Politics with the Big Dogs Podcast

Sid Miller said he did not vote for Greg Abbott.I am.But supporting the Republican nominee does not require us to pretend bad policy is good policy. On Texas data centers, Miller’s warning deserves an honest hearing.Data centers get the deal. Texans carry the risk.Texas worked aggressively to become a center of artificial intelligence and data-center development. Abbott promoted that goal, state leaders backed it and qualifying projects received valuable incentives.The biggest is a temporary exemption from Texas’ 6.25% state sales and use tax on eligible purchases. Local sales taxes still apply, but the state cost is enormous. The comptroller projected roughly $3.2 billion in foregone revenue over the 2026-27 biennium.That is real money.Jobs and investment are good. A growing technology sector can be good. But free enterprise does not mean government picks which billion-dollar companies get relief from a tax ordinary Texans still pay.The burden is not limited to the tax code. Data centers demand extraordinary amounts of electricity and water. That creates legitimate questions about grid infrastructure, local resources and who pays for expansion.Abbott has now pivoted. In 2026 he directed state regulators to protect residential ratepayers, ordered an audit, paused permits and said he would ask the Legislature to eliminate data-center incentives.Those actions matter. So does the timing.Texas voters are entitled to ask why it took a political revolt to force a review of policies state leaders spent years promoting.Twelve endorsements became 10Abbott’s campaign opened early voting by announcing endorsements from 12 Democratic sheriffs, most from South and West Texas.That was a powerful headline. It was not the final count.Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar was removed after Abbott’s campaign called his inclusion a mistake. Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez separately said he had not endorsed the governor. That left 10 verified names.The correction matters. So does the remaining support.Ten elected Democrats backing a Republican governor still says something important about border security, public safety and the weakness of Gina Hinojosa’s position with some law-enforcement leaders.Both facts can be true. Serious voters should be able to hold both at once.The Bush break is realNeil Bush says he voted for Democrat James Talarico over Republican nominee Ken Paxton. Barbara Bush, the daughter of former President George W. Bush, gave $2,500 to Lone Star Rising, a pro-Talarico super PAC. Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan says he will skip the Senate race.Those are not rumors. They are public choices.I see an establishment wing of the Republican Party refusing to accept the result of a primary it lost. Others will describe the motives differently. What cannot be disputed is the effect: prominent Republicans are helping Talarico in a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate.Conservatives have spent decades being told to fall in line after the primary. Apparently that rule was never meant to apply to the people who wrote it.Temporary power cannot become permanent powerTexas was designed to have a weak governor. Authority is divided and the Legislature meets for only 140 days every other year. That structure is not an accident. It is a safeguard.Abbott’s border disaster proclamation began May 31, 2021. A ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation found it had been renewed or amended at least 69 times, including 21 times during President Donald Trump’s current term.Disaster authority can suspend ordinary rules, move money and permit noncompetitive contracts when they are tied to a qualifying emergency response. An emergency can justify temporary action. It cannot become a permanent workaround for normal, accountable government.This is not Abbott’s failure alone.All 181 Texas legislators have a duty to protect the authority voters gave them. Republicans control both chambers. If they believe in limited government, they must defend it even when the person accumulating power has an R beside his name.Hezbollah says the explosives are theirsLebanese authorities stopped a truck carrying 780 kilograms — about 1,720 pounds — of explosives, including roughly 550 pounds each of TNT and C-4.A Hezbollah lawmaker publicly acknowledged that the Iran-backed group owned the vehicle and cargo. He said the explosives were intended for use against Israeli forces and demanded that the materials be returned and the detainees released.That audacity tells us how deeply Hezbollah has embedded itself in Lebanon’s political system. A terrorist organization can claim military-grade explosives in public and expect elected officials to defend the demand.Americans can debate tactics in the Middle East. We cannot afford to ignore the reach of Iran and its proxies.

