Good Lord More Screwworm, An Electric Slide, and Seeming Resolution on Camp Mystic - Episode 34

The fellas run the gamut of happenings this week, including more screwworm, a final report on last year's floods, and a Libertarian announces himself.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I don't think anybody's trying to take your screw worms, Richie. You're trying to take my screw worms. They're mine. They're pretty happy letting you have it. Morning, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Texas Bullpen Podcast. As you can hear, uh, this is Brad Johnson with a voice restored. Your voice has returned.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Where did you find it?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Behind the dumpster.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Interesting. I'm not going to ask any more questions. It's usually where you crawl around, but not going to ask any more questions about that.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Um I have been, I don't know, been resting. I've not been talking to people a lot, at least talking to them uh verbally, trying to get right for this edition, unlike the last one that was really touch and go.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

We were hanging on by a prayer.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

We were. We were.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I heard good reviews about it though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

You know, I heard a review today. They really liked your uh uh Would You Love Me If I Was a Screwworm comment? Ah, yes. Uh let that one go to your head. I they all do. Boost your ego. They all do. Um I've been watching a lot of the World Cup this week. The World The World Cup. The World Cup. Well, I was gonna ask you what team you're rooting for, but your reaction there tells me that you haven't you don't even know that what that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

I I am not convinced that soccer is a real sport. I'm just not convinced that that's one that we should care about. Doesn't do anything for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Well, you're not really a sports guy anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

So uh yeah, but I have. I mean, you know, I'm not like a sports aficionado, but I have very strong opinions about sports as any male does.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Um but soccer just if you had to pick a country that's a cheer for other than the US, who would it be?

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Other than the US.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Other than the US. Uh I've no You're about to say Rhodesia.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

I would not. They're not even in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well, not even they're not even a country anymore. I didn't say why they weren't in it. I'm just saying they weren't in it. But they're also Zimbabwe is not in it.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Uh I've enjoyed seeing the uh Japanese tourists come and experience American culture. So uh and then as soon as like the translate feature on Twitter opened up Japanese Twitter, I felt like a very deep bond to those people. So I would I would cheer for are the Japanese in it? Are there are they around or they played the other day?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Soccer ball? Yeah, I think they played the Netherlands. Did they work? I think it was a tie. A tie. Uh have you seen the one guy who is writing these long sonnets about like the different biscuits and gravy?

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yes, absolutely. I saw the one about uh the English chips at a Mexican restaurant, and it just was one of the best pieces of literature I've ever I've ever consumed. Wow. Um And you've read Faulkner. I've read a lot of things. Yeah, I've read I've read quite a bit. But it was it was gorgeous. It was such a touching you know it was such a touching kind of meditation on the inherent generosity of free chips and salsa and what burden of stewardship that places upon the the uh the eater in that situation. So it was it was quite humorous. Yeah, I enjoyed it immensely. So yeah, I I wouldn't mind those guys.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

It has been interesting seeing these uh foreigners interact with America for the first time and realize this is a great place. Yeah. Uh despite what you read online.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I saw this one post, I'm sure you did too, where it was some like Brit being like, huh? What do they call biscuits over there? Like scones and mushrooms. So they were looking at biscuits and gravy and they were like scones and mushrooms for breakfast. And I I was like, this is why we this is why we left. This is exactly why we left.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

That's why. Well, the U.S. had a great first match on Friday. They play uh tomorrow. We were recording on Thursday. U.S. plays in the afternoon on Friday, which is why we're recording tomorrow, because I refused to let uh Richie's indifference to the beautiful game make me miss the U.S. men's national team. You know what? I haven't done drawn a lot of lines in the sand in running this business, but that was a clear one for me to draw, and I did. Um we're coming to you on Thursday, late afternoon, early evening.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I left something I was passionate about to be here. The New World Screw World.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, you know, funny you mentioned that because we're gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

I mean what else we're gonna talk about it today. Yeah. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

What else has been going on in Texas? There's it's actually been kind of a slower week in terms of big stuff. Um the biggest one is the screw worm and the you know smaller developments at least compared to the last couple weeks. But um, you just sat through most of a screw worm hearing, and we'll touch on it's kind of a a very rapid fire uh podcast episode because we got a lot of topics to hit. But first one is screw worm. What what are we hearing in this legislative hearing? You know, it's been going on for what, five hours now.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah. I mean it started at eleven o'clock, and you know, it's uh a little bit past eleven, and they were going strong. They were actually only just getting to their third out of like six panels. So um, but the panel that wrapped up right before I came over here was probably the most important one. It was representatives from the USDA in the FDA. What?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I just got a text from a friend who said, Do you see the guy pass out in the AG Livestock hearing?

unknown 5:56

No.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

No, we didn't. No, actually.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

You're hearing it here first, except this is coming out two days after we record. Uh anyway, sorry to cut you off.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

But interesting. Uh well, I we I hope they're okay. Um hope to not screw worm or anything. Uh but yeah, so anyways, the representatives from uh USDA, which includes uh Admiral Michael Schmoyer, who is kind of the head honcho of the federal screw worm response. Uh a very animated individual. Very animated individual. He seems like genuinely jazzed to be fighting screw worm.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Um that's that's what you need. Yeah, honestly. If you're gonna have somebody fighting screw screwworm, you want them to be jazzed about it.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

He was jazz I mean, he has been since he got here, he was, you know, and he always tells this story about how he was en route to Panama to look at those facilities and then got redirected to Texas because of the first detection, and then he shows up at the doorsteps of Bud Dingis, who's the director of the T Texas Animal Health uh Commission, and you know, like with a overnight bag and has basically been like living and and living out of his car and and bunning it with uh Dr. Dingis, and he was like an you know, today it was tells us a common story for him of how you know he wore Dingis' boots for the first press conference on it and stuff. And it all goes like say how close the uh federal agencies are collaborating with the Texas State Agencies in combating screwworm. But I mean he he is like a real character. He was talking about how you know their their teams are down there in Panama where they're producing the sterile flies to make sure the sterile flies are the most attractive sterile flies that could be made.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

How do you make a sterile fly attractive?

