbeat law, we had our trigger ban going to effect.

And then we saw the reversal of OV. Wade really shape the 2024 general election. This was something that the Democratic Party really put all their eggs in a basket for. They were really honing in on abortion. And one particular event I'll mention was Kamala Harris's event in Houston. She held a rally. And essentially the whole rally, and this was her last one before the act. actual vote was taken, and the whole thing was centered around abortion. So that was just one of many examples of how they really made this their most prevalent issue. Within the piece I mentioned,

I think it was an episode of Smoked-filled Room with Brad and then a Republican pollster Chris Perkins. And Perkins was talking about that since Dobbs was reversed or returned, the abortion issue became a top three issue, if not a top two. I mean, he was saying before the Dobbs decision, you could barely find it in a poll, and then right after Dobbs hit, it became a top two or three issue. It went from 1% or potentially nothing issue, and then it hit it and became top two, top three. And he also said that he thinks it maybe didn't yield as hardy of results, as solid of

results for the Democratic Party because it was a presidential year, but that he thinks it was relatively effective and down ballot races. But circling back to where Texas is moving forward as far as pro-life legislation, talking to these folks, asking them, you know, where do you think we're headed next session? What will pro-life related legislation look like? What's the next goal kind of for the pro-life movement in the Texas Capitol? And one issue that was brought up that may potentially be discussed was IVF, which is interesting because that's been an issue that for the most part, neither party really wants to touch. It's such a sensitive and controversial issue. And the parties haven't quite solidified how they want to approach it, whether that be on a national

level or a statewide level. But president of Texas right to life, Dr. John Sego was talking about IVF in particular with me. And he was saying, we're definitely not going to see a group effort to ban IVF from Republicans. That's not going to be happening. It's not on the agenda. but potentially something along the lines of regulating the industry. There was a bill file during the regular session. I believe it was by State Representative Daniel Alders that just laid out different reporting requirements for IVF facilities. So saying, okay, we need to just get more data around this process

and make sure that the process surrounding the discarding of embryos and such is regulated and we're at least aware of the data surrounding this. So that was something that a couple different folks mentioned we might see in future sessions related to the pro-life issue is just kind of keeping a tab on the IVF industry and introducing a few regulations reporting requirements. Something that seemed to be just a common theme is with the lawmakers and the pro-life lobbyists that were talking about this. They said, we need to put more money into the thriving Texas families program, which used

to be known as the alternatives to abortion program. which received a fair amount of funding this year during the regular session and the budget. But they're saying, you know, that'll definitely be no matter what, moving forward, we're going to be trying to pour more money and resources into that and making sure that it's used well for women who are in crisis pregnancies.

They also talked about the need for expanding adoption awareness in Texas and also just education surrounding that. We did have one bill that was mentioned by a, a spokesperson at Texas Alliance for Life, and she was saying that that was such a great bill because it has, it implements adoption, education curriculum in high schools, and it makes it a required course that to essentially make sure that our Texas teenagers are fully aware of what our adoption resources are in the state. And just one other aspect to look out for moving forward for, in regards to pro-life legislation is something that Dr. John Siga mentioned is

that we don't know how out of state or even out of country abortion pill vendors are going to respond to this legislation and that they're still kind of working out how that'll work prosecution-wise and how to just deal with out-of-country vendors. He said maybe foreign actors. So that might be something in the future that they further address about how there's maybe more regulations around abortion pills and making sure that they really aren't being sent into Texas women. So, but it is a lengthy piece for sure. Yeah, yeah, and it's worth checking out. And I think the, the phrase that Sego used was, we're going to be playing defense more going forward.

And looking back at the last, let's say, 10 years of abortion policy in Texas, you can even go back 20 years. It was, you know, really difficult for Republicans and the activist pushing for. for these reforms to get anything of much significance done for a while. And part of that was the legal complications of Roe existing, right? But then it kind of, you know, changes happen slowly, slowly, slowly, and then kind of all at once where you saw the Heartbeat Act passed in 21. And that was fashioned in a way with the civil cause of action as a way to try and get around the prohibition set by Roe, which was.

Because the government cannot, as I understand, the government cannot set a regulative penalty from itself after a certain point. And this was legally and strategically the way around that by taking the state out of the one being the enforcer of the law. Instead, it was enforced through civil lawsuits. Well, then that turned out to be not. useless from their perspective, but certainly not as important as the trigger ban, because Roe was overturned in 22. And then it just like, when that happened, the home run shot that they passed with the trigger ban, that became effective, you know, the stuff, the vast majority of restrictions that pro-life activists and lawmakers had been searching for for years finally was in place. And now, you know, it's not like they're entirely tinkering at the margins, but largely so because the biggest things have been done. And, you know, for the activists who, you know, are very concerned about this, this policy set, and for many, for some of whom Sego included, this is their purpose for existing, you know, they're going to need to find new ways, new reasons for existing beyond, you know, getting rid of Roe.

