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Welcome to the Luke Macias Show we should be entering the very final couple of days of session we should be figuring out conference committee reports whether the house will concur with the Senate bill, or the Senate will concur with the house changes. Instead, the Texas House of Representatives, After teaming up with Democrats to kill a bunch of Republican policy have decided to maybe just maybe try to impeach Ken Paxton, our attorney general, that’s what they’ve decided to try to force out of the legislative process in the last couple of days. This is a crazy turn of events and we will break it down for you today. Let’s get to the show. In a profoundly absurd and silly twist, the Texas legislature the Texas House of Representatives, House leadership actually would be more accurate has decided, hey, why not impeach our Attorney General in the last couple of days of session as if we haven’t picked enough fights? They have gone to war with the Republican Party of Texas. They have literally completely pushed on the lieutenant governor in the Senate completely thrown away a lot of their priorities, conservative Republican priorities by the way, they’ve refused to take seriously Governor Abbott’s top Republican policy. And now they’re like, hey, while we’re at it, why don’t we just impeach the Attorney General probably the fourth most popular Republican elected official in the state? How did we get here? Ken Paxton had a number of employees that sued him for wrongful termination, made a number of accusations against him. This was in the news, it was a matter of record for his Republican primary, it was a matter of record. During the general election, millions of dollars was spent saying, hey, employees of Ken Paxton have made accusations against him that he abused his office. And it has been litigated in both the court of public opinion and to some extent within the courtroom itself. And by the way, we still have district attorneys and other people who could bring different charges if they wanted to. But the House leadership has a problem in that all of that has not led to the political enemy of date feeling, Ken was Ken Paxton date feeling does not see Ken Paxton as a friend and ally, a cohort in all of his, let’s say more moderate schemes in the state of Texas. And so all of that being litigated, didn’t result in their desired effect. And several employees who made these accusations against Ken Paxton decided to settle their dispute with him for a sum of $3 million, I think $3.3 million. Now, when they went to court, there were one of two options, you can either settle the dispute, or you can take it to trial. And if it goes to trial, it’s going to go to trial and Travis County, and there will be a jury of about 85%. Socialists, who will more than likely rule that the Republican conservative Attorney General should pay these people a lot more than $3 million. And so in those situations, often settlements are reached, or judgments are reached by a jury. And either way, Texas taxpayers are going to be on the hook to pay those settlement or court ordered payments. Because Ken Paxton is being sued in his official capacity as the Attorney General of Texas. So we come up to our legislative session and Representative Jeff Leach and date feel and and several other people who don’t like Ken Paxton, say, Hey, this is not a responsible use of taxpayer money. We do not want to pay that $3 million. We don’t want to appropriate that $3 million to Attorney General Ken Paxton. But the Texas House of Representatives decides we need some more ammo. We can’t just say we’re not going to do it. So some time and I think March, late March. They convened the general investigating and ethics committee. Don’t tell anyone what’s going on and decide a couple of us are going to quietly and privately spend time looking into the matter of Ken Paxton. And then we’re going to make a final judgment call on what we should do. And now it looks like they’re actually going to come out and consider impeaching him. Now this is crazy and absurd. There are only two times in Texas history that someone has been impeached once was in the early 1800s 1917 then Governor James Ferguson was impeached. Actually, I don’t know all the details behind this, but all I know is, at one point, he vetoed the entire appropriations of the University of Texas, which honestly seems to indicate to me that he’s a little bit of a patriot, but I don’t know the details. Okay. I’m just telling you, that’s pretty ballsy. But ultimately, this guy decides to, he gets embattled and ultimately got impeached for embezzlement and diversion of a special fund. That does not sound good. By the way. Later, in 1976, there was an impeachment done of a district judge, op Kareo. And he was impeached, and also spent three years in prison after he was convicted for tax fraud. And so several actions he took evidently decided to lead the legislature to impeach them or the legislature can actually call itself back. For impeachment. It’s one of the