Is Texas finally ready for school choice?

This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features author Corey DeAngelis.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The Giganic government sucks. Pseuit ofhabbiness radio is deluxe. Liberty and freedom
will make you smiles of a suitof habbiness on your radio to ol just
as cheeseburgers, liby fries it fo. A new study. A new study

(00:32):
found that ride share drivers in Californiaare on average, making below minimum wage,
but on the plus side, theysave a lot of money by never
buying Soper deodorant. Greetings kids,hump day. You know what that means?
Well, is it hump days?It count as hump day if it's
a four day work week. Idon't know. Anyway, it's it's something
you're closer to the weekend than youwere yesterday. So thanks for tuning in.

(00:55):
A lot going on today. Therewere elections last night. We got
all the results. Some good news, some bad news. Stick around.
Corey DeAngelis is going to be here. He isn't just somebody. He's the
leader of the school choice movement acrossthe country. He's also a resident of
Texas, and he's got a newbook out. We'll be talking about all
of that. Plus you know,he's also a liberty Republican, not unlike

(01:15):
myself. So well, I'd loveto get his take on Trump at the
Libertarian election last week, the conventionfor the Libertarian Party, if you could
even call it that. But now, the biggest story of the day today
is Donald Trump and the hush moneytrial. We know this trial is riged.
This isn't my opinion. I couldput my own opinions on hold for

(01:38):
just a minute and I could tellyou the system is broken and it is
riged. The judge has told thejury they do not need unanimity to convict.
This means four jurors could agree onthe first crime falsifying records. Four
on the second that's tax violations,four on the third that's federal election violations,
and the judge would still count thatas a unanimous guilty verdict from the

(02:01):
twelve member jury. The fix isin. This isn't how democracy is supposed
to work. This is corrupt.The judge responsible for this should be in
jail. There's really no other wayof looking at it. You guys,
they put a gag order on thesuspect and not on the witness. Imagine
that. And the witness, bythe way, was Michael Cohen, one

(02:22):
of the most famous liars in America. Understand how bizarre that is. Understand
how bizarre it is that they didn'tsequester the jury. That means yesterday,
when Robert de Niro showed up atthe trial, everybody on the jury knew
that the star of Raging Bull andGoodfellas was out there telling you Trump should
be guilty. They all knew that. Alan Dershowitz actually pointed out how Alvin

(02:47):
Bragg, the prosecutor his legal team, had two lies in their closing argument,
and the lies were, I mean, they were exactly what she thought
they would have been. Closing argumentsin Trump's trial, based on the indictment
of thirty four felony counts secured byBragg, took place yesterday, and Dershowitz
said that prosecutors misled the jury aboutMichael Cohen's claims regarding Trump's motives for making

(03:12):
the payout to the porn star,and the other claim is that he was
intending to defraud the voters of NewYork who obviously thought Trump would never do
anything wrong sexually, and they wouldhave been shocked to learn that maybe once
upon a time he had sex witha woman and then paid her to not
tell people they were In reality,I think people in New York would have
just yawned and said, okay,so he paid a woman, he paid

(03:35):
a play might he played a pornstarry He was sparing his wife some embarrassment.
But you know, everybody knows whoDonald Trump is. Nobody's voting for
him under the grounds that they thoughthe was celibate. It's comical, it's
ridiculous. There's a report today atbreitbart dot com the details how Robert de
Niro's sentiment for you and me andeveryone else, this is really what the

(04:01):
Hollywood elite think about all of us. I guess, if we're really being
honest, this story back, itstarts back at twenty sixteen. At the
time, there was a so callednever Trump movement, but it wasn't long
before you realized it was a fakepolitical movement populated by mercenary snobs, people
getting paid to dislike Trump and attackhis supporters. A sincere political movement looks

(04:29):
to persuade voters to their side.Attacking the very people you need to win
the political day portrays what you reallyare, a pathetic, self appointed elite
only interested in retaining your status andraising money for the leftists. But then
there's the hate factor. The DemocratParty's hatred for everyday Americans, for normal

(04:54):
people who want nothing to do withtheir social engineering, is now off the
charts and unprecedented, at least inam America, not so much maybe in
nineteen thirty three Germany. Barack Obamaback in two thousand and eight once said
in private, he said, yougo into these small towns in Pennsylvania,
and like a lot of small townsin the Midwest, the jobs have gone

(05:15):
now for twenty four to five years, and nothing's replaced them. And they
fell through the Clinton administration and theBush administration and each successive administration. Is
said that somehow these communities are goingto regenerate, and they have not,
and it's not surprising. They getbitter, they cling to guns or religion.

