Progress Texas Podcasts

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Lawsuits against technical moves made by Elon Musk and his team of hackers that have exposed sensitive data are gaining steam: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/federal-workers-sue-opm-elon-musk-takeover.html ...Musk and DOGE's disruption of USAID has potentially derailed a new HIV vaccine, and has disrupted programs to mitigate mal...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: No surprise that the Texas Senate has fast-tracked approval of SB2, Governor Abbott's private school voucher scam, to approval: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/05/texas-senate-school-voucher-vote/ Austin saw hundreds turn out for Texas' share of the national protest against the Trump administration's policies organized in all 50 states y...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Dallas Rep. Jasmine Crockett was a prominent voice yesterday as lawmakers and civilian protestors rallied against Elon Musk's "hostile takeover" of the financial systems of the U.S. Department of Treasury: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/democrats-protest-elon-musk-treasury-washington ...Crockett notes that the Trump administr...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Protests against Donald Trump and Greg Abbott's immigration policies and deportation efforts have begun rising across Texas, including Houston: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/immigration/2025/02/03/512709/hundreds-march-through-west-houston-in-opposition-of-immigration-policy-changes/ ...And Conroe: https://www.khou...

Engaged progressives across the Lone Star State know Ground Game Texas as our state's most active advocacy organization in the realm of marijuana decriminalization, with initiatives driven all the way to ballot box success in a wide range of Texas cities, both big and small. You might not know that Ground Game has expanded those winning strategies into the areas of reproductive justice, electi...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Elon Musk and DOGE have been granted access to the highly-sensitive payments system at the heart of the U.S. Treasury Department: https://abcnews.go.com/US/treasury-dept-elon-musks-team-access-federal-payment/story?id=118380399 ...Senator Elizabeth Warren, top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is demanding answers from new Treasury Se...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Donald Trump says he plans to follow through with applying a 25% tariff to all goods imported from Mexico starting Sunday - consumers in border states like Texas will feel the pinch immediately: https://thehill.com/business/5117233-trump-mexico-canada-tariffs-threat/ East Texas freshman GOP State Rep. Brent Money has filed legislation that wo...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: 13 U.S. House Republicans from Texas - more than any other state - are among the 67 members of their party who are co-sponsors of H.R. 722, which would establish a national ban on abortion: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/722/cosponsors ...More on H.R. 722: https://thistleandmoss.com/p/hr722-the-republicans-try-to-ban?...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Hard to know where to start in evaluating the devastating impacts on Texas that Donald Trump's freeze on federal spending would have: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/28/texas-trump-federal-spending-freeze/ Several Texas Republicans in the U.S. House have presented bills designed to codify recent Trump executive orders into permanent law:...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: In spite of renewed federal border control efforts, a very low current flow of migrant traffic at the border, and after $11 billion wasted - Governor Abbott has deployed more Texas National Guard troops to Operation Lone Star: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-gov-greg-abbott-deploys-hundreds-more-troops-texas-mexico-border/ ...San Ant...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A variety of federal agencies began "enhanced targeting operations" against, so they claim, undocumented immigrants presenting criminal threats across Texas, including Austin and San Antonio: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/26/texas-immigration-deportation-ice-austin-san-antonio/ ...Also in North Texas and the Rio Grande Valley: https://...

The Progress Texas staff were pleased to be a part of today's forum of five of the candidates to become the new Chair of the Texas Democratic Party in March. We gathered for a quick post-event recap - enjoy and keep it here for future forums.

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Upending over five decades of tradition, but right in line with their anti-democratic MAGA fanaticism, the Republican majority in the Texas House voted yesterday to ban Democrats from chairing committees: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/23/texas-house-republican-committee-chairs/?utm_source=Texas+Tribune+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9a17...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The welcome challenge to the MAGA distortion of Christianity by Bishop Mariann Budde during the Trump inauguration proceedings casts new light on attempts by Texas GOP lawmakers to force that distorted vision into public life in Texas: https://thebarbedwire.com/2025/01/22/texas-is-on-the-path-to-even-harder-right-christian-supremacy/ Budget d...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: San Antonio is one of the cities said to be in the crosshairs for ICE's renewed push for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants: https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/immigration-raids-texas-trump-20046972.php ...The expansion of dentention facilities in Texas and other states - to the benefit of private prison companies - is...

Stories we're following at Progress Texas: Right out of the chute, as promised, a flurry of executive orders from Donald Trump - many of which will face immediate legal challenge: https://apnews.com/article/trump-day-1-executive-orders-3a035a0bbd37b5c12630b92c8c8a9625 We bid godspeed and offer our admiration and gratitude to Cecile Richards, who died yesterday at home at the age of 67: https://the...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Seven employees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have been fired under suspicion of breaching the data and stealing the service funds of thousands of low-income Texans who rely on their services: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/17/texas-hhsc-food-stamp-fraud-data-breach/ Amarillo anti-choice activist judge Matthew Kacsma...

This Saturday, a terrific opportunity to express your frustration and channel your anger over the second Trump inauguration into action arrives with the Women's March in Austin, this Saturday January 18 at 9am, starting from historic Huston-Tillotson University. Lead Organizer Jen Ramos joins us to provide the details on the event, why it's important moving into Trump 2.0, and how you can get invo...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: President Biden's farewell address include warnings against disinformation actors now set to take power at the federal level: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/us/politics/biden-farewell-address.html ...Over the Biden term, Ken Paxton racked up over $6 million in legal bills - on the tab of Texas taxpayers - suing Biden's administration: htt...

In this final installment of our series of talks with Democratic lawmakers, coming to you on the first day of the 89th Texas Legislature, we wrap up with Rep. James Talarico of the Austin area, a Williamson County native who was first elected to represent House District 50 in 2018, and survived an attempt by Republicans to draw him out of the picture via redistricting by achieving reelection in Di...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: In defiance of the Texas Republican Party, three dozen House GOP electeds voted along with most of the Democratic minority yesterday to elect Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock House Speaker: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/14/dustin-burrows-david-cook-texas-house-speaker-vote/ Several Democratic House members declined to vote for Burrows, w...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The 89th Texas Legislature opens today! First act in a likely long and dramatic drama: the selection of a House Speaker, which may not go the way anyone thinks: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2025/01/13/jason-villalba-the-texas-speaker-race-can-still-usher-a-surprise/ ...Ken Paxton, in his zeal to unify Republicans in support o...

Texas State Representative Erin Zwiener of Driftwood, one of the youngest members of the Legislature, has a resume full of fun facts: prior to her political life, she was a contestant on Jeopardy! four times, winning over $53,000. She later got involved with the Indivisible movement after the 2016 Trump win, challenged Republican Rep. Jason Isaac for his seat while she was pregnant, won that year'...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Steve Bannon, arguably the master designer of MAGA, has announced intent to "take down" Texas-based billionaire and current Trump puppetmaster Elon Musk: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/5081681-steve-bannon-says-he-will-take-down-the-truly-evil-elon-musk/ Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller may be on...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Ken Paxton has filed a second lawsuit against TikTok, alleging that they have far exceeded their stated limits on questionable content being made available to minors, and more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2025/01/09/texas-sues-tiktok-alleging-platform-is-dangerous-for-minors-enables-harmful-content/ ...The platform may not be ava...