BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW - https://castbrew.com/ Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com Host: Tate Brown @realtatebrown Guest: Tony Ortiz @CurrentRevolt (X) My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnews Podcast Channel - https://www.youtube.com/TimcastIRL Democrats SABOTAGE Texas REDISTRICTING, May Be CHARGED
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| They say it every year, like, oh, the signs are everywhere. | ||
| The lines are out the door. | ||
| That doesn't matter. | ||
| Texas is huge. | ||
| Texas is bigger than most countries. | ||
| So it doesn't really matter if there's a bunch of signs or a bunch of lines in a city for a guy. | ||
| It doesn't really reflect the entire voting base of Texas. | ||
| Texas is so ginormous that people often forget that the rural areas, the areas that these politicians don't go to, have a massive influence on statewide elections. | ||
| Yeah, you probably noticed. | ||
| I'm not Tim Poole. | ||
| I don't have a beanie, so it kind of gives it away. | ||
| Thanks for tuning in to this hour. | ||
| I'm producer Tate Tate Brown holding it down. | ||
| So this is from the post-millennial. | ||
| Greg Abbott threatens to remove Dem lawmakers from office if they don't show up for the redistricting vote. | ||
| A standoff is intensifying in Texas after more than 50 Democratic state lawmakers fled the state to block a vote on a redistricting proposal. | ||
| Republican Governor Greg Abbott warned late Sunday that he would pursue legal action to remove the lawmakers from office if they fail to return to Austin by Monday, August 4th, 2025 to vote on the proposal. | ||
| Abbott's pressure follows a walkout by Democrats seeking to deny the Texas House a quorum, the minimum number of legislators required to conduct business. | ||
| By leaving the state, Democrats effectively froze all legislative activity during a special session set to expire later this month. | ||
| Their primary objective was to halt a GOP-drawn congressional map that could secure five additional U.S. House seats for Republicans in the 2026 midterms. | ||
| We obviously have the statement here from Greg Abbott. | ||
| At the end here, he discusses, in addition to abandoning their offices, these legislators may have also committed felonies. | ||
| Many absentee Democrats are soliciting funds to evade the fines that they will incur under House rules. | ||
| Greg Abbott's going in. | ||
| He's not playing around. | ||
| We need to talk to Tony. | ||
| We need to figure the situation out. | ||
| So got Producer Andrew here. | ||
| He's going to get Tony wrapped, you know, roped in here. | ||
| We're going to discuss this. | ||
| I think it's relieving to see some Republicans with Backbone. | ||
| Greg Abbott, he's not playing around. | ||
| So it's a fantastic thing. | ||
| Hey, Tony, can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, I can. | ||
| Hey, dude, what's up? | ||
| How you? | ||
| How's it going? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| I'm doing well, man. | ||
| Yeah, so we're covering this Greg Abbott situation. | ||
| You know, this is big talk. | ||
| This is huge, right? | ||
| He wants to prosecute these Democrats. | ||
| He wants to nip this in the butt as quickly as possible. | ||
| I was referencing that they actually had a similar situation in 2021. | ||
| So perhaps there was lessons learned. | ||
| I know there was legislation passed as well to prevent something like this from happening. | ||
| But what are you seeing? | ||
| I mean, do you think it's likely that Abbott does actually pursue charges against these Democrats? | ||
| Yeah, whether he pursues charges or not kind of doesn't matter. | ||
| It's whether or not that actually he has grounds to, like legal grounds to, right? | ||
| You know, Abbott's upset because, and justifiably so, because Democrats have taken off. | ||
| They're doing a quorum bust, right? | ||
| And this is the third time they've done that. | ||
| They did this in, I believe, 2003 when we did redistricting then. | ||
| They took off. | ||
| It failed. | ||
| We passed redistricting anyway. | ||
| I believe in 2020, they did it again. | ||
| Sorry, 2021, they did it again when Texas was trying to pass stricter voter ID requirements. | ||
| Democrats, of course, call that racist because they believe minorities can't get driver's licenses for some reason. | ||
| And they took off again. | ||
| And then that didn't work. | ||
| We passed it anyway. | ||
| So now here we are in 2025 and they're doing it again for redistricting. | ||
| And it's likely going to pass anyway. | ||
