Who does the State of Texas work for?

This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features activist Mike Larsen. ( @KennethRWebster )

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The giganic government sucks pursuit of happiness. Radio is Dus
Liberty and Freedom will make you smile or a Sudo
happen Us on your radio to hel just as cheeseburgers
a libery rise at food.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
President Trump reposted a claim that Joe Biden died in
twenty twenty and was replaced by clones, which is insane.
Everyone knows Joe Biden died in twenty eighteen. Hi, everybody,
I am Kenny Webster. Today we'll be doing a deep
dive into the well. We'll talk about that actually all
jokes aside Joe Biden and the mental decline and the

(00:41):
cover up, and that's a scandal that is not going away.
We'll explain why. Also really positive economic reports today that
are actually exciting and refreshing to hear anything from the
price of eggs to people's salaries increasing. We'll get to
all of that. It's actually good news today to report
on the show and the war against vaping. We have

(01:01):
a gentleman stomping by in a little bit from a
civil an individual rights and liberties activist group, a guy
named Mike Larson, to talk about what took place over
the weekend in the Texas State legislature and why it
may have affected your ability as an adult to purchase
certain products legally, actually not even necessarily about the marijuana bills,

(01:22):
something else entirely, But all that being said, really terrible
news this weekend in Colorado Springs. Let's start the show
off with this. Maybe you heard over the weekend a
guy named Mohammed, Yes, a guy named Mohammed went to
a place called Colorado this weekend. Maybe you've heard of
that place, and Mohammed decided to firebomb a bunch of

(01:43):
pro Israel activists. They weren't even like necessarily pro Israel activists,
they were people advocating for hostages to be freed. Remember
the Hamas went and kidnapped a bunch of andisent people
at a music festival two falls ago. Is at October seventh,
and not surprisingly, apparently the Colorado Springs law enforcement they're

(02:06):
kind of trying to brush this one under the rug,
so to speak. A reporter asked the spokesperson for the call,
excuse me, I keep saying Colorado Springs. I'm sorry, guys,
it's Boulder. I'm so I feel awful. I just I
have just wasted precious airtime sharing This in Colorado Springs
is not Boulder. Boulder is not Colorado Springs. I digress.

(02:26):
A reporter asked the spokesperson for the for the Boulder
PD over the weekend whether or not they consider this
to be a terror attack. This guy in Boulder, Colorado
showed up at a free the Israeli Hostages rally and
decided to throw them all top cocktails at people and

(02:48):
make I use a makeshift flamethrower to hurt them.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I've been in contact with our local FBI multiple times,
so we are in contact with them here.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
We are not calling it a tear attack at this point. Again,
it's way to really to speculate motive. Honestly, we have
no idea what the motive was of a guy named
Mohammed who set a bunch of Jews on fire and
then started screaming a lahu acbar Free Palestine with a
thick dirka derka accent. Yeah, imagine that. We don't know

(03:16):
what could have motivated this guy. If only there was
some way to know what motivated the guy who screamed
free Palestine while trying to light Jews on fire. Your
guests as good as mine. Guys, and we just learned
more about this guy. Shouldn't surprise you. The Boulder terrorist
is a Biden era migrant who's visa expired, but he

(03:38):
didn't leave. Imagine that the attacker, Mohammed Savory Solomon, screamed
free Palestine and through molotov cocktails at people who were
peacefully standing for Israel and Boulder, Colorado. Eight were injured.
Turns out, this guy kind of like Yasser Arafat is
a Palestinian activist who's not actually from Palestine. He kind

(04:00):
of like Arafat, He's from Egypt. The Biden regime gave
Solomon a visa he entered in twenty twenty two. By
the time he carried on his attack, he had overstayed
the visa and work permit the Biden immigration officials granted him.
Came to US through the Los Angeles International Airport with
a non immigrant visa. Very quickly thereafter, he filed acclaim

(04:22):
with US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That may be why
Solomon stayed in the country after his visa expired. Two
months later, the Biden regime rewarded him for violating the
terms of his visa by granting him a work permit,
which was valid for two more years. Hmm. That's interesting.
By interesting, I mean not surprising at all. The FBI