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Apparently, Admiral Smoyer knows. He's got an eye for those things.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Well, hey, if you need if uh anybody listening needs someone to help them set up their dating app and make it you know the most attractive possible, contact him.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

So he's it it's always it's always kind of fun to to listen to him in these briefings and stuff like that. But he you know, there hasn't been a new detected case of screw worm for uh better part of a week. Um and there so far have been no screw worm detections in any of the uh fly traps that are out there, and they have you know reviewed well over 50,000 different captured flies and so forth. None of them have been screw worm. Uh they've also uh so far zero confirmed detections in wildlife, which is a big worry zone uh because you know, how do you do that? But they've uh examined uh I think well over 10,000 uh wildlife animals in Texas alone, and so far zero confirmed detections. Uh and there's only been twelve in domestic animals, and several of those have become inactive cases now. And uh we don't necessarily know why those are inactive. It could be that the infested animal died, or they've just deemed that it was, you know, cured of it. But um so like that dog that was the New Mexico case that was originally identified in Texas, that's been one of those that's been deemed inactive, uh which seemingly uh suggests that like the problem hasn't spread as much as people were afraid of. And that's what Admiral Smroyer said today. He said all of this shows that uh there is a very small number of fertile screw worms in America right now, in Texas specifically. Which is good because the big race that is happening is expanding our production of the sterile flies in order to meet the threat. Because you've gotta you've gotta release, you know, hundreds of millions of these sterile flies, sterile male flies, into a population in order to eradicate. And we just don't have that production yet because all of the previous facilities that were used when we were fighting screw worm back in the 50s, 60s, 70s were all decommissioned, except for the one facility in the world that produces these, or I I shouldn't say in in the American continents that produces these is the facility in Panama. Uh, and that can only produce a hundred million of these sterile flies a week, and the target is to have five hundred million a week. So we're we're quite short of that, but there are several new developments that are uh hopefully going to both increase production at existing facilities, increase production for several of the new facilities that are gonna be coming online. There's uh one in Metapas, Mexico that's going to be up and running here in a few weeks, actually. And then we're building one in uh more airbase down in Edinburgh. Uh hey, did you get that right this time? I hope so. I don't know. I'm sure he'll get a strongly worded letter if you didn't. Yeah, I know. We always do when I mispronounce something.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Um I have a question. How if you find a screw worm on your animal, how do they treat it? How do they get rid of it?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Well, I mean it uh it is very treatable. There are a number of different medications, things that are, you know, sprays, smears. Um there was a lot of talk today about uh ivermectin-infused food, uh corn and grain that could be scattered uh around Texas for wildlife to eat for them to kind of build up perhaps a tolerance or something, but that's not been approved yet. The FDA was actually very like, we can't do that yet. Um and there's a lot of concern about ranchers potentially doing that themselves and like starting or landowners starting to do that themselves and spread it out, and they're like, we don't we don't know if that's appropriate yet. But there's definitely some people doing that. Yeah, I mean for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

You think Texans are gonna sit there and let the federal government tell them what to do on something like this? No way. Yeah, they're definitely not.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Well, there was a lot, Briscoe Kane had a uh a little spat with the FDA guy over that exact thing, and he was like, but if it's not harmful, like why why would it be harmful? We let people do it for their own health, but we don't let people do it for their animals' health. Um so there was some some tensions on that respect. But there's the the FDA has approved, I think it was twelve different new medicines that can be used to treat, combat, prevent screw worm in animals. Uh and it's just one of those things that if you find it, you need to report it immediately. Um get it, you know, tested, confirmed, because that impacts the distribution of the sterile flies that are available. So if you don't report it, you run the risk of that infestation becoming much worse versus if you report it, they can drop the sterile flies there and flood resources into that zone uh immediately versus later when perhaps it's worse. Uh and then additionally, too, uh as soon as it was detected in Texas, the USDA repositioned a ton of these medicines into Texas. So the availability is very much there, we're being told, to help treat and resolve these things as quickly as possible. So like that first detected case, that it was a three-week-old calf that had been infested in the uh umbilical. Infested. It's not infected because it's not a disease, it's a pest. Uh it's not COVID. So you don't get infected with it. You get infested because it's a living insect that is burrowing into another live animal. Yeah. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Hands off my worms.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

I don't think anybody's trying to take your screw worms, Richard. They're mine. They're pretty happy letting you have it. Um glad I don't gotta cover this. Um Okay, well, what's what's the next steps?

SPEAKER_02 14:49

There was Well, I was saying that that original calf is like fully uh healthy again. Okay. So it's been, you know, restored back to full health uh because it was caught and it was treated. Um and at that point that that calf can go up and live a very normal life, you know, until it's killed for steak, you know, or whatever may be the case for that particular animal. So it doesn't like it doesn't infect the meat. Uh it can kill animals because of, you know, at that point you have an open wound that's being eaten by maggots. So then that invites, you know, other hosts of issues that can lead to to death for those those animals.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

But um, yeah. What's the political lay of the land here? I mean, we've talked before about Sid Miller clashing with Brooke Rollins.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Sid Miller, who is up in DC right now today. Oh. Apparently meeting with people. He posted a picture of himself outside the West Wing just before we started. Meeting about screwworm. Meeting about screwworm.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Interesting. Meanwhile, Brooke Rollins was out in Fredericksburg last night giving a presentation to a group there. Um, you know, naturally, there's there's some egos on the line here. There's some battle lines being drawn. You've got, you know, the federal government and the state government. You've got uh Brooke Rollins, who's been and is a pretty big figure in Texas politics. You've also got Greg Abbott involved in this, you've got Sid Miller. What's your read on that?

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Well, my read on that is that everybody not everybody, there is definitely a jockeying for the blame game. Uh Democrats and some state Republicans have blamed uh the USDA for potentially an anemic response. Uh Democrats specifically have pointed to uh doge cuts of a observation program in Central America for Screw Worm. Um on the other side, Brooke Rollins and others have pointed to the fact that, you know, just based on the timeline, screw worm had been contained behind the the Panama, the Danima The Danama? The Danama gap, the the Darien gap, not the Panama Canal, but the Darien Gap in Panama uh for a number of years had been pushed all the way back. It had been entirely eradicated out of Mexico, out of America.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Out of Central America?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Uh to it depends on where you cut off Central America. It was it was in Panama. Okay. But it was cut off the biological barrier zone was the Darien gap in Panama.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Um what's south of the Darien Gap?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

I don't know. Whatever's left of Panama and the other countries, all of South America.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Okay. Um So this is a pretty big thing in South America, too.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, it's a b and it's also a big thing in Africa. Like there's you know screw worms are around. Other uh places deal with this as just a way of life, and we used to as well until our developments enabled us to eradicate it in the in the 60s, 70s. Um but you know, 2022 it breaks that biological barrier, and what's happening there at that time is you have a massive movement of people and live warm-blooded animals moving through the Darien Gap. That's when you have those migrant caravans and things of that nature. So Brooke Rollins has pointed the finger at the Biden administration saying y'all's open border policies facilitated an international environment where you have this unrestricted, unregulated, unsurveilled movement of livestock and animals that broke this uh uh uh biological barrier at the dairy and gap. Additionally, too, uh something that wasn't present the last time this was being spread around and being pushed back is there's a very massive illicit cattle and livestock operation in Mexico, which operates outside of the bounds of uh, you know, regulatory agencies in Mexico. The cartels are a big part of this illicit cattle industry where you basically, I mean, they're getting fake papers for cows and selling it across the border, and all this is a totally separate um thing that could have contributed to the rapid advance of it up through Mexico. Um but uh yeah, there's a lot of political footballs being pushed around at the end of the day for uh the people on the ground, it doesn't matter why it got here, just the fact that it's here now and how do we get rid of it. Um and I think the federal government has allocated, I think, $1.3 billion uh since the beginning of this administration to uh flood the zone with additional resources. And just earlier this week they announced uh 40 winners of the uh New World Screwworm Grand Challenge, which is you know innovative programs designed to um expand our toolbox in fighting screwworm. And I think AM and the like the agri life component of AM, uh they got 20% of all the grants, um, which is a pretty pretty big thing. Uh some of the other UT got a couple as well, and Texas Tech got one. Um minor win for Texas Tech here in a dying time.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

