GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, April 20, 2016

In the news.

Welcome to IN THE News, American and Texas government. I’m Eric McDaniel. And I’m Jim Henson. Well,

the New York primaries have finally come and gone. Finally. Yes, we’ve seen some big

winners and, well, nobody’s a loser in life. Some

not. And when Ted Cruz came pretty close this time. Yes, he did. It’s one of those things where you

don’t insult people, but ask them to vote for you. So all you students out there, remember, don’t switch

professors then ask, hey, can you help me out? It never works. So

as we look at the results, we see that Donald J. Trump and the J

stands for, well, you can figure it out, get 60 percent of the votes. John Kasich,

So any nine delegates went to Trump, three went to basic,

and then the goose egg goes to Ted Cruz, which we all love. But because get Ted Cruz

out of his way to insult New York odds on several occasions, mainly New York City. But

again, he got the whole state riled up. The New York Post went after him. The New York Post actually endorsed Trump.

And The New York Post argument for endorsing Trump was, well, he won’t be as crazy once he actually gets into the white hot

White House, which which I thought was really interesting, like, oh, he’s just saying these things now. You won’t be as bad we get into the

white. I like the alternative argument, which is Ted Cruz will stay as crazy as he is from the perspective

of The New York Post. Very much so, yeah. And then again, this The New York Post. So they go crazy

on the Democratic side. The big winner is again, Hillary Clinton and her pantsuits.

Again, pantsuits go over well in New York. Bernie say so. She gets one hundred and thirty nine delegates.

Bernie Sanders gets one hundred and nine what? Forty 42 percent of the vote? Somebody did. OK. But again,

Bernie really needs to start winning as we see these primaries start moving into the Northeast. We should expect Hillary

Clinton do much better with basically, you know, much more established machine to get people

out. We also expect to see Donald Trump do better, because many things that Ted Cruz supports,

you know, don’t go over as well in these northeastern states. They may be a little more maybe business

conservative, but not necessarily socially conservative. And that’s where Ted Cruz may may lose a

few votes. And we’ll see what happens, because getting it’s getting clear it’s going to be a contested election

if Trump does not get the majority of delegates. And again, if Trump comes in

with me, he will say he because of more than 45 percent of the delegates, he’s going to get the nomination,

that it just it’s just not going to work out. So, again, if he doesn’t come in with the majority, he wants to come in with a very high

number where people have to basically fight like hell to not give him the nomination. And in

many ways may end up breaking the party apart for at least one election. Yeah. I mean,

I think if you look at the way this turned out, particularly on the Republican side,

because staunched the bleeding for Trump, trump it out a couple of bad weeks in national

media coverage. He goes into New York and he meets expectations, gets 60 percent.

All but a sweep of the delegate. Pretty great night for them going into the mid-Atlantic states and in

northeastern states that we’ll see you having primaries next week. Indiana is out there.

A little more of a shot for for Cruz in there. But all in all, a really good night for Trump in

terms of ending the series of bad news cycles that have been mostly about how he wasn’t

prepared to run a campaign, how the party has been fighting him, etc.

Also, a great night for Hillary Clinton. You know, we spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks talking about

her problems with African-Americans, but she seems to have done a pretty good job of overcoming that

in New York. Yeah. So Hillary. So as soon as we last week, when we start talking about Hillary

is a piece in The New York Times talks about how Hillary Clinton been reaching out to the mothers of

Eric Garner, of Michael Brown, of those who’d been killed, either

from actually the police or just just random gun violence and how she’d actually been doing this before she even

went on the campaign trail. What’s kind of show that show her active commitment to the African-American community. But

but this week, I think she pulled off the coup de grace. She said, no, she has to go with him.

And that you always carry with you hates us. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Right.

You get him information right now. Soy sauce in my bags.

That’s us. Really? Yes. Now, listen, I don’t want you to know people are going to see Lindsay, OK? She’s painted black.

OK. Is it working?

No, seriously hot. So I’ve been I’ve been eating a lot of hot sauce, a lot of

raw peppers and hot sauce. That’s what you call her. And you might need to slow down. I’m having a rebellion

against it because I think it keeps my immune system strong. I really do. I think hot sauce is good

for you in moderation. Let’s not go. I just like it. I’m my. I say go in hot. Go out and just be calm.

You really get the good pardon. Max, being Bobby’s murder. I played on my list. You put that on,

but please review that. Point being, Bobby Smart. Well, you can host a club on me tonight if you free starlets.