| We've got laws in place that fine the representatives $500 per day. | ||
| And if I recall correctly, I don't think they can even use their campaign accounts. | ||
| I think it has to come from their personal funds. | ||
| And so, you know, Abbott, Governor Abbott has now stated that, you know, he's going to consider their seats vacant. | ||
| And I think a lot of the legal behind that isn't necessarily the way he wants it to be. | ||
| So I don't see anything happening to them from as far as them losing their seats, but they definitely are likely to pay some fines. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, I mean, so what is your, what is your relationship with Texas, obviously, for the viewers that maybe don't know you, you know, who are you and kind of what's your calling card? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I run currentrevolt.com. | ||
| We are a Texas-based online newsletter where we cover just Texas politics and we've broken several big scandals that have made nationwide news quite a few times, even just recently. | ||
| So we're kind of like a national inquirer or a TMZ of Texas politics covering like cheating affairs and other types of those similar type scandals across Texas and the politicians. | ||
| Yeah, I love that. | ||
| So we're seeing some of this language from these Texas these Texas reps and they're and they're saying Trump's the applying pressure. | ||
| Trump's the one applying pressure. | ||
| Is this something that Abbott's been thinking about doing for a while or is there some truth to that that Trump's really the one putting the pressure on the on Abbott? | ||
| There's probably some truth behind that, right? | ||
| Abbott's the, you know, Abbott and especially Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick are very close with Trump, Patrick especially, and they want to be in his favor, right? | ||
| Maybe they're going for some cabinet positions. | ||
| You know, Abbott has long been rumored as wanting to run for president one day. | ||
| He's been governor for quite a long time. | ||
| And so it doesn't surprise me that they're just gearing up to kind of secure the elections going forward. | ||
| You know, Democrats do this all the time. | ||
| It's kind of ironic that the Democrat reps in Texas have taken off to do two different states. | ||
| Some went to Illinois and some went to New York, which are some of the most gerrymandered districts in the United States. | ||
| So it's kind of ironic that they're upset about gerrymandering, but they're literally going to the Democrat states that the worst for it. | ||
| And so Democrats have, and I think you know this, Democrats have been, have done a really good job of when they get power, they execute on that power. | ||
| They do things. | ||
| They pass laws. | ||
| They bring down their Democrat hammer on stuff that they want, right? | ||
| And Republicans traditionally, they win and then they don't do anything. | ||
| They just kind of sit around. | ||
| And now we're seeing kind of a change in policy where Republicans of Texas have won. | ||
| And now we're flexing our power to get better districts. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What we saw, there was a rep in California who was like doing the whole McPrincipals routine where he was like, oh, we don't want to start a redistricting war. | ||
| That would be really mean. | ||
| And it's like the most Republican thing ever that we're actually finally starting to use and use our power and flex it. | ||
| And then these like hall monitors come along, these self-appointed AHR managers come along and say, guys, guys, hey, wait, wait a second. | ||
| Because I mean, what's going to happen is that guy's going to lose his seat if Abbott pushes forward because in California, they're going to redistrict and try and wipe out whatever Republican seats they haven't gerrymandered away yet. | ||
| Yeah, the funny thing about California, they're attempting or they're threatening to redistrict. | ||
| But what's interesting about California is they have a California, California's rules or elections for redistricting are based off an independent group and an independent redistricting system. | ||
| And so in order for, I think Gavin Newsom has threatened to redistrict California. | ||
| In order for him to do that and execute on that, not only will it require, it'll actually require a special election that requires voter approval to modify the independent redistricting system. | ||
| So he's going to have to call an election. | ||
| People are going to have to vote for it and modify their existing rules. | ||