We'll get to that one here in a bit. Um I'm sure it's been discussed vaguely here and there in some of these hearings and and press conferences, but uh I was talking to somebody in the know on this this week, and what they were saying was there's really it first of all, it's a great sign that, as you said earlier, it hasn't spread uh massively so far. But there's really nothing that can be done nothing, but there's not a ton that can be done at our current level of sterile fly output uh going into summer. And really the go name of the game is getting through summer into particularly winter when temperatures drop and you can see the temperature coal these flies, killing them because it's cold, and uh have the sterile fly production operation up at or near whatever um uh the the line of need is at what's it 500 million? Um get to that point before we hit next summer to really prevent this thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah, and that's that's consistent with the historical pattern of fighting it. You know the overwinter things they burrow into the ground and they just kinda like sit there, but there's not a live big Population, they start dying off. It's the worst thing for spread is a very hot, very wet environment. Unfortunately, we are having a lot of rain. Yeah. And it's hot as hell outside right now.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

It's great for other problems, but not good for that one.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah. So but so far it hasn't fried. Maybe tomorrow that all turns around. But as of right now, n all of the testing has come back negative on it. Um which is interesting. So maybe they were able to detect it quick enough, flood the zone. But you know, contra that, uh, very few of these counties where these detections have been confirmed are continuous. You know, there one here, one here, one here, one here. There's kind of a grouping in central Texas, but it's not like the border counties. It's and even these kind of counties in central uh starting to slip into south, southeast Texas aren't right next to each other. The fly is moving somehow, and it's either moving by the natural progression of it, which is very slow actually geographically, or it's moving because people are moving infested animals without knowing it, or potentially knowing it. Um, and doing it anyway. So there's still a lot of and the USDA and the state officials are very open about this of like, we're still investigating all of this stuff, we're still trying to collect data. And honestly, probably the lack of confirmed cases confounds the issue further. Okay, if it's gotten this far in in all of these counties, how? Where are the other confirmed cases then? Uh and if everything keeps coming up, you know, nothing, it's a little bit of a head scratcher, but yeah, they're still working on it.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Well, they're you know, Brooke Crawlins has been on the ground here a lot. They've been talking about it constantly. This is clearly being taken seriously by both state and federal government.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

If there's anything that we can do to really prevent this from becoming uh an infet a total breakout infestation, uh they're I'm sure doing it. And a lot of it's because of what you just described of how much we don't know, uh a lot of it's out of our control. But it seems to be going decently so far. So let's hope that continues. Uh let's talk about one other hearing today that uh that I was in. The um uh the flooding, the Texas House and Senate General Investigating Committees on the July 2025 flooding events. This has basically turned into a Camp Mystic probe. Um of course, the disaster deaths and damage were not limited to Camp Mystic, but that is where this committee and its investigatory uh powers has focused. Um I don't think it's fair to say that that's the only thing they care about, but it is the the biggest plot point that they're following here. And today, on Thursday, they adopted a final report from the two investigators, Casey Garrett and Michael Massingale. Um it's really there's not a lot of new information in it. Um it's largely the same as what was laid out when we talked about this last time back in late April. We went through all the details, a lot of the shocking findings that had been talked about here and there, but it never really been talked about in one um one segment of discussion. And so the you can read the report, we publish it on uh in Daily Bowl that went out Friday morning. Uh so you can find that there if you want to read the full full thing. It's 115 pages, incredibly detailed.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

And there was one major correction that you brought up.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yes. So um that was actually it was it was mentioned as part of the report, but it was mentioned as something that had been a uh a development on a pretty important issue, whether the deaths had been reported by Camp Mystic as required by law to DSHS.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Within a tr 24-hour time period.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Well that's the law, the law says it has to be reported within 24 hours, but um as we heard in the April hearings, it had not been reported. And it was what eight months after more than that, after um the event had happened, that the deaths that uh this was talked about in that April hearing, uh the Eastlands were scolded by lawmakers for having not yet reported. Casey Garrett, in laying out the the report and the conclusions, she's the investigator, laying out the findings, the conclusions. She mentions that Camp Mystic, this is in the hearing on Thursday, had not yet reported these deaths. My phone starts blowing up immediately. Um it turns out that that was incorrect, that Camp Mystic had reported, and I it you know, when this happened, it it hit me that like I remember this happening. This A being brought up, B the Eastlands saying we will report those immediately, and then it happening, uh at least that was a discussion point that I'd heard behind the scenes. I don't know if it was ever put out there publicly. But Garrett gets up there and says this, and about 30 minutes later they go to break. They they recess for it was like 20 minutes. They come back, and Garrett says, I actually have to make a correction on something I said. And um what happened was, first of all, the deaths had been reported on April 29th, the day after the first investigative hearing. DSH there was a miscommunication within DSHS. Apparently, that reporting, how this happens, I have no freaking clue. But that report from Camp Mystic to DSHS never made it up to the top brass at DSHS. And so when Garrett and Massingill reached out to the agency early this week to confirm that accord what what to confirm whether the deaths had been reported either way, the chief of staff for DSHS, after looking into it and I'm sure asking people in her agency, said, We have no record of that. Sent her a long statement that uh Garrett held up at the hearing saying that Kent Misek had not yet uh reported those deaths. And that drew both frustration from Garrett, who obviously had been on the record saying something incorrect. To the best she knew, she was telling the truth. But she was clearly miffed about it. Senator Lois Colkhorst was miffed about it, who runs Sunset Advisory Commission this cycle. She said this will be looked into for DSHS, which apparently is up for sunset. I didn't realize that at the time, but according to Colkhorst, that is going to be looked at for the agency. And it's really just a you know this meticulous report. The investigators painstakingly went through everything, interviewed dozens of people on this, and they almost issued a report that had a factual inaccuracy and a pretty big one, you know, like grand scheme of things. It that doesn't have anything to do with the legislative response, it doesn't have anything to do with um what happened that day, but it is a pretty big misstep and oversight by DSHS, and clearly it pissed off a lot of the committee, including the investigators. So maybe that doesn't amount to much. Maybe it does. But that was kind of the one big thing that happened in the hearing today, because like I said, it was a lot of rehashing the same stuff, the same conclusions we already knew, or uh packaging up in a much uh more brief presentation the conclusions to be drawn from this and the the failures of of Camp Mystic in the moment and and after the fact. That that was there were four conclusions that were drawn, and uh all four of them had to do with how uh Camp Mystic dropped the ball on this, whether it was emergency preparedness beforehand or response and reunification of families after. So um you can read the full report, uh, it's on either on the Texas House website or we've got it in Daily Bowl on Friday. Um it brings to to a close, mostly to a close, I'd say. I don't think this thing's ever gonna go really go away as an issue, but it brings to a close a very long, painstaking, uh really sad episode in this state.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Right before the one-year anniversary of the day.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yep. Um yeah, that happened, of course, July 4th, 2025. And you know, we'll see what lawmakers do from here. Uh like I said, Cole Corse is gonna look at DSHS from that lens sunset-wise, but is there a need to revise laws? Uh we've we've talked a lot about that. Um the uh two of the the leading authors on those those pieces of legislation, Senator Charles Perry and Drew Darby, they authored a joint letter that they entered into the record. I put that out there, I'm sure it'll be uh put up on the House website alongside the the report. Long, it's like 15 pages going through their takeaways from this and uh what they uh what they would like to see going forward, uh, a couple things here and there, but uh, you know, and we we've talked about this episode a lot uh in terms of what does this mean for the camps? What does this mean for Camp Mystic, which is not reopening this summer. Uh there's a lot of healing left to do, clearly, and that was very apparent in the room as lawmakers were kind of putting a bow on this part of the um the response to those floods. So um there wasn't a lot to it, but that was the the one notable part, and uh we'll see, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah. Is there another hearing scheduled on this or is it yet to be determined?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Well, so that that's one thing, you know, it it's been brought up that this thing hyperfocused on Mystic. First of all, that was the largest concentration of of death that occurred. Um and it was the place that had very tangible failures in the moment. But the committee can look into I looked at their their resolution charter earlier today. It's pretty broad. They can look into all a bunch of things beyond Mystic. They can, you know, there's a hundred over a hundred people that died outside of Mystic in this. And the committee has focused, has chosen to focus this segment on Camp Mystic. They're probably not gonna go, they're probably not going to hold more hearings, though they could if they wanted to, on um on what happened that day and why so many people died. Um of course, you know, it wasn't in these hearings, it wasn't just uh Mystic that was talked about. It was talked about what happened beyond that. But as far as this report goes, it is focused on one one piece of this. So a pretty big piece, a very big piece, but one piece. So I guess TBD, if they decide to come back for another bite at this and uh um look into the public campgrounds where a lot of a lot more deaths occurred, but I don't think I don't think it'll happen. I think they will take this and that'll be the the seminal work on on this disaster, and uh God forbid something like that happens again.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