and they've adopted to that as, you know, first next, this chemical pill thing and then now playing defense. Yeah, and I think the political angle is interesting here. As Mary Lease mentioned, as you talked about on smoke-filled room, how Democrats have seen abortion continue to rise in their priority, how they're focusing on that. Is it going to remain that way? the longer these abortion laws stay in place, will they admit defeat on that issue and start focusing on other things, or will that remain a big issue? And so there's always that fight between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of abortion. But I also think for these activist groups, could we see the pivot like Mary Lees mentioned to focusing more on IVF as an issue? Because I think that is a really

under addressed topic in the entire abortion conversation and I think Mary Lisa is spot on that both parties don't really know where they land yet it's an undeveloped plot of issue property you know like it's not neither side like you just said has really a sophisticated view on how to address this like there was for straight up abortion after decades and decades of this being a salient political issue. And I think it's just because it's such a complicated issue itself that neither party really wants to, you know, plant their flag and take a stance on the issue yet. So maybe that's something we'll see during the 90th session, whether it be the big names in the party here in Texas, you know, Abbott or Patrick or someone coming out

really hard on a position on IVF or they'll let the legislators, the lawmakers themselves, fight it out. Well, I'm the thing the Catholic. to me in my podcast with Perkins about on this issue was, you know, it is, it hasn't had the numerical effect of winning races that they thought they were going to for Democrats, but it has, we saw it mute the effect of what is typically a very poor midterm for the sitting president at the time was Biden in the White House. 22, you know, Republicans were expecting a huge red wave, and it was more like, as Chris called it, a red ripple. Ripple.

And that, I think, is not only because of, but in large part due to the salience of abortion as an issue, especially in the immediate aftermath of Roe and laws like Texas's trigger ban going into effect. But you kind of were alluding to this, the longer this becomes the status quo. the less of a rabidly motivating factor it is. Right. Now, it's not to say it goes away, and that's not to say that Democrats change their opinion on it, but tempers will calm generally over time. Yeah, and that's what I think might be interesting for just people who observe media

is when elections are coming around, will we begin to see abortion stories start to pop up? in news outlets, so bringing more attention to the issue when people are heading to the polls. So it motivates them to vote in a certain direction. And I'm curious to see 10 years from now how this has affected the broad scale view of abortion among the American populace. Because if you look at most polling, generally speaking, it looks like this, where the American populace is in favor of allowing permitting abortion in the first trimester, very much against it in the third semester, and then it's just kind of like scattershot in the second.

Yeah. That does vary state to state some. You know, California's populace will be, we'll have a very different opinion than Texas. But overall, that is generally how it looks when you look at polling on this issue. But then when you get in the policy weeds, it's all kinds of, you know, all over the place, right? Yeah. So thank you, Mary Lees. Good piece, and I recommend everyone go check it out at The Texan. Next, we'll just mention a bit my piece on reviewing kind of the conditions and some of the

candidates we're seeing in these five new projected congressional pickup seats. I will also note that, as I've said, pretty much every time I've talked about this, Republicans indexed this new map, this new redistricted congressional map, on Trump performance in 24. That is not happening next year. Right. That doesn't mean they don't pick up all these seats. But you cannot expect the Republican to win the 20th congressional district by 10 points. That's just not going to happen.

First of all, because Trump's not on the ballot. And it's not Trump running in this congressional district. But there's plenty of other factors for that reason. but that is what they drew the lines based on however it gets murkier when you look at the details for example the 28th congressional district still leans democratic on it on the aggregate so that will be a fascinating fight to see and you can look through all of the there's a section on each of the new five districts and I have some candidate intel some of them have declared of course, you know, looking CD9, and we've got largely speaking,

Briscoe Cain against Alex Miller. 28 is going to be Henry Quayar, and then whoever the nominee for the Republicans is, Jay Furman, the guy who almost beat Quayor last time, is back running in that seat. And we'll see if there's anyone else that develops there. 32's going to be interesting. Seems like Katrina Pearson is gearing up for a run for this. There was a Super PAC that just came out that announced that they would be supporting Pearson and she decides to run for this.

This is the new, the Dallas area pickup where they took Julie Johnson's seat and just dragged it out east into Ruby Red, rural Texas. That is a safe pickup. That one, Republicans, I guess, unless there's an absolute electoral catastrophe for them that they will pick up. But interestingly enough, that Super PAC is called. Jefferson Rising, the person operating that is Brad Parscale. Brad Parscale, of course, used to be the Trump campaign manager.

I think that was in, was it 2020? I don't remember. I think it was. I think it was 20. And Parscale is now operating out of Midland, working from what I understand for GOP mega donor Tim Dunn. so there's some interesting cross lines there but that district is very favorable to Pearson

if she jumps in you've also got Ryan Binkley who ran for president in 24 as a long shot independent I think he's independent I don't think he was registered Republican in that but that's going to be a really fun primary to watch 34 is the one held by Vicente Gonzalez. Myra Flores is back in that.