OK. All right. I was in a strip club. Senator Clinton in the strip club. Yes. That would actually be something that

no other candidate has done is to really go in and go to a strip club. Yeah, I think that

that I’ll let somebody else. Oh, Hillary Clinton is the Breakfast Club

Gilmore. All right. So this idea that black people love hot sauce. Oh, weps

is a very slanderous thing. Hot sauce is

actually pretty good. So the idea here is, again, there’s this classic

myth that the black people love hot sauce. It may not be a myth. I want me some hot

sauce. But the idea here, if people saw this as pandering, you know, some people would like all this is

racist place. Here’s how sauce this. Here’s the thing about Hillary Quinn. Hillary Clinton has talked about hot sauce,

her hot sauce collection for years. And so this thing is not new. I mean, she didn’t live in

Arkansas for several decades, and so she picked up on a few things.

And this is was somewhat this is like this is the Clintons for you, right? There is like one week they fit black people.

From the next week, they do something big like but, oh, you know, all this much. And so this this is the tale

of the Clintons in many ways. But the idea of hot sauce

on a on a hip hop radio show. That’s the key thing about it. She was on a hip hop radio show.

And she once she talked about, well, I’ll open up the files on the aliens. You talked about like

the superpredator thing. They talked about aliens. You said she doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she believes the spirits

have been said. I care hot sauce with me everywhere I go.

But she drew the line at strip clubs this year, though, at a strip club. She was like, no, no, no,

no strip clubs. No, no, no. I’m not going to go out and make it rain like that. But but it was

just the fact, she said. Hot sauce. Everywhere I go, it’s pretty good.

I was like, okay, I quit. And hot sauce. You like even even as we were getting ready for preproduction here.

Not saroja. That’s like hipster hot sauce hipsters. I’m some

other Tabasco franks red hot crystal. You know

what I’m talking about? The good stuff. All right. Ciroc stuff. That’s. That’s nice. OK. But as for the young

kids between us grown folks, you want the hot sauce? I’m a man who

put hot sauce on everything. And so I want to be offended. But I was like, you got a point? Hot sauce is good.

But but they get this. This is the tale of Hillary Clinton. I don’t know what Bernie Sanders is going to say.

I think Bernie Sanders came out, said, I love neck bones. I don’t really know. You know what Bernie Sanders

is going to do to counteract this? What they’re doing is hunting for delegates. Yes. I mean, you know, that’s

all. That’s all he’s got left in this in this on that front. And they are literally hunting for delegates.

So Bernie Sanders supporters have set up a delegate hitlist. So

if we take a look at this image right here, this is a super delegate list and they’re basically

telling people to call the super delegates. And they’re actually being very forceful in demanding the superdelegates,

you know, support. Bernie was there. Their concern is that Bernie is gonna get the most votes. The superdelegates

from the public and the superdelegates can go go the other way. That’s never happened. That’s kind of causing

mass hysteria. You’re seeing this really on both sides. You see Trump saying that the RNC is cheating him. And you’re

seeing Bernie’s sow the seeds, that the DNC is cheating him. But the problem you have

both candidates is that neither. I mean, other Trump running for president earlier,

neither one of us really been active in their party. And they’re saying the party is trying to cheat me,

but a part of it you really have not contributed to. Yeah, I would say that there’s you know, there’s subtle differences between the two. But the same

dynamic is kind of their overall on the Republican side. If you look at if you look at the delegate count,

Cruz knows that he’s behind. And so they have to go in

looking at the situation in which Trump may not make the threshold. They’re counting on the second and third ballots

where delegates that may be pledged on the first ballot to some candidates can change their votes. So

they’re going and trying to get these these shadow delegates. And there’s all this language that’s coming out, people that will

pledge to follow what they have to do and follow the rules on the first on the first count on the first

vote. But when the second ballot, it’s ballots come at the convention. They’ll vote for Cruz

on the republic on the Democratic side. It’s a slightly different dynamic as the Democratic Party has these super

delegates. So on that front, when you include the super delegates in

the count, that’s where Hillary Clinton is really far ahead. But those superdelegates can decide

to do what they want. Those are the people that the Sanders campaign are targeting and they’re targeting

it under the under the guise nuts. You know, it’s a little less than the fact that it’s corrupt. I mean, Trump

has been much more direct about saying the system is corrupt. These guys are trying to screw me with Sanders.

