Why do Republicans always lose?

On this podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness we were joined by Houston area conservative activist and taxpayer advocate Kyle Scott.  ( @KennethRWebster )

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The Giganic government sucks. Pursuit ofhaving is radio is dux. Liberty and
freedom will make you smile. Thea sud of having and us on your
radio to hel just as Esburg usinga liberty prize at for food. Today

(00:29):
is tax Day, or as Shakiracalls it, Monday. Nick Cannon filed
for an extension because he'll need toat least August to count all his dependents.
It takes a very long time.You know, unlike most Americans,
I don't have a problem paying mytaxes because I have complete and total confidence
that our government will make good useof the money. Hi, I'm ken

(00:50):
you webster. Thanks for joining us. Awesome to be with you here to
this after it's Monday. You know, we don't love tax Day, but
at least you and I could spendit together, so there's that. Thanks
for tuning in. Grateful to haveyou guys here. I know sometimes people,
you know, you get distracted throughoutthe day. You forget there's things
going on. Don't forget your favoritemid afternoon talk show. Well late mid
afternoon three pm. Still here foryou every day, Monday through Friday.

(01:12):
Always great to be here. Ifyou ever miss a minute of the show.
Subscribe to the podcast. You coulddownload it on pretty much any major
podcast platform, including iHeartRadio, oryou can find on the Walton Johnson smartphone
app. Free to you is checkthat out. Kyle Scott will be my
guest this afternoon. Kyle Scott isa candidate for hcad Board Position two,

(01:34):
a taxpayer advocate. On tax Day, he fights for the rights of taxpayers
and one of the people he fightswith is Lena Headalgo, your local Harris
County judge. We're going to betalking to him about that, and we're
all also going to talk about howwe can get Republicans to start winning elections
in Southeast Texas again, more specificallyin Houston and Harris County. And I

(01:56):
know that probably sounds unlikely, likesomething we've all just written that off.
Ah, we're not gonna win anyelections. We never do. You know,
we used to one that long ago, back in twenty twelve, Republicans
controlled this county. Huh what happened? Yeah, exactly what did happen?
You guys like sports analogies. Sportsanalogies are helpful to explain political issues,

(02:19):
at least for men. They areI guess women sometimes think sports analogies are
sexist or misogynistic. But I'll usean analogy we could all understand, especially
now that women's basketball is so popular. I want you to imagine you're the
coach of a basketball team and youtell your players never slam dunk the ball.
Don't slam dunk the ball. Why. Well, because it's not fair.

(02:42):
Slam dunking the ball is not fair. It should be against the rules.
We shouldn't slam dunk the ball.It should be against the rules to
slam dunk and aldi oops. Sowhat should you do? Just regular style?
Shoot a two pointer? What aboutthree pointers? No? No,
three pointers. Three pointers are unfair. We should never shoot three pointers.
But the other team is shooting threepointers. Yeah, but don't don't just

(03:06):
shoot three pointers. Okay, butthey're gonna shoot three yeah, but we're
against it. We're against three pointers. Then you lose the game and you
think, wow, how'd the otherteam win the game? Well, they
shot a bunch of three pointers andthey slam dunk to the ball. The
guys that are good at jumping toslam dunks, and the guys they're good
at shooting shot three pointers and what'dthat leave for the rest of us?
Not much. If you're a conservative, you already understand why I'm making this

(03:31):
analogy. Conservatives don't like ballot harvesting, they don't like early voting, they
don't like mail in voting. Iagree with you. I don't like those
things either. But guess what,in most of the country, all of
those things are legal. I don'tthink ballot harvesting is legal in Texas,
but early voting is certainly legal.Mail in voting is definitely legal. Any

(03:54):
of these tactics, techniques, procedures, the Democrats are using them, and
they're winning, and we're not,and we're idiots. My friend Kurt Schlickter
recently made this point at townhall dotcom when he said, there's no sugarcoating
it. We are just playing stupid. I don't know what the hell's wrong
with us. We need to pullour heads out of the four points of

(04:15):
contact and get with the program.Here are we not here to win?
I'm here to win? Are youhere to win? Winning means mastering the
rules of the game as they exist, not as we wish they existed.
You know what I'd like, I'dlike one day of voting where everyone shows
IDs and marks a paper ballot andit's counted publicly. You know what else,
I'd like a pet unicorn and amillion dollars cash. If I had

(04:40):
a pet unicorn in a million dollarscash, I could name my unicorn Chet,
and I could feed him with magicpixie dust. But I'm not going
to get a pet unicorn named Chet. I might get a million dollars some
day if I save the money up, but I'm certainly not going to get
in cash today, and I'm notgoing to convince a bunch of Democrats state
legislatures, Democrat senators to do whatI want. I don't know why this

(05:04):
is hard for some people to understand. It shouldn't be hard. It's obvious.
Mastering the tactics, the techniques,the procedures of the enemy works that
the enemy uses to defeat us.That's what we need to do. Democrat
election shenanigans, we need to masterthem. Look what happened in California in
twenty eighteen. Republicans got slaughtered inCalifornia because the Communists were using California laws

