Daniel Miller opens the last Late Night Coffee Talk before Christmas in a foul mood, and he names the source. A congressman combing through the 1.7 trillion dollar Omnibus spending bill surfaced a provision that says federal funds cannot be used to acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities, while still permitting money for Border Patrol processing. Miller reads it as a confession in black and white. The federal system, he argues, just told Texas in writing that it will process the people crossing but it will not stop them. Every Republican who signed onto the bill in the Senate owns it, which is why he refuses to file this under a Democrat problem. It is a federal problem, and he says it strips the mask off anyone still insisting the federal government can be reformed.
He reaches for history to make the point. When Stephen F. Austin went to Mexico City on a peace mission and was thrown in jail, he came out saying they had declared war. Miller puts the Omnibus in that lineage, a message that there is zero intention of averting the crisis, and he lays the burden back on Austin. Short of independence, he wants the state to fully militarize the State Guard, shift funding from the National Guard, open enlistment, and post a Border Protection Force on the line with rules of engagement that answer cartel fire. The cleaner answer, he says, is to let the people be the backbone the elected officials refuse to be: put independence to a vote.
Before the questions, Miller works through the week’s other fights. The TNM’s email provider quietly unsubscribed or removed 35,000 to 40,000 contacts overnight, forcing a migration to a new platform and another pitch for the TNM mobile app as a way to cut out the middleman. He walks through the open warfare inside the Republican Party of Texas, with Reps. Jeff Leach and Jared Patterson turning on RPT chairman Matt Rinaldi, and ties it to accountability: planks 33 and 225 both call for a vote on TEXIT, and lawmakers wearing the team jersey are ignoring them. He also marks the exit of Chris Paddie, the State Affairs chair who buried House Bill 1359 last session, now censured by his county party and lobbying for an energy company while even Dan Patrick torches his record on the grid.
Questions answered in this episode
- With the Facebook lawsuit still active, do you expect Facebook to reinstate censorship of TNM links or retaliate some other way?
- Where does the supporter count stand now, and how do I check the current number?
- Can you address the El Paso mayor calling on the UN to supervise the Texas border in place of the state?
- Have you reached out to Rep. Tony Tinderholt in House District 94 in Arlington?
- With more online activists coming on board, how do we combat political amateurism and the credibility gap?
- Do we have what is required to get the TEXIT bill before the legislature?
- Has the TEXIT movement stalled?
- Governor Abbott promised to send troops to the border before his reelection, so why hasn’t he?
- Does TNM have a plan to work with Texas Constitutional Enforcement or other like-minded groups?
- After reading the Consolidated Appropriations Act, why would anyone not want TEXIT?
- Will TNM seek TEXIT endorsements from other countries?
- Does Texas really take in more federal dollars than it pays in taxes, and how do we get to honest numbers?
- Is Governor Abbott on board with the Texas Nationalist Movement?
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