The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - September 9, 2022

Episode Date: September 9, 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: Dan Patrick’s response to his Democratic opponent’s endorsement from a Republican judgeBlackRock relaxing its investment policy in response to state investigationVeterans Affairs expanding abortion access even in states with laws against abortionThe end of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance Board”E-cigarette manufacturer JUUL’s multi-million dollar payout to the stateThe Biden administration’s final rule to preserve DACABack-and-forth over Texas’ law mandating donated “In God We Trust” signs displayed in public schoolsThe expectations and recommendations for the Texas power gridTexas starting to bus illegal immigrants to ChicagoFormer NFL quarterback Tim Tebow speaking at an Andrews County event costing $60,000

Happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup Podcast. This week, the team discusses Dan Patrick's response to his Democratic opponent's endorsement from a Republican judge. BlackRock, relaxing its investment policy in response to state investigation. Veterans Affairs, expanding abortion access, even in states with laws against abortion. The end of the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board. E-cigarette manufacturer Jules' multi-million dollar payout to the state.

The Biden administration's final rule to preserve DACA. Back and forth over Texas law mandating donated in-God-wee trust signs displayed in public schools. The expectations and recommendations for the Texas power grid, Texas starting to bus illegal immigrants to Chicago and former NFL quarterback, Tim Tebow speaking at an Andrews County event costing $60,000. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the Texan dot news.

We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Well, howdy folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Hudson and Hayden. Rob will join us later, most likely. And Brad is joining us from Ohio. So we will be kind of doing a tag team effort here today, Hayden. I'm a little jealous of Poncho. He's just

going to town on this fake plastic bone right here next to me. Not a care in the world. I feel bad. I hit him with my car door today. He's a very small dog, so I'm sure the damage he incurred is far more than I could understand as a 15-pound dog. He doesn't seem too upset. I think he'll be fine. Well, gentlemen, let's go ahead and start by getting into the news. Hayden, we're going to start with you. There were some waves made over Labor Day weekend as a North Texas Republican caused a stir and endorsed Democrat Mike Collier for lieutenant governor. What was Republican incumbent Dan Patrick's response. It's always a headline when someone crosses party lines and decides to really be disloyal to their party, and people will characterize that in

different ways. Some will say it's principled and that he's making a policy-oriented choice. Others will say that it's betraying the voters, the primary voters that put him in office, and both Republicans and Democrats do this at times. But to set the stage for who it is that has made this endorsement, this is the Tarrant County judge. And for those unfamiliar with county judges, they are more or less the chief executive of a county. This is the largest or most populated Republican-controlled county in Texas. So County Judge Glenn Whitley endorsing Democratic Lieutenant Governor nominee Mike Collier was a big deal. And Whitley has a history of quarreling with fellow Republicans, so it's not new for him to upset those within his own party. But it is news that Whitley chose to take a very contrary stance to those in his party. He made the endorsement in a podcast on WFAA,

a local news outlet in the DFW area. And there was some fallout that included Senator Kel Seliger out in Amarillo, also making an endorsement of Collier. And then shortly after, Democrat Senator Eddie Lucio endorsed Dan Patrick. So there were senators in both parties endorsing outside of their party and lots of commentary on those endorsements. Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that Judge Whitley had sparred potentially with Republicans in the past. Talk to us specifically about a property tax fight that he had with some state level officials. Well, I forgot to mention that Dan Patrick did respond to those endorsements, to Whitley in particular. He focused his criticism on property taxes there in Tarrant County. He said there are higher property taxes in Tarrant County than in most other places in the state. Patrick said, quote, it's no surprise Whitley,

who made Tarrant County property taxes among the highest in Texas, doesn't get it. People are being taxed out of their homes by big spending local governments. Collier and Whitley are two of a kind tax hiking big spenders, end quote. And Tarrant County did collect $529 million in property taxes in 2021, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. And the tax rate was $0.229 per $100 of assessed valuation. So those are the property tax rates in Tarrant County, and that was Patrick's focus. But county tax rates are set by the commissioner's courts in the various counties, and the hospital county tax rates are set by the commissioner's courts in the various counties and the hospital district tax rates are set there as well. Judge Whitley in the past has blamed the legislature for increasing property taxes. And he in fact stated during the budget talks in 2018

that the legislature had mandated a property tax increase, which drew the ire of the Republican Senate delegation there in Tarrant County. And a public letter was authored by Senators Brian Birdwell, Jane Nelson, Kelly Hancock, and our very own Connie Burton, full disclosure. She is CEO here, but at the time she was in the Senate and she signed on to this letter accusing Whitley of misleading the public about the nature of property taxation and reminding everyone that it at the county level, that they were really foreshadowing the, not just foreshadowing, but cajoling the county into doing the same thing, even though they do have the final word on the property tax rate. The legislature sometimes will make plans around the county doing a certain thing, even though they're not required to do that. So Whitley has sparred with these lawmakers in the past over property taxes and doing the same thing again here with Patrick, even though he cited Mike Collier's business experience. And

Whitley said that he has more respect for local officials than Patrick does. Very interesting. And to watch, particularly in Tarrant County, as you said, where the stakes are very high for Republicans and Democrats, Democrats view this as a huge win for them if they were to secure countywide elections in Tarrant just because of the history and it being so red previously.