(04:45):
is currently searching this guy's home. They swarmed an apartment
building near Constitution in Mackershfell Markerschfel and it's a place
in Boulder. I don't live there, and what they described
on social media as a court authorized law enforcement activity
related to the attack. Forty five year old Mohammed Solomon
had been living in an apartment building with his family,
and apparently, according to the report here, lived in the

(05:09):
apartment with his wife and children, and that the family
seemed like any other. They were so quiet and peaceful.
We never saw it coming, said The neighbors. Reportedly drove
for Uber and Denver wasn't home very often. And I
am just going to climb out on a limb here
and guess that violently attacking Jews and lighting them on

(05:29):
fire probably isn't going to make people sympathize with your
cause for the most part. I would bet here in
America it's not going to bully or intimidate Jews into hiding.
At least God, I hope it doesn't. You know, you
understand I'm the exact person this guy wants to influence.
I'm not fervently pro Israel. I'm not nor am I
fervently pro HOMAUS or Palestine. I'm an America first guy.

(05:53):
I look at what's going on there and I ask,
how does this benefit or affect me? How does this
affect my life? How much money do we need to
spend in Palestine and Israel as Americans for it to
do something to help us out? Any? Zero? None, some,
a lot? What's the answer? I think you probably know
what the answer is. But I will also add this

(06:13):
to that, as a guy that doesn't have a lot
of opinions about Israel, I don't. I know there's a
lot of conservatives and right wingers on talk radio that
are pro Israel this and pro Israel that. I'm not
one of them. And I know there are also a
lot of right wingers, people on the far right who
hate Israel. I'm not one of those guys either. I
don't hate Israel. You don't have to have strong opinions
about everything. But please understand, if you're out right now

(06:37):
advocating for or against Israel, one great way to get
people like me to sympathize with your cause. Don't go
out and murder innocent people. By the way, an illegal
immigrant going out and murdering innocent people makes me care
about Palestine even less. And I bet I'm not the only.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
One America, the land of Taxation that was founded to
avoid taxation Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
The Trump administration wants to cut funding for cancer research,
but only for the specific kind of cancer Joe Biden has. Okay,
that's not funny, that's not true for the record, but hey,
at least you're tuning in. CBS has settled the case
of Joe Biden's cognitive decline by bringing on the cognitively
declined Bill Clinton to vouch for him. A lot of

(07:23):
great stuff here, speaking.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Of aging, there's this book that came out that talks
about Joe Biden and the people around him seeing that
he had cognitive and physical decline. Did you ever have
a moment with him where you thought maybe he was
unfit to run for the president.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
No.

Speaker 6 (07:44):
I thought he was a good president. The only concern
I thought he had to deal with was could anybody
do that job? Until they were eighty six? And we
did several long talks. I had never seen him and
walked away thinking he can't do this anymore. He was
always on top of his brief.

Speaker 5 (08:05):
You never saw any comment.

Speaker 6 (08:08):
So I didn't know anything about any of this. And
I haven't read the book. I saw President Biden not
very long ago, and I thought he was in good shit.
But the book didn't register with me because I never
saw him that way.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Why didn't you read the book?

Speaker 6 (08:22):
I didn't want to because he's not president anymore, and
I think he did a good job, and I think
we are facing challenges today without president in our history,
and and some people are trying to use this as

(08:42):
a way to blame him for the.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Stop right now. We're not blaming Joe, We're blaming the
entire Democrat Party certainly is an administration, definitely doctor Joe Biden.
You guys, they picked a candidate who is brain dead,
rigged the primary, then pulled him out and gave you
Aamala Harris, a candidate that didn't even run in the prime.
And nobody voted for Kamala Harris while all this was

(09:06):
taking place. Do you know who is running the White House?
Jill Biden's chief of staff, Miranda Devine put it perfectly.
Jill Biden's work husband Anthony Bernall, was probably the president
for four years and nobody realized it. There are a
few doubts in the White House about Jill Lady Macbeth

(09:27):
Biden's role in covering up her husband's cognitive deficits as
she urged him to run for reelection. This woman cared
more about being the First Lady than she cared about
her own husband's health. Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary,
made that point crystal clear from the press podium last week.

