Podcasts about South Texas

Renewable energy is taking on Texas agriculture. Hunting leases can be a great source of income for Texas landowners. Cool season forages are going in the ground in Central and East Texas. Cotton ginning is wrapping up in deep South Texas. We'll have those stories and more on this episode of Texas Ag Today.

September 15 thru October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month, and to celebrate we're embarking on a two-part conversation on the complex politics of that particular community here in the Lone Star State, in particular in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Sam Gonzales hosts Diana Gomez and Ed Espinoza, plus special guest Abel Prado, Executive Director of Cambio Texas: a renowned org dedicated to activating and energizing Hispanic voters and candidates in the region. Look for Part Two, a deep dive into the way we talk about this amazingly diverse community, including an exploration of ups and downs of the term "LatinX", later this week.

Nerd News Gaming Comics and FIlm News a chill week with the boys and reactions to the previous weekend of D23!

A case that shocked many because the crime was so horrific and violent. Nicole Perry was brutally attacked and murdered because she wouldn't stop talking.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Life is limited when you limit it yourself. People can get through places and journey through everything because, in the end, the sky's the limit. Devin Elder, our guest for today, started with every bit of step in real estate investment. He asked for help, did the infamous methods, and bought houses in his pocket. Settle your thoughts, as Devin lets us build our future with every step we take. One thing about this episode is when he mentions the greatest lessons; even though he knows it would be a bad thing, he will do it again in the end. Remember, this is your MBA. Have a notepad handy, and get ready to take some notes!Key Points from This Episode: Devin talks about how he has been a principal in over 5,000 doors of multi-family.  What are the first things Devin does when investing in multi-family? Devin shares how he built a management company after his bad experiences with third-party management. How does flying helicopters help Devin? How does Devin handle bad experiences? Devin mentions podcasts as his way to connect closer to people. What is Devin's highest value for the organization? What is Devin's philosophy when it comes to time? Devin talks about investor sentiment. Devin shares how his stuff is relationship driven. What are the criteria Devin asks for when looking for deal size?  Devin shares his relationship with the brokers.  Tweetables:“It's time for me to let them do their jobs, focus on being a visionary, and building the vision for the future of the company.” – Devin Elder“You're aiming for it, but it really doesn't exist. You're never gonna get to the horizon, but it is a helpful mechanism to aim at.” – Devin Elder“But where I kind of enjoy my time in the company is building the future.” – Devin Elder“So the vision, obviously the capital,  is a huge piece of it” — Devin Elder“We're just stewards of capital and time” — Devin ElderLinks Mentioned:Apartment EducatorsDJE Texas Management Group | Real Estate Investments … About Devin ElderDevin Elder is the sole owner of DJE Texas Management Group LLC (DJE), which manages all aspects of acquisition, repositioning, and disposition of single-family, land, development, and multifamily projects in Central Texas. DJE has successfully completed over 200 Real Estate renovation projects, with renovation budgets ranging from $10k to $3M+. Devin has been a Principal in over 5,000 units of multifamily. No investor capital has ever been lost on any DJE project.The DJE multifamily portfolio is managed by DJE Properties LLC, the company's in-house property management firm. As of November 2021, DJE Properties manages 2,125 doors with an average occupancy of 95%.Prior to his Real Estate investing career, Devin earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio and enjoyed a near decade-long successful corporate career in Operations, IT, and Marketing roles at two of San Antonio's largest employers, Rackspace and 3M.Mr. Elder is the host of The DJE Podcast, a weekly show interviewing the top Commercial Real Estate investment experts in the country, and is himself a regular expert guest on the top multifamily investment podcasts in the world.In 2020, Devin founded The DJE Foundation, a 501(c)(3) foundation, whose mission is to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. The non-profit supports the Heart of Texas orphanage in the Philippines, local Christian organizations, and numerous other causes.Mr. Elder is Co-Founder of ApartmentEducators.com, a consulting firm that teaches successful professionals how to invest in multifamily communities as passive investors and operators. Devin co-founded the Real Estate Brokerage Accelerated Commercial Real Estate in 2020 with his ApartmentEducators.com business partner to assist clients in sourcing and to close multifamily investments.Mr. Elder meets twice monthly with a private CEO advisory board and has a broad network of experienced and trusted advisors, attorneys, brokers, investors, and accountants that facilitate the continued success and growth of DJE.Devin has been married to his wife Amber since 2008. They reside in far North San Antonio with their three children. He enjoys family time, piloting planes & helicopters, playing golf, and spending time with his family at Eventide Ranch, the Elder family's South Texas wild animal preserve, home to a variety of exotic animals, including Kudu, Springbok, Blackbuck, Barasignha, Scimitar Horned Oryx and a Zebra named “Pete”.

Guest: George Rodriguez, South Texas conservative.....The Abbott vs O'Rourke campaign.....Border secured?   Migrants on buses to blue cities,,,,.....and other stories...... Check our blog.........and follow our friend Carlos Guedes..............  

Cristela Alonzo is one of only a few Latinos with a Netflix comedy special. When her first premiered in 2017, she didn't hold back on her dislike for former President Donald Trump or her identity as a Mexican-American in South Texas. Now, she's back for her second special, "Middle Classy." And she's bringing her activism with her, opening up the special with cameos from civil rights leader Dolores Huerta and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.She shares with us what it's like being able to finally afford to take care of herself and the importance of therapy despite the stigma among her Latino family.Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Find us on Twitter @1A.

0 mins In this episode I am joined by Jaime, Isaac and Hiram. We start off with the start of football season.  We begin with college as the Texas Longhorns suffer a nail biting loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide.  I think the whole thing was rigged as the refs did everything they could to ensure that Alabama comes away with a victory.  If you didn't think college football was dirty go back and watch this game.  We also talk about some big upsets on this weekends schedule.  We then move into the NFL where Hiram and I talk about the Bears and Niners game that we didn't go to.   Bears come away with the win!!  We talk some more football and then close out with America's team the Dallas Cowboys. As we begin recording the podcast we learn that Dak Prescot broke his hand.  Season is over for the Cowboys.  11:00 minBBQ time: we begin by talking about the tailgate brunch that my brother and Eric had for the Texas vs. Alabama game.  He cooked up some breakfast sandwiches on the griddle with hashbrowns, chorizo, and bacon.  Good stuff.  His wife cooks us up some potato crack.  Wow was this a treat.  Probably the best thing I ate all day.  We then talk about a story in Florida that happened earlier at the Patriots and Dolphins game.  Someone left their grill on and manage to burn down almost two rows of vehicles.  We have a discussion on who is more likely to cover the damages.  Only in Florida.  I then bring up the conversation of how everyone is including brisket in brunch and breakfast.  There are brisket and egg tacos and many other dishes lately following the popular bbq trend in the US.  25:00 minI talk about our bundle giveaway winner who ends up being the mother of the BBQ Queen, Edna Vera.  She is the lucky winner of a hoodie, t-shirt and cap from the Ready Set BBQ store.  I then proceed to ready some very rare fan mail.  One of the fans wants to be on the podcast if Hiram didn't offend him too much.  35:00 minWe close out by talking about our new favorite topic Leonardo Dicaprio.  Apparently Leo will only date girls until they hit 25 years of age and then they are welcomed to Dumpville.  The guys talk about their thoughts on this and whether Leo is a zero or hero.  A bunch of joes that cook like pros!!!Law Office of Hector Hernandezhttp://hhernandezlaw.com/?fbclid=IwAR3kaG_wQzrsUJ-cVxJLUyjvipMPM1R59xo9YMKFFsiGHaaUgdZ8hd8cB7Y

A 12-year-old girl disappears without a trace in 2004, some at first thought Rosa Sandoval was taken while walking to school but later police began questioning her family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Boys react to trailer from from Fridays D23 opening day.

The finicky South Texas weather and the powerful offense of a familiar foe both proved to be the undoing for East Central on Friday, Sept. 9. The Hornets welcomed in their former district rivals, the Smithson Valley Rangers, to Hornet Stadium for a non-district clash that unfortunately turned into a lopsided loss for Head Coach Joe Hubbard and his squad. The home team was hampered by the Rangers' stellar offense and an extensive weather delay that kept both teams off the field for close to two hours before the closing seconds of the first quarter. When it was all said...Article Link

Brandon & Rachel CutrerLocation: Wharton, TexasWebsite: www.brcutrer.comTele: 979.532.9141Episode Recap: BR Cutrer founded only a few years back and dominating the Brahman market across the world in 2022. Follow their Facebook page today. Selling genetics to 26 countries in 6 continents. For the first time ever hear the beginning story of how BR Cutrer was started after being involved with the V8 brand previously.BR Cutrer involved in the local community with their own meat market & restaurant in South Texas near Houston.Tune in and hear their exciting story.

9_2 nerd dews DC Cancels Fandom, Disney d23 Rumors!

MCALLEN, Texas - Jay Kleberg, the Democratic Party's nominee for Texas Land Commissioner, was in the Rio Grande Valley recently to meet with reporters.In the attached audio file, Kleberg talks about his South Texas roots, what the Land Commission does, and why he is the best candidate to run the commission. 