So interesting to watch this go on, particularly in this cycle. Is this a competitive race or does Patrick more or less have this locked up? Patrick has a lead in the polls and he has millions more in the bank for his campaign. So it's not a lock for Patrick at all. He, last time he was finished five points ahead of Collier. Although it's likely Patrick will win, he still has a lot of campaigning to do. And Collier is hoping to appeal to moderate Republicans. He's running radio ads even in rural areas. So it's still a couple of months away from

the election, but it is a competitive race. But Patrick does have a huge advantage. There you go. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Bradley, we are going to come to you. BlackRock is in the news again. And the most recent step in a back and forth between the financial titan and Texas officials occurred this week.

What happened? So BlackRock, the world's largest portfolio manager, sent a response to a collection of state attorneys general, including Texas AG Ken Paxton, who are investigating their company over its ESG related statements. BlackRock objected to the contentions made by the AGs, namely that they divest from fossil fuel companies or sanction those fossil fuel companies to the point of spurning away investments that would otherwise go to them. BlackRock has repeatedly denied such allegations, but the most notable part of the letter is that the company says now pension systems may vote their shares differently than BlackRock recommends to its clients. Normally, BlackRock proxy votes on behalf of its clients in the shareholders' meetings of each respective company where they see

a lot of these different kinds of proposals come up. Yeah, absolutely. So this response comes after the state comptroller put BlackRock on its list of fossil fuel divesters. Where does that stand? After publishing of that list, 10 companies, including BlackRock, are on it. State funds have begun the process of figuring out just how much money they have tied to those companies through stock holdings and portfolio investments. They have 30 days to do that. The deadline, 30 days after the list is released, and the deadline is September 23rd, at which point these state entities will begin to pull the money out of those companies, including

BlackRock. And as of the beginning of this year, the state's largest pension system, the teacher's retirement system, had about $7.5 billion tied to BlackRock managed funds and BlackRock stock holdings. So that's the largest tranche that you'll see, but that's one of five or six different state pension systems. And so you will see a lot of money change hands in this situation. I'm not sure how quickly after that 30 days that they will get all of the money out. But it is definitely something that the state, including Texas Comptroller Glenn Hager, is rearing to get finished.

The legislature passed a law last session in 2021 requiring the state to remove, to divest the fossil fuel divesters, essentially, to remove these state pension investments from companies that the state of Texas deems is divesting from the fossil fuel industry. Well, Brad, thank you for covering that for us. And we'll keep an eye on those developments going forward. We appreciate your coverage. Hudson, we are coming to you. You wrote a piece this week, or I think it was last week even, about the Veterans Affairs expanding abortion access, even in states with laws that restrict abortion access. What is the VA doing here? Yeah, so the VA is following suit to a number of other federal agencies like the Health and

Human Services Department and the Department of Defense. They are all trying to expand abortion access beyond the current state restrictions. And the VA is doing this through a rule that they issued last Friday that claims that they can provide abortions in cases of rape or incest in medical emergencies. Now, all VA beneficiaries will have access to expanded abortion services in comparison to states with incredibly strict laws like Texas. What legal foundation do they cite? Yeah, so they cite the Veterans Healthcare Eligibility Reform Act, which established healthcare benefits for VA beneficiaries, and that allows the secretary to furnish hospital care and medical services, which the secretary determines to be needed. And so in this circumstance, the VA claims that abortions fall under the purview of this law.

Have any Texas lawmakers responded to this rule? You know, not yet. I've been looking for a response from even a state lawmaker, but I haven about the health and human services, similar health and human services rule. And it was actually enjoined the guidance from Secretary Xavier Becerra was was enjoined from being put into place in Texas, saying that it wasn't constitutional under under under texas law but this is the veterans affairs and we really haven't seen anything from texas lawmakers u.s senator from from kansas jerry moran has been incredibly opposed to the rule but still have no word from cornyn cruz or other texas actors who will be impacted by this rule yeah so this will affect over 2.5 million women across the country and represents a notable blow to state laws that just went into effect restricting abortion to instances where the life of the mother will be directly threatened. Because the VA gives physicians the ability to determine whether or not the woman in question requires an emergency abortion, it will surely expand the instances where the practice will be legal. Very interesting to watch this happen and kind of trickle down on the federal level. Thank you for covering that, Hudson. abortion, it will surely expand the instances where the practice will be legal.

