What is Texas Fights Outloud?

Texas Fights Outloud is a new weekly feature Mondays at 9 am on the Bob Jones Show. Each week we’ll choose one burning issue with a “Texcentric” focus, discuss its ins and outs, and give you the tools you need to make your voice heard, whether that’s phone numbers, website addresses, scripts for emails or talking points for phone calls.

We’ve realized that the only antidote for frustration and despair is activism. Being informed is essential, but can leave us in a morass of bad news. The energy to pull us out of that downward spiral comes from taking action. We must make our voices heard, and we recognize that our base of power is in this proud state of Texas—in our municipalities, counties and statewide. This is where our voice can be the loudest. We are the immediate stakeholders.

So we’ll be choosing issues that impact at all those levels of governance, including the hyper local.

            Why Texas Fights Outloud?

There is a very real thing called learned helplessness. I think we can see it in overdrive right now as the left, the elites drive us to the edge of what we can stand. On every front—cultural, economic, geopolitical—their agenda is barreling forward at mach speed, with all the levers of power which are our usual recourse ripped from our hands. The judicial branch betrays us, law enforcement at every level has betrayed us, our elected officials betray us, and the electoral system itself betrays us.

This overwhelm and impotence is a psychological recipe for learned helplessness which is the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. This is what happens when people or animals become conditioned to believe that a bad situation is unchangeable or inescapable. They give up. They submit. The clinical view of this condition is that it leads to depression and mental illness.

It should be obvious to our listeners that this is a big part of the psychological operation being waged against us relentlessly. Because what is the desired outcome? Precisely that we give up, we submit. And our silence, our inaction will be construed as consent. These are the rules of engagement.

This is a vital concept for us to be aware of and on the lookout for in the days to come, because it can only get more challenging from here and we have to be on top of our game. In this spirit we offer Texas Fights Outloud as an embattled but unyielding outpost on the psychological front of this war in which we are all engaged, like it or not.

Return here weekly to listen to our Texas Fights Outloud podcasts, read our blogs, and find the resources you need to take action on the issues that matter to you as an American and a Texan.

Recently produced thermal video footage from a drone flying over the Texas border at Eagle Pass, showed a stream of migrants crossing illegally at night through private property. Border Patrol is estimating these crossings at about 1,400 people a day through the Del Rio sector alone. One observer commented that it seemed they were “marching in formation.”

While we can’t verify the intentions of these illegal crossers, simply the scope of these border infringements merits the label, “invasion.” In a little over two months, nearly 70,000 entered illegally just in the Del Rio area.

The stress on both Border Patrol infrastructure and personnel is taking its toll, and in some cases proving fatal. In the last year, 14 Border Patrol agents have committed suicide, setting a grim new record.

Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) and Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) held a bipartisan press conference in D.C. last week to honor the 14 fallen, and asking for more financial assistance for the agents facing “behavioral health challenges”— a weak response indeed, and entirely an afterthought to the originating crises, leading me to wonder how much further downstream we could address this invasion and still fool ourselves that we are actually taking constructive action to counteract it.

The recently unseated Mayra Flores (R-TX-34) from South Texas was also in attendance, bringing a more personal and pointed note to the solemn observances. Flores, the wife of a Border Patrol agent, says that they’ve lost many friends who died in the line of duty, and that all of the agents she speaks to say the same thing, that “they feel abandoned by this administration, abandoned.” Rather than look for more money for services to patch up the walking wounded, Flores indicted the Biden administration directly, asking when and what it would take to make them take this crisis seriously.

Biden, when asked last week by a reporter why he has not visited the border, replied that “There are more important things going on.” U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) angrily Tweeted his response, echoing Flores’ sentiments:

“What’s more important than the collapsing national security of the United States!? Biden needs to be fired. He’s Abandoned us.”                                     

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Abbott has made good on his promise to deploy Armored Personnel Carriers to the Texas-Mexico Border, trucking them to security points to protect against cartel criminal activity. But the lifting of Title 42 later this month will undoubtedly lead to an even more massive influx of illegal immigrants, allowing cartels and coyotes to continue exploiting the gaps where authorities are overwhelmed with processing and thus dropping the ball on protecting our border, precisely the intended strategy.

Despite Abbott’s public protestations of an invasion, he is not using the Texas National Guard or Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to halt and repel border-crossers before they enter. That would be where the rubber meets the road. Let’s remember, his use of the word “invasion” was only in a Tweet, and seems more like a show of sentiment rather than a declaration of action. Yet, Abbott still proudly touts the gains made under his Operation Lone Star, though the tide clearly has not only failed to turn, it is poised to surge as Title 42 expires.

In the wake of the expiration, citizen journalist and border resident David Nino Rodriguez predicts in his social media thread, “a full on invasion. 30,000 migrants a day.” It is hard to imagine such an onslaught, but even if his numbers are outsized, we know with certainty that flooding our border with illegals means flooding our state and its communities with illegal drugs. Massive amounts. Abbott knows this too, and surely he realizes that the seizures he brags about under Operation Lone Star of 350 million lethal doses of fentanyl are but a drop in the proverbial bucket. And so, we find him recently in Houston also touting research at the University of Houston to create a “fentanyl vaccine” and declaring it “groundbreaking.”

Again, I have to wonder how far downstream of this apocryphal disaster we will find ourselves before we are willing to go to its source? Frankly, to me this is weak-kneed and ludicrous.

And as if it weren’t bad enough, we have the dangerous lame duck Congress in D.C. threatening to grant amnesty to some 2 million illegals. Turncoat Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) proposed that the DACA “dreamers” be given amnesty, while placating border states with some 65 billion in additional funding for “security” and border guards. This proposal earned a swift and sharp rebuke from Mark Morgan, former Trump era commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  He made the obvious point that legalizing illegals simply encourages more illegals, plain and simple, and creates a “vicious cycle” in which border security is the inevitable loser.

Dismissing the palliative measures of increased spending at the border, Morgan retorts, “Nothing in the Tillis-Sinema proposal — nothing — is going to stop the flow of illegal immigration. Nothing.”

“You could throw 100,000 more border patrol agents down there, but as long as your policies are driving illegal immigration, those resources will just be utilized to get more efficient and effective of processing and releasing people.”

In other words, a more efficient and effective invasion.

Given the grim outlook for sanity in immigration policy emanating from D.C., the Texas GOP congressional delegation has announced its own border security framework called “By Texans For Texans.” This homegrown strategy includes plans for completing the border wall initiated under the Trump Administration, the building of roads along the Rio Grande to enable patrolling, and the clearing of brush alongside the river. They look to increase recruitment of Border Patrol agents, and to see that Texas gets reimbursed billions for its border expenses. I won’t hold my breath on that last point.

The proposal requires all individuals who cannot be detained at the border to be turned away, as in the “Remain in Mexico” policy that placed illegals into a third safe country while awaiting hearings.

And perhaps easiest and most common sense, “By Texans For Texans” will defund all non-governmental organizations that encourage the violation of U.S. law, and would end the current administration’s abuse of the Humanitarian Parole application that is flouting and circumventing immigration policy.

The proposal further requires that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remove individuals here illegally in accordance with its mission. The designation of cartels as terrorist organizations allows the government to “prosecute or deport every member, associate, and affiliate.” And it strengthens the penalties for human and drug trafficking.

“No one understands or appreciates the widespread social and economic costs of Biden’s unprecedented open border crisis like the people of Texas,” said delegation member U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington of Lubbock.

I applaud the GOP delegation of Texas Congressmen in D.C. for crafting this blueprint to restore our sovereign borders, a document all members but crocodile tear shedder Rep. Tony Gonzalez of San Antonio have signed. While he was weeping over the mental health challenges faced by Border Patrol agents, he was thanking “both sides of the aisle who came out today to raise awareness.” It is clear to Texans that this is leftist code for looking the other way while pretending that we aren’t.

But as good as this proposal gets, it falls short. First, we must claim our sovereign right to protect our border when the federal government will not. We must admit that the answer comes from Abbott, not Biden, and until he grows the cahones to officially declare an invasion and repulse it, this will not stop. It is not a war of words to be waged with “awareness.” It is a kinetic war against powerful foreign enemies (with the assistance of domestic traitors) to be waged accordingly. Texas has the right and the might.

I close with the Roll Call of Honor whose ranks are swelling, those Texas counties that have taken local action by declaring an invasion on the Texas-Mexico border:

Kinney, Goliad, Terrell, Parker, Wise, Edwards, Atascosa, Presidio, Tyler, Live Oak, Rockwall, Johnson, Wilson, Hardin, Chambers, Ellis, Orange, Liberty, Throckmorton, Madison, Jasper, Van Zandt, Wichita, Clay, Jack, Hunt, Montague, Hood, Wharton, Burnet, Collin, McMullen, Hamilton, Lavaca, Ector, Leon, Navarro, Waller, Fannin, and Shackelford.

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BREAKING: U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texarkana) has introduced the American Safety and Fairness Through Expedited Removal (SAFER) Act which expands the use of “expedited removal,” and requires all illegal immigrants without entry documents to be removed from the country if they have been here less than two years.

Fallon says he introduced the bill in order to brace for “a monumental migration event” due to the ending of Title 42. Said the Representative, “No more will illegal aliens receive a get out of jail free card from the expedited removal process because they’ve traveled 100 air miles into the interior of the United States,” a reference to the surreptitious practice for which the Biden Admin has become infamous.

The bill, clearly launched as a counter offensive to the Dem/RINO DACA amnesty legislation, has the support so far of 17 Republican co-sponsors.

This week, Texas Fights Outloud contacts our Representative to tell him that we oppose any amnesty agreement whatsoever, and support the SAFER bill introduced by Rep. Fallon.

Additionally, we stand in solidarity with the Texas GOP congressional delegation’s “By Texans for Texans,” and want to see adopted by our elected representatives in D.C. a posture of non-neogtiation on the issue of illegal immigration in the upcoming session.

Texans are the ones most impacted. Our voice should be the loudest and our position the most intractable.

Rep. Michael Cloud

555 N. Carancahua St.

Tower II, Suite 980

(361) 882-2222

https://cloud.house.gov/contact

ERCOT is currently rolling out its “market redesign” for our grid. It seems that even they, our unelected, bureaucratic, out-of-state energy overlords, have concluded that we cannot allow Washington D.C. to set our energy policy—we, the rate payers, literally cannot afford it. There is some indication that Pablo Vegas, ERCOT’s new CEO, is trying to atone for egregious past mistakes of reliance on “renewables” in exchange for the chunk of change coming from federal government subsidies to entice our generators to bend the knee to D.C.’s global warming religion.

The result of such short sighted zealotry (frankly, greed) has been to take massive amounts of electricity offline, as renewable generators, the pigs at the government trough, could make money even with negative rates. Those who would invest in reliable, on demand generation (natural gas) had to bow out. It just wasn’t profitable.

Enter Snowmaggedon, a wakeup call if ever there was one for sleepy ERCOT. We came within a gnat’s breadth of total grid failure. It is hard for us to imagine what Texas would look like today in the wake of that narrowly avoided eventuality—perhaps like Europe will look like this winter? Many energy experts have said that we would have been in 3rd world status overnight.

Can you then imagine the hubris or stupidity (or both) of ERCOT interim CEO, Brad Jones, saying shortly thereafter that he would double and triple down on renewables? If you had a hard time this Thanksgiving finding something to be grateful for in the midst of the meltdown of Western civilization, may I suggest that Mr. Jones’ exit from ERCOT was cause for jubilation?