So Haday everyone. We'd like to thank the sponsor of today's podcast, the Lowy Law Firm. For over 20 years, Adam Lowy has helped injured Texans recover and heal. From car accidents to dog bites, Adam Lowy is there to help and gets results. Go to LowyLawfirm.com to find out more and get a free consultation. Adam, of course, is very well known on Twitter for his commentary and observations on Texas politics, so be sure to give him a follow as well. Thanks to our sponsor, the Lowy Law Firm.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Uh, Richie, to give my voice a break, let's talk about um Ted Cruz. He's been making some interesting moves here and there.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah. Well, uh Senator Cruz has, in addition to making a lot of endorsements, some of them very early endorsements, in Texas races, he's been endorsing across the country. This isn't unheard of for him. But uh out in Georgia, the governor's race, Cruz had endorsed against President Trump in that. And Cruz's candidate won. Uh, he's also endorsed in the uh South Carolina, I think, governor's race. Uh, and he endorsed in a lot of Texas races as well. Um, he was the first, I guess, big figure to endorse in the Texas Attorney General's race. He backed Chip Roy, which obviously didn't pan out. But uh it has certainly raised some eyebrows as to the senators' uh uh presidential aspirations for 2028. Obviously, he had run in 2016 and has been very much floated as a potential person eyeing another another uh at bat, so to say. I think uh Vice President J.D. Vance even made a swipe at him on a on a national interview earlier this week.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Yeah about that's an increasingly interesting rivalry.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Yes, exactly. Um so which everybody is starting to jockey for for 28, it seems like you know, out of the administration, people uh have spent a lot of time looking at JD Vance for the Republicans. Also, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, has a very devoted following. Uh Ted Cruz, everybody uh thinks he's running. He hasn't said whether or not he's running. Everybody thinks he will. Um there's a question, why not? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

He can run from cover as a sitting U.S. Senator.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah. He's been raising money during this entire uh cycle as well, which drew some chagrin from his uh once from his current and soon to be former Senate colleague, John uh uh Cornyn. I almost said McCain. Um who criticized Cruz uh via social media for raising money uh when he was trying to raise money to stave off during General Paxton's challenge. So it's uh a lot of interesting maneuvering happening for Ted Cruz. Cruz, who's also uh uh apparently been floated for uh Supreme Court several times.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Uh and he said I have no interest in that no, no, no, no. Uh although uh you know it he might not have so quick a response if an offer actually did come to be on the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

Although what he told me when I interviewed him a while back was that the president had asked him three times if he would want to be on the court, and three times he refused the crown to uh make a make a cheeky little Shakespeare reference.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Like like Cincinnatus returning to his fields, except to become president.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

That would be uh totally different. You're totally crossing your ancient Roman history wires here, Brad. We have to go back to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in uh Mark Anthony's funeral oration to get the right analysis where Mark Anthony goes and he tells the people of Rome over Caesar's body, you know, thrice I did offer him the Keenley crown upon the Lupercola, and thrice he did refuse. Is that ambition? And the you know the crowd then turns against the murderers of Caesar. Um just to start quoting. I know you're being seduced right now by my my shakespeople.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I'm really hot and bothered at the moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Uh that's I mean, that's only one of the greatest pieces of English literature ever written. You know, you don't have that memory. Do you not have Mark Anthony's funeral oration memorized?

SPEAKER_00 39:39

I do not have it memorized, no. Wow. No. Well, I knew I guess you're a better man than me.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

I mean, that's what people say. Yeah. That's what that's what they say. I would never say that of the case. No, you of course not. No. No, I would never say that when I have people who will say it for me. Attack packed. Attack packed. I thought your tweet about that was very funny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Thank you this week. Oh, thank you. Warms my cockles.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

I don't never say that again. Never say that again, actually. It's a classic saying. Come on. No, the saying is it warms the cockles of my heart.

unknown 40:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

I really butchered that. That warms my cockles, period. Disturbing. Not good.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Not the heart part was in the furred.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

I don't even know what a cockles is. I'm not gonna look it up. That's uh that seems dangerous. I don't know. I don't know. Somebody send me an email, but uh never say that again. Okay. That's that's off limits. I'm about to have to go get some more coffee if you keep this up. Coffee at five o'clock in the afternoon. Coffee.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

All right, anyway, you were saying about uh Senator Ted Cruz.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

I was about to apt out on the on that line of thought. What do you have to add? Now that you're off your phone texting whomever. Yeah. Um probably some girl.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Maybe, maybe not. Uh this is not entirely out of the character of Ted Cruz to issue endorsements and he likes to throw his weight around.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Um what she's been trying to lose.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yeah. Is he Ano Zempik? No. Are you starting this rumor?