| And it's looking that people are estimating it's going to cost over $200 million just to do it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm kind of curious with the special election that's coming up. | ||
| I think they eyed September possibly for the election. | ||
| I'd be curious how radical Democrats in California are, if there actually is potential or if there's potential for pushback on this maybe they do want to keep their commission i'm not sure i'm not sure it's going to be a test of gavin newsom's effectiveness to be democrat leaders if he can really um stir up a good narrative for democrats in california as to why they should you know get rid of this um I don't know, | ||
| it's quite fascinating, like I kind of touched on earlier to see this mentality from Republicans to get really nervous and we start winning a little too much. | ||
| You know, we're seeing this, we're seeing this with that rep. Trump's the one that's obviously led the charge of, you know, wiping those people out from the GOP. | ||
| What is it about Texas? | ||
| It seems like Texas does produce quite a good number of effective politicians. | ||
| What do you think it is about Texas that does? | ||
| Because you see this thing with these deep red states like South Carolina. | ||
| They actually produce pretty horrible Republicans because I think they know it's such a safe seat that it doesn't really fire people up. | ||
| So they don't feel the need to run. | ||
| And then you see these like swing districts where like, you know, Republicans lose half the time and they produce these like rock star candidates. | ||
| What is it about Texas, though? | ||
| It does feel like there is a higher density of solid Republicans that come out of Texas. | ||
| Yeah, I think from the outside looking in, it does, it does appear that way, right? | ||
| As someone who covers it day to day and literally the only thing we cover is Texas, there's a lot more nuance to it. | ||
| And obviously there's a lot more nitpicking that we can do, right? | ||
| Texas, for example, has only been Republican, I think, for like 30 or 40 years. | ||
| It used to be a Democrat state. | ||
| And as far as like things that we've gotten past, I mean, it was just, I think, two sessions ago that we got constitutional carry for handguns and for not whatnot. | ||
| So like we're not as conservatives as we should be, right? | ||
| We're definitely better than most, but not as good as we should be. | ||
| You know, grassroots activists in Texas would cite that we have a lot of rhinos, right? | ||
| And then that does seem to be a problem that we have a lot of like very soft, squishy Republicans. | ||
| But as you mentioned, Trump's kind of been at the top charging and leading the narrative to kind of kind of bully and lead the charge on Republicans and conservatives being a little more active with what they're doing rather than sitting back and letting Democrats walk all over them. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, multiple have said that Texas, and it's true, Texas, it really is kind of the linchpin of this MAGA movement because, I mean, the amount of electoral seats that are at stake. | ||
| Obviously, there's a lot of concern from Texans of the state going blue with out-of-state migration. | ||
| I've pointed out previously that there is exit polling, for example, the Cruz versus Beidou Senate race, where it actually looked like out-of-state voters voted Republican and Native Texans voted Democrat. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Have you noticed some of these trends? | ||
| Have these, maybe these trends have changed since then? | ||
| I mean, what do you suspect would be the future of Texas? | ||
| Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that because so very few people know that polling. | ||
| It's 100% true. | ||
| We found that like Native Texans vote Democrat more than out of state. | ||
| We are seeing a trend of people that come here and they are aware of the reasons why they come to Texas and they start voting Republican, right? | ||
| So that is trending well. | ||
| The state is as far as demographics goes, Hispanics are now, I think, the majority in Texas and whites are now the minority, which is funny. | ||
| You got to wonder if they're going to change, if whites will start be able to capitalize on minority benefits and stuff. | ||
| That would be funny. | ||
| But it's really funny. | ||
| The narrative from Democrats is now like, oh, this redistricting, we can't do it because it's racist towards the Latinos and the blacks. | ||
| And it's very silly messaging because we're starting to see for them because Latinos are starting to trend more towards Trump. | ||