There's also another Flores, Eric Flores, to watch in that primary as a Republican, then a couple other candidates as well. Oh, back on 28, Tano Teherina, from what I understand, is about to jump in. He's the guy, the Webb County judge that flip parties. So that's going to be a formidable candidate if he indeed does decide to jump into that. I'll just mention, I think, big picture. This is an interesting bet with this new map that Republicans are making that the Trump wave that we've seen over the past decade of Trump being able to bring, you know, non-Republican voters into the Republican Party, quote unquote, to vote for him, will they be able to sustain that once he's off the ballot? Are these going to be voters that continue voting Republican or were they Trump voters?

right. Well, and if you look down ballot, they were very much split ticket voters. They were not. They might have voted. They voted for Trump. They didn't necessarily vote for the Republican down ballot. Some of them did, but some of them didn't.

Yeah. Well, and so I think that is going to be something interesting to watch is, you know, will this change the personality of the type of candidate that runs in these districts where they think, oh, I need to adopt some of these. you know, Trump persona, let's say, or some of the Trumpisms or things of that nature, to attract those type of voters that would vote for Trump and maybe didn't vote for a Republican down ballot because they weren't Trump. Yeah.

So there could be a different kind of candidate that runs in these new districts. That's at least my read on it. I don't know if you'd agree with that or not. I mean, we see, especially in the primary, the imitation of Trump playing. out quite a bit. Look at Aaron Wrights. He calls Mays Middleton, Mays middleweight. He's calling Chip Roy, Chip Roy, or Flip Roy. This imitation is happening because they've seen it work for Trump. Right. But does that work down ballot for non-presidential candidates, right? I think that it'll be an interesting test in this movie. Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, you know, all it matters is

that in politics that you win. Right. Electorally speaking and who knows. Who knows? So, all right, we'll move on after that. Mary Lees, over to you on, there's another lawsuit about the concern of the Ten Commandments in Public Schools bill.

Where is this one focused in the state? Yeah, so another lawsuit that's been thrown at, this bill that was past during the regular session. And just to give our listeners a recap on what this law is, is it requires public schools to display donated copies of the Ten Commandments, King James Bible version, and classrooms. And so important clarification there is that it has to be donated by an outside source. Although, as this law was being discussed, there were plenty of activist groups, different programs that were fully prepared to donate copies to. schools but there's that note there because it's not the schools that are paying for

these copies so that's Senate Bill 10 and State Senator Phil King authored that bill but this lawsuit that was just filed this week is one of a couple it's Cribs Ringer versus Comal Independent School District so this was filed by 15 self-described they said multi-faith or non-religious parents and organizations that was filed on Monday And so the plaintiff's main argument here is essentially the same as the other lawsuits that have been lobbed against this law is that Senate Bill 10 violates the nation's founding principle of freedom of religion. There's a very similar argument that the Texas Democratic lawmakers were making when the bill was heavily debated in the Capitol during session. So it went into effect on September 1st, but there was a lawsuit which is cited by this one that were. speaking on right now that was filed on Monday. It cited this Rabbi Nathan versus Alamo Heights

ISD. It cited this lawsuit, which found that this law is unconstitutional. And it was successful in blocking this law from going to affect in 11 different school districts. And so this lawsuit cited the judge's decision, pointing out that he found it to be plainly unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Within the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are arguing there are more than 5.5 million children that are enrolled in over 9,000 public schools across the state, and they asserted that these children and their families adhere to an array of faiths, lots of different religions practiced within our schools, and then they said, and many do not practice religion at all, but this law would require public schools to post a state-approved Protestant version

of the Ten Commandments, and I'm quoting, this is from the suit, in a conspicuous place in every classroom. And then they're arguing all these students will be forcibly subjected to scriptural dictates day in and day out. And so within this suit, the ISDs, that would be affected are Kamal. There are 14. So just some of them are Kamal, Georgetown, Conroe, Flower Bluff, there's Fort Worth, Mansfield, McAllen. And so the suit that they cited, the Rabbi Nathan one, prevented this law from going to affect in 11 districts that it was filed against. And so if this lawsuit is successful as well, it would prevent Senate Bolton from going to effect in these ISDs. I'll mention that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did send out a directive after that Rabbi Nathan

ruling came down and it was just a directive telling all of the other districts to proceed forward to obey this law and making sure kind of clarifying. that they know that this lawsuit does not affect all schools in Texas. It just affected the specific ISDs. It was filed against. So we'll see. There's one other lawsuit that hasn't really seen any action yet. It was filed by multiple Dallas area activists and religious groups, and that was back in June. And it was filed specifically against a TEA, TAA commissioner, and then the Board of Trustees for Dallas, DeSoto, and Lancaster ICD. So that hasn't really seen movement, but this is another lawsuit that's been filed against Senate Bill 10, so we'll see

the Rabbi Nathan. I mean, if it looks anything like that, this might be successful in blocking the law from implementation in these ISDs. And remind me, this is what the second or third lawsuit we've seen filed. I believe this is the third, but it is the second of its kind and then it's directly against the ISDs. The other one that hasn't really seen much movement was specifically against the TEA, so slightly a different angle there. Gotcha. Thank you. Cameron, over to you.

