March 6, 2025 • 42 mins
This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features Texas lawmaker Brian Harrison and Houston conservative politico Rolando Garcia. ( @KennethRWebster )
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Giganic government sucks. Suit of having us radio is deluxe.
Liberty and Freedom will make you smile. A suit of
having us on your radio. Toyle Justice Cheeseburg just a
liberty fries at the food.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Americans estimate that thirteen percent of their possessions are junk.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
A lot of people shop at TIMU, don't they. Hi,
thanks for turning on the radio. I'm Kenny Webster. A
couple of really interesting people, very Texas and Houston oriented
centric show. Today we've got my buddy, state Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I don't think I've ever had him on the show before.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
He's a liberty Republican, a huge critic of occupational licenses,
and a swamp that is Austin right now. He's you
should follow him on X if you don't add Brian E. Harrison,
We're going to talk about, among other things, and gender
ideology that you're paying.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
For as a taxpayer. Doesn't that suck?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And then also if you don't know who he is,
Rolando Garcia is a good friend of mine and if
you're involved in the Harris County Republican Party, he's a
State Republican executive committeeman he's he's.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
A grassroots activist.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He's the grassiest of grassroots activists and very involved in
Houston politics for a long time. We're gonna remember the
life of Mayor Houston. Excuse me, Mayor Sylvester former mayor
of Houston, Sylvester Turner.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's not gonna be.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's not We're not gonna crap all over him. But
we're not gonna it's not gonna be. You know, roses
in a tea party either, to stick around for that.
All that being said, we begin our show this afternoon
with this. I've been told over and over again that
Donald Trump and the cuts they're making at DOGE are
very unpopular, that especially things like social Security. If you're
(01:52):
my age is that and I'm forty two, right, I'm
not a kid, but I'm not old. I'm right in
the middle. There is social Security to even exist by
the time I get to my seventies.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Praypart dot com today is actually reporting on how, despite
the best efforts of Democrats to astro turf Republican town
halls with fake protesters. We've seen them all over the news,
We've seen them all over the country lately, and all
the while that they're doing this, they're conspiring with the
regime media to report on how President Trump is facing backlash.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
He's so unpopular here in the real world.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Average people not only support DOGE, they want DOGE to
dig into the Social Security Administration. DOGE, of course, the
Department of Government Efficiency. It is a government organization spearheaded
by Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It has an expiration date on it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It's supposed to disappear on what is it, July fourth,
twenty twenty six now, because the federal government is corrupt
and useless, and our government hides the fact that they
do illegal on constitutional things all the time by funding
the non government mental organizations, the nonprofit groups. The people
that work at DOGE, very brilliant people have written computer
(03:06):
software that flies over the heads of deep state bureaucrats
and gets deep down into the nitty gritty of where
our money is being spent. Because most of these illicit
billions benefit Democrats, Democrat campaign coffers and the family members
of Democrats and Stacy Abrams and whoever recently went on
(03:26):
on a date with Fanny well as people like that.
There's a twenty four to seven assault launch to terrify
Republican lawmakers into believing that average Americans don't want the
government audited.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So what's the truth. Well, we just got some polling
data back. Rasumusen Reports one of the most reliable pollsters
in the country, and it proves the media narrative is
a lie. So here's the truth about what you've been taught.
When asked a very simple question, which political party do
you trust more to handle Social Security? The Republicans lead
(04:00):
to forty three percent. Neither of them got the majority,
neither of them got more than half, but still that's
more Republicans than Democrats, and it's an incredible accomplishment. Most
of the credit should go to Trump. Trump has been
steadfast and promising not to touch Medicare or Social Security,
so voters believe them. But nevertheless, the American people do
not want Social Security touched for the most part, according
(04:22):
to polling.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
That's what we've seen. They still trust Musk, they still Trump,
trust Doge. They trust Trump enough to call for the
program to at least get audited, and god, I hope
they do it. They were asked this question, sixty four
percent of black voters said they wanted to be audited.
Sixty seven percent of Hispanic voters said they wanted to
be audited. Fifty nine percent of people total people said
(04:46):
they would strongly like it to be audited. Forty one
percent SE's somewhat eighteen percent said they'd approve. Only thirty
five percent were against it, roughly a third of people.
So that's another way to break that down, would be
all the concernedrivatives, all the moderates want us to audit
the Social Security system. Why would Democrats not want us
to audit it? Why wouldn't they the remaining people are
(05:06):
against that. Think about this.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Not only do.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Voters trust the Republicans more than do the Democrats to
protect social Security, they also trust Trump, Musk and Doge
to do a full audit. Moreover, they want a full audit.
We're living in a whole new world, one where the
fake media no longer matters. And I never thought I
would live long enough to say that out loud.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
We could certainly slow the aging process if aging had
to pass its way through slow ass Congress take another vacation.
Why don't you Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
All right, So they say that March is women's History Month.
And you know what's really sad is March makes thirty
percent less than Men's History Month.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Isn't that sad?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Hi, Welcome back from Break Everybody. Kenny Webster here. Something
we often do on this radio show. You know, we
have a regular rotating cast of some of the most
conservative lawmakers in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Mays Middleton was here recently. State Rep.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Steve Toath calls in a lot, and obviously we're very
excited at people from the Texan and Texas Scorecard and
current revolt. And I noticed as I look through my
list of people who I feel like are our ideological
allies ers, there's one guy I've never had on the
show before, and I don't know why. I generally tend
to agree with most of not all, of the things
I hear him say publicly, and yet somehow we've never
(06:25):
had stay.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He and I are practically the same age, both of us,
I think liberty Republicans, and yet weirdly, he's never been
on the show before. So I reached out to him,
and not surprisingly if you follow him on social media,
he's one of the busier people in the Texas State House,
and you know that's saying a lot, because there's always
a lot of weird stuff going on there. But he's
(06:50):
also one of the people I see in the Texas
State House calling out the fact that Rhino Republicans and
big government enthusiasts who masquerade as conservatives, who people that
rote the coattails of the Tea Party movement years ago
and now the Maga movement generally are not what they
seem and so stay representative. Brian Harrison, I'll start with this.
It's it's Alamo Day. I guess you don't have a
(07:11):
happy Alamo day. You have a somber Alimo day, have
a peaceful Alamo day. How do you how do you
describe that in your language?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Yeah, it's hard to sort of like celebrate it, even
though of course history ultimately ultimately worked out in our
favor after the Alamo, and of course remember the Alamo.
So I think it's something that we've got to make
sure we never lose sight of them, and that we
never ever stop, you know, praising and remembering and reflecting
upon the sacrifices that happened there. But but backs to
the way you open the show, Kenny, you know, I
(07:40):
was starting to think that, you know, you're never gonna
ask me on.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I didn't know what was going on with that. I
you know, you just it's I'll tell you this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I do two radio shows a day, and I'm I
think the truth is, Brian, I'm a little lazy. I
just get in the habit of booking people that I
know very well, and I'm on text message chains with
different people. But I retweet you all the time. I
think Brian is one of the good guys. And Brian,
I feel like our party, the Republican Party, at least
in the House. Is it just me or is the
current leader of the House Republicans, Gene wu Am I
(08:10):
imagining that.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yes, it's hilarious. I mean it's cause you need the
laugh or you cry. Yeah, I mean absolutely. Look, I'm
a liberty person, Okay. I believe in the principles that
made our country great, you know, small government, low taxes,
low regulations, maximal individual freedom and liberty, and that that's
the number one job of government is to protect our
freedoms and our liberties, which of course don't come from government,
but they come from God. And the governments supposed to
(08:32):
protect those. Well, here's the problem. Too many Republicans say
all the right things around election time, but then when
it goes comes time to govern, you know, they govern
to the left of Mitch McConnell, and in the Texas House,
it's worse than that. Look, I had the privilege of
serving under President Trump and his first administration. I was
his chief of staff at the biggest cabinet department. And
(08:53):
when I got elected down here, I just assumed. I
was so excited. I assumed every elected Republican in the
Texas House was going to fight as hard for the
freedom liberty of the next generation as those of us
who had in the Trump administration. I could not believe
what I found when I walked onto the floor of
the House. I mean, the Democrats, even though voters have
given Republicans a massive majority in the Texas House. You
mentioned Jean wu, the Democrat caucus chair.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
The Democrats control the Republican dominated Texas House. Are top
parliamentary official. The most powerful staff from the building is
a former Barack Obama White House lawyer. Last session, we
couldn't even debate the seven legislative priorities of the Republican
Party of Texas. But we put over five hundred Democrat
bills on the floor when I was elected, Democrats were
(09:35):
the chairman of forty percent of our committee. So imagine
if Mike Johnson made Nancy Pelosi the chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee, Or imagine if he asked AOC
to run Energy and Commerce. That nightmare literally happens every
day on the Texas House. And as somebody who's worked
in the swamp of DC, I have never seen anything
swampier than Republicans telling voters, you know, vote for me
(09:55):
and all fight the radical Democrats, and then the second
they get elected, they vote to put the very Democrats
in charge and then collude with them to destroy liberty.
