The Texas Miracle #27: The Glittering Intellect of George W. Bush

This week on the Texas Miracle, the Observer’s weekly compendium of everything you need to know, but maybe wish you didn’t, about the Lone Star State: Remember when we all used to make fun of how dumb George W. Bush sounded? When his folksy ramblings were an embarrassment to Americans the world over? After the first eight minutes or so of this episode, you’re going to be damn near convinced the man was a certified genius.

As always, we’ll go out to the Texas Tiki Shed to get caught up on the latest and greatest-slash-worst Texas news with Observer staffers Naveena Sadasivam and Patrick Michels, plus Observer veteran Alexa Garcia-Ditta to talk about Rewire‘s deep-dive investigation into the anti-abortion program that Texas spends millions on each year, and the child welfare program our lawmakers don’t seem to want to allocate another dime to, plus a new fracking study that reveals — hold on to your hats, y’all — that fracking isn’t the healthiest thing on earth.

Patrick will also stop by the Texas Tiki Shed to bring us wild, weird and in this case fowl news in our Strangest State segment, featuring a (literal) turkey trot and a (literal) chicken toss.

[Editor’s note: There is adult language in this podcast! You can find the Texas Miracle on iTunes and Stitcher. Follow us at @TheTexasMiracle and here on the website for news and updates. Special assignment: We’re taking listener calls about what they learned in Texas public schools’ sex ed classes, so if you’ve got a memorable story about learning the birds and the bees in Texas, leave us a voicemail at 512-981-5936!]