Very interesting to watch this happen and kind of trickle down on the federal level. Thank you for covering that, Hudson. Hayden, Secretary Mayorkas announced a panel called the Disinformation Governance Board, and it caused quite a stir, but recently decided to shut it down. What spurred his change of mind? Several months ago, Secretary Mayorkas said that there would be a panel that would be responsible for sifting disinformation primarily spread by bad actors like foreign adversaries and criminal cartels, criminal organizations spreading misinformation. He cited the surge on Del Rio, the illegal immigration surge, as proof that something needed to be done because there was misinformation about the status of Haitian illegal immigrants here in the U.S. So he formed this panel that was ostensibly to

spread or to clamp down on falsehoods being spread by foreign adversaries. But there were, it was roundly criticized, and he recently determined that the board would be closed. He published a statement on August 24th, indicating that he accepted the recommendation of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and terminated the board that same day. So Hayden, talk to us about what were some of the main objections to the Disinformation Governance Board? The critics of the board pointed out the timing of the formation of the board, which was right after Elon Musk announced that he would take over or that he would purchase Twitter. And many believed that

Musk was going to relax a lot of the rules around content and information about the election and different things that might otherwise be quote unquote fact-checked by Twitter or have that little flag that says this claim is misleading or whatever comes after the exclamation point that they add to tweets that they don't like and the critics of the board said that it would have a chilling effect on free speech even if it did not indeed censor or monitor americans it would give the impression that the government was monitoring people and that expressing opinions that were unpopular with the Fed, the federal government could result in repercussions. And there was a lawsuit, including Texas, that sought to shut down the board. Obviously, that lawsuit is now moot because the board has been dissolved by

Secretary Mayorkas. But the leader of the board was an outspoken critic of President Trump, and many believed also that she was too politically charged to lead an agency that was responsible for being an objective gatekeeper of facts. Well, I believe the name itself caused quite a stir among folks too, particularly in this political climate we live in where the right of center folks are very concerned about censorship and those kinds of issues. I think the name sparked a lot of outrage among folks for sure. Well, Hayden, thank you for covering that for us. Bradley, we're coming back to you. The Texas Attorney General announced a large

settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul this week. Tell us the details. So the settlement is a result of a two-year-long lawsuit. Juul, the e-cigarette manufacturer, one of the most known of these, agreed to pay $438.5 million in settlement to over 30 states and territories, $42.8 million of which will go to Texas. A number of state attorneys general sued the company over its marketing strategies and tactics aimed at specifically selling to young people.

I believe Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, was, if not the first, one posts, and providing free samples to prospective consumers, alleging that that is how they attracted the consumer base of essentially 25 and under, but specifically talking about people under the age of 18. What did the company say about it? They said, quote, this settlement with 34 states and territories is a significant part of our ongoing commitment to resolve issues from the past. The terms of the agreement are aligned with our current business practices, which we started to implement after our company-wide reset in the fall of 2019. We remain focused on the future as we work to fulfill our mission to transition adult smokers away from cigarettes, the number one cause of preventable death, while combating underage use.

That leads out an interesting dynamic with this. These e-cigarettes are very popular among younger people, in large part because they are less damaging, at least in the traditional sense that cigarettes are then cigarettes. One of the ways that the Attorney's General knocked Juul for was that the chemical compound that they use in this vape is lighter on the throat of the users,

and therefore it's easier to smoke. And that is not the case for cigarettes, and therefore you see a lot of younger people using the vapes. And so it's an odd dynamic of this company trying to provide a different way for people to get a nicotine fix, essentially, but also being criticized for the way they're doing it and making a lot of money while doing it. But also one of the things they got knocked for on this

was that they weren't incredibly forthright about the fact that it does contain nicotine. It is addictive. And so it seems like Juul is in a, as they say, a company-wide reset trying to change the way they are doing business. And this settlement is part of that. Well, thank you, Bradley, for covering that for us. Hayden, let's talk to you about some border related issues here some immigration related issues the obama era daca program is back in the news after biden officials published rules for those already in the program what are some of the highlights of the rule the daca program was instituted by then dh Secretary Janet Napolitano and was designed to allow people

who came to the U.S. as children illegally to remain in the country so that they, as the argument goes, are not punished for something that was no fault of their own, that they came here as children and could not, as a five or six-year-old, couldn't file their own legal paperwork and be admitted to the country legally. So these are people who were given two-year work permits, and they, according to the DHS, 800,000 people have been allowed to stay in the U.S. under the program. They're more or less protected from deportation. There have been wildly different estimates of how many people have been affected by DACA. They're also called DREAMers, people in this program. But after Obama left office, it became a target for the Trump

administration. And recently, Biden officials published guidelines to extend the protections of DACA. It's materially the same as the original DACA program. It seeks to make those permanent. So some of what they outlined, for instance, they said, quote, maintains the existing threshold criteria for DACA, retains the existing process for DACA requesters to seek work authorization and affirms the long standing policy that DACA is not a form of lawful status, but that DACA recipients, like other Deferred Action recipients, are considered lawfully present for certain purposes, end quote.

