Progress Texas Podcasts

Our weekly meeting of the minds sees the PT debut of Tarrant County political strategist Gabe Rivas, who is currently running for the Precinct 2 seat on the Tarrant County Commissioner's Court - a post he's assisted the beloved Alisa Simmons with for some time. Loads to discuss as always, so strap in people. Learn more about Gabe and his campaign at https://www.gaberivasfortarrant.com/ . Thanks fo...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Polling released this week shows an uphill battle for likely Democratic nominee and State Rep. Gina Hinojosa against Governor Greg Abbott in November, with a gap of about 8 points: https://www.newsweek.com/gina-hinojosa-chances-beating-greg-abbott-flip-texas-gop-poll-11366360 ...Abbott is sitting on a massive war chest of $106 million: https:...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Texas House Democratic Committee reports a record $2.2 million fundraising windfall in 2025, fueled largely by the summer Democratic House quorum break: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/01/15/texas-house-democratic-caucus-2-2-million-fundraising/ New Emerson College polling shows a nine point lead for Austin State Rep. James Talarico ove...

The recent Trump move against Venezuela, even at this early stage, is already a model for disastrous geopolitical planning. Did we really need to disrupt a neighboring country by plucking away its leader, in order to seize oilfields full of substandard oil and in a complete state of infrastructure decay - at a moment when there's a glut of supply? While that baseline answer might seem clear, the s...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Tarrant County Democratic Party, following Republican administrative challenges against 7 of its judicial candidates by the Tarrant GOP, has responded by challenging 43 Republican candidates: https://fortworthreport.org/2026/01/13/tarrant-democrats-seek-to-remove-all-gop-judicial-2-texas-house-candidates-from-ballot/ ...All of this amount...

With the eyes of Texas progressives across the state focused on the March primary and the November midterm general election in November, voters in parts of Fort Worth and Houston may have missed hugely important runoff votes coming up in just days. Both Texas Senate District 9, encompassing the northern portion of Tarrant County, and Congressional District 18 in Houston have runoff elections on Ja...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: As more and more confrontations between regular citizens and ICE pop up on our screens, it's important to understand your rights - and how ICE is likely to violate them: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article314293265.html ...The difference between the power ICE has over you, and that of local police or sheriff's department of...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Protests spurred by the ICE killing of Renee Good last week continued to grow across the country over the weekend, including in Texas - where one protest Saturday in Austin drew a confrontation with Texas DPS and Austin Police: https://www.kut.org/austin/2026-01-10/ice-austin-tx-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-protests-renee-good ...Polli...

Another insane, and incredibly dark first full week of 2026 - let's hope it's not setting a permanent tone. Regardless, we plow forward into this crucial midterm election year together - and we're joined this week to talk it through by CD-33 Democratic candidate Zeeshan Hafeez of Irving. Learn more about Zeeshan and his run for Congress at https://www.zeeshanfortexas.com/ . Thanks for listening! L...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Protests have begun across Texas in reaction to the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday, including Houston: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/trending/article/renee-nicole-macklin-good-ice-protests-houston-21283230.php ...And Dallas: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2026/01/08/emergency-prote...

We couldn't be more excited about Progress Texas' new effort to partner with great community radio stations across Texas, which has started with the legendary KPFT in Houston carrying our weekly "In Progress" roundtable talk on Sunday mornings at 11. Podcasting Director Chris Mosser was featured on the KPFT program "The Midterms" on Tuesday morning by host and Houston attorney Earnest Wotring, and...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The brutal killing of 37-year-old mom Renee Nicole Macklin Good yesterday by a masked ICE agent in Minneapolis is a warning to the entire nation - the Trump machine is now unafraid of openly murdering its opponents: https://apnews.com/article/ice-shooting-minneapolis-minnesota-9aa822670b705c89906f2c699f1d16c5 Early voting in the March primary...

