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A group of civil rights organizations filed a new lawsuit this week seeking to stop parts of the law that would let state police arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. We’ll have more about the law and why it’s been paused.
Infowars, long home to Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, shut down quietly over the weekend. It’s the latest in what’s been a years-long back-and-forth with the satirical publication The Onion over the property.
An Austin Shakespeare company is starting a new era after losing their home theatre.
Also, the sounds and impacts from Austin’s music scene go far beyond the city limits.
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The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] A group of civil rights organizations filed a new lawsuit this week, seeking to stop parts of the law that would let state police arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. More about the law and why it’s been paused, and the Infowars platform, long home to Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, shut down quietly over the weekend. It’s been a years-long back and forth with the satirical publication The Onion Over the Property. We’ve got more about those stories coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:36] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:42] In Austin, Shakespeare Company is starting a new era in town after losing their home theater. We’re going to take you out there. And the sounds and impacts from Austin’s music scene go far beyond the city limits. Hear more about that coming up next here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are listening to Austin Signal. It is Tuesday, May 5th. Thank you for joining us. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. You are tuned into community powered public radio, KUT News. Senate Bill 4 is set to take effect next week in Texas after being on hold for years. It’s a law that passed in 2023 making illegal border crossing a state level crime. But a group of civil rights organizations filed a new lawsuit this week to stop parts of that law from going into effect. Joining us to explain is Alejandro Serrano, reporter for the Texas Tribune covering politics and government with a focus on immigration policy. Alejandro, welcome to the Austin Signal.
Alejandro Serrano [00:01:49] Thank you for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:50] So this law was passed back in 2023. Can you remind us exactly what it does and how it differs from existing federal law?
Alejandro Serrano [00:01:58] Sure. So this was passed during a special legislative session and it also occurred as the number of border crossings were hitting record highs. As we might remember, the state’s Republican officials were arguing then and still argue that that amounted to an invasion and they wanted to do something about it, as they used to say. So they passed this law that tried to mirror federal law. Of illegal entry into the country for crossing the border or re-entry, which, you know, trying to cross the border again. And state lawmakers and state lawyers have argued that it mirrors federal law, doesn’t really conflict with it. But Biden administration’s Department of Justice disagreed with that. But that the government’s participation ended under the Trump administration and that lawsuit, the initial lawsuit challenging the law came to an end a couple of weeks ago, about two weeks ago when a judge said that initial plaintiffs did not have standing. Soon. Now we have a new lawsuit.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:54] Before we move on to the lawsuit that this law has been on hold for years already. Why the pause and what’s changed now?
Alejandro Serrano [00:03:02] Yeah, so it was paused by a lower court, a district judge, federal district judge who granted an injunction while the case went through the legal system. But that lawsuit was, did not. Ultimately address the overall question from plaintiffs that say that the state’s law conflicts with federal immigration law. Courts have long held that federal immigration enforcement is solely the federal government’s responsibility. And this goes back to the Constitution and sort of the idea of one nation having one set of rules when interacting with nations. However, last two weeks ago when the initial lawsuit was dismissed, the court did not really weigh in on that issue at all and they instead said that the plaintiffs did not have standing yet to sue, so the overall underpinning constitutional question still remains unresolved.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:54] Okay, so back to the lawsuit. Who is involved and what are they arguing for?
Alejandro Serrano [00:03:59] Yeah, so a group of civil rights organizations file this lawsuit on behalf of two plaintiffs. One of them is a lawful permanent resident, and the other has a U visa. It’s a class action lawsuit, so they’re seeking to represent people in the state who might be in similar situations. They want to stop a couple of provisions that are part of this law, in particular the re-entry. Ones that say if a person reenters the country illegally, you know, they could be prosecuted by the state and they want to stop this because they’re arguing that, you know, a person could since get lawful status such as a U visa or a green card but the state law may not recognize that.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:47] Okay, so where do things go from here? What are you watching for next?
Alejandro Serrano [00:04:51] Yeah, next we’re waiting for a judge to weigh in on the matter, see if they will continue to pause the law. And if not, see how law enforcement across the state respond to it going into effect.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:02] Okay, we have been speaking with Alejandro Serrano. He is a reporter for the Texas Tribune. We’re gonna have a link to his reporting in today’s show notes. Alejandro, thank you for your time.