A viral political claim raced across social media: Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico had received treatment at an Ohio mental health facility.The claim was false.The Lindner Center of Hope said Talarico had never received treatment there. Talarico said he had never been to Ohio. The Associated Press found that the timeline and images from the relevant period did not support the claim.That correction is not a victory for the left. It is a test of whether conservatives value truth enough to protect our own credibility.In this week’s Politics with the Big Dogs, Current Revolt publisher Tony Ortiz joins me to reconstruct how the story spread, explain what the full phone call contained and examine the cost of turning a weak claim into a national political distraction.What the full call showedThe viral post relied on a short excerpt from a phone call to the Ohio facility.Tony obtained the full call. In that longer recording, the employee repeatedly said there was no patient by Talarico’s name. Near the end of the call, after the caller continued pressing, the employee suggested he might have checked out. That final statement became the viral clip.It did not establish that Talarico had been a patient.The facility later removed any remaining ambiguity by stating that Talarico had never received treatment there.The issue is not whether any person should seek mental health care. There is no shame in getting help. The issue is whether the political claim was true.It was not.Credibility is political capitalMy concern extends beyond one bad story.Talarico has a legislative record. Conservatives have serious disagreements with his positions on taxes, parental authority, education and government power. Those arguments should be made directly and supported with evidence.When Republicans promote a claim that falls apart, we hand our opponents an easy response to every legitimate criticism that follows.“We’ve eroded our own credibility,” I said in the episode.A movement that wants voters to trust it with government power must first show that it can be trusted with the facts.Texas races are tighteningThe conversation then turns to the Nov. 3 election.Tony expects Republican Ken Paxton to defeat Talarico, although he believes the margin could be closer than Republicans have grown accustomed to seeing in a statewide race. He also notes that some political professionals he speaks with are more optimistic about Republican numbers than he is.Those are predictions, not results. The latest UT/Texas Politics Project poll showed several statewide contests within the margin of error, including the Paxton-Talarico and Abbott-Hinojosa races.We also examine several contests farther down the ballot:Monica De La Cruz against Bobby PulidoBrandon Herrera against Katy Padilla StoutTano Tijerina against Henry CuellarLeigh Wambsganss against incumbent Taylor RehmetCompetitive Texas House races that could shape the next speaker electionCampaigns at the top of the ticket affect every Republican and Democrat beneath them. Nobody gets to skip the work.School choice meets its first accountability testCurrent Revolt has also examined the Texas Education Freedom Accounts marketplace, which is managed by Odyssey.Approved expenses include bilingual classes, taekwondo lessons, pilot-training books and musical instruments. Those examples do not establish fraud or misuse. They do raise policy questions about how the state defines an educational expense, how vendors are approved and whether one program administrator should control the marketplace through which families spend public funds.More than 274,000 applications were submitted, and more than 100,000 awards were made in the program’s first year. The initial appropriation was $1 billion for the 2026-27 school year.I support educational competition and parental choice. Tony is more skeptical of the program. We agree on one essential point: Families and taxpayers deserve a clear system that produces better education.“If it’s a good policy and a good program, we ought to open it up for everybody,” I said.Huffines draws a line on Flock fundingThe final segment turns from political credibility to government surveillance.In 2023, Texas lawmakers raised a motor-vehicle insurance fee by $1 to combat catalytic-converter theft. The Texas Tribune later reported that at least $30 million from the program helped fund at least 3,200 Flock cameras across the state.Abbott’s office announced an Aug. 28 pause in state funding for local Flock camera grants.On Oct. 13, Comptroller Don Huffines issued an order prohibiting all future grants administered by his office from being used to purchase or contract for Flock cameras, automated license plate readers and related vehicle-identification systems.The order does not remove cameras already operating across Texas. It does not ban local governments from using other funds to purchase the technology. It does stop future comptroller-administered grants from financing those systems.I support the action and ask a direct question: Why should Texans pay a state fee that helps local governments build searchable records of where Texans drive?Law enforcement agencies point to stolen-vehicle recoveries, missing-person cases and violent-crime investigations as legitimate uses of automated license plate readers. The constitutional questions concern warrants, retention, access, audits and data sharing.Security is not a blank check.Results, not headlinesHuffines’ order is an example of a measurable policy outcome.Republican leaders should be judged by the same standard across state government: Did the policy lower a tax bill? Did it protect a constitutional right? Did it improve a school? Did it make government smaller, more transparent or more accountable?That standard also shapes my criticism of Gov. Greg Abbott.I praise Abbott where I believe the governor has acted correctly. I also believe too many major announcements have failed to produce the results promised to working Texans, particularly on property taxes, insurance costs, electricity and the growth of state government.The Texas Business Court deserves the same factual precision I demand elsewhere. It is not a court solely for insurance companies. It generally has concurrent jurisdiction with district courts over listed business disputes worth at least $5 million, and claims concerning duties under an insurance policy are excluded. Its judges are appointed by the governor, confirmed by the Senate and serve two-year terms. Abbott reappointed 10 judges in July.My concern is the structure: Are short terms and executive appointments the right model for judges deciding consequential business disputes?That is a debate worth having on the facts.Early voting began Oct. 19Texas voters will decide the races discussed in this episode on Tuesday, Nov. 3.Early voting began Monday, Oct. 19 and continues through Friday, Oct. 30. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day.Verify your registration, polling location and election information through VoteTexas: https://www.votetexas.gov/Listen the full episode, then tell me which measurable result you want from the next Texas Legislature.