The Garden Show | September 4, 2022

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT It has been nagging at me for the last few months that I didn't know a hell of a lot about OptiSigns, even though the Houston-based company was a main advertiser on Sixteen:Nine. That's been fixed, having had a great conversation last week with the company's sales director Paul Ciolino. We got into a whole bunch of things, from the company's roots, how software development bridges the US and Vietnam, and their go-to-market model. OptiSigns is focused on making a product and services available that manage to tick the much-demanded boxes of intuitive and affordable, but also have a lot of sophistication and scalability. Ciolino works out of New York City, which will help explain why you might hear sirens in the background. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Paul, thank you for joining me. Can you give me the background on what OptiSigns is all about? Because I know them, but I don't know much about your company yet.  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely. Dave, thanks so much for having me. First of all, excited to be here. You're my first podcast ever so it's a wonderful honor for you to have, but OptiSigns is a cloud-based digital signage solution and really the key tenets of OptiSigns signs are: Can we make it a low barrier to entry? Can anybody use it? Is it easy? Is it accessible? Can people deploy on myriad, different platforms or OSs?  And we try to check all those boxes as much as possible while making it all cost-effective.  And the company's based in Houston?  Paul Ciolino: That's right, yep.  How long has the company been around?  Paul Ciolino: So it was founded in 2015, but really the growth started happening within the last three years and we're seeing incredible year-over-year growth now.  Back in 2015, there was already any number of easy-to-use, I don't wanna say entry-level because that kind of diminishes the product, but friendly, price effective, on and on, and I'm curious what prompted the founders to look at the market and go, okay, there's an opportunity here, because, from my perspective, there was a lot of what you've described already out there? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question. I think when you think about digital signage top-down and you're looking at it with a bird's eye view, there's just a huge TAM there, right? Even if it is a saturated market, there are hundreds of vendors that do it today. There are a few really big players and there are a few really big players that do it really well. The key differentiator for us is probably just going to be on the usability side of things, and I think that was where, the powers that be, were sitting in a back room somewhere saying, how do we put our footprint on this industry? What can we do to make ourselves stand out and be late adopters of getting into the industry while also being a significant factor?  Yeah, it's an interesting balance that has to be struck in that I've seen a few times promotions for companies who say that we have a very easy-to-use friendly platform and when I've looked at it or other people have looked at it, they said, it's not really all that friendly or easier, or sure, it is friendly, but it doesn't do much.  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, I think that's a good point. When we have this conversation internally a lot, and sometimes I talk to our customer base about it, but really the idea behind designing OptiSigns from the ground up with our engineering team and from a product perspective was like taking a look at something like an iPhone, right? When you purchase an iPhone, you get the iPhone, you take it out of the box, you put a SIM card in it and you just start using it. You've got an iPhone now. So we thought about that with a digital signage lens, and that's where we started putting our plan into motion.  So when you are a new user of the system, how does it work, is it software as a service?  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely. At our core, we're a software company. We don't do the installation. We don't do hardware sales outside of a couple of pre-configured devices that you can get. Really, what we do focus on is just that UX/UI component. We have 135 native app integrations now, from a simple weather app to Tableau, Power BI and more sophisticated web scripting and an open API, so we run the gamut of what you can do with digital signage.  Is there a particular market that you guys are targeting?  Paul Ciolino: So the nice thing about digital signage is that there's just so much variability in actual implementations. So when we think about targeting somebody specific, we do have our eyes on a couple of industries like logistics right now is something that we're making a big push into. We're also looking into things like healthcare, we've got a pretty good customer base with healthcare already, but we're seeing a lot of organic conversations happen there. So we're like, hey, what do we do? How can we accelerate their growth into this vertical and things like that? That's interesting because I was waiting for you to say, yeah we're chasing retail and QSR and then I'd be rolling my eyes because everybody and their sister is, but logistics and healthcare, I think that's really smart. They're not all that addressed yet, and I'm curious, what's the ask in logistics, is it for visualizing data like Power BI and Tableau? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times these people are using more bespoke dashboards as well. So when you think about trying to take something out of the box, and then you think about maybe the staff over at one of these logistics companies, let's call it a trucking company or something like that for example, maybe they don't have the bandwidth on the it side of the ball to have somebody spend three weeks creating a custom integration with an API or something like that, which they can do with us. But we offer OptiSigns where you can basically take your internal dashboards that are gated by username and password, and you can script the authentication and the execution of that username and password, and then get to your target resource that way.  Why do they want that? Where are they showing on these screens?  Paul Ciolino: They're showing everything from lead times to rotation schedules to availability to weather, to all kinds of different, increment factors that could be going into either a trucking scenario again, or maybe we've got some type of supply chain issue, and they're doing a full SWOT analysis in their backroom and they have to have all of this real-time data come up as they're planning around the next week, month, quarter, half year, whatever they're gonna do.  So it's really myriad, just like all of our deployments are as well in different verticals, you can use it however you need to.  I find that interesting because so much of the attention in digital signage is around the wow factor, creative like amazing displays and all these things that are going on, and to me the long tail of digital signage is the stuff that you might describe as boring, just like showing KPIs on a screen or giving instructions on what to do when something happens like an alarm trigger or whatever, like that stuff doesn't get anybody's pulse racing, but it's incredibly valuable to the day to day of a company, right?  Paul Ciolino: I think there's been like this large front end push to make signage sexy when I think, at the end of the day, the reason that somebody's gonna go pay for anything in a digital signage space is that they need it and they need specific things to be up on the screen. I'm not saying you can't make things look sexy with OptiSigns, obviously, you can do that, but at the end of the day, we want people to be able to take anything that they need to have up on their screens and deploy it easily and efficiently without breaking the bank.  You mentioned breaking the bank, your pricing tiers are pretty friendly in that. I think I saw it was $10-12 a month, depending on what you're doing. Is that accurate? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, that's about right, and that's gonna be the starting price, obviously, if people are gonna be looking at growing their business with us and scaling, which is something that we specialize in as well, just making that ease of scaling, something that comes out of the box with us. It could be anywhere from $10-15 a month per screen, unlimited users, unlimited resources uploaded into the cloud, and all that kind of stuff.  The $10 one gives you a lot of functionality, but as you scale up or tier up, so to speak, you are just adding more capability. Paul Ciolino: Yeah, basically the way you can think about it is, let's say somebody's got maybe they even have a hundred screens or something like that, but they're gonna be putting the same thing on a hundred of their screens. They probably don't need to go into the conversation about creating manual permissions or a brand kit or reporting for their advertisers that are paying for ad space or things like that, so they can live with that standard plan that we have and be happy all day.  They still have access to 95% of the functionality on the platform. It's just gonna be some of those more robust features binding to an IDP or an SSO provider or something like that or creating a monitoring and alerting system where they can enable triggers for different events to go to specific people and make sure that they've got as much uptime as possible. That's all quite interesting because when I think of the pricing tier that you're at, it's usually small to medium business operators who the company is targeting and they're never talking about data binding or anything like that, it's just about you can put this menu on a screen and you can change it on demand. Paul Ciolino: Yeah, and you hit the nail on the head there. We have incredible organic growth within those verticals where you're looking at QSRs gyms, and places like that. But I think the thing that we've been doing really well this year, especially, and especially in the last quarter and a half or so, has been getting into really earnest more of those enterprise deployments, where we're talking about, we've got a GDPR situation in Germany or something like that, and we have facilities on five different continents and we need to make sure that everybody's got the right access and we've got audit logs that they can enable and we really do pair very well with very robust security concerns.  Yeah, that's interesting as well in that I've talked to a few companies who started out targeting the small to medium business market and have migrated to enterprise because of the demands of customers, but also it's just that if you're dealing with the entry level market, you're being beaten up on price and it's not necessarily easy to scale that kind of management of all those different customers.  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, and I think that's something that's, again, credit to our engineering team, they make it so easy for people to scale on multiple different levels, whether you're talking about headcount as users within the platform, you're talking about multiple locations, or you're talking about multiple screens within a single location, and it really does just make it very intuitive. We've got our support team as well who's great. I think the CSAT that we talked about in our H1 review was like 94 or something like that, and that's an objective number, I'm not putting a lens on that one, but I think when you think about implementing something new and you're looking at a by process that maybe has 15-20 touchpoints or something like that, you're making a pretty big commitment just from a G&A perspective as a client, and then you think about, okay, is this gonna save my needs for the next year, three years, five years, ten years, and if so, how is that gonna look? What is my hardware, reliability gonna look like and things like that, and we kind of cover all bases.  Is it important when you're dealing with those kinds of pricing tiers to minimize the number of customer touches, make as much of your offer and your software self-service and not have to provide a lot of support and customer contact? Not that you don't wanna talk to your customers, but it's just that if you have a whole bunch of them, that means you need a whole bunch of people to deal with them. Paul Ciolino: Absolutely. Yeah, so that's again, credit to our engineering team and the way that we laid the bedrock as a company from our founders to be able to build this thing where it is very self-service.  Another thing that we do that a lot of companies these days are moving towards is we've got a support blog, we've got a support site. We've got a ticket creation system, a phone number, and an email. It's very multi-threaded in how people can actually go about getting the help they need, and I think that's something that has allowed us to spend time on growth and not as much time on maintenance, while still providing an exceptional level of service to our customer base.  You've mentioned a lot of growth in the last three years. Why do you think that is? What is it that's resonating?  Paul Ciolino: So at the end of the day, every company's going to have a little bit of this slow out of the gates kind of motion, right? And once you get the feeling for an industry and a customer base, and you have enough conversations and you get enough feedback, all of those things combined into something very powerful, even from a business owner's perspective, where you're like, okay, I can listen to these things and then I can go act on them. And one of the nice things about us is we run a very agile team, a very lean team, and we have the same communication with the same people, a lot of the time, and so that means that we can go ahead and pivot on almost a weekly basis with our roadmap if we need to, and we can effectively release functional app integrations or just things that maybe we don't think about that our users think about. And I think that level of service that comes from, even the engineering team level, is something that is really hard to achieve in any business in 2022 these days.  And some of the software development's done in Vietnam, right?  Paul Ciolino: That's right. They have a very close working relationship with our founders. They've worked together for a long time. They know how to communicate effectively, and it's really paid dividends for us as a business.  Is that kind of a historical thing? I don't know South Texas all that well, but I believe that there's a pretty big Vietnamese diaspora there that went over there for fishing fleets and everything else, but I suspect there's still a lot of business ties back? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely. I can't speak to the geopolitical business ties within the founder's relationship levels. Personally, I've benefited from the influx of the Vietnamese community in Houston via Cajun cuisine, but outside of that, I think it's just something where people have worked together before, I've worked with people and at a few different companies or something like that, and we can talk about anything at the drop of a hat and we can make an effective decision when it needs to be made How do you sell? Is it just direct to the customer or are you doing things like an affiliate channel or reseller channel? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, so we absolutely do offer that. We have a couple of different options available. We've got an affiliate program to where, maybe you don't wanna spend the time or you don't have the time or the capital or anything else to be able to go and become a reseller, but you have a lot of people that you know in your network that are interested in digital signage. So we've got that affiliate program. You can make some money off of referring customers to us and it pays out quarterly and things like that, and we try to make it very easy and low maintenance for them to maintain those relationships, and then also generate business for us that are not cold leads at all. They're very warm leads.  The other side of that is gonna be that reseller pro reseller program that you mentioned and that can work in a few different ways. You can package the software, if you need to, you can white label it, and that's not even in our top-level plan, that's in our middle level plan. It's not like we're gate keeping too much here like we really do wanna make this software available to anybody that needs it, and we're doing that in several different ways as well.  You're happy enough to be just operating under the hood and nobody even knows it's OptiSigns?  Paul Ciolino: Absolutely, that's why I'm off camera.  You have an $80 Android stick that you offer as a hardware option. I'm curious how often that comes up as an ask or are they using any number of different platforms out there, because I know you have a web player or that's the foundational player. Paul Ciolino: So going back to the low barrier to entry that we're going with at OptiSigns. We're OS agnostic. You can deploy Windows or Linux, we've got an ARM Linux. We've got LG commercial grade native app, an Android native app, and Fire TV so you can use a Fire Stick as well. It really doesn't matter how you deploy with us, that is just there as an Option. We don't make any money off of those devices, they're literally just there in case somebody thinks that's the best deployment for them, and if you go to, like Reddit or somewhere third party where there's no Optisign sales lens on it, you can see that these Android players are generally very reliable.  We've had them deployed for, I think over a year and a half now, and we've got over 99% uptime with them. So things like that, providing reliability to our customers and, places like Australia, where it gets super hot over there, maybe there's not the best wifi connection, things like that. Those are really good deployments. I think we've got over 10,000 of our Android sticks that are out right now, and that's just one of our deployments. Oh really, and are people going down that path because they are price sensitive or they just want like a dumb-down device that they can just stick in? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, I think it's somewhere between those two. Okay. So if you think about it like a Fire Stick, it's gonna be a little bit cumbersome, people can go watch ESPN or something like that on a Fire Stick. If you're looking at something like a Raspberry PI, right now those are incredibly expensive. We do sell those too, just in case that's what people are familiar with and maybe they need more granular security pushes or something like that to their systems..  That's interesting, I've never heard somebody say Raspberry PIs are incredibly expensive, but I know what you're saying. Once you fully get them out, they're not $35, right?  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, with supply chain stuff happening right now, they're like $300 or something like that. That's what I've been hearing. We're selling them for $130 on our site, I think, but outside of that, you've got the ability to do something like an Intel NUC, or you can do a Micro PC, or you can have a full-blown computer behind a screen. When you think about something that marries the functionality of what those things can do without the processing power, because you don't need it, but you also have the reliability that's gonna be above something like a Fire Stick, or if you're just using a web browser version or something like that, I think that's a really nice, happy medium.  One of the devil's advocates arguments around web players for digital signage is: yes, you can get this application running on any number of different kinds of devices, whether they're smart TVs or Fire sticks or whatever it may be, but there's not a lot of device management. How do you counter that argument?  Paul Ciolino: Honestly, it's not really our job to counter that argument because it's not gonna be our most recommended deployment. We're not gonna sit in front of the University of Central Florida and say, you guys should be using a web browser version for all 360 TVs that you have or something like that. We're gonna tell 'em like, what do you need? Do you have wifi in every area? Do you need an ethernet adapter? Do you need to go to a Raspberry PI? And so we'll have a very consultative conversation with our customer base before we even get into demoing the software. So that's like the first thing that we wanna nail down with our customers: How are you gonna deploy? And let's figure out the reasons why you wanna do that, and not just because, you're used to doing it that way, or you heard it was the best from like Jim down the street.  So you are saying that you have native players as well, or you have web players that have device management? Paul Ciolino: Yeah, so kind of all of the above. So if you wanted to go, like with what's called our managed device route, right? Like you could do something where you get that $80 Android stick, we'll charge you a little bit extra, as long as you have a pro plus package, you're gonna have our version of an Apple Care where we have an MDM, our support team can remote in, they can troubleshoot. You don't have to spend valuable time with your IT professionals or anything like that to go and troubleshoot these sticks. We can do it for you.  So is that your happy place? If a customer goes down that path where obviously you're making a bit more money out of them, but you remove some of the mystery, so to speak because it's a known device. Paul Ciolino: Yeah, absolutely, and I think at the end of the day, we're happy if our customers are happy, and that's why we have that consultative approach on the deployment.  Tell me about the app store/library. You mentioned you have a hundred plus apps on there. Paul Ciolino: Yeah. So we've everything from, something like just a native designer app that's within the platform, or something like the Adobe Designer Suite, or like Canva or something like that. Something simple, something that most people that are creating digital signage are gonna need at some point. How does that work?  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, it's basically a frame within the platform, it is just like an app. It'll take you to a page where you can design from a template, we've got like 700 plus templates out there right now. Everything from menus to employee appreciation to emergency notices, all that kind of stuff, and then you can go ahead and configure each element on the page. You could even do something like pull from a data source where we can map elements within that page to a spreadsheet in Google or Excel, and so for QSRs in particular, this is really beneficial because they can go into a spreadsheet, never have to log into OptiSigns again, once they get the framework of their menu done, they can just change their pricing by changing that spreadsheet. Do you have to work with your customers to help them figure out what to do? Paul Ciolino: Absolutely, and that's within the fee structure that we have, with supporting meetings, and obviously we've got our blog with really good documentation on it as well. Where are you seeing traction in the marketplace? I know you mentioned healthcare and logistics. Are there particular areas where there seems to be a lot of interest and more of an ask than maybe in the past?  Paul Ciolino: We talked about it earlier actually, but one of the places where we see a ton of room for growth is gonna be in that reseller side. So creating those partnerships and channels. We have a couple of partners where if they need to have somebody do install and maintenance, we can do that as well. We're never gonna be that company that vertically integrates all of that under one umbrella, but we can certainly provide the introductions to those. We predict that the reseller marketplace is gonna be a significant chunk of our revenue within the next two years.  You also have a mobile app, which I was curious about. Is that a mobile app for control of the screens?  Paul Ciolino: Yep, nail on the head. So that's just gonna be an admin app. You don't want to go on an iPhone 5s and start designing on there for screens that are gonna be much bigger than that. We tried to keep it pretty myopic with the app deployment. That's just one of those things where somebody's on the go, maybe it's a small business owner, maybe it's somebody in a larger company that is going around and they wanna show something cool to their stakeholders or shareholders or whatever it's gonna be, and they can go ahead and just control it ad hoc as they need it. Was that something that you developed because a customer was asking for it, or you could just figure out that this is something that would be useful? Paul Ciolino: I honestly can't speak to the inception of the idea. But I do know the way that we think about things in general and it's like:  Is there going to be a need for this at some point?cHow much is it gonna cost us from a time money perspective? Is it worth it? And then we just go do it.  You also have an audience analytics add-on, what's that about? And is that something you guys wrote or is it a partner?  Paul Ciolino: No, that is actually a proprietary algorithm that our engineering team has done as well. We're talking about basically three different statistics here. The first one is going to be gender: Is the person looking at the screen male or female or walking by the screen, male or female? The second is going to be dwell time, and that's gonna be, how long is this person in front of the screen for? The third is gonna be attention time and that's how long is this person interacting with the screen for? And so when you think about reporting, OptiSigns does it really well in a couple of different ways. The first way is going to be like a proof of play reporting where you've got an advertiser, they're paying for a certain ad to be played a certain number of times over a certain period, you can batch those reports, send them out, do whatever you need to do, make sure that everybody's cool. Everything's transparent. Everything's above board.  Same thing with AI reporting, but that's gonna be more in the split testing realm of things, right? Where you design an advertisement or you design a menu or you design something and you want to see how people engage with it when you test different versions of it and so you can basically take August 1 through August 31 on this design, September 1 through September 30 on this design. What does my dwell time look like? What does my attention time look like? How's my split looking? Are males interacting more with this design? Are females interacting more with that design? All that kind of stuff. The audience analytics stuff using computer vision has been around for probably 15 years, and the challenge in the past was that it was expensive and you had to have additional hardware and everything else, and that kind of ruled out much adoption.  Has that changed? I believe it's $5 a month at MSRP so I suspect at scale it gets cheaper than that, and I'm assuming you're using just simple USB cameras to do the capture.  Paul Ciolino: Yeah, honestly, I think you could probably just pitch this for me at this point, but basically you need any camera that can see, right? It doesn't have to be a fancy camera that can do like 4k or anything like that. You wanna make sure that you're setting it up at the right distance, obviously, you don't want a $20 USB camera trying to find out who's looking at the screen 50 yards away or something like that.  But outside of that, it really is just plug-and-play. Does it make sense financially for you to go invest the time and the little bit extra money for that to get that kind of feedback for your own purposes or for your client's purposes? If yes, then, it's a great option to have.  Does that change the hardware set-up at all? I guess what I'm saying is does the $80 Android stick no longer the right device because you've got the extra overhead of the video processing?  Paul Ciolino: Yep, nail on the head again. You're gonna need to do a Linux or a Windows deployment with something like that, just because of the processing power that's needed to be able to effectively communicate that data back to the algorithm.  So just going back to the company, how large is it?  Paul Ciolino:  So we're just sub-20 right now so we're a very small shop. We definitely move quickly for sure, and again, just going into that, learned communication that we all have together, makes it really efficient for all of us to get stuff done. And it's just privately held, self-funded that sort of thing?  Paul Ciolino: Yep, precap and no debt. I asked about shares when I was joining and they said yes, but it'll be very expensive.  So what can we expect out of OptiSigns through the rest of this year and into next year?  Paul Ciolino: I think more the same, we're gonna be obviously focusing on a few different verticals going forward as we identify some customers, as we continue to move internationally, we've got a decent customer base in the EU, UK. We're blowing out into South America at this point a little bit. We do have a decent customer base in Australia as well, and then I've been having conversations with people in places like Somalia and other countries in Africa. So the reach is wide, right? And we've really only tapped that kind of outreach from a marketing perspective, even. We really haven't put a whole lot of dollars into growing our business internationally. It's mostly been organic.  So I think you can see that we're gonna be growing organically again. We're gonna be trying to be more aggressive in the way that we ideate on how we're going to tackle new verticals and things like that as well. But yeah, at the end of the day, we want to continue to make a product that will take any screen and turn it into a digital sign that you can use in any way that you and your team or your clients need to use it.  All right, and they can find the company at optisigns.com?  Paul Ciolino: Yes. Paul, thank you very much for spending time with me.  Paul Ciolino: Absolutely. Dave, it was a pleasure.