It’s it really coheres with his broader element, with its broader argument about the political system, that

it’s elitist that’s dominated by the fat cats who are all lining up behind Hillary

Clinton. Yeah, it’s important to know that the superdelegates are elected official. So governors,

members of Congress do that. But also high ranking members of the Democratic National National Committee.

And it’s also important to understand here, these are private entities, meaning they’re not governed by the rules

that you would see in normal elections. And so because they are private entities, they have a lot more control over

what they want to do. And the argument is their process is their process. You can’t come in and say,

you know, the process is illegal. This is not this violates my civil rights. It’s a private organization. So because

of this, they can set up their voting rules differently in many different ways. Right.

So elsewhere in the political system this week, we saw a big argument in the Supreme Court

arguments on the case of nicely, not the United States v. Texas,

which is basically on the Obama immigration executive orders challenged

by several states led by Texas. These were the orders that

would enable the the if not the not granting citizenship, but granting

legal residence to about 4 million illegal immigrants that are in the country right now,

based based on their past status, based on the fact that they hadn’t committed crimes,

a set of special conditions. And it was part of action by the Obama administration

to attempt to provide ways for people that are in the country

illegally, but working have children to attain some kind

of legal status without granting them citizenship. It was illegally challenged in

court by. Coalition of 20 odd states led by Texas. And

those arguments were heard in the Supreme Court today. Two big issues at stake here in the arguments.

One, whether President Obama representing the executive branch overstepped his authority,

issuing policies that are best left the court that ought to be left constitutionally to Congress. Arguments

on both sides about that in the court. And then second, a more technical piece, which is really

a way for the court to maybe avoid having to make any ruling on this at all.

Oh, he’s saying that Texas and the states actually had no standing to even bring the case to begin

with because there’s no demonstrated harm, at least as of yet. There were some

people in particular, I think Anthony Kennedy were really exploring that as a possibility. And then this

is another area where Anthony Scalia’s absence and the fact that

there’s not nine justices on the court really matters, because if you get a 4 4 vote,

then Obama loses basically by default. Because what’s going on right now is that earlier courts

have have affirmed the the suit by the states. Yeah. And so, again, the other courts put

a stay on the executive order and before we keep a stay in place. And

it’s it’s really onerous because you have the conservative aspect, conservative of the court arguing like this is overreach.

This is what Congress should be doing. I believe one of the justices stated that, you know, the president is making a law and ask

Congress to execute its upside down. But as I’ve argued. OK. Texas is making the argument

will harm this state because they have issued driver’s licenses and things like that and argued how how was that problematic

to issue driver’s licenses? So this is, again, a

really tricky thing. And again, it’s being argued from different standpoints. So while you have the solicitor general

who is arguing on behalf of the Obama administration, arguing that, look, no, the president has the power to do this.

The president’s doing all these activities and engaging in even Texas admitted the press has been very active in reporting.

And so the president is active in doing these things. How ever this step actually undercuts

a lot of things. The states trying to do puts the extra burden on the states, which is unfair. And this is kind of the pushback

you’re getting. You’re getting one that he’s overstepped to that. You have a, you know, putting an

unfair burden on the states. And obviously, as we’ve discussed before, this is happening in the context of immigration, where

there are powerful partisan impulses there, as you as you alluded to.

Texas is fine with Obama. The Obama administration deporting people there, not

as fine with help. Helping people stay on the other end reflects

public opinion. If we look at public opinion in Texas, for example, we’ve polled

consistently on asking people in Texas whether undocumented immigrants should be deported

immediately if they’re here illegally. Lots of Republican support for that. Lots

of Republican, lots of Democratic opposition. It’s really clear when you look at those results

that there’s tons of partisan structuring to this. Now, interestingly enough, the

person that represents Texas in legal proceedings like this was key in bringing this

case forward was the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton. Paxton has also been in the news

recently. Yes. Our attorney general has been indicted. I want to phase two indictments and

put forward for one. One is criminal. Yeah, one. One set of criminal and one set of civil. Yes. And one. One is civil.

One is criminal in terms of fraud regarding some of his business practices. So

in one case, he recruited investors to investment bubble with one hundred thousand dollars

into a tech company without telling the investors, I’m being paid to recruit you.