Texas Rep. Briscoe Cain is facing a defamation lawsuit from a former Crosby ISD teacher who says his social-media posts helped trigger online harassment and cost her job.Jacqueline Marie Brookreson is seeking more than $100,000 in damages. Her lawsuit alleges that Cain falsely accused her of mocking conservative activist Charlie Kirk after his assassination and made other defamatory claims about her views and conduct as a teacher.Cain’s public position is that he shared information already visible on Brookreson’s public social-media pages. He told Houston Public Media that his purpose was to alert parents to teachers he believed should not be in the classroom.In this episode of Politics with the Big Dogs, Anthony Holm explains why the case raises a difficult but important question: When does forceful political criticism of a public employee remain protected speech, and when can it become legally actionable defamation?The filing is an allegation, not a judgment. Brookreson will have to prove the elements of her claims, and Cain will have an opportunity to answer them and assert any available defenses.Abbott spends big as the governor’s race tightensThe lawsuit is only the beginning of a politically packed episode.Gov. Greg Abbott began 2026 with roughly $105 million in his campaign account and has now spent more than $130 million in his bid for a fourth term. Democrat Gina Hinojosa entered the race with far less money, but recent public polling has shown a surprisingly close contest. Some surveys have placed Hinojosa narrowly ahead, although the results remain within the margin of error.Anthony remains skeptical that Abbott will lose. He points to the governor’s enormous financial advantage, statewide name recognition and past performance in South Texas. But the amount Abbott has spent—and late Democratic investment in Hinojosa—suggests that neither party is treating the race as an ordinary Texas landslide.That makes the central political question unavoidable: Is Abbott paying for routine statewide dominance, or is he spending at historic levels because voters have grown tired of the same leadership?Huffines moves against another Texas taxActing Comptroller Don Huffines announced another change with a direct effect on Texas patients and medical providers.Huffines signed an executive order directing the comptroller’s office to amend its rules so that electronic health records, patient portals and related health-care technology systems are not treated as taxable information or data-processing services. The office argues that the prior interpretation stretched a tax rule written in 1987 far beyond what lawmakers intended.The move followed Huffines’s earlier announcement that certain fees charged by online marketplaces and app-based platforms would no longer be taxed as data processing.Anthony’s praise is straightforward: When a tax is not clearly authorized by the Legislature, ambiguity should be resolved in favor of Texans—not the tax collector.The rule-change process still matters. The executive order directs the agency to publish a proposed amendment, which is subject to the normal administrative process before the change becomes final.A consequential Supreme Court termThe U.S. Supreme Court has opened a term filled with disputes that could reshape individual rights and government power.The justices are considering cases involving state bans on semiautomatic rifles, local climate-damage lawsuits against oil companies, immigration enforcement and whether Colorado may exclude a Catholic preschool from a public funding program because of its admissions policies.A challenge to Texas’ law requiring the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms has also been presented to the Court, although a petition asking the Court to hear a case is not the same as a case already accepted for full review.Anthony connects the federal docket to a broader concern about Texas courts: Voters must pay attention not only to who writes the laws, but also to judges who interpret them and determine whether injured citizens can reach a courtroom.Can Republicans hold the Texas House?Republicans currently hold 88 of the Texas House’s 150 seats. Midterm history, a difficult national environment and several vulnerable districts put that majority under pressure.Anthony does not expect the kind of wave that would erase the Republican majority. His forecast is that three to five additional Republican seats could fall, with the most favorable outcome limiting losses to two or three beyond the seat he already expects Democrats to gain.He credits Speaker Dustin Burrows and House leadership with beginning their political work early, raising substantial money and supporting endangered members across the conference. That does not erase Anthony’s policy disagreements with the speaker, but it shapes his assessment of the electoral operation.The answer will arrive soon. The more important question comes after Election Day: If Republicans retain control, what will they do with it?