Your favorite issue had another update this week. There was a few. There were a few updates, yeah. I guess we'll hit the string of them now. So a state senator has issued a pair of letters requesting agency changes to state code regarding THC regulation. Whoa. Yeah. I'm going to take a wild guess of who that state senator was.

Was it, Charles Perry? It was. Oh, my gosh. Tell us about it. Well, Charles Perry issued two letters, one being to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the other to the Department of Agriculture here in the state. These were long letters, by the way, you know, nine, ten pages, because he was giving all these prescriptions and going through the federal regulations as it compares to state

code and showing some differences. And he was asking both these agencies to come up with, quote, narrowly tailored rules for hemp and hemp drive THC products. And he was asking both these agencies to undergo emergency rolemaking so that the state can be in alignment with federal regulation. He really focused on the issue of total THC versus the stated dosage of THC, because there's process from when the hemp flour is heated, which produces a higher concentration of THC versus what is just advertised on there. So he really focused on that. I mentioned there was a few

updates because we saw these letters be released, but there was also a scheduled meeting in the Texas Alcoholic Reverage Commission, and they took up some emergency rulemaking. They unanimously adopted emergency rules to create a 21-year-old age limit for retail purchases of hemp-derived TAC products. That will go immediately into effect with enforcement beginning on October 1st. My assumption is to allow that bit of gap there to allow these retailers to react, put up proper signage, whatever it may be. And they're also going to be mandating an age verification process. And as the commission hearing was going on, their counsel spoke about how the penalties being that retail licenses will be removed for noncompliance, saying that it makes it clear that this compliance will be upheld. So this is the first sort of reaction from an actual agency that comes after Governor Greg Abbott issued his.

executive order that was you know just earlier this month you know it seems like forever ago but it was just a few weeks ago that EO came out where he um was asking agencies to create an age limit for THC um hemp drive THC products without explicitly naming a age in there and he tasked two agencies one of them being the uh alcoholic beverage commission which I mentioned but also the department of state health services or dishes dishes and so we got the alcohol beverage commission their reaction today i'm sure we'll see some updates from dishes in the future but that's where things stand right now so none of this none of these either proposed rules or going into effect rules affect the distance from a school that one of these cake shops may exist, correct?

That's correct. That was not taken up in the Alcoholic Breedridge Commission meeting. They did mention that they are going to formalize because this was an emergency rulemaking process. They need to go through a formal process. And they said that when they take up these rules, again, that the rules will be very much similar to what they adopted now. Will they add in anything additionally to put parameters on the distance from schools or treatment facilities, whatever it may be? That's yet to be seen. But that is something that's been mentioned by Abbott, but also by lawmakers themselves, something they want to see happen.

Yeah, I mentioned it because that was such a cause of the visceral reaction to these things, you know, seeing these. grungy, disgusting shops operating pretty near schools, you know, that is not the only, far from the only reason, but one of the big reasons why, and big reasons cited by Lieutenant Governor Patrick, Senator Perry, a bunch of other Republicans for wanting to just ban the stuff outright because, you know, this is like... The proximity to schools, but then also, especially the lieutenant governor has focused on the labeling on these products and he has continually said that what is being put on the products is not what is actually in the products so there's been lots of requests for

updating on testing and making sure the packaging is in accordance with what the testing says but we haven't got any updates on that just of yet but right now the beverage commission has fulfilled the age requirement request from Abbott's E.O. Will there be any additional provisions adopted by dishes or anything like that? Yeah. We'll see. An interesting side fight within this is the fight within the industry. They're not all on the same page.

You know, each of them has a different opinion on where to draw the line and who to throw overboard. Yeah. Right. We saw that play out in the lobby stuff during seven. And I'm sure it'll come back when the legislature is back in session, and presumably something is proposed again. But, you know, you saw these shop owners who, you know, they would describe themselves as the good ones, of course, right? They say, oh, yeah, like, they're bad actors, and I want them out. And these gross places, we don't want those here.

Yeah. So how do you draw policy to distinguish that? I don't know. Well, I think this is a first step that both. lawmakers and those in the industry have been wanting at least an age requirement for purchases because there was no age requirement in state code. And so this is kind of just that first step towards, is there a possibility for greater parameters regulations to be put in place?