That’s a little bit of shady business there. And so there have been a number of

instances where he’s running into it again. You know, we already had one kind of piling up, which

prevents which presents a great deal of problems form as we go forward

in PEX and actually connects with the presidential campaign to some degree. Paxson had been a state

representative and and then actually then a senator, a state senator. And

it was one of the kind of conservative stalwarts. And when he ran for attorney

general, he was one of the only people to get sort of an endorsement from Ted Cruz.

He didn’t get a formal endorsement, but Cruz gave a very favorable speech during Paxton’s

primary campaign that Paxton was then able to use, which is not awesome

for Cruz right now. So, listen, let’s hear that sound on that commercial. In the race for attorney general,

there’s only one constitutional conservative like Ted Cruz. Ken Paxton stands

and fights, whether it’s against Obamacare, whether it’s fighting for voter I.D.

or whether it’s fighting to defend our religious liberty. And I’m proud to say, can

access my friend and fight hard to the state. Ken Paxton,

endorsed by Texas Right to Life, he raided by the NRA. He’ll defend our

Constitution rare and then come off. Well,

now there’s another angle to this, which you pointed out that the person who accused Paxon of all this himself

is in trouble. H Well, he’s not really in trouble. But what’s interesting is that, you know, Paxon, with, you

know, the essence of the Paxton case is that he was paid by these guys that were running this company that’s

since been accused of all kinds of fraud and and saying that, you know, attracting investors

by saying they had a product that they actually didn’t have or product in a process. One of the people that he tried

to recruit to invest in this was a House member named Biron named Byron Cook,

represents, you know, one of the hotly contested seats in in in

the Texas legislature in the House. And Cook is known as a guy that plays pretty hard

ball and is kind of, you know, a

tough guy in a way, politically anyway. And it turns out that Cook was one of the people that complained

about this company, even though they’re both Republicans. So one of these ironic kind of things and Cook

just just won his Republican primary challenge by a couple of hundred votes. So

an interesting an interesting item also in the news corruption wise in Texas. But this could be actually is

getting to be almost a regular segment. This is where New Jersey is. Another former legislator,

current ag commissioner Sid Miller. Yes, current commissioner Sid Miller

is being investigated for the improper use of state funds. So there are two trips

that he took, one to Oklahoma to get what’s referred to as the Jesus shot, which is supposed to help

cure pain. Now, he says, I was a business trip because he met with business leaders

and state officials in Oklahoma. And then there was the trip that the state

paid for, for him to go to Louisiana to participate in a rodeo competition where he

did win cash prizes and won six 600 bucks in calf roping. Oh,

there you go. I mean, you’ve got that sense. Seems like a good guy to be a commissioner. You’ve got to

spend money to make money. So he is clearly in

deep trouble for this. But the Jesus shot is where it’s getting getting a lot of attention. Gives is

seen as a kind of way to end to in pain. The doctor behind this

referred to known as Dr. Mike. And again, your name is Dr. Mike,

unless you’re a rapper. It usually does not go off well. So Dr.

Mike is a former veteran’s service special forces.

He was practicing in Ohio, but was convicted of criminal charges of mail fraud. Medicare

and Medicaid fraud served a little over a year in prison.

He blamed this on having bipolar disorder, moved Oklahoma petition to get his license in Oklahoma.

His license was given in Oklahoma. And that’s when he started giving the Jesus shot. So,

again, this gets dicier and dicier as time goes on. Now, people

actually argue that there’s nothing special about this, just a combination of certain things are common. They’re commonly used

to relieve pain. And while he will give away his secret formula, people like, look,

it’s a temporary relief. But either way, I think he actually said Jesus

came to him and help him plan this shot. So, hey, you know, that’s why the first

was the Jesus shot. I’ll bet it’s his horse says, hey, it’s us.

It might just be frinks red hot for all I know. I mean, you said this stuff is good.

I put it on a lot of stuff. Greens, cornbread, macaroni cheese, cheese grits.

This is an unpaid endorsement. Yeah. I mean, look, I use I use Franck’s I use Crystal.

You know, I’m not a huge fan of the basket. But again, hot sauce is good. Again, I’m living up to a stereotype. So you put

this away, but not to be not to be outdone on the

by the Republicans. The Democratic side now has an investigation into local rep

Donna Dukes, who’s being investigated for the improper use of her staff specifically

to staff has been has been it’s been used for the African-American Heritage

Festival, which is held each year at the end of February at Houston Tillotson University.

