Groveling at the White House: The Border, the Backbone Texas Lacks, and a Save-the-Date

Daniel Miller opened this week’s Late Night Coffee Talk with the image that set the tone for the night: a governor and a lieutenant governor going to Washington to ask permission to protect their own citizens. With Del Rio in crisis and the entire border in shambles, Miller replayed Dan Patrick’s appearance on Laura Ingraham, where the anchor introduced the segment by saying Texas had backed down and reopened the crossings. Patrick’s answer, that Texas acted with full Republican support until the Biden administration said no, became the night’s central indictment. When the federal government fails its constitutional duty to protect a state from invasion, Miller argued, the question is no longer whose fault it is. It is whose responsibility it becomes.

The rant widened from there. Miller tied the border theater to twelve years of promised property tax relief that arrives every session as bills keep rising, and to a Senate that created a border-security committee chaired by Donna Campbell yet never used it this session. His read on the wave of legislators declining reelection, including state affairs chairman Chris Paddie, was blunt: they are in trouble, and trouble is the only thing that makes them act. He also teased a personal announcement set for October 2, the anniversary of the Come and Take It flag, declining to say what it is beyond promising that some people will be happy and some will not.

Then he turned the bulk of the hour over to the chat, where the questions ran from monetary policy to the parallel independence sentiment building in the northern states of Mexico.

Questions answered in this episode

• Would an independent Texas use the US dollar, gold, silver, or something else, and what did the Texas Gold Depository Act already set in motion?
• How long does it take to verify petition signatures once they reach TNM headquarters, and why is the process manual?
• What does TNM membership actually entail and represent?
• Should an independent Texas adopt Swiss-style compulsory service or an all-volunteer force?
• Are we running out of time to achieve TEXIT?
• How should Texas respond to the federal government withholding monoclonal antibodies from Texas and Florida?
• Why not run for governor and make social issues an equal priority with independence?
• If Texas were already free, would you vote to rejoin a union that includes California, New York, Illinois, and Michigan?
• What safeguards would stop a corrupt two-party system from re-forming after independence?
• Is the Mexican government treating Nuevo Leon and Coahuila the way Washington treats Texas, and is there an independence movement there to engage?
• What are the chances of recalling the governor?
• What should be the national anthem of an independent Texas?