The Texas Observer

They refused to tell us what actually happened there.

And just as happened in 2024 during the presidential campaign here, where the Baker Institute says there's going to be an alliance between Moreno cartels, and they say that to the Texas Observer, and the Texas Observer dutifully writes it down in their ridiculous interview with Tony Payan, and then that's picked up by Reforma down here.

We had something similar here.

We have this ridiculous State Department document whatever with a poll whatever, which is then selectively and carefully leaked to NewsNation.

A dedicated natural gas plant on site serving the Stargate campus.

The Texas Observer has been documenting this.

This is a fundamental shift from how data centers have worked for 20 years.

The old model was you find cheap land, you call the local utility, you negotiate a big power purchase agreement, and you plug into the grid.

Evaporative cooling, which uses enormous amounts of water, or closed-loop liquid cooling, which uses less water but costs more up front and adds a lot of plumbing complexity.

The choice of cooling technology determines the water bill, and in a drought-prone region, the water bill is a community flashpoint.

The Texas Observer has documented local complaints about water competition.

This isn't theoretical.

Davila grew up in Port Isabel.

He's now a reporter at the Texas Observer and says specifics matter.

No matter how many times the mayor of Brownsville or its former city manager said that this would benefit Brownsville, it is something that is in Port Isabel and is going to impact residents in Port Isabel more, just like it already is.

The Port of Brownsville will also reportedly soon be home to the first petrochemical refinery built in the United States in 50 years.

So good fences make good neighbors, right? So in 2006, something happens.

I'm reading here from a Texas Observer article from 2017.

Enter the subject of our episode, Art Martinez de Vera.

At the time, Martinez de Vera was an ambitious third-year law student at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, a local boy with a penchant for Texas history and right-wing politics.

Yes.

So in 2017, she told

the Texas Observer in 2017, Quote, this is one of the worst things I've ever done, she said of being mayor.

I've never dealt with such angry people.

Hassan Piker.

Can we just say, like, Hassan streams, like, 14 hours a day, and that they have to point to something that was, I mean, in the almost previous decade, and they can't really point to anything else as... shows how impeccably well behaved he is it's total bullshit I don't know but yeah Griscom and I did a left reckoning for folks check that out we talked about Houston folks should check this out Sam Ressig has a piece in I believe the Texas Observer about the Houston mayor Whitmire I forget what his first name is not Whitmer but Whitmire and which I anyway Check that out.

A great discussion of another example of why moderates are bad at governing and

shouldn't be trusted by

We are going to be talking about Houston, Houston's mayor.

Really, really wonderful cover story of the Texas Observer.

Great to have Sam on.

We'll jump right over to that.

And we are joined by my good friend and comrade, Sam Rusick.

Sam is a writer and researcher at the New Republic.

He has an incredible new cover story in this edition of the Texas Observer.

And if people didn't know, Sam was also the editor of my book, The Myth of Red Texas.

And maybe that's like an internal dialogue that's happening that I know a lot of folks are having to do as we kind of hype ourselves up to do things that are scary.

But when I started writing about this, It was my first article for the Texas Observer was a cover story slated to be published the week of the September 11th attacks.

Oh, wow.

Right.