So it keeps the bones of it the same, but is seeking a permanent solution so that these individuals are not in limbo. What are some of the legal perils facing the DACA program? The backdrop of this new rule is the legal challenge to DACA that culminated last year in a federal judge blocking new applications to the program, but allowing those already in the program to renew their status under the program. I believe he blocked it under the Administrative Procedure Act. He said that it was an improper executive memoranda. Again, this isn't a law. It's not a court ruling. It is a piece of paper

that somebody in the Obama administration signed. And often what is cited in these cases is prosecutorial discretion. They're using their discretion as federal officials not to prosecute people who came here when they were children and to not prioritize them to be expelled. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard oral arguments in the case and is expected to make a decision in the near future. Biden's publication of these new guidelines is his attempt to bolster their case in court and hopefully satisfy the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is typically more conservative, so that they do not strike down this program that is very important to liberals. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for that. Hudson, we're coming back to you. There's been a lot of hubbub about in God we trust signs displayed in public schools. What developments have occurred since we discussed this story last?

Yeah, so this has been an interesting thing to look at and just from the back and forth between the different sides here, but Essentially just a little bit of background a couple weeks ago Patriot Mobile who call themselves America's only Christian conservative wireless provider donated a bunch of signs with the national motto and God we trust to Texas public schools So those donations came on the heel of a bill authored by state rep Brian Hughes that mandates that signs with the motto, a Texas flag and American flag are, if they are donated to the school, they must be displayed in a prominent location on campus. And so last week, a parent from Carroll ISD attempted to donate new in God we trust signs that have Arabic lettering and rainbow lettering.

And so his signs were subsequently rejected. And the school board president claimed that they only needed one sign per school and that they can't accept more. And that that was the reason for them not accepting the signs. And the parent responded saying, why is more God not better? It's very interesting. Yeah. Interesting argument. I've not heard that one before. What happened after the signs were rejected? Yeah. So last Friday, the Kaplan law firm, a civil rights firm in Austin, gave the Carroll resident who had the signs rejected and three other parents cease and

desist letters to deliver to four North Texas schools with the Patriot mobile signs on display. So those cease and desist letters claim that the current signs were out of line with the law because of extraneous images in the background of the poster. The poster did have extra stars in the background in addition to the Texas flag and American flag, which were required in the motto, which were required by the law. So these stars supposedly violated the aspect of the law that says that outside of those required images, no other words or images may be present on the poster. So the parents also brought the Arabic and rainbow signs with the cease and desist letters that were initially rejected as the law firm claimed that these signs were indeed in line

with the text of the law. So Senator Brian Hughes, did he respond to the cease and desist order? No, he did not respond directly to the cease and desist order. But earlier last week, he did pen a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Marath, and he clarified the intent of the law because of these attempts to donate signs in Arabic and other ways to find loopholes in the in the law so he was the author of the law correct okay yes and so hughes confirmed that only one sign is required per school um similar to what the the uh the carol isd school board president told the parent and that more would overwhelm the school system. And additionally, he told Murath that the signs must be in English

as the 1956 law that established the motto specified English as the language. Got it. Well, Hudson, thank you for that update. Bradley, we are coming back to you over in Ohio. A couple of power grid related reports were released this week right up your alley. What did they say? So the first was ERCOT's fall seasonal assessment, a forecast of expected electricity demand and generation levels. It shows a much lighter load during October and November for the power grid to bear, which is unsurprising as the summer heat will likely relent. Typically in Texas, the most strenuous time on the power grid is the dead of summer.

The grid operator plans to use this time to allow for maintenance that had to be postponed to cope with the demand caused by the summer heat. Many of these generators kept themselves online when they had scheduled maintenance plans during the summer because of the sheer amounts of electricity needed to cope with how much people were using. The second report was the final report of the Energy Plan Advisory Committee, a body created by the legislature to conduct a full-scope review

of the energy and power industry. I go into much more detail in the piece on it, so if you're interested on that, I'd recommend reading it, but the report focused greatly on how to cope with the massive shift in Texas, specifically what it's seeing in its generation sources. Large amounts of wind and solar are coming online, while no new natural gas or coal facilities are expected to be built. On a side note, I did hear Governor Abbott on a podcast today with Chris Salcedo say that when he was asked if the governor would confirm that the state of Texas would add new natural gas generation facilities, the governor said 100%. Yes, to my knowledge,