One of the big early stories of 2026 is a lawsuit filed against the Texas Education Agency or TEA and its commissioner Mike Morath by the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's primary union of public school educators, in response to the attempted purge of teachers who were targeted for their views expressed online about Charlie Kirk and his murder last year. Texas AFT...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers has filed a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency and Commissioner Mike Morath over their efforts to smear and fire teachers over comments made on social media about Charlie Kirk: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/us/american-federation-teachers-charlie-kirk-lawsuit.html Potential...

Our first Happy Hour of the crucial midterm year features our first conversation with veteran and Dallas attorney Tony Box, whose experience in the military, with the FBI during 9/11, and as a lawyer working both sides of the "vs" makes him an interesting Texan indeed. Tony is the third candidate to join a crowded Democratic Primary for the open Texas Attorney General seat, including for...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Dr. Peter Hotez, Texas' top medical hero, recommends that parents ignore nonsensical new childhood vaccine recommendations coming from the Trump administration, and instead rely on the expertise of their kids' doctors: https://www.tpr.org/bioscience-medicine/2026-01-05/texas-expert-says-changes-to-childhood-vaccine-schedule-are-a-grave-mistak...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The reactions from elected leaders regarding the plucking of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from power predictably fall largely on party lines: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/texas-politicians-react-to-venezuela-operation-21274471.php ...Dallas State Rep. Venton Jones got stuck in St. Maarten due to Venezuelan airspace restriction...

On this very first episode of our weekly roundtable session, we try to get positive for once - this time we go around the horn and talk about the ways in which all of us plan to up our political game in the all-important mid-term election year of 2026! If you've already blown your regular resolution, never fear - there's still time to rise to the political challenges we ALL face in this cr...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: As of New Year's Day on Thursday, SB-8 takes effect, requiring Texas sheriff's offices with jails to enter into immigration enforcement partnership agreements with ICE: https://www.kut.org/politics/2025-12-30/new-texas-laws-2026-taxes-immigration-ai ...Also Thursday, if you rent your home, your rights against your landlord have been eroded by...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Chris returns from a Christmas trip to New Orleans hoping to host Mayor-Elect Helena Moreno sometime next year: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/us/new-orleans-mayor-helena-moreno.html Last week's SCOTUS call against deploying Texas National Guard troops into Chicago is the right call - considering how Texas would likely react if the tables...

'Twas a year of high highs and low lows for Texas progressive types, and as we roll through the holidays and steel ourselves for what looks like exciting prospects in the midterm year of 2026, we look back on both the Texans that gave us hope - and the Texans who gave us heartburn - in the 2025 rundown of the five best and five worst Texans of the year. Thanks for listening! Learn more about Progr...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock is asking Attorney General Ken Paxton for legal cover to exclude private schools with ties to CAIR or China from the state's new private school voucher program: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/paxton-islamic-schools-vouchers-21257343.php The recently-unsealed divorce records betwe...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: New Quinnipiac University polling paints a dismal picture for Donald Trump - but also dissatisfaction among Democrats with their own party: https://www.kvue.com/video/news/politics/texas-this-week/new-polling-shows-voters-intentions-ahead-of-2026-midterm-elections-texas-this-week/269-51e19d7c-319b-40df-8408-11c9ffdba478 ...Trump's lack of dis...

As we wind down another wild week, we recap the news and prepare for the upcoming holiday break. In an era when conservative Christians are weaponizing Christmas into a culture war cudgel, what deeper meaning can progressive folks take away from the Nativity story? We dive in for our regular Friday hang. Thanks for listening! Learn more about Progress Texas and how you can support our ongoing work...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The U.S. House of Representatives closes down for the holiday after passing a Republican healthcare bill that does not protect ACA subsidies - all Texas Republicans voted for it, and all Texas Democrats voted no: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/19/texas-republicans-congress-health-care-obamacare-subsidies-2026-midterms/ ...Less unity amo...