(05:30):
to ballot, harvest and do allthe other things that allowed Democrats to mobilize
their stupid, lazy supporters and convertthose morons feelings into counted votes. Fast
forward two years, twenty twenty.Guess what Republicans in California did. They
did the same thing to mobilize normalpeople. They went to churches and gun

(05:51):
shows and other places where patriotic,god fearing people hang out. And you
know what they want, a bunchof congressional seats. Holy Republicans' game seats
in California. Yeah, election tacticsmatter. Look at twenty twenty three.
I guess right, last year theLouisiana governor's race. Republicans have not won

(06:17):
a gubernatorial race in Louisiana in overa decade. How did they do it?
How did they suddenly win in astate where they have jungle primaries?
How did they win without a runoffthat never happens. They went out and
they found that there were a lotof hunters in the state, people who
love guns and hunting and live offthe land, probably not liberals, that

(06:40):
were not voting. How many weren'tvoting? Hundreds of thousands of Republican voters
were not showing up to vote inthe gubernatorial race. So what did they
do they built what they call infrastructure. In this case, they're not talking
about bridges and buildings. They're talkingabout a database of voters. And they
emailed them, and they called them, and they wrote them letters, and

(07:00):
they knocked on their door. Theygot them to vote. And guess what,
Jeff Landry is now the governor ofLouisiana. And he's a good governor
too. Yeah, election tactics matter. I am baffled about the near religious
conviction that some of these dogmatic individualshave on the Republican side about voting only

(07:23):
in person on election day. Guesswho wants us to do that? Democrats.
Maybe there's a reason why it's certifiablystupid if you can have your people
mail in ballots or vote early,and you don't. When you vote early,
that ballot is banked. It's done, it's over. It's counted.

(07:45):
Even in California, it's counted.In contrast, let's look at what happened
in Nevada last time. In Nevada, there was a freaking storm, and
it was the people out in therural boonies, the people that they needed
the most, who couldn't get totheir pickup trucks to vote. On election
day. All the culinary workers inLas Vegas voted weeks in advance under the

(08:07):
eyes of their union overlords. Republicansgot screwed. If Republicans had voted early
and banked those votes, they wouldhave won. How about Maricopa County,
Arizona. You remember that when andwhere did the problems arise in Republican precincts
on election day? Where and whendid the problems arise in Harris County in

(08:30):
Republican precincts on election day? InRepublican neighborhoods in conservative neighborhoods. Election day
voting makes screwing over Republicans easy becausethe conservative voters were located in identifiable places
all at one single time. Youdon't like mail in ballots, I'm sorry
about that. I don't like iteither. You don't like early voting mean

(08:52):
neither. Guess what it's legal?Those are the rules? Vote vote next
time? Coming up? Or KennyWebster's Pursuit of Happiness A safe space for
those who love liberty and try notto take themselves too seriously. Even if
your name is Karen. We're goinglive right now on social media, which

(09:26):
means any second now I'm gonna startgetting flags from YouTube and Facebook and Twitter
telling me I shouldn't have played thiscopywritten music. But that's okay. I've
got a really smart guy in frontof me that can help me defeat the
algorithm. His name is Kyle Scott. Kyle, you're a very smart person.
Hang on, let me turn thesecameras on so people could see us.
You're a smart person, probably smarterthan I am, and that makes

(09:48):
me uncomfortable. What are you gonnado about that? I'll play dumb.
Oh, thank you. You're aninteresting person for a couple different reasons.
Number one, you're on my side, but you're more analytical than me.
I'm a very emotional you know,like a lot of people in politics,
I react with emotion to things.And but you and alex Miheler, you're
two people from our side that youdon't look at the political system the way

(10:11):
normal people do. You look atoperational procedures data. You're very analytical,
and I learned that about you fromour last local election, where you were
clearly more qualified than your opponent.Well, and my opponent has now been
arrested twice since being in office.Why does that make you feel what's for
a DWI and then what's for violatingthat bond? So it's too late to

(10:37):
say I told you so. Yeah, and nobody that voted for your opponent
even knows that. No, absolutelynot doesn't. Doesn't it make you wonder
why we even bother bother voting?No, well, trying to improve things?
Uh? Well, you know,I think at some level, if
you're involved in politics, particularly ifyou run for office, you have to
care about people, just people ingeneral and their well being anything else.