SPEAKER_02 41:16

No, no, do you not remember this? Like at the start of the year, he does this media tour about his like weight loss goals and it's cutting down a line, it's exercising more. He does this whole sit-down interview of it. Is he doing that? That's what he said. Is he following through? That's what he said he was gonna do. Um, and of course, everybody was like, this is just cover, and he's gonna get on the fat shot. Um, but he also hasn't really dropped a lot of weight, so I think he is actually trying to do it.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

He's trying to do it the the hard way.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Yeah. But uh it I don't know if it's working for for Theodore, but I guess we'll find out. I guess we'll find out. But you know, that was like his media rollout at the start of the year, which made everybody think he was running for president, right? Um That's true. But he's not had like a Mike M Pompeo uh transformation.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

No. No, he has not. Um Well, I mean, Ted has has endorsed people pretty frequently. He isn't He's not handed out like you know, candy in a Halloween parade, but he he does it quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

And Candy and a Halloween parade? Who does a Halloween parade? You mean meat beads at a Mardi Girl parade? Or candy on Halloween? No, I've never been to a Halloween parade. Are you kidding? Down here we worship Jesus Christ. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

We don't do no Halloween parade. Don't gaslight me into Mardi Gras.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

I've never heard of a Halloween parade. That's more a parade.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Yes, it is a thing. You are a lunatic. Uh he is not shy about issuing endorsements. He likes to, it's not like pick fights, but there's plenty of times where he falls on opposite sides of Governor Abbott's endorsements or Trump's endorsements over the last you know six, seven, seven, six, seven years. Uh he uh he has done that. And so um Richie's getting up in disgust. Uh he has done that quite often. So this is not totally out of character. But I think it is interesting that he's issued these endorsements in pretty early primary states for 2028, like South Carolina. That uh I don't think that should be downplayed entirely, uh, even if it is not even if it is still somewhat par for the course for him.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

And clearly we're not the only ones thinking this. If Vice President J.D. Vance is throwing swipes at the Senator for running in twenty-eight. Like this is clearly something that's making the rounds.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah, and Ted Cruz, everything he does is intentional. Like any highly skilled politician. He's not doing things just for the hell of it. There's he's a calculated guy. And he's a smart guy. And so every move he makes, it's uh uh one step closer to whatever it is he's trying to get to. Like, is that president? Is it being elected dog catcher?

SPEAKER_02 44:30

I don't know. We should have a national dog catcher position.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

What about a national screw worm catcher position? You can apply for that.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Yeah. Right about I'm studying to become a screw worm inspector. What does that entail? Uh so I have to go through a AM agriLife course on screwworm, and then I have to apply uh with the T A H T A H C, I believe. Uh if I get like above a 94% on the final screw worm exam. And at that point, I will demand you and everybody else, as the only member of the Texas press as a certified screw worm inspector, to to call me Inspector Screwworm.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

And it'll be my I'll get you a uh a lapel name badge for it. Yeah. You're gonna be made fun of so much. I I can't wait. People already deserve it.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

People make fun of me already, you know. Like Might as well steer into skid. God, God forbid a guy have hobbies.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Your hobby, one hobby is screw worm.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

God forbid I like Tylenol. I don't know what to say.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

And trains.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

I do like trains.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah, you made that comment on Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

People thought that that was I some people thought that I was being sarcastic, but I I was I was actually like I do like trains. Yeah. It's very cool. Like, they're fun. I'm honestly upset that I didn't realize that that event was happening up there because I would have wanted to go look at the trains too. What what event was this? Uh Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick went up with one of the big railway companies because there's like a uh very historic train with all these historic train cars going across America as a part of the 250th anniversary of the founding of our beautiful country. Um and he was up there in Fort Worth, which is a big rail hub, for this and was talking about it. And you know, his post was like, as someone who loves railway trains, and I was like, I too, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, am someone who loves railway trains. They're cool, man. We love trains.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

We need to send you on a multi-day train journey like a hobo. I would love that. You'd read a great story on that.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

I would love that. I I uh I like taking the Amtrak, you know. I've um written about that once or twice. But uh no, every time I see a train go by, immediately, you know, that uh stick and red handkerchief like looks at me in the corner like the green goblin mask.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Like just disappear, just hop on the train.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

You know.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

One day you are going to disappear, and I will know exactly where you are. Uh okay, that's enough, Ted Cruz. Uh let's talk about Brandon Sorsby.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Uh, I thought you were gonna say trains.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

We we already beat that to more trains.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Did you ever have any toy trains growing up?

SPEAKER_00 47:36

I was an airplane guy. Hmm. I had these toy, uh, these model blue angels and fighter jets, actual fighter jets.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Yeah, I had some of those too. The blue angels, they're cool.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah, I was also more of a dinosaur kid.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Dude, I was a dinosaur guy too.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yeah, look at us. Hey, who would have thought?

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Who would have thought two young American boys being into dinosaurs?

SPEAKER_00 47:59

I thought you would have been uh a construction site kid.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

So I was a big fan of Lincoln Logs. Um, you know, name aside. Uh also the uh big Lego kid. Same. Like the Army men, too. Yeah, a lot of army men. But uh yeah, no, huge dinosaur guy, too. I was also a NASCAR kid. I had a ton of NASCAR like little cars. Man, you had a lot of Tylenol. Dude, man, I was hopped up on that. And then they introduced me to Ivermact.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Okay. Moving on. The Brendan Sorceby episode. Coffee. Coffee. Uh the Brendan Sorceby episode has seemed to wind to a close. And why, Richie, some might ask, why are we talking about college football uh on a pol politics podcast? And there is a very clear, simple reason.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Nothing more partisan than college football. No. Not even partisan politics.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

And you could see that. I could see that in my fantasy football group chat with the way the different factions were reacting to the city.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

I am not invited to, by the way. I've never been invited to this fantasy football chat.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Well, if we expand this year, I can uh you can play fantasy football. You kinda the prerequisite is playing fantasy football. I don't I don't do fantasy. I think fantasy is anti-god. Come sit in the corner. You are you were done. So, anyways. Brendan Soresby episode is done. Um it was a lot of buildup. There was a ruling, of course.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Lawsuits, rulings, countersuits.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Was a ruling in his favor. In his favor. Allowed him to be reinstated, and things seemed to be moving in that direction until uh we saw a legal threat come from the office of the attorney general that kind of galvanized the other side. Uh I've seen various takes on this, and I'd be curious to hear what you think. But I I don't know who's right, who's wrong. There's probably some some to both, but anyway, the lay of the land is that there was a threat, a legal threat, issued uh against the Big 12 if they took action against Texas Tech University for trying to play Brendan Soresby this fall uh at quarterback. And nothing no decisions had been made yet, but it was being talked about quite a bit within the Big 12 conference among the athletic directors and among the other decision makers there. Uh they hadn't settled on anything, but there were talks about uh revoking any schedule, uh any games scheduled against Texas Tech, uh miscellaneous other punishments. And before they got to that point, the Texas Office of the Attorney General, Ken Paxton, uh issued a letter threatening legal action if any uh punishments are levied at Texas Tech. Well, that resulted either by hook or by crook, a law uh lawsuit um against the state of Texas over that threat that hop skip and a jump to r ended up in a uh public pressure mounting enough that uh Soresby and Tech decided to part ways. And Soresby entered the supplemental draft. He is going to the NFL, and uh that ends the Sorsby episode. But I don't know the there are people accusing uh the Office Attorney General of giving the Big Twelve standing to Sue, to counter sue essentially. Uh I guess not technically countersue, because no lawsuit had been filed, but to counter via a lawsuit the legal threat in the in the letter. Um I don't know if that that pretense was made by it, but that is the way it looks like the Big 12 has approached it, and ultimately the pressure became too much, and uh who knows what the deal was behind the scenes of how much money Soresby gets to keep from what he was promised in NIL with Texas Tech, but uh they are no longer uh no longer swimming in the same direction.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

