Progress Texas Podcasts

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...

Senator Nathan Johnson of Dallas is a business attorney and music composer by trade, and has served the people of Senate District 16 since 2018, when he became the first Democrat to take that seat in decades - displacing since-perennial gubernatorial loser Don Huffines. Thanks for listening! Learn more about how you can support our important work at ⁠https://progresstexas.org/donate⁠ .

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The Austin Chronicle has published a nice, multi-issue preview of the upcoming Legislature, set to begin next Tuesday: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2025-01-10/with-trump-taking-office-the-texas-lege-is-unleashed/ Pro-Dustin Burrows GOP Rep. Cody Harris of East Texas has filed a complaint against Texas Republican Party Chair Abraham Ge...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says his company is abandoning its efforts at fact-checking, and moving its content moderation operations to Texas - a move apparently meant to appease Donald Trump: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/07/texas-meta-content-moderators-fact-checking/ ...Texas also provides legal cover for social media platforms who pr...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Republican Party Abraham George have started a tour of the state designed to intimidate GOP lawmakers into voting for Mansfield Rep. David Cook for Speaker next week: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/paxton-issues-warning-to-texas-house-republicans-in-bitter-speaker-battle/ Elon Musk and Tesla want to h...

Our series of conversations with Democratic lawmakers in Texas continues with State Representative Vikki Goodwin, who is set to begin her fourth term at the Capitol as the 89th Texas Legislature gets underway. Rep. Goodwin has represented parts of Austin, Bee Cave and the Lake Travis area since she flipped her seat from red to blue in 2018. During that time, she's been a strong advocate for progre...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Today's certification of the election of Donald Trump provides a surreal beginning to a troubling new era: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5066046-trump-insurrection-pardons-betrayal/ ...Even some Republicans in Congress, at least at this point, appear hesitant about the widespread January 6 pardons Trump has promised: https://apnews....

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Despite right-wing attempts to drum up anti-immigrant fear over the New Orleans terror attack, the alleged perpetrator was a born and bred native of Texas: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/crime/article/new-orleans-attacker-houston-ties-20010254.php Elon Musk's push for more foreign tech workers to be brought to the U.S. un...

Collin County Democratic State Rep. Mihaela Plesa - the only Romanian-American elected official in the country! - joins us for our continuing series with state lawmakers on the impending 2025 Lege. Rep. Plesa is one of the youngest elected lawmakers in Texas, and will be entering her second term in the Texas House after becoming the first Democrat to represent her district in decades - she's a Dal...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The passing of President Jimmy Carter at the age of 100 prompts a look back at his impact on Texas, where he remains the last Democrat to have carried the Lone Star State: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/29/texas-remembers-jimmy-carter/ Elected leaders of both parties in Texas extol Carter's legacy: https://www.fox7austin.com/video/15689...

Richardson State Rep. Ana-Maria Rodriguez Ramos is an educator and family law attorney by trade, but has served in the Texas House ever since she flipped a Republican-held seat in 2018. Since then she has a stalward progressive fighter at the Capitol, advocating for women's rights, LGBTQ+ equality, immigrants' rights, and much more. We welcome Rep. Rodriguez-Ramos back to the pod as part of our se...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas transplant Elon Musk, already leading Donald Trump by the nose, has waded into German politics to back the extreme right-wing party AfD: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/world/europe/elon-musk-afd-germany.html The AfD, similar to American MAGA elements, is supported mainly by lower-income and disillusioned Germans: https://www.bloombe...

Representative Donna Howard has represented Austin in the Texas House since her initial win in 2006 - for almost two decades, she's been a stalwart progressive standard-bearer across every issue imaginable, but in recent years has been notable as a fierce fighter for our reproductive rights, bolstered by her own professional background in nursing and healthcare. Thanks for listening! Learn more ab...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Republican Fort Worth U.S. Congresswoman Kay Granger, missing from her post in D.C. since the early summer, has been located under the care of a memory care facility - a situation that her staff appears to have concealed: https://www.wfaa.com/video/news/politics/questions-swirl-after-congresswoman-kay-granger-misses-votes-lives-in-senior-faci...

This is one of several episodes in a pod series previewing the upcoming 2025 Texas Legislative Session with a range of Democratic lawmakers. Texas State Senator and Senate Minority Leader Carol Alvarado has served in that body since 2018, following a decade of service in the Texas House representing the southeast Houston area. Senator Alvarado is known for her hard work and advocacy in public heal...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: With each passing hour, a partial shutdown of the federal government during the busy Christmas travel season thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump's interference is looking more likely: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congress-has-two-days-avert-shutdown-after-trump-rejects-spending-bill-2024-12-19/ ...Seven Texas Republicans joined the De...

Great fun at The Finch in Mockingbird Station in Dallas earlier this week for the second of our two holiday parties for 2024! Like our first pod from the Austin shindig, settle in and meet our Dallas guests, who had great things to say about determination and courage for Texas progressives as a challenging new chapter begins next month. Our holiday fundraiser was very successful, and we are gratef...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas transplant Elon Musk, apparently running things for Donald Trump, is pressing Republican members of Congress hard to strike down a stopgap measure that would keep the federal government running over the holidays: https://www.axios.com/2024/12/18/elon-musk-government-shutdown-bill-doge ...Texas Congressman Chip Roy is totally down for a...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas transplant Elon Musk has come under scrutiny by multiple federal agencies for his failure to properly disclose his interactions with foreign governments: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/technology/elon-musk-spacex-national-security-reporting.html ...Musk is suspected of having failed to provide required information on his meetings wi...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Ken Paxton's lawsuit against a doctor based in New York who prescribed and delivered abortion-inducing drugs to a Texas woman may lead to consequential decisions about how U.S. states regard the laws of other states: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/12/texas-new-york-doctor-abortion-lawsuit-civil-war.html ...New York Governor Kathy Ho...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Republican House Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City in Starr County is excited that a new concentration facility for migrants rounded up by Donald Trump's deportation operation will provide economic opportunities for his county: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/12/16/potential-trump-texas-deportation-partnership-puts-spotlight-on-rural-...

U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett has been an elected fighter for Texas progressive people and causes for almost five decades, having become a member of the Texas Senate in 1973, an Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court in 1989, and a member of the U.S. House in 1994. Most recently, he's been notable as the first sitting federal official to have called for President Joe Biden to step aside...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas transplant Elon Musk, hard at work trying to slash federal jobs and your Social Security benefits, is also keeping hundreds of millions of dollars that his Musk Foundation is required by law to convert to charitable donations: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/us/politics/musk-foundation-taxes-donations.html ...Musk's efforts at DOGE j...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A new academic study shows that Republicans are much more likely to spread information that they know to be false than Democrats are: https://www.ama.org/2024/12/09/study-republicans-respond-to-political-polarization-by-spreading-misinformation-democrats-dont/ A judgement of over $14 million against ExxonMobil for violations of the federal Cl...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas GOP machine choice David Cook and establishment-defying Dustin Burrows both claim to have enough votes to become Speaker of the Texas House - Burrows in particular is flirting with disaster: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/dustin-burrows-david-cook-texas-house-speaker-19971639.php ...Burrows has started calli...