Trump Impeachment Listening to, Modifications in Texas Driver License Facilities, Teen Vaping

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Here are the top political headlines from Austin, Washington, the Campaign Trail, and Dallas. If you would like to receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Points from Austin

1. The Texan legislature expressed its frustration on Tuesday at the rise in steam devices among young people and the lack of regulation by the federal and state governments, despite a new law that increased the smoking age to 21 years in September.

“We don’t know where they’re made,” Brenham Republican Senator Lois Kolkhorst, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, said during a hearing. “We don’t know what’s in them and there are no real labeling requirements.”

The use of electronic smoking products known as vaping has triggered an outbreak of lung injuries, according to the Federal Centers for Disease Control.

2. Hours of waiting at driver’s license centers across the state make it impossible for 81-year-old Gayle Kesinger from Dallas to personally renew her driver’s license. Beginning next year, the Department of Public Security plans to take various measures to prevent the fighting that Kesinger and other Texan drivers have faced.

3. On Wednesday, Governor Greg Abbott participated in “Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer?” meme in response to a New York Post story claiming that the Texas Senator “killed” the viral Baby Yoda meme in an earlier tweet. Read the latest part of our story on why people, including Cruz, joke that he’s the California killer.

4. Officials from some of the world’s largest technology companies told state lawmakers on Wednesday that they are working hand in hand with law enforcement to detect and prevent attacks on mass violence. However, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety, police officers said Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies need to be better partners.

Points from the path

1. President Donald Trump has kept his promises like tax cuts and is more in line with Texas voters than anyone the Democrats will nominate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Tuesday.

Democrats have adopted “radical” policies like the Green New Deal that threaten power generation jobs in Texas, Patrick said when he tabled papers in Austin to officially put Trump in next year’s election in the state. Bob Garrett was there to share what Patrick predicted in 2020 about the Democratic field.

2. Sometimes the writing on the wall is so bright and indelible that even the most determined candidate cannot ignore it.

Sen. Kamala Harris’ sudden exit on Tuesday leaves the Democratic field for the president much less diverse, despite Todd writes that it extends the candidacy of two color candidates: Julián Castro, the only Hispanic in the race, and Sen. Cory Booker, who is black.

3. A Houston area GOP representative who said two of its main opponents were running because they were “Asians” drew sharp reprimands from Governor Greg Abbott and other party leaders on Tuesday, then announced that he would pull out Withdraw policy.

Points from Washington

1. The House Justice Committee opened a new chapter on impeachment in a controversial hearing on Wednesday in which legal scholars briefed lawmakers on standards of corruption and abuse of power that deserve impeachment.

“It doesn’t matter that President Trump was caught and ultimately released the funds Ukraine so badly needed. It is important that he hired a foreign government to intervene in our elections at all,” argued Chairman Jerry Nadler, DN .Y.

The Republicans resisted the trial, accusing the Democrats of verbally abusing a president for political reasons.

2. Becky Welch seemed to be imminent with an exemption from tax legislation that inadvertently placed a financial burden on the Wylie mother of two, along with thousands of other Gold Star families whose loved ones had died in the military.

The Senate led by the GOP had passed a fix. The Democratic-run House had done the same thing, turning a similar correction into a more comprehensive bill. The two chambers only had to settle their differences.

Six months later, nothing has changed, leaving Welch and others with broken bank accounts as Congress proves unable to find a simple solution that will have universal support within both political parties.

3. Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday honored an Irving police officer for creating a program of dialogue between the department and the community. Officer Jon Plunkett’s Shop Talk initiative uses barber shops as a backdrop for police and African American community members to have honest conversations about Irving policing.

4. Legislature has taken a small but significant step to erect a memorial in the country’s capital to the long-forgotten diplomatic efforts of the Republic of Texas, the independent state that has become the Lone Star State.

5. Despite her controversial past, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he still has at least the appearance of a relationship with Trump. Kuban told comedian Kevin Hart that he is still getting unsolicited calls from the president asking for his thoughts on the stock market.

6. At a time of party political divisions over gun control, some lawmakers are enacting a 2018 bill to strengthen the FBI’s background checking system.

Todd takes

Todd J. Gillman is the head of the Washington office for the Dallas Morning News. He has covered government and politics for decades, from Dallas to DC, and is a board member of the White House Correspondents Association. Here Todd offers his recording from Washington.

During Wednesday’s impeachment hearing, Louisiana Republican MP Mike Johnson read a tweet on the file from First Lady Melania Trump that one of the Democrats’ witnesses, Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, was shamed for being the president’s son had called when she would than. To be a despot who cannot be answered for the farmers.

And then Johnson immediately tweeted a brag about his minor procedural performance: “I just got unanimous approval to put this on the file.”

Golly.

The joke in question: “While the President can name his son Barron, he cannot make him a Baron.”

The Trump campaign called her comment “gross,” and the first lady tweeted, “An underage child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of yourself for being very angry and obviously biased in public and using a child for this. “

Thanks to Johnson this is now in “the record”. It’s almost as if they think voters are watching judges in a high school debate tournament taking copious notes and saving a number of arguments that have not been refuted.

One day a diligent historian will “dig up the record” and search it for glimmering nuggets of truth. Until then, it has pretty much nothing to do with how it all turns out.

Points from Dallas

1. Was the October 20th tornado in Dallas a disaster? Federal emergency officials have not yet said this, and millions of relief supplies are at stake. It could all depend on whether the government pays to replace some old traffic signals, reports Robert Wilonsky.

2. Mayor Eric Johnson’s letter calling for an immediate crime plan surprised many in the city, including council members, former law enforcement officials and some members of his community task force. Some wondered Wednesday if this signaled a shift in confidence in the Dallas Police Department’s fight against violent crime.

While a mayor’s request for a crime plan is not uncommon, it was a brave move by Johnson to issue a public letter outlining his complaints about the police’s response, observers said.

3. A change to allow voters in Dallas and Tarrant counties to vote at every polling station appears to be slow to take off. Most in Dallas and about half in Tarrant this fall opted to vote in their traditional district rather than using statewide voting, according to new data from election officials. Both districts have to submit an application by now to make the changes permanent.

4. Almost seven months after its CEO and President resigned after a damning audit at City Hall, VisitDallas has a new head: Craig T. Davis, who heads the Pittsburgh Tourism Promotion Agency. He has to sell VisitDallas to the city council, which will decide early next year whether to renew his contract or start over.

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