Alejandro Serrano [00:05:11] Thank you for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:21] New developments this week in the battle over Infowars.com. That’s the website once run by Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Over the weekend, the website went dark, now displaying a blank page with just two words — off air. It comes as the satirical website The Onion has been attempting, unsuccessfully so far, to take over the domain name. KUT’s government accountability reporter Andrew Weber has been following this story, and he is back on the show to talk about it. Hi, Andrew. Hello, Jerry. So, what do we know so far about the apparent shutdown of InfoWars.com?
Andrew Weber [00:05:55] You know, I figured we should just let Alex Jones tell us for himself.
Alex Jones [00:06:01] So the onion failed to get Infowars for the second time in a year and a half. But the receiver told us to get out of the building by midnight. So they’re turning the place off that makes the money.
Andrew Weber [00:06:16] So that’s a video from last week that he posted on x.com, formerly Twitter. It’s him outside of his studio in South Austin off Stasney basically explaining what the situation is. He’s in a bankruptcy case and the receiver, which is basically the middleman between the parties, has said, we’re not gonna pay your rent anymore. So locked him out and he is unable to control the info wars.com domain.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:44] And as you’ve been following this story, we’ve been hearing a lot about Infowars and a lot about the Onion as well, but this story involves a lawsuit from the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting as well. Can you tell us a little bit of backstory on that?
Andrew Weber [00:06:55] Yeah, for years and years, Jones regularly called families of the Sandy Hook shooting, he called them crisis actors, and said that this was a sort of false flag operation to take everybody’s guns away, and it galvanized a lot of people to harass these families. Children’s graves were, a lot terrible stuff happened to these folks, so they sued him for defamation. And judges in Connecticut and Texas basically said, okay, you’re right, this is defamation. And he was ordered to pay almost $1.5 billion in damages. So because of that, he declared bankruptcy. That’s why we are where we are right now. And so after that, he’s just sort of kept doing what he’s doing while this all plays out in court. And last week there was a hearing and I spoke with Mark Bankston, who’s an attorney for the Sandy Hook family. He said it’s really frustrating that this has gone on for so long, that 1.5 billion ruling was from 2022. And he said basically this whole time, Alex Jones has been able to do what he has been doing for 25 years and hasn’t paid families anything.
Mark Bankston [00:08:07] As far as the world is concerned, Infowars is dead. I think everybody knows that. He’s trying to keep a bloated corpse of a media organization alive in these last little bits, but it’s all a joke. Everybody knows where we’re going. And I’m sure he’s going to try to start something new. I’m I’m he’s gonna try to use every trick he can to try dissipate the assets of the estate. That’s what we’re doing up here is trying to stop all that.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:29] So can you explain a little bit more about how the onion plays into all of this saga and is there a chance that they’re still going to take over the side eventually?
Andrew Weber [00:08:37] Yeah, yeah, there is a chance. I mean, basically this kind of started as a bit, like they wanted to, they thought, okay, what would be the funniest thing that we could possibly do? And that was Takeover Infowars. So they tried to do that in late 2023 and they’ve been consistently trying to take it over with the help of the, well, with the cooperation, I should say, of the Sandy Hook families. They want to take over the site, basically skewer Jones for, you know, what he’s been doing for 25 years. And share at least a little bit of the profit that they can make with families. And that is now sort of up in the air. There’s gonna be a hearing later this month on whether they can officially do that. But over the weekend, they sort of teased what they would do if they were to take it over. And they got Tim Heidecker, who’s a comedian, who does just a really shockingly good impression of Alex Jones. He was sort of doing bits. He had one bit where he said he was, I hope it was fake blood. He said he drinking blood in a satanic ritual. And he also said that he could turn listeners’ urine into gold, which is a thing that I didn’t think I would ever say in the course of my duties.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:45] This is exactly what we created the Austin signal for, Andrew. Yes, sir. Okay. Well, I noticed that even in your headline at kut.org it says Alex Jones Infowars site has finally shut down for now. The saga seems to go back and forth and back and fourth. You think we’re coming to a close or could we see even more legal challenges coming?
Andrew Weber [00:10:04] Mark Bankston, the attorney we heard just a bit ago, he said, I’m really bad at predicting when this stuff’s gonna end. He thought it would be wrapped up by now. He did say by the end of the year, he hopes that this can finally be put to bed. There’s gonna be a hearing on the 28th about all of this, whether The Onion can officially take over. And Bankston said, you know, just, he wanted this to all end just for the family’s sake, just because they’ve already been through so much. And then this all happened to them, and he just, you now, wanted to sort of put it to bed
Jerry Quijano [00:10:34] That is KUT’s Government Accountability Reporter, Andrew Weber. Andrew, thank you. Thank you, Jerry. We’re gonna have a link to his reporting in today’s show notes, and we’re gonna be back after this break. This is Austin Signal. Thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal, welcome back to the show. The Austin Shakespeare troupe, The Barron’s Men, are performing this season in a venue that is not their long-time home on Lake Austin. The Curtain Theater, a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, was torn down after the property it sits on was sold. For KUT’s Art Beat, Ella Kopeikin reports on the group’s second act.