And I'm sick of it. This get because this game
has gone on for almost two decades down here, and
the main reason it's been able to thrive is because
there's more secrecy. People have no idea the betrayal that's
happening behind their backs by so called Republicans. And I'm
(10:17):
making it my mission. I want to save the state
of Texas, but I'm trying to bring a new level
of transparency to the Texas House.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Two summers ago, you were one of the only Republicans
in the House that was against the idea of impeaching
Ken Paxton, and that went for being that went for
being a very popular idea to a very unpopular idea
just as soon as state lawmakers realized how average people
felt about it. I always felt like, if you can't
explain to an average guy that drives a truck for
(10:45):
a living, or works on an oil rig or a nurse,
why what a politician did should be illegal, the odds
are it's probably not that important. And so as that
was taking place, I noticed a lot of the people
that weren't paying attention to these committee chairs were giving
a way to Democrats suddenly started to Suddenly it mattered
to people, and a little bit of time passed and
(11:05):
we all thought, Wow, we're finally going to get.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Rid of Dave Fallon.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Here is the new boss sam as the old boss
Dustin Burrows. Did people just forget what they were mad about?
Why didn't that get a bigger reaction from voters after
it happened.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Well, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
I actually think it's I would articulate this, it's the
biggest form of a voter fraud then maybe has ever
happened in America. What happened just a few months ago
here in the Texas House, which is Republicans gave Republican Sorry,
voters gave Republicans the governor's mansion, lieutenant Governor's office, the
big majorities in the Senate, and the House, every state
wide official, a twenty six seat majority in the House.
(11:40):
But thirty something fake Republicans cut a deal. They colluded
with fifty radical leftist Marxist Democrats to select the speaker
of the Texas House. So we have a guy who's
got the word Republican by his name, but he was
given his job by fifty Democrats. So even though voters
(12:02):
gave Republicans the Texas House, thirty Republicans put Kamala Harris's
team in complete control of the Texas House on the
heels of an election where Texas voted for Trump by
fourteen points. It may be the biggest example of voter
fraud in history.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, and here in the Houston area, one of those
Republicans was State Representative Lacey Hall. Is it is it
weird for you guys when you run into each other
at the in the cafeteria at the state Capitol. I mean,
you're all supposed to be on the same team, but
you're clearly not.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
What's what's that you know, what is that energy? Like?
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Well, I can say this as somebody who I have
never abided by the quote unspeaking rules of the House
where you're not supposed to tell everybody on the outside
about the corruption on the inside. So yes, people are
really you know, they really can't stand my Twitter feed.
I've probably never been cussing anything as much in my
life as I have the things that I put on Twitter,
because you're not supposed to expose the corruption. But look,
(12:57):
everybody down here knows my view on this, and it's
no secret about it. And as a result, I am
attacked by the liberal media every single day, and there's
a you know, constantly smear campaigns by House leadership to
silence anybody who dares tell the voters of Texas the
truth of what's going on down here. And it's something
that's never really happened before. I mean, nobody was talking
(13:18):
about the Barack Obama parliamentary and running the House until
I started tweeting about it and going on you know,
Fox and Newsmax and exposing it to a broader audience,
and I'm glad to see that Texans eyes have really
been opened. And you mentioned traditional Ken Paxton. He and
I actually spoken about this thing several times as we
traveled the state together primary many of my Rhino colleagues
last primary season, which is that, in a weird way,
(13:41):
there's a silver lining to the dumpster fire that was his,
you know, sham and probably illegal impeachment.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And you're right.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
I think I was one of four four Republicans that
had the courage to stand up on the floor of
the Texas House and speak out against it on the
morning of the impeachment. The silver lining, though, is that
it woke people up in a way that I think
they've never been woken up before. Interest in Texas, but
across America, people had this view of Texas as being
sort of a standard bearer for small government and liberty
and conservative values. And I think when they saw wait
(14:09):
a second, one of if not the most effective attorney
general in the in the country, who is on a
daily basis standing up to the unconstitutional tyranny that was
coming out of the Biden administration, and who had just
been soundly re elected months earlier, he was being impeached
and wait a second, Well, who's impeaching him? A bunch
of people who call themselves Republican in a Republican government.
(14:31):
How can this be? And so I think the silver
lining to the packs and impeachment is that people had
their eyes open like they never had before to the
complete rank corruption that is happening to voters in Texas
at the hands of the very so called Republicans that
they entrusted to safeguard their freedoms and liberty for the
(14:51):
next generation.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, but then that outrage didn't last. I mean, where
did it go? You know, people forgot about it so quickly.
I agree with everything you said, though, Hey, speaking of outrage,
people love to.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Be outraged about things.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And earlier this week, Al Green, a congressman from here
in the Houston area, early in Trump's speech during the
Joint Sessions address, stood up, broke decorum, and they kicked
him out. And honestly, I think he just wanted to leave.
I think most you know, it was his way of
getting something out of it and then going home and
catching reruns of Mash before he went to bed.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
But the same thing actually happened. Here is an odd
news story.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
A lot of people may not have seen about this
guy named Frank Samora, thirty two year old former employee
of the Texas Real Estate Commission. He's an state agency,
just got fired for refusing to remove pronouns from his
email signature. Now again, this is one of those silly,
dumb things. I think he just didn't want to work
for the government anymore. I suppose you probably get you know,
(15:48):
you get something for a league six months pay or
something like that. I have no idea, but what is
your take on this? I mean, why was this even
an issue? Why are people putting pronouns in email signatures?
And why did the government need to do something about it?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Well, yeah, I mean, look, it's fine and good, but
you're not. I'm not. I saw that story this morning
and like, okay, great, find good. We need to stop
having you know, state resources used to promote transgenderism. So okay,
we fired one person. But I'm sorry, I'm not going
to celebrate this because the fact of the matter, and
this is something that the uniparty in Austin does not
want folks to know. But the state of Texas, if
(16:22):
you're a taxpayer right now, I want you to hear
what I'm saying, your money is being weaponized against you
and your values to promote transgenderism. So don't be fool
that because one person one lost his job, that the
state of Texas is cracking down on taxpayer funded transgender ideology.
The exact opposite is true. Texas, A and M, the
University of Texas, You're down to Houston, the University of Houston,
(16:45):
University of North Texas. Every one of those universities and
many others have entire undergraduate programs in LGBTQ studies. And
I'm so incensed about this, I tweet. I make a
point to put a post on x every single morning
of an example of one way in which the State
of Texas, at taxpayer expense, is promoting DEI or liberal
(17:08):
gender ideology. So look, we've got we've got a bizarre
situation now where President Trump now in his second term,
is that they're putting an end to taxpayer fund a
dee to putting an end to the promotion of transgender
ideology at the federal level. But the federal government now
is fighting DEI and transgender ideology more aggressive than the
State of Texas. And I'm going to say this as
(17:28):
clear as I can. The government of the State of Texas.
The Texas government supports DEI in transgender ideology. The government
of Texas is funding DEI in transgender ideology, and the
government of Texas is indoctrinating the next generation of students
in liberal transgender ideology. And if you're a Texan, if
you're listening, if you're at the job, you're working, think
(17:50):
about that. Every time you pay sales tax on and
you buy a coke, you buy a Snicker's bar, you
buy anything, your taxes are being used to promote DEI
and to indoct to neate students in our public universities
in transgender ideology. And we could we could slash your
property taxes by billions of dollars if we stopped funding governments,
tees and universities that were spending I mean literally billions. Yeah,
(18:14):
superbo DEI and liberal gender ideology. And we're technical.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
This is the State of Texas.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
We should be leading the fight against these things, not
subsidizing them.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
All right, Well, it does sound like the funding the
transgender ideology is a little worse than pronouns in the
email signature. Yeah, POYT take it like you. I'm a
liberty conservative. I'm you know, I'm Austin Peterson, and I
call it libertarian nationalism. You know, it's libertarianism but without
the open borders. And I don't like occupational licenses. I
always thought it was weird. In Louisiana you need a
(18:42):
license to be a florist. In California, you need a
license to braid hair. That almost sounds racist to me.
But here in the State of Taxes, if we must
have occupational licenses, especially if it's occupational licenses for for
publicly funded in place, I'd like to think they're at.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Least following the rules.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Back when first got in office, we saw that public
school employees and hospital and workers were telling openly bragging
on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that they were going
to use their position as an employee of a hospital
or school to protect and harbor illegal immigrants. I pointed
this out to people like State Senator Mas Middleton and
(19:20):
State Representative Steve Toath, and both of them are on
board with this idea.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Shouldn't that be illegal?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I mean, let's obviously to illegal the harbor illegal immigrants,
but why would we allow somebody with an occupational license
to even continue to work in this state, much less
a publicly and funded employee. If we know that what
they're doing, I feel like that's an easy solution there.
Take the occupational licenses away from these if we must
have them, certainly don't give them to people that are
(19:47):
using that position to commit crimes. And I guess State
Representative Steve Toath is out supporting that idea right now.
I wonder if you would be a yes vote on that.
State Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean like that. You mentioned two good
friends of mine, Steve Toth, Amazon Middleton and who are
doing good work, uh, trimming the brush when it comes
to occupational licenses. But I'm so glad you brought that
up because I'm going to shock your listeners, who you
know have done their job by voting for Republicans. Uh,
it's not just that Texas has occupational licenses that it
shouldn't have because, by the way, it's illegal to bred
(20:17):
hair in the state of Texas too without the government giving.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I did not know that. I thought that was a
California thing. That that's so dumb.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Oh no, no, in fact, hang on again, it's worse.