(05:39):
This is how Democrats see normal people. They think, we're bitter bigots
clinging to our guns and our faith. We're ignorant, we're superstitious idiots for
not embracing the trade deals that laidwaste to our way of life. Are
the illegals who exposed the housing pricesor explode the housing prices or the low
wages. And then in September twentysixteen, something changed, didn't it.

(06:04):
Hillary Clinton said, you know,to just be grossly generalistic, you could
put half of Trump's supporters into whatI call the basket of deplorables. She
actually said that, and eight yearslater, the Democrat Party's hatred for us
is so strong these insults are nolonger spoken behind closed doors guys. Governor

(06:28):
Kathy Hokeel recently called US clowns,and then just days later, Robert t
Niro showed up at the Trump trialto remind America that he hates Trump supporters
and you should hate him too,and we all belong in prison. These
people hate us. You want toknow who doesn't attack everyday people, or

(06:55):
even those who vote Democrats. Saywhat you will about Donald Trump, but
he doesn't, you know, Ifor one thing, He wants their votes.
You are listening to the Pursuit ofhappiness radio pursuit of happiness. We
don't have that in Mexico. There'sso much in today's news about fast food

(07:28):
and the economy. I think partof the reason why that's true is everybody
knows approximately how much fast food costs. Everybody has a general, vague idea
of what it costs to buy abig Mac in an average town. So
when you go to the big cityand you notice, because of the cost
of real estate and the cost ofliving, that a big Mac is more

(07:48):
expensive than it would be in say, I don't know, you know,
Waco or Conro or a smaller community. Right now, somebody's emailing me,
Kenny, Conro and Waco aren't smallcommunities. Okay, but you get what
I'm driving at right iola. Youknow, somewhere small, small town,
somewhere odds are big mac or awhopper or a baconator is going to cost

(08:13):
less money than it would in thecity. But when you look at the
financial reports regarding fast food, listento this. This is crazy. Lending
Trees surveyed two thousand American adults andfound seventy eight percent now consider fast food
to be a luxury. Fast foodused you know why all these Americans are

(08:33):
so fat Because fast food is affordableand it doesn't have a lot of nutrition
in it, so you eat alot of it and then you get chunky.
Of those making thirty thousand dollars ayear, seventy one percent see fast
food is a luxury, as dofifty eight percent of parents with young kids
fifty eight percent of those in genZ, fifty three percent of women.
Basically, people that on average haveless money think fast food is something you

(08:56):
do as a treat. It's notsomething that gets to normally do. I'm
not a fan of fast food,but I will tell you this, when
you're driving across the country, whenyou're on a road trip, whether it
be for visiting family members on aholiday weekend or just off to do business
in a remote part of the statesomewhere, you have to eat fast food,

(09:20):
and the cost of fast food havegone up by one hundred and two
hundred percent in some places. McDonaldwe talked about this before on the show,
but I just don't really think peopleget it. McDonald's price is from
Trump to Biden. French fries abuck seventy nine to four nineteen, the
McChicken a buck twenty nine to threeeighty nine, the Big Mac three ninety

(09:43):
nine to seven forty nine. TenMcNuggets were four dollars now they're seven point
fifty eight. A cheeseburger was abuck, now it's three fifteen. So
long comes California Kevin Newsom, andhe says, not bad enough. John
st also just published a report aboutthis. California now leads the nation in

(10:03):
imposing dumb wage laws. The statejust raised the hourly minimum wage for fast
food workers to twenty bucks, andGavin Usom says, oh inequity in equity.
Unions are the reason this is happening. This has nothing to do with
equity or equality. This has todo with a union mob boss somewhere trying
to get a paycheck. But gullibleleftists at the Center for American Progress,

