Y’all-itics: June 26, 2022

Chaos. If the public ever sees the body cam images, security footage and documents related to the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, state Senator Roland Gutierrez thinks that’s all you’ll find. But so far, the Democrat from San Antonio, whose district includes Uvalde, says he’s been stonewalled at every turn in his attempts to obtain those records. In fact, the Senator tells us he was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement before he’d be able to see anything at all. In this episode of Y’all-itics, he explains why he refused and why he’s now suing the Texas Department of Public Safety, which he claims had 91 troopers on scene while the gunman was inside the classroom. You’ll also hear why Senator Gutierrez expects nothing to come out of the hearings held this week by the Senate Special Committee investigating the mass shooting and why he thinks it could take a while for the Uvalde community to regain its trust in law enforcement. And perhaps most importantly, if anything will lead to new legislation when lawmakers return to Austin in January 2023.

Guest

Sen. Roland Gutierrez, (D) San Antonio

Sen. Robert Nichols, (R)

Emergency Y’all-itics: June 24, 2022

Abortion is now illegal in Texas. Our state never repealed any pre-Roe anti-abortion statues, so the moment the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, those became immediately enforceable again. And thanks to our state’s “trigger law,” in 30-days, the penalty will become even more severe, jumping from a misdemeanor to a felony. But this is only the beginning of the story in Texas. As you’ll hear in this emergency episode of Y’all-itics, Republican lawmakers are already planning legislation that would punish businesses that help female employees obtain an abortion. Rep. Briscoe Cain says there could even be legislation that empowers district attorneys to prosecute folks from neighboring counties, if their home county DA decides not to enforce it. Meantime, Democrats call the historic ruling a devastating blow to women that will severely limit access to healthcare. And Rep. Nicole Collier wonders out loud why the same folks who used the argument “my body, my choice” to resist COVID-19 vaccines and masks aren’t making the same argument now. And finally, the Jasons and special guest host Teresa Woodard turn to one of the nation’s premiere constitutional law experts to find out if the Supreme Court’s ruling will put any other rights at risk.

Guests

Rep. Nicole Collier, (D) Fort Worth

Rep. Briscoe Cain, (R) Baytown

Steve Vladeck, University of Texas School of Law

Already this summer, Texans have been asked to conserve energy, just to make sure we have enough power. We’ve already climbed above 100 more than once, and we’re barely halfway through June. And we still haven’t recovered from the devastating winter storm of 2021 that led to the catastrophic failure of Texas’ power grid and hundreds of deaths. So, we had a simple question here at Y’all-itics. Will our air conditioning stay on during what promises to be a brutal summer? We turned to expert energy analyst Alison Silverstein and Senator Nathan Johnson, a leading voice on the power grid in the Texas legislature. They explain why we actually have so much electricity right now in Texas, some generators are losing money, while we’re paying more. It’s only possible because so many of our extra power plants are online, plants usually undergoing maintenance this time of year. And running these plants so hard, for so long, could have devastating consequences come August and beyond.

Guests

Allison Silverstein, Energy Analyst/Consultant

Sen. Nathan Johnson, (D) Dallas

Y’all-itics early release: June 12, 2022

That is the state of public education in America today. School safety is under such threat, many educators say it is all they think about. And after the Uvalde tragedy, it certainly has the attention of students, parents, teachers, lawmakers and just about every Texan there is. While Democrats push gun control, Republicans push the “hardening” of schools. Can common ground even be found? In this special, early release edition of Y’all-itics, we turn to an expert in public education in Texas, Austin ISD Superintendent Dr. Stephanie Elizalde, who will soon take over the same job with the Dallas ISD. The experienced educator who’s worked in some of the largest school districts in Texas tells us whether the proposals being pushed by Republicans would work, from single entrances to arming teachers to random safety checks. She also explains the steps she thinks we should take to keep our kids safe and return to the core mission of public education. It is a wide ranging and engaging conversation led by WFAA anchor/reporter Teresa Woodard, who took over for the Jasons (they are both taking some much needed family time… and we hope you are too during these difficult days).

Guest

Dr. Stephanie Elizalde, Austin ISD Superintendent

Rural Texas counties that are inland and politically conservative have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid that Congress set aside for populated coastal communities that are often underserved. Federal lawmakers had never set aside billions of dollars just to help Texas communities hit hardest by Hurricane Harvey prevent another disaster. But a federal investigation revealed that not only did communities in need get nothing initially, the plan that Texas used to distribute the money was discriminatory.  Some of those dollars, for instance, were going to build a road between a Home Depot and a Wal-Mart in a community hundreds of miles from the Gulf Coast rather than to install better drainage in Houston. So, the Jasons called up David Wheaton, the Advocacy Director at Texas Housers. His organization sounded the alarm and filed the complaint that launched the federal investigation. And they’re now trying to claw back cash owed to some of the least privileged neighborhoods in Houston and surrounding coastal areas.