few things that can’t call her and special session, but they can call themselves back for impeachment. And so what actually happened was in July, the legislature brought themselves back to convene a special impeachment committee. And that committee was formed expressly for the purpose of looking into whether this judge should be impeached. And then a month later, after a public process, they said, we are going to impeach this judge. And they issued nine articles of impeachment, and then went over to the Senate and the Senate went on trial, and they looked at it and they concurred with all the articles of impeachment, and that district judge was impeached. Actually, I when I first got involved in Texas politics, impeachment was on the table. And so in 2011, Rick Perry appointed Wallace Hall to be a region at the University of Texas and when Wallace Hall got to the University of Texas, he began to look into whether special treatment was being given to certain people he actually thought and found out to be he was correct in his assumption that they were perverting the admissions process and had created special ways of certain people who had the right connections to get into the University of Texas. And UT is a public university. And he thought that that was something that shouldn’t happen. But he was trying to look into whether this was something real, and the University of Texas push back hard. And they actually convinced then speaker, Joe Straus, to put together a committee to investigate the Polit, the possibility of impeaching, then Regent Wallace Hall, and the process was the punishment for Wallace, he didn’t get impeached. But it was like we are going to, they actually accused him of basically you’re going in there and digging up all this stuff, and just your actions are potentially an impeachable offense. So it’s not that it hasn’t been threatened once or twice, but it’s only been, it’s actually only happened twice. And now we’re entering the final parts of the session, where no one has talked about impeachment. Now, here’s the crazy thing. Jeff Leach tweeted out on the morning of the 24th. tune in live to the hearing of the Texas House general investigating committee where my colleagues will be discussing an issue of vital importance to all Texans. Make no mistake, the Texas House will do our job and uphold our oaths of office, and he linked to a committee hearing where they discussed the possibility of these impeachable offenses that Ken Paxton has committed. Now, here’s what’s silly. First of all, Jeff leeches tweet is strange, because like it literally doesn’t want say we will be looking into impeaching the Attorney General Texas. You want to know why? Because everybody on Twitter would be like, What the heck are you doing? What are you doing, Jeff? Here’s what I tweeted in response to that. I said secure the border. No, they killed that in reference to the Texas House. Helped D transitioners. Killed that too. And COVID vaccine mandates the house killed that the Senate passed it by the way get di personnel off college campuses. Nope. fought to keep them on, banned CRT and colleges killed that bill 10 commandments legislation. The Senate passed 10 commandments legislation said hey, display the 10 commandments in your classrooms, killed it in the Texas House. Jeff said we will do our job. So I said do your job, please. The job that these representatives were sent there to do is an act policy that says hey, China’s citizens can’t buy your land your border should be secure. COVID vaccine mandate should not exist. You shouldn’t be able to get fired in Texas for not getting foul cheese shot. Get rid of the Marxist on our college campuses. Stop indoctrinating our young adults display the 10 commandments be proud of the values Texas has but instead know we will team up Democrats to kill all that policy. And then we will gaslight you, the voters of Texas and tell you that we are so troubled by $3 million that we have decided to impanel a secret committee. We didn’t publicly say we think this person should be impeached and go through this whole process. No. And we don’t care about $3 million. The Texas House of Representatives has shown complete disregard to Texas taxpayers in their entire budget process. We are going to get less than 50 less than $13 billion in new relief, for property tax relief. We are going to spend so much money this session, we walked in not only with the economic growth, but 30 billion extra dollars sitting there money that we took from taxpayers extra that we didn’t need. And instead of treating it like a tax return that you send back, they pocketed $17 billion and said, Hey, we’re giving you relief in the form of 13 billion of it. It’s actually less than 13. So you think the Texas House of Representatives is so worked up over a $3 million settlement. And you know what’s silly about that, if you don’t settle a case, it goes to trial. If the jury is made up of socialists in Travis County, it’s going to cost you more than $3 million, and who’s going to pay that the state of Texas so it’s