I think that is going to be debated internally with these agencies. Absolutely. Thank you, Cameron. Mary Lease, back over to you. There was an arrest made and I think charges. Yeah, charges were levied. against a Texas man involving an out-of-state official what happened? Yeah, this was an arrest of a man from Plano, Texas,

and he was arrested and charged this week for, excuse me, it was last week, for making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, and this was directed at New York State Assembly member, and then he's the Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, Zoran Mamdani. So kind of some out-of-state news, but this is Jeremy Fistel, and his arrest happened on September 11th. He was indicted on 22 counts by a grand jury back on September 4th, and then he was extradited to Queens, New York on September 17th, and was fully informed of his charges

the following day. There was a press release sent out by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, and of course this is the threats being made at political figures right now is probably going

to be treated with even more intention and delicacy just considering what's been happening recently she talked about the different threats

that he made which probably won't read here on the podcast. They're pretty gross and graphic but you can check out the article for that

but he left a number of threatening voicemails to Mom Donnie He also submitted some threatening messages via his assembly member website online. I told him to go back to Uganda and threaten to shoot him and his family members. So four of Fistel charges were for making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, and then another four were just a terroristic threat. And then he was charged with seven counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree as a hate crime,

and then aggravated harassment in the second degree, another seven counts of that. So, yeah, we've got the threats written out in this article, but, you know, these were made towards Mom Donnie, who's a self-described Democratic Socialist. He won the Democratic Party's mayoral primary in New York back in June 2025 was all over the news for that because he beat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. So District Attorney Katz said impressively, she said, let me be very clear. We take threats of violence against any office holder extremely seriously. there's no room for hate or bigotry in our political discourse. And she said, you know, the defendant has been extradited to Queens to face the serious charges against him

and then listed all the different law enforcement that aided in this investigation and eventual indictment of this man from Texas. Thank you, Mary Elise. Cameron, let's go over to you. State officials are requesting information from a Texas university after an incident involving a student defending Charlie Kirk went viral. We saw this video pretty immediately after and was one of the bigger ones cited across the country. Give us the details.

Yeah, and I'll just run people through, like you mentioned, because this video was posted online, went very viral, very quickly. He showed a U&T student filming herself on camera, and you can hear students in the background. sort of laughing or giggling about the Charlie Kirk assassination. And on the video, this student speaks up and attempts to defend Charlie Kirk while these students are having the conversation in the classroom. We come to find out that this student was asked to leave from the class. And we saw UNT release actually a statement on social media about this incident saying, quote, recent actions of a few of our community members regarding Mr. Kirk's debt do not

represent the values of our community. Students who violate the law, our U.N.T. Code of Student Conduct will be held accountable. Well, we then got a response from Attorney General Kim Paxton, who sent a letter to University of North Texas, demanding answers for potential violations of Texas law, for punishing a student for voicing support. And then also in that letter, Paxson mentions how this discussion which took place in a classroom resulted in the student filing written documentation to UNT about the incident but has yet to receive a response. So this sort of leaves the student and the school sort of in this gray area about what's going to happen with the student because apparently what is mentioned that the students' grade

would be affected in that class for an absence. And that same day, we saw Paxton send a letter. There was also an issuance from state reps Andy Hopper, Mitch Little, Ben Baumgarner, and Richard Hayes. All in Denton County. All right. I think they're either all in or partially in Denton County. Right.

And they actually sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott asking him to investigate the issue at U.N.T. The next thing we got out of this was the UNT president released another statement saying that UNT has taken this incident quote very seriously and that it is going to be conducting a thorough review of the recent action. So this is just one incident in a string of incidents that we've seen across Texas universities involving students in response. to the Charlie Kirk assassination. We haven't had any updates from UNT as we're recording today on September 25th, but with pressure from the Attorney General, pressure from state lawmakers,

it seems as though UNT is going to have to issue another response in regard to what's going to happen with this individual student that was asked to leave the classroom, but then also the students that were potentially disrupting the class by having that type of conversation that was deriding of the... Kirk assassination. So lots of things at play here. Yes, a lot of balancing to have and I'm sure this won't be the last instance. No. State officials will look at. Right. Meredith, I skipped you on accident. It's okay. I'm trying to get that was on purpose. No, here it was in my head getting mad at

Rob for putting her way at the bottom and not in the middle, her one story way at the bottom and not the middle of the docket and I looked down further and I'm like, wait a second. Oh, shoot. I'm not sitting through this for nothing. Yeah, so sorry, it's my fault. I skipped you entirely, but let's jump back and touch on your piece you wrote about this week. It involves Houston ISD and state-funded performance-based pay raises for teachers. There's a lawsuit, correct?

Can you spell it out for us? Yeah, so in this last legislative session, there was HB2, which is this huge education bill that sets aside, well, it was like $8.5 billion for education. and almost four of that goes towards teacher raises, which is good news. Everyone's excited. And it was supposed to be experience-based. So a district like Houston with more than 5,000 students would get teachers with three to five years experience would get a $2,500 raise.

And teachers with more than five years would get a $5,000 raise. But there is a clause in the law that allows districts to opt out of the experience-based and to choose a performance base. Houston is the only district. to choose that entirely. Dallas included it, but it was kind of like whichever option gets you the most pay you're going to get. And notably who is running Houston ISD? Yeah. Who is running is Mike Miles and...

