MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING (7/17/26)
Welcome to Many People Are Saying, our weekly paid-subscriber article where we cover the weird, funny, strange, and scandalous happenings throughout Texas.
THIS WEEK:
Congressman Wesley Hunt Poses With Alleged Human Traffickers
The Compounding Scandals of Taylor, Texas
Democrat Mayor Arrested For Alleged Voter Fraud
Congressman Wesley Hunt Poses With Alleged Human Traffickers
In an article posted by DailyMail, Congressman Wesley Hunt posed for a photo with Andrew and Tristan Tate:
For those unaware, Andrew and Tristan Tate face multiple allegations of sex trafficking and related offenses in Romania and the United Kingdom.
In Romania, prosecutors accuse the Tate brothers of attempting to recruit and exploit victims, including minors, into producing pornography and performing webcam sex work for financial gain.
In the UK, the Tate brothers face a combined 21 charges,including rape, actual bodily harm, and human trafficking related to offenses alleged between 2012 and 2016.
Both brothers have denied all allegations.
Lauren Southern, a political commentator and author, documented a previous run-in with Andrew Tate where she alleges he sexually assaulted her including choking and strangulating her in a hotel room in 2018. According to the New York Times, Southern was able to provide a hospital report regarding the assault.
Upon news of the Texas congressman taking a photo with the Tate brothers, Southern provided the following statement to Current Revolt:
It’s honestly remarkable how easily people with power let themselves become PR props for men facing serious trafficking allegations.
The political class loves to tell us they’re deeply concerned about sex trafficking, right up until the alleged trafficker has millions of followers and can boost engagement. If you’re demanding transparency on Epstein (Hunt has) while posing for photos with Andrew Tate, maybe the issue was never trafficking. Maybe it’s just whether the trafficker is politically useful.
There is far more evidence publicly available today than when this story first broke, including Romanian prosecutors bringing charges against the Tates for trafficking minors. There are multiple cases ongoing in the UK and US. Yet an elected representative still thought this was a smart photo op.
Maybe Hunt’s team didn’t do five minutes of research. If so, he’s hired an incompetent team. If they did, then the judgment is even worse.
Hunt’s team did not provide comment in time for publishing.
The Compounding Scandals of Taylor, Texas
A 30-year resident of Taylor, Texas asked his fellow citizens to hum and hold it until his phone’s decibel meter hit 70, so that his public comments could be delivered with the same aura that accompanies a data center.
Many people are saying the mayor of Taylor just sold his house. For the record: listed at $459,000, and under contract before the council meeting you’re about to read about. The one he didn’t attend. He was out of the country.
The data center saga has run through two mayors, and the other one is also interesting. Two months into his term, the previous mayor took a day job as a salesman for a company that sells data center cooling equipment. For the record again: no evidence his company ever sold anything to this project. Still, couldn’t be more sus.
Credit
Nearly all of this was dug up by Louis Rossmann out of Austin. He is a First Amendment and right-to-repair activist, a business owner, and a popular YouTuber. Honorary Texan. Legend. He pulled the deeds, read the planning minutes, and published a receipts page with 76 citations so you can check every claim yourself. Louis Rossman on YouTube
The Gift
1999: a Taylor farmer deeds 87 acres to a parks foundation for $10. The deed says “to be held in trust for future use as parkland.” His reason, as he told a neighbor: “these kids need somewhere to play.”
Then he dies. The land hops through two foundations to the city, and the parkland language magically falls off the paperwork. 2008: the city sells it to its own economic development corporation for $15,000. April 2025: the EDC sells it to a data center developer for $10 million.
The park will be a 135,000-square-foot AI data center.
The neighbors sued and lost. Not because a judge said the deed didn’t mean park. Because the court said the neighbors weren’t allowed to ask. That question is on appeal now.
Petition Night
The town did the “democracy” thing. 130 days of door-knocking. 1,400 verified signatures, in a town of fifteen thousand. More people signed that petition than voted in the last mayoral election. The city certified the signatures, then went quiet for weeks.
July 9. The chamber overflows. Residents line up at the microphone to speak. And fifteen minutes into the meeting, the city posts on Facebook that the petition is dead, and that no action will be taken. Texas law, the statement says, doesn’t allow zoning by popular vote. The crowd finds out from their phones, mid-meeting. The room gasps.
“After this meeting started, y’all posted this on Facebook, knowing we were all coming here? ... Tell me that this is not shady? Shady business. Shame on all of y’all.”
-public comment by goth chick
The mayor wasn’t there to hear it. He was out of the country on vacation. The city manager later apologized for the timing of the post.
As a planning commissioner, Jim Buzan made the motion that approved this data center. It passed 6 to 0. The old mayor, Dwayne Ariola, is his lifelong friend. That’s the one with the datacenter cooling-equipment day job. Ariola appointed Buzan to the committee rewriting the city charter while Buzan was already running for mayor.
The local paper’s headline: “Ethics concerns cited.” Nothing happened.
May 2: Buzan wins with 869 votes. May 4: that committee votes 5 to 4 against letting citizens recall a mayor. He voted no. So there is no recall, and Taylor has no ethics rules for removing an official who misbehaves. The only tool left is the next election, in 2029. And his house went under contract before petition night.
Things many people are saying:
“You can’t walk to a grocery store, but you can walk to a data center.”
“I have to wonder when was the meeting to deliberate, discuss and craft this Facebook post?”
And the coldest take of all: maybe Taylor is getting exactly what it ordered. This wouldn’t be the town’s first, second, or third rodeo.
The resident’s appeal sits at the Fifteenth Court of Appeals. Good luck with that y’all.
Democrat Mayor Arrested For Alleged Voter Fraud
The thing Democrats say never happens happened again.