(11:01):
So the sacrifice, whether it turnsto fruit or not, is one hundred
percent worth it. Right, Butyou and so you and Alex Meeler are
two of the smartest, most downto earth, probably honest people I've ever
met in politics. That's probably whyyou guys didn't win. I mean,
doesn't that kind of bother you?Yeah? Yeah, one hundred percent.
Right. So in twenty twenty two, when I was running for county treasure

(11:22):
we had the wind at our backs. Right. So, every midterm election
since the New Deal, with theexception of twenty two thousand and two,
the sitting president's party always loses seatsand then atal at the local level.
We had the wind at our backs. Given how corrupt and mismanaged our county
was, we were expecting a redwave nationally, we were expecting one locally,

(11:45):
but we just didn't get it.There's a number of factors that could
be involved, right the Dobbs decisionthat was leaked in June, all the
way to running out of ballot paperand some of our key Republican voting precincts.
Okay, so that's what I wasjust talking about in the last segment.
Republicans don't want to win. Republicanswould rather they don't. They clearly
don't. Republicans would rather tell youdon't vote on, don't early vote,

(12:09):
don't mail in ballots. You know, in California, it's completely legal to
ballot harvest. It's completely legal.You could drive around, you could go
pick up you could go find ahomeless crackhead on the street and you can
help him mark down what and thenjust have him scribble a signature and then
hand him ten bucks for a crackrock. It's completely legal to do that
in California. You could drive around. You can find everybody with dementia,

(12:31):
everybody with Alzheimer's, everybody. Youcan go to every one of these every
bedridden person with minutes left to live, and you give them twenty bucks or
a bottle of Jack Daniels or abox of candy, fill out their ballot,
come in, drop it all off, hundreds, about thousands of bouts.
You can do this thousands of times. It's completely legal, and Republicans
will react to this and they cango, don't do that. Well,

(12:54):
you know who's doing it, Kyle, you know who's doing it. Yeah.
Absolutely. And one of the things, there are legal ways to recruit
voters, to get voters to voteby mail that Republicans are not utilizing.
Moreover, we've been told over andover again, don't early vote, don't
early vote, and then flood thepolls on election day. Well, when
you flood the polls on election day, you create opportunities for chaos. And

(13:16):
that's precisely what happened in twenty twentytwo. We were losing, losing throughout
early voting. It was about evenat certain points. But then on election
day when all the Republicans showed upto the polls, they just ran out
of paper where we were planning tovote, right, Yeah, I was
just talking about this. In thelast same thing happened in Arizona. Arizona
had an election a few years back. Everybody knows what happened in Arizona.

(13:39):
Trump didn't win there. On electionday in Nevada, excuse what did I
say, Arizona in Nevada. Onelection day in Nevada, it rained all
over the rural counties, all outin the desert and stuff. Nobody could
get to the polling places. Well, guess what. The union workers in
Nevada that work at some restaurant orin Las Vegas the casino, they already
voted. We don't care. Thepeople that work at Circus, So let

(14:03):
the sound and lighting crew for Adele'soff Off Broadway, Vegas strip show,
guess what they already voted. Theydon't care, And we lost, didn't
we yet one hundred percent? Sogo back to a sports analogy. Right,
sure, football, there are threephases of the game offense, defense,
special teams. The same exact thingholds true in politics. We have

(14:24):
early voting ballot by mail in electionday, and right now, particularly in
Harris County and other blue purple counties, is Republicans are losing at least two
of those three phases because we don'teven play in the ballot by mail game,
and there are not enough Republicans toleave our sixty five and overs at
home to tell them that let's notvote by mail. If you can't get

(14:46):
to the poll will help drive youthere an election day. That's just not
going to cut it for a lotof people at are homebound. We have
to play, and we have toplay hard in the ballot by mail.
We also have to play hard inthe early voting. Get out as early
as you possibly can vote because younever know what's going to happen, whether
it's a rainstorm, whether they decideto break the key off in the doors
you're pulling location. You have toget in when you can. Okay,

(15:07):
So there's a lawsuit right now.Texas is suing Harris County over unconstitutional five
hundred dollars basic income pilot program.This is Lena Hidalgo paying people to vote.
Percent. It's the same thing withJoe Biden telling people he's going to
get your college loans paid off foryou. They know what they're doing.
Isn't this really one of the thingsthat caused the Roman Empire to fall apart?

(15:30):
Yeah, this is one hundred percentjust Brendan circuses right. All they're
saying is, listen, young peopletypically don't turn out to vote, so
how are we going to get themto turn out to vote. We're going
to go ahead and tell them we'llpay them to turn out to vote if
you vote for Democrats. These meanold Republicans will not help you in your
financial straits, but we Democrats.We're going to go ahead and relieve all

(15:52):
of your student loan payments so thatyou show up to vote for Joe Biden.
Because right now, Joe Biden isnot exciting the younger voters, right,
alienated them, particularly when it comesto because of the Palestine Israel conflict.
Sure, right, So he hasto now re engage them and get
them to the polls because AOC isnot enough. And all Lean Hidalgo is
doing in this case is throwing cashat people and saying, look how much

(16:15):
we love you, Look how muchwe care for you. These mean old
Republicans don't want to do this foryou. So when you come out in
November, let's vote for the Democrats. I've got to think the Israel Palestine
thing doesn't affect the election much exceptin one place, and it's a swing
state in Michigan. In Michigan,where the auto workers are overwhelmingly the union