New CEO Vegas is touting that, “The actions we’ve taken over the last year and a half have positioned us better than we have been.” That’s it? Better than we were at the brink of collapse? I must confess I was looking for something a bit more robust. When Public Utility Commission Chairman, Peter Lake, hastens to add that every year Texas adds a population roughly “the size of a Corpus Christi,” I can’t help but feel my expectations are being managed, and in a downward direction.

So to get into a little of the nitty gritty of the grid, of the four scenarios they ran for high demand, only one resulted in forced blackouts. This scenario was directly tied to the failure of wind output under demand. We lack “dispatchable” power. In other words, you cannot rely on wind when it doesn’t blow, and thermal generation (dispatchable power) has been displaced by subsidies to unreliable renewables.

So ERCOT has found the religion of reality (Vegas: “we need to build dispatchable generation”), and plans to address it through market reforms. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick chimes in, saying more natural gas generation can be developed as a top priority for the 2023 Legislature.

All well and good, guys, but you’re a little late to the party. It’s going to take years to bring new thermal generation online, and it’s also going to take an iron will to keep our snouts out of the subsidy trough because D.C. is not going to let up. 

In the meantime, ERCOT proposes what they call a “Forward Reliability Market.”  These are financial incentives for generators that perform during periods of high stress on the grid. I personally find this hysterical. It’s a subsidy on the back end to thermal generators to try to compensate for the subsidy on the front end to renewable generators. Anyone remotely interested in free markets realizes that this bears zero resemblance to such. It is, rather, a refraction of multiple layers of distortion in the energy market brought to you by bureaucrats and politicians without even a passing interest in the fundamental market economics of energy.

While Texan’s energy bills are set to at least double in the New Year, due to skyrocketing energy costs across the globe, in tandem with ratepayers absorbing the economic fallout from the colossal grid mismanagement that lead to Snowmeggedon, we have this errant nonsense issuing from one Democratic State Senator, Sarah Eckhardt, who hails from, wait for it, Austin.  Her Senate Bill 254 would double the state gas tax from 20 cents per gallon to 40 cents per gallon. This is a local version of the Biden administration’s openly declared war on oil and gas, meant to bolster the use of electric vehicles and dissuade petrol users at the pump.

But we’re in Texas, for God’s sake. We love our oil and gas, as well we should.

Let’s put this in perspective. Texas Railroad Commissioner Chair Wayne Christian toted up the figure that the oil and gas industry contributed to the coffers of State funds last year—nearly 7.5 billion dollars.

As he said, "Revenue from the oil and gas industry is what’s in the Rainy Day Fund and it accounts for billions that go to the State Highway Fund. It also contributes to state funds that pay for schools, universities, and first responders.”

This is The Texas Energy Miracle, and only the Democrats would want to kill the goose that lays that golden egg. But of course, nowhere in Eckhardt’s policy priorities (Covid-19, public education, climate change, and racism in law enforcement) are figured affordable energy, job creation, a reliable grid or a robust economy.

Instead, the Dems would have us pay more at the pump and more in our homes during a time of record breaking inflation, to continue at our expense their assault on our homegrown Miracle. So Lt. Dan Patrick’s legislative priority to “level the financial playing field between renewable and thermal sources of electricity generation” is a welcome guiding light to the Lege in the upcoming session, late in the game as it is. The truth is, you can have The New Green Religion, or you can have reality. Either or. Pick one.

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This week we are asking our House Representatives to put forward a proposal to use a portion of our flush revenue surplus to grant relief to Texas ratepayers.  The residents of this great state should not have to pay for the mistakes made by unelected bureaucrats who made a hash of our grid through failed policy. The resulting looming burden of doubling electricity rates is particularly onerous in tandem with historically high inflation rates nationwide.

We find this outcome completely unacceptable; and it is, fortunately, within the power of the Austin purse strings to apply some of our robust Rainy Day Fund to amend this grievous fault.

We call on our duly elected officials in Austin to do just that.

Write or call:

The 88th session of the Lege is rapidly approaching, and as policy is being formed and legislation proposed, the jockeying for the position of Speaker of the House is kicking into high gear. We talked last week about Tony Tinderholt’s challenge to Dade Phelan for House Speaker. This week we’re going to dig into some of the latest developments in Austin and hone our message to our Representatives.

Not surprisingly, the debate over how to spend the state’s $27 billion tax surplus is center stage and a fight is brewing. While property tax relief is on every Republican’s mind, that’s where the consensus ends. Governor Abbott wants the Lege to spend half the surplus on it, and the Lieutenant Governor would like to see even more.

But certain Republicans are vociferously proposing that the entire surplus be spent on easing Texan’s onerous property tax burden. Among those proponents is Tony Tinderholt, the man who would be Speaker. Tinderholt, a Republican Representative from Arlington, is carving out a distinctly hardline GOP message: “The Texas Republican Platform calls for us to move away from the broken property tax system and shift to sales taxes. This year provides a historic opportunity to do just that.”

Carrie Isaac, a Republican House freshman from Dripping Springs, has said she too wants to see the entire surplus allotted to buying down our property taxes. Many policy foundations and activist organizations agree, from Texas Public Policy Foundation to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, which supports “using all—or as much as realistically possible—to ‘buy down’ the Maintenance and Operations portion of the property tax.” They’ve criticized Speaker Phelan for his recent comments on the issue, accusing him of not including property tax relief in his plans for spending the surplus.

What Phelan actually said on the topic seems at variance with that interpretation. He said that we “should look at more than just property tax relief,” and that this surplus represents “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use some of these resources for infrastructure.” Texas Fights Outloud was born of the hope that this surplus would be invested in infrastructure, though we strongly disagree about what that is.

Phelan defines the infrastructure investment critical to attracting new business and job creation as roads, water, broadband, and education. Notably absent is the grid. Visibly present is education. Don’t you think businesses would value affordable and reliable electricity? And I don’t think more CRT and social emotional learning are big calling cards for prospective businesses looking to relocate to Texas.

He goes on to point out that the surplus came not from property taxes, but from sales and franchise taxes, and that this surfeit of revenue is directly tied to inflation, or what he is calling financial “pain.” He thinks it is equally valid to offer relief to the business owner and consumer in their respective tax arenas.

This really got Tinderholt’s goat. He believes the “historic opportunity” being offered is to move Texas’ revenue base away from property taxes altogether and to shift it to sales taxes.

And so the debate on property tax relief becomes another central issue in the contest for Speaker of the House. With 3 billion already earmarked from prior legislation for a property tax buy-down this session and broad support for more, it appears that substantive tax relief is a foregone conclusion, the only remaining questions being how and how much.

But Tinderholt’s foregone conclusion (that we should shift to a sales tax revenue base exclusively) goes far beyond a squabble about how much property tax relief to pass this session and merits a transparent and exhaustive debate in the future. Bring it.

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Which brings me smack dab back to the point I made last week about Tinderholt’s challenge to Dade Phelan for the speakership. In my estimation, it is not about him unseating Phelan (which I doubt is realistic), but about his being a cattle prod to push the House rightward if he can mount a credible challenge. In other words, perhaps he can catalyze a stronger backbone in our Republican leaders, the majority of which are going to be allied with the hidebound Establishment.

This plays out specifically on the topic of appointing Democratic committee chairs in a House dominated by Republicans. The GOP is solidly against the practice and Tinderholt is making this the centerpiece of his bid; whereas, Phelan has used it to cement his position and consolidate his power. He’s played footsies across the aisle on some issues that got the Republican base hot under the collar, by giving Democrats chairmanship of such committees as Public Education and Criminal Jurisprudence, the chair of which has said that “law enforcement is systemically racist.” Oh boy. That’s a non-starter.

But Steve Armbuster, Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party, sent an email out to the GOP Exec Committee earlier this week asking it’s members to vote against a resolution that would ban Democrats from committee chair positions, saying it sounds good but could rally Dems to block all legislation that comes to the House floor, and possibly empower them to form a coalition with moderate Republicans to elect a leftier Speaker.

Realize that this is exactly the same argument playing out on Capital Hill in D.C. about Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. There is no consensus, even among populist House members. For example, MAGA wonder woman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is endorsing McCarthy as Speaker for much the same reason Armbuster is against the Texas GOP platform plank.

So I don’t think it’s clear. What I do think is that the Tinderholt “flex” is good for the Legislature and the Republican party, signaling that politics as usual is over in an era in which the Democratic Party has been commandeered by Marxists. We’re going to push back, and some stridency is called for.

The Democrat chair of Pensions, Investments and Financial Services last year called for the impeachment and removal of President Trump under the 25th Amendment. The Democrat chair of Business & Industry claimed that Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton and 16 GOP

Congressmen engaged in "sedition" for questioning election procedures or voting against certification of results. He also called for Paxton to be impeached. Our message should be, we don’t play nicely with radical leftists. Period. And we certainly don’t appoint them as committee chairs.

In the days of routinely stolen elections and the characterization of conservatives as terrorists, with the Green New Deal Fiasco tanking the economy, and the attack on parental rights on the ascendent, it is fantasy to pretend there is anything anymore called a Yellow Dog Democrat with whom we should collaborate. Total fiction. But this is the game still afoot.

Phelan is a crafty and skilled politician whose loyalties, at the end of the day, are to himself. As one blog post commentator said, “With friends like Dade, who needs enemies?” Another echoed, “Dade Phelan is an undocumented Democrat.” I believe we need to pry at least one rein out of his hands and ban the appointment of Democratic committee chairs. With one rein, you can control the whole horse.

I realize that populism can easily devolve into the polemics of polarity. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. We are not playing tit for tat, as establishment Republicans would portray us. We are better than that—more civic minded, better informed, and more aware of the consequences of inaction. The question is, how do we marry this new and nuanced fire breathing populism to the grit of realpolitik without being derailed by our own idealism? Can we carve out a place in the ruling Republican establishment and so sway the body politic much as the Swedish Dems are doing in Sweden?

That is, until we entirely take it over.

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This week’s call to action is a little different. Rather than reach outward to our Representatives, we want to circle the wagons. Texas Fights Outloud wants to hear from you. We want to know where you stand in the fight for House Speaker, and on the issue of power sharing with Democrats. Where do you think populism meets realpolitik? And what is the most efficacious path forward in the next legislative session?

Go to texasfightsoutloud.org and click on the blog post, Populism VS. Realpolitik to share your thoughts in the comments section.

It behooves all of us to get in the fight, by first getting into the discussion.  See you there.

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A list of House Republicans supporting the ban on Democrat Committee Chairs so far:

Mark Dorazio, (R-San Antonio

Carrie Isaac, (R-Dripping Springs)

Terri Leo-Wilson, (R-Galveston)

Nate Schatzline,  (R-Ft. Worth)

Matt Schaefer, (R-Tyler)

Brian Harrison (R–Waxahachie)

Bryan Slaton [R–Royse City]

Richard Hayes (R–Denton)

Cody Vasut (R–Lake Jackson)

While our focus has been on the wild wild west of midterm elections, a lot has been happening on the wild west of our open southern border. Though October saw a small dip in the number of illegal border crossings, that is likely to change soon and radically with the expiration of Title 42, a public health order implemented at the beginning of the pandemic that enabled us to expel illegal aliens.

Republicans have noted that Title 42 has been an impactful tool in turning away inadmissible aliens at the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports that 35% of the illegal immigrants apprehended along the southwestern U.S. border were expelled under the Title 42 policy.

