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 ...
Jun 27, 2022•39 min•Ep. 161
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 Our state never repealed any pre-Roe anti-abortion statues, so the moment the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, those became immediately enforceable again.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 lawmaker...
Jun 24, 2022•47 min•Ep. 160
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...
Jun 20, 2022•39 min•Ep. 159
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...
Jun 13, 2022•30 min•Ep. 158
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...
Jun 07, 2022•36 min•Ep. 157
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...
May 30, 2022•37 min•Ep. 156
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...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 155
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 d...
May 17, 2022•36 min•Ep. 154
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...
May 10, 2022•44 min•Ep. 153
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 ...
May 02, 2022•46 min•Ep. 152
Doesn’t it just seem worse this year? Many of us are still in sticker shock over our property appraisals, so this episode is all about how to reduce the amount of property taxes you pay. Turns out, your odds of winning that protest might be greater this year than ever before with half of the houses in Texas potentially overvalued. Wheeler is back for this one as the Jasons call up Chandler Crouch, a realtor and an expert on protesting your property tax value. Chandler explains how to not only pl...
Apr 25, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 151
Will Texas Governor Greg Abbott run for president in 2024? Will he win re-election this November? What drives the 64-year-old politician and expert fundraiser? Does he get along with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick? In the May edition of Texas Monthly , executive editor Mimi Swartz carefully and comprehensively lays out the political rise of Greg Abbott and asks the question; how much do Texans really know about Greg Abbott? He is running for his third term as the state’s leader after serving three t...
Apr 19, 2022•46 min•Ep. 150
Texas simply fails when it comes to taking care of foster children. Sure there are success stories that should make us all proud. But the state, admittedly, has too many major problems with it and no one has indeitified a workable solution. WFAA’s Cynthia Izaguirre has covered this issue for years. On this episode, Cynthia joins host Jason Whitely for a frank conversation. They called Heidi Brugel Cox, a family law attorney with firsthand knowledge of the state’s system. And Cynthia and Jason go...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 149
Looking for that next, great technology breakthrough? Maybe the next Uber or Airbnb? Supporters of Blockchain technology say look no further than the real estate industry. They claim Blockchain is democratizing real estate by opening it up to average, everyday citizens who can buy and sell real estate like rich folks. And they say they can do this because Blockchain makes transactions more secure and, most importantly, cheaper. In this episode of Y’all-itics, you’ll hear some of the major player...
Apr 04, 2022•42 min•Ep. 148
In his first interview of record since getting released from federal prison, Dwaine Caraway gets into everything on this special episode of Y’all-itics . Caraway, at one time, was among the most powerful politicians at Dallas City Hall. He spent more than a decade on city council and served briefly as the 60th mayor of Dallas. But he resigned and pleaded guilty to taking $450,000 in bribes. Now after serving a four-year prison sentence, Caraway is working on his comeback. He talks to host Jason ...
Mar 31, 2022•44 min•Ep. 147
Get ready for an raw, insightful, and in the weeds conversation about how Latinos might save the U.S. democracy. Mike Madrid, co-founder of The Lincoln Project, and Chuck Rocha, senior strategist for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, get into the nitty gritty of The Latino Vote – which is also the title of their new podcast series. In this episode of Y’all-itics, the two veterans of national political campaigns explain why candidates have finally started to communicate directly with Latino...
Mar 29, 2022•44 min•Ep. 146
It may seem like a world away. But experts say the crisis unfolding all along Ukraine’s border will eventually find its way to Texas. And in this special release of Y’all-itics, we take you to Moldova, a small country to the southwest of Ukraine, that’s also Europe’s poorest. If the same number of Ukrainian refugees that have flooded Moldova, percentage-wise, suddenly crossed into Texas, it would be the equivalent of around three million people, with just under a million or so deciding to stay. ...
Mar 24, 2022•33 min•Ep. 145
SYNOPSIS: This week marks one month since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Most of what we see and read about it is focused on military movements. But Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is still bustling with more than two million people who have not evacuated. In this episode of Y’all-itics, we called a 24-year-old photojournalist who decided she wanted to document what is underway. While air raid sirens are a regular occurrence, life in Kyiv is not what you’d imagine. Madeliene Kelly describes coffee st...
Mar 22, 2022•36 min•Ep. 144
What if your natural blonde or red hair suddenly meant you couldn’t get that job you always wanted? Or what if that same hair color got you suspended from school if you refused to change it? African-Americans say they’ve been fighting this type of discrimination for hundreds of years. And an attempt to ban race-based hair discrimination recently failed in the U.S. House of Representatives with 188 Republicans voting against it. Known as the CROWN Act, similar legislation here in the state of Tex...