This is a tale from your Gay Auntie's youth. The story of the lady in black. It has a few different iterations but this is the one I remember from my stories told in my youth. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into Tejano Lore. and feel free to subscribe to my Patreon.

Gilbert Mata woke up excited Tuesday for the first day of school since a gunman's bullet tore through his leg three months ago in a fourth grade classroom in Uvalde. The 10-year-old has healed from his physical wounds, but burning smells still remind him of gunfire and the sight of many police officers recalls the day in May that an assailant killed 19 of his classmates and two teachers. On a morning that many Uvalde families had dreaded, a new school year began in the small South Texas town with big hugs on sidewalks, patrol cars parked at every corner and mothers wiping away tears while pulling away from the curb in the drop-off line. Mata was ready to return, this time with his own cellphone. His mother, Corina Comacho, had a tougher time letting her child go back to class. "There's a certain time he can get his phone out and text us he's OK," she said after walking him into a new school, Flores Elementary, and dropping him off behind doors with new locks. "That's like, 'OK, that's good. Now I feel better.'" Outside Uvalde Elementary, teachers in matching turquoise shirts emblazoned with "Together We Rise & Together We Are Better" gently led students through a newly installed 8-foot (2.4-meter) fence and past a state trooper standing outside the front entrance. "Good morning, sunshine!" greeted one teacher. "You ready to have a good school year?" Robb Elementary, where the attack unfolded on May 24, is permanently closed and will eventually be demolished. A large memorial of stuffed animals, victims' photographs and crosses remains outside the scene of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Outside the other schools in Uvalde — which are only a short drive away — some added safety measures that the district rushed to implement after the attack were incomplete. Security cameras are still in the works. New metal fencing surrounds some campuses, partially encloses others and isn't up at all at Flores Elementary, where many Robb students are enrolled this year. The attack lasted more than 70 minutes before police finally confronted the gunman and killed him. The delay infuriated parents and led to a damning report by state lawmakers. Now more police are on patrol, but distrust is rampant. "There's a big ol' gap right here. Anyone can walk through," said Celeste Ibarra, 30, pointing to the new barrier around Uvalde Elementary while standing in her front yard across the street. Ibarra's older daughter, 9-year-old Aubriella Melchor, was in Robb Elementary during the shooting and seemed to drag out Tuesday morning as long as possible, taking longer than usual to get dressed and poking at her breakfast. When back-to-school shopping rolled around, she didn't want to go to Walmart, and the glittery pencils Ibarra bought to get her daughter excited didn't work. "She kind of just played with her cereal," Ibarra said after dropping her off. "She was thinking. I know she was scared." Uvalde is off to a late start for school: Classes resumed weeks ago in many parts of Texas, where other districts encouraged students and teachers Tuesday to show support by wearing Uvalde's maroon colors. "We are all standing with you," First Lady Jill Biden tweeted. Uvalde pushed back the first day of class after a summer of heartache, anger and revelations that nearly 400 officers who rushed to the scene waited so long to go inside the classroom. Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, called the response an "abject failure," and the district fired school Police Chief Pete Arredondo last month. Over the summer, more than 100 students in Uvalde signed up for virtual learning. Others transferred to private schools. Elsa Avila, a fourth grade teacher who was shot in the abdomen and survived, missed the first day of school Tuesday for the first time in 30 years. For Mata's family, virtual school wasn't really in the conversation: Gilbert didn't do well with online classes during the pandemic. And besides, he wanted to go to Flores Elementary with his friends, said his mother and Michael Martinez, his stepfather. Mata is one of 11 survivors of the classroom whose families stay in touch, Comacho said. A ricocheted bullet went through his ankle and calf in Room 112. The extra security measures have brought little comfort to Martinez, who tried to put off everything when it came to the first day. "I wasn't ready for him to go back to school, but he says he was," Martinez said. During an open house at Flores Elementary, Martinez said when he pressed a teacher about how they would protect students this time, the response was an unsatisfactory rundown about new locks. "He didn't answer me what I really asked him. Like, how are you going to help? How are you going to save my kid if something happens?" Martinez said. "He didn't give me what I wanted to hear." Admittedly, Martinez said, he wasn't sure what he wanted to hear. He just knows he wasn't reassured. "I just wanted to hear something to make my mind change," he said. - PAUL J. WEBER Associated PressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She studied fashion and worked for big clothing brands like Vince Camuto and DKNY, but when it was time to step out on her own, she went back to her passion from childhood -- jewelry. Now, the founder of Jam + Rico reveals how to start even when you don't think you're ready, and how to turn a loss of job security into an opportunity.Follow  Lisette on Instagram @iamlisettescott.If you loved this episode, listen Why Designer Jen Zeano Is Building a Queer Lifestyle Brand in South Texas and How Bomba Curls' Lulu Cordero Unfurled Her Natural Hair and Ambition. Show your love and become a Latina to Latina Patreon supporter!We want to hear from you! Thank you for taking a few minutes to complete our survey. Your feedback helps understand what you love about Latina to Latina and how we can make it even better. To show our thanks, we'll send you a free sticker and you'll enter for a chance to win a $100 American Express gift card. We appreciate your time.

She hulK Hulk News, DECU News With Michael Betancourt!

Happy September everyone. I can't believe we're turning the corner to Fall and then the holidays already, again. The seasons we are falling into, pardon the pun, are of things dying annnnd recognizing the beauty that also surrounds it. Finding beauty in dying is usually challenging. For most of my life I had total fear around it, which I think began when I was 13 when my great uncle passed away. It was my first experience with someone I was close with dying. He was bigger than life and everybody loved Uncle Sam. My family flew to Chicago to go to his funeral and we stayed in his home, which really spooked me at the time because all his things and medicine were in place as if he were still there. At the funeral they had his casket open and I'll never forget how scared I was as I saw him under this red-ish light that was hanging above, and my grandfather loudly crying over his brother. It was the only time I had seen my grandpa cry. Needless to say that left quite the impression on me with regard to death and dying. And not a good one. Last year I happened to watch a TEDx talk on this topic with Dr. Martha Jo Atkins from 2013, which has over a million views. And when I heard her say, “When we educate families and the patient about the experiences of dying, there is less fear. And my goodness, we need less fear around death and dying” I grabbed my computer and wrote to ask her to be my guest on Loving Later Life. And I am so thrilled to tell you that she said yes! Dr. Martha Jo Atkins, is a dog-loving, (Ph.D.) end-of-life licensed professional counselor and counselor supervisor (LPC-S), coach, speaker , doula and author. Dr. Atkins has a thirty-year career helping children and adults negotiate end-of-life and grief. She is the founder of the Children's Bereavement Center of South Texas, served as Executive Director of Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying in San Antonio, and is the author of the book Signposts of Dying. She is the founder of Dying School, designed to build community while deepening conversations around end-of-life + aliveness. Now don't touch that dial! I can't wait to share this conversation with you and I do believe that it will have you thinking a little differently about death and dying. And I really want to have her back because there is so much more I want to talk about with her that we just didn't have time for. So get comfy, and let's let Martha Jo help us think about and talk about dying…  