(16:36):
president, the auto workers' union presidentcame out and said, we're endorsing Joe
Biden, but it won't matter.Our workers are going to vote for Trump
anyway, which is almost like notdoing the endorsement because he's saying if we
switch to EVS, sixty percent ofthese people lose their jobs. So it's
the only other big group of peoplethat are all unified by one simple issue.
In Michigan. It's dear Bornistan.It's the suburbs of Detroit where everybody

(16:59):
over there, I mean literally standingin the streets chanting death to Israel,
death to America while living in America. But is Joe Biden going to make
them happy? Because he's trying tohave his cake and eat it too.
That's exactly what he's trying to do. But we're looking at razor razor thin
margins, right, and we're onlyplaying at six or seven Saints, even
Joe Biden saying he's not going intoFlorida anymore. Right, the Democrats are

(17:21):
dumping cash and efforts into defeating crewswith Colin Auret. So he's doing whatever
he can to cobble together as manyvotes in these swing areas, such as
in Michigan, where he says,Okay, listen, we've lost the youth,
but at the end of the day, the youth don't really come out
to vote that much anyway, soit's not a hard loss. But let's
go ahead and get them to thepolls by paying them off, by offering

(17:42):
them promises of student loan forgiveness thatthey'll only get if they're Democrats. Okay,
So you see this happening in Maricopa, You see it happening in Nevada,
you see it happening in Arizona andPhoenix, and it's clearly happening here
in Houston. Right you have electedofficials trying to buy votes while the same
time people on our side are actuallydiscouraging people to vote. You are,

(18:03):
Let's see, here's a press releasefrom what was this Friday from Lena Hidalgo
for those watching us streaming online rightnow, if you're not from Houston,
Texas, and you're or from Texasa general, and you wonder why do
Republicans in Texas hate Lena Hidalgo somuch? I think it's twofold or threefold.
She's a socialist, she got electedby accident because of Beto O'Rourke down
ballot voting. And then also,this woman is the single most powerful elected

(18:29):
Democrat official in the state of Texas. Probably right. Yeah, And she's
a crook. She's a criminal.So let's see. Judge Hidalgo responds to
troubling audit findings calls for urgent reformsin Harris County. This happened Friday.
Can you explain to our viewers andlisteners what took place? Yeah, so
she released audit reports. This saysthere are problems with our procurement processes.

(18:51):
We've been violating all kinds of lawsand ethics codes, and I will have
a proposal to fix this in thecoming days. Now, doubling is anytime
the government says, hey, I'mfrom the government and I'm here to help.
Right, No, they're not.No, So this should not be
surprising. In Lena Hidalgo's office,when she had top staffers and died in
for bid rigging, we're doing thevery same things that this audit exposes.

(19:15):
The COVID nineteen vaccine outreach scout correctthrough elevate strategies a big news story in
Texas, not outside of Texas though. Yeah, but it was a huge
deal because it happened in the middleof the twenty twenty two election when we're
trying to win back county seats.Right. So what she's saying, the
only reason this report came out,I suppose, is because she allowed it
to come out. So what LenaHidalgo and Rodney Ellis have done within Harris

(19:38):
County is they're trying to centralize powerwithin the County judge and the Precinct one
office. So she's going to comeout and say, we have these huge
procurement issues. It's too dispersed,it's too to centralize. I have an
idea, let's go ahead and runeverything through the through the county administrator and
have it overseen by the county Judge. She wants all of those contracts to

(19:59):
come through her office, just asshe and Rodney A proposed to have all
roads, bridges, and tolls runthrough the County Judge's office. They're doing
everything they can to disempower the commissionersin order to make it easier for her
to exert her influence, which weall know it's not really her exerting influence.
It's Rodney exerting influence through her.Yeah, if you're just turning on

(20:22):
your radio right now, or ifyou're watching us on social media, my
guest right now is Kyle Scott.Kyle Scott is one of the smart people
that is aware of how broken oursystem is and yet as aware of how
awful it is. Amazingly you seemto want to try to fix it.
It sounds exhausted. Quick break.For those of you watching us streaming on
social media, don't go anywhere.Literally, the show will continue in seconds.

(20:42):
To those of you listening on theradio, we'll be back at a
couple minutes. If I were you, I'd stay put. Kenny, You'll
be right back with more of whatyou came for for jokes, Kyle.

(21:04):
I know Kyle Scots here right now, local conservative activist and political candidate,
and I know you know this right, but sometimes you have to just see
it right in your face to knowhow bad it is. I have about
forty thousand followers on Twitter. Prettygood for a local regional talk radio show.
It's not bad. Our Morning Showhas a half a million. Our

(21:25):
Morning Show has a half a millionfollowers on Facebook. Guess how many people
are watching us on Twitter versus Facebook. Right now, there are eighty people
watching us on Twitter. There aretwo people watching us on Facebook. Now,
Kyle, you tell me, doyou think we're being censored? There's
not a question about it. There'sno question about it. How could we
have we have four hundred and fiftyfive thousand followers and there's two people watching

(21:48):
right now there, and yet atthe same time five people. There's five
people watching six people. Ooh,we got another one. Yet on Twitter,
where I have forty thousand followers,there's eighty two people watching a live
stream right now? How did itget so bad? Because so there are
more lobbyists from Meta and from Googlein DC than there are congressional people.