(10:24):
which is neither an American organization noran organization that's responsible for progress, says
quote, a higher minimum wage wouldboost millions of families out of poverty.
We all want that, right.It turns out that's not the case.
The immediate consequence is that existing workersget a raised. Great, but then

(10:46):
a lot of workers don't get alot of people don't have jobs anymore.
They had to lay people off.Thousands of Californias have already lost their job
because some restaurants had to close.Others lost income because their employer cut hours.
Elpoyo Loco cut employees hours by tenpercent. Pizza just announced they're laying
off one thousand delivery drivers workers whostill have jobs lose them because now their

(11:11):
employers have more incentive to automate.Chipotle just created a robot that makes burritos
and burrito bowls. Prices went up. Perhaps the worst unseen harm from minimum
wage laws is that young and unskilledpeople won't even be hired anymore. They
won't gain valuable experience from a firstjob at a fast food restaurant. In

(11:33):
twenty fourteen, Seattle politicians raise theminimum wage to fifteen bucks an hour,
and a lot of teenagers said minimumwage laws were actually hurting their chances of
getting employed. If a teenager costsmore, why would a company risk hiring
them? They could hire an elderlyperson maybe, but the odds are they

(11:58):
just put a robot in place.Government price fixing, like minimum wage laws,
hurts the poor. It hurts youngpeople, the very people those laws
were supposed to help. Now,Gavin Newsom, for the record, is
backing off a law he passed mandatingtwenty five dollars an hour minimum wage for
healthcare workers. The Wall Street Journaljust pointed out that Newsom is only doing

(12:24):
this because the state feels the burdenof this stupid law. California has already
pummeled private businesses with the twenty dollarsminimum wage laws, which remains in place,
but since the fascist state of Californiapicks up much of the state's healthcare
tab, Newsom is backpedaling. Imaginethat healthcare got more expensive, Well,
that's you don't. You don't subsidizefast food, but they do subsidize healthcare,

(12:48):
and the state didn't want to haveto pay more. The state's budget
deficit balloon to forty five billion dollars. So Gavin projects that the new healthcare
minimum wage would cost the state anfour billion thanks to higher Medicaid costs and
compensations to workers. So he's proposingto tie healthcare workers minimum wage increases to

(13:09):
the state's general fund revenue and toexempt state facilities. In YadA, YadA,
YadA. Basically, many working Californiansare actually making less money under the
state's stupid minimum wage laws. Imaginethat same thing that the fast food did.
It was supposed to make it easierfor people. Now they earn less.
The Wall Street Journal reports average weeklyearnings for leisure and hospitality employees in

(13:33):
California have declined by two point sixpercent over the last year thanks to the
steep drop in hours worked, thoseaverage weekly earnings rose three percent nationwide,
three point two percent in Florida,here in Texas five point two percent.
What do we learn. We learnedthis when Gavin Newsob's precious state has to

(13:54):
pay the freight, when they're theones that have to pick up the tab,
when they're the ones responsible. Suddenlya guaranteed wage is not a good
idea. But gosh, when privateindustry has to feel the burden, Governor
haircut leaves it in place. Andit's not even private business is footing the
pill. I mean, workers aremaking less money by having their hours cut.

(14:16):
You see it right there, it'sin the report. Hidden cost in
this dumb minimum wage increase is theprice increases that come with artificially enhanced wage
increases. And you know who theypass that cost onto, right you?
The consumer. That's what that's what. That's what we call inflation. Inflation.

(14:37):
Almost routinely, primarily almost one hundredpercent of the time, inflation happens
because of government intervention into the economy. And anyone who tells you otherwise is
disingenuous. They're either stupid or they'rea liar. Imagine the catastrophic results of
Democrats got their way and passed anational twenty dollars an hour minimum wage,

(14:58):
which they will do regardless of thecom cosequences faced by the rest of us.
Democrats don't care about good governance.Look around at the cities that they
control. Look at Austin, lookat Portland. Look at the places where
they have the most power, Chicago. Democrats want chaos. You know why.
Chaos is the only way to hidetheir policy failures. They want stricter

(15:20):
gun laws, but they don't evenwant to enforce those gun laws. They
actually emptied out the jails. Thebottom line is, in the long run,
these artificial wage boosts do nothing tohelp out everyday Americans, just like
the gun laws do nothing to decreaseviolence. In the end, there are
fewer jobs due to businesses being forcedto close and job cuts and increased automation.