The Garden Show | August 28, 2022

We enjoyed our time visiting with Michelle Martin from Ag Mag and Ag on Wheels from South Texas. Her experience and travels across the country offer a unique perspective into the agriculture industry.  Her story to success is an inspiration.Let us know what topics, or people you want to hear from! Leave us a review of what you think.Youtube: https://youtu.be/dozvCIcwh64Spotify: The Culture of Agriculture | Podcast on SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-culture-of-agriculture/id1618596670Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d3d9160b-2129-46bf-bcf6-71641c8ddcc9/the-culture-of-agriculture

Welcome to Season 3! (0:00:38) Wins, Weddings, and What's Next. Spencer and Justin catch up on their summer exploits -- and preview their plans for this season of the podcast. Spoiler: Question of the Week is back, but with a twist. (0:14:24) New Faces, New Places. We publicize some directors and coaches in new roles and chat with three of them: McGeorge's Annie Deets, Texas's Mike Golden, and South Texas's Brandon Draper. (0:49:51) The Big Interview: Cumberland's Judge Jim Roberts calls his mom a "jerk" (in a good way, we promise), identifies who he would like to "spank," talks about whether he is a "unicorn," admits to a "nerdy" hobby, explains what he might have "hypothetically" thrown at students, and more.  (1:44:37) Here's Some Advice. We finish with  words of wisdom from Spencer.

The final stop on the Texas Whiskey Trail takes us to South Texas. Like most of the state, there is a lot to discover in this region.

Jillian talks with Antonio James, a modern-day, genuine cowboy who began his journey in the ghettos of East Detroit, and through a series of unexpected and providential pivots, later settled into his life as the owner of a working horse ranch in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Jillian and Antonio discuss Hollywood cowboy stereotypes, the definition of a cowboy, how Lil Nas X is not a cowboy, and the importance of positive role models. 

Brady Goldman is a guitar builder and pickup winder based in South Texas who is building unique designs and creating a name for himself as an instrument maker. He has relocated and is in the process of setting his shop back up but in the meantime took some time to stop by and record an episode with me and I think you'll like it. In this episode we talk about how Brady got started, how he finds inspiration for new guitar models, and how to bounce back after having life break your jaw - literally! Find Brady and Goldman Guitars on:Internet: https://goldmanguitars.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldmanguitars/?hl=enSupport the show at: https://www.patreon.com/40wattpodcast/​Find guitar lessons on TrueFire (remember to use code 40WATT): https://bit.ly/3t0v1ZdFind all of the podcast links at:https://www.linktr.ee/40wattpodcasthttps://www.40wattpodcast.com/40 Watt Merchandise: https://40-watt-merch.creator-spring.com/Reverb Affiliate link: https://reverb.grsm.io/phillipcarter5480StringJoy Affiliate link: https://stringjoy.com/partner/fortywatt/Amazon Affiliate link: https://www.amazon.com/40wattSubscribe to the channel and give a like – also find us in audio format wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review and share us with your friends.TrueFire Affiliate LInkLearn. Practice. Play. - with TrueFire! You can use code 40WATT at checkout to receive 40% off your first or next TrueFire purchase. Patreon SupportYou can support the podcast by going to our Patreon page and becoming a supporter for as little as $5/month. Thank you for your support!

This week we sat down with Stephen G. Michaud, an internationally recognized author, co-author, reporter, and editor. His new book, "Robert's Story: A Texas Cowboys Troubled Life and horrifying Death" comes out September 13th. All Robert East wanted was to be a Texas Cowboy, live on the land, and keep to himself. But what happens when you have this modest man sitting on 250,000 acres of land with millions of dollars coming in each week? The wolves wanted his money, and would do anything to get it. Thank you to all of our winos and crimos for supporting our show each and every week! Click here to join our Patreon family and get in where you fit in!

Ray Puzo, ex-Special Forces sniper, is hired to rid the vast Cross Bar cattle ranch in South Texas of its feral hog problem. Due to radiation and other pollution the hogs have become super-brainy. Faced with extinction, the hogs organize and fight back. Humans and hogs face off in an epic battle between good and evil—but who is good and who is evil is an open question.Besides leading the charge against the hog uprising, Ray must navigate the Byzantine politics of the ranch's eccentric aristocracy, including:Mrs. Amanda Cross, reptilian ranch matriarch;Ned Cross, her queer son;Loretta Cross, her crackpot nympho daughter;Old man Cross, paralyzed by a bullet through his spine;And a supporting cast of cowpokes, vaqueros, schemers and ne'er-do-wells.Part pulp noir. Part dystopian Gothic western. Part satiric magic realism antiwar sex farce, Hog Wild is the illegitimate offspring of a ménage à trois between and among Orwell's Animal Farm, George Miller's The Road Warrior and Verna Bloom of Animal House and High Plains Drifter fame.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/houseofmysteryradio.

Ray Puzo, ex-Special Forces sniper, is hired to rid the vast Cross Bar cattle ranch in South Texas of its feral hog problem. Due to radiation and other pollution the hogs have become super-brainy. Faced with extinction, the hogs organize and fight back. Humans and hogs face off in an epic battle between good and evil—but who is good and who is evil is an open question.Besides leading the charge against the hog uprising, Ray must navigate the Byzantine politics of the ranch's eccentric aristocracy, including:Mrs. Amanda Cross, reptilian ranch matriarch;Ned Cross, her queer son;Loretta Cross, her crackpot nympho daughter;Old man Cross, paralyzed by a bullet through his spine;And a supporting cast of cowpokes, vaqueros, schemers and ne'er-do-wells.Part pulp noir. Part dystopian Gothic western. Part satiric magic realism antiwar sex farce, Hog Wild is the illegitimate offspring of a ménage à trois between and among Orwell's Animal Farm, George Miller's The Road Warrior and Verna Bloom of Animal House and High Plains Drifter fame.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/houseofmysteryradio.

0 mins In this episode I am joined by Jaime and Hiram. We start off with Jaime's favorite football player Deshawn Watson who got suspended for 11 games and fined $5 million.  We debate whether we think the punishment meets the crime.  Jaime doesn't think any crime was committed.  We then discuss the surprise knock out of Uzman in UFC.  We follow with an in-depth review of My Invisible Girlfriend the Netflix special about the catfishing of Manti Te'o.   I talk about a visit with a friend to Smoke Crafters where I try a new beer and the smoked chicken for the first time.  Jaime and I talk about a visit to Chillin and Grillin's house where Eddie cooks up some mean bbq.  20:00 minIn this segment we get to know the joe's where we take turns answering the following questions:·      Would you rather have unlimited sushi for life or unlimited tacos for life?·      Would you rather be the best player on a horrible team or the worst player on a great team?·      What celebrity chef would you have cook bbq for you?·      Do you have any superstitions? ·      What is the worst pickup line that you have ever dished out?·      What do you think is the most unpleasant sounding word?·      What is something weird you recommend everyone try at least once?55:00 minLastly we talk about our season finale giveaway and ask what celebrity chef would you have cook you up some barbecue?A bunch of joes that cook like pros!!!Law Office of Hector Hernandezhttp://hhernandezlaw.com/?fbclid=IwAR3kaG_wQzrsUJ-cVxJLUyjvipMPM1R59xo9YMKFFsiGHaaUgdZ8hd8cB7YGW BBQ BBQ | United States | GW's BBQ Catering Co. (gwsbbqcatering.com)Smoke Crafters Home - SMOKE CRAFTERS (ordersmokecraftersbbq.com)

Today is a guest podcast with my steller powerhouse client Celeste! I've had the privilege to work with Celeste Vee for the past 18 months and in that time we have transformed her business from best kept secret to a global, high ticketed, super niche offer!  Here are just a few of the topics we cover:1. How and why she decided she needed business coaching2. How her SEO not only rocked her business but also her mindset3. How to leverage collaborations for ultimate visibility and credibility 4. Being a military spouse and how that impacts her businessWant to connect with Celeste VeeLinkedINInstagramFacebookPinterestTwitterTicTokApple MusicYouTubeSpotifyGoogleDid you love today's podcast?

Johnny Avalos ripped five women away from their families, many more narrowly escaped his grasp. In the middle of the night, he'd stalk his prey before attacking and strangling them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

JT Van Zandt is a renowned fishing guide from South Texas, son of the legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, host of Yeti's "Drifting" podcast, musician, boat builder and owner of Epic Western Cocktails, a brand of premium RTD Ranch Water made with 100% blue agave tequila sourced from a small distillery in the highlands of Jalisco. JT and Dan discuss the ins and outs of fly fishing, the history of Ranch Water and, of course, the musical legacy of Townes Van Zandt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Emilio Zamora: The work of a scholar activist -  Scholars have always played a significant role in movements to advance racial and social justice. In Part II of his conversation with Ramona, Dr. Emilio Zamora discusses why and how scholars should be involved in the community. Dr. Zamora shares his work in Texas in the campaign for Ethnic Studies—involving petitions for inclusion in the standard curriculum and workshops to help teachers incorporate Ethnic Studies into their classrooms. This work keeps Dr. Zamora grounded and inspired to continue making the historical claim for divinely-inspired and constitutional-based rights for all. Originally from the small town of La Feria, in South Texas, Dr. Zamora is a Professor of History and the Clyde Rabb Littlefield Chair in Texas History at the University of Texas at Austin. For more information about Dr. Emilio Zamora, visit https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/ezamora.