Basically the state. The state. T.A. is taken over. They've appointed the superintendent. They've appointed the... They're always the outlier. Whenever you're looking at education stuff, Houston always has its own thing going on for the past couple of years. So they decide they're going to do performance-based and the Houston Federation of Teachers files a law. against them asking for a restraining order and an injunction and doesn't get the

restraining order but this last week they got this temporary injunction their claim is that HISD was in the process of applying for this performance-based enhanced teacher incentive allotment it's a statewide thing that any school can do but they had not been fully approved so they found that moment to get that lawsuit in there claiming that it wasn't legal for them to do that. So what happened last week or this week was Judge Cheryl Elliott said that they are prohibited from utilizing monies allocated for the academic year of 2025 to 2026 for any thing other than its stated purpose.

And so it's basically just stalled them from doing it, but it has not fully released the raises to them. So they have not received their raises. And the trial is set for tentatively next, I want to say. August 2026. Okay. Is this mechanism through which this money is going? Is that the teacher incentive allotment? Yeah.

And that's different from the experience-based raises, or is it the same thing? It's different. So basically, the experience-based is what everyone else did. You get through raises immediately. The TIA program is actually an ongoing thing that you could have gotten your experience-based and also have a school that qualifies for the TIA system. It's just an ongoing thing that if you get certain rankings, you're going to get certain raises.

Yeah. But they decided to take the experience-based money that was set aside and funnel it, like, through the performance only, which, yeah. Well, politically speaking, when this was going through the legislature, if I remember correctly, and the negotiations on HB2, this was something the Senate pushed for, Senate and Patrick pushed for really hard, the TIA, and ended up getting in there. And, of course, you know, the overall, like you said, the overall amount of money put in there was $8.5 billion. Do you know how much was put in specifically for the TIA? Are you thinking of the teacher retention in allotment? The TRA, so there's a lot of TRIs and stuff. So the TIA is a program that the T-EA put into place, I believe, a couple sessions ago.

It's just an ongoing thing. The TRA is about $4 billion. It's about half of that money that was, this is for raises. Within that you can do experienced, everyone does it. Or there's a little thing where you could do, you could use this TIA program to do. Okay. If you qualify for that, you can do a performance only. Okay.

And they made updates to the TIA in HV. In HV. Okay. So I wasn't imagining that. Yeah. Okay. All these acronyms are everywhere. Basically, Houston teachers don't have their raises, but they've stopped them.

They don't have them because of this lawsuit. Yeah. But they've had a, they consider a small victory that they're not going to go ahead with the performance for right now. They've stalled them the district. Who considers this a victory? The Houston Federation of Teachers considers it a small victory because they've stalled them for a second. Do the teachers? considered that a victory?

I don't know. Well, the Houston Federation of Teachers is a teacher's union. Right. Which... Right. Yeah. Not every teacher's in a teacher's union.

Well, is it some... True. Yeah. The ones that are in this... Yeah. I imagine there's some... Sorry, I should be more clear than Houston Federation of teachers.

Some anger within their ranks about this. And, you know, I'm sure they have a strategy. Clearly, they don't like the incentive allotment. And so they want to, you know, get rid of that legally and then force the pay raises to come through the experience-based, I'm sure. At least I imagine that's the strategy.

But it's going to upset a lot of teachers, I think. Yeah. At least a few. A lot of stuff in Houston. At least a few. Thank you, Meredith. Well done. Mary Elise, over to you.

A large grant was given to Eli Lilly, a large corporation in this country under Texas's Jedi program. Tell us about the program in this project. Yes. So this is one of a couple projects that have been approved under the Jedi program. This stands for Texas jobs, energy, technology, and innovation. So that's what we're referring to when we say Jedi. You can pronounce it however you like, but it's J-E-T-I.

So this was, this particular project is a five- May the Force be with you? Yeah, exactly. So this is a project that was announced via a press conference with Governor Greg Abbott and then Eli Lilly and Company on Tuesday this week. And they announced that Texas will be giving a $5.5 million grant to Eli Lilly for the construction of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility that will be in Harris County. This announcement was made in Houston. And so it's going to be a nearly $1 million. square foot active pharmaceutical ingredient known as API manufacturing facility and then

Eli Lilly was estimating that it'll produce around 600 new jobs and then it'll allow them to invest more than 6.5 billion within the state. So this was through the Jedi approval process, which is a property tax abatement program that was established through very contentious legislation that was past during the 88th regular legislative session and I believe Brad covered this extensively during in 2023 but this was through House Bill 5. It was signed into law by Abbott in June 2023 and it replaced this 20 year old initiative chapter 313 and it created a pathway for school districts to grant companies a decade long break in property tax payments, and this is an exchange for relocation to the area. It limits the kind of companies

that are able to receive abatements and grants for projects in Texas, and it excluded, and this was one of the more controversial aspects of it, excluded renewable energy projects. This was a part of the negotiations between either chamber before it eventually passed through the legislature. And it was the renewable projects were removed from this because that was one of the, it was one of the top criticisms of the predecessor to the Jedi program that it was being misused by renewable companies. So one of the first projects, since there's been a couple of them through this program that have been granted, one of them that was approved this year and was also in Harris County was for Summit NextGen and it helped them to open what they called a world-class

sustainable aviation fuel manufacturing and refining facility along the Texas Gulf Coast. And that was at the very beginning of the year. And it's expected to produce over $1.6 billion in capital investment for Texas. There were two announcements of projects in February the Abbott made. One was for a new braven environmental facility in Texarkana. And then that one is estimated to rake in about $145 million in investment for the state. And then the other, that month, was Vinton Steel's manufacturing facility. And they're expected to invest over $229 million in the state and then hopefully create an additional