Let's hang on that topic for a second. Not only
is it illegal to do hair and cosmetology in Texas
without a license, it's seven times harder to get a
government license to do hair and cosmetology in Texas than
it is to be licensed to be a first responder.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Okay, is that true? That's insane.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Wow, it's one It is one hundred percent true. And
in fact, here this is going to shock you too.
California is out of control with their occupational licenses. But
like here, okay, it's California. They're a bunch of socialist
Why we kind of expect that Texas has more occupational
licenses requirement regulations than California. Texas has more than New York,
(21:09):
and Texas has more than every other state in America.
So when you hear the Texas is a low regulation state,
I'm here to tell you, like with tears in my eyes,
that's a lie. When it comes to occupational freedom, Texas
is dead last. I've got multiple bills filed this session
to end that insanity and to get rid of tons
(21:31):
of stupid bureaucratic red tape on the occupational license youre
front and I hoped, I mean I would hope that
the Texas legislation would pass them, but with the Democrats
con you know, running the House, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, all right, we went way long on this, so
we got a break.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
If you're just turning on your radio, you're hearing the
voice of state Representative Brian Harrison of LS County, and
if you're not following him on X, I always look.
I just think the easiest way to find any lawmaker
is on X these days, because it's one of the
only places where you can reach a big audience without
getting censored. He is at Brian E. Harrison on X,
(22:05):
and yeah, follow him. This is a good one of
the one of the one of the only people in
the House that I would endorse consistently and tell you, yeah,
if he says something's true, it probably is.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Brian, Thanks so much for your time this afternoon. Brother.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Great to be with you, Kenny, and God bless you,
God bless Texas.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Ay Man.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Late last night, after a few beers, we discovered the
art of deceiving politicians. Just tell them the truth and
they'll never believe you. Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Bro Brow.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
A report today from Breitbart dot Com reveals how more
layoffs have hit the Disney Grooming syndicate. They are getting
rid of two hundred jobs, that's about six percent of
the staff and two major divisions. So, according to a
report here in the Wall Street Journal, two hundred employees
are being let go at Disney's ABC News Group and
Disney Entertainment Networks, and ratings and revenue are down at
(22:57):
many of their cable channels. So, as it turns out,
people are ditching cable packages, and advertisers are fleeing for
streaming services, and people just don't care anymore what ABC News.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Is telling them.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
The most interesting nugget here is the news that ABC
is shutting down the once very popular five thirty eight.
Five thirty eight, if you don't know what that is,
that was a polling website created by a guy named
Nate Silver. It was supposed to be data driven, it
was supposed to be scientific. It was supposed to predict
the outcomes of things like elections or the Oscars or
sporting events, and it doesn't actually do what.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
It was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It under back when Nate Silver ran the website, it
got a lot of web traffic, and then came Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
In twenty sixteen, and then.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Nate Silver sold the website right around the time that
they started getting bad at making predictions. Suddenly data driven
began to look more like wish casting they were. The
site just became a joke. Nate Silver left in twenty
twenty three, and the website five thirty eight completely blew
the twenty twenty four presidential election. No one's going to
look at the website anymore after it gets every prediction wrong.
(24:07):
Giving up five thirty eight was kind of a big
deal for ABC. They paid a lot of money for
this thing. The whole idea if you never looked at
five thirty eight before. We used to talk about it,
and when I would bring it up to baby boomers,
they'd get confused, like what's that. It's well for a
while there, it was something millennials and Gen xers were
looking at to see what polling data was saying. But
the whole idea behind the site was not to reflect
(24:29):
what public opinion said in the polling, but to shape
public opinion, especially in twenty sixteen, especially in twenty twenty
and then when they tried it in twenty twenty four,
it did not go well.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Ras Musen in my opinion. I talked about them earlier
in the show.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
One of the more accurate pollsters out there that's been
around for decades. Five thirty eight dismissed their polls. They
said their polls were wrong. Their polls are usually right,
And I think that speaks volumes about five thirty eight credibility.
What the closing of five thirty eight tells us is
that is no longer an effective piece of propaganda. I
(25:03):
mean that's obvious right. Over time you fail enough times,
you make enough wrong predictions, people stop asking you what
your predictions are. The abcors kept yelling at us and saying, hey,
this is objective number crunching, it's science.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, really, where's everybody going? Why are you guys leaving?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Anyone who wants accurate poll aggregation can go to another website,
Real Clear Politics, that's considered to be the poll of polls,
and they don't tweak the numbers to demoralize Republicans. They
report the numbers, they aggregate the averages, and then they
get it right as often as they can, as often
as the polling data is right. But shuddering, five thirty
(25:41):
eight is kind of a big deal. And you know why,
because people like you and I. We defeated five thirty eight.
Some of you may not even known it existed, but
you did play a role in it. People that blog
or tweet or you know, a lot of people who
listen to this radio show are active on social media
with their political beliefs. Whether you realize it or not,
(26:02):
even if you're not getting paid for it, you're part
of new media. Technically, talk radio's old media, but podcasting's
new media. So I would really just describe what we
do here as alternative media. You find me on social media,
you find me on the radio, you find me on
our podcast or our smartphone app. But we curb stomped
the propaganda outlets, and people like you and I, we
(26:22):
did it over and over again. So now the Disney
groomers are surrendering the godfather of data driven pole sites.
And it wasn't real clear politics. It wasn't Rasmussen five
point thirty eight turned itself into a walking punchline. One
of those online sites that humiliated five thirty eight and
twenty twenty four was actually Nate Silver's new website, which
(26:45):
you know, oddly enough, I may not agree with his opinions,
but he went somewhere else and did better work than
the website that he sold to ABC did. The entertainment
job cuts at Disney are exactly as the Wall Street
Journal describes, a direct result of people can canceling their
cable packages and moving to streaming. Now, i'd criticize Disney
(27:05):
for trying to trans your kids or getting all political
or whatever, but at the end of the day, they
just had too much invested in cable TV. Cable TV
money was a windfall for mega entertainment companies like Disney.
Streaming services are not. People are switching to streaming more
and more that cable money is drying up. Netflix is
still doing well. Other streaming services are either losing or
(27:28):
they're squeaking a tiny profit. Everything's changing, and for the
most part, it's changing for the better. The less power
these monsters have, the safer we all are. Hey, look,
if you're one of the people that just lost your
job at Disney and you're upset, cheer up. Learn to code.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
So we're supposed to live within our income, so we
can afford to pay taxes to a government they can't
live within its income. Yeah. That Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
A lot of our elder listeners know that, but puts
me down.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I would imagine, are you gir listeners probably don't know.
A long time ago, Dean.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Martin in the Rain, going back to a long.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Time ago, Dean Martin recorded this song about how Houston
was this small town in Texas.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, it was a small town back then.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
A lots changed over the years, and at some point
it became the home of I don't know if i'd.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Call him the most.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
He wasn't the most controversial mayor in America, but maybe
for a while in Texas he was.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Selester Turner was rest in peace. First of all. He
died earlier this.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Week for those that don't know, And I would have
done a radio segment about him yesterday, but yesterday was
ash Wednesday, and there was just a lot going on anyway.
In twenty fifteen, Turner was elected mayor of Houston, winning
a runoff against Bill King, and several years later, twenty nineteen,
he ran again, this time against Tony Busby. But the
story doesn't really actually start there. It's almost where it
(28:59):
ended that's so fascinating.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
A lot like Shila Jackson Lee.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Mayor, Turner spent the last night of his life booing
Donald Trump and mocking Republicans. Sheila Jackson Lee did this
as well, sort of the night before she died. We
noticed that people were using her Twitter because somebody either
her somebody to write anti Trump tweets. A weird thing
to do while you're on your deathbed, but okay. On Tuesday,
(29:26):
Mayor Turner now Congressman Turner, well, he was was walking
around in Washington, DC when he had a health episode
and he had to be rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
But he didn't die there.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
In fact, he left the hospital instead of flying home
to his family or going to back to his wherever
he lives in DC. I don't know, he decided to
go attend Donald Trump's joint Session speech, spent his last
remaining time on Earth booing Donald Trump. He did what
he loved the most, hating us, hating maga Republicans. Now,
I had made that point on social media, what an
(29:59):
odd thing to do with the last hours of your life,
and one of our listeners, one of my friends, someone
I would consider to be a peer, someone I have
a great deal of respect for here in the Houston area,
pointed something out that kind of blew my mind. Rowando Garcia,
a state Republican executive committeeman, basically a grassroots activist who
(30:19):
takes his passion for politics and actually does something about it,
had a very interesting response to what I said. Rather
than I tell you, Rimando, what what was your response
to the news that Sylvester Turner spent his last hours
on Earth booing Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (30:34):
I think it was. I mean, he's been looking very
ill and frail for some time. I mean, he knew
he was in his final days. But you know, I
get your point, and that's kind of sad that he
would spend his final hours, you know, booing Trump. And
but the way I look at it is, I mean, obviously,
you know, I hate what he believes in, but I
(30:55):
would like to think that, you know, when I die,
I'm spending my final hours, you know, doing something I
believe is worthwhile, doing something I believe in, rather than
just sitting at home waiting to die. Yeah, he knew
he was dying, and you know, he figured and I
can understand why he would just rather, you know, go
(31:16):
about his regular business doing something that he believed is worthwhile,
rather than what sit.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
At home and wait to die.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
So I mean, I I get your point, But you know,
if I was in his shoes, I I you know,
I wouldn't. I want to be you know, keep keep
moving and keep trying to uh, you know, work until
the until the end.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I you know what. And you pointed that out, and
I respect that. Roland.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I think that's an interesting point because I've never been dying.