Guest

David Wheaton, Texas Housers Advocacy Director

www.texashousers.org

Imagine if you get your COVID-19 vaccine through a patch. No needles or syringes. And the patch stays stable at room temperature for months making it easier to ship to low and middle income nations. This is the future of COVID vaccine research and some of the best work in the world is being done inside a lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Their interest piqued, the Jasons called up lead scientist Dr. Jason McLellan, whose work has been integral to all of the leading vaccines against COVID. But it’s where this field is headed that’s truly exciting. They’re trying to figure out a way to go from a genome sequence of a virus to manufactured vaccine in only 100 days. That would be three months, instead of the already historically fast ten months it took to manufacture the COVID vaccines. And even that speedy timeline was only made possible through the work of McLellan and his team. In this episode of Y’all-itics, you’ll hear the stories behind the work that’s saved millions of lives across the globe. And wait until you hear why McLellan’s bid to develop a universal coronavirus vaccine was rejected… FIVE years ago.

Guest

Dr. Jason McLellan, Scientist/University of Texas Professor

Extremes are now more extreme. Record highs and lows are constantly being broken. And the water is already starting to rise along our coast. Scientists say it’s not longer a projection. It is now reality in Texas. The United Nations released an alarming report on climate change earlier this year. And the lead author is from the University of Texas. So naturally, Y’all-itics called her up. And Camille Parmesan very matter-of-factly told the Jasons the goal of the report wasn’t doom and gloom, but factual presentation.

And she says looking strictly at the numbers paints a startling picture. Climate change is not only speeding up, its impacts are more severe than scientists thought even five years ago. But Parmesan says you already know this if you survived the Big Freeze that crippled our power grid for days and left hundreds dead in 2021. We can no longer say “this doesn’t happen in Texas” because it does now.  The Jasons also sit down with award winning WFAA journalist David Schechter who discusses his most recent investigations into climate change in Texas. Things are changing so rapidly, even tornado alley might now be moving.

Watch David’s Reporting:

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/west-texas/planet-warming-effects-behind-oil-production-west-texas/287-5eba6b44-9d84-4d36-836c-d032a02ac53d

https://www.wfaa.com/article/tech/science/climate-change/is-tornado-alley-shifting-what-is-dixie-alley/287-c027113c-752b-4cfd-8d50-5c32394bdf11

IPCC Report: www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/

Guests

Camille Parmesan, UT Professor/IPCC lead author

www.jsg.utexas.edu/researcher/camille_parmesan/

David Schechter, WFAA Reporter

Some of the fallout from Russian’s invasion of Ukraine is now only 250-miles away. But it’s not in Texas. It’s above our heads, up in space. The Russian Federation is threatening to abandon the International Space Station. And it’s a threat NASA must take seriously. Russia is one of five international partners on the ISS, along with NASA, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada. And all four partners outside of Russia are having lengthy and serious discussions about a Plan B. But if Russia does bail on the ISS, would it just drop out of the sky? And how could NASA even begin to make up the loss? In this episode of Y’all-itics, the Jasons call up former Astronaut Chris Cassidy, who’s trained extensively in Russia, with Russians and on Russian equipment. He says one of the first steps following a collapse in cooperation would be to simply close the hatch between the two modules. It would then quickly get complicated. But Cassidy tells the Jasons he thinks the Russians need us more than we need them. And he explains how it might change business at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center near Houston, TX.

Tens of thousands of criminal cases are backing up in courtrooms all across Texas. Dallas County Commissioners say their county is at the point of crisis due to the backlog… and they’re blaming judges. In fact, John Wiley Price says if you average all 17 felony criminal judges, they’re only holding around 12 trials a year. That’s half a normal year. And Commissioners are so frustrated, they are about to start naming names in an effort to “motivate” the judges to clear more cases. In this episode of Y’all-itics, the Jasons meet up with veteran and award winning WFAA reporter Rebecca Lopez. Rebecca’s been following this issue for years and she recently discovered the backlog is about to cost Dallas County tens of millions of dollars. And she has stories about this backlog happening all across the state. Rebecca also tells the Jasons about the growing problem with judges allowing violent offenders to be released on minimal bond.  

Watch Rebecca’s reporting:  

www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-county-commissioners-say-some-dallas-county-judges-are-not-clearing-dockets-fast-enough-creating-huge-backlog/287-d3b87245-5500-448f-8547-bf1195bc99c3

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-police-chief-upset-over-some-violent-offenders-being-released-after-bonds-lowered-by-judges/287-72be5665-6c2d-4b71-bc2d-97e29f8806a2

If you visited downtown Dallas 20-years ago after 5pm, you would have found yourself in the middle of a dead zone. But over the next two decades, downtown Dallas added 20+ acres of parks, a feat no other downtown can match. Four priority parks are the centerpiece of this effort: West End Square, Pacific Plaza, Harwood Park and Carpenter Park, which celebrates its grand opening this week. In this episode of Y’all-itics, Jason Whitely and fellow Dallas resident and WFAA anchor Chris Lawrence have a conversation with Amy Meadows, the CEO of Parks for Downtown Dallas, the driving force behind the greening of Dallas. Amy says the effort has made downtown Dallas the envy of the nation and she shares a cold one with Jason and Chris in the middle of the all of the action and growth. And we learned Carpenter Park added a feature that’s never been downtown before. We think you’ll be as stunned as we were when you hear what it is.

Guest

Amy Meadows, CEO/Parks for Downtown Dallas