180 jobs. That was their estimation. So there's a couple other projects we outlined in there. And Abbott reiterated during this press conference, he said Texas is the best state in America for doing business. Obviously, this is a huge project for Texas. this. It's great for the economy. So while Lily is moving forward on this project grant, something we mentioned in this piece, it's notable, is that the same company is actually in a lawsuit with our

Attorney General, Ken Paxton. He is currently suing them for their alleged involvement in bribery and kickback schemes. And there's a couple other similar companies. He's similarly suing for similar allegations and Lily did say in a we had covered this earlier on and they had told us back in October 24 that they found the complaint to be baseless and that it'll be dismissed and they talked about in other cases where insulin pricing allegations were put to proof they said the plaintiffs either dropped the case lost their motion to proceed as a class action or settled for no money and they said the outcome speak for themselves so that's kind of just as a side note that

Eli Lilly is in a lawsuit currently with our state, but it's a huge project that will be in Harris County. Yeah, you want to say something to camera? No, no. At the beginning, I was just going to say, I thought it was Jetty, not Jedi

program. Oh, like Jedi, yeah. I've been calling it wrong days, right? Well, there's probably not a technical pronunciation since it's just I mean, all the legislators, when this was created, we're calling it the Jedi program. So I'm going to go with that. Jedi, it is?

You know, what? I said Jedi it is, I guess. Yep. And this was the replacement of Chapter 313, Chapter 313, but in existence, as you said, merely at least for 20 years. Criticisms were that it was just handed out willy-nilly. You know, this is an economic development incentive program chiefly to bring businesses to the state, then why are companies using it that are already built in the state?

And so different arguments back and forth on that over the years. And, you know, certain school districts would argue that it was a very good thing for them because it increased their tax rolls after the 10-year limit was reached. And then others said this basically shifts the tax burden to all these other entities, and including residential for 10 years. and it went back and forth, back and forth, and eventually it basically collapsed under its own weight and was replaced by a much narrower program

with actual hard job creation requirements, whereas the old ones could just get waived constantly. You look through the applications, and you saw it particularly with wind and solar facilities, they'd create one job, one permanent job. It's like, what are we doing here? Right. It's a guy that presses the butter.

Right. Right now for those facilities, that's what you, that's the workforce required. But, you know, those opposed to Chapter 313, talked about that a lot and how this is, they accused it of being an abuse. Ultimately, though, I don't know, you know, state lawmakers decided it was and you have to go. And it did. And now here we are with Jedi. May the Force be with us after that segment. Cameron, you sat down with Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller this week, to talk a bunch of stuff, including his 2026 re-election.

Give us a preview of what he said. Yeah, well, I wanted to also talk about some of the issues faced in the state, particularly THC. And I brought up the letter that Senator Charles Perry had issued. I believe it was the same day that Sid Miller came in. And so people all have to watch the interview to see what he says about that. But I also asked about the screw worm. And again, the same day Sid Miller came in, there was a new case, just 70 miles from the southern border. And so he provided some updates on how the state is reacting to that parasite that is possibly

coming over the border. And so we also talked about his re-election campaign, his GOP challenger, Nathan Sheets. So he made some comments on that. I encourage everyone to go check it out. And it was really great conversation. As always, he's a very entertaining listen. Yep. And that is one reason why he's very difficult to defeat him in an election.

He has a big following in large part because of that, but that race is going to be fun to watch. him against Nate Sheets. Definitely. A former donor? Yeah, and I brought that up in the interview to see what Similar had to say about a former donor, someone that he knows quite well, is running against him. Again, I'm not going to give it all the way here. People are going to have to tune in to watch.

Check out that interview on the Texans podcast feed. Thank you, Cameron. Let's go to Tweeterie. Meredith, ladies first. Let's go with you first. So this isn't just something that's on Twitter, but it's something I went to this week. I went to a comedy show at the Sunset Strip, comedy. It's near...

It's a good place. I like that. Have you been there? Yeah. It's on 6th Street. 306. So it was a newer show called Acting Off where there's like six different new and upcoming comedians. There's like a host.