(15:43):
I got to tell you say whatyou will about robots making burritos and
AI taking your order. Robots inAI don't spit in my burrito. In
the end, after the Liberals gettheir way, people work few hour hours.
In the end, these artificial wagesboost prices to a point where the
wage increase is meaningless. Where poorpeople will tell you fast food is a

(16:04):
luxury. If you're paying more foreverything, what good is the wage increase.
The free market isn't perfect, guys, but it's the best system mankind
has come up with so far.Capitalism is flawed, but it's infinitely better
than the alternative. Capitalism has donemore to eradicate poverty and spread prosperity than

(16:27):
any other system. Socialism and communismhave only ever spread poverty and mass death.
Socialism and communism are what happens whenyou have nothing and you want to
share it with people. Hey,leftist, I'm talking to you. Take
a good look around, dummy.Much of what we call poverty in America

(16:48):
looks very different from what poverty lookslike in a communist country. People on
welfare in the United States have iPhones, they have Netflix, they have central
heating and air conditioning, They haveobesey problems. They have access to healthcare
that is due to the miracle ofcapitalism. Show me what life looks like
for poor people in Venezuela or Chinaor Vietnam. Government can create an artificial

(17:15):
line to claim people are living inpoverty, but by any historical standards.
They are living better than the kingsof old. Government isn't the solution to
poverty. Government is the creator ofpoverty. Live from Texas, broadcasting across
the People's wet Think of America.This is proceeds of How It Is Radio

(17:36):
with Ken Webstern, Junior Akay producerKenny keep It here. Of other people
we've invited on this show over thepast several years, since this radio show

(17:57):
went from being a daily afternoon broadcasthere in Houston, it started off as
a late night show on the weekendsand it evolved because it became more popular.
So thank you for supporting us.But of all the guests we've had,
and we've had a lot of interesting, fascinating guests, one person I
think I'm most ideologically aligned with isCorey DeAngelis. The Guy is a thought

(18:18):
leader for the liberty Republican movement.He's considered to be the leading authority on
school choice. He is a thornin the ass of the establishment. Donald
Trump's a fan of the Guy.Ron Paul is a fan of the Guy.
He's written for Reason. He's beenaffiliated with the Hoover Institute, the
Cato Institute. Corey DeAngelis will beon the right side of history. And

(18:44):
I don't mean I mean both figurativelyand literally. And there's a lot going
on this week that I'd love toask him about. Fortunately for me,
I got him on the line rightnow. Corey's got a new book out
I encourage you guys to check out, called The Parent Revolution. I want
to talk about that. But beforewe get to any of that, Corey,
there was an election last night.I know a lot of our listeners
are upset with the way this turnedout. A lot of them don't like

(19:07):
Tony Gonzalez. They wanted Brandon Herrerato win down at the border. A
lot of them don't like Dad Fahalin. They wanted David Covey to win over
in Beaumont Port Arthur area. Butyou off the air just told me a
moment ago, despite whatever your thoughtsare on those guys specifically, this is
actually the results of this primary runoffwill actually be good for the school choice
movement. Yeah. Absolutely. Apolitical earthquake just rocked Texas this year's and

(19:33):
last night as well. There weretwenty one so called Republicans who voted against
their own party platform issue at schoolchoice last year, fourteen of them are
gone, which translates to a sixtyseven percent win rate against anti school choice
incumbents. With my group, wetargeted thirteen of those guys in particular and
took out nine of them. Thatnever happens. Incumbents usually win ninety five

(19:57):
percent of the time. So forthe first time in Texas history, we're
going to have the votes for schoolchoice in the Texas House. We needed
to pick up thirteen votes. Wepicked up fourteen. Fourteen of the twenty
one no votes are gone from theTexas Legislature now and it's beautiful to see

(20:17):
the Senate was always on board withschool choice. Now we have the votes
in the House too. And yes, Dave Feelan won his re election.
I think he barely won by likethree four hundred votes. But look,
the more important thing is having thevotes to pass the bill on the floor.
So it's unclear whether Feeling will evenbe able to be Speaker again next