| The Democrat base has lost the Hispanic vote. | ||
| And we can go into hours as to why they've done that. | ||
| But they basically just have white liberals and blacks left as far as a voting base. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, I mean, we saw the huge, the huge swing in the Rio Grande Valley just in the last, really just since the Trump era in the Trump era. | ||
| There are some fears that when you pick off groups that were not previously Republican or were previously hardcore Democrat, that you do have to concede on some issues. | ||
| I think so people are a bit fearful that if you really push hard for the Hispanic vote, that you maybe have to lighten your messaging on immigration. | ||
| But if anything, Trump was the most anti-illegal immigration candidate probably in the modern era. | ||
| I would say for sure in the modern era. | ||
| And Hispanics turned out in huge numbers. | ||
| I mean, what kind of dynamics is the Texas GOP experimenting with, especially in the Rio Grande Valley? | ||
| Yeah, I think when it comes to Hispanics that can vote, so legal Hispanics, they are probably the most anti-immigration, probably more than white people. | ||
| Kind of ironic. | ||
| I think the trend is like, you know, Hispanics come here. | ||
| They either they're born here and they appreciate being here, the ones that can vote, right? | ||
| Or they work hard to get here and make a good life. | ||
| And so that the ones that just hop the border and skip the line and break the laws, they make them look bad, right? | ||
| And they want them out of here. | ||
| They don't want them here. | ||
| I fall into that category. | ||
| I don't want, I'm a Hispanic and it's a sense of embarrassment to see these Hispanics that hop over here and commit crimes or other sexual deviant acts on young children. | ||
| And they make an embarrassment of them, of themselves and other people in the race. | ||
| And so, yeah, they want them out of here. | ||
| And I think that as far as concession goes, concessions go in the Republican Party, you're not seeing too many, right? | ||
| We've still been really, really hard on immigration. | ||
| I haven't seen any concessions as far as to appeal to the Hispanic vote. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I went to high school in San Antonio and, you know, I've been known to throw back a puffy taco every once in a while. | ||
| So I'd head down to the south side of San Antonio and you would be stunned to see some of the discussions you'd overhear some of the discussions at these restaurants regarding immigrants. | ||
| I'm like, you know, geez, I mean, this would make, you know, Stephen Miller look like a liberal. | ||
| The funny thing, the funny thing with Democrats is they assume that Hispanics are all like the same, right? | ||
| They assume that like Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Mexicans, Spanish, Venezuelans are all the same. | ||
| They all hate each other. | ||
| They're all like racist towards each other, right? | ||
| Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Mexicans, they all don't like each other for multiple reasons. | ||
| And so when the Democrats throw lump them all into one giant like voting block, it does create problems and they start to appeal to them and then they realize it doesn't work. | ||
| Whereas I think I've seen the Republican Party really hasn't tried to shill so much to Hispanics. | ||
| It's more have been like, hey, join us, be an American, be a conservative, be a patriot, rather than like trying to lean into like the pandering. | ||
| Yeah, it's, and it's worked so well compared to like, you know, I'm not picking on them specifically, but just from what I can recall is like Bush was like much more on the nose pandering to Hispanics, like, you know, speaking really broken Spanish and like making an enchilada and be like, yeah, come vote for us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| And Trump gets up. | ||
| He's like, they're all going home. | ||
| No more Spanish. | ||
| You're never going to press two for English again. | ||
| And everyone and like South Texas is like, yeah, that sounds great. | ||
| Yeah, I'm an American. | ||
| I'm a Patriot. | ||
| So sign me up. | ||
| So it's a beautiful thing. | ||
| Another question. | ||
| Well, I'm glad you touched on the fact that Hispanics hate it. | ||
| They do this thing, Democrats, where they like lump these groups together. | ||
| Like Native Americans is just Native Americans, broadly speaking, even though there's like a million tribes. | ||
| And they do the same thing with Hispanic, where they're like a Mexican and Puerto Rican are like on the same team. | ||