there aren't any new generation plants, natural gas plants in the works seeking permitting at the moment, but that is something that state officials are hoping to change direction on. Also in the report they made a couple recommendations about changes to both the physical and the market side of things on the power grid. One thing that's notable is specifying the generators, renewable generators should have on-site dispatchable generations backup. Essentially, that would require wind farms and solar farms to have, let's say, natural gas or coal on-site as a backup generator in case they cannot meet their obligations. We saw during the summer quite a bit of these sources not meet their forecasted amount of generation for various

reasons, whether it was the wind not blowing or it being an exceptionally cloudy day in West Texas, limiting the amount of solar that could be generated. So we are, yeah, they released this report. It was part of the post-blackout reforms. This had been in the works for a long time, like at least a year probably. And they did a lot of, they held a couple hearings. They talked to a lot of different stakeholders. The report is linked in the article there. You can read it for yourself if you want. But it's a broad assessment of what happened and providing recommendations for what should come next. So what is next? We are still waiting on the final plan of market reforms from the Public Utility Commission. But the most important thing to watch for is how the commission decides to adjust the status quo in the market to cope with the large amounts of renewable subsidies that, quote, distort the market.

You have these federal tax subsidies, most notably the production tax credit at the federal level that just got renewed by Congress, that basically allows these renewable generators to sell electricity at negative prices and still break even. If you're receiving a lot of money in subsidization, you don't have to sell your electricity or your product, whatever it is, for very much. And that gives you a competitive advantage in a market such as the ERCOT market. That has been probably the biggest component to the massive influx of renewable generation that we're seeing at the expense of natural gas and coal and other thermal generation that we have not seen any development in. In fact, we're losing capacity in that as some very old plants get mothballed. Yeah. Well, Brad, thank you for kind of breaking that all down for us and we'll see what happens. But now that the summer's over, I think, you know, probably a lot of those, you know, grid regulators are very much breathing a sigh of relief. So we'll see how the winter fares.

But thank you for that so much. And we will continue to keep an eye on what's going on. Hayden, we're going to come to you governor abbott added another city to the list of destinations for illegal immigrants transported out of state tell us about chicago's addition to the busing program for those unfamiliar the busing program that abbott started in april provides voluntary transportation to illegal immigrants who are apprehended and then given federal documents. So just to clarify, these individuals are usually called migrants in these news releases. They were originally illegal immigrants. They were arrested and then given federal documents. So they're technically not illegal immigrants, but like we were talking about with the DACA program earlier, they are illegal immigrants in the

sense that they do not have authorization to be here through the legal process. They have a piece of paper that gives them permission to be here, so they're lawfully present, but they have not been legalized. In other words, it's a form of amnesty. But they were apprehended, and now the state is taking them and sending them to other cities. Abbott contends because these cities have sanctuary policies that require them to provide free housing and free clothes, free food, that type of thing. And Texas has sent 7,600 individuals to New York City, or excuse me, to DC, and 1,900 to New York City. And last week announced that Chicago would be the next city on the list. Abbott claims that this program is providing much-needed relief to Texas, though it's important

to keep in mind that about 118,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in Texas sectors in July. So that's compared to about between, I saw 60 and then another figure was given of 90 illegal immigrants that were sent to Chicago under the program, under the busing program. So there are a few thousand being sent out of state by Abbott's busing program. Got it. So what was the Chicago mayor's response to Abbott's decision? Two very politically different people. The response from the White House and these mayors has obviously been overwhelmingly negative, but this one was particularly strong. While Abbott says that open border policies, as he characterizes them, are putting the state at risk, these big city mayors believe that what he's doing is more or less racially prejudiced. So in a statement, the spokesman for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, quote, as a city, we are doing everything we can to ensure these immigrants and their families

can receive shelter, food, and most importantly, protection. Chicago welcomes hundreds of migrants every year. Unfortunately, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is without shame or humanity, but ever since he put these racist practices of expulsion in place, we have been working with our community partners to ready the city to receive these individuals, end quote. Pretty scathing criticism on the part of the mayor of Chicago, who has, we'll say, an acrimonious relationship with Greg Abbott. Absolutely. Very scathing review there, Hayden. Thank you for covering that. Hudson, we're going to come to you. There was a story you wrote and it's caught a lot of

attention about Tim Tebow speaking at an Andrews County event costing $60,000. Give us some background on the story and why is Tim Tebow coming to Andrews County? Also, where is Andrews County? Somewhere in West Texas. Yes. So Andrews County is a small county on the border of New Mexico in the Permian Basin in West Texas. About 20,000 people live there. And they announced last week that Tim Tebow is going to be coming to town for the price tag of $60,000. And that's going to be coming from the county, from the county budget. And he's going to be speaking at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event. It is unclear if the entire payment will go directly to Tebow or to fund the entire event. But regardless, the constitutionality of a payment for this type of event is ambiguous.