I've never you know, I don't know what that feels like.
He's not He's yeah, right, No, I know he's so
you never really think about it. I always assume, what
would I do with my last hours on earth? Would
I go to a Trump speech? Even if I like Trump?
Would I go to a Trump speech? But his life
was so much more complicated than that. He knew he
(31:59):
was dying. He had to know. Like Sheila Jackson Lee
knew she was dying when she ran for here. Dianne Feinstein,
the late senator passed not long ago, senior senator in California,
had to relinquish power over her own finances, right had
to grant power of attorney to her daughter to handle
her own money and bank because she wasn't cognizant enough
(32:21):
to do that. But weirdly, wouldn't relinquish political power. And
there's other examples of this too. John McCain at the
end of his life refused to leave office even though
he was clearly dying.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And I have mixed feelings about that.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
What do you think, Well, these people spend their adult
most of their adult lives in politics. Take Sylvester Turner.
He was elected to the state legislature in the late eighties.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, and he was in.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Public office NonStop until he left the mayor's office in
twenty twenty four. So there he is, you know, almost
seventy years old. He spent his entire adult life pursuing
and wielding power, and now he's nothing. I mean, why
would a seventy year old Matt having been mayor one
(33:09):
of the largest cities in the nation then want to
be a junior congressman in DC. That's all he knows.
That's all he knows.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You know, if he wasn't doing that, what would he
be doing? Right, It was the end of his life.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It was almost like he just wanted it to be
part of his legacy. He could put congressmen down as
one more thing before he passed. I got to think
he did not go out and campaign a lot for
the eighteenth Congressional District. Dodds Are people probably just voted
for him because they knew his name, and that be it.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Said.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
You know, as much as I didn't like the guy
and didn't agree with a lot of what he did,
I want to give him a little bit of props here.
During the pandemic he was He was not the worst
mayor in America. He wasn't even on the list of
the worst mayors in America. There was like a couple
of weeks early on in twenty twenty when the pandemic
first hit, where he didn't he have like a chalkboard
of local bars and restaurre that he wanted to publicly shame.
(34:01):
But after two or three weeks that was over. And
you know, it annoyed us and we criticized him for it.
But in the rest of the country that went on
for another year or two after a Houston stopped doing it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Right.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Yeah, And I think you hit on something important. He
he was not a good mayor, and I think from
the point of perspective to the point of view conservative,
there's a lot to criticize him for. However, and this
is an important point. He could have been a lot worse.
And what I mean and what I mean by that
is there is a younger generation coming up in Houston
(34:35):
politics of very militant progressive politicians, okay, like Chris Hollins
and Abby Kayman. And when they we looked at with
John Whitmyer getting elected mayor, but those military progressives want
to take him out. And let me tell you, we
may we may come to a few years from now,
we may look back on Sylvester Turner as being well,
(34:57):
at least he wasn't as crazy as these Democrats. So
I say that tongue in cheek partially, but it could
have been a lot worse because the new Democrat coming
up in Houston are going to be a lot worse.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
The story with Mayor Turner, a lot of people, a
lot of people probably didn't know who he was, even
though he was already out there in the public eye,
until Wayne Dalchaffino came along back in Wayne dl Chaffino,
I should probably call Wayne right after this. Wayne and
him were like arch enemies, and way back in nineteen
ninety one, the first time he ran for mayor, dull
(35:30):
Chaffino went and knocked on his door at his house
while he was reporting on what was an elaborate insurance
fraud scam. He claimed a local TV reporter and the
guy that answered the door was like a young man
who was not a member of his family, And that
was when a lot of people realized Sylvester Turner might
have been a closeted gay guy. Now, I don't know,
I don't know if he was, you don't know. I
(35:51):
do know that at some point he was the grand
marshal of the gay Pride Parade in Texas in Houston.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
So if that, if that's all true.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That would probably mean he was the only ploseted gay
man to ever be the grand marshal of a gay
pride parade.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
Kenny, Kenny, I want to go back. You mentioned the
video where Raye del Chaffina knocks on the door and
another man answers. It was a very flamboyant man who answered,
and everyone listening. If you have not seen that Wayne
del Tashina report from ninteen ninety one, please watch it, because, yeah,
the insurance cam is kind of interesting, but the really
(36:25):
interesting part is this very flamboyant man living with Sylvester
Turner answers the door and Rayne del Taffino proceeds to
ask him questions and the exchange is like something out
of a comedy skit from in Living Color or something.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Right, it really has to be washed, Yeah, it's it
is something else. I'll play a clip.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We don't have a lot of time right now, but
I for those that haven't seen it, go watch it
and definitely look at it. Rolando, you are so good
at vetting political candidates.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
You're a great inspiration to me. I don't know. I
think you've probably heard about that.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Earlier this week we outed a corrupt political candidate with
nine aliases running in congressional district too against Dan Crenshaw.
Not my favorite politician, but I certainly wouldn't want him
to be replaced by like a communist spy, or a
pedophile or a con artist or any other you know,
there's certainly things worse than Dan Crenshaw, as weird as
(37:20):
that is to say. But all that being said, in
your years of vetting candidates and looking at politicians and
analyzing what people do and outing some bad politicians yourself,
what were some things you noticed about Turner that just
made him unique from everyone else.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
The sleaziness, if you look at over his mayoral administration,
it was just it was the air of sleaziness. And
it's not that he would He personally was never indicted, right,
but it was like every every few months there was
some story or new allegation about how contracts were directed
(38:00):
or one of his aides being charged with bribery. And
it's so, even though he was never personally criminally indicted,
he was just surrounded in this morass of corruption, and
you have to wonder, like, well, he was never personally charged,
but something was going on there, and I think that
will be his most lasting legacy as a politician. He
(38:25):
was he could be an amiable guy. If you notice
when he died, a lot of his old Republican colleagues
from the state legislature were saying, oh, very nice things
about him. And I'm sure that was heartfelt because I'm sure,
one on one, he was a very nice, amiable guy.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
And the other thing to note about him, what really
I will remember is he really wanted to be mayor.
He spent a quarter century running for mayor. You said
he ran in ninety one, he lost, He ran again
in two thousand and three, he lost. He finally won
in twenty fifteen, and what do you do with it? Well, again,
(39:05):
the legacy of corruption. But this is a guy who
spent a quarter century of his life wanting to be
mayor of Houston, and it's sort of tragic that when
he finally got it, Houston kind of suffered for it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, you're not kidding about that. And you know, we
could do an even longer segment on this, but we
don't have time right now. One of the fascinating things
was Astro World. Astro World was the six Flags theme
park in Houston. A long time ago. They closed it
down because it became an unsafe place for young people
to hang out, too many gangs.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Years later, gangster rapper Travis Scott makes an album in
a music festival called Astro World. Mayor Turner decides to
latch himself onto this weirdly enough, encourage his children to
attend the music festival, where I'm sure everybody remembers how
that ended not well.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Multiple people ended up dying.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And then even though he made it a citywide holiday,
I noticed next year he didn't celebrate Astro World Day,
did we No?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Will you?
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Will you celebrate? We should Mayor Turner get a holiday
before we say goodbye to him.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
Uh, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
How would you How.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Would you even celebrate it by giving a accepting a
bribe and take, and then giving a city contract to
your former law partner and then moving in with your
ninety thousand dollars airport intern.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I don't know what it would be.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
Well, you mentioned that, and you mentioned the fact that,
you know, there were the rumors about his personal life,
and you know what he does to his personal life
is his own business. But yeah, that was the fact
that he, a young man that he was you know,
very close to, was given a ninety five thousand dollars
paying internship with the city. It was things like that
that I think will darken his legacy.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, I think you're right about that. Yeah, Hey, we
got it, we got we got a break. What was
your last point you wanted to make.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Me?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (40:53):
I I hate to hit people over the head, but
I want people to remember that when Turner was elected
mayor in twenty five fifteen, it was by three thousand
votes out of two hundred thousand votes cast. That's right,
And there were forty thousand Republican voters Republican primary voters
in the city who didn't vote in that election. If
three thousand out of that forty thousand had voted, Turner
(41:15):
would not have been mayor, and the history of Houston,
I think would have been very different.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Oh yeah, astro world wouldn't have even happened. I mean,
I mean, think about It's true, right, he wouldn't have
encouraged children to go to a gangster rap festival.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That's crazy exactly.
Speaker 6 (41:29):
Lando his voto apathy. So you know, we can talk
about bad politicians, but at the end of the day,
it's the voters that put him.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
There, right, Yeah, Hey, do you want people?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Can I promote your ex account or is that not
something you want radio listeners to look at asolutely?
Speaker 6 (41:42):
Please please, please please do if.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
You follow my radio show and you keep up with
local politics, Rolando Garcia is one of my favorite people
in the local political His only involvement is that he cares.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
He cares about Texas.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
He's interested, like a lot of you, this is a
topic he actually cares about. He's not He's not trying
to all a book or promote a podcast or anything.
That's part of the reason why I think Rolando is
so great. Find him on x R D Garcia O
three r D Garcia O three or just if you
look at my account and search for Orlando Garcia, you'll
find him.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I'm Kenny Webster. I love you all.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I hope you have an awesome afternoon. We'll be back
Brian early tomorrow morning for more of which you came
what for, more of what you bought a radio for.