Mar 15, 2022•33 min•Ep. 143
Le Roy Torres remembers the last words his Sergeant Major told him; Don’t give up the fight. There are at least 31,000 Texans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and came home with rare cancers, debilitating headaches and severe breathing problems after inhaling toxic smoke from piles of trash that the U.S. military burned at most every large base. Torres’ symptoms got so bad that he had to leave his position as a Texas state trooper. After years of persistence, the U.S. House of Representatives...
Mar 08, 2022•38 min•Ep. 142
Tuesday night brought some surprises in the Texas primary elections. The top of your November ballot is already decided. Greg Abbott will face Beto O’Rourke for governor. But runoffs will settle a number of other big contests including the Republican race for Texas Attorney General. Joining the Jasons for this podcast is a team of Texas political experts who have context and analysis on the results. What did the results say about the state of the Texas GOP? Can Texas Democrats finally win a stat...
Mar 02, 2022•44 min•Ep. 141
When it comes to war, everyone seems to lose. But Texas could come out a big winner if our oil and gas industry have to step in and help supply energy to Europe that has regularly relied on Russia. The oil patch in West Texas is already seeing increased demand as we come out of the pandemic. But war could now accelerate it. In this episode, Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, predicted that state taxes generated by oil and gas revenues are likely to lead to a windfall...
Mar 01, 2022•57 min•Ep. 140
In this special episode of Y’all-itics, a former colleague puts us in touch with a Ukrainian mother who wants to speak to an American journalist. Maryna, 41, decided not to evacuate and is now stuck at home outside Kyiv with her 8-year-old daughter. In this compelling interview, Maryna gives a ground level description of what life is like as Russia invades. She and her daughter have about a week’s worth of food and supplies. They do not have a firearm, only a knife. And as a trained pharmacist, ...
Feb 25, 2022•26 min•Ep. 139
$150 Million in tax revenue in 2021. $53 Million into education. More than 8,100 growers. More than 2,200 dispensaries. And it’s estimated that 10% of the population now has a medical marijuana card. In just a few short years, medical marijuana has become big business in Oklahoma, a state that is far more conservative than Texas. And now, our neighbors to the north are poised to become major players in the global marijuana industry. But here in Texas? Crickets. Could, or should, Texas follow Okl...
Feb 22, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 138
The right-wing is trying to takeover public schools. Texas superintendents are quitting. Boards have banned books. The once obscure term Critical Race Theory is now part of our lexicon. Why is public education under attack? Who’s behind it? And how did we get here? In this episode of Y’all-itics some pastors are now pushing back. The Jasons put down their pint glasses after seeing an evangelical group tangle on Twitter with a sitting Republican Congressman over this issue. Scrolling further thro...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 137
Can Ken Paxton survive without a runoff? The Republican race for Texas Attorney General appears to be tightening. For the first time in recent memory, the GOP primary for the state’s top cop is crowded with high profile candidates. And three weeks before the March 1 primary, the gloves are off. George P. Bush, Louis Gohmert and Eva Guzman all recently joined our weekly political program Inside Texas Politics and didn’t hold back (Ken Paxton declined our invitation to join). They went after each ...
Feb 08, 2022•53 min•Ep. 136
It is the siren song of Texas: lower taxes, more land and more jobs. And it’s luring folks from all over. But is our promise too good to be true? And can policy keep up with this explosive growth? In this episode of Y’all-itics, hear the confessions of a Texas transplant. The Jasons are joined by a recent transplant whose family moved here from a NYC suburb thinking they were about to experience Texas-sized savings. But reality on the ground is proving to be much more expensive for many Texas ne...
Jan 31, 2022•59 min•Ep. 135
Have you recently quit your job? Wanted to quit? Still plan to quit? We ask because in recent months, Texas has been racking up huge numbers of job quitters. In just three months, 1,280,000 Texans said I quit…I resign…see y’all later…take this job and shove it. It looks like many of them aren’t headed to South Padre to kick back at the beach…or to the Texas Hill Country to sip wine and hike the rolling hills. Many of them have just headed right across the street to a new employer who will pay th...
Jan 24, 2022•27 min•Ep. 134
We are celebrating a Y’all-itics first this week! This episode if the first Y’all-itics recorded before a live audience, both in-person and virtual. It was all part of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, with County Judges and County Commissioners meeting in College Station for three days to discuss policy and politics. If you want to get a pulse on Texas politics, this would be a great place to start. So, that’s exactly what the Jasons did. While they discussed everything from property taxe...
Jan 18, 2022•48 min•Ep. 135
From ambulances to airlines, school buses to paramedics, and garbage pickup to water main breaks. The latest wave of COVID in Texas is, fortunately, not killing as many people as other variants. But Omicron is certainly disrupting many aspects of our daily lives. Despite your job title, many Texans are picking up new responsibilities at work as businesses and governments try to remain open. In this episode of Y’all-itics, the Jasons call up Hallie Stewart, the North Texas Operations Manager for ...
Jan 11, 2022•41 min•Ep. 134