But a ruling by a Federal judge in D.C. has put the kabosh on that policy, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.” Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision arose from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

In response, Congressman Tony Gonzales (TX-23), whose district is largely Hispanic and stretches across southwest Texas, issued this statement following the judge’s decision:

“Title 42 has been the only policy in place that has kept Border Patrol and law enforcement agencies above water. In its absence, there will be complete chaos in my district and across the country.”

In tandem with this development, and with the midterms securely behind him, Governor Abbott finally declared that an invasion is taking place along the U.S. southern border, and that he will send National Guard troops and “gun boats” to secure the border and “repel” people trying to cross illegally.

This is what he tweeted: “I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the U.S. & Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion. I’m using that constitutional authority, & other authorization & Executive Orders to keep our state & country safe.”

As if to head off the criticism of the usual detractors of his border efforts as ineffectual, he also recapped a list of the actions that he has taken on the Border issue:

• Deploy the National Guard to safeguard our border & to repel & turn back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally;
• Deploy the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to arrest & return to the border immigrants who crossed illegally & deploy DPS to arrest illegal immigrants for criminal activity;
• Build a border wall in multiple counties on the border;
• Deploy gun boats to secure the border;
• Designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations;
• Enter into a compact with other states to secure the border;
• Enter into agreements with foreign powers to enhance border security;
• Provide resources for border counties to increase their efforts to respond to the border invasion.

But one persistent critic, Ken Cucinelli, who served as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under Trump, is still not impressed. He reiterated his long held position that unless and until Abbott deports illegals and takes them back across the border, all other measures amount to a game of “catch and release,” a position the leftist mainstream media has seized upon to demean Abbott’s efforts and sow division among the Republican ranks.

As if upping the ante in this game of chicken, the Governor added another sanctuary city, Philadelphia, to the roster of destinations for the busing of illegals. Now illegals can choose between the City of Brotherly Love and Chicago, D.C or New York.

It’s not that I don’t richly enjoy New York City’s Mayor and Chief Hypocrite petulantly protest that his city’s “values are being exploited.” Or the fact that Abbott last week sent a third busload of  illegals to Kamala Harris’s DC historic residence. That’s all good clean fun. But we’re talking about less than 15,000 illegals total having been bused from Texas to other states. With minuscule numbers like that, it’s easy to dismiss his “busing strategy” as a PR stunt.

As Cucinelli insists, the proof is in the pudding. Until the number of illegal border crossings stops exponentiating and then rolls back to Trump era proportions, all Abbott’s efforts, no matter how self-congratulatory, will have been in vain, including this long awaited Declaration.

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So what does the declaration of invasion mean in practical terms? Ten locations along the Texas–Mexico border will get Vietnam-era M113 armored personnel carriers (ie, tanks), with 50 trained personnel to operate them. The HQ for Operation Lone Star reports that the Texas National Guard is also increasing “aircraft flights and security efforts” on the border.

 “The Texas National Guard is taking unprecedented measures to safeguard our border and to repel and turn-back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally.”

How this translates into numbers of illegal incursions remains to be seen. It is possible to envision a scenario in which such defenses act as a deterrent to the cartels and coyotes and their trans national backers. It seems obvious they seek entry at the most porous and undefended border points.

But it seems equally obvious that they will not be easily deterred. The amounts of money being made, the amount of power being consolidated, the damage being done to the sovereignty of our country are so desirable as to merit a combat situation. That, in fact, is the meaning of an invasion. We are at war with the cartels, and are presently losing badly.

The irony of Vietnam era tanks being sent to the border while continuing to withhold the authority of deportation, neatly echoes the dynamic of the war we fought in Southeast Asia with one hand tied behind our backs. We know how that turned out.

We also know that Abbott lacks the boldness of a Kari Lake, who campaigned on the promise of declaring an invasion on day one of her governorship. Her position poses such a threat to our enemies, that now she is embroiled on another battlefield, enmeshed in the intricacies and minutiae of a stolen election and the lawfare that necessarily ensues.

So perhaps our Governor’s cautiousness was well considered. With the midterms behind us, he may have been waiting for the cover that a Republican majority in the House in D.C. provides the escalation of our home grown Operation Lone Star.

The punchline was just delivered: “House Judiciary Republicans to summon Mayorkas for border investigation.”

But here’s the counterpunch that just broke this morning from the Center for Immigration Studies, at CIS.org: the administration is ramping up a formerly little used clause called, “humanitarian or significant public benefit parole,” to select hundreds of people a month for their escorted government-to-government handoffs. There are centers in Tijuana, Monterey and Cancun that fly illegals into this country where they are given a package that included health care, work authorization, and an application for asylum. They simply apply online. Word is spreading virally throughout Central America.

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CALL TO ACTION

Write Gov. Abbott and let him know we the people of Texas support his declaration of invasion, along with every option at our disposal to repel the affront on our southern border.  Additionally, we believe it to be imperative that our law enforcement be authorized to return illegal crossers across the border into Mexico, delivering the necessary signal upstream to the cartels that we intend a zero tolerance policy to illegal immigration.

Governor Greg Abbott

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin Texas 78711

Telephone: (512) 463-2000

https://gov.texas.gov/apps/contact-us/opinion

Write our US Senators, Cornyn and Cruz and tell them in no uncertain terms that we DO NOT support amnesty for DACA’s here in the U.S.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn

600 Navarro, Suite 210

San Antonio, TX 78205

Telephone: 210-224-7485

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/node/5853

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz

9901 IH-10W, Suite 950

San Antonio, TX 78230

Telephone: (210) 340-2885

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/contact

Write or call our US House representatives from Texas who sit on the Judiciary Committee, Chip Roy and Louie Gohmert, and tell them we are fully in favor of aggressive investigations into the border fiasco and the current “humanitarian or significant public benefit parole" scam being used to sidestep legal and formal immigration processes.

U.S. Representative Chip Roy

1100 NE Loop 410

Suite 640

San Antonio, TX  78209

Telephone: (210) 821-5024

U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert

1121 ESE Loop 323, Ste 206

Tyler, TX, 7570 

Telephone: (903) 561-6349

On January 10, the Texas House will place their votes for Speaker of the House, a role that wields far more power than merely overseeing that chamber’s function. The Speaker has tremendous influence over which bills reach the floor for a vote through his  naming of committees and appointment of committee chairs, by which he virtually sets the agenda of the lower chamber.

Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) has served as Speaker since 2021 when he was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. He was, in fact, House Democrats’ choice for Speaker. So, rather than choosing to consolidate Republican power and cement Republican policy, Phelan chose to ensure his own continuing political power, appointing 13 Democrats to committee chairmanships in February 2021 at the beginning of last year’s regular session.

Leftists have embraced Phelan as a “moderating influence on the hardliners in his party.” He has been given the thumbs up by Equality Texas, a powerful lobby that aggressively promotes pro LGBTQ legislation, gender modification, and transgender participation in sports.

Texas Values’ president, Jonathan Saenz said, “Rep. Phelan used his power last session to advance the LGBT agenda and we have not forgotten.” The organization which supports social conservative values “strongly opposes” Phelan becoming Speaker again.

Texas GOP legislative priorities committee chair, Jill Glover, decried Phelan’s lack of support for the banning of gender modification of children, something that 95% of Republicans supported in the primary. “We are very disappointed in Speaker Phelan,” Glover said.

And this is really the root issue. While it has been a longstanding tradition in the House for the Speaker to appoint members of the minority party to head some committees, 80% of GOP Texans who voted in the primary were in favor of a legislative rule ending the practice.

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Enter Tony Tinderholt ((R–Arlington), a staunchly conservative combat veteran and former Freedom Caucus member who is throwing his hat in the ring for the Speakership. In an indictment of Phelan’s bipartisan style of power politics, Tinderholt said, “Most house Republicans will tell you that they fully expect many important Republican policies to die at the hands of liberal committee chairs appointed by Speaker Phelan.”

The accuracy of this assessment has not escaped the scrutiny of former Texas GOP Chairman Allen West who plainly stated, “Texas will not allow the undermining of our Texas Republic… and will not support a potential Texas speaker of the House who would seek affirmation from progressive socialist Democrats to attain that position.”

The newly-elected Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Waxahachie) tweeted, “There is an inverse relationship between Democrat committee chairs and Republican priorities that pass,” and House Republican Nate Schatzline tweeted back, “I couldn’t agree more.”

No fan of West, former Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen observed that Phelan was elected Speaker by a Republican super majority and that voters will just have to suck it up. I think such a stance only encourages complacency on the part of the populist base (which is the future of the Party) and tacitly gives our consent to being ruled rather than governed, and to empowering a professional political class rather than constituents.

Phelan’s brand of across the aisle coalitions is not meant to further his party’s legislative priorities. It is, rather, a relic of old school power politics that has largely contributed to the creation of a Republican Party of ossified controlled opposition, the saddest archeological specimen of which is the dinosaur, Mitch McConnell, who has betrayed his Republican base at every turn.

There is no mistaking the America First agenda adopted by the Texas GOP at the June convention:

• Protect our Elections
• Secure the Border and Protect Texans
• Ban Gender Modification of Children
• Stop Sexualizing Texas Kids
• Ban Democrat Chairs
• Abolish Abortion in Texas
• Defend Our Gun Rights
• Parental Rights and Educational Freedom

But The Austin Powers that be might just as well tell us outright to pipe down. To which I say stuff and nonsense, and echo Tinderholt’s call to action: “It is clear that Texas Republicans need new leadership who will fight for our values.” He cites his motivation to run for Speaker as “a lack of movement on the Republican Party’s legislative priorities.”

Tinderholt would need to rally at least twenty people to put his name forward for a serious challenge for Speaker, and though this seems unlikely, I believe we are obligated to voice our support. Here’s why. The days of playing nice with a Democratic Party that has become overtly Marxist are over. This is not the political landscape of yore, and even Bonnen admits that if he’s learned one thing from the Dems, it’s the value of refusing to be cooperative.

Last week  Bryan Slaton (R–Royse City) gave his enthusiastic endorsement to Tinderholt. We’ll see what happens. But either we recognize that we are in a battle to the death with the Marxist globalists for the soul of our country, or we continue to pretend that there are two polite parties and that politics is properly done behind closed doors or over cocktails, and allow the political class to sell that soul to the highest bidder.

In my opinion, after yet another stolen election, it’s gloves off—bare knuckle populism, not panty waist pandering to the left side of the aisle. We need to breathe fire. There is only one voice that matters, that of We the People. It’s our government, and it’s time to take it back, starting with control of the Republican Party right here in our home state.

CALL TO ACTION   

Contact your House Representative and tell them you support Tinderholt’s bid for Speaker.

Clearly state that you voted for Republicans in order to advance the Republican legislative agenda, and that Phelan has a proven track record of derailing those priorities, specifically by continuing the tradition of appointing Democratic committee chairs.

“Tradition” is utterly meaningless in the current political landscape in which the Democratic Party has been hijacked by its most radical element. The Republican base demands leadership that is committed to the values and issues outlined in the GOP legislative priorities for the next session, and not to placating or currying favor with the opposition.

Then reach out to our allies, Allen West, Don Huffines, and Matt Rinaldi and let them know the Republican base is riled up and we want to apply pressure on Phelan.