Have a great day.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss yours when you listen to this show.
Giganic government sucks. Suit of having us radio is deluxe.
Liberty and Freedom will make you smile. A suit of
having us on your radio. Toyle Justice Cheeseburg just a
liberty fries at the food.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Americans estimate that thirteen percent of their possessions are junk.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
A lot of people shop at TIMU, don't they. Hi,
thanks for turning on the radio. I'm Kenny Webster. A
couple of really interesting people, very Texas and Houston oriented
centric show. Today we've got my buddy, state Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I don't think I've ever had him on the show before.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
He's a liberty Republican, a huge critic of occupational licenses,
and a swamp that is Austin right now. He's you
should follow him on X if you don't add Brian E. Harrison,
We're going to talk about, among other things, and gender
ideology that you're paying.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
For as a taxpayer. Doesn't that suck?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And then also if you don't know who he is,
Rolando Garcia is a good friend of mine and if
you're involved in the Harris County Republican Party, he's a
State Republican executive committeeman he's he's.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
A grassroots activist.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He's the grassiest of grassroots activists and very involved in
Houston politics for a long time. We're gonna remember the
life of Mayor Houston. Excuse me, Mayor Sylvester former mayor
of Houston, Sylvester Turner.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's not gonna be.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's not We're not gonna crap all over him. But
we're not gonna it's not gonna be. You know, roses
in a tea party either, to stick around for that.
All that being said, we begin our show this afternoon
with this. I've been told over and over again that
Donald Trump and the cuts they're making at DOGE are
very unpopular, that especially things like social Security. If you're
(01:52):
my age is that and I'm forty two, right, I'm
not a kid, but I'm not old. I'm right in
the middle. There is social Security to even exist by
the time I get to my seventies.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Praypart dot com today is actually reporting on how, despite
the best efforts of Democrats to astro turf Republican town
halls with fake protesters. We've seen them all over the news,
We've seen them all over the country lately, and all
the while that they're doing this, they're conspiring with the
regime media to report on how President Trump is facing backlash.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
He's so unpopular here in the real world.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Average people not only support DOGE, they want DOGE to
dig into the Social Security Administration. DOGE, of course, the
Department of Government Efficiency. It is a government organization spearheaded
by Elon Musk.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It has an expiration date on it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It's supposed to disappear on what is it, July fourth,
twenty twenty six now, because the federal government is corrupt
and useless, and our government hides the fact that they
do illegal on constitutional things all the time by funding
the non government mental organizations, the nonprofit groups. The people
that work at DOGE, very brilliant people have written computer
(03:06):
software that flies over the heads of deep state bureaucrats
and gets deep down into the nitty gritty of where
our money is being spent. Because most of these illicit
billions benefit Democrats, Democrat campaign coffers and the family members
of Democrats and Stacy Abrams and whoever recently went on
(03:26):
on a date with Fanny well as people like that.
There's a twenty four to seven assault launch to terrify
Republican lawmakers into believing that average Americans don't want the
government audited.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So what's the truth. Well, we just got some polling
data back. Rasumusen Reports one of the most reliable pollsters
in the country, and it proves the media narrative is
a lie. So here's the truth about what you've been taught.
When asked a very simple question, which political party do
you trust more to handle Social Security? The Republicans lead
(04:00):
to forty three percent. Neither of them got the majority,
neither of them got more than half, but still that's
more Republicans than Democrats, and it's an incredible accomplishment. Most
of the credit should go to Trump. Trump has been
steadfast and promising not to touch Medicare or Social Security,
so voters believe them. But nevertheless, the American people do
not want Social Security touched for the most part, according
(04:22):
to polling.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
That's what we've seen. They still trust Musk, they still Trump,
trust Doge. They trust Trump enough to call for the
program to at least get audited, and god, I hope
they do it. They were asked this question, sixty four
percent of black voters said they wanted to be audited.
Sixty seven percent of Hispanic voters said they wanted to
be audited. Fifty nine percent of people total people said
(04:46):
they would strongly like it to be audited. Forty one
percent SE's somewhat eighteen percent said they'd approve. Only thirty
five percent were against it, roughly a third of people.
So that's another way to break that down, would be
all the concernedrivatives, all the moderates want us to audit
the Social Security system. Why would Democrats not want us
to audit it? Why wouldn't they the remaining people are
(05:06):
against that. Think about this.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Not only do.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Voters trust the Republicans more than do the Democrats to
protect social Security, they also trust Trump, Musk and Doge
to do a full audit. Moreover, they want a full audit.
We're living in a whole new world, one where the
fake media no longer matters. And I never thought I
would live long enough to say that out loud.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
We could certainly slow the aging process if aging had
to pass its way through slow ass Congress take another vacation.
Why don't you Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
All right, So they say that March is women's History Month.
And you know what's really sad is March makes thirty
percent less than Men's History Month.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Isn't that sad?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Hi, Welcome back from Break Everybody. Kenny Webster here. Something
we often do on this radio show. You know, we
have a regular rotating cast of some of the most
conservative lawmakers in the state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Mays Middleton was here recently. State Rep.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Steve Toath calls in a lot, and obviously we're very
excited at people from the Texan and Texas Scorecard and
current revolt. And I noticed as I look through my
list of people who I feel like are our ideological
allies ers, there's one guy I've never had on the
show before, and I don't know why. I generally tend
to agree with most of not all, of the things
I hear him say publicly, and yet somehow we've never
(06:25):
had stay.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He and I are practically the same age, both of us,
I think liberty Republicans, and yet weirdly, he's never been
on the show before. So I reached out to him,
and not surprisingly if you follow him on social media,
he's one of the busier people in the Texas State House,
and you know that's saying a lot, because there's always
a lot of weird stuff going on there. But he's
(06:50):
also one of the people I see in the Texas
State House calling out the fact that Rhino Republicans and
big government enthusiasts who masquerade as conservatives, who people that
rote the coattails of the Tea Party movement years ago
and now the Maga movement generally are not what they
seem and so stay representative. Brian Harrison, I'll start with this.
It's it's Alamo Day. I guess you don't have a
(07:11):
happy Alamo day. You have a somber Alimo day, have
a peaceful Alamo day. How do you how do you
describe that in your language?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Yeah, it's hard to sort of like celebrate it, even
though of course history ultimately ultimately worked out in our
favor after the Alamo, and of course remember the Alamo.
So I think it's something that we've got to make
sure we never lose sight of them, and that we
never ever stop, you know, praising and remembering and reflecting
upon the sacrifices that happened there. But but backs to
the way you open the show, Kenny, you know, I
(07:40):
was starting to think that, you know, you're never gonna
ask me on.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I didn't know what was going on with that. I
you know, you just it's I'll tell you this.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I do two radio shows a day, and I'm I
think the truth is, Brian, I'm a little lazy. I
just get in the habit of booking people that I
know very well, and I'm on text message chains with
different people. But I retweet you all the time. I
think Brian is one of the good guys. And Brian,
I feel like our party, the Republican Party, at least
in the House. Is it just me or is the
current leader of the House Republicans, Gene wu Am I
(08:10):
imagining that.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yes, it's hilarious. I mean it's cause you need the
laugh or you cry. Yeah, I mean absolutely. Look, I'm
a liberty person, Okay. I believe in the principles that
made our country great, you know, small government, low taxes,
low regulations, maximal individual freedom and liberty, and that that's
the number one job of government is to protect our
freedoms and our liberties, which of course don't come from government,
but they come from God. And the governments supposed to
(08:32):
protect those. Well, here's the problem. Too many Republicans say
all the right things around election time, but then when
it goes comes time to govern, you know, they govern
to the left of Mitch McConnell, and in the Texas House,
it's worse than that. Look, I had the privilege of
serving under President Trump and his first administration. I was
his chief of staff at the biggest cabinet department. And
(08:53):
when I got elected down here, I just assumed. I
was so excited. I assumed every elected Republican in the
Texas House was going to fight as hard for the
freedom liberty of the next generation as those of us
who had in the Trump administration. I could not believe
what I found when I walked onto the floor of
the House. I mean, the Democrats, even though voters have
given Republicans a massive majority in the Texas House. You
mentioned Jean wu, the Democrat caucus chair.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
The Democrats control the Republican dominated Texas House. Are top
parliamentary official. The most powerful staff from the building is
a former Barack Obama White House lawyer. Last session, we
couldn't even debate the seven legislative priorities of the Republican
Party of Texas. But we put over five hundred Democrat
bills on the floor when I was elected, Democrats were
(09:35):
the chairman of forty percent of our committee. So imagine
if Mike Johnson made Nancy Pelosi the chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee, Or imagine if he asked AOC
to run Energy and Commerce. That nightmare literally happens every
day on the Texas House. And as somebody who's worked
in the swamp of DC, I have never seen anything
swampier than Republicans telling voters, you know, vote for me
(09:55):
and all fight the radical Democrats, and then the second
they get elected, they vote to put the very Democrats
in charge and then collude with them to destroy liberty.