| If you ever ask a Puerto Rican what they think about Mexicans, it like sounds like a Klan rally. | ||
| I mean, it's like ridiculous. | ||
| You're sitting there like, geez, can you say these things out loud? | ||
| You're going to get arrested if you're not careful. | ||
| But anyway, the Asians are the same way, too, right? | ||
| Like all the demographic of voters are, they kind of hate each other. | ||
| Some of the most racist people I've met have been other Hispanics or other Asian people. | ||
| Literally, yeah. | ||
| And it's like, bro, you're on the same team, I would assume. | ||
| No, they're not. | ||
| It gets wild. | ||
| But that's kind of one question I want to talk about because why is it that the Hispanic vote in California and the Hispanic vote in Texas diverge so dramatically? | ||
| Yeah, it's a great question. | ||
| You know, I often wonder if the vibe of California is just such a beautiful place that it just kind of makes you lazy and it just makes you just kind of appreciate the weather and everything. | ||
| And you're just like, ah, this is all great and life's easy and we're just going to vote Democrat. | ||
| I mean, I really can't, as somebody that just watches Texas, I can't really speculate too much. | ||
| But you also got to wonder that the conspiracy theories of like non-non like non-citizens are voting in these elections. | ||
| And maybe that's kind of skewing some things too. | ||
| But, you know, you're seeing, I think it's, if I recall correctly, California is facing a kind of a population drop. | ||
| They're starting to see a population drop where Texas is increasing. | ||
| So people are starting to wake up and they're leaving the state. | ||
| I think it was In-N-Out just recently announced their headquarters is leaving California. | ||
| Where they go to Nashville. | ||
| Nashville. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So they're losing a lot of like their established hardcore industries. | ||
| Like In-N-Out was their brand. | ||
| Back like, what, 10 years ago, if you wanted a burger from In-N Out, you had to go to California to get it. | ||
| And now it's left. | ||
| And now their headquarters are leaving too. | ||
| So California, minus their weather, is losing a lot of their charm and a lot of the things that make them California. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, that is kind of the last, really the only thing California has going for it at this point is the natural beauty. | ||
| I mean, Texas, you go to the beach in Galveston once. | ||
| That's a radicalizing experience. | ||
| There's like sewer just like sloshing up on the ocean and you're just like, yeah, get all these illegals out of here. | ||
| I don't want to give me like a victory here. | ||
| It's brutal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that's kind of interesting. | ||
| I mean, Texas really is emerging as the hub for industry. | ||
| You know, Austin obviously is this burgeoning tech hub. | ||
| I mean, from you as a Texan, do you think this is sustainable? | ||
| You think this will continue to be the trend going forward? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, we're getting our own stock exchange soon, right? | ||
| A Texas stock exchange. | ||
| I think AT ⁇ T has already committed to it as of other industries, right? | ||
| There's a lot of investment in like Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining and other things like that. | ||
| You have a lot of companies coming here. | ||
| The biggest problems we're facing are energy, which is something that even Democrats are talking about. | ||
| So that's going to be a big concern is energy and energy consumption and then water. | ||
| Something that a lot of people aren't talking about enough is our lack of available water, right? | ||
| Something I think that a lot of people forget. | ||
| A lot of these Bitcoin mining facilities and these storage facilities, they require a lot of water to cool and to operate. | ||
| And we just don't have enough of it. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, the population growth, I think that's part of the reason that's being contributed to the necessitating the redistricting or redistricting is because the population has grown so quickly in very specific regions just in the last five years that that does necessitate a reshifting around of some of these lines. | ||
| I mean, there's this by 2030, I mean, the amount of electoral districts Texas could have. | ||
| I've seen the projections, like they could pick up like four or five, especially because New York and Illinois are bleeding people left and right. | ||
