Good morning –

Our investigation into China’s targeting of the Texas Legislature continues… and a border patrol agent says Texas needs to “secure the front door.”

All that, and more, in the Texas Minute for Thursday, August 25, 2022.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

• Let’s be candid… this has become your favorite email of the day 😎. So don’t keep the Texas Minute and Texas Scorecard a secret, share it with your friends and family!

Federal Judge In Texas Blocks Biden Abortion Order

• Katy Drollinger reports a federal judge in Texas has put a hold on Joe Biden’s executive order circumventing state law on abortions. The move represents yet another legal victory for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against the Biden administration.

‘Secure The Front Door’

• Testifying before the Texas Senate, former Border Patrol Agent Frank Lopez Jr. believes the Lone Star State can and should do more to stop the ongoing invasion. Sydnie Henry has the details.
     
• Lopez described the state’s current work, Operation Lone Star, as “​​slapping Band-Aids on a gushing arterial wound.”
   
• “What I have seen with my own eyes, and what I have documented, is illegal aliens crossing over and turning themselves over to DPS or to the National Guard, only to be turned over to the Border Patrol to be taken to a processing station [and] handed over to an NGO,” said Lopez.
     
• “We must secure the border. Instead of catching and releasing, we should be preventing and repelling.” – Frank Lopez Jr.

H-E-B… Backing Down Or Scrubbing History?

• Either way, it is a win for parents!
   
• San Antonio-based grocery giant H-E-B appears to be responding to outrage over their sponsorship of drag shows targeting kids. As Brandon Waltens discovered, H-E-B is no longer listed (after the fact) as a sponsor of an Austin drag show.
   
• Texas Scorecard first exposed the company’s activities earlier this summer, along with publicizing the far-left politics of its CEO. 

🇨🇳 China Has Its Eyes On The Legislature

• The communist Chinese government wants to spy on you… and they have been lobbying the Texas Legislature for permission to do so. Robert Montoya examines China’s attempts to influence the Legislature in the latest entry in our series documenting their infiltration of the Lone Star State.
   
• Previous installments of this series have looked at operatives for the Communist Chinese Party buying up Texas land and infiltrating the state’s schools and universities. This week is focused on their political engagement.
   
• Call it the Drone Wars. Back in 2019, two companies – Amazon and DJI – tried to push through changes that would have expanded drone usage and the data they can collect. These efforts were defeated, thanks in large part to State Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R–Arlington).
     
• You know Amazon and its cozy relationship with the communist party in China. DJI is one of Amazon’s allies. DJI is Da Jiang Innovations, which has been funded by the Chinese Communist Party. DJI supplies 80 percent of the drone market in North America, and their work is found in software for public safety, agriculture, infrastructure, and energy production. 
     
• A military veteran, Tinderholt explained why the presence of DJI’s drones are matters of national and state security. “DJI was asked in an interview, ‘Do you ever give the data from these drones to the Chinese government?’ Meaning do you give any of the video footage that’s uploaded to the cloud? And the answer is yes.”
     
• The Chinese government really wants their high-end drones in the U.S. Tinderholt says the CCP was caught “dumping” DJI’s drones on the market. That is, the company had a $10,000 drone, the CCP dumped $7,000 into it, thereby lowering the selling price to $3,000. 
      
• In the 2019 legislative fight, Amazon and DJI lobbied up to help push through their goal of widening drone usage and capping restrictions. Among their lobbyists was Adam Goldman, the brother of influential State Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Fort Worth).
      
• “It’s crazy to me a Chinese company, so closely aligned with the Communist Party, could even be able to hire a lobbyist in Austin,” said U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden (R–TX). “It’s even crazier to me that any American citizen, much less a patriotic one, would even consider taking them on as a client.”
      

• The original bill was killed by Tinderholt, only for the issue to be revived again when an attempt was made to amend a different piece of legislation with language pushed by then-State Rep. (now State Sen.) Drew Springer (R-Muenster) and supported by Amazon and DJI.
     

• This effort failed as well, but it appears DJI is gearing up for another fight in 2023. Will Texas lawmakers give China a surveillance win?

📺 Kambree: Parents Are Under Attack

• In the latest episode of her show, Kambree Nelson discusses the way leftist ideologies are creeping into Texas classrooms.

Belton Parents Protest ISD Inaction

• After a year of arguing with officials over sexually explicit books in students’ libraries, families in Belton Independent School District are protesting the trustees’ failure to act on their concerns about exposing kids to material many consider pornographic. Erin Anderson has the details.

       

• Frustrated by the board’s inaction, parents have called on trustees to set new district policies for reviewing and removing age-inappropriate and educationally unsuitable books, as well as policies for vetting books before they go to library shelves.

      
• “I bet y’all hoped that this issue would fizzle out,” Tricia Richner told school board members in a public hearing. “One year ago, we brought to your attention these inappropriate books. There is simply no context where sexual relations between children are appropriate.”

🔊 What Went Wrong With America?

• In the latest episode of the Liberty Cafe, Bill Peacock takes a look at how America has gone from a constitutional republic focused on liberty to a centralized administrative state seeking to control everything we say and do.
   
• Get the show on our website or anywhere you listen to podcasts, such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Your Federal & State Lawmakers

The districts displayed here should reflect those recently redrawn by the Legislature. Though the new lines do not take representational effect until 2023, they will appear on the 2022 ballot. Please note that your incumbent legislator and/or district numbers may have changed.