Good morning,

Back from our annual staff retreat, I wanted you to be among the first to know about an important decision that will be announced later today.

First... here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Thursday, October 10, 2019
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• Check out the Fox News article written by Russ Vought, the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House: “this administration has been laser-focused on rolling back the abuses and high cost of the regulatory deep state.”
     
• This is the real reason why the swamp is trying to depose President Trump.
      
• At 9 a.m. today there will be a meeting in the Metroplex of the House Select Committee on Mass Violence Prevention & Community Safety. Or, as Chris McNutt of Texas Gun Rights describes it, “a gun control hearing.” The meeting will be at the Brookhaven College Performance Hall in Farmers Branch.
      
• “The committee is stacked with anti-gun voices, so it’s paramount law-abiding gun owners show up and deliver a simple message: No gun control, no deals!” – Chris McNutt
      
• Taxpayers in Texas’ most populous county will avoid a proposed tax hike because two commissioners decided to “skip” the court’s most recent meeting. Brandon Waltens reports that by declining to attend the meeting, Harris County Commissioners Jack Cagle and Steve Radack denied Democrats the opportunity to raise the tax rate.
       
• Well done! Their action is a reminder that knowing the rules matters.
          
• Kelly Neidert writes that conservatism is under fire on campus. She explains in a new commentary the difficulty in establishing a chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas on the campus of the University of North Texas.
         
• In a new commentary, Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute explains why it is important to understand how former Vice President Joe Biden’s son secured a questionable and lucrative career opportunity—for which he wasn’t at all qualified—in an economically unstable region that played a key role in U.S. foreign policy. 
      
• Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of Texas Scorecard’s Capitol Correspondent Destin Sensky. Today, join me in wishing a very happy birthday to Charles Blain, an Empower Texans’ alum and founder of Urban Reform.

• As has been widely reported, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Republican Party of Texas Chairman James Dickey have all requested that the recording of my meeting with House Speaker Dennis Bonnen be released despite not listening to it themselves. This is the meeting in which Bonnen made a quid pro quo offer he hoped I couldn’t refuse.
      
• By way of recap, the recording was made for my personal protection against Speaker Bonnen’s wild temper and publicly demonstrated propensity to lie. Certain statements by Speaker Bonnen could cause harm or embarrassment to individuals and their families, while other statements he made could be used by Democrats to undermine the GOP. 
      
• But because these Republican leaders continue to call for the recording to be made public and I have been given the green-light to do so by my legal team, later today I will announce that the audio will be released next week.

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