And so this the nice I’ve actually been there, you know, went there. My daughter got her face painted. She played

in and a bouncy castle. It was a great event. He’s got to recuse

yourself. I may have to. And again, the one person is there all the time is Howard

Hewett. Howard Hewitt is known for his role in.

No. What was he in? What group? I forget what group it. Howard, he was in, but

I was again, I was also a solo singer. Sorry about that. If you don’t know who Howard Hewitt is. Find

an old good old black friend. They’ll tell you all about Howard Hewitt. So Howard Hewitt comes

out every year. It’s a it’s a nice event. However, she was. Forcing her staff to

work in it, and while she originally allegedly forced staff to work and it’s why she argued the staff had a minimal

role. Emails show a different story which says, no, stop everything you’re doing and help

out with this festival. She also has other trouble of where she’s been asking her staff

to go get her smoothies. It’s basic run errands for her to babysit. She had one staff

member live with her for several months and basically watch her chocolate. Oh, you’re so

fair. You do this. This is what staff members normally do. Allegedly. Allegedly. But she said, look, the staff

member lived with me rent free and was still getting paid three thousand dollars a month. So

it was in her eyes. It was it was a win win. I really don’t know what’s going

on here, but it’s clear staff members are not happy with their relationship with Representative Donna

Dukes. So we have here is basically Texas is like New York, New Jersey, in the sense

that the politicians are doing some stuff they really should not be doing or allegedly doing, so they should not

be doing. On the other hand, it’s a boom for enforcement agencies. You got the SCC spending time

on Paxton, Sid Miller being vetted, investigated by the Texas Ranger

and the Travis County D.A. working on the Donna Dukes case. It’s kind of a windfall for these

guys. Yeah, but but it actually goes back to the Sid Miller thing. Sid knows it does some other things that are kind of interesting. I forgot

about this. Well, the other thing here is it. I mean, there’s a kind of the damage control control strategy

for all of these guys is all these is pretty. And I’ve done a Dix’s kept pretty low profiles, just

denied the charges. You know, Paxton basically came out and, you know, decided

last week was the time to endorse Cruz for president. Sid Miller also then

in the AG Department, rolled out the new inspection stickers that the Department

of Agriculture issues on gas tanks and

other machineries. So if you look at what Sid Miller did, they took in this and this came

about through legislation. They took the old sticker, which just said fuel feedback.

You know, let us know if you have a problem with the pump or you want to complain about high federal taxes,

etc. Replaced it with a new label that says. AG Commissioner Sid Miller

at the top. What we think of is just, you know, working on the name recognition if you’re a down ballot,

if you could down ballot candidate. So, you know, he was he was punched pretty good in

the Texas Tribune by Ross Ramsey today or yesterday in a good piece that you can go read it

there at The Texas Tribune for this being, you know, pretty shameless, but it’s kind

of par for the course. So I think it’s par for the course in politically polarized environments

when you know, you have one party rule and you know that you’ve got a firm hold on things,

it makes sense to deny, deny, deny for as long as you can. In the case of both Paxton

and and Sid Miller, Sid Miller the is is picturesque. The Jesus shot thing makes

great headlines with Paxton. There seems to be deeper trouble

in both of these guys ran contested primaries in 2014. So I think even

if they survive, which you know, is an open question, people are already, you know, getting

set to think about about running against them. And then there’s also speculation about

should one or both of them be forced to resign. The way that it would work is that Governor Abbott would get

to a point, their replacements. And this really gonna goes the design of the political system in Texas

where the president doesn’t. The governor doesn’t have a cabinet like the president. All of

these executive officers run on their own on the ballot. Could actually be a little bit of a bonus

for Abbott. Were he to get to appoint these guys, particularly the attorney general? Yeah, that’s extremely important thing when we talk

about the power of a Texas governor is not as strong as other states. It’s primarily because the governor

is not able to choose the ag commissioner and things of that nature as other states might have. And they run

independently. They’re not on one ticket, you know. And so because of this, you know, if

this does happen, this does give Governor Abbott significantly

more power in terms of he can choose the people he wants there as opposed to them running their own independent

elections. But those are kind of some interesting things are going on. And in the next coming

weeks, we will keep you abreast of all the things going on. A national and Texas politics.

You all have a good week. Take care. Me, that hurts us.

The government 310. And the news podcast is hosted by doctors Jim Hansen and Eric McDaniel

and is produced by the Liberal Arts t-s Development Studio and the Department of Government and the College