Rep. Abel Herrero

101 East Main Avenue

Robstown, Texas 78380

(361) 387-0457

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=34&session=87

Rep. Todd Hunter

District Office
15217 SPID, Ste. # 205
Corpus Christi, Texas
(361)949-4603

https://www.electtoddhunter.com/contact/

GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi

(512)477-9821

https://texasgop.org/contact-us/

Don Huffines

The Huffines Liberty Foundation

8222 Douglas Ave Ste 250
Dallas, TX 75225

(214) 526-3000

info@huffinesliberty.com

Lt. Col. Allen West

3318 Hwy 365 Suite 243
Nederland, TX 77627

800-662-1836

https://taketexasback.com/contact/
 

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT

With elections a mere week away, it’s time for laser focus on the races right here in our state that matter the most. Texas has added over 700,000 voters to the rolls since the presidential election, much of that increase occurring in our largest urban counties. But some big exurb counties outside major cities, and the Rio Grande Valley counties have seen double digit growth as well.

Overall, since the last midterms in 2018, Texas voter registration is up 12%. While voter registration drives have traditionally been the purview of Democrats, I find reason to believe that this time the tables have turned.

The top five counties who’ve added the most voters (Comal, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall and Williamson), all have Republican majorities. Exurb counties around big cities have seen 20% increases. This seems to highlight the fracturing between urban progressives and their more conservative suburban counterparts. Most importantly perhaps, the Valley has seen double digit growth in voter registration.

And here’s an important signal as to who those voters may be: Derek Ryan, a consultant for the GOP, analyzed early voting results to date and found that of these early voters, “46 percent had singular GOP voting histories compared to only 31 percent with a singular Democratic voting history.” What that indicates to me is an energized Republican base.

And there’s more to be optimistic about. AG Paxton has just announced that his Election Integrity Division is devoting a special team of agency lawyers, investigators, and support staff to oversee the midterm election and give rapid response to concerns of election officials and the public.

“The foundation of our constitutional republic is a secure and transparent ballot,” Paxton said. “It is why my office remains ever vigilant in defending the integrity of our elections. We are committed to following and ensuring compliance with all relevant state and federal laws.”

If you have any suspicion of election irregularities to report at any time in this election season, you can simply click on this link to report to the Paxton task force.

                                                electionintegrity2022@oag.texas.gov

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THE TOP TEN

With that in mind, I want to focus our attention on The Top Ten to Watch in Texas. Big shoutout to Brad Johnson at The Texan for compiling this list. I’ve put stars by the races that most need our support, whether financial or activist.

1.  Gubernatorial: Obviously top of ticket for us, with Abbott vs. O’Rourke. It does appear that Abbott is pulling further ahead, as his lead in polling approaches double digits after the debate last month.

2.  Attorney General: Sitting Attorney General Paxton vs. Rochelle Garza. Polling numbers look comfortable for the incumbent, but suffice it to say this is one we have to win. Non-negotiable.

*3. U.S. House Representative, Congressional District 28:  The incumbent, moderate Democrat Henry Cuellar vs. Cassy Garcia in a district that covers a lot of the border and stretches up to San Antonio. Even though Cuellar is on the right side of the border and abortion issues, as Congressman Chip Roy pointed out, Henry would still be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. That dog won’t hunt.

*4.  U.S. House Representative, Congressional District 34: Incumbent and MAGA upstart Mayra Flores is angling to be the poster child for a South Texas swing to the right as she faces Vicente Gonzalez, an incumbent from another district. The newly redrawn 34th is on the Gulf Coast. The race is currently considered a toss-up. This is a must-win.

*5.  Texas State Senator,  Senate District 27: In a race with no incumbent, Democrat Morgan LaMantia faces Republican Adam Hinojosa. This district is close to home, as it stretches from the Valley to north of Corpus.

*6.  Texas State Representative, House District 37: In another race with no incumbent, this one is a hope-to-flip in a district that encompasses Brownsville as Republican Janie Lopez faces Democrat Luis Villareal. Lopez is a San Benito ISD board member.

*7.  Texas State Representative, House District 118: In this San Antonio district, incumbent John Lujan (R-San Antonio) faces Democrat challenger Frank Ramirez.

*8.  County Judge, Tarrant County: Republican Tim O’Hare vs. Democrat Deborah Peoples, in a bid to rescue Ft. Worth’s red roots from the purple dumpster.

**9.  County Judge, Harris County: This is a personal grudge match, so I gave it two stars, feeling this race deserves special attention—Democrat Lina Hidalgo vs. Republican Alex Mealer. Incumbent Hidalgo should have already resigned. She is a complete disaster.Three of her staffers have been indicted for corruption allegations. The Texas Comptroller has found conclusive evidence of illegal police defunding in Harris County at Hidalgo’s behest. And now the secretary of state has found in its forensic audit “serious breaches” in Hidalgo’s conduct of the 2020 elections. Enough already. This is our “throw the bum out” race.

10.  Austin Mayoral race: Republican retread Kirk Watson vs. Celia Israel. I didn’t put any stars on this one because, frankly, I feel that at this point Austin is a lost cause, no matter who they vote in. Both candidates are former State Reps. I fail to see anything worth fighting for in this race. I apologize for the cynicism. And to the city that broke my heart I say, Austin, you well deserve whatever you get. Lots of luck.

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ELECTION HYGIENE

Just a quick checklist for all you voters on how to keep it clean:

1. Vote in person on the day of the election. This is simple guidance to help defeat machine cheating: overwhelm the algorithm.

2.  Check with your local election official, usually the County Clerk, to ensure that all races are listed on the ballots, and that there is an adequate number of Republican ballots. Running out of Republican ballots has become a favorite rouse of opposition operatives.

3.  If when at your polling place you are told you already voted, inform them immediately that you are filing a police report for stolen identity. Call the police and file the report, then notify the AG’s Election Integrity task force at electionintegrity2022@oag.texas.gov

4.  If filling out a paper ballot, use a blue pen. We’ll explain later.

Keep it clean, y’all.

TAKE ACTION NOW

This is the week that undecided and independent voters are swayed, and complacent Republican voters are energized. It’s time to get out the vote and you can help!

You can phone bank for the worthy candidates above no matter where you live. It’s simple. Go to our fellow Texan’s website below (Mighty American Strikeforce) to fill out the form to volunteer.  They need your help.

And let ‘em know, Texas Fights Outloud sent you.

www.masf.online

Last week the Texas Criminal Appeals Court refused to rehear an appeal by Attorney General Paxton, effectively denying the AG the right to unilaterally prosecute election law violations in criminal court. Judge Scott Walker cited the Texas Constitution’s separation of powers mandate, opining that, “The framers of the Texas constitution believed it was best to clearly separate power into three distinct branches of government, and as an executive branch official the attorney general is not a prosecutor,” and so may only prosecute election fraud cases if a county or district attorney permits and invites him to do so. 

In the last session the Texas Legislature begged to differ, and emphasized that very authority in Senate Bill 1, the Election Integrity Bill, reaffirming election reform law passed in 1951 which expressly granted authority to the Attorney General to originate the prosecution of election law violations.

An Amicus Brief filed last year by the Republican Party of Texas following the disappointing initial court decision states, “This opinion circumvents the work of the Texas Legislature and affects the security, fairness, and integrity of elections in Texas.”

More than that, at first blush it also appears to render a whole swath of the Texas Election Code unconstitutional. How will that work?

If you don’t like the system, says Walker, then amend the Constitution: “The remedy is not for the courts to water down the Texas Constitution from the bench.” One wonders if it’s more in their line of work to water down duly passed legislation that’s been working for 70 years.

Walker went on to assert that election offenses, voter fraud and campaign violations “can and should be prosecuted by duly elected district and county attorneys.”

But in today’s political climate, that sounds a lot like coulda, shoulda, woulda. In the Age of Soros, the local election apparatus has been largely captured, particularly in larger cities. And there’s the rub. In the last 15 years, the majority of election fraud convictions have been won by the Attorney General, not district or county attorneys. Those are the cold hard facts of a color revolution years in the making. While we were focusing up ballot and electing Republicans, we were ceding the trenches of real politick—the school boards, the county attorneys, the DA’s, the local boots on the ground—to the radical left.

Paxton clearly realizes that if we don’t handle this now, we will unwittingly cede the rest of the government, the up ballot, to the likes of Beta O’Rourke by empowering the incompetence and fraud in places like Harris and Dallas counties where the tide of elections can most easily be turned blue, regardless of the actual color of the wave.

Just last week the Office of the Secretary of State in its forensic audit of the 2020 election found “serious breaches” in Harris County elections management, detailing multiple problems with the county’s “extralegal drive-thru voting,” including chain of custody disruptions with mobile ballot boxes, and discrepancies in the cast vote records of voting machines. Rather than signaling their cooperation with the findings of the Secretary of State, however, the Harris County Commissioners are mobilizing a legal challenge against the audit. That speaks volumes about their ethics and allegiances.

Meanwhile, early voting starts today, and while drive-thru voting and multiple mobile ballot boxes have been discontinued pursuant to the passage of SB1 last year, the Secretary of State says the Harris County audit “still leave(s) many questions unanswered.”

Paxton took to Twitter to take umbrage:

“The CCA’s shameful decision means local DAs with radical liberal views have the sole power to prosecute election fraud in TX—which they will never do. The timing is no accident—this is devastating for the integrity of our upcoming elections. Time for #txlege to right this wrong.”

But with an all Republican high court prefiguring unconstitutionality in any such corrective legislation, where are we to turn?

Here’s what the court essentially said: get the local attorneys to do their jobs, or amend the Constitution. Easy for him to say. But for us? Talk about a rock and a hard place. In Democratic jurisdictions, it isn’t even rational to expect Soros-backed judges, prosecutors, DA’s or county attorneys to be anything but militantly partisan—that’s their primary job description.

And as far as amending the Constitution goes, it’s fairly cumbersome. The Texas Legislature first passes a joint resolution proposing the amendment with a minimum of 100 members of the House and 21 members of the Senate. Then a majority of Texas voters must approve the amendment in a special election.

            __________________________________________________________

Perhaps even more cumbersome is the recommendation of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to establish an Office of Election Integrity whose primary mission would be to investigate election crime. Additionally, the Office of Election Integrity would regularly conduct audits of the Texas electoral system to identify problems, then report findings to the legislators so they can reform electoral code.

The TPPF also proposes creating new regional District Attorneys and Judges vested with the criminal authority to prosecute election crimes and the civil authority to enforce election code requirements against non-cooperating government entities.

Don’t get me wrong. All this would be enormously helpful. But aren’t we ignoring, pun intended, the elephant in the room? Texas is a deep red state. What tints our elections purple is electoral malfeasance, enabled by the consent decree that shut Republicans out of the election integrity process for 40 years and emboldened the Democrats to brazen thievery. Those days are over.

Judge Walker is right in one sense—we have an apparatus in place to investigate and prosecute election violations, but we have given over that mechanism to our most radical political opponents. It would be nice if Daddy AG could ride to our rescue on this colossal conservative fail, but isn’t there a simpler way? Elect ethical Republicans to these positions! Come to grips with the late dawning realization that no race is “down ballot.” Every race is at the top of the roster, and it is our complacency that has conspired with the Soros agenda to turn our state purple. We can protect our elections by taking back every DA and county attorney election in the state.

The longer the leftist juggernaut is deployed, the more I see that the remedy lies deeply embedded within our grassroots. The actual antidote to communism, fascism, socialism or statism of any kind, is decentralization, through the power that resides in the hands of the people. We would better serve the future we would like to create by stepping up to fill those shoes, rather than empowering our leaders to do it for us. By taking responsibility rather than delegating it, by firmly grasping the levers of power readily available, rather than adding to the already bulky machinery of government.