So it sounds like Soresby is cashing out his chip, so he is he is Can you sports bet in the NFL if you're on a team?

SPEAKER_00 52:47

You can't bet on the NFL. Actually, no, I don't think so. Because I remember a Lions player got in trouble for placing you can do it, but you can't do it in the world.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Okay, but can you take out a futures contract on it? That's the real question. I don't know. That's the real question.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

That's a that's a legal gray area, you know, as a as a legislature's finding out.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

So if you're a dog, is everything a legal gray area?

SPEAKER_00 53:11

There was a there's a very popular meme on Twitter of a Chihuahua in a Brazil jersey, and the quote is watching watching a game, he's at a stadium. The quote is, oh no, another gray card.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

That's that's 110% what I was thinking of with that.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Um greatest greatest World Cup tweet so far, and I don't think it's gonna be beaten.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

There's been so many good ones. Yeah. It's the only reason why I've followed any of the World Cup is because the the tweet game has been It's been a lot of good games, man.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Immaculate. A lot of really good games, but uh you'd have to sit through the games to know. It could be so here's here's Messi scored a hat trick, dude.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

I don't know what that is. I didn't think they wore hats. Um here's my thing on soccer. So like baseball. I do not like watching baseball on TV, but I love there's few things in this world I love more, and uh, you could probably guess some of the things I love more. But there are few things in this world I love more than going to a ballpark and watching a baseball game. Doing it in person, phenomenal, sensational, one of the greatest experiences available in the modern world. Watching it on TV, it's just not the same. It's just not the same. Um contra that, watching football, way better than going to a football game at the NFL level. NFL games, boring, takes too long, they're all just walking around except for like five seconds each play. Much better to watch on TV. College game, that's different. College, you have a certain atmosphere there. Um hockey. Hockey is one of the few ones that is both fun to watch on TV and go to in person.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

You know, I grew up watching hockey, and I'm I I am a dirty northerner, so there's that. But you said it. Um you said it many times. I'm just steering into the skid. Uh hockey is unless you have watched a lot of hockey, it is very hard to follow the puck. And really the trick is not to follow the puck. You have to watch where they're passing it. Uh, because that's the only way you're gonna see the tiny little black cylinder on the screen.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

Oh, on the screen. On the screen. On the screen.

unknown 55:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

In person's a lot different.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

I was like, man, maybe you need to get your eyes checked. Like, you just watch it. I'm talking about TV. You just watch it. Which actually, speaking of hockey, this leads into all of the big political drama happening in Dallas right now. Because Dallas is looking to move out of its city hall. In fact, on Wednesday, they took a big vote that uh authorized the city manager, and the vote was 9-5. There's pretty stiff opposition to this, to look at and enter pre-development agreements with up to four different locations to move out of the current city hall. This is City Hall designed by architect I am, I think it's pronounced pay, but I'm sure somebody will correct me on that. I've only read it. Uh it's this uh absolute monstrosity of a concrete building. It looks like an upside-down right angle triangle. Um it was famously used as the headquarters for the company in Robocop, which was filmed uh partially in Dallas. Um and that's about the only thing that's really positively known about it. Uh it's an absolute bear of a building, and apparently it's less than 50 years old, but it's already needing something close to over a half a billion dollars in renovations. So the idea is Dallas is going to move out of City Hall and then open up that land, which is on the south side of downtown, for redevelopment. And initially, uh there were conversations about uh because both the Dallas Mavericks, the NBA team and the Dallas Stars, the hockey team, are looking and in fact have entered early stage agreements to move out of the downtown American Airlines Center where they've been for a little while. Um The Mavericks are looking to redevelop a uh destroyed mall area, Valley View Mall up in North Dallas. But the stars, the Is that the Irving plot or is that different? Different. It's not in Irving, it's North Dallas. Irving is west of Dallas. Thank you. And it still is in the Dallas City limits. Okay. Which is big for Dallas's. Is it in Collin County? No, it's not. I don't think it's that far north.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Um because there is a bit of Mahano places differently. There's like a hair where she lives, it's in Collin County.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

There's a header of Dallas City that's in Collin County, but that's like super far north. That's farther north than this, uh, I believe. Um The stars, however, the Dallas, the Dallas Stars, uh are uh looking to move all the way up to Plano. Um and uh that obviously leaves a massive hole in downtown. Uh and there had been early conversations about like, look, let's demolish Dallas City Hall, and y'all can redevelop it into a new entertainment district that has the amenities that you're looking for surrounding a stadium that has the hotels and other things like that, so you have some room to work with. Um but that got out, and there's been a firestorm of opposition both inside the city council, but also just in the public, about like, no, don't tear down our city hall. But plans are moving ahead to move out of City Hall into something else. But this is just another step in the battle that's been happening, the hollowing out really of Dallas, downtown Dallas. You have uh ATT, which just announced uh at the start of this year that it would be moving uh locations uh out to Plano as well. And then also Neiman Marcus, which is a Dallas company, they announced that they would be closing down their flagship downtown Dallas store as well. That was earlier this month, I believe. So it's a big crisis, big crossroads for Dallas in downtown, and at the center of it is what is going to happen with City Hall. Um, if you've ever been inside of City Hall in Dallas, it's not much to write at home about.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

I mean, it's disgusting from the outside, so I can't imagine that it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

It's not great on the inside either. Great AC, though, I will say that. Great AC. I I've sat through so many Dallas uh City Hall meetings and freezing my butt off. Uh so they've got a phenomenal AC system, but uh everything else is like absolute devoid of soul. Um it's surrounded by concrete, it's very depressing uh to me, I think. So uh you can tell by our comments we're not super big on saving uh City Hall. I mean, it's just it's just a disgusting building. It's just not good. You know, it's not good. And I'll note, even in the RoboCop, which you know, like the Save City Hall people were doing like showings of RoboCop to save City Hall and raise money. Like even in Robocop, they paint on like another story on top of it and make it look better. It's not even like, oh, this is City Hall. It's like uh let's let's change it up a little bit, you know. And that was like when it was brand new. Yeah, you know, like it's just a brutal I mean that is it is a brutalistic architectural uh Leviathan now that's hanging around the neck of of City City Council and Eric Johnson, who is going to be the outgoing, he can't run for re-election, um, has the support of other past mayors as as well. So um it's an interesting thing to happen. Uh but one thing to think about too is whenever Dallas decided to rebuild its convention center, what happened? Austin and Houston also are rebuilding and demolishing and and doing something new with their convention centers as well. So as of right now, neither Houston nor Austin has indicated uh that they would. And Houston's got like a very kind of classical they've got a good look in City Hall, in my opinion. Austin's is much more modern, but it's not the brutalist, so I don't think they'll do it either. But it is something to be mindful of. There's uh a big um a big deal being made up there in Dallas.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