(22:11):
Yeah. Right, So there's noquestion that there's an outsized influence that resides
within like three zip codes within SiliconValley, and if you're not carrying that
narrative, they have a vested interestto make sure that that narrative doesn't get
seen. But what bothers me,what boggles my mind is this, And
I know as a tale as oldas time. I'm the caveman pounding on

(22:33):
my TV screen trying to understand whythere's little people inside. I don't get
it. Doesn't it seem like itshould be obvious that you should do what's
best for your business, not what'sbest for a political agenda. I think
from their business perspective. Right,they're looking at it from a global perspective.
So the US is without question theirlargest market. But if the globalist

(22:59):
agenda is what's being spoken about,or the people who speak in those terms,
it's going to hurt their business.Right. They need something that's pro
China, pro India, pro allthese other things so that they can expand
to a global market base. Right. Okay, so we were told a
while back that Elon Musk buying Twitterwas a terrible idea. The system is

(23:19):
failing. Now, nobody will everwant to buy a blue check mark.
You know on Instagram you can buya blue check mark. Now. One
of these things was a big newsstory, Elon Musk's failing website Twitter.
Nobody's going to use Twitter anymore.And yet amazingly, the millions of people
bought the blue check What did MarkZuckerberg do? He copied the business model?

(23:40):
Sure, when Mark doesn't, noone says anything when Elon does it.
It's the stupidest thing anyone ever did. Well, if we look at
Meta, they haven't had a lotof great products beyond Facebook. Everything they've
done is to be to co optother ideas, right, buying other products,
buying other products. Snapchat jumps in. We have TikTok jump in,
so it creates the stories, right. It hasn't had its original, an

(24:02):
original idea since its original idea.Uh huh. I'm sitting here right now,
I'm listening to you, but I'malso trying to figure out why we
just got kicked off Facebook. AndI'm so used to getting into trouble on
Facebook. I just assume what didwe do something wrong? No, it
just decided not to connect the accountthat has a half a million followers.
It's decided not to even stream itanymore. I don't know what can you

(24:22):
do about it. But ninety onepeople are now watching us on Twitter.
It's just incredible how broken it is. Anyway, Okay, so obviously the
big news today is Israel. You'rea local political act is this, but
you get how this affects the election, So Sariah that in question, you
must have concerns, right, Well, absolutely, I have concerns because I
have concerns about the fear mongering.Is somebody with a nineteen year old son

(24:44):
who's in college but has interest inlooking at the military after school. These
sorts of things are very concerning becausethey hit you right at home. Right.
If we go into a war andcommit troops, it's going to be
the families of the middle class.It's going to be the families of the
rural communities who are paying that price. It's not going to be those in
DC and who make their living inDC who are going to be bearing that

(25:07):
price. In fact, they're goingto be the ones who are profiting.
One of our friends regular guest onthis show is Colonel Rob Maatis ran for
Senate a while back in Louisiana.His family is multi generational military. I
mean not just him and his daddy, but like his dad's daddy and his
dad's daddy's daddy dead, like greatgrandpa was in the military World War One,
World War two, Korean War,Vietnam War, probably going back to

(25:29):
the Civil War, I don't knowhow far. And for the first time
in his life, his family isdiscouraging people from joining the military, yet
at the same time they've just changedthe restrictions to get into the military.
What you don't need a GED anymore? Is that the latest or now you
just need a GED. Whatever thatrule was, they changed it so that
more stupid people can get into themilitary. That seems scary to me.

(25:49):
Yeah, so they are having arecruiting problem, right, But that shouldn't
be a surprise when we look atthe large anti American sentiment that seems proliferating
throughout society. It's like, well, why would I want to go do
something that's patriotic for the common good? But there are still those people out
there, but it's not being promotedto the degree to which it should be,

(26:12):
right, right, because it isa noble cause. You may feel
like you're digging in sand sometimes andit is the ultimate sacrifice that some people
in some families have to pay,but it is one that generations have done.
It's true. Yeah, absolutely,And you wonder what's going to happen
now, because you see it's happening. Israel is a thing I ran attacking
over the weekend, Joe Biden tellingNetanyahu, take the w Have you heard

(26:37):
this? He's saying, you guysdidn't get nobody got hurt. Everything's fine,
drone strikes happened amazingly. Saudi Arabiaand Jordan surprisingly offered support to Israel.
My enemy's enemy is my friend.I don't know what to think of
that. But the thing that nobody'stalking about this morning, forty one people
shot in Chicago over the weekend,So you're telling and seven dead. You're
telling me Chicago was more violent thisweekend then Israel and Iran. Kyle,