| What kind of, what does that do for the mentality? | ||
| Because when you meet people from the Sun Belt specifically, they are much happier, much more optimistic. | ||
| And then you meet people from the Rust Belt, there is kind of a sense of nihilism. | ||
| This is coming from someone that lives, you know, up more in the Rust Belt area. | ||
| Is that just, is that just due to the growth? | ||
| I mean, Texas really is kind of the place to be right now. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, I've been here since 04, so quite a long time. | ||
| And the population growth and trap, you could see it everywhere in traffic and restaurants and property taxes, right? | ||
| It's been insane to kind of put it into terms. | ||
| I bought my home in 2016 for like 180K and now it's worth like 250, 260. | ||
| So just 10 years later, that big of a growth. | ||
| And that sounds really great, but also the property taxes come with that. | ||
| So my taxes have gone up like crazy. | ||
| Traffic is insane. | ||
| You know, it's kind of getting a little, no, I wouldn't say unsustainable, but it's getting a little annoying as a Texan that's been here for a long time, all the people that are coming here. | ||
| But with that comes opportunity, right? | ||
| And a lot of growth. | ||
| You know, as somebody, I live in the burbs outside of Dallas, which I'm very happy to be at. | ||
| But Dallas proper, the city, one of the things it faces a lot that I think any major city faces is increasing homeless and crime. | ||
| And that's, of course, because it's run by Democrats. | ||
| It's not legislated properly against. | ||
| And it'll probably continue to get worse until it gets better. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Kind of shifting gears. | ||
| Not really. | ||
| It's still very Texas related. | ||
| Obviously, there's a lot of concern over Cornyn's performance as senator. | ||
| Rightfully so. | ||
| What have you heard on the corn and primary front or people trying to go for corn and seat? | ||
| What have you heard? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So Cornyn's up for a reelection and he's running against, I'm sorry, Attorney General Ken Paxon is running for his spot, right? | ||
| And so Cornyn's often viewed as the establishment choice, not very well liked. | ||
| He's kind of been wishy-washy on a lot of Trump stuff, right? | ||
| Whereas Ken Paxton's been a huge ally for Trump and Paxton is well beloved by the grassroots. | ||
| Cornyn just announced today that he was endorsed by Rick Perry, which like, and I, somebody, I actually really love Rick Perry. | ||
| I think he's hilarious. | ||
| There's a photo of Rick Perry with like a pistol. | ||
| And then he's been arrested before. | ||
| He's got a really funny mug shot. | ||
| And I think he's on a run. | ||
| He shot a coyote once. | ||
| So I kind of think Rick Perry is a badass. | ||
| Yeah, it's kind of sick. | ||
| But they made this announcement on like one of the worst days to make this. | ||
| We've got like all these Democrats fleeing and they're talking about arrests and fines. | ||
| And they announce like, we've got basically World War III going on here in Texas. | ||
| And then he announces, oh, we've got an endorsement from Rick Perry. | ||
| And everybody's like, okay, yeah. | ||
| Anyway, so, but yeah, it's kind of, it's, I don't like to make predictions as a journalist too much, but it is looking like Paxton's got it in the bag minus some major scandal. | ||
| And I don't know what kind of scandal it would have to be. | ||
| I think that Paxton is just kind of walking into that spot. | ||
| Do you think with the Paxton Abbott, you know, that front, do you think that it seems the base really wants these Democrats arrested or held responsible for doing this? | ||
| I mean, do you think that plays well for them in upcoming elections if they are able to pull something off? | ||
| Actually, I think it plays well for both parties, Right. | ||
| If you're a Democrat and you're seeing your rep out there, like fleeing the state in order to fight against this stuff, like you're gung-ho about it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I'm seeing it. | ||
| You know, my state rep is a Democrat. | ||
| They're sending out text messages for fundraisers. | ||
| Right. | ||
| All these Democrats are using this opportunity to raise money and also to, when they're up for reelection, to say, you know, I, I'm, I'm a, I'm a strong Democrat. | ||
| I fought for you. | ||
| I even fled the state to avoid this. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And Republicans are using this as well to fundraise and to say, hey, you know, these Democrats are horrible. | ||