Cornyn, Paxton and the accountability test for Texas RepublicansTexas Republicans are approaching Election Day with two problems: difficult races on the ballot and a widening fight inside their own party.U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, defeated by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate primary, says he will not help Paxton fundraise for the general election. Cornyn argues that Republicans risk losing when they nominate candidates he considers flawed. Paxton’s supporters see something different: a longtime party leader refusing to support the voters’ nominee against Democrat James Talarico.In this episode of Politics with the Big Dogs, Anthony Holm asks whether that refusal is a principled judgment or evidence that parts of the Republican establishment still have not accepted the primary result.The dispute arrives as Republican leaders monitor a broad group of Texas House races. Some districts are genuinely competitive. Others may be appearing on internal lists because party leaders are planning for an unfavorable political environment. Anthony’s larger question is whether voter frustration comes only from national conditions or also from policy decisions made in Austin.Colleyville’s Flock restrictionThe accountability question extends beyond campaigns.Current Revolt reported that the Colleyville Police Department changed two settings in its Flock account on Aug. 19. According to an event log obtained by the publication, the department removed immigration from the search reasons available to its own officers, then activated a filter blocking immigration-related searches by outside agencies.That disclosure raises competing questions about privacy, local control and immigration enforcement. If license plate reader systems are too intrusive, Texans deserve clear limits on their use across the board. If local governments permit thousands of outside searches, they should explain why one law-enforcement purpose is treated differently from others.The cameras also have a connection to state policy. Texas lawmakers approved an increase in a motor-vehicle insurance fee that helped fund license plate reader networks. Anthony argues that legislators cannot claim surprise at the surveillance system after voting for the revenue stream supporting it.What Huffines is changingTexas Comptroller Don Huffines announced Sept. 30 that his office is changing the tax treatment of fees charged by online marketplaces and app-based platforms.The change applies to marketplace and platform fees connected with services such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, food delivery, ride-hailing, short-term lodging and pet care. The comptroller describes the existing treatment as an improperly created double tax.Precision matters: The change does not eliminate ordinary Texas sales tax on every product purchased online. It addresses whether the fees charged by marketplace and service platforms should themselves be treated as taxable data-processing services.Huffines’ office must complete the rulemaking process, including a public comment period. Anthony credits Huffines for using the comptroller’s authority to reduce a burden he believes the Legislature never clearly imposed.When an AI agent leaves the sandboxThe final major segment examines the language technology companies use when artificial intelligence systems act beyond their assigned boundaries.In July, OpenAI says models undergoing cybersecurity evaluations circumvented controls intended to isolate them from the internet, compromising parts of OpenAI’s research infrastructure and systems belonging to Hugging Face. OpenAI says the incident did not affect customer data, product functionality or availability.The confirmed event is serious without exaggeration. An AI agent is software designed to pursue a goal with some autonomy. A sandbox is an isolated digital environment designed to limit what software can access. Misalignment generally describes behavior that departs from the developer’s intended objective or constraints.Anthony argues that those technical terms can make consequential failures sound harmless. His legal question is direct: If a company deploys or tests an agent that causes damage, who is responsible?That question will become more urgent as governments and businesses give automated systems greater access to data, communications and essential infrastructure.Why Texans should careWhether the subject is a Senate nominee, a surveillance network, a tax rule or an AI system, the principle is the same: Power requires accountability.Political leaders must answer for their policy choices. Local governments must explain how surveillance data is shared. Agencies must remain within the authority granted by law. Technology companies must be responsible for the systems they create and control.Texans should demand clear rules before institutions fail — not explanations after the damage is done.