(27:03):
how does that happen? Well,it happens through poor leadership, right.
I mean, this is a placeand you want to go back to gun
laws. This is a place withone of the most restrictive gun law cities,
and then our entire nation and yethas one of the highest incidents of
gun violence within the nation. Thisis what happens when you create chaos by
letting people out on no or nobonds, when you disincentivize any sort of

(27:26):
family structure to maintain these things.Right, So, what we're seeing in
Chicago is going to happen in mostmajor cities if it's not already there.
We are threatened by this in HarrisCounty as well. Right when you see
Sean Tier defeat Kim Ogg, becauseKim Ogg wasn't left us enough. The
George Soros funded DA wasn't far enoughto the left. So George Soros steps

(27:47):
in and funds another district attorney inHouston, Texas. Yeah. So if
you think it's chaos in Houston,Texas, now just wait because it's only
going to get worse. It's onlygoing to get worse. And if you
do keep up with news from ourlittle city Houston, is you know,
I think Houston. I think ofHouston as being the capital of the South.
We're the biggest city in a southernstate, and culturally, this is
where music, food. Everybody sortof seems to follow our lead here in

(28:11):
Houston, Texas, our leader.We just elected a moderate mayor, a
moderate Democrat mayor that was supposed tobe an upgrade from the last guy who
says he now wants to invest billionsof dollars to make Houston a destination,
a destination for what Kyle, Sothis is utterly ridiculous. So it wasn't
two weeks ago, maybe three weeksago, where the city Houston reached an

(28:33):
agreement with the Houston Firefighters to settlea longstanding legal dispute in which the city
Houston said, Okay, we're goingto pay you six hundred and seventy five
million dollars. By the way,we don't have this much money, so
we're going to have to go outand borrow it. So infect the total
tally, including the debt that we'llhave to pay on the bond, is
going to be closer to one pointtwo billion dollars. Right, So he's

(28:56):
saying, we're going to have toraise taxes, We're going to have to
install drainage, We're gonna have tore up a whole bunch of fees in
order to fix these most basic problems. And then last week he says we're
going to take three billion dollars andrevitalize downtown, And the question becomes,
I thought we were broke. Secondof all, I don't see how revitalizing

(29:18):
downtown happens without safe neighborhoods, withoutgood streets, without solid infrastructure to prevent
flooding. Right, block and tacklefirst, and people will come here.
We are a city of opportunity,and we just need the opportunity to prosper.
We don't need the government to stepin and do that job for us.
Boy, I think so too.For those that don't live in Texas,
and you may not realize this.Houston and Harris County. For all

(29:40):
of our problems, I will saythis, at least we're not San Antonio.
At least we're not Austin. We'renot Fort Worth Goood, right.
But you know, Dallas and Houstonkind of neck and neck right now for
problems. But Houston, you drivearound Houston, you don't see homeless people
everywhere. You don't see for themost part, our businesses stayed open during
the pandemic could have been worse ascritical as we are town. I don't

(30:02):
the one place to me that lookslike Austin with homeless people everywhere, or
San Antonio where you drive around SanAntonio and you don't know which way to
look. There's a guy overdosing ondrugs. Over here, there's a homeless
person getting stabbed. There's a pileof homeless people doing fentanyl on a street
corner, is a guy shaking aroundnaked in the street. You don't know
where to look at from one givenmoment to the next. At least we're

(30:26):
not that bad. But the oneplace in Houston where it's like that is
downtown. What are we gonna doto How does how many billions of dollars
do you spend to fix that?There isn't enough money to go in and
plant trees and clean up sidewalks andoffer incentives for businesses to move in.
Right. You don't think bike trailsare going to do it. Call me
a skeptic, but you have tomake sure that these things, like the

(30:49):
homeless situation get addressed. Right.But it can't be the government to do
it, because what we do knowis that the government generally messes things up
and has to be in partnership withprivates, with nonprofits to come in and
provide solutions for the homeless issues,particularly our homeless veterans. Right, because
a lot of these issues are noteconomic issues. These people who are homeless,

(31:10):
These are a lot of times mentalhealth issues that need to be addressed.
And you can't just take a largegovernment mallet and hammer this thing down.
But then we do have the crimeproblem absent or separate from the homeless
situation. We have to get ourcrime under control, which starts with the
jails. Right. We need toexpand the size of our jails so we
don't just let these criminals run thestreet while they were waiting trial. It

(31:33):
was just turning on your radio.I'm talking to Kyle Scott. Kyle,
you're running for office right now.You are running for HCAD Board position two.
You describe yourself as a taxpayer advocate, a fascinating description in your biography
on tax Day. If you canhang around for two seconds quick, for
those of you listening to us onthe radio, we're going to take a
quick commercial break. We'll be backin a couple minutes. To those of

(31:55):
you watching us streaming on social media, literally seconds from now, we'll be
back, So don't go anywhere.Hey, it's me the Donald. You're
listening to the Pursuit of Happiness radiovoice from the radio games those of you

