Progress Texas Podcasts

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas Republican electeds are uniformly silent at Donald Trump's shocking self-comparison to Jesus Christ over the weekend - however, as of yesterday, the Texas Democratic Party hasn't said much either: https://www.chron.com/news/article/trump-jesus-pope-texas-22203753.php West Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales has announced he's stepping down...

Progress Texas was proud to join our allies at Environment Texas recently for a terrific discussion on clean energy and its intersection with the beautiful, varied and treasured ecologies of our state, at the wonderful Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in south Austin. In this first of two parts: a welcome statement from Andy Sansom, former Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Depa...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Neither of the Republicans running for their party's nomination for Texas attorney general would be better than Ken Paxton - they both, in fact, are looking to accelerate Paxton's right wing crusades: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/13/texas-attorney-general-gop-runoff-overturn-supreme-court-rulings-chip-roy-mayes-middleton/...

The City of Dallas is poised to step into the global spotlight, as the most-watched sporting event on the planet, the FIFA World Cup, arrives in North Texas this summer. At this critical juncture - when the international image of the United States has faced significant challenges and scrutiny due to the recent political climate - and our domestic tourism economy has suffered as a result - Dallas h...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: The victims of the Colony Ridge real estate scam have been left out of a $68 million settlement against the developer who ripped them off: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/09/texas-railroad-commision-bo-french-midland-republican-candidates-forum/ The Texas House Administration Committee will meet today to decide how to enforce $9,200...

The coverage by the Texas Observer, a longstanding and legendary liberal Texas media outlet - of a recent hit piece on Houston State Rep. Gene Wu by the Dallas Express, an upstart, well-funded right wing rag masquerading as a "spin-free" media entity - has us thinkin' about how difficult it has become to tell fact from fiction in the news...and that's before we even start thinkin...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: As focus on the conditions inside ICE lockups in Texas has wavered, detainees remain confined in dangerous, unsanitary and inhumane circumstances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tW7WyzvAtg ...A celebrated doctor from Venezuela - the 2025 "Resident Of The Year" at UT Health Rio Grande Valley - is himself likely being held in si...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas elected officials are calling for Donald Trump's cabinet and the Congress to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment before he starts WWIII - but in reality, that remains highly unlikely: https://www.chron.com/texas/article/texas-lawmakers-trump-iran-22194262.php ...Even Congressman Henry Cuellar is sounding sensible: ht...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A Florida-based private school materials company has used a loophole to score funds from our new voucher scam: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/school-voucher-loophole-florida-virtual-22183576.php The Texas State Board of Education meets today in Austin to discuss a broad agenda: https://sboe.texas.gov/sta...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A crowd of over 2,000 protestors - and speakers of a surprisingly bipartisan range - took part in a Saturday demonstration against purported plans by the Trump administration to build border walls through Big Bend National Park and other sensitive parts of the region: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/05/texas-capitol-protest-b...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Texas oil executives, in a recent industry poll, are both bullish on recent profits and production, but also highly uncertain about future prospects due to the Trump war in Iran: https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/right-on-the-money/how-texas-oil-gas-executives-feel-about-war-with-iran/287-df0ccee4-9c21-4a6e-9e04-3684d348724a ......

Fresh off her recent appearance at SXSW in Austin alongside progressive legend Stacey Abrams, we're proud to have a talk with Skye Perryman: a Waco native and president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a leading legal organization based in Washington, D.C., known for wielding their expert litigation and policy advocacy to challenge executive overreach and protect democratic institutions. Skye was...

We hate to be an "I Told You So", but we did tell you and tell you AND TELL YOU that the decades-in-the-making plan to divert public school tax dollars to exclusive and frequently parochial private schools was not about "educational freedom" - it was about a rebate on the private school tuition that wealthy Texans have already chosen, and a review of the applicants in this firs...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Data from the initial field of applicants for Texas' new private school voucher program shows that the vast majority of them are families whose kids already attend private schools: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/01/texas-voucher-applications-demographics/ Governor Abbott - as expected - is all in on Donald Trump's plan to un...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Donald Trump's executive order undermining mail-in voting will face legal challenges in many states - but probably not in Texas: https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/03/31/donald-trump-2026-midterm-election-executive-order-absentee-mail-ballots-postal-service-citizenship-list/ Governor Abbott has sent out a fundraising letter to sup...

As federal authoritarianism threatens civil rights, immigration, and economic justice, cities are stepping up to defend democracy. If democracy survives this moment, it will be because cities held the line. District 2 Austin City Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes, at-Large Philadelphia City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, and Ward 9 Minneapolis City Councilmember Jason Chavez gathered during SXSW 2026 in...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Ken Paxton has been lobbying hard for the endorsement of Donald Trump, including trips to Mar-A-Lago to brown nose - both he and Senator John Cornyn have also been making huge media buys in Floriday in efforts to make Trump's TV: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas-take/article/ken-paxton-nudge-president-trump-endorse-2215...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: An estimated 8 million people attended No Kings events on Saturday - a solid indicator that Donald Trump and MAGA are in for a rough November: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8wy7g1gd1o ...Things were mostly peaceful but notably, there was one arrest in Dallas resulting from a clash with Proud Boy-type counter-protestors: https://www....

The second pod presentation from last weekend's Harris County Democratic Party Convention is a live take of the panel of featured speakers, who brought incredible energy to a packed ballroom at the University of Houston: 00:55: Host and Harris County Democratic Party Convention Executive Director Jeff Hilton 03:09: Emcee and Lincoln Project Co-founder Rick Wilson 07:15: Harris County Commissioner...

The 11th Congressional District is one of those wildly gerrymandered and gigantic slices of Texas designed to amplify GOP power in rural areas while diminishing the more progressive voices in our urban areas - in this case, stretching from the Permian oil patch all the way through north Austin and Pflugerville. Just so happens, the long-time GOP nominee is August Pfluger, a lockstep Trump puppet w...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Saturday will see over 3,000 No Kings rallies and events held across the country with a new all-time attendance record expected: https://time.com/article/2026/03/26/no-kings-protests-cities-where/ ...About San Antonio: https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-antonio-news/next-san-antonio-no-kings-protest-scheduled-for-saturday-march-28/ ...Abo...

Lately, Jesus has taken the wheel of politics at both the state and federal level - from Pete Hegseth's pastor wishing God's lethal wrath upon James Talarico while his disciple wages holy war in Iran, to Ken Paxton and Kelly Hancock squabbling over how best to discriminate against Texas Muslims, to Dan Patrick's new Senate committee on religious freedom - formed mostly from Republicans...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: A Trump-appointed federal judge has upheld a longstanding Texas law forbidding the carrying of guns into bars, stadiums, school events and other "sensitive places", after Ken Paxton refused to defend a challenge to it: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/judge-upholds-texas-firearm-ban-for-bars-schools-stadiums Austin Congr...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Evangelical Pastor Brooks Potteiger, a close spiritual advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, agreed with a podcast host wish for Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate James Talarico, "that God kills him": https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-news/pete-hegseths-pastor-wants-james-talarico-to-die/ ...Talarico's calm, very Christian response w...

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: That explosion at a Valero oil refinery in Port Arthur comes just as much of the world's supply has been choked off by the bumbling of Donald Trump: https://x.com/jon_rosenthaltx/status/2036266795569459210?s=46 ...Meanwhile, as natural gas shortages and price spikes are hitting Europe and Asia, West Texas oil companies are burning it...