            _________________________________________________________

This recent story illustrates the point. Michigan Citizens For Election Integrity reviewed thousands of hours of surveillance video from 19 Detroit drop boxes used in the 2020 election during the 37 days of early voting. Certain images lend a new meaning to the phrase “stuffing the ballot box,” as footage shows one woman holding the box open for another who seems to have difficulty cramming all the envelopes down its throat.

But after the derisive reception of the DeSousa film, “2000 Mules,”  by both Dems and RINOS it was clear to many citizens that video surveillance as proof and after-the-fact attempts at rectification of election fraud were both moot.

So in a truly grassroots effort, Clean Elections USA was formed to enlist hundreds of Americans to volunteer to legally observe ballot drop boxes in several swing states.  This is the type of decentralized, grassroots, citizen driven local action that can throw a fatal wrench in the well oiled fraud machine.

Fortunately Texas does not have drop-off boxes for absentee ballots. In order to drop off a mail-in ballot, a voter must present an approved form of identification to a poll worker and may not turn in any one else’s ballot. We dodged that bullet.

But rather than counting our chickens, let’s keep our eyes on the eggs. Every race is of paramount importance. Secure a voter’s guide for your district now. Thoroughly familiarize yourself with the candidates and the issues. Do your research. And remember, there are no down ballot races, only outcomes that safeguard our Republic or that threaten it, from the bottom up.

To get a sample ballot for your district in Nueces County, visit:

https://www.nuecesco.com/county-services/county-clerk/elections-department/find-your-ballot

Dear Governor Abbott:

The State of Texas is being invaded. Since Biden took office the Mexican cartels have so increased their presence on our southern border that they threaten the very social fabric of Texans’ way of life—the protection of property rights, freedom from crime, and peaceful enjoyment of our communities.

We are proud that you have called out these criminal organizations for what they are—narco-terrorist syndicates. Further, we acknowledge the support that Operation Lone Star has given our besieged law enforcement personnel and departments who are on the frontlines of what is a new war. Their stalwart and tireless service in the face of an onslaught with impossible odds is not only commendable, it’s characteristically Texan, and we’re proud of them too.

Much has been said about the failure of the federal government to enforce our immigration laws. When we recognize that this is not a symptom of ineptitude but part of a broad strategy to subvert the rule of law and undermine our Constitution, we must regrettably concede that this war is also being waged across our nation. We are simply on the front lines.

We cannot sustain, let alone win a war, with our hands tied behind our backs. Allowing the narco-terrorist cartels to make greater gains daily creates strongholds on our soil and in our culture. We know now without question that this is a battle for the sovereignty and soul of not only our state, but our nation.

The situation is grave, and if we do not readily admit that reality and take all measures to reverse

it, we will find ourselves, like our Mexican neighbors who have capitulated to these Mafioso, in a war that is no longer winnable. Even the full force of an army will not rout the corruption, violence and degradation that attends the rampant drug smuggling and human trafficking that is even now changing the tenure and tone of our cities and countryside.

Further belaboring of federal dereliction of duty is not productive. The facts are starkly clear. We must use the full force of Texan resources and will to stop the incursion that threatens us. It begins with you, dear Governor. Without your declaration of this incursion as an  “invasion,”  we are sentenced to fighting a rear guard action. To be blunt, we are doomed to failure.

Capitulation is so foreign to the spirit of this great state that it is entirely unacceptable. We urge you to reassert our sovereignty, to claim our authority, and to allow Texas to enforce our citizens’ security by any and all means necessary. Declare an invasion now.

This is what is required. The time is late.  As our chosen elected Governor, representative of the citizens of Texas, we are entrusting you with our future and our fate.

For Texas and Texans,

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428  

https://gov.texas.gov/apps/contact/opinion.aspx

Seventeen Attorney Generals have written a letter to Senate Majority and Minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, voicing their “strong opposition” to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022. 

Sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Act is a ham fisted sleight of hand to reintroduce Obama’s failed Clean Power Plan, which the Supreme Court ruled illegal, through what the AG’s call “procedural gamesmanship.” Though that 2015 EPA ruling would have forced states to adopt cap and trade energy policies, the letter maintains that the “misnamed” Energy Independence and Security Act sounds “uncannily” like it. The “hurried and agenda-driven” bill is currently being hustled through Congress without public comment or even committee hearings.

The bill amounts to a frontal assault on our federalist system that for over 100 years has allowed states to determine their own resource and utility policies.

• It provides “an unrestrained mechanism” for a private company’s takeover of State owned land through the use of eminent domain.

• It allows the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to command utilities to construct entirely new transmission facilities whenever and wherever FERC deems necessary.

• It authorizes companies to spread costs of transmission infrastructure to residents of other states.

These provisions “eviscerate states’ ability to chart their own land-use and energy policies.” In truth, they conclude, “the Act should be renamed the “Sacrificing Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022.”” As should be named all the policies of the Biden administration, which sacrificed the energy independence we as a nation enjoyed as a country only two years ago and now, without even a trace of irony,  “requires that the US be energy independent by 2024.”

The proposed legislation is a rubber stamp for the federal government to nationalize energy policy, and to “commandeer companies to construct facilities.” One is hard put to say whether this model more resembles the command economics of communism or fascism, but in practice, it is indistinguishable.

The AG’s letter goes on to spell it out clearly: the bill would “permit FERC to authorize massive takings of private lands…displacing and replacing the American farmer with federally-facilitated solar farms, composed of panels manufactured from Chinese-mined minerals from foreign countries.”

Additionally, spreading the cost of transmission to other states requires that one state pay for the policies determined by the politicians and bureaucrats of another, allowing companies to charge tariffs for  a “broad range of reasonably anticipated benefits,” ie. supposed climate change mitigation. This provision, the Attorney Generals state, may be used as “a justification for imposing potentially back- breaking costs on residents who may see no true energy benefit whatsoever.”

The Attorney Generals close their letter with a passage worth repeating: “these drastic and draconian changes are being rushed through without committee hearings, markups, and the full debate expected of the world’s greatest deliberative body. This utter lack of transparency is a manifestation of Congress’ “new normal,” under which laws are passed before the several States and their citizens can find out what is in them. Such hurried and agenda-driven laws provide the public no explanation of what the new laws are, why they are necessary, or how they will affect our Nation and the States.”

And this is the “procedural gamesmanship” which has utterly supplanted governance in the halls of Congress, where legislators engage in “rushed backroom deals” instead of the processes and procedures of true representative government.

______________________________________________________________________

Texas Fights Outloud acknowledges the leadership of the states whose AG’s have signed this letter of opposition and signaled to Washington the legal challenges that lie ahead should they ram this legislation through:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Tennessee, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia

We can avert such a costly, divisive, time consuming and wasteful legal battle by heading this off at the pass.

Write our U.S. Senators and tell them in no uncertain terms that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 is not only ill advised, it is illegal, and that we categorically reject the threat to our state sovereignty that it poses. We will not allow Washington to nationalize energy policy and to dictate it to Texas. There is a reason we have our own grid, and this bill strikes at the heart of that reason.

If we are genuinely interested in regaining our nation’s energy independence, the path before us is clear. Stop the prosecution of the war on domestic oil and gas. Let Texas do what it does best, supplying our needs at home and helping to meet those abroad.

If we are genuinely interested in our national security, it is obvious that reliance on foreign oil, depletion of our strategic oil reserves, and dependence on China for the minerals and materials required by wind and solar mitigate directly against it.

Neither energy independence nor security will be achieved by forcing our nation and our states to rely on “green” energy strategies that have only proven their insufficiency and unreliability. The conversation this proposal engenders is one we must engage as a nation, but with the unavoidable conclusion that it is, at root, disingenuous.

We urge Senators Cruz and Cornyn to not only reject this proposed legislation out of hand, but to take this opportunity to enjoin the public in the painful but necessary process of unmasking the Green New Deal fraud.

Your constituents deserve no less.

Senator Ted Cruz

9901 IH-10W, Suite 950

San Antonio, TX 78230

Phone number: (210) 340-2885

southcentral_texas@cruz.senate.gov

Senator John Cornyn

600 Navarro

Suite 210

San Antonio, TX 78205

Main: 210-224-7485

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact

GET.IN.THE.FIGHT.

There are a number of quotes widely circulating among conservative websites these days meant to inform us of our civic obligation and inspire us to take action. Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena,” is one such quote: “It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause.”

Roosevelt was not describing the deeds of generals or presidents. This short excerpt is from a 35 page speech Roosevelt delivered entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.” He is describing the civic duty that conscripts each of us as citizens of this country. It is not for our leaders to reap the glory forfeited by our silence and inaction; it is for each of us to take up the mantle of worthy causes. This is both our responsibility and our privilege.

As the midterms rapidly approach and we enter suppression poll season in earnest, many among our ranks are tempted by the kool aid of despair. I hear people loudly complaining that the elections will simply be stolen again, what’s the use, not realizing their fears will be realized as a direct result of their own passivity.

Texas Fights Outloud was conceived as an antidote for such cynicism and despair. Recognize that a military psychological operation is being waged against the American people and you will realize that keeping your mind unwaveringly centered on our goals and their successful outcome is the strategy that counters the barrage of propaganda, weaponization of our institutions against us, and the deeply entrenched corruption that usurps our Constitution.

The familiar quote sported on tee shirts everywhere these days, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing” is commonly misattributed to British statesman Edmund Burke, in no small part due to the fact that John F. Kennedy mistakenly repeated it. The actual origin is to be attributed to philosopher John Stuart Mill: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

Thomas Jefferson echoed the same sentiment more concisely, “Tyranny prevails when good men do nothing.” The idea of passivity as permission echoes throughout the halls of classical liberalism. Translated into a more contemporary context, here’s the bottom line—silence is construed as consent. If each of us waits for another to act on our behalf, our fate is sealed and we will have courted it.

Here is the good news. A populist movement to foil globalism worldwide is rapidly arising, reflected in recent election results in Sweden and Italy that are sharp political realignments rightward. Even Iranians, it would appear, are bridling under the weight of authoritarianism as men and women joined together in seven days of protests across the country following the death of a young Kurdish woman at the hands of morality police for wearing her hijab “improperly.”

This is The Great Awakening VS. The Great Reset, and there are no sidelines. The whole world is at play and everyone is on the field. What will you do? What part will you play?

Texas Fights Outloud is focused on Texcentric issues that most impact our state sovereignty—the border, the grid, our elections, our food supply. But there is no shortage of political passions to engage you. Pick one. Dive in. Immerse yourself. Then move, however shyly or boldly but with resolve, in the appointed direction. It should be abundantly clear at this juncture that we forge our own freedom. And “we” means me and you.

Spend yourself in a worthy cause. Get.In.The.Fight.

Alliance for a Safe Texas

https://www.securetheborder.us/

Act for America

https://www.actforamerica.org/

Americans for Prosperity

https://www.americansforprosperity.actcentr.com/

CCDF (County Citizens Defending Freedom)

https://www.ccdfusa.com/

Election Integrity Network

https://www.whoscounting.us/

F.A.I.R. Federation for American Immigration Reform—Donate

https://www.FAIRus.org

Food Freedom/ Institute for Justice

https://ij.org/issues/economic-liberty/homemade-food-seller/texas/

Moms for Liberty

https://www.momsforliberty.org/

NRCC—Donate to key candidates

https://www.nrcc.org/

Texas GOP Poll Watchers and Election Workers—Volunteer form

https://texasgop.org/electionworkers/

Texas Values

https://txvalues.org/

Turning Point USA—Donate

https://www.tpusa.com/donate

Young Americans Against Socialism—Donate

https://www.donorbox.org/fightsocialism

COMMITMENT TO TEXAS

This week’s call to action was spurred by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent visit to Houston to discuss the Communist Chinese Party with Texas House GOP members, and its incursions into every facet of America—supply chains and infrastructure, intellectual property rights, media and academic propagandists. This interference touches upon key areas of commerce and infrastructure in our state identified by Texas Fights Outloud as “existential” issues—the grid, the border, and food supply chains.