(32:15):
that don't know if you're watching usstreaming on social media right now, I
am a humble part of a verybig morning show. We can be heard
on nineteen radio stations around the South. It's called The Walton and Johnson Show
with yours truly Kenny Webster. Andthen in the afternoon on our flagship station,
I host this radio show, KennyWebster's Pursuit of Happiness, which can
be heard five days a week atthree pm right before Jimmy Barrett and Jesse

(32:37):
Kelly, same home station as JesseKelly. And while we talk about national
issues and how important they are tolocal issue, we really try to talk
about local stuff and we try totalk about statewide stuff. So Texas issues
and Harris County and Houston issues.It is the fourth biggest city in the
country. It's the third biggest countyin the country. Millions of people moving

(32:59):
here all the time, some ofthem not legally, Kyle, I might
add, and you're running for office, tell us what is it you want
to do? Yeah, so thisis the most obscure office nobody's ever heard
of, right, and that's whyyou're running for it. Yeah, I
mean that's the logical thing to do. You lose a race for county treasure,
so you look around and say,what's an even more obscure race to
run for it? Right? Sothe Hair Central Appraisal District is what sets

(33:20):
your property value in Texas. Theygo out and appraise all this property.
Then they tell you they ship itout to all the taxing entities and say
here's what you need to charge people. Currently, there are seven members of
the HCAD board, all of whomare appointed by the taxing entities. Let
me say that again, all thepeople who value your property are appointed by
the people who tax you on thatproperty. If that's wow, If that

(33:42):
seems wrong, trust your instincts,right, yeah, that is wrong,
right exactly. That's like that's likethe CDC going out and investigating themselves for
forcing everybody to take a COVID vaccinemandate and then trying to figure out if
it did any harm. Our investigationdetermined we did nothing wrong. Yet that's
exactly how it works. So wehad a law passed in the last legislative

(34:02):
section. Voters approved it on propositionfor in November that said, okay,
we're going to move in counties inthe large counties. There's eighty four of
them in Texas that qualify, andwe're going to add three at large elected
board members. Right, finally avoice for the taxpayer sitting on this h
cad board so that we can say, all right, listen, if you've
ever tried to dispute your property taxes, chances are that was not an awesome

(34:25):
experience. Right. So these NewAge Cadre board members are in charge of
actually handling that process, by handlingthe appraisal, reviewed, board member hiring,
firing. We also get to say, all right, listen, there
are some wild swings and valuations.In fact, there are some properties they're
extremely undervalued. Oh and wink wink, those properties are owned by people who

(34:47):
are affiliated with Harris County. Okay, a little bit of dirty laundry about
me, Kyle. I. Someof our regular listeners know this. I
just got divorced. Sucks. Gettingdivorced sucks. And I bought my house
I don't know, two years ago, and I wanted to keep the house.
I wanted to keep the house andthe dog and keep my car.
And I knew that was going tocost me a lot of money, because

(35:07):
that's how divorce works. But Iwanted those things money. I'll make more
money. Fine, So we negotiatedthe deal me and my ex wife.
I had to buy her out ofthe house, which means I had to,
as I'm sure, you know,hire a guy to come and evaluate
what the house is worth. Now, Kyle, I am not a one
opinion is good enough kind of guy. So I got a couple of other
real estate people involved as well.We had a professional real estate appraisal.

(35:30):
We had two of my friends thatdo real estate come and look at it.
And then just funny thing about that, I get the letter in the
mail from Harris County telling me whatmy property is worth, Babe, what
they think it's worth. And guesswhich one are these numbers? Of the
four numbers I got, guess whichone was vastly higher, Kyle, the
one that wants your money by aboutby about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

(35:53):
Yeah, doesn't make any sense.How could it be so expected?
How could all these experts who actuallycame in looked at my house and a
value, and looked at the pipes, and looked at the ceiling and the
infrastructure, and they evaluated the appliancesand the view from my window because I
live in a high rise, allthe different stuff. They determined it was
here. And then the city,the counting you, without even looking at

(36:15):
it, said no, it's actuallyhere. It's worth this much and that's
how much taxes you have to pay. So this is a ridiculous nature,
right, So I'm a small government, free market guy. They're using appraisals
based upon previous year's appraisals, basedupon appraisals of all these other properties to
establish your appraisal, why not justgo and look at what comparable houses have

(36:36):
actually sold for what does the marketbear, Because if that's what the market
bears, then that's what your homeis worth. But that's not the way
they do it because it's government.So it's backwards. Kyle. You are
analytical, your data driven. You'rea math nerd, you're a technology nerd.
You're you're really into operational procedures andgovernment stuff and all of that.
I would do anything to get aguy like and ideologically we agree with each

(36:59):
other on a local level. You'relike a dream candidate. You're like guys
like you and Alex Muehler and CharlesBlaine and people you're the people that should
be running this town. But you'renot. You guys are the underdogs,
you're the contenders. You're the ones. The local media, the Houston Comical
and the ABC thirteen paints you,guys all as the bad guys or the
extremists or the villains, when you'reclearly not. What do we do about