And then Brian Callan, I don't know if you've heard of this comedian. He hosts it. And they were very much, and self-admittedly, in the development stage. So it's almost like we, and they were talking to us at the audience. and stuff, and we were, you know, when you plan something and then it goes in a very different direction, they had like sections of the show and one of them went by in like five minutes and they were just openly telling us, this was a 20 minute section, so we're just going to like try to figure out what, we were basically playing charades with them at one point

and it was really easy and it was historical events and they were like, you're a really smart audience, like you guys have gotten all these very quickly. And so it was just fun. It was fun to see something that they're making and creating and stuff. That's really cool. So yeah. Nice. That's a fun place. I try and go there once in a blue moon. It is enjoyable. It's right next to Rogans. It's a couple down from, yeah. So thank you, Meredith. Mary Elise, over to you. Well, last night I went to an event that was, it was in Houston. And kind of the backstory of this is Stratford High School, which is pretty big public school in Houston. was trying to start this TPUSA chapter

called Club America and then someone raised attention that there were that there were different individuals associated with the school that were sharing screenshots of the students' plans for this club online and were kind of they were this particular individual saying

you know we need to stop them from doing this this is going to be spreading hate at the school you need to take action and there were a couple there some parents were talking about last night that they that some of the students personal information was shared and they felt like it was kind of a doxing situation which i believe is what texas attorney general ken paxton said about it but he caught wind of this and he sent out a press release and announced this event that i went to last night but he essentially hosted their first club meeting so club america

and so he spoke there last night and there were all of these it was a very interesting environment it was a lot of high schoolers they had a very good showing of high schoolers it was just packed standing room only and all these kids were just in like red white blue it really looked like a TPSA crowd and they seemed like they were particularly riled up after having all of the pushback that they had experienced they seemed extremely motivated a lot of the different high schoolers went up and were speaking at the microphone and they were pretty funny because at one point they ended the event because they said, okay, well, we have a lot of homework and essays to do, so let's get out of here. Which is funny because it was like our Texas Attorney General just spoke in and a couple other

radio hosts. But it was an interesting event. It was definitely popular. And as one parent, I heard someone overseeing that Pakistan really did that in a show of force to other schools who might try to prevent kids from starting these chapters at their school. Just, you know, just, you know, we have our eye on you. and this will not be tolerated. So, yeah.

Thank you, Mary Elise. Cameron, what you got? I have, it was revealed. In a dream? Source? I made it out. No, there was a letter that was sent by Laura for a lawyer for the alphabet company, which is the parent company of Google, YouTube, saying that,

While Alphabet continue to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden administration officials continue to press Alphabet to remove non-violative user-generated content. And this is regard to certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate policies. So I just thought it was interesting to bring up that Alphabet, Google, YouTube, self-admitting that they were. were pressured by the administration during the 2020 COVID pandemic to remove content off of YouTube, content that was not in violation of the company's rules. I just think that's quite revealing in our current state of content moderation and people wanting the ability to say the things they want to say, express the views they want to express

on the social media platforms that the Biden administration was pressuring alphabet to remove certain types of content. So, you know, this comes up as the free speech debate is continually being inflamed on college campuses. There was a big blow-up with the Jimmy Kimmel show. So this is a ongoing issue. Fascinating. I think so. Well, they admitted that they were taking down the content. You know, you don't see that often.

Did they apologize? Did they apologize? Did you say sorry? Did they? Did they? I didn't read. I don't know if they said sorry, but. They say they're not going to do it anymore?

Well, they say they're going to evaluate and bring back. They're going to censor harder. No, they're going to allow for previously banned accounts. to come back onto the platform. But again, there was... Five years later. Yeah, well, you know, there's some accounts, like, for example, Alex Jones,

who isn't allowed to post content on that site, he attempted to, from what I understand, I saw some tweets about it this morning, attempting, he attempted to create a new YouTube channel, that YouTube channel was not allowed to operate. Well, he wasn't banned for COVID stuff, though, right? Or was he? I thought it was other things.

That's where it was the Sandy Hook stuff. Yeah, like that's a lot. But it was a band account. Calling the Sandy Hook parents. Like actors. Not a good. Did he say he was sorry? It certainly wasn't his tirade about the fluoride in the water.

Because that one is well documented. All right. Thank you, Cameron. I'm going to close with a preview of our Smokefield Room episode going up on Monday. we had Tony Ortiz of current revolt in some people love Tony, some people hate Tony a lot of people depends on the day how they feel about Tony

I like Tony he's awesome to talk to he we talked about a lot of stuff politically about him forming current revolt and how it's evolved we talked about the evolution of the political right he is outwardly

conservative figure and he discussed his view of how that has evolved and things have changed politically on the right. And we talked a bit of 2026 elections. So check that out.

Jaden, our podcast editor, said that it was a great episode. So if it's not blame Jaden. Not me. Not the person doing that. Blame Jaden for the fake news. But yeah, I thought it was good. And we enjoyed having Tony here.

So thanks to him for doing That stepping in while McKenzie is still abandoning us with some sort of lesser responsibility than this podcast. So check it out on Monday. It goes up first thing. And we appreciate it. Until next time, let's go Team USA. Marrick Cough. Mary Cuck.

Catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review. review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to Editor at the Texan. News. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.