not even the fiscally responsible thing, call it what it is. The Texas House of Representatives is weaponizing the impeachment process to go after one of their political opponents. That’s what it is. Pure and simple. It’s absurd. It’s silly. It’s unserious, it’s immature, it’s desperate. And it is actually consistent with the actions of the leadership of the Texas House of Representatives. Now, we will see where this goes on. By the time we come back to you next week, the session will be over. Well let you know what transpires. Guys, there have been a handful of very key victories that have happened. One of them that I’m most proud of is House Bill 44. This is probably one of the biggest, most impactful victories on the medical freedom issue that we’ve had. Since Texans for vaccine choice began. Since this entire movement began of people that even cared about this issue. And this wasn’t an issue that I grew up caring about. I was vaccinated. My five younger siblings were not vaccinated. And and so this was like a big thing. Every time I have like a health problem or complaint, I was told my mom, it’s because she didn’t like wizened up early enough. And I’ve got all these side effects from all the vaccines she gave me. But she doesn’t even That’s very funny. And it’s not very encouraging. But that’s okay. That’s what I do. So it was not something that I was all that engaged in. I didn’t have children at the time. But Jason Villalba filed a bill that said, Hey, if you don’t vaccinate your kids, you’re not going to public school. You can’t keep them in a public school, which of course, is going to literally kick tons of these children out on the streets. And so all of a sudden this movement started, which resulted in the creation of the largest health freedom organization in the nation Texans for vaccine choice. And it’s an issue I’ve been invested in since then, every single session, seeing some victories, some small victories. But this session, House Bill 44, and a number of other bills, and Texans for vaccine choice. If you’re not on their list, definitely get on because they’ll send kind of a session recap, I’m sure you’ll be able to see all the legislative victories they had hospital 44 marks by far the most meaningful one which says that if you’re a Medicaid doctor, you cannot deny a Medicaid patient access to your services because of their vaccine status. Okay. There are these poor individuals who cannot find a pediatrician. Because all of the Medicaid doctors in their area will tell them if you do not vaccinate, exactly as the CDC and Dr. Fauci tell you to vaccinate, I’m not even going to see you. I won’t treat you for a cough. I won’t treat you for the flu. I won’t treat you for a runny nose. I won’t even see you for an annual checkup. I don’t want you to be healthy unless you’re going to obey us and stick and inject in your child everything we tell them to everything we tell you to do. You’re going to do inject everything into your child we tell you to inject and if you’re not Going to I won’t even give you medical care, basic medical care. That is the medical establishment that is the medical establishments way. And House Bill 44 says, Hey, if you’re a Medicaid doctor, if your your chip doctor, whatever, if your government program, you’re going to accept your patients, and you’re not going to deny them based on their vaccination status, huge victory in this battle. And I can tell you just being involved in even some of the last minute conversations that were had over the last three to four days before leading up to this bill passing, this was not an easy victory to gain. I’m very proud of every single person who was there, slaving away, to get the votes necessary to get it out of the Texas Senate. And it did, and it passed. And it’s a huge blessing. So kudos to all those involved. Guys, there are a number of issues that still have been left undone. Conservatives have seen some very good victories out of this session. And we have to recognize that the sexualization of children was strongly addressed, it was not entirely addressed. But it was strongly addressed. With the medical cross sex hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries being banned from Texas doctors doing it on children from the drag queen band, and it’s not a pure drag queen band, but it’s essentially any drag queen that’s going to dance in a sexual way is banned from being in front of a child. The pornography restrictions in school libraries, not all libraries, but school libraries. Very good bill, saving women’s sports, pretty good bill, still a chance to maybe get one or two other victories here at the end. And I’m not against save women’s sports. By the way, I think save one sports is a great bill. It’s just not a great bill in comparison to the other three, okay, like the other three are significantly more impactful pieces of legislation. I support this a women’s sports, it honestly should have been done two years ago, but the Texas has cut a deal with Democrats and said, Hey, we won’t go after the colleges this time, we’ll