(20:40):
year. I am surprised he evengot reelected. But let's say he does
become Speaker of the House, consideringeverything that just happened, if he becomes
the roadblock between school choice and nothaving school choice, I mean how will
people react to that, Corey.People won't be really happy about it.
But at the same time, groupdid not get engaged in his race,

(21:02):
and he let the bill go tothe foreord last year, so you got
to give him credit works due heat least allowed it to go to the
floor, and we're gonna have thevotes this year, so we should be
able to pass school choice through theHouse easily. In the Senate abvids one
hundred percent on board. He's beenan education freedom fighter for the past couple
of years, and he was heavilyengaged in these primaries too. And we

(21:26):
had seen this movie before. Ithappened in Iowa too. When they didn't
pass it through their house, theygot a new more conservative house with the
help of Governor Kim Reynolds over there, and now it's unfolding right before our
eyes in Texas as well, inlarge part huge thanks to Governor Greg Abbott
for being a fighter for prontal rightsin education. I'm you know, I

(21:47):
liked how you explain that because weneed a little optimism right now. I
know a lot of people are somepeople are just upset with how last one
night went, and I know you'reI'm not the only one that's hearing that.
But you can't. You can't winthem all, Kenny. But but
we've won most of them. Andlook, ninety percent of the time incumbents
win. We took out fourteen ofthese guys on the school choice issue alone.

(22:07):
That's awesome. I mean, Iabsolutely, Corey, I'm with you
on that one. All right,let's talk about last weekend. You're a
liberty Republican. I'm a liberty Republican. Both of us have dabbled in both
the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party. Trump heading to the Libertarian Party last
weekend. I guess it didn't.It didn't go as badly as I thought
it would have. And the reasonI say that is I didn't like the

(22:30):
person that they picked to be theirpolitical candidate, you know, the the
leftist, collectivist, pro mask mandateguy like I'm not somebody any of us
would have wanted to support. Butthe result was now a lot of Ron
Paul Republicans are looking at Donald Trumpand thinking that's our best bet at freedom
in this country. Yep, exactly. Trump was the biggest winner from the

(22:52):
Libertarian National Convention. It's almost likethe Libertarians strategically picked the worst can that
possible to take away votes from JoeBiden. They picked the lefty libertarian if
you can even it seems like anoxy moron to me. And he's going
to pull votes from Joe Biden,the independent Joe Biden voters that don't like
Joe Biden, and the people whoare on the right who are libertarians.

(23:15):
I'm seeing all over my social mediafeeds, a lot of my buddies and
then also just other libertarians saying I'mgoing to vote for Trump for the first
time, and I voted for Trumpin the primary, I will be voting
for him in November as well.And I've been a libertarian basically my whole
life as well, So yes,I see it as an example from personal

(23:37):
experience, but also just mathematically speaking, this is going to help Trump in
the general election in November. Whatdid you think about Trump telling the audience
he wants to put a libertarian ina cabinet position, and then I allowed
enough minority in the crowd booing himfor that, and maybe they didn't believe

(23:57):
him, but hey, if hewants to, uh, he can check
the box with me as Education secretary, and I'll fire myself on the first
day by abolishing the Department of Education. So I think libertarians will be really
happy with with that pick. Butyeah, I haven't been in discussions with
the Trump team about you know,cabinet members, but I do believe him

(24:17):
on that. I think the Vekewould be great too. He's he's you
know, he's he's he ran asa Republican, but I would I would
consider a Vake as a Libertarian candidateas well that that runs as a as
a Republican. So I think that'sLook that, hey, Libertarians aren't going
to win the general election. Everybodyknows that. That's a that's a great
move by by Trump to to courtthe libertarian vote. And I think he

(24:44):
also talked about some pardons at atthe at his keynote speech as well,
which I think the libertarian crowd issuper excited about as well. So,
look, yeah, they vote forChase Oliver, who who might probably won't
even get one percent of the vote, or should they just go vote for
Trump and actually get some clear Libertarianvictories that Joe Biden would never give to