(37:21):
that? So, right, fortunately, in this race, it's non partisan,
if there is such a thing.If there is such a come on,
but right, so there's no RDon the ballot, so people won't
reflexively say, oh, there's anar I'm not going to vote for him.
But at the end of the day, I think one hundred percent if
you are conservative, it's time tostop reaching out to just conservatives. We

(37:42):
need to go out into communities wherewe have not traditionally gone and show a
value of care. We can't lectureto people about why these values are better,
because conservative values do take a heavyamount of self discipline and hard work.
We have to get out there andshow them. For instance, if
you you are a small business owner, you own a food truck and you
want to become your own brick andmortar business, you know it's really really

(38:06):
hard getting occupancy permits, sure licensing. Why don't Republicans get there and go
help those people become small business owners, because not only are you showing them
you care, but you're creating abusiness owner who's going to walk the path
of conservativism once they become one.Something that you know that like some of
our smarter listeners, not that they'resmarter, but that they're more involved in

(38:27):
politics, know, rather than theperson who's less involved. They listen to
talk radios, sometimes they vote mostof the time. The rules are not
the same for Republicans and Democrats,but like they're really not the same in
the sense that as a local conservative, you're not supposed to talk about abortion,
you're not supposed to talk about Israel, you're not supposed to talk about
gun rights or really anything that yourthe position that you're going after would never

(38:51):
have an effect over, right,Whereas your opponents, local Democrats, that's
all they're supposed to talk about.All they're supposed to talk about is stuff
they'll never be involved in. Lenaat Dalgo's opinions about Israel and COVID vaccines
and abortion, even though she'll neverhave any authority over Israel or COVID vaccines
or abortions are paramount she has totalk about. Whereas if you do that

(39:15):
as a local conservative candidate, that'sthe kiss of death. And they say,
political consultants will tell you, Kyle, if you talk about that,
you will never get elected. Whatdo you think about that? Yeah,
So that is just a premat natureof living in a purple blue county,
Right, you want to frame iton those local issues. But at the
same time, there's a heavy degreewhere the media comes in and forces you

(39:36):
to do that because if you cameout and you were discussing abortion or you
were advocating for Israel, the HoustonChronicle will slam you. And while I
know most people don't read it,it does it does affect a large percentage
of voters. Well, that's itbecause people there are these conservative news outlets
that I read a lot. Iread Texas Scorecard, I read the Texan

(40:00):
News, Holly Hansen, Great Journals, Michael Quinn Sullivan. I don't know
that average people read those websites.The people that read those websites are political
candidates, political consultants, social mediainfluencers, and like diehard political junkies,
the people that listen to political talkradio all day. Okay, so we
know, we know when there's somebreaking news story on Texas Scorecard. I

(40:21):
don't think most people read that stuff, as valuable as it is. The
reason why that matters is because peoplelike you and I will read those stories
and talk about it as scary asit is, as simple as it is
that they make that content available.The very people that would benefit the most
from looking at it still don't lookat it. No, one hundred percent,
right, one of the issues thatwe're trying to deal with is just

(40:43):
informing people on these issues. Solocal issues in particular are not sexy issues,
right, and that's what they affectyour life the most. It has
an outsize impact on who sits onyour school board, right, I mean
that has paramount interest. Yet we'reall going to talk about the tech crews,
We're all going to talk about Trumpand Biden. But you know who
really matters after that election is over. It to who you elect to the

(41:05):
KDISD board or the SBISD board.That's really going to matter. It really
does, Kyle. I want peopleto help you, first of all,
any closing thoughts, anything we haven'ttalked about, and I'll couple that with
this question, anything we can doto support you. So yeah, show
up to vote, folks. Listen, in a county of two point five
million people, we're expecting maybe seventyor eighty thousand people to vote, so
unbelievable. So if you are frommaybe a large Irish Catholic family, like

(41:30):
we can swing this thing, Like, just bring him to the polls.
Are you Catholic? I'm not Lutheran. I'm a failed Catholic. Oh that's
okay, I'm a Catholic and Iforgive. I'm Kenny Webster. I love
you all. If you've watched thisvideo on social media, retweet it,
share it, Tell your friends We'regrateful to have you. I think we
do a very good job of findingthe intersection between national, state and local

(41:51):
politics here in Southeast Texas, andwe find great people like Kyle Scott.
Follow him on Twitter if you can. Voting is so important. Guys,
We're getting to that point of theyear again. Let's not repeat what happened
so many times before. Twenty twentyshould have been ours. Twenty twenty two
should have been the tsunami that wethought it was going to be. Let's
not let twenty twenty four be anotherdisaster. And if you if you have
the time, subscribe to our podcast, follow us on social media. Have

(42:15):
an awesome afternoon. I'll be backbright and early tomorrow morning for more what
you bought a radio for. Youare listening to the pursuit of having this
radio. Tell the government to kissyour ass when you listening to this show.