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.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
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.
Thank you for having me.
So this law was passed back in 2023.
Can you remind us exactly what it
does and how it differs from
existing federal law?
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.
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?
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.
Okay, so back to the lawsuit.
Who is involved and what are they
arguing for?
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.
Okay, so where do things go from
here? What are you watching for
next?
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.
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.
Thank you for having me.
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?
You know, I figured we should just
let Alex Jones tell
us for himself.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are very refreshingly
open and they feel
original. They feel like they are
always inventing it as they go
along.
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.
The Barrensmen have become
synonymous with the curtain theater,
so it's kind of an unknown for
everybody.
Executive Artistic Director Lindsay
Polinsky has been with the Baronsmen
since 2010.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the meantime, the team's main
focus is keeping their annual
two-show schedule going.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There's so many good Shakespeare
film adaptations, so it kind of just
all fit and locked into place.
With Mary Wives, another play coming
up this fall, and the Flick Click
series, the troupe has officially
entered its second act.
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.
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.
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?
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.
We had this discussion.
I know.
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.
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.