CCP infiltration is aided and abetted by the Biden Administration that has dismissed espionage charges against 130 Chinese Nationals and dismantled the DOJ investigative initiative into the activities of the CCP in the U.S.

“For 50 years the Chinese Communist Party has launched an assault on the American way of life,” McCarthy said at his meeting in Houston, and reported that Republicans are crafting a legislative agenda to block CCP interference in our country called Commitment to America. Here’s a link to receive more information: https://www.republicanleader.gov/commitment/

But we cannot wait for action at the federal level. In 2021 Texas passed SB 2116, prohibiting businesses from hostile countries (China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia) from gaining access to critical infrastructure. That was a start, but we need to go further, much further. Texans recognize the threat on multiple fronts and are mobilizing to take action. We need to tell our elected officials in no uncertain terms, that CCP influence that impacts our border security, our grid security, and our agricultural and food security is unacceptable and should be made illegal.

Several states already have in place legislation to ban foreign land ownership. Our Agricultural Commissioner, Sid Miller, is in favor of following suit. He asserts that we do not need Federal action on this issue, that “we can stop it at the state level.” My point exactly, Commissioner.

Let’s write letters, emails, make calls and flood the following committee members with our support of restrictions on foreign land ownership to be taken up urgently in the upcoming legislative session.

And let the Commissioner know you are in his corner when he says, “There’s already six states that ban this, and Texas needs to be one.”

 Don’t forget to tell ‘em, Texas Fights Outloud sent you.

Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller

P.O. Box 12847

Austin, TX 78711-2847

(512) 463-7476

Senator Charles Perry

11003 Quaker Avenue, #101

Lubbock, TX 79424

(806) 783-9934

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=28&lang=en
 

Senator Drew Springer

First Capitol Building

2525 Kell Blvd.

Suite 413

Wichita Falls, TX 76308

(940) 720-0831

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=30&lang=en

Senator Brandon Creighton

2829 Technology Forest, Suite 240

The Woodlands, Texas 77381

(281) 292-4128
https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=4&lang=en

Senator Sarah Eckhardt

Bastrop County District Office

211 Jackson Street, Suite 104

Bastrop, TX 78602

(512) 463-0114

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=14&lang=en
 

Senator Roland Gutierrez

3175 Sidney Brooks

Building 470

San Antonio, TX 78235

(210) 532-2302

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=19&lang=en

Senator Nathan Johnson
Merit Tower

12222 Merit Drive, Suite 1010

Dallas, Texas 75251

(972) 701-0349

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=16&lang=en

Senator Lois Kolkhorst

5606 N. Navarro

#300M

Victoria, TX 77904

(361) 573-7300

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=18&lang=en
 

Senator Beverly Powell
1612 Summit Avenue, Suite 101

Fort Worth, TX 76102

(817) 820-0007 (TEL)

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=10&lang=en

Senator Larry Taylor

6117 Broadway, Suite 122

Pearland, TX 77581

(281) 485-9800

https://senate.texas.gov/member.php?d=11&lang=en

DEMAND ACTION ON THE BORDER

Five more Texas counties have joined in calling the crisis on our southern border “an invasion,” bringing the total number of counties that have done so to seventeen. Ellis County was particularly pointed in placing responsibility on the Governor to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons trespassing as well as invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”

Ellis County is south of Dallas, a full seven hours away from the border, yet to a man, the Commissioners recognized that the flood of drugs and unvetted illegals issuing from those border counties affects all of Texas. Just the explosion of fentanyl alone in the state has far reaching impacts on the safety of our communities, and the mental health and well being of our citizens. Crime rates and incidence of drug overdoses are the stats that tell the story.

The open wounds at our border can only be staunched if you, Governor Abbott, invoke Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution and Article IV, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution. Returning illegal border crossers to their point of entry or bussing them to hotels in New York City and D.C. is ineffective in stemming the tide of drug smuggling and human trafficking.

We’ve seen the drone footage of the cartels’ foot soldiers imbedding themselves on the U.S. side of the Arizona border. They are taking ownership of the border on both sides. How long until the narco-terrorists do the same on Texas land? This sort of thing has been commonplace in Mexico, and now it’s here. Will it take the invasion becoming a full occupation for you to take the vital and necessary action to uphold and protect our state’s sovereignty? By then, Governor, I’m afraid it will be too late. By then you will need more than the National Guard. You will need an army.

The hour is late. The time is now to take decisive and definitive action to protect our sovereignty. Declare an invasion, invoke the Constitutions of our country and our state. Unshackle law enforcement at all levels to do its job.

Do the right thing.  The citizens of this great state implore you.

SEND A LETTER TO GOVERNOR ABBOTT

Governor Abbott

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, TX  78711

(512) 463-2000

https://gov.texas.gov/apps/contact/opinion.aspx

CC: THE INTERIM COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa

District 20

602 N. Staples Street, Suite 200

Corpus Christi, TX 78401

(361) 882-0900 (TEL)

(361) 882-0901

(361) 882-0902 (FAX)

Email contact form:

https://senate.texas.gov/memberform.php?auth=lz1SUCkkxyP3jfULHsjEi%2BZTeIsRVqYmQYBqBV7rtVs6XzpfOmApdE22lLvrs8pWXxyH5gOCc8Uhbua%2B%2Fxq8g4%2BIh6KT6p5YOnw6fDqvTEEAB8%2FNAVbQTMf4UoAu&lang=en

Senator Brian Birdwell

P.O. Box 12068

Capitol Station

Austin, TX 78711

(817)559-9585

brian@brianbirdwell.net

Senator Bob Hall

P.O. Box 12068

Capitol Station

Austin, TX 78711

(512) 463-0102

SenatorBobHallDistrict2@gmail.com

We have to talk about election integrity again. With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, what are we now, 73 days out, confidence in the inevitability of a red wave is receding. Not because we believe Democrats will out vote us. That won’t happen and we know it. But we also know that they cheat. Big time. And right now they are getting their dirty little ducks in a row for the next Big Steal. There are several recent stories that will give even the most ardently faithful conservative pause.

Democrats are lauding a new Post Office division called Election and Government Mail Services created in order to deliver ballots in advance of the midterms, regardless of the well recognized fact (or precisely because of it) that mail in ballots are far more susceptible to fraud than in person voting. It is widely suspected that part of the motivation for the pandemic lockdowns was to influence the 2020 election results by injecting massive mail in ballot fraud. The USPS delivered more than 135 million ballots in 2020, and now we are looking at a preview of the big budget sequel—The Big Steal Part Two, brought to you by the United States Postal Service.

And this late breaking item beggars the imagination, from The Gateway Pundit: “Joe Biden just welcomed TikTok into a formal partnership with the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a U.S. government agency set up to help overseas voters in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.” TikTok, the same Chinese company Trump banned by executive order for the serious national security threats posed by its mobile app, just launched their U.S. Midterms Election Center at the behest of our duly installed WH resident.

Anyone else out there getting serious outrage fatigue?

Well, yes. Ken Paxton, for one. He fought the good fight in the lead up to 2020, recognizing that there was an “orchestrated effort” by someone outside the state with a lot of money (who could that be?) to make sure mail in ballots went out to as many people as possible, in clear violation of Texas law. He sued and won.

But even with those victories, Paxton says Texas elections are still at risk. A ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the State Attorney General cannot unilaterally prosecute election fraud. So until the Legislature meets and passes new legislation to the contrary, Paxton warns us that it will be up to Soros-backed DA’s in big counties like Harris, Travis, Dallas and Bexar to prosecute election fraud. All part of the opposition’s well implemented long game. Not bullish for our side.

So that’s all the bad news. Now for the good. Nueces County looks clean. In the person of Kara Sands, we are blessed with a diligent and experienced official to run our elections.

But the key point here at home as well at throughout the state, remains. I reiterate, we must have eyes and ears in every polling place in every county across Texas. Many election irregularities can be addressed on the spot or reported by poll watchers and poll workers who are trained and observant, shining light into every nook and cranny of the process.

We have already seen a pattern in some counties of insufficient numbers of Republican ballots, or ballots missing certain races. We’ve seen attempts at the same vote counting stoppage that cost us Fulton County, GA. Success at barring GOP observers from the process, while grossly illegal, has become notorious.

Rapid response teams of well trained election workers and poll observers can make sure the correct ballots are made available in sufficient numbers, that voting continues until all votes are counted, that mail in ballots meet signature verifications, and that any problems are brought to the attention of the County GOP chair immediately.

This is our job as voters who care about election integrity. It’s your job if you want your country back, because we can only reclaim it one county at a time. And it is time.

Do your part. Send an email to election@texasgop.org. This goes to the County Chair, Barbie Baker. She will reply with an email containing a link to a form for volunteering and training.

She’s waiting to hear from you. And as General Flynn recently said, it is time to activate every single American to take immediate action. That’s what Texas Fights Outloud is all about. So don’t forget to let her know, TFO sent you.

THE EYES OF TEXAS

Election tampering is not new. American history is replete with electoral irregularities, misconduct and outright fraud. In a state where LBJ’s shenanigans have been documented as “the most brazen thievery of an election up to that point in U.S. history,” we should hardly feign surprise.

Nor should we allow the issue of free and fair elections to be weaponized and directed solely against one political party. Over history, there has been plenty of malfeasance to go around.

Most importantly, however, we cannot inure ourselves to the fact of insecure elections, which have only gotten more vulnerable with the advent of electronic voting, and in the wake of Covid-19 responses that led to the proliferation of mail-in ballots, extended early voting periods, drive-through voting, and the interruption of the vote counting that has become routine.

The result has been predictable. DA’s have identified “mail-in mafia,” people who profit from organized mail-in ballot fraud. Legal voters have been disenfranchised, and officials have been allowed to alter election procedures in violation of our state constitution. Recently, the Harris County Elections Administrator was forced to resign after presiding over an an election that Lt. Governor Patrick called “a disaster.”

We must insist that decisive steps be taken in the next Legislative session to address election integrity and secure the future of free and fair elections in Texas. In the meantime it is up to us to step up during the midterms and volunteer and train to be poll watchers and election workers. Let politicians, election officials and voters know that the eyes of Texas are upon them.

The Texas GOP is looking to maximize eyes, ears and boots on the ground at at every phase of the election process, with grassroots volunteers who know the law and understand election code working closely with election officials to observe and report irregularities of any kind. It was just this kind of rapid response team in Houston that prevented shut down of the counting process in the primary run off election.

Texas Fights Outloud wants you to volunteer! Go to election@texasgop.org. You will be sent a link to a volunteer and training form.

And let ‘em know Texas Fights Outloud sent you.

This week we are tasking members of the Legislature to take a more realistic and practical approach to fixing the state’s energy grid than ever before. No, we’re prodding them, because inaction on the structural problems that plague our grid has become an Austin trademark. They, along with Governors and Lt. Governors have been kicking this can down the road for over ten years.