And I'm sick of it. This get because this game
has gone on for almost two decades down here, and
the main reason it's been able to thrive is because
there's more secrecy. People have no idea the betrayal that's
happening behind their backs by so called Republicans. And I'm
(10:17):
making it my mission. I want to save the state
of Texas, but I'm trying to bring a new level
of transparency to the Texas House.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Two summers ago, you were one of the only Republicans
in the House that was against the idea of impeaching
Ken Paxton, and that went for being that went for
being a very popular idea to a very unpopular idea
just as soon as state lawmakers realized how average people
felt about it. I always felt like, if you can't
explain to an average guy that drives a truck for
(10:45):
a living, or works on an oil rig or a nurse,
why what a politician did should be illegal, the odds
are it's probably not that important. And so as that
was taking place, I noticed a lot of the people
that weren't paying attention to these committee chairs were giving
a way to Democrats suddenly started to Suddenly it mattered
to people, and a little bit of time passed and
(11:05):
we all thought, Wow, we're finally going to get.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Rid of Dave Fallon.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Here is the new boss sam as the old boss
Dustin Burrows. Did people just forget what they were mad about?
Why didn't that get a bigger reaction from voters after
it happened.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Well, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
I actually think it's I would articulate this, it's the
biggest form of a voter fraud then maybe has ever
happened in America. What happened just a few months ago
here in the Texas House, which is Republicans gave Republican Sorry,
voters gave Republicans the governor's mansion, lieutenant Governor's office, the
big majorities in the Senate, and the House, every state
wide official, a twenty six seat majority in the House.
(11:40):
But thirty something fake Republicans cut a deal. They colluded
with fifty radical leftist Marxist Democrats to select the speaker
of the Texas House. So we have a guy who's
got the word Republican by his name, but he was
given his job by fifty Democrats. So even though voters
(12:02):
gave Republicans the Texas House, thirty Republicans put Kamala Harris's
team in complete control of the Texas House on the
heels of an election where Texas voted for Trump by
fourteen points. It may be the biggest example of voter
fraud in history.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, and here in the Houston area, one of those
Republicans was State Representative Lacey Hall. Is it is it
weird for you guys when you run into each other
at the in the cafeteria at the state Capitol. I mean,
you're all supposed to be on the same team, but
you're clearly not.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
What's what's that you know, what is that energy? Like?
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Well, I can say this as somebody who I have
never abided by the quote unspeaking rules of the House
where you're not supposed to tell everybody on the outside
about the corruption on the inside. So yes, people are
really you know, they really can't stand my Twitter feed.
I've probably never been cussing anything as much in my
life as I have the things that I put on Twitter,
because you're not supposed to expose the corruption. But look,
(12:57):
everybody down here knows my view on this, and it's
no secret about it. And as a result, I am
attacked by the liberal media every single day, and there's
a you know, constantly smear campaigns by House leadership to
silence anybody who dares tell the voters of Texas the
truth of what's going on down here. And it's something
that's never really happened before. I mean, nobody was talking
(13:18):
about the Barack Obama parliamentary and running the House until
I started tweeting about it and going on you know,
Fox and Newsmax and exposing it to a broader audience,
and I'm glad to see that Texans eyes have really
been opened. And you mentioned traditional Ken Paxton. He and
I actually spoken about this thing several times as we
traveled the state together primary many of my Rhino colleagues
last primary season, which is that, in a weird way,
(13:41):
there's a silver lining to the dumpster fire that was his,
you know, sham and probably illegal impeachment.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And you're right.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
I think I was one of four four Republicans that
had the courage to stand up on the floor of
the Texas House and speak out against it on the
morning of the impeachment. The silver lining, though, is that
it woke people up in a way that I think
they've never been woken up before. Interest in Texas, but
across America, people had this view of Texas as being
sort of a standard bearer for small government and liberty
and conservative values. And I think when they saw wait
(14:09):
a second, one of if not the most effective attorney
general in the in the country, who is on a
daily basis standing up to the unconstitutional tyranny that was
coming out of the Biden administration, and who had just
been soundly re elected months earlier, he was being impeached
and wait a second, Well, who's impeaching him? A bunch
of people who call themselves Republican in a Republican government.
(14:31):
How can this be? And so I think the silver
lining to the packs and impeachment is that people had
their eyes open like they never had before to the
complete rank corruption that is happening to voters in Texas
at the hands of the very so called Republicans that
they entrusted to safeguard their freedoms and liberty for the
(14:51):
next generation.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, but then that outrage didn't last. I mean, where
did it go? You know, people forgot about it so quickly.
I agree with everything you said, though, Hey, speaking of outrage,
people love to.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Be outraged about things.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And earlier this week, Al Green, a congressman from here
in the Houston area, early in Trump's speech during the
Joint Sessions address, stood up, broke decorum, and they kicked
him out. And honestly, I think he just wanted to leave.
I think most you know, it was his way of
getting something out of it and then going home and
catching reruns of Mash before he went to bed.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
But the same thing actually happened. Here is an odd
news story.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
A lot of people may not have seen about this
guy named Frank Samora, thirty two year old former employee
of the Texas Real Estate Commission. He's an state agency,
just got fired for refusing to remove pronouns from his
email signature. Now again, this is one of those silly,
dumb things. I think he just didn't want to work
for the government anymore. I suppose you probably get you know,
(15:48):
you get something for a league six months pay or
something like that. I have no idea, but what is
your take on this? I mean, why was this even
an issue? Why are people putting pronouns in email signatures?
And why did the government need to do something about it?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Well, yeah, I mean, look, it's fine and good, but
you're not. I'm not. I saw that story this morning
and like, okay, great, find good. We need to stop
having you know, state resources used to promote transgenderism. So okay,
we fired one person. But I'm sorry, I'm not going
to celebrate this because the fact of the matter, and
this is something that the uniparty in Austin does not
want folks to know. But the state of Texas, if
(16:22):
you're a taxpayer right now, I want you to hear
what I'm saying, your money is being weaponized against you
and your values to promote transgenderism. So don't be fool
that because one person one lost his job, that the
state of Texas is cracking down on taxpayer funded transgender ideology.
The exact opposite is true. Texas, A and M, the
University of Texas, You're down to Houston, the University of Houston,
(16:45):
University of North Texas. Every one of those universities and
many others have entire undergraduate programs in LGBTQ studies. And
I'm so incensed about this, I tweet. I make a
point to put a post on x every single morning
of an example of one way in which the State
of Texas, at taxpayer expense, is promoting DEI or liberal
(17:08):
gender ideology. So look, we've got we've got a bizarre
situation now where President Trump now in his second term,
is that they're putting an end to taxpayer fund a
dee to putting an end to the promotion of transgender
ideology at the federal level. But the federal government now
is fighting DEI and transgender ideology more aggressive than the
State of Texas. And I'm going to say this as
(17:28):
clear as I can. The government of the State of Texas.
The Texas government supports DEI in transgender ideology. The government
of Texas is funding DEI in transgender ideology, and the
government of Texas is indoctrinating the next generation of students
in liberal transgender ideology. And if you're a Texan, if
you're listening, if you're at the job, you're working, think
(17:50):
about that. Every time you pay sales tax on and
you buy a coke, you buy a Snicker's bar, you
buy anything, your taxes are being used to promote DEI
and to indoct to neate students in our public universities
in transgender ideology. And we could we could slash your
property taxes by billions of dollars if we stopped funding governments,
tees and universities that were spending I mean literally billions. Yeah,
(18:14):
superbo DEI and liberal gender ideology. And we're technical.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
This is the State of Texas.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
We should be leading the fight against these things, not
subsidizing them.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
All right, Well, it does sound like the funding the
transgender ideology is a little worse than pronouns in the
email signature. Yeah, POYT take it like you. I'm a
liberty conservative. I'm you know, I'm Austin Peterson, and I
call it libertarian nationalism. You know, it's libertarianism but without
the open borders. And I don't like occupational licenses. I
always thought it was weird. In Louisiana you need a
(18:42):
license to be a florist. In California, you need a
license to braid hair. That almost sounds racist to me.
But here in the State of Taxes, if we must
have occupational licenses, especially if it's occupational licenses for for
publicly funded in place, I'd like to think they're at.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Least following the rules.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Back when first got in office, we saw that public
school employees and hospital and workers were telling openly bragging
on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that they were going
to use their position as an employee of a hospital
or school to protect and harbor illegal immigrants. I pointed
this out to people like State Senator Mas Middleton and
(19:20):
State Representative Steve Toath, and both of them are on
board with this idea.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Shouldn't that be illegal?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I mean, let's obviously to illegal the harbor illegal immigrants,
but why would we allow somebody with an occupational license
to even continue to work in this state, much less
a publicly and funded employee. If we know that what
they're doing, I feel like that's an easy solution there.
Take the occupational licenses away from these if we must
have them, certainly don't give them to people that are
(19:47):
using that position to commit crimes. And I guess State
Representative Steve Toath is out supporting that idea right now.
I wonder if you would be a yes vote on that.
State Representative Brian Harrison.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean like that. You mentioned two good
friends of mine, Steve Toth, Amazon Middleton and who are
doing good work, uh, trimming the brush when it comes
to occupational licenses. But I'm so glad you brought that
up because I'm going to shock your listeners, who you
know have done their job by voting for Republicans. Uh,
it's not just that Texas has occupational licenses that it
shouldn't have because, by the way, it's illegal to bred
(20:17):
hair in the state of Texas too without the government giving.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I did not know that. I thought that was a
California thing. That that's so dumb.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Oh no, no, in fact, hang on again, it's worse.
Let's hang on that topic for a second. Not only
is it illegal to do hair and cosmetology in Texas
without a license, it's seven times harder to get a
government license to do hair and cosmetology in Texas than
it is to be licensed to be a first responder.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Okay, is that true? That's insane.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Wow, it's one It is one hundred percent true. And
in fact, here this is going to shock you too.