So deals in the big D? I'm shocked.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:24

I know, I know, it's just like that TV show.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

It's just Dallas. It's just Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

It's just Dallas.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

A couple other things before we go, I want to touch on uh the batch zero process did get finalized today on Thursday by the PUC, so they're moving forward with that. That will be about a hundred megawatts or gigawatts, sorry, of um large loads that are at least 75 megawatts. There's the problem is there's been 435,000 gigawatts of projects looking to connect in ERCOT. Not all of those are um are uh gonna come to fruition. Most a lot of them are just entirely speculative. You have developers uh applying to connect to grids in multiple states to see who where they get the best deal before they build something. Some of them are uh we're talking data centers here, some of them are uh just like real cowboy-esque two dudes in a truck that are real shoddy operations. Um but then you've got others like Google and and big companies like that that are building really large uh data center projects. And so the trouble with the before the batch process was uh proposed and finalized, the trouble was you have this massive group of projects looking to come into Texas and connect to the grid. But the regulatory uh side of things was very slow because it was very rifle-like. It was one shot at each one. But you have a a group of projects amounting to load that is four times what Texas currently has on the books in the state, at least in ERCOT. How do you make headway on that going uh one study review after one study review after one study review? So what they're doing now is with this batch zero, studying them all in one go, or at least a large chunk of them, not the whole, not the whole 435,000 gigawatts, but they're gonna take about 100 gigawatts. Um there'll be a couple different phases of that. There are some that are already basically ready to go. They're just waiting on approval. They have all their eyes uh dotted, T's crossed, they have financing, they have land. And then there are others that haven't gotten that far yet, but are still legitimate projects. And so they're trying to figure out a way to uh expedite the studying uh the regulatory side uh in order to allow for the most efficient interconnection possible and still spurning the ones who are very speculative and shoddy operations. So they've kind of settled on the batch process. There was a lot of debate over months about this. Uh they've moved the PUC m voted to move forward with this on Thursday. Um I think the the projects that still need approval to get into the batch zero process will uh they have until July 10th, I believe, to get their whatever the necessary paperwork is, jump through all the regulatory hoops uh before they can uh be included, be put into that batch zero hundred gig uh gigawatts chunk. So that's pretty big. That's something, especially on the electricity side, they've been waiting for a while on. Um there were some 765 developments, nothing really big. There was Two segments up on the northern part of the 765 network. Uh, that's from drill hole to longshore to dinosaur. These are substitut names of substations, but that's how they divide them up. That's how they divide the uh the transmissions dinosaur. Dinosaurs. We're back. We're back. What was your favorite dinosaur, by the way?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Uh man, you're like just like a ratatouille moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

We're going back to like you tweeted that today. I know, I know. Well, it's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:33

I have these a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

The Tylenol.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:38

Yeah, the Ivermech. Um I would say growing up my favorite dinosaur was the Velociraptors. But I think, you know, not to be like a basic ass human being. But like, you gotta go T-Rex. Like, they're just cool. They're just solid, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

I always liked Stegosaurus.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:07

You strike me as a Stegosaurus guy. Actually, I feel like that's an insult. It is an insult. I mean that very derogatorily. That's that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

You seem like a Stegosaurus guy, parentheses derogatory. Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:22

Let us know what your favorite dinosaur is.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

We're tweeted at us so our phones blow up on Saturday morning when we're trying to sleep in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Um I want to know what y'all's dinosaurs are.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

No, I I I'm being serious about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

And then let us know what do you think Brad and I's like spiritual dinosaurs are. Who do we who are we, you know, like is your spirit animal?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

I mean, you got these T-Rex arms, so it does check out. All the and the problematic thumbs, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

The thumbs, yeah, that's fair. But there is uh the stegosaurus has the thumbs that you stabbing people. That's that was their defensive mechanism.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

I thought it was their tail. They hit people with.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

Well, they have that too. That's the thr uh I actually just learned about this. It's called scientifically the like the thrag thragomizer or something based off of like a hell of a name. Yeah, well, it's based off of uh a cartoon where I'll find some.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Back to electricity. They were uh there are two lines connecting uh those substations, and they're kind of they're one, they're ultimately going to be one line, but as far as project development, they're two separate things. One of them, the western, uh, the more western one uh from Drill Hull to Longshore was is not apparently under challenge at SOA, the state uh Office of Administrated Hearings. But the eastern one from Longshore to Dinosaur was. And so after some opposition, the PUC basically decided to uh delay the one that was further along development until the other one catches up through the SOA process. Uh so you know the the people that are that are opposed to these lines took that as a win. Because it pumps the brakes, it pumps the brakes on one of them, and you know, that I I think it is a partial win for them. Uh, but it's not like the line was stopped for its own sake because of opposition to these lines. Uh we're gonna see what what happens in the SOA process. We saw uh lawmakers join for over 40 of them, led by Brad Buckley, uh, join a legal challenge, an administrative legal challenge to one of the lines specifically from uh Bell County to I think it's called Big Hill. But also another development today on that one that that's the line that has gotten the most uh opposition, at least publicly, that we've seen. That's the one that a lot of these lawmakers are talking about. And of course, there's opposition. Through the hill country, yes. Um the PC allowed that one to continue. There was uh an agenda item uh to delay that to some degree, um, and they decided not to do that. So that continues along. Um obviously that is it's gonna be a lot's gonna be determined by what happens in these SOA hearings, but um overall it's it's kind of hit or miss across the state on what's what's happening with these, and actually overall, they're all it it's moving towards development. Maybe it stops. Maybe we get to the legislature and they pass a law that says stop these right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:45

But uh stop the thing that we Yeah, well, I mean that's one of their contentions that the specify exactly how they want this to happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:54

So I mean there's a lot of back and forth there, and I think there's points to make in both sides on it. Um you know the law was passed and big both sides guy. Big both sides guy. Nuance. Hashtag nuance. Uh but you know that the lawmakers ultimately they can they have the say, you know. Shocking developments happening. If we want if if they get to session next year and they want to stop all these, it it probably can be done. Um maybe there would be a lawsuit filed that prevents that, but as far as creating law in this state, there's one by that does it. And it's uh it's the lawmakers. So uh hence the name. That is stems. How do they work? Latin stems. Um last thing I want to mention, you can check it out on I think our our Wednesday newsletter wrote about Ted Brown, who's the libertarian candidate for uh U.S. Senate against James Tallerico and Ken Paxton. He put out a he'd already been in the race. He had won at their convention, I think probably last month when it happened. By the way, I saw the number of votes that he won to win the nomination at at their Libertarian Party convention. It was like 89 to 56. Not very well attended.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:13