(25:07):
them. I know that there arefake tweets and memes going around. There's
a parody account of Chase Oliver,the Libertarian presidential candidate, saying he wanted
to lower the age of consent andhe didn't actually saw that it was satire,
but he has said that he thinksit's okay for little kids to go
to drag queen shows, and Ijust cannot wrap my mind around that.
I don't think anybody had a problemwith drag queens right up until people started

(25:30):
taking kids to see them, Iknow exactly. So I think that was
the political kits of death for ChaseOliver, as if you had any chance
at getting more than one percent ofthe vote before that, that's going to
turn off a lot of libertarians andindependent voters. And again we'll push more

(25:52):
people towards Trump in the general election. So I think that's great news overall
for people who support Republicans at thenet national stage. So for me,
as a Libertarian, I will bevoting for Trump in November. Man,
same with me for being a localafternoon talk show in Houston. I'm really
proud of how smart the guests arethat we have on the show, and

(26:12):
I feel like Corey Dangelis is oneof the smartest people we talk to regularly.
He wrote a book called The ParentRevolution. And if you've heard Corey
on the show before, if youfollow him on social media, you know
this guy's at the forefront of thefight in school. If school choice gets
a victory anywhere, Corey DeAngelis shouldalways get at least partial credit for it.

(26:33):
But all the things that are inthis book, we don't have enough
time in a radio segment to explainall the things that are in this book,
which is part of the reason whyI want people to go and get
a copy of it, The ParentRevolution. What can you tell us about
it? Yeah, Trump just endorsedit. It's also a national bestseller.
And if you take Ted Cruz's adviceThendor from Texas, he says on the
back, you can ruin Randy wineGarden's day by reading this book. And

(26:59):
so she's the head of the teachersunion. She fought to keep the schools
closed, she lobbied the CDC todo so. She tried to inject critical
race theory and gender ideology into classrooms. She is not a friend to parents,
and so I actually dedicated the bookto Randy Weingart and the teacher unions
for overplaying their hand and inadvertently doingmore to advance school choice and homeschooling than

(27:22):
anyone could have ever imagined. Sowe're winning so much, Kenny, I'm
almost getting tired of winning. Notjust we're not done yet. We got
to get it passed in the TexasHouse. We do have the votes.
But look, it's fantastic. Theunions want to burn this book. They've
actually called to do so on socialmedia. That probably tells you you probably
want to read it. The sameYahoo's calling us the book the banners for

(27:45):
running age appropriate content in the schoollibraries. They actually want to ban and
burn our ideas because they're following Saulvinsky'srules for radicals. They accuse everyone else
of what they are doing. Butlook, national bestseller endorsed by Trump,
and it's called the Parent Revolution.You can get anywhere, and you should
care about it, even if you'renot a parent or a grandparent yourself,

(28:07):
because the left has figured out theycan shape the direction of our country without
even having their own kidsmen, theycan use the governmentals to control the minds
of other people's children. That's ahuge problem. But conservatives have finally woken
up. Hey, one more questionfor you, because I know you got
to run. You and I bothhave a mutual enemy. State Representative Jean

(28:27):
Wu recently took to Twitter and saidhe said on Twitter, I don't think
many men and women can be alonewith kids without it getting weird. But
that's why we have school systems thatscreen and prepare for these things. That's
a very bizarre statement to make.I don't think many men and women can
be alone with kids without it gettingweird. What does he mean by that?

(28:49):
I mean he was talking about inappropriate relationships with kids, and for
him to think that the vast majorityof men and women alone with kids would
do weird things, that is amajor red flag. Jean Wu sent his
own kids to private school, yetfights against school choice for others. He's
a total hypocrite on the issue.And he was just trying to do anything

(29:12):
he could to grasp at stralls tofight against other families having education freedom.
And he really stepped in a rankbreak this time it backfired. Yeah,
Jean Wu isn't just a leftist,He's an authoritarian leftist. And anyway,
I don't mean to make this interviewabout him. I really want people to
go get the book The Parent Revolution. Corey Where can they get it?