California is out of control with their occupational licenses. But
like here, okay, it's California. They're a bunch of socialist
Why we kind of expect that Texas has more occupational
licenses requirement regulations than California. Texas has more than New York,
(21:09):
and Texas has more than every other state in America.
So when you hear the Texas is a low regulation state,
I'm here to tell you, like with tears in my eyes,
that's a lie. When it comes to occupational freedom, Texas
is dead last. I've got multiple bills filed this session
to end that insanity and to get rid of tons
(21:31):
of stupid bureaucratic red tape on the occupational license youre
front and I hoped, I mean I would hope that
the Texas legislation would pass them, but with the Democrats
con you know, running the House, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Yeah, all right, we went way long on this, so
we got a break.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
If you're just turning on your radio, you're hearing the
voice of state Representative Brian Harrison of LS County, and
if you're not following him on X, I always look.
I just think the easiest way to find any lawmaker
is on X these days, because it's one of the
only places where you can reach a big audience without
getting censored. He is at Brian E. Harrison on X,
(22:05):
and yeah, follow him. This is a good one of
the one of the one of the only people in
the House that I would endorse consistently and tell you, yeah,
if he says something's true, it probably is.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Brian, Thanks so much for your time this afternoon. Brother.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Great to be with you, Kenny, and God bless you,
God bless Texas.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Ay Man.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Late last night, after a few beers, we discovered the
art of deceiving politicians. Just tell them the truth and
they'll never believe you. Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Bro Brow.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
A report today from Breitbart dot Com reveals how more
layoffs have hit the Disney Grooming syndicate. They are getting
rid of two hundred jobs, that's about six percent of
the staff and two major divisions. So, according to a
report here in the Wall Street Journal, two hundred employees
are being let go at Disney's ABC News Group and
Disney Entertainment Networks, and ratings and revenue are down at
(22:57):
many of their cable channels. So, as it turns out,
people are ditching cable packages, and advertisers are fleeing for
streaming services, and people just don't care anymore what ABC News.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Is telling them.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
The most interesting nugget here is the news that ABC
is shutting down the once very popular five thirty eight.
Five thirty eight, if you don't know what that is,
that was a polling website created by a guy named
Nate Silver. It was supposed to be data driven, it
was supposed to be scientific. It was supposed to predict
the outcomes of things like elections or the Oscars or
sporting events, and it doesn't actually do what.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
It was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It under back when Nate Silver ran the website, it
got a lot of web traffic, and then came Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
In twenty sixteen, and then.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Nate Silver sold the website right around the time that
they started getting bad at making predictions. Suddenly data driven
began to look more like wish casting they were. The
site just became a joke. Nate Silver left in twenty
twenty three, and the website five thirty eight completely blew
the twenty twenty four presidential election. No one's going to
look at the website anymore after it gets every prediction wrong.
(24:07):
Giving up five thirty eight was kind of a big
deal for ABC. They paid a lot of money for
this thing. The whole idea if you never looked at
five thirty eight before. We used to talk about it,
and when I would bring it up to baby boomers,
they'd get confused, like what's that. It's well for a
while there, it was something millennials and Gen xers were
looking at to see what polling data was saying. But
the whole idea behind the site was not to reflect
(24:29):
what public opinion said in the polling, but to shape
public opinion, especially in twenty sixteen, especially in twenty twenty
and then when they tried it in twenty twenty four,
it did not go well.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Ras Musen in my opinion. I talked about them earlier
in the show.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
One of the more accurate pollsters out there that's been
around for decades. Five thirty eight dismissed their polls. They
said their polls were wrong. Their polls are usually right,
And I think that speaks volumes about five thirty eight credibility.
What the closing of five thirty eight tells us is
that is no longer an effective piece of propaganda. I
(25:03):
mean that's obvious right. Over time you fail enough times,
you make enough wrong predictions, people stop asking you what
your predictions are. The abcors kept yelling at us and saying, hey,
this is objective number crunching, it's science.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, really, where's everybody going? Why are you guys leaving?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Anyone who wants accurate poll aggregation can go to another website,
Real Clear Politics, that's considered to be the poll of polls,
and they don't tweak the numbers to demoralize Republicans. They
report the numbers, they aggregate the averages, and then they
get it right as often as they can, as often
as the polling data is right. But shuddering, five thirty
(25:41):
eight is kind of a big deal. And you know why,
because people like you and I. We defeated five thirty eight.
Some of you may not even known it existed, but
you did play a role in it. People that blog
or tweet or you know, a lot of people who
listen to this radio show are active on social media
with their political beliefs. Whether you realize it or not,
(26:02):
even if you're not getting paid for it, you're part
of new media. Technically, talk radio's old media, but podcasting's
new media. So I would really just describe what we
do here as alternative media. You find me on social media,
you find me on the radio, you find me on
our podcast or our smartphone app. But we curb stomped
the propaganda outlets, and people like you and I, we
(26:22):
did it over and over again. So now the Disney
groomers are surrendering the godfather of data driven pole sites.
And it wasn't real clear politics. It wasn't Rasmussen five
point thirty eight turned itself into a walking punchline. One
of those online sites that humiliated five thirty eight and
twenty twenty four was actually Nate Silver's new website, which
(26:45):
you know, oddly enough, I may not agree with his opinions,
but he went somewhere else and did better work than
the website that he sold to ABC did. The entertainment
job cuts at Disney are exactly as the Wall Street
Journal describes, a direct result of people can canceling their
cable packages and moving to streaming. Now, i'd criticize Disney
(27:05):
for trying to trans your kids or getting all political
or whatever, but at the end of the day, they
just had too much invested in cable TV. Cable TV
money was a windfall for mega entertainment companies like Disney.
Streaming services are not. People are switching to streaming more
and more that cable money is drying up. Netflix is
still doing well. Other streaming services are either losing or
(27:28):
they're squeaking a tiny profit. Everything's changing, and for the
most part, it's changing for the better. The less power
these monsters have, the safer we all are. Hey, look,
if you're one of the people that just lost your
job at Disney and you're upset, cheer up. Learn to code.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
So we're supposed to live within our income, so we
can afford to pay taxes to a government they can't
live within its income. Yeah. That Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
A lot of our elder listeners know that, but puts
me down.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I would imagine, are you gir listeners probably don't know.
A long time ago, Dean.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Martin in the Rain, going back to a long.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Time ago, Dean Martin recorded this song about how Houston
was this small town in Texas.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, it was a small town back then.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
A lots changed over the years, and at some point
it became the home of I don't know if i'd.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Call him the most.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
He wasn't the most controversial mayor in America, but maybe
for a while in Texas he was.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Selester Turner was rest in peace. First of all. He
died earlier this.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Week for those that don't know, And I would have
done a radio segment about him yesterday, but yesterday was
ash Wednesday, and there was just a lot going on anyway.
In twenty fifteen, Turner was elected mayor of Houston, winning
a runoff against Bill King, and several years later, twenty nineteen,
he ran again, this time against Tony Busby. But the
story doesn't really actually start there. It's almost where it
(28:59):
ended that's so fascinating.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
A lot like Shila Jackson Lee.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Mayor, Turner spent the last night of his life booing
Donald Trump and mocking Republicans. Sheila Jackson Lee did this
as well, sort of the night before she died. We
noticed that people were using her Twitter because somebody either
her somebody to write anti Trump tweets. A weird thing
to do while you're on your deathbed, but okay. On Tuesday,
(29:26):
Mayor Turner now Congressman Turner, well, he was was walking
around in Washington, DC when he had a health episode
and he had to be rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
But he didn't die there.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
In fact, he left the hospital instead of flying home
to his family or going to back to his wherever
he lives in DC. I don't know, he decided to
go attend Donald Trump's joint Session speech, spent his last
remaining time on Earth booing Donald Trump. He did what
he loved the most, hating us, hating maga Republicans. Now,
I had made that point on social media, what an
(29:59):
odd thing to do with the last hours of your life,
and one of our listeners, one of my friends, someone
I would consider to be a peer, someone I have
a great deal of respect for here in the Houston area,
pointed something out that kind of blew my mind. Rowando Garcia,
a state Republican executive committeeman, basically a grassroots activist who
(30:19):
takes his passion for politics and actually does something about it,
had a very interesting response to what I said. Rather
than I tell you, Rimando, what what was your response
to the news that Sylvester Turner spent his last hours
on Earth booing Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (30:34):
I think it was. I mean, he's been looking very
ill and frail for some time. I mean, he knew
he was in his final days. But you know, I
get your point, and that's kind of sad that he
would spend his final hours, you know, booing Trump. And
but the way I look at it is, I mean, obviously,
you know, I hate what he believes in, but I
(30:55):
would like to think that, you know, when I die,
I'm spending my final hours, you know, doing something I
believe is worthwhile, doing something I believe in, rather than
just sitting at home waiting to die. Yeah, he knew
he was dying, and you know, he figured and I
can understand why he would just rather, you know, go
(31:16):
about his regular business doing something that he believed is worthwhile,
rather than what sit.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
At home and wait to die.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
So I mean, I I get your point, But you know,
if I was in his shoes, I I you know,
I wouldn't. I want to be you know, keep keep
moving and keep trying to uh, you know, work until
the until the end.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I you know what. And you pointed that out, and
I respect that. Roland.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I think that's an interesting point because I've never been dying.