Public records, party loyalty and road safety may sound like separate debates. In this week’s Politics with the Big Dogs, Current Revolt publisher Tony Ortiz joins Anthony to talk about the same issue running through all three: Texans cannot hold power accountable if they cannot see how it is being used.The conversation begins with Flock license plate readers and a public-records campaign that spread across Texas. It moves into Republican leaders breaking with their own party’s nominees before the Nov. 3 election. It ends with federal action against 110 commercial driver’s license training providers and hard questions about what Texas regulators missed.What the Flock records showedCurrent Revolt gave readers a template containing nine public records questions and encouraged them to send it to their cities. The responses revealed both the reach of the system and how difficult public scrutiny can become.Carrollton provided records showing 605 organizations on its Flock sharing list, according to Current Revolt’s review. Police in 21 other states shared cameras with Carrollton, while 485 Texas agencies received access to the city’s data feed. Colleyville sought $11,826 before processing one request. Forney later quoted $33,453 for the same nine questions.Those figures do not mean that 485 agencies were actively following one person. They do show how quickly a local camera network can become a much larger information-sharing system.Police departments point to stolen-vehicle recoveries, missing-person cases and violent-crime investigations as legitimate uses for automatic license plate readers. Anthony and Tony acknowledge those benefits. Their concern is what happens after the image is captured: Who may search it? How long is it stored? Which agencies may receive it? Is a warrant required?Flock says its license plate readers capture vehicle information and do not use facial recognition. That distinction matters. So does the larger constitutional question surrounding access, retention, audits and sharing.When accountability collides with party loyaltyThe episode then turns to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, Republican nominee Nate Sheets and Democratic nominee Clayton Tucker.Current Revolt reported that the Miller and Tucker campaigns published similar AI-generated Labor Day graphics. A screenshot from Tucker’s campaign also showed a browser tab for the same Bible verse Miller shared that day. Ortiz asked both campaigns whether they were sharing staff members, vendors or volunteers. Neither responded.That is not proof of a shared operation. It is a fair question made more significant by Miller’s refusal to endorse Sheets after losing the Republican primary and his appearances with Tucker.The party-loyalty debate is not limited to that race. Republican strategist Karl Rove said he would support Democrat Jon Rosenthal over Republican Bo French for the Texas Railroad Commission. The episode examines whether rejecting a nominee protects a party’s principles or helps its political opponents acquire power.Anthony and Tony also assess the U.S. Senate contest between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, the lingering role of outgoing Sen. John Cornyn and the risk facing Republican candidates farther down the ballot.The Texas House mathIf Republicans lose several state House seats in November, the effects will extend beyond individual districts. A smaller majority would alter the vote count for legislation, constitutional amendments, committee decisions and the 2027 speaker election.Anthony and Tony discuss Speaker Dustin Burrows, who entered office with Democratic support but presided over a session that won praise from some of his former conservative critics. Both believe Burrows is better positioned to retain the speakership than his early opposition might suggest. The unanswered question is how many seats Republicans will hold when the next House convenes.What federal CDL enforcement foundThe final segment returns to an issue with immediate public-safety consequences.Federal officials removed 110 CDL training providers from the national registry. The providers were associated with more than 5,000 drivers who failed to demonstrate English proficiency, according to reporting cited by Current Revolt.Current Revolt found that 14 Texas truck-driving companies operating 18 training yards were part of the action, tying Texas with Pennsylvania for the most affected companies. Three additional Texas locations were removed two weeks later.Anthony completed commercial driver training himself. He explains why reading road signs, understanding warnings and communicating with police officers and inspectors are not abstract requirements when a driver is controlling a vehicle that may weigh 80,000 pounds.Training rules matter. So do the consequences for schools, companies and regulators that fail to enforce them.Read the reporting behind the conversationCurrent Revolt has built its audience by reporting on Texas political stories before they reach the broader news cycle. Paid subscriptions are a major source of support for that work. Visit: https://www.currentrevolt.com/Texas voter registration deadline: Oct. 5Texas voters will decide the statewide and legislative races discussed in this episode on Tuesday, Nov. 3.The official deadline to register is Monday, Oct. 5. Early voting runs Oct. 19-30.Check your registration even if you have voted before, especially if you recently moved or changed your name. First-time applicants may begin the application online, but generally must print, sign and return it to their county voter registrar. The Texas Secretary of State recommends acting early because postal-processing changes can affect postmarks. https://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/