8_19 This week in Nerd News! She-Hulk, SandMan first reaction. Michael Betancourt jumps in the podcast to talk Sandman and DC money news!

I am the podcast host for Lead At Home (Win At Life), a podcast that helps leaders in the home reprioritize leadership and legacy at home. I am also the podcast host for The Millennial Leadership Show, helping give millennials the clarity and courage they need to succeed in work and in life. I have worked with over 500 business brands in 21 different countries in the past 7 years doing work with both small businesses and multi-billion dollar corporations. I currently lead large-scale sales and marketing campaigns in the healthcare industry, specifically in senior healthcare and have been named the #1 sales broker in South Texas by United Healthcare, which is currently ranked #4 on the Fortune 500. I am a community leader in San Antonio, TX. I serve as President on the Board of Directors for the San Antonio Council on Alcohol and Drug Awareness, and at 29 years old, am the youngest non-profit president for non-profits bringing in over $3 Million per year.

The Burn Down boys head down south to Nashville, Tennessee and Austin, Texas! These stories are hilarious! #theburndown #theburndownpodcast #texas #austin #nashville #tennessee Please like, comment and subscribe! Check out our website! Become a member! $5/month and exclusive discounts and giveaways.  www.burndownpodcast.com  

Your friendly neighborhood podcast producer bringing you a new show about all the ODD things happening in daily modern America. Subscribe, Share, See you soon Support the show for bonus content Patreon.com/robgtv

Coming to you from various spots all around South Texas, the Smokin' Gunz Crew talks about the NAL news and awards from Championship week and what we think and hope for as more and more XFL rumors and news rolls out.  Smokin' Gunz Podcast proudly recognizes our teammates via Patreon: Monique and Iris Ferrante Herman Robles Jr. Alba Nava Greg and Kim Nelson Humphrey Hernandez Adriana Garcia Warren Hubert Join our team at www.Patreon.com/SmokinGunzPod   Smokin Gunz Podcast is also brought to you by: Teardrop Pepper Co. - www.teardroppepperco.com Texas Sports LMT - www.facebook.com/mobilespagals/ Southern Texas Designs - www.facebook.com/SouthernTexasDesigns   Contact us at: www.twitter.com/SmokinGunzPod www.facebook.com/SmokinGunzPod SmokinGunzPod@gmail.com

The staged kidnapping of an 8-month-old baby angered the entire San Antonio community. The details of the case shocked many and three people ended up behind bars. In this week's episode, we revisit the killing of King Jay Davila, labeled by an investigative reporter as “one of the most horrific child abuse cases that Bexar County has seen probably the last 30 years.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Emilio Zamora: The evolution of a scholar activist -  Scholars have always played a significant role in movements to advance racial and social justice. In Part 1 of his conversation with Ramona, Dr. Emilio Zamora discusses his career trajectory as a Mexican Americanist historian and how his research has shaped his consciousness of social responsibility and his approach as a scholar activist. Expanding on his research on Mexican American activists Alonso Perales and José de la Luz Sáenz, Dr. Zamora explains how the lives of these men have provided lessons on how to advance racial and social justice. Originally from the small town of La Feria, in South Texas, Dr. Zamora is a Professor of History and the Clyde Rabb Littlefield Chair in Texas History at the University of Texas at Austin. For more information about Dr. Emilio Zamora, visit https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/faculty/ezamora.