(29:33):
Can you get it anywere Just Googleor use any search engine search for the
parent Revolution. It's a national bestseller, endorsed by Trump, endorsed by Senator
Ted Cruz, and as he said, you can ruin Randy Wining Gordon's day
by reading this book. I loveit, you like it? My man
Corey DeAngelis follow him on Twitter.Hello, my name is Pedro. My

(29:56):
favorite things to do are smuggle drugs, create like a rabbit, and listen
to Pursuit of Happiness Radio with producerKeini Peace Douviy. I only have a
little bit of time left with youthis afternoon, and I want to do

(30:18):
something weird. I'm overdue to playyour voicemail messages. So if you've been
leaving me voicemail messages with the iHeartRadioapp, I apologize. I'll play them
tomorrow. But right now, Iwant to talk about history for a second.
Here, here, young lads andlasses, shuttle filthy goblet holes and
listen up, because here are somethings that happened on this day in history.

(30:40):
All right. I was traveling acrossthe country last week and I stopped
into an old thrift store in WestTexas, and I saw the strangest thing
on the wall there for sale.It was an old promotional poster from a
circus side show. The poster readthe Sensation of Vaudeville San Antonio, Siamese

(31:07):
twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, bornand joined together. It's two Siamese twins
who play saxophone, and they're realpeople. They were even in a film
once that MGM once produced, calledFreaks. They banned the movie, and
it occurred to me, the worldhas changed quite a bit in over the
past hundred years, or did it? One hundred years ago we had circus

(31:29):
side shows. Now what do wedo now? We've got TikTok and social
media. Don't tell me it's different, it's not. You can look at
TikTok and you could see people withweird physical attributes, people with strange problems,
and oddly enough, they'll have thousandsmillions of followers. Sometimes a midget
stripper, for example. Why isthat? Well, it's just the modern

(31:51):
day version of Barnum and Bailey's FreakShow. If that term makes you uncomfortable,
you're not alone. Way back ineighteen ninety nine, Barnum and Bailey's
Greatest Show on Earth was a fewweeks into its second winter season at London's
Olympia when something extraordinary happened. Theperformers in the so called Freak Show rebelled

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and possibly the world's first case ofpolitical correctness, they called a meeting to
protest the fact that they were knownas freaks, and they demanded a new
name for their show. The movehit the media like a freight train.
People were fascinated by this so calledcircus freaks no longer wanted to be called

(32:36):
circus freaks. In an age uncontrolledby modern advertising regulations, the description of
Barnum and Bailey's Circus as the greatestshow on Earth could well be dismissed as
an example of the hype and humbugto be found everywhere at the time.
But it was true. The showwas like anything seen before or since.
It arrived at Britain back in eighteeneighty seven. Thank you for the music

(32:59):
there, that's more appropriate. Ithink it was eighteen eighty seven and before
setting off on an almost eighty stoptour of towns and cities across the country.
The scale was epic. Four trains, each made up specifically modified railway
wagons to transport hundreds of people eighthundred and sixty people, two hundred and
fifty performers, four hundred and sixtyhorses, six hundred and sixty other animals.

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This was a big show, threerings all in use at the same
time, plus two platforms, atrack around the outside used for horses and
ponies, chariot racing, and inaddition to the circus, there was a
huge menagerie and more than forty performersin something called a freak show. So
important were these additional attractions that aseparate illustrated booklet, The Wonder Book of

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Freaks and Animals, could be boughtby visitors. They gave details of the
people that were on display. Freakshows were extremely popular during the Victorian period.
It was P. T. Barnumhimself who was largely instrumental in introducing
them to the popular culture, afascinating thing at the time. In his
first foray into show business in eighteenthirty five, he bought an elderly,

(34:08):
frail and blind slave named Joyce Heath, who he claimed was one hundred and
sixty one years old. He tookher on tour, charged a few cents
for people to meet her. Yearslater, in autopsy revealed she was probably
eighty at the most. In eighteenforty four, Barnum caused a sensation when
he took a dwarf tom thumb toBuckingham Palace to be presented to Queen Victoria.

(34:31):
When Barnum went into business with JamesBailey in eighteen eighty one, the
Greatest Show on Earth was born,and the freak show became an important component.
The Barnum and Bailey freaks appeared ona long stage and the center of
the marquee, around which walked alecturer who described the characteristics of each individual.