I've never you know, I don't know what that feels like.
He's not He's yeah, right, No, I know he's so
you never really think about it. I always assume, what
would I do with my last hours on earth? Would
I go to a Trump speech? Even if I like Trump?
Would I go to a Trump speech? But his life
was so much more complicated than that. He knew he
(31:59):
was dying. He had to know. Like Sheila Jackson Lee
knew she was dying when she ran for here. Dianne Feinstein,
the late senator passed not long ago, senior senator in California,
had to relinquish power over her own finances, right had
to grant power of attorney to her daughter to handle
her own money and bank because she wasn't cognizant enough
(32:21):
to do that. But weirdly, wouldn't relinquish political power. And
there's other examples of this too. John McCain at the
end of his life refused to leave office even though
he was clearly dying.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And I have mixed feelings about that.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
What do you think, Well, these people spend their adult
most of their adult lives in politics. Take Sylvester Turner.
He was elected to the state legislature in the late eighties.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, and he was in.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Public office NonStop until he left the mayor's office in
twenty twenty four. So there he is, you know, almost
seventy years old. He spent his entire adult life pursuing
and wielding power, and now he's nothing. I mean, why
would a seventy year old Matt having been mayor one
(33:09):
of the largest cities in the nation then want to
be a junior congressman in DC. That's all he knows.
That's all he knows.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You know, if he wasn't doing that, what would he
be doing? Right, It was the end of his life.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It was almost like he just wanted it to be
part of his legacy. He could put congressmen down as
one more thing before he passed. I got to think
he did not go out and campaign a lot for
the eighteenth Congressional District. Dodds Are people probably just voted
for him because they knew his name, and that be it.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Said.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
You know, as much as I didn't like the guy
and didn't agree with a lot of what he did,
I want to give him a little bit of props here.
During the pandemic he was He was not the worst
mayor in America. He wasn't even on the list of
the worst mayors in America. There was like a couple
of weeks early on in twenty twenty when the pandemic
first hit, where he didn't he have like a chalkboard
of local bars and restaurre that he wanted to publicly shame.
(34:01):
But after two or three weeks that was over. And
you know, it annoyed us and we criticized him for it.
But in the rest of the country that went on
for another year or two after a Houston stopped doing it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Right.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Yeah, And I think you hit on something important. He
he was not a good mayor, and I think from
the point of perspective to the point of view conservative,
there's a lot to criticize him for. However, and this
is an important point. He could have been a lot worse.
And what I mean and what I mean by that
is there is a younger generation coming up in Houston
(34:35):
politics of very militant progressive politicians, okay, like Chris Hollins
and Abby Kayman. And when they we looked at with
John Whitmyer getting elected mayor, but those military progressives want
to take him out. And let me tell you, we
may we may come to a few years from now,
we may look back on Sylvester Turner as being well,
(34:57):
at least he wasn't as crazy as these Democrats. So
I say that tongue in cheek partially, but it could
have been a lot worse because the new Democrat coming
up in Houston are going to be a lot worse.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
The story with Mayor Turner, a lot of people, a
lot of people probably didn't know who he was, even
though he was already out there in the public eye,
until Wayne Dalchaffino came along back in Wayne dl Chaffino,
I should probably call Wayne right after this. Wayne and
him were like arch enemies, and way back in nineteen
ninety one, the first time he ran for mayor, dull
(35:30):
Chaffino went and knocked on his door at his house
while he was reporting on what was an elaborate insurance
fraud scam. He claimed a local TV reporter and the
guy that answered the door was like a young man
who was not a member of his family, And that
was when a lot of people realized Sylvester Turner might
have been a closeted gay guy. Now, I don't know,
I don't know if he was, you don't know. I
(35:51):
do know that at some point he was the grand
marshal of the gay Pride Parade in Texas in Houston.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
So if that, if that's all true.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That would probably mean he was the only ploseted gay
man to ever be the grand marshal of a gay
pride parade.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
Kenny, Kenny, I want to go back. You mentioned the
video where Raye del Chaffina knocks on the door and
another man answers. It was a very flamboyant man who answered,
and everyone listening. If you have not seen that Wayne
del Tashina report from ninteen ninety one, please watch it, because, yeah,
the insurance cam is kind of interesting, but the really
(36:25):
interesting part is this very flamboyant man living with Sylvester
Turner answers the door and Rayne del Taffino proceeds to
ask him questions and the exchange is like something out
of a comedy skit from in Living Color or something.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Right, it really has to be washed, Yeah, it's it
is something else. I'll play a clip.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
We don't have a lot of time right now, but
I for those that haven't seen it, go watch it
and definitely look at it. Rolando, you are so good
at vetting political candidates.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
You're a great inspiration to me. I don't know. I
think you've probably heard about that.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Earlier this week we outed a corrupt political candidate with
nine aliases running in congressional district too against Dan Crenshaw.
Not my favorite politician, but I certainly wouldn't want him
to be replaced by like a communist spy, or a
pedophile or a con artist or any other you know,
there's certainly things worse than Dan Crenshaw, as weird as
(37:20):
that is to say. But all that being said, in
your years of vetting candidates and looking at politicians and
analyzing what people do and outing some bad politicians yourself,
what were some things you noticed about Turner that just
made him unique from everyone else.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
The sleaziness, if you look at over his mayoral administration,
it was just it was the air of sleaziness. And
it's not that he would He personally was never indicted, right,
but it was like every every few months there was
some story or new allegation about how contracts were directed
(38:00):
or one of his aides being charged with bribery. And
it's so, even though he was never personally criminally indicted,
he was just surrounded in this morass of corruption, and
you have to wonder, like, well, he was never personally charged,
but something was going on there, and I think that
will be his most lasting legacy as a politician. He
(38:25):
was he could be an amiable guy. If you notice
when he died, a lot of his old Republican colleagues
from the state legislature were saying, oh, very nice things
about him. And I'm sure that was heartfelt because I'm sure,
one on one, he was a very nice, amiable guy.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
And the other thing to note about him, what really
I will remember is he really wanted to be mayor.
He spent a quarter century running for mayor. You said
he ran in ninety one, he lost, He ran again
in two thousand and three, he lost. He finally won
in twenty fifteen, and what do you do with it? Well, again,
(39:05):
the legacy of corruption. But this is a guy who
spent a quarter century of his life wanting to be
mayor of Houston, and it's sort of tragic that when
he finally got it, Houston kind of suffered for it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, you're not kidding about that. And you know, we
could do an even longer segment on this, but we
don't have time right now. One of the fascinating things
was Astro World. Astro World was the six Flags theme
park in Houston. A long time ago. They closed it
down because it became an unsafe place for young people
to hang out, too many gangs.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Years later, gangster rapper Travis Scott makes an album in
a music festival called Astro World. Mayor Turner decides to
latch himself onto this weirdly enough, encourage his children to
attend the music festival, where I'm sure everybody remembers how
that ended not well.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Multiple people ended up dying.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And then even though he made it a citywide holiday,
I noticed next year he didn't celebrate Astro World Day,
did we No?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Will you?
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Will you celebrate? We should Mayor Turner get a holiday
before we say goodbye to him.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
Uh, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
How would you How.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Would you even celebrate it by giving a accepting a
bribe and take, and then giving a city contract to
your former law partner and then moving in with your
ninety thousand dollars airport intern.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
I don't know what it would be.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
Well, you mentioned that, and you mentioned the fact that,
you know, there were the rumors about his personal life,
and you know what he does to his personal life
is his own business. But yeah, that was the fact
that he, a young man that he was you know,
very close to, was given a ninety five thousand dollars
paying internship with the city. It was things like that
that I think will darken his legacy.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, I think you're right about that. Yeah, Hey, we
got it, we got we got a break. What was
your last point you wanted to make.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Me?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (40:53):
I I hate to hit people over the head, but
I want people to remember that when Turner was elected
mayor in twenty five fifteen, it was by three thousand
votes out of two hundred thousand votes cast. That's right,
And there were forty thousand Republican voters Republican primary voters
in the city who didn't vote in that election. If
three thousand out of that forty thousand had voted, Turner
(41:15):
would not have been mayor, and the history of Houston,
I think would have been very different.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Oh yeah, astro world wouldn't have even happened. I mean,
I mean, think about It's true, right, he wouldn't have
encouraged children to go to a gangster rap festival.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That's crazy exactly.
Speaker 6 (41:29):
Lando his voto apathy. So you know, we can talk
about bad politicians, but at the end of the day,
it's the voters that put him.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
There, right, Yeah, Hey, do you want people?
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Can I promote your ex account or is that not
something you want radio listeners to look at asolutely?
Speaker 6 (41:42):
Please please, please please do if.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
You follow my radio show and you keep up with
local politics, Rolando Garcia is one of my favorite people
in the local political His only involvement is that he cares.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
He cares about Texas.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
He's interested, like a lot of you, this is a
topic he actually cares about. He's not He's not trying
to all a book or promote a podcast or anything.
That's part of the reason why I think Rolando is
so great. Find him on x R D Garcia O
three r D Garcia O three or just if you
look at my account and search for Orlando Garcia, you'll
find him.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I'm Kenny Webster. I love you all.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I hope you have an awesome afternoon. We'll be back
Brian early tomorrow morning for more of which you came
what for, more of what you bought a radio for.
Have a great day.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss yours when you listen to this show.
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