| You need to vote for me because I'm going to fight against this. | ||
| There's already been two bills filed today by both the Senate and the House that pushes harder penalties if politicians leave for more than seven unexcused days. | ||
| House rep Briscoe Kane filed that bill, seven unexcused absences, and they are office is considered vacant. | ||
| And that was filed today. | ||
| The irony being that we don't have a quorum, so it can't get passed. | ||
| So yeah, it's been filed, but unless the Democrats come back, nothing's going to happen. | ||
| I mean, the extra extradition. | ||
| Why don't there's so much trouble saying the word extradition that Abbott has proposed. | ||
| I mean, how does that play out? | ||
| Was he sending the National Guard up there? | ||
| I don't think it plays out at all. | ||
| The idea of extraditing people across state lines doesn't work. | ||
| If they fled somewhere in Texas, yeah, DPS would be breaking down their door, handcuffing them, and then dragging them to the Capitol. | ||
| But that's the real reason that they fled out of state. | ||
| The ability to enforce these sorts of things, especially arrests outside of the state are almost zero. | ||
| So I don't think it's going to play at all. | ||
| The only thing that they are facing is these fines, right? | ||
| We passed some laws. | ||
| I believe it was last session that anytime they are absent for a quorum break, they have a $500 daily fine. | ||
| But of course, Democrats are fundraising off of this. | ||
| And you had, what was the Illinois governor? | ||
| What's his name? | ||
| J. J.B. Pritzker funded their plane. | ||
| They charted their plane for them and is, I'm assuming, paying for their other expenses. | ||
| And Abbott's calling that a bribe, which is really interesting. | ||
| There's laws that basically say if you take money in exchange to vote or not vote a certain way, that is considered a bribe. | ||
| So you can also call that donations, right? | ||
| Donations do that. | ||
| Donors do that. | ||
| But he's considering that a bribe. | ||
| And they're also looking at filing charges, bribery charges against not only the reps, but also people that are giving money to the reps for being gone. | ||
| So we'll see how that plays out in court. | ||
| I mean, that would be a beautiful, that would play so well with the bass. | ||
| That would turn them into rock stars overnight. | ||
| But yeah, this tends to happen at these stories. | ||
| We get really excited. | ||
| And then they just kind of just show up. | ||
| The bill gets passed and then you forget about the story. | ||
| Fingers crossed, that really happens. | ||
| One question, what's up with the James Tallarico guy where he gets up and he's like, if you're a Christian, you're not gay, like you're not a Christian. | ||
| What is that guy? | ||
| What is going on in Texas? | ||
| Where are these people coming from? | ||
| Yeah, Tallarico is an interesting guy, right? | ||
| I gauge a lot of political stuff, especially with the general voting base or at least the independent voting base based off some friends. | ||
| They call them some political normies. | ||
| They're like normies in politics, right? | ||
| And so every once in a while, I kind of do a temperature check to see what's up. | ||
| And, you know, Tallarico, House Representative Tallarico was on the Joe Rogan podcast. | ||
| And so I did a temperature check on the normies and they were like, wait, we really like this guy. | ||
| And I'm like, oh, man. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's, you know, I don't think the Democrats have any chance of gaining any ground in Texas. | ||
| They say it every year that Democrats are a threat. | ||
| It's not going to happen anytime soon. | ||
| But Tallarico is somebody that's likely going to run for governor one day of Texas. | ||
| And, you know, he's this very odd, like leftist, huge pro-gay Democrat pastor, right? | ||
| Which is kind of an oxymoron in a sense. | ||
| And he says a bunch of really, really crazy stuff. | ||
| If you're a Christian, you just, you kind of, your head kind of explodes hearing him kind of make arguments for this. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's likely to run for governor, but he's a single man. | ||
| And he's probably going to have to find a wife and kid to run just because that's the kind of thing you need nowadays to play for bigger office. | ||
| And so we'll see if he can find a wife here really quickly to run for office. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, it's a valiant effort. | ||