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There was Jojo, the human skyterrier. He had a face like
a dog. There was Young Herman, the great expansion is said to be
able to expe and his chest bymore than sixteen inches. There was the
Bearded Lady, the armless Wonder,the man with elastic skin, the Egyptian
giant seven feet eleven inches tall.There was the Hindoo dwarf. There was

(35:13):
the skeleton dude. Billy Wells wasthe iron skullman who broke rocks on his
head. There was even a guyknown as the Lightning Calculator. His only
freakish trait was the fact that hewas good at doing math. These were
among those who joined the revolt ineighteen ninety nine. On the morning of
Friday in the middle of January,Annie Jones, the Bearded Lady, called

(35:36):
a meeting to protest the use ofthe word freak. Billy Wells, the
Iron Skullman, nominated the department's manager, Lou Graham, as chairman. Annie
then outlined her objections to the wordfreak. To her, it meant something
like fright and if a beard madea woman frightening, then why was a
man allowed to have a beard?Yeah, it was wulke before wolke was

(35:57):
a thing, you guys. Themeeting went on to a prove a strongly
worded resolution they didn't want to becalled freaks anymore. The meeting was unanimous
that another name should be adopted toreplace the offending word, but with no
suggestions forthcoming, the meeting was adjournedto allow for further discussion. The news
of the revolt and the suggestions thatthe Freaks might even go on strike,

(36:21):
provoked a media frenzy across the country. Articles were written on the final awakening
of personal pride and abnormal species ofthe human race. Later that month,
the Freaks met again. I probablyshouldn't call him freaks. Saul Stone was
the lightning calculator. He was thechair, and Charles Tripp took notes holding
a pen between his toes because hedidn't have any arms. Mister Stone demanded

(36:45):
to know either. Rest of theentertainers in the show were called artists,
while they were dubbed freaks. Heinsisted the development of any one particular side
of a person's character did not makethem a freak. The meeting heard a
litany of suggestions for new names,sent in from around the country. These
included anomalies, deviations, inexplicables,peculiar people, uniques, unusuals, vagaries,

(37:09):
even whimwhams. I don't know whata whimwham is. I don't think
anybody else did either. After themeeting, a delegation was dispatched to go
see James Bailey, who was nowin sole charge following Barnum's death nine years
earlier. It was apparently well received. Bailey immediately ordered that all signs and
publicity materials should now refer to prodigiesrather than freaks. The press department always

(37:35):
on the lookout for a good storyimmediately swung into action, and news of
the revolt of the Freaks was publishedaround the world. The prodigies were satisfied,
life returned to normal. The GreatestShow on Earth finished its winter season
before touring Britain through the summer.The following year they moved across Europe,
and that might have been the endof the matter, But four years later

(37:58):
the word Freaks returned and a similarprotest was called, this time in New
York City as they were playing aseason at Madison Square Garden. The arguments
put forward were strangely similar to thosethat were previously aired when they were in
London. Many journalists were suspicious,but they put their doubts to one side,
and the story of the second Freaksrevolt hit the headlines. Eventually,

(38:19):
the truth emerged. The Washington Heraldrevealed the whole thing had been a massive
publicity stunt. The man credited withdreaming it up was none other than soul
Stone, the Human Calculator, butthe mastermind behind the whole thing was Richard
F. Toddy Hamilton, the longserving and legendary press agent of Barnum and
Bailey. He was said to producetwo million words of promotional copy a year.

(38:44):
Kind of fascinating, isn't it.P. T. Barnum himself said
he owed more of his success toHamilton than any other man he'd ever worked
with. He joined the Greatest Showon Earth when it began in eighteen eighty
one and remained there until his death. Fascinating, isn't it? In a
candid moment, and Hamilton said ithad been so successful over the years that
he was almost ashamed of his success. Could you imagine? I'm Kenny Webster.

(39:08):
I'd like to think of myself asbeing the P. T. Barnum
of talk radio, although that's probablynot what I am. I am grateful
to have you listening to this radioshow. If you ever miss a minute
of the fun, subscribe to thepodcast. We Got One doesn't cost a
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to it there. You can alsolisten for free every day on the Walton

(39:28):
Johnson smartphone app. I Love youall. Thanks for tuning in today.
You are listening to the Pursuit ofa by Miss Radio. Tell the government
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