Ella Kopeikin [00:11:22] The actors commanding the stage at the Scottish Rite Theater last Thursday looked less like the average community theater troupe and more like time travelers.
Actor [00:11:31] Pray you, like hand in hand, yourselves an orta set, and twenty glowworms shall our lanterns be, to guy our measures round about the tree. But stay, I smell a man of Middle-earth.
Ella Kopeikin [00:11:46] The play is Shakespeare’s Mary Wives of Windsor and the players are the Baronsmen, Austin’s only Elizabethan Shakespeare company. That means that the troupe performs Shakespeare according to the standards of the late 16th century. There are handmade costumes and props and simple sets that fit right into the style of the time. They do however make a couple exceptions. Women and electricity are allowed. Jackie O’Keefe has been a supporter of the troupe for three years.
Jackie O’Keefe [00:12:13] They are very refreshingly open and they feel original. They feel like they are always inventing it as they go along.
Ella Kopeikin [00:12:22] This run at the Scottish Rite marks 27 years for the Barron’s Men. It’s also the group’s first time performing in a venue that isn’t their long-time home, the Curtain Theater. Last fall, the theater was closed and dismantled after a real estate developer bought the property it sits on. Here’s Michael Osborne, the director of Merry Wives of Windsor. He joined the troupe in 2011 and currently serves as president of its board of directors.
Michael Osborne [00:12:46] The Barrensmen have become synonymous with the curtain theater, so it’s kind of an unknown for everybody.
Ella Kopeikin [00:12:52] Executive Artistic Director Lindsay Polinsky has been with the Baronsmen since 2010.
Lindsey Polinsky [00:12:57] The Curtain Theater was one of North America’s only wooden-o Elizabethan replica outdoor theaters. It was purpose-built for the Barons Men 20 years ago.
Ella Kopeikin [00:13:06] The original Wood& O was the Globe Theater, a rounded amphitheater in London where Shakespeare staged his plays. Over time, the Baronsmen evolved from a few friends performing for each other into a full-fledged theater company. They put on two shows a year and became a certified 501c3 non-profit in 2015. Here’s Michael Osborne again.
Michael Osborne [00:13:26] Every bit of money that comes in goes right back into the organization, into development. We do actor workshops and we do also a lot of educational outreach. So we will go out to schools and we’ll run some scenes. We’ll do like a little history lesson.
Ella Kopeikin [00:13:40] The theater itself grew, too. Other organizations began using the stage, but the Barron’s men remained the main residents. Then, last year, the troupe got news that the land the theater was built on would be sold.
Michael Osborne [00:13:52] They’re like, you can do one more show there and then you got to get up. And that was much to do. And it was like one of our biggest shows was a wonderful sendoff.
Ella Kopeikin [00:14:00] Lindsay Polinsky directed the final show staged at the theater. The will-they-won’t-they couple comedy much ado about nothing. The board and artistic directors began planning for the next chapter of The Barrensmen. The goal became building their dream theater.
Lindsey Polinsky [00:14:14] Our big, you know, mood board of grand ideas. We want an outdoor theater and we want an indoor theater and a rehearsal space and locker rooms and real bathrooms for the audience. You know, after hearing those slamming port-a-potty doors for 20 years.
Ella Kopeikin [00:14:28] In the meantime, the team’s main focus is keeping their annual two-show schedule going.
Lindsey Polinsky [00:14:33] You know, at the end of much ado, we sort of launched a relocation fund. That’s a easy peasy donate button on our website and we’ll be putting more concerted efforts towards community partnerships and we need to really look at sustainable fundraising for figuring out how we can ramp up into our growth.
Ella Kopeikin [00:14:55] One of their biggest discoveries has been realizing how much fans of the troop wanna help. Hudson Perma is 15. He started coming to the curtain three years ago with his family.
Hudson Perma [00:15:04] I had been aware of Shakespeare, but I never experienced it in a proper setting and in a proper way. I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It just felt very real.
Ella Kopeikin [00:15:15] Hudson and his dad run a local film club, the Austin Flick Click. It’s dedicated to exposing younger audiences to classic films. After hearing about the curtain’s closure, he reached out to see if there might be a way to use the club to raise money and awareness for the troupe.