Returning to running post-COVID, and understanding exactly what COVID and long-COVID can do to our bodies, has become one of the most important topics in running. With that in mind, one of the leading voices on long-COVID in the country, someone who has also qualified for the Boston Marathon, joins us on the show. It was an absolute honor to speak with Monica Verduzco Gutierrez, MD. In this episode, Monica talks about recovery from COVID, why it impacts individuals differently, guidelines to returning to exercise, "radical rest," how HR can play a role in the recovery, what long-COVID is and how it can be addressed, and so much more. Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez is an accomplished academic Physiatrist and Professor and Chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. She previously was the Medical Director of the Brain Injury and Stroke Program at a top three US News and World Report Best Hospital for Rehabilitation. Dr. Gutierrez grew up in South Texas, then moved to Houston where she earned her undergraduate degree at Rice University, her medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, and completed her PM&R residency training at the Baylor College of Medicine-UT Houston Rehabilitation Alliance. She excitedly moved to San Antonio to lead the distinguished Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in 2020. Her area of clinical expertise is the care of patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, and interventional spasticity management. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has developed a Post-COVID Recovery Clinic to aid in the rehabilitative recovery of patients with functional, mobility, and cognitive deficits after infection with coronavirus. She is now one of the leading voices in the country on this topic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seresto Flea and Tick Collars for dogs and cats have been sold to Americans since 2013. During that time, the EPA has received approximately 100,000 reports of illnesses and 2,500 reports of deaths of animals that wore a Seresto Flea and Tick collar, by far the most reports received about any flea and tick treatment on the market. In this episode, hear testimony from scientists about the Environmental Protection Agency's disturbingly lax review processes for pesticides in pet products and learn why your vote in November is likely to determine if these popular but dangerous products will stay on American shelves. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Listen to the latest episode of Jen's new podcast with Andrew Heaton and Justin Robert Young — We're Not Wrong Episode 12: About The Never Ending Ukraine War, Biden's COVID and Mike Pence (LIVE FROM BERLIN) To report an incident directly to the EPA via email Report.Pesticide.Incident@epa.gov View the shownotes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd256-poisonous-pet-collars Executive Producer Recommended Sources CD200: How to End Legal Bribes Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics. Public Affairs: 2011. Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD254: Baby Formula Shortage CD234: AWOL Recall: The Rock and Play Sleeper Reports on Seresto and Pesticides “Oversight Subcommittee Report Reveals EPA Failed to Protect Pets, Owners From Dangerous Flea and Tick Collar.” Jun 15, 2022. House Committee on Oversight and Reform. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. June 2022. “Staff Report: Seresto Flea and Tick Collars: Examining why a product linked to more than 2,500 pet deaths remains on the market.” Lauretta Joseph. May 19, 2022. “Notification of Evaluation: The EPA's Response to Reported Incidents of Unintended Effects from Pet Collar Pesticides, Project No. OSRE-FY22-0120” Johnathan Hettinger. Sept. 24, 2021. “Is your pet wearing a Seresto flea collar? Company reports thousands more adverse incidents.” USA Today. Jordan Liles. Mar 8, 2021. “Did Seresto Flea Collars Cause 1,698 Dog and Cat Deaths?” Snopes. Johnathan Hettinger. Mar 2, 2021. “Popular flea collar linked to almost 1,700 pet deaths. The EPA has issued no warning.” USA Today. Jen's highlighted copy Lawrence J. Dyckman et al. July 1995. “Pesticides: EPA's Efforts to Collect and Take Action on Exposure Incident Data, GAO/RCED-95-163.” U.S. Government Accountability Office. Lobbying “Lobbyist Profile: Ryan Canfield.” 2022. Open Secrets. “Employment History: Ryan Canfield.” Open Secrets. “Elanco Animal Health.” Open Secrets. The Hearing Seresto Flea and Tick Collars: Examining why a product linked to more than 2,500 pet deaths remains on the market June 15, 2022 Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy Witnesses: Faye Hemsley & Omarion Hemsley, Owners of Deceased Pet Thomas Maiorino, Owner of Deceased Pet Jeffrey Simmons, President and Chief Executive Officer, Elanco Animal Health Incorporated Nathan Donley, Ph.D, Environmental Health Science Director, Center for Biological Diversity Karen McCormack, Former Scientist, Policy Analyst, and Communications Officer (ret.), Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Protection Agency Carrie Sheffield (minority witness), Senior Policy Analyst, Independent Women's Voice Clips 1:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): As early as 2015, just a few years after the collar entered the US market, an EPA investigation found that among similar products, the Seresto collar “ranked number one” by a wide margin in terms of total incidents, major incidents and deaths, even after factoring in companies' relative sales. Those findings weren't enough to drive the makers of Seresto collar or the EPA to act. 1:50 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): In 2016, Canada's equivalent of the EPA known as the PMRA, concluded based on a review of the same American data available to the EPA that the collar posed too great a risk to pets and their owners to be ever sold in Canada. 2:10 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Even as the death count rose, the EPA allowed Seresto to remain on the market here without even so much as requiring additional warning labels that regulators mandated in places ranging from Australia to Colombia to the European Union. 2:30 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): The companies that manufactured the Seresto collar first Bayer animal health and then later Elanco were also aware of the risks, the incidents and the deaths, but they too failed to act. Instead, they hired third party industry insiders to conduct so-called independent reviews of the incident data, which ended up protecting their $300 million a year market but ended up endangering pets. So the Seresto collar stayed the same and so did the consequences. 4:15 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): This particular collar has caused 100,000 incidents reported to the EPA and over 2500 pet deaths reported to the EPA. 4:30 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): The steps that we are asking for today are crucial, because it's important to protect our pets and our families, too. I now call upon my distinguished colleague, Mr. Cloud for his opening statement. Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX): Thank you, Chairman. This is the first hearing of the Economic and Consumer Policy Subcommittee this year, and we've been in session for 52 days this year. And our first hearing is on pet collars. And I do realize that our pets are a huge part of our lives, they enrich our families, they provide companionship for my kids, they've helped foster responsibility and compassion and care, important ethics we need in our society. Just recently, our family mourned the loss of our guinea pig, biscuit. And so pets are a huge part of our family lives. But I have to admit that when I saw that this was going to be on the agenda for this week, I cannot help but be concerned, especially coming from South Texas about the 1000s 10s of 1000s of human lives that have passed away due to fentanyl and due to an open border and due to the policies of this administration to continue to aid and abet cartels. And I realized that this is the economic and Consumer Policy Subcommittee. And so I think about economic policy happening right now and where the minds of the American people are. Gas is now averaging $5 A gallon nationwide. For the first time in history. We have not had a hearing. Inflation is at a 40 year high. We have not had a hearing, the American people cannot find baby formula. We still haven't had a hearing. I've mentioned fentanyl is killing Americans, especially our teens at unprecedented rates. We have not had a hearing. Biden's systemic elimination of the safe and secure border he inherited has led to the worst humanitarian and national security crisis in this country's history. We have not had a hearing this term, we could talk about how inflation is affecting the cost of owning a pet, including the increased cost of food, toys, accessories, but we're not talking about that either. Instead, we're holding a hearing on the pet collar, which fights fleas and ticks. And as any pet owner knows fleas and tick management is an essential part of pet care. But I'm not sure it's an essential part of congressional oversight, especially when we take in mind where the American people are at. And frankly, I've talked to a number of people in my district and others who live in other parts of the country and they are really surprised that this has risen to one of the top priorities of commerce at this time in juncture. The subcommittee Republicans would rather explore efforts to help American consumers during these trying times, we would gladly have joined the chairman in holding a hearing on the shortage of baby formula. Moreover, we have welcomed the chance to explore TikTok's troubling practice of showing dangerous content to minors, an investigation you all started last year. In fact, it's now come to light that teenagers are using tick tock and other social media platforms to purchase illicit drugs including unknowingly in many cases, in most cases, fentanyl. Social media platforms are also using it to recruit young people into the gig economy of human trafficking. A hearing on that crisis could be incredibly important. And on the subject of our nation's youth, CDC bureaucrats have actively pursued an agenda to close schools during the pandemic instead of following the science damaging our children's financial, mental, physical, emotional, and also their learning for years to come. But we still have not had a hearing. Americans are facing incredible economic issues which require us as elected officials to listen and to respond. I do appreciate the fact that our pets play an important part of our lives. We should be kind to animals and we should teach our children to do the same. But I do care immensely more about the human lives that we were elected to serve. 10:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): A recorded vote has been requested — we will pause while the we will get the clerk out. 12:00 Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL): Mr. Chairman, it's already been about what? A minute and a half. Where's the clerk? Is the clerk on lunch and not here today? Rep. Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): I think the clerk is on the way Mr. Donalds, thank you. Rep. Donalds: Is the clerk sitting in the side office just hanging out? I mean, come on, Mr. Chairman. 21:20 Clerk: Mr. Cloud? Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX): Yes Clerk: Mr. Cloud votes yes. Mr. Keller? Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA): Yes Clerk: Mr. Keller votes yes. Mr. Franklin? Rep. C. Scott Franklin (R-FL): Yes Clerk: Mr. Franklin votes yes. Mr. Clyde? Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA): Yes. Clerk: Mr. Clyde votes yes. Mr. Donalds? Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL): Yes Clerk: Mr. Donalds votes yes. 26:31 Thomas Maiorino: My name is Thomas Maiorina. I reside in Mount Laurel, New Jersey with my wife Monica. I am the father of three boys. My youngest son, Robert turned 12 in 2011. After years of asking for a dog, he wore us down and we decided to rescue a dog from a southern shelter for my son's birthday. After researching online, we adopted a mixed breed mutt that Robbie and his two other brothers named Rooney. Rooney swiftly became a loved member of our family. A bit rambunctious, she was just what a 12 year old boy needed. She loved the run and chase anything the move in the yard. By all measures, we took great care to ensure Rooney had a healthy and happy life. We took her on daily walks, sometimes three a day, hikes on park trails. We monitor her diet and made sure she was seen by the veterinarian as needed, and she received all of her shots. Because she was a bit rambunctious and we lived in a wooded area where there's a lot of wildlife, we were constantly concerned about the problems of fleas and ticks. We consulted with a veterinarian after getting Rooney to determine the best way to protect her against this. We use a variety of prevention methods for the first few years and when we changed veterinarians in approximately 2013 or 14, the new veterinarian strongly recommended that we use the Seresto flea and tick collar, based on all of our options. We heeded that advice and purchased Seresto collars from our local PetSmart. The collars were intended to provide protection for up to eight months. We noticed that after fixing a collar to Rooney's neck, she began to itch and first had that treated and tested for allergies. We took her to the vet several times during 2018 seeking to find the cause for the ever increasing itching. After several visits and multielement medications, they were unable to determine the cause and we switched to a specialist in 2019 to seek further assistance, where they provided allergy shots and other medications to address the worsening itching and related symptoms. Rooney's behavior then became more erratic as the months wore on she began linking her paws so feverishly they would bleed. She also developed bleeding patches on her stomach. Ultimately, in October 2020, Rooney suffered horrendous grand mal seizure in the presence of myself and my wife. The damage done by the seizure was irreversible. She was a shell of her former self and ultimately, the family decided the most humane thing would be to put Rooney to sleep at the age of nine. In early March 2021, I read an article online about Seresto pet collars resulting in the deaths of 1700 Pets without any warnings from the EPA or the manufacturer. I sought out legal representation not because I wanted financial compensation, but because I took great pains to care for Rooney. The final 18 months of her life were agonizing to watch if I could help prevent another family from going through what my family went through. I wanted to act. I'm here today in furtherance of that effort. I appreciate the committee taking the time to investigate this matter. And thank you for your time. 33:30 Jeffrey Simmons: There are a few points I'd like to emphasize upfront. First, the EPA approved Seresto following more than 80 safety and toxicity studies, all of which show that Seresto and its ingredients have a strong safety profile. Second, more than 80 regulatory bodies around the world have approved Seresto. Seresto is widely used and more than 80 million collars worn over the past decade to protect dogs and cats from fleas and ticks around the world. 34:00 Jeffrey Simmons: Third, adverse event reports are not intended to be, and in fact are absolutely not, proof of causation. Reports require further investigation and analysis to determine cause. And after years of review, our pharmacovigilance team made up of veterinarians and other experts who study adverse event reports has not identified a single death caused by the active ingredients in the collar. 36:45 Jeffrey Simmons: No product is without risk. What matters is whether those risks are reasonable. And in light of the benefits and numerous studies and the incident report data for Seresto demonstrate the product does not pose an unreasonable risk and has a strong safety profile, which is why the American Veterinary Medical Association opposed canceling Seresto's EPA registration. 