Talk to us about that. Yeah. So the FCA event is called Fields of Faith, and its purpose is to influence students to read the Bible and apply it to their lives. Because the money comes from the public budget, it may violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. So the Lemon v. Kurtzman test established that under constitutional law, governments cannot provide direct aid to inherently religious events So interesting in that there are some questions about specifically where the money is coming from, whether it's taxpayer dollars or what kind of government funds these actually are at the end of the day. Where is the money pulled from in the Andrews County budget? Yeah, that's the other interesting dimension of this. So yeah, the money is not directly coming from tax dollars, which kind of like increases

the confusion there about how legal is something like this. But interestingly, the money comes from payments made to the county by a nuclear waste facility run by waste control specialists. So this facility manages low level nuclear waste and the company pays the county about 1 million yearly to operate. And the money goes into something called the community legacy fund. And there is a community legacy committee that is elected from by, by their, by the peers of the county. And the county uses that money for projects related to the public good. So this is obviously what the county believes is going to be for the public good.

And also, it's not often that you can discuss nuclear waste and Tim Tebow in the same story. So it was an interesting story to follow. Yeah, and definitely got a good amount of traction last week. Yeah, very interesting to watch. Thank you for covering that for us. Let's go to the tweeter-y section, gentlemen. Bradley, why don't you start us off with something that caught your eye on Twitter this week? So, while I was

actually boarding the plane to head to Boston to see some games at Fenway Park, I saw this email sent out by the Defend Texas Liberty Pack, which is run by former state rep Jonathan Stickland. And in it, they are applauding Governor Greg Abbott, which itself, for anything, is pretty fascinating

because I can't remember any time that Stickland or his pack have applauded the governor, most notably because they backed one of the primary challengers to Abbott, Don Huffines, pretty substantially. But in it, they are applauding the governor's statement on using at least half of the projected $27 billion treasury surplus that the comptroller put out back in July, using at least half of that to provide the most significant property tax cut in the state of Texas history. The PAC said in this release that Abbott was, like many Texans, my property tax bill, this is Jonathan Sicklin talking, went up this year and will be higher than ever. It's encouraging to see our governor not only identify this problem, but be responsive to the voters and come out with this position. So swiftly following our poll, another notable aspect of this, that number that Abbott said, which will amount to roughly 13 and a half billion, that's more than what both Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick or Speaker Dade Phelan have suggested for using towards buying down property taxes. at least tentative support for eliminating the MNO, the maintenance and operations school

district rate, which is the single largest component of property tax bills that people pay. And so I'm not sure how that's going to play out, but it's interesting to see that on this issue, especially now that the governor and one of his most ardent critics are on the same page. Absolutely. And it's, you know, it's not often I think you see these very conservative or very liberal, depending on which spectrum you're talking about here. But, you know, for this case, we're talking Republicans, you know, come out and give folks who may be more middle of the road than they are kudos. So interesting to watch this alignment on policy happen and then public praise happen as well and you know as you've said it is no secret that jonathan stickland uh when he was in the legislature was not the most uh not the

biggest fan of those in leadership and so very interesting to watch this press release come out and i think we all kind of blinked a couple of times. Like, are we reading the names right? Is this what we're really seeing here? Yeah. So thanks for covering that, Bradley. I appreciate it. Hayden, what caught your eye? Well, we generally try to stay away from stories that are about journalists because reporters tend to talk way too much about themselves.

But this one has a true crime connection so i felt like i could um i felt like i could go ahead and talk about it yeah well i've seen like this headline i don't know the details so i'll be learning from you on this one it is pretty shocking um a few days ago really right before labor day um a journalist with the Las Vegas Review-Journal was found stabbed to death, and the Clark County Public Administrator, Clark County encompasses Las Vegas, was arrested on suspicion of murdering this reporter who had written a story that contributed to him losing the Democratic primary for county administrator. So, and it is pretty shocking. He was, as he was arrested, he apparently had some self-inflicted injuries while he was in his house as he was being arrested.