Hudson Perma [00:15:29] If they can’t have a new theater and they can keep doing what they do, it’s not just a loss of art, it is a loss for the community and we were like, well we can help them.
Ella Kopeikin [00:15:39] The Baronsmen decided to collaborate with Hudson for a three-film series called To Screen or Not to Screen. All proceeds go to the players.
Hudson Perma [00:15:47] There’s so many good Shakespeare film adaptations, so it kind of just all fit and locked into place.
Ella Kopeikin [00:15:52] With Mary Wives, another play coming up this fall, and the Flick Click series, the troupe has officially entered its second act.
Lindsey Polinsky [00:15:59] We’re a 100% volunteer run organization. We’re committed and invested in the next 25 years of The Barrensmen and beyond. We hope to build an organization that outlives us.
Ella Kopeikin [00:16:12] While the curtain may be gone, the Barron’s men are here to stay. For KUT’s Art Beat, I’m Ella Copaican in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:27] This year’s ACL lineup has finally dropped, and we’re gonna tell you who’s coming to town in just a bit, but the iconic Austin TV show turned global festival underscores an important question that was asked during a panel at last weekend’s KUT Festival. The question, why does Austin’s music scene matter globally? Program director for KUTX, Matt Riley, posed the question to a panel of Austin’s music leaders, musician Alejandro Rose Garcia. Better known as Shaky Graves, shared this answer. Why?
Alejandro Rose Garcia [00:17:02] I’m not totally sure, I have seen the effect of it directly being born and raised here and literally kind of being immersed in art in general my entire life and it took me leaving Austin to kind of realize how specific and kind of ubiquitous music and art and all this culture that I kind of take for granted from time to time really is. And it’s always blown my mind that kind of no matter where I travel, I don’t have to enunciate where I’m from or explain anything. It’s like I’m Austin, Texas, and people are like, ah, that’s great. That’s amazing. And that’s always blow me away, and I’ve realized that I’ve really… You know, I’ve benefited from it in ways that I can’t even probably acknowledge or understand. But why is it like that? I think it just, I think has to do with the kind of couple days a year we get like this where somebody visits and is like, ah, this is wonderful. And then they get trapped here during the summer. And I mean, there’s a deep, deep community of people that is very reflective of this. When I walk around and there’s you know, a band and assless chaps playing while there’s a little kid throwing up.
Michael Osborne [00:18:25] We had this discussion. I know.
Alejandro Rose Garcia [00:18:27] This is redundant. It’s redundant. They’re just chaps chaps are assless. It says otherwise their pants It’s just a good excuse to say the word assless, so we’ll try and work that into other phrases just in case this evening But yeah, there’s like kids throwing footballs around there’s noise rock. There’s a Republican congressman in there trying to have a speech. It like It’s that’s pretty that’s a pretty damn Austin. So I think that all of that permeates the The vibes here, man, and I think that that is why the music scene matters, because that is an important… I think our little corner of the rug is important and significant. So the underlying conditions. I think we have a nice assless city here in the middle of Texas. I don’t know if that’s the right way to put that. We’ll work on it. We’ve got some time. We’re spitballing here.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:25] That was musician Alejandro Rose Garcia, better known as Shakey Graves. He was part of the Why Does Austin’s Music Scene Matter Globally panel that was happening during the inaugural KUT festival over the weekend. The conversation continued on with the music leaders talking about rethinking the idea of selling out as more of a necessity, as more support from businesses becomes available. We’re gonna have a link to that story in today’s show notes and you can find more at kut.org slash signal. And I mentioned the lineup has dropped for this year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival. Among the headliners are Charlie XCX, Lorde and 21 Pilots, dozens and dozens of others, including Turnstile, The Chainsmokers and Geese, and lots of local acts as well, including the excellent Houston Tillotson University Jazz Collective. Tickets went on sale today. Three day passes for each of the two weekends start at $365. $750 for general admission plus a whole lot more. Fortunately for you and for me out there. Future for our future credit card bills that is the five figure y’all access passes are already sold out. I was just about to get mine then they sold out so maybe next year I’ll have better luck. ACL Fest is coming up October 2nd to the 4th and 9th to the 10th in Silker Park and you can bet your bottom dollar we’re gonna have lots more to share about ACL in the months ahead and you You can always find more from us at KUT.org slash signal. We are here every weekday afternoon at one o’clock on community powered public radio. This is KUT News. I’m your host Jerry Quijano, we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