just do high school. So it’s a good bill. But it really should have happened two years ago, and it didn’t happen because the Texas House is weak, but that’s okay. And Greg Abbott didn’t want it to happen two years ago, too. But it happened this time, and he’s gonna sign it. These are some great victories. But let’s not kid ourselves. We can bank those victories, we can take them and accept them and put them on the shelf. And also recognize that a three year old child today, if they go to school, and say, Hey, I like a three year old boy, if he says I like that dress, I’d like to wear that dress. There are school counselors that will tell that boy, you could be a girl. Have you ever thought about that? We should talk about that. And then they’ll bring the parents and I think Little Tommy needs a weekly psychology meeting. Let’s Let’s book a meal with a private psychologist. And then those families can go book a psychologist and every single week all those adults can get together and scheme and plot and brainwash this little boy into believing that he could be a girl and that he could become a woman. And that is evil, and sinister and gross and ugly and wrong and shouldn’t be illegal. But it is the School Counselors Association, the state association that represents all of the counselors in the schools, counseling our kids. Ask the legislature publicly testified to the legislature and told them do not pass the gender modification ban. Don’t ban genital mutilation. Because we are grooming these kids their whole lives and then shipping them into the medical system. And they were the reaction legislature was like we’re still going to pass this. But we’re also going to make sure that y’all can keep doing everything you’re telling us that you’re doing. So kids aren’t even entirely protected at this moment in time. Let alone adults. You can go in and change your birth certificate in the state of Texas. The government will participate in your delusion. You can ask the government to give you a document that says you are the opposite sex. That’s insane. Charles Perry passed a bill in the state senate that said you can’t do that. We’re not going to participate in that. The State of Texas is not going to participate in your delusion. Texas House of Representatives killed the bill. Do want to get paid to make a difference? Gen Z is now in Congress. And if you’re between the ages of 18 and 25, you may not necessarily want to be in Congress. But if you still want to fight for the future, we have the opportunity for you. Texas scorecard is Texas leading new source for citizens, and we’re looking for young fighters to join our fellowship program. Texas scorecard offers a paid internship for spring, summer and fall semesters, allowing participants to get their feet wet in the media business. fellows can apply for one of three tracks, writing, research and administration think you have what it takes fells up and leave the program with the opportunity to continue to work full time. There were some other good ones we got one of them is this statewide preemption bill and there is an ETJ annexation by the local government progress we saw this session was immense. Okay, guys, immense. These are policies that we have been fighting to pass for a decade that we passed. And this was the bill that passed Dustin burrows and Brandon Creighton’s bill that passed the Texas House to basically said all of you cities on all these issues, you can’t touch them. You need to stay in your lane. It was the largest, most consequential anti liberal city bill that has passed the Texas legislature in 10 years. And David feeling killed it two sessions ago when he was state affairs chairman, he killed it because he wanted LGBT protections in it. And Brandon Creighton wouldn’t let him do it. So the bill died. And fast forward four years, and we passed that bill clean with no LGBT Q element or P protections. Why? Because guys, we’re changing the political climate in Texas, we are creating an environment where the wrong people have to do the right thing, where they don’t have the leverage to even put those little protections in when David feel and did that he was state affairs chair. And he said you’re gonna protect all these crazy local ordinances on LGBT issues, or I’m not giving you your bill. And the Texas House was such that they let that happen. That was par for the course in the legislature at the time. And it was the middle of a session that everyone had kind of a purple feel. Because Ted Cruz had just barely beat Beto is 2019. And they didn’t want to ruffle any feathers on the social issues. Things are changed, times have changed. You have helped them change your engagement on these issues. Our insistence on talking about it, organizations that have brought this stuff to light, have changed. So now not only do those issues change, but also we’re in a position where we can pass these massive statewide provisions that say, Hey, liberal cities, you need to stop getting involved in all of these things. And it affects the employee employer relationship, it’s