Now we face an aging grid that is flirting with failure just as people are moving to our state in droves and energy demand is on the rise dramatically. It will take four years to bring new thermal plants (non renewables) on line, and that’s if supply chains are functioning.

But we say what Mission Control said: failure is not an option.

This will take real leadership to solve. Previous Senate Bills did NOT. So enough with good ole’ boy politics and Green New Deal boondoggles. Neither a hide bound, nor a “Progressive” approach will win the day for consumers and ratepayers. We need a clear eyed, radical rethinking of our grid, and the grit and determination to see it through, before we allow lack of leadership to make Texas’ electricity as expensive and unreliable as California’s.

Texas Fights Outloud offers several points of consideration that we want reflected in legislation in this session.

Eliminate subsidies for renewable energy

Make wind and solar generators pay for the reliability costs they impose on the grid

Ensure that customers pay only for the energy supplied to them, not the energy transmitted

Reimburse consumers for ERCOT’s gross mismanagement of the Uri Storm grid failure

Incentivize grid operators to build more generation by levying a small fee on consumers

Allow utilities to face penalties and legal liability for grid failures

Prohibit ERCOT brokering contracts in the wholesale electricity market

Eliminate the PUC and Railroad Commission’s authority to manipulate market prices

Create a Texas Energy Commission that combines the PUC and the Railroad Commission

Read the blog post on the Bob Jones Show webpage. Educate yourself. Then write. Call. Show up on their doorstep. Make a fuss before they make even more of a mess! And don’t forget to tell ‘em Texas Fights Outloud sent you.

ENERGY RESOURCES COMMITTEE MEMBERS (just a few—there are 11 in all)

Rep. Abel Herrero

101 East Main Avenue

Robstown, Texas 78380

(361) 387-0457

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=34&session=87

Rep. Ron Reynolds

2440 Texas Parkway, Suite 102

Missouri City, Texas 77489

(281) 208-3574

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=27&session=87

Rep. Ben Leman

401 South Austin Street

Brenham, Texas 77833

(979) 836-1238

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=13&session=87

Rep. Tom Craddick

500 West Texas, Suite 880

Midland, TX 79701

(432) 682-3000

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=82&session=87

Rep. Drew Darby

36 W. Beauregard Suite 517

San Angelo, TX 76903

(325) 658-7313

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=72&session=87

Rep. Tracy King

5500 S. Zapata Highway

Building F, Room 130

Laredo, Texas 78046

(512) 463-0194

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=80&session=87
 

FOOD SECURITY: RESPOND OR REACT

We’re all seeing the thinning of items lining the shelves of our grocery stores, and the rising prices of the items that are available. The dire warnings of pundits are gathering like ominous thunder clouds. Fox Business News predicts food shortages and peak prices this fall.  The CEO of Goya Foods says, “We are on the precipice of a global food crisis.”

There are many factors contributing to this gloomy scenario. Rising fuel costs drive up the price of both fertilizer and of food distribution. The war in Ukraine takes offline one of the world’s major bread baskets. They produce 50% of the world’s fertilizer, and export substantial amounts of its wheat and corn. Break downs in supply chains due to trucking, shipping and rail disruptions play a role, as does the recent spate of arson torching food distribution plants around the country.

And to make matters worse, much of our food comes from large corporate farms owned by other countries. It seems like a perfect storm. Meanwhile, 20 different federal departments and agencies play some role in shaping our food system.6We can lay at their feet this failure to secure our food supply. But why waste breath? If the federal government won’t secure the border, how likely is it that they will address food security? The failure of leadership is across the board.

Yet state governments are not powerless in the face of this failure. Texas can regulate (or deregulate) food sold within its state lines. State initiatives can foster innovation and cottage industry production, and help buffer the agricultural sector from excessive federal regulation, particularly around water use issues, emission controls and other Green New Deal fallout. They can protect farm and ranch land from foreign control.

Texas can take a pro-active stance toward this looming crisis, and Texas Fights Outloud calls upon our great state to do so, before a crisis point is reached.

On a practical level it matters little if the problems that threaten our food supply originate here in the U.S. or abroad. We know that the solutions will only be forthcoming closer to home. Let’s task our Agricultural Commissioner, Sid Miller, and other elected officials with coming up with those solutions. Our own Abel Herrero sits on the Agriculture and Livestock Committee, and Senator Kolkhurst sits on the corresponding Senate committee. Reach out and let them know this issue is on your radar. Oh, and let them know Texas Fights Outloud sent you.

We can respond now, or react later. I know which I’d choose.

Commissioner Sid Miller

Texas Agriculture Commissioner

Customer.Relations@TexasAgriculture.gov

P.O. Box 1287

Austin, TX 78711-2847

(512) 463-7476

Representative Abel Herrero

Agriculture and Livestock Committee

https://www.house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=34&session=87

101 East Main Avenue
Robstown, TX  78380
(361) 387-0457

Senator Lois Kolkhurst

Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs

https://senate.texas.gov/memberform.php?auth=sGw15ua9B%2BiJ05iKStkT2BLdTj16N6z2oJm74aQRASU6XzpfOqOJr98L5avCfRHMrpsHSFPTku27wCosDbWDShvc%2FIVr8eqBOnw6fDrRmUCnM86qE%2Fo8Z3jQLTGl&lang=en

5606 North Navarro #300M

Victoria, TX 77904

(361) 573-7300

TEXAS’ DATE WITH DESTINY

The Texas State Comptroller has announced that we have a 28 billion dollar surplus in tax revenues. As the nation faces record inflation, shrinking GDP, deepening supply chain ruptures, and inevitable recession, this is an enviable position to be in. We have a nest egg.

This begs the question, what will we do with it? Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick stated in a press release, “Every member of the Texas Senate will have ideas on how this additional revenue should be spent and I will give them full consideration.” Sounds a bit like a shopping spree in the making, doesn’t it? I for one am not feeling enthusiastic about hearing their shopping lists.

He goes on to say, “However, I believe, first and foremost, any surplus should first go back to the taxpayers of Texas. Texas homeowners must receive tax relief before we commit to any new spending.”

But turns out Patrick’s current proposal allots only $4 billion to property tax relief, with other priorities including a 13th check for retired teachers and suspending the state gas tax for the rest of the year. Really? This is what passes for leadership? I find this both galling and appalling.

The State’s energy grid is broken, we have an invasion on our southern border, we face the most important midterm election in our history with a system vulnerable to fraud, and supply chains that provide food are breaking down across the globe. And we are going to spend our nest egg on suspending the gas tax? That, my friends, is Idiocracy in action. The two choices that are shaping up here are 1) blow out this cash in a business as usual pigs-at-the-trough-fest, or 2) give it back to citizens in property tax relief.

These choices present a false dichotomy, and a breathtaking lack of vision. What I see, rather, is neither business as usual nor Reaganesque rebates, but a unique carpe diem moment to solve the big problems we are facing, and I mean really big. These are the existential ones which our Constitution actually tasks governments with and which, left unaddressed, presage our undoing.

The four policy priorities which must be addressed to ensure our security, even in the face of disastrous and self destructive Federal policies are:

1. Secure our border.

2. Secure our energy grid.

3. Secure our elections.

4. Secure our food supply.

So let’s look at this. We can allow the politicians to squander the excess on, well, excess—pet projects in everyone’s district to buy them votes to ensure they stay in office. Or, we can give the money back to those who paid it, namely us, the taxpayers. Or we can invest our surplus in our own sovereignty, carving out our destiny according to our vision and values.

I am singularly disinterested in Dan Patrick’s deciding what to give his “full consideration.” What interests me is telling Dan Patrick and the rest of our elected officials exactly what we want, then tasking them with accomplishing it.

We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to take Bevo by the horns and shape our future. I cannot think of a better way to thoughtfully and wisely spend our tax dollars. We can model this kind of maturity, or we can squander the opportunity. It is Texas’ date with destiny. What will it be?

SECURE THE BORDER AND PROTECT TEXANS”

This week on Texas Fights Outloud we hold our Governor and State Representatives accountable for the border crisis. Following the lead of the Texas GOP and the law enforcement bodies of our border counties, we call on them to make “Secure the Border and Protect Texans” a priority for the legislative session that convenes early next year. The priority statement crafted by the state Republicans says:

“Texas shall immediately deny all taxpayer funded services and subsidies to illegal aliens. We call upon the Governor to assert his duty under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the US Constitution to declare an invasion on our Texas border and do everything in his power to protect Texans from this invasion. The legislature shall direct the Governor to enter into an Interstate Compact with one or more states for Border Security.”

Declaring the crisis an “invasion” is the lynchpin to invoking Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, granting Texas the right not only to arrest and detain, but to deport illegals. And only the Governor can do it, but we can and should bring pressure to bear upon him through our elected officials.

Other measures to be considered include curtailing the use of taxpayer dollars to subsidize illegals in our state. Ken Paxton estimates that Texans pay upwards of $900 million per year to provide a multitude of benefits to this population.

Texans can solve this crisis with the tools at our disposal. We have the know how. Now we need to mobilize the political will to make it happen.

WRITE, CALL OR VISIT YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR

Let them know that you support the “Secure the Border and Protect Texans” priority statement and want it to take front and center stage in the next legislative session which is being planned right now.

Gov. Abbott

(800) 843-5789 - Information and Referral Hotline (for Texas callers)

(512) 463-2000 - Office of the Governor Main Switchboard
(office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST)

Mailing Address:

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428

Email contact form:

https://gov.texas.gov/apps/contact/opinion.aspx

Rep. Todd Hunter

District 32

15217 S.P.I.D., Suite 205

Corpus Christi, TX 78418

(361) 949-4603 (w)

(361) 949-4634 (f)

Email contact form:

https://house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=32&session=87

Rep. Abel Herrero

District 34

101 East Main Avenue
Robstown, Texas 78380
(361) 387-0457
(855) 850-0271

Email contact form:

https://house.texas.gov/members/member-page/email/?district=34&session=87

Senator Lois Kolkhorst

District 18

P.O. Box 12068

Capitol Station

Austin, TX 78711

(512) 463-0118 (TEL)

Email contact form:

https://senate.texas.gov/memberform.php?auth=LKDViQWWQTuCwSrUpYvmt1hkeL4T1vGOF7YZovnk7l46XzpfOuJKrEhSsRDJv6tUZBd5MN01MmRatpkxYY9fHiO%2BdyLULMD4Onw6fDoQfMEv2i6hWlfEReqpCupr&lang=en

Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa

District 20

602 N. Staples Street, Suite 200

Corpus Christi, TX 78401

(361) 882-0900 (TEL)

(361) 882-0901

(361) 882-0902 (FAX)

Email contact form:

https://senate.texas.gov/memberform.php?auth=lz1SUCkkxyP3jfULHsjEi%2BZTeIsRVqYmQYBqBV7rtVs6XzpfOmApdE22lLvrs8pWXxyH5gOCc8Uhbua%2B%2Fxq8g4%2BIh6KT6p5YOnw6fDqvTEEAB8%2FNAVbQTMf4UoAu&lang=en

The Gun Grab, Part 2

TEXAS BIG CITY MAYORS

After our very own Senator John Cornyn aided and abetted the U.S. Senate in passing the gun control legislation called the “Safer Communities Act,” Texas mayors immediately jumped on the bandwagon. These “Big City Mayors” from our state’s 13 largest cities, penned a letter asking Gov. Abbott to call a special session of the legislature.