| Maybe they can do some Pritzker can do some fundraising for him. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's kind of like Beto 2.0 where they'd get like in love with this random house member and then they try to convince everyone he's like the guy. | ||
| And then he just ends up being really weird and like eats dirt and stuff. | ||
| Yeah, it happens every year. | ||
| You know, Betto ran, what was it, two, three times, lost. | ||
| Colin Allred's now running on his second time. | ||
| He's going to lose again. | ||
| Tyler Rico will probably run for a higher office and lose too. | ||
| And they say it every year, like, oh, the signs are everywhere. | ||
| The lines are out the door. | ||
| And that doesn't matter. | ||
| Texas is huge. | ||
| Texas is bigger than most countries. | ||
| So it doesn't really matter if there's a bunch of signs or a bunch of lines in a city for a guy. | ||
| It doesn't really reflect the entire voting base of Texas. | ||
| Texas is so ginormous that people often forget that the rural areas, the areas that these politicians don't go to, have a massive influence on statewide elections. | ||
| I had one more question. | ||
| The mood of Democrats nationwide, but specifically in Texas, we saw it on full display with Jasmine Crockett like melting down these last few days. | ||
| They really do have this sense of being powerless. | ||
| Do you think when they're cornered, do you think they have any more tricks up their sleeve? | ||
| Or do you think this is just a new era and this is just, they're going to have to just complain all the time? | ||
| Or someone does Texas allow them any tools? | ||
| Yeah, I don't think that there's minus quorum breaks. | ||
| There's really nothing else that they can do, right? | ||
| You know, Democrats have the same tired messaging where it's always just racism. | ||
| Everything's racist. | ||
| You know, the redistricting is racist. | ||
| And it's just very exhausting. | ||
| And I think it's played out now. | ||
| If Democrats were smart and if they actually wanted to win, they would turn back to being normal. | ||
| We're talking like the 90s era of Democrats where they're just like moderate leftists, right? | ||
| I think a lot of people could probably relate to some of the stuff that they push, but they're so insane with the transgender stuff and the body mutilation and all of that. | ||
| It's gone too far. | ||
| That's why you're seeing a lot of these companies kind of start to swing their advertising from like these disgusting, fat, androgynous models to like attractive women, like the Sidney Sweeney thing, right? | ||
| Because we're returning back to like some normalcy. | ||
| We're finally starting to see some like real, like what people expect to see in our advertising, our movies and our culture. | ||
| And Democrats, again, if they were smart, they would embrace it, but I don't, they're not. | ||
| So I don't see them doing it anytime soon. | ||
| Well, dude, well, I appreciate it, man. | ||
| Do you want to give a shout out or tell people where to find you? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If you're a Texan watching this, you can find us at currentrevolt.com and you can subscribe there. | ||
| We put out a newsletter every morning with just Texas news. | ||
| Or if you're on Twitter and you like what I've said and you're interested in Texas politics, you can follow me at Current Revolt. | ||
| Dude, well, Tony, do I appreciate it? | ||
| Thanks for the chat. | ||
| That was great. | ||
| So We'll catch you next time. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| See you, man. | ||
| All righty. | ||
| Well, that was the noon, the noon hour. | ||
| I think it went okay. | ||
| You know, it's kind of tricky filling in because it's like once a month. | ||
| So it's hard to really get into the routine. | ||
| I don't know if you noticed with Tony, like I asked the first question and then I was like, by the way, who are you? | ||
| Like, you know, how do people know who you are? | ||
| So it gets a little tricky, but you know, more reps, more repetition. | ||
| We'll get better. | ||
| Practice makes perfect. | ||
| Well, this isn't really practice. | ||
| This is the game, but it is what it is. | ||
| So thanks for bearing with me. | ||
| You can find me on Twitter and Instagram. | ||
| We're sorry, X and Instagram at RealTape Brown. | ||
| We will have IRL tonight at 8 p.m. | ||
| It looks like it's going to be a fill cast. | ||
| So it's going to be a really good time. | ||
| So we'll see you there. | ||
| We'll hang out. | ||
| And yeah, we'll see you next time. | ||
| Appreciate it. |