And so he was, I'm looking at the video right now he was loaded onto a stretcher with a swarm of police officers around him uh loading him into an ambulance oh my gosh very dramatic so dramatic so he so he murdered this reporter because why do we know like fully motive in terms of what what well because the reporter wrote about this by the way i've only read one yeah i've only read what the las vegas review journal yes about what happened this was their reporter that got murdered their reporter that got killed oh my gosh that's so awful it is awful um but according to what i read if I'm understanding correctly this county administrator had a lot of alleged scandals in his office and this reporter wrote about all of it and then so he went and

and he lost the democratic primary and then murdered the reporter oh my gosh wrote all of it absolutely crazy that takes like another level of insanity to think you'll get away with something like that also and maybe he didn't but that is just crazy and it's because it just happened that makes it so crazy like this guy was stabbed to death the other day in las vegas oh my gosh didn't happen in in china or russia no a an elected official in las vegas nevada murdered a reporter oh my gosh if that is in fact what happened this is gonna be like a dateline story like there's gonna be there's gonna be a netflix special that comes out about this there's gonna be something that comes out that and this is this is huge this is gonna be a bigger story and told on a more

national level at some point it's absolutely crazy um makes you think twice about who you write about i know oh my gosh well i think about that the workplace hazards for journalists are are very very small like generally um reporters and journalists like to talk like this is a really hazardous job and it isn't. This is just a freak thing that happened. You just get angry emails. Yeah. So don't ever let a reporter talk to you about how they're out there in the battlefield or something.

Unless they are. Unless you're a foreign war correspondent. Unless you're a foreign war correspondent and you're out there literally reporting on a war, this job is less dangerous than most jobs this is just a freak thing that happens so before nobody send me emails i'm not in any way trying to say that make any kind of point with bringing up this story this is just a weird thing that happens it's just crazy just an absolute crazy fluke um well thank you for breaking that down i was very curious to know more so thank you hayden and you know, I always love a good true crime story. Hudson, what did you see? So going to California right now. So California this week had a seriously crazy like energy environment with their grid because they're

having a really bad heat wave and their grid is powered by 60% renewable energy. And that's often come under fire for not being very reliable, not being available all the time. And something that directly connects to the state of Texas where, like we just said, there's not many plans to build more non-renewable energy in this state for the near future when we know that that is the most reliable source of energy. And so California issued a level three energy conservation, which is the highest level and essentially saying if people don't turn their power off for long periods of time during the hottest parts of the day, then there's going to be rolling blackouts across the state. And so I saw multiple tweets of Tesla, the electric cars that were being charged by gas

generators because they were directly telling California residents not to charge their electric cars right after they banned the sale of new gas vehicles after 2035. So it's pretty ironic. And also interesting to see a Tesla on the highway with a gas generator on the back of a hitchpacker charging the car as it's driving on the highway. Very interesting to see. And I think that they have passed through this crazy, crazy event. But I mean, this stuff will continue to happen with the lack of reliability presented by renewables and something that we need to

take note of in Texas when we're looking for our energy future. Yeah. Well, I saw saw that i think it was shared on twitter and then it found its way into our slack which i thought was so funny anytime texans can take a dig at california they dunk on the opportunity oh yeah so it's a picture of the titanic and i said what's the difference between california and the titanic the titanic had its lights on when it sank which is pretty funny i thought that was pretty clever um okay well rob you kind of took over hayden's mic here we're going to chat with you real fast about some stuff that's happening on the global level here. Talk to us about what's evening broadcast. The Queen of England is apparently suffering some kind of health condition. The Royal Palace, Buckingham Palace, put out a statement earlier today saying that the

Queen's doctors are concerned for her health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. She remains quite comfortable at Balmoral Castle, which is her family's castle in Scotland. Apparently, various members of the royal family are traveling to Balmoral Castle as we speak. They are showing up there. Many people believe that the queen might basically be dying or already dead, to sound a little morbid. There is a protocol in the United Kingdom called Operation London Bridge, which is the protocol for what to do when the Queen dies. The BBC will turn off its regular programming, which they have done,

and they're expected to announce again at 6 o'clock the evening news. They will change into black clothing uh which they have also done and if you check the bbc website right now their normal red logo has turned black so the website is done up in black um so it is expected by many people that the queen of england right now queen elizabeth ii is uh dying or is already dead and i mean she has uh served since world war ii um she served in world war ii as a mechanic for uh for cars i'm sorry for trucks um she has known every prime minister since winston churchill and every president since harry truman my gosh it's uh i've i've heard it described that, she is an institution under herself and

it's, it's, it's going to be a different world. Essentially. It's a, it's a, a, a new era as it were for the United Kingdom and for the world, since she's still the queen of various Commonwealth countries, um, uh, around the world, like, uh, areas in, um, uh, the British Caribbean, uh, Canada, other countries like that, that still have the Queen of the United Kingdom as their head of state. Yeah. My gosh. And we'll see, you know, we're recording right now at about noon on Thursday. So who knows what will happen in the next 24 hours, but regardless, it looks like something's happening over there and we'll see exactly what