38:05 Nathan Donley: My name is Dr. Nathan Donley. I'm the science director for the Environmental Health Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. I have a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Oregon Health and Sciences University. The last seven years of my professional life have been spent researching how pesticides impact people and the environment and the regulatory failures that can actually facilitate harm rather than prevent it. I published three peer reviewed scientific articles and five technical reports on this subject. I've authored over 100 technical scientific comments to the EPA on pesticide documents, including flumethrin and imidacloprid, the two active ingredients in the Seresto collar. I've read through 1000s of pages of FOIA documents I requested on matters related to the approval and continued use of Seresto. 39:40 Nathan Donley: While other agencies like the FDA have robust systems in place to surveil harms from products under their purview, EPA only requires minimal information be submitted four times a year and they delegate this responsibility to the pesticide industry itself. The limited information that is collected includes only the pesticide product name, where the incident occurred, and the severity of the incident. That's it. Oftentimes, the agency doesn't even know if the incident involves a dog or a cat. Even though the EPA determines what incident information it collects, it then turns around and laments that the incident data are insufficient to take regulatory action to protect public health, the environment and our pets. It's a system designed to achieve nothing other than maintaining the status quo. Worse yet, reported incidents significantly underestimate the true scope of harm. The EPA recently estimated that only one in 25 pesticide incidents involving another pesticide called Kamba was actually reported to the authorities. That's only a 4% reporting rate. Given that 100,000 people have reported their concerns about Seresto, this is very alarming because the true number of harmful incidents to pets could be potentially far higher. 41:05 Nathan Donley: The EPA's counterpart in Canada was so concerned about Seresto incidents and harms of pets and humans that it denied Seresto approval in 2016. Canada analyzed U incident data and determined that Seresto collars had an incident rate 50 times greater than the average flea collar and 36 times greater than Canada's trigger for review. 41:25 Nathan Donley: EPA has no trigger for review of any pesticide product, no matter how much harm is being reported. And because the agency has no mandated trigger for reviewing pesticides like Seresto, rather than choosing to use incident reporting data to inform a robust regulatory process and take dangerous products off the market, EPA routinely chooses to do nothing at all. And that's especially troubling when you consider that Seresto is just one of 18,000 pesticide products currently approved by the EPA. 42:40 Karen McCormack: My name is Karen McCormack. At the present time I am a retired government employee after working over 40 years at the Environmental Protection Agency. During my career at EPA, I first worked in an EPA laboratory as a research coordinator. And in that capacity, I conducted research on numerous pesticides. Later I transferred to EPA headquarters in Washington DC, and worked in various positions in the pesticide program as a scientist, policy analyst, and a communications officer. I also worked in a number of offices at EPA including the Office of the Assistant Administrator for Pesticides and Toxins. Although I'm retired from EPA, I'm still closely following a number of environmental topics and one of those topics of interest to me has been the impact of flea and tick pet products on cats and dogs. 43:30 Karen McCormack: The US Environmental Protection Agency is charged with regulating products that contain pesticides and in ensuring that all pesticide products are safe to use. Before 1996, EPA did not consistently require manufacturers to conduct animal safety studies for pet products containing pesticides. Because pet products with pesticides were available readily in commercial stores, consumers thought they must be safe. This is not necessarily the case. Flea and tick products are designed to kill insects, and they often contain poisonous chemicals. When combined with pesticides that are used outside the home and in the water and food that people drink and eat, the aggregate risks from all these sources of pesticides can be high, especially for children who are vulnerable to toxic chemicals -- much more vulnerable than adults. And it wasn't until the passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act that EPA began to examine the risks from sources other than food, including risks from pet products containing pesticides. After the passage of FQPA, pesticide manufacturers were required to submit to EPA animal safety studies and incident reports showing harm to animals and humans exposed to pesticides and pet products. Between 2012 and the present time the EPA received an increasing number of incident reports related to the use of flea and tick pet collars for dogs and cats. The toxic effects that were described in these many incident reports from the use of certain pet collars ranged from mild effects, such as skin irritation to more severe effects such as intense tremors, seizures, paralysis, organ failure and death. The largest number of incident rate counts that EPA received during this period were from the use of pet collar called Seresto. 45:35 Karen McCormack: Between January 2012 and the present time, EPA has received over 100,000 incident reports, and these incident reports include human incidents as well as pet incidents. These reports also include at least 2300 reports of pet deaths. The number is most likely a very low estimate of the actual number of incidents that are occurring since many pet owners do not know that they can report incidents to EPA and they may not know how to correlate the adverse effects in their pets with a particular pet product. 46:30 Karen McCormack: There are no independent organizations that rank the safety of pet products. And the sales data which is needed to rank the safety of pet products is considered confidential business information by the manufacturers. EPA's risk assessments also do not tell the full story of what pet products are safe, as they rely heavily on industry generated studies that were conducted on mice and rats rather than dogs and cats. And EPA's risk assessments also are based mainly on studies that were conducted with only one pesticide in Seresto rather than the combined pesticides in this pet product. 47:10 Karen McCormack: Although the original manufacturers of Seresto, Bayer, did conduct a number of efficacy and safety studies in dogs and cats treated with Seresto, the company did not conduct two very critical studies that are important for determining the safety of a pet product. These tests include a pet transferable residue study, a petting study, to determine the exposure of humans to Seresto. And they did not conduct a study that measures the amount of pesticide that gets in the blood of treated dogs and cats. 48:45 Carrie Sheffield: My name is Carrie Sheffield and I'm a senior policy analyst at the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women's Forum. We are a nonprofit organization committed to increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty. 2:44:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Let me just show you some analysis that was conducted by Elanco, which we would just refer to as well as the EPA, as well as the Canadian equivalent of the EPA, which is called the PMRA. Essentially, we look at this chart here, and we see that at the top Elanco computed that 0.51% of pet deaths were “possibly or probably” caused by the Seresto collar. The PMRA in Canada, looking at a sample of pet deaths concluded that 33% of those pet deaths were possibly or probably caused by Seresto collars. And the EPA here, concluded that 45% were possibly or probably caused by pet by the Seresto collar. Now, sir, I think originally, you said that there is no scientific evidence, no evidence of a causal link, this is clearly evidence, it was so compelling that the Canadian equivalent of the EPA never allowed for Seresto collars to be sold in Canada, correct? Jeffrey Simmons: Yes, I'm aware of that decision. I would also add that 80 other countries have approved this product, we've had over 80 million collars actually used. I'm not familiar with this data comparison, but what I can say is following the EPA regulatory process around the oversight, that we have pharmacovigilance, close to 200 veterinarians and staff on our team, looking at the data through the way the EPA wants us to we have not seen a linkage from the active ingredients. Rep. Krishnamoorthi: I understand that sir, I understand you haven't seen the linkage, although other authorities have and their scientists who are not paid by you have done so. 2:46:25 Nathan Donley: This is what we commonly see, quite frankly, when the regulated industry is doing their own research. It commonly finds that their products are safer than when government agencies or academic scientists take on a similar analysis. 2:46:55 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): We have FOIA documents from the EPA, and emails internal to the EPA talking about the Seresto collar. Here's just one of them. This is from an employee who basically voiced their opinion about recent coverage of the Seresto controversy, he said, “looks like the sh*t has hit the fan….will be interesting seeing where this goes. I hope there is a FOIA for all communications on this so that our emails are made public. We have been screaming about Seresto for many years.” I presume that you've heard some of these screams and concerns, correct, Ms. McCormack? Karen McCormack: That's correct. A number of EPA employees have contacted me and given me detailed descriptions about what's happening with Seresto and they were very upset that EPA refused to do anything about it. 2:48:25 Karen McCormack: A number of the scientists, and this is not unusual, feel that the decision makers are not considering the science and they're making decisions based on political reasons. I don't know if I have time to talk about this, but I did look at the science that the Canadian government did, the causality analysis. They looked at the consistency and toxicity of effects from exposure of pets to Seresto. And what they found was very disturbing. It was so disturbing that they decided the risks were too high to approve Seresto and they could not be mitigated by putting a label statement on the product or by issuing warning labels, so they refused to approve Seresto. 2:49:25 Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX): Thank you, Ms. McCormack, for acknowledging that the EPA sometimes makes political decisions, so that's something we'll definitely be coming back to next term. 2:55:05 Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): Are the active ingredients for Seresto in the United States different from the active ingredients for Seresto collars in other countries? Jeffrey Simmons: No, I do not believe they're any different than the other 80 countries. Rep. Porter: In other countries like in Colombia and Australia, the warning labels for Seresto collars classify the collar as highly toxic and as poison. 2:55:50 Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): Does the label in the United States have language? Like highly toxic or poison? Yes or no? Jeffrey Simmons: It does not. Rep. Porter: Okay. So the warning label here in the United States, though does say that mild reactions may occur and mentions hair loss, scratching and redness. The most severe symptoms listed are eczema and lesions. This is the warning label: does it mention the potential for death? Jeffrey Simmons: It does not. Rep. Porter: So a pet owner looking at this label that we're looking at would have absolutely no reason, no way to know that Seresto may have caused roughly 100 pet deaths. That's what both the Canadian Pest Management Agency, the PMRA, and the EPA found. Will you change this label, so that it includes deaths as a possible side effect? Jeffrey Simmons: Congresswoman, we do not believe the scientific data warrants a label change. And again, that is not just the 80 studies were submitted. There's been 20 additional added studies since and all of the oversight data that's been done on the 33 million pets over the 10 years. So again, following an EPA regulated process, we're always open if a data warranted, some need for a change, we would do that. 2:57:30 Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): The EPA encouraged both your predecessor, Bayer, and your company, Elanco, to update the warning label. Yet, you just said that you never have. So the federal government did in fact advise you to update the label and you failed to do so. Is that correct? Jeffrey Simmons: I do not believe that is correct. We are in regular engagement with EPA. We have not received any formal…there's no data that warrants that and there's been no formal engagement on that. 2:58:15 Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA): The EPA asked Bayer, the predecessor here, in 2019 to help the agency collect data on adverse incidents for cats and dogs using the Seresto collar. EPA asked Bayer to split the registration for cats and dogs, so the agency could better understand and evaluate the risks for each type of pet. They refused, saying that change might have, “an adverse impact on sales” and they also said, “it would be a substantial increase in work.” Mr. Simmons, are you willing to make that change and split the registration for cats and dogs as the EPA requested? Or do you believe it's too much work? Jeffrey Simmons: I am willing to engage with the EPA on anything that the scientific data and the engagement under the regulatory body of the EPA merits the right thing to do. We believe the 80 studies and all of the pharmacovigilance data that we've submitted to them stands that this is a safe product. 3:00:10 Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA): I feel obligated to begin by stating the obvious this afternoon. Today's hearing is a colossal waste of time and resources. 3:13:25 Rep. Henry Johnson (D-GA): And the only reason that the public knew about the harm caused by this pesticide is because the Center for Biological Diversity publicly petitioned the EPA to cancel registration for Seresto flea collars. If they had not bought this to light, do you think we would even know of the dangers presented by these collars? Nathan Donley: No, we wouldn't. You know, the investigation that came out in USA Today in 2021 really brought this to the public attention. And if there wasn't that amount of pressure from the public, this would just still be completely unknown. EPA, for the last 10 years, has not done anything to alert consumers to the harms associated with this product or any other pesticide products where there are a very high number of incidents. 3:15:10 Karen McCormack: I think some of the people at EPA are programmed to go along with whatever industry says. It makes life easier for you, you can go home earlier and you can also get promoted easier if you go along with what industry says. It's unfortunate a problem there. And I've seen it over the years and it's very hard to do something about it. 3:15:40 Karen McCormack: Canada's analysis was very scientific. It was not only based on incident data and sales data, it was based on the toxicity of the two pesticides in Seresto. And they looked at the consistency and what happened eventually with the pets that were exposed to Seresto. 3:19:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And so because of the tremendous number of pet incidents, the tremendous number of deaths, even when factoring in sales, I sadly have no choice but to recommend that the EPA commence a notice of intent to cancel proceedings and to fully investigate what's going on with the Seresto collar, and I respectfully request Elanco to voluntarily recall these collars at this time, pending this further investigation. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)