actually a huge advantage for businesses that are operating in these cities, regulations, burdensome regulations, and all these companies. So it’s a big deal. There are a number of theory good policies that have passed this session that Texas charter school sociation had some great reform that said all these cities can’t discriminate against charter schools. All these liberal big cities were finding ways to make it harder for charter schools to even build in their area. That’s no longer going to be an option. real substantive victories that will lead to substantive ly good and right things happening in the lives of Texans that we can’t ignore. We should acknowledge, we should be grateful for. And we should also recognize that there is so much left to do. And you know, the sad thing that it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t hard to do most of the things I’m telling you, they failed to do. D transition or language, the legislation that would have said, Hey, if you’re a D transition, or if you’re somebody who was just trying to be made into the opposite sex, your insurance has to cover all of your health care for you to restore your body, which by the way, is a massively painful process. Because sin destroys and these evil people are destroying these children and adults bodies. And then when they go I don’t think I even can become the opposite. Their insurance drops them and they can’t even afford the medication that they need to try to get their body back to some semblance of its beautiful created design. That legislation died on the house calendar because it was placed just low enough by Jared Patterson and Cole, Hafner and Dustin burrows and Shelby Slauson, all the members of the calendars committee, they placed it just low enough so that Democrats could just run out the clock a little bit. It’s sinister, gross, it should disturb you that we play with the lives and bodies of people who have been abused in this way. And so I will be grateful for what we passed, and I will be truthful about what was killed. That’s where we’re at. And the Texas House in their reflections on all that action, do you know what they concluded? Why don’t we just impeach the attorney general, because we don’t want to pay his $3 million settlement. And he’s a political enemy to us. He’s aligned with Dan Patrick. He’s aligned with the Texas Senate, his wife’s in the Senate. He’s aligned with conservatives. He’s been aligned with a lot of conservative organizations were not aligned with these conservative organizations, we as a chamber are like the last bastion of moderate leadership. Let’s just impeach him while we’re here. Right after we kill all these Republican policies with the Democrats, it’s silly. It’s ridiculous. It’s immature, it is desperate. It is the sign of desperation. These are the actions of a desperate man. These are the actions of a weak leader. I honestly feel that I have a little bit of pity for the Republicans in the legislature, who are having to basically be sacrificed by a speaker and his lieutenants, who are very ill equipped to lead this state. We’ve actually had quite a good session on a lot of issues. And we’ve banked a lot of wins, you should be proud of those wins. You should also sobering ly admit that there was a lot left undone and there is a lot to do. I talk about the things that don’t happen because you have to stay focused on them so that you know where to go. But I will tell you that I sometimes get feedback from some of you and feel like you are just in this utter discouragement mindset, and you shouldn’t be there. So I just want to close with a reminder that we are not to be dismayed. That is not our approach. It is not our attitude. And it’s not mine. So if you think that when I go through these lists of things that were undone, that I leave depressed, are defeated. That’s not the case. hB 44 was a huge victory, you know, what the State Representative State House of Representatives did, they killed Senate Bill 177, which was a COVID mandate ban. That was stupid. It’s upsetting that they did it that Stephanie clique, and Dustin burrows, and these people teamed up to kill this bill. It’s ridiculous. But that’s not reason for dismay. It’s not reason to be depressed. It’s not reasons to be disheartened. Two reasons to continue fighting. And realize we had huge victories this session. In some of these arenas, we had bigger victories than we’ve had in eight years. Take a bank of be grateful for him. But recognize that there’s so much more to do and we are not going to stop fighting until it’s done. And by the time it’s done, there’s going to be more we have to do. We are called into this arena to engage. And the cool thing is we don’t really have to sacrifice massively in comparison to what other people have sacrificed for the freedoms that we have. God bless you, and God bless Texas. Thank you for listening to the Luke Misia show. To find out more information about what’s going on here in Texas, visit Texas scorecard.com

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