that is. But thank you for breaking that down for us. Certainly someone that I think many people across the world respect greatly. So we'll see what happens. And my gosh, it would just be a crazy time if that actually happened. I think you explaining the breadth of her reign and how many folks she's met and worked alongside is just unbelievable. So God bless the queen. Okay. I real fast want to point to a tweet from Abbott's campaign Twitter that I'm a little confused by. And I know Brad specifically loves when I talk about or when anybody talks about rally size as indicators of electoral turnout. But Texans for Greg Abbott tweeted, oh, where, oh, where has the Beto magic gone? And it's a side by side photo from 2018 and 2020 to of two rallies of Beto. And I think what he's trying to prove is that the size of the

rallies have shrunk, but they're both still a lot of people so i'm a little confused like i don't think it has the visual impact that the governor was going for um and even our matt stringer he was at a beto rally in west texas this last week and so the turnout was crazy i think there's a lot of momentum for um the democratic challenger to greg abbott throughout the state of texas um and i think you know there probably could have been a picture of a rally with a few less people that beto's gone to that could have served as a better visual i don't know but it was it was a confusing tweet to me am i am i missing anything guys or am i am i seeing what is going on here correctly i i can see in the photo that there's less people than the

than the uh the amount when you the big one in in uh 2018 2018 when he's running against cruz but but nevertheless there's still a good amount of people there hundreds of people i mean i don't think it's achieving it it kind of caught a lot of flack on twitter because it just kind of looked like a bad way to dunk on beto yeah it don't definitely again it's like there are fewer people in the other photo but it's still a lot of people i don't know it just didn't it didn't quite have the impact i think that the governor was going for but who knows um yeah and definitely wanted to plug matt stringer and his he has got a great tweet thread if you guys want to go and read that as well about Beto's rally over in West Texas.

OK, gentlemen, well, let's pivot to what we did over Labor Day and talk about any Labor Day fun plans. Hudson, did you do anything outdoorsy over Labor Day? Were you able to do something fun outdoor? No. So actually, I had a fantastic Labor Day weekend. I went back into my hometown of San Antonio, and it was very nice to see a lot of my friends, my graduating senior alumni from Trinity University and my fraternity. A lot of people came into town, and so we hit a couple bars. We spent time at our fraternity house, and we hung out with the guys that are still there and and and just had had some time together you know we spent we spent the whole weekend together uh i think sunday afternoon we went to canyon lake oh beautiful oh my gosh we have a really cool spot that we go to they're totally

free to go to um overlook park if anyone here is interested in going to like spend time by a lake for an afternoon for free and we brought all our friends uh and and uh had a good time ultimately it was a very good restful labor day weekend and it's always good to see everybody coming in coming into town from all over the country now absolutely well can't even like it's so fun too that sounds like a great labor day oh yeah and to get out on the water on a long weekend is just so great. Especially this is like the last hot holiday week of the year. Yeah. Rob, what did you do?

Did you do anything fun? I pretty much stayed in, I'd say, for Labor Day weekend. I didn't really do much. I think I went out on Saturday night, had a few drinks, which was a good time. And on Monday itself, I sort of relaxed and read a book. So it was a good weekend for me. Yeah. That sounds amazing. That sounds so amazing. No, I definitely was in the relaxation boat as well. That is so awesome. What did I do? I saw a movie with my roommate, which was so fun. I hung out with my fiance plenty. We hiked with some friends on Monday. We did River Place which is like i don't know hudson if you've been to river place but it's never been to river place it's like the only real hike i'd say in

austin i feel like every place else and i've talked about on the pod before it's just like nature walks almost like there's just not that much elevation and river yeah river places definitely got some elevation you kind of hike in and out of a little greenbelt canyon it's nothing crazy but it still gets you get your heart pumping quite quite good so we did that i like did something weird to my back it felt like a very much older than i am but it was a fun fun weekend looked at wedding venues did all sorts of errands and productive things and i think it's just a busy season so the more i can just knock things out day by day the better that's That's kind of what I did. Bradley, you had quite a fun Labor Day weekend. Talk to us about what you did.

I did. As I mentioned earlier, I flew to Boston, saw three games at Fenway Park. I think it's the second oldest major league park in the country behind Wrigley in Chicago. It's been something I wanted to see for a long time. And I was just a really cool place to watch a baseball game. I went there with my dad and Phil Burton, shout out Phil. Thanks for the invite. It was a great, great time. Just hung out with a bunch of guys and went to games and saw some, some history, historical sites.

My dad and I went to the USS constitution and the battleship, the world war two battleship or not battleship destroyer that is right next to it. Just got to hang out in Boston. It was a cool, cool opportunity. That's amazing. I'm so glad you got to go to that's so fun.

And the photos were great. Somehow we need to make sure certain photos of y'all make it to Twitter. They'll never make it to Twitter, but they were pretty fun. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me and folks. Thanks for listening and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening, 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, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any

questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the texan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you. So thank you again for your support. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup. God bless you and God bless Texas. I swear, right as I start recording no poncho no bad dog