Claiming that “most Texans want common sense reform,” they proscribe the people’s will with the following list of demands, the very ones cited in the Federal bill:

• Require universal background checks for gun purchases
• Increase the age to purchase assault weapons in Texas to 21
• Pass Red Flag laws to identify threats before shootings
• Significant increase in mental health support funding
• Train and properly resource school safety officers

That these proposals merely parrot federal legislation is suspect in itself. It sets us up to take federal funding for programs that will bind us to federal policies, whether they are a fit for our communities or not.

Specifically, red flag laws have no place in a state that intends to abide by the Constitution. You cannot subvert due process and still color within the lines of our founding document.

Further, if 18 year olds can vote and go to war to die for this country, they can buy assault weapons. The same standards of accountability and responsibility apply. If we do not think these standards well reasoned, then we should be consistent and raise the voting age and age of military service. You are either an adult at 18 or you are not. It is not a matter of expediency for the purpose of building a Democratic voting bloc.

Finally, the increase in mental health support funding is entirely likely to be a further boon to the pharmaceutical companies, whose psychiatric drugs have long been their bread and butter, at least til COVID came along to overflow their coffers. These drugs have been implicated in over 98% of mass shootings. What we call mental health services in this country are a joke perpetrated upon us by these companies, whose SSRI’s are known to induce aggression and violence. What I find likely to happen is that this funding will open the floodgates to subsidized medication for our school aged children. I cannot imagine a worse outcome in the name of protecting them.

The anti-gun reaction of the Big City Mayors is just that—a reaction, rather than a reasoned response. Responsiveness might include actually looking at the role psychiatric drugs are documented as playing in these shooting events, and redefining how we address mental health issues in our youth.  And certainly, “hardening” our schools against violence by providing training and effective security, and an end to the “gun free zone,” another word for shooting gallery.

Yes, Mayors, I do believe we can address these difficult issues, but it will take the very difficult work of research, debate, critical thinking, creative problem solving and true bi-partisan cooperation. Railroading your constituents with the posture of bi-partisanship will not solve the problem, but merely contribute to the further shredding of the Constitution which not only enshrines the right to due process, but whose Second Amendment clearly and unequivocally states, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The Founders meant it, and so do we.

We call on Mayor Guajardo to reconsider her signature on this Big City Mayors document, no doubt made in the heat of the moment, and to walk back her decision in the cooler light of reason. We invite you, rather, to engage with citizens to solve the many problems that beset us, including those of gang activity, crime, drugs, and domestic violence.

We seek substantive solutions rather than those born of expedient political posturing. It is not, Madame Mayor, about catching the nearest way. It is about the very difficult but noble work of thoughtful governance within the framework of the Constitution.

CALLS TO ACTION:

Call, email or write a letter and drop it off at the Mayor’s office. Let her know that what works in Dallas or Austin will not work here. We do not want Federal money that subsidizes the subversion of our Constitution. We want substantive solutions to the problems that face us. That is the true meaning of bipartisanship. We can do better than Texas’ big cities, and that is the beauty of Corpus Christi, a city that can think for itself.

Email: paulette.guajardo@cctexas.com

Phone: 361.826.3105

City Hall

1201 Leopard St.

 P.O. Box 9277

Corpus Christi, TX 78401

Attend City Council Meetings

Attend a City Council meeting and sign up to speak for 3 minutes about this issue. Let our City Council members and the Mayor know that we are not Dallas, Austin or Houston, and that Corpus Christians insist that the letter and law of the Constitution be honored in our city. Assert that we can do better than the big cities that simply follow the Federal playbook. We can think for ourselves and solve our own problems, without relying on the federal funds that will dictate the outcomes of this debate and undermine the very foundations of our freedoms.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING SCHEDULE:

(All meetings held at City Hall)

JUNE 28TH   11:30

JULY 19TH   11:30

JULY 26TH   11:30

GOP Convention Resolution against the Gang of 20 Gun Control bill:

Whereas those under 21 are most likely to be victims of violent crime and thus most likely to need to defend themselves.

Whereas “red flag laws” violate one’s right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.

Whereas waiting periods on gun purchases harm those who need to acquire the means of self defense in emergencies such as riots.

Whereas all gun control is a violation of the Second Amendment and our God given rights.

We reject the so called “bipartisan gun agreement”, and we rebuke Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

The Gun Grab, pt. 1

Posted by HM

TEXAS FIGHTS OUTLOUD

        Action item for week June 20, 2022:

“Protecting our Children” and “Extreme Risk Protection Orders”

H.R. 7910 and H.R. 2377

“Protecting Our Children”: The House passed H.R.7910 (223-204), which would make various changes to federal firearms laws, including to establish new criminal offenses and to expand the types of weapons and devices that are subject to regulation.

“Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order”: The House passed H.R.2377 (224-202), which allows courts to issue "extreme risk protection orders" that bar particular individuals from possessing firearms based on a showing of imminent danger or a risk of misuse, and it creates a new grant program to assist states and local governments to implement and carry out similar legislation, known as "red flag laws.”

TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD ON THIS VITAL ISSUE, HERE’S WHAT TO DO:

* WRITE, EMAIL, AND CALL YOUR U.S. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE

SAMPLE CALL SCRIPT

I’m calling to categorically voice my opposition to Senator Cornyn’s “compromise” on gun control. There is no “compromise” on the Second Amendment, which plainly states that the right to bear arms will not be infringed upon. Several  bills have now passed the House which do just that. No one in his constituency, even in Uvalde, asked him for this—a direct threat to our Second Amendment and the right of private citizens to defend themselves. Texas is a solidly pro 2A state and his actions have betrayed us. Shame on him for putting his political ambitions ahead of his constituents.

SAMPLE LETTERS

Dear Senator Cornyn:

Texans are proud supporters of our Constitution’s Second Amendment which states that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What else can we call the steady erosion of gun owners’ rights but infringement? A journalist for The Washington Times stated the matter concisely: “To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless.”

This exact inversion of logic has led to the most damning example of the uselessness of gun control laws in our country, Chicago, where the strictest of gun control laws have done nothing to curtail gun violence.

As law enforcement budgets are cut across our nation, and officers passively stand by witnessing riots and violence, citizens understand that government is no longer accountable for our safety, we are. We get it. And responsible citizens use firearms responsibly; criminals do not and never will, regardless of any legislation you may pass.

The issue lies with lawlessness and the proliferation of mental health issues in this country. But your “collaboration” with Senate Democrats looks less like problem solving and more like political theater, virtue signaling all the way down the slippery hill to gun confiscation and the repeal of the Second Amendment.

We the people of Texas say a resounding “no!” We do not consent, will not consent to further infringement. Shame on you for implicating our great State in this sham.

Senator John Cornyn

United States Senate

120 Constitution Avenue, NE

Washington, DC 20510-4305

(512) 469-6034

(202) 224-2934

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact

Dear Senator Cruz:

Your constituents have been handed a disgraceful drubbing at the hands of your colleague, Sen. Cornyn. His “collaboration” with Senate Democrats on the issue of gun control, capitalized on a tragic event in Texas to further political agendas on the other side of the aisle.

I cannot explain this, just as I cannot explain why virtually every mass shooter is found to be on an F.B.I. watch list, but not restrained from criminal action. What I can say is that the problem does not lie with guns and their restrictions. It is systemic and cultural and will not be abated by infringing upon the rights of those who obey laws.

A journalist for The Washington Times stated the matter concisely: “To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless.”

The issue lies with lawlessness and the proliferation of mental health issues in this country, but we in the U.S. have become expert at getting things entirely backwards.

Cornyn’s “collaboration” with Senate Democrats looks less like problem solving and more like political theater, virtue signaling all the way down the slippery hill to outright gun confiscation and the repeal of the Second Amendment.

We the people of Texas say a resounding “no!” We do not consent, will not consent to further infringement. That our great State has been used to further this sham is a disgrace. We would ask that you stand up proudly for your constituents and voice your support for the Second Amendment, uninfringed, as it was meant to be and precisely penned.

Senator Ted Cruz

United States Senate

2 Constitution Avenue, NE

Washington, DC 20510-4306

(512) 916-5834

(202) 224-5922

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/contact/write-ted

TEXAS FIGHTS OUTLOUD

        Action item for week June13, 2022:

“Securing Our Border States Act”

H.R. 4593

Congress has introduced legislation to establish a block grant program to financially assist southwest border states in constructing barriers along their borders with Mexico.

The Securing Our Border States Act, H.R. 4593, provides $22 billion of funding for this grant program, rescinding and repurposing $22 billion from funds for various COVID related assistance programs. It requires the Treasury Department to provide grants to states for building barriers and related infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border within 30 days of receiving notification of that state’s intention. The money flows directly to the individual state from the “Empowering States to Build the Wall Fund,” eliminating the necessity for Presidential approval.

TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD ON THIS VITAL ISSUE, HERE’S WHAT TO DO:

* WRITE, EMAIL, AND CALL YOUR U.S. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE

SAMPLE CALL SCRIPT

I’m calling to voice my support for H.R. 4593, the Securing Our Border States Act. I want Representative Cloud to know that as his constituent, I’m counting on him to support this legislation and to make our case on the House floor. Texas is ground zero for this tsunami of illegal immigration. We need unapologetic advocacy, and we count on Representative Cloud to be that for us.

I’m calling to voice my support for H.R. 4593, the Securing Our Border States Act. I want my U.S. Senators giving their vocal support to this legislation, even if it never reaches the Senate floor. Texas is ground zero for this tsunami of illegal immigration. We need unapologetic advocacy, and we count on our Senators to be that for us. What they say matters as much as what they vote. Say it loud: Texas will protect its borders.

SAMPLE LETTERS

Dear Representative Cloud:

As a resident of Texas and your constituent, I am asking you to support H.R. 4593. We cannot rely upon the same Federal government that has created our border crisis to solve it. Thus, it falls into the hands of each state directly impacted by this invasion to do all it can to stop it. Absent the cooperation of this administration, we need legislation that will side step it. H.R. 4593 offers us this option, to finance unbuilt portions of a border wall with our own tax dollars without the need for federal approval of funds.

Nothing could be more just than to allow our citizenry to spend our money as we will. And it is clear that the will of the people of Texas is to stem the tide of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling that is overwhelming our border.

Please throw your support behind H.R. 4593 with not only your vote, but vocally. Texans need a voice in this fight, and we depend upon you to provide it.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Dear Senator:

As a resident of Texas and your constituent, I ask for your vocal support for H.R. 4593. The border states are in a unique position in this fight against the flood of illegal immigration, and we need our leaders’ voices to rise above the fray, for it is our neighborhoods and communities, our law enforcement and border patrol that are on the front lines.

Won’t you speak out in support of H.R. 4593 to help ensure it gets a proper hearing in the House? And should the bill make the Senate floor, assure your constituents that you will vote in favor?

Nothing could be more just than to allow our citizenry to spend our money as we will. And it is clear that the will of the people of Texas is to stem the tide of illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling that is overwhelming our border.

Texans need a voice in this fight, and we depend upon you to provide it

The Honorable John Cornyn

United States Senate

120 Constitution Avenue, NE

Washington, DC 20510-4305

(512) 469-6034

(202) 224-2934

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact

The Honorable Ted Cruz

United States Senate

2 Constitution Avenue, NE

Washington, DC 20510-4306

(512) 916-5834

(202) 224-5922

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/contact/write-ted

The Honorable Michael Cloud

United States House

25 Independence Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20515-4327

(361) 884-2222

(202) 225-7742

https://cloud.house.gov/contact