Was this because of their uh dress code or was that just the national?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

A lot of people were blocked out because of the dress code. Uh smell requirements. They started they started requiring you to wear it. But actually, I think that was the that was the national convention. Yeah, it was the national libertarians. Maybe there wasn't a dress code at this one. And they actually had a deluge of attendance.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:43

But we love our libertarians. You're a libertarian.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:48

Used to be. No. We all had our libertarian phase long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Uh, here flip-flop Brad Johnson. It's just a quit question of which side of libertarianism is.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:04

Welcome to a Tac-Tac. But I got a file, man. Yeah. I got a binder. I've got a binder of Brad Johnson's.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Do it. Bet you won't. Um so the Browns candidacy. Let's be honest, it probably won't amount to hilla beans for anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:24

You think Brandon Sworesby is going to the Browns?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

That would be funny. That would be hilarious. Oh man. Well, also, you know, full disclosure, I am a U University of Cincinnati grad, and I saw somebody tweet out this week something that I've been wondering for a while. Why the heck is Cincinnati not catching more flack over knowing that he was doing all this and never saying anything? So based. It's too much. That's too much. But Ted, Ted Brown, he got last time around when he ran, he was in the same spot running for U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, Colin all red, he actually got a record number of votes for a libertarian candidate ever in Texas. It was like 267,000. Well, if you take that, it's that it's a bit apples to oranges, but for the sake of argument, if you take that and throw it back in the uh 2018 U.S. Senate race that was really close between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke, that is more than the difference, I believe, I believe, between them. It was about 900 vote difference in 24 between Cruz and All Red, but the margin was so small in 18 that that could have spoiled things if that Ted Brown candidacy existed back then. Now, as it happens, the Libertarian candidate that year got like 50,000 votes and less than a percent. So the question is, will libertarians and particularly Ted Brown in this race, because it is so wrinkly, will it have uh a spoiler effect? Will he be able to pull in enough votes to probably ruin Ken Paxton's day? And that's really what he's counting on. I asked him, I was talking to him on the phone, I asked him about uh, you know, do you would you take spoiling Ken Paxton's election? He goes, Well, I would dispute the the contention there because you can't spoil what's already ruined. His argument is that the Republican brand is tarnished and uh no Republican deserves, or at least most Republicans don't deserve to win election, let alone Ken Paxton. Um but then I asked him again and he said, Yeah, I'd be happy with spoiling the election for Paxton. Many such cases. Yeah, so um uh just anecdotally, based on looking at those two results, it it looked to me like you know, when you have a closer race and people know it, voters can sense it usually. They pick one of the two main options. They don't do protests. If it's a wide field, you can see actually a large uh contingent of the vote go third party.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

Um it's why you're my go-to candidate.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

Oh yeah? So I've gotten some votes for for what, president, senate, what dog catcher. Dog catcher, hell yeah. Um that said though, like there's a strong argument to be made that Jill Stein in 2016 with the Green Party spoiled Hillary Clinton. Uh she got enough votes in about um three, four, maybe five states that cost her those states and swung it the other way. Because you can't just look at, oh, if if the the number of votes gotten by the third party candidate is the same as the number of votes between the two main party candidates, you can't apply that directly because you're never gonna have all of those votes go to one candidate. Yeah. But there are times when the margin is t slim enough. For example, HD 47 uh in 2020, between Vicky Goodwin, incumbent Democrat, and Justin Berry, who was the Republican nominee, what the Libertarian get pulled in vote-wise was like three times the margin between them. And that that's a to me a very solid uh foundation from which to argue that that was a spoiled election for the Republican. Um there were there were arguments too about uh who was it, uh did I say Joe Jorgensen about the Green Party? Or did I say Joe Stein? You said Stein. Okay. Joe Jorgensen, libertarian in 20. It's doesn't seem to me to be as strong of a case as the Jill Stein in 2016 argument. But it has been argued that Jorgensen spoiled it for Trump here and there in certain states. It's next to impossible for that to happen, or it's very difficult, because you have to have the stars align in terms of a very tight race and an anomaly of a libertarian or Green Party candidate pulling in an outsized amount of votes. But you can look at this matchup right now, and let's say it is as close as a lot of people think it could be. I could see Ted Brown pulling in enough votes to spoil it for mainly Ken Paxton. It's a possibility, for sure. Um But you know, as with a lot of these, hasn't he filed a lawsuit about independent candidates? That was Mike Collier. Yes. Ted Brown might have been on it, but I don't recall seeing his name. Uh the DA out in West Texas. Sarah Sogner. Yeah. On uh a co-candidate. She is a co-plaintiff. Uh they're suing over the filing requirements for independent candidates, stating that it's it's totally burdensome. Now this is interesting because for years we've seen I think it I don't think it happened last time around, but out of the last four legislative sessions, I think we've seen attempts to raise the filing fees by legislators to prevent uh more uh let's say um gadfly-like candidates from getting on the ballot. Fly. Fly. Oh. Oh. Oh, screwworm. Locked in. More screwworm-like candidates from getting on the ballot.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:41

But also Are we about to drop like a bunch of sterile candidates onto the ballot to like cancel them out?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

I think that's a great idea. Many such cases already. But we have also seen lawmakers at times try and raise the bar for third parties to get on the ballot because it's pretty easy. They nominate themselves at convention and that's about it, and they can get on the ballot. Uh, which, of course, for the main parties, when we're talking spoilers here, is an annoyance. The Democrats want to they have sued before to try and prevent Green Party candidates from getting on the ballot, and Republicans have sued at times to prevent libertarians from getting on the ballot.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

It's almost like it's a contact sport. Some might say that.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

Yep, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

But not soccer. Have you seen this? It is absolutely a contact sport. Soccer might actually be the most analogous to politics. Anybody touches you, you just like flop and roll over and like cry like a baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:41

I'm not saying that's not a problem, but it is not all that. So maybe you should watch soccer sometime and know what you're talking about. Well, I guess we're gonna watch soccer on Friday. We are. You're gonna watch the U.S. game.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:54

I love U.S.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:55

Yeah. I love us. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

Many such games.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

Well, with that, we're gonna get out of here. But uh I enjoy the if you are a fan of the U.S. men's national team, enjoy watching the game. The team was pretty good the other night.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:13

You want to post up and watch with us, let us know.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:15

Shoot us a text. We'll be watching somewhere down the game.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:18

This will be posted after the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Oh shoot. If you have the foresight and the gene in a bottle to tell you that we are doing this, then text.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:27

You can divine that we are going to be uh skedaddling to watch the game. Text us and join us.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

Yes. Uh with that, we'll catch you next week.