(09:48):
She pointed out, the former First Lady needs to answer
for lying to the American people and shielding her husband
from cameras. Now that's a pretty damning indictment, she told reporters. Quote,
I think, frankly, the first the former First Lady should
certainly speak up about what she saw in regards to

(10:09):
her husband and when she saw on what she knew. Again,
I repeat, this is the same people who call themselves democrats.
They didn't have a primary. They just gave us Joe Biden.
Then when they realized Joe was unpopular, they pulled him
out and gave us Kamala. She never won a primary,

(10:30):
and don't kid yourselves. They knew all along something was
wrong with Joe. The only reason they replaced him is
because they figured out, you knew. Most conservatives knew about
this in twenty nineteen. There's a reason that Jake Tapper's
new book isn't selling many copies. Conservatives already knew about this.
We don't care. We're not going to buy Jake Tapper's

(10:51):
book to find out something we knew five years ago.
Why would we spend money on that? How embarrassing. If
you're a right winger, a libertarian, a populist, a conservative,
you already knew about this. We knew we were not
in denial. Our news outlets showed us this information. Fox News,
talk radio, right wing digital outlets. We all knew. It

(11:12):
wasn't a conspiracy theory. It was evidence. It was evident
what was happening. It was right on full display. Some
like Leo Terrell, who's a senior counsel in the DOJ's
Civil Rights Office, went so far as to say Joe
was guilty of elder abuse. Of course, Joe Biden's delusional
ambition is most at fault. He knew what he was
doing when he ran in twenty nineteen, he needed teleprompters

(11:35):
to recite a basic stump speech that he used to
know by heart. He knew what he was doing when
he decided to run again in twenty twenty four. He
knew he had health problems. You think the prostate cancer
just snuck up on him recently, he's had it. What
is becoming clear is that the social climbing former first
Lady and the age she calls her work husband, Anthony Burnell,

(11:59):
and his ownA born former child actor, played a bigger
role in this con job than previously acknowledged. And we
found that out from a guy named David Hogg. David
Hogg is the recently ousted vice chair of the Democrat
National Committee. They sat down and they had a conversation
in front of undercover cameras from Project Veritas. David Hog

(12:21):
admitted Burnell had enormous amounts of power in the Biden
White House. They described Jill's diminutive gay facta Tootium as scary,
like a Wizard of Oz type figure. The general public
wouldn't know what he looked like, but he wielded enormous power.
So Jake Tapper and this guy named Alex Thompson, the

(12:43):
CNN news anchor, and some blogger from Axios put out
a new book called Original Sin, and they explained out
Joe was one of the most powerful First Ladies in
history because, after all, her husband was dying, she was
calling the shots when Biden was hidden away during the
twenty twenty campaign in his Delaware basement, using the COVID

(13:06):
pandemic as an excuse. Anthony Burnell, the White House First
Lady's chief of staff, was one of the only two
staffers allowed to move to Wilmington to tend to their
daily needs. When Biden was holed up at his vacation
home wrestling with his decision to abandon his campaign, Anthony
Burnell was one of the only four aids allowed by

(13:26):
his side. Burnell, who boasted the title of Special Assistant
to the President and reportedly earned the maximum White House salary,
began working for Jill during the two thousand and eight
presidential campaign when he was hired to help her transition
into the role of second Lady. And he was never
a big deal back then, but he was a big

(13:47):
deal to the Bidens. He worked with Jill to keep
score of who was with them and against them. He
chose her wardrobe, He orchestrated her multiple Vogue covers. She
was on Vogue multiple times. He planned glamorous overseas trips
they could take together on Air Force One. This should
come as no surprise to talk radio listeners, since the

(14:09):
White House correspondent Steve Nelson broke the story last March
that Anthony Burnell bullied and verbally sexually harassed colleagues over
more than a decade, but is considered untouchable because Joe
adores him. Anthony Burnell repeatedly speculated about his penis size
to colleagues. They talk a big game about integrity and

(14:29):
decency and kindness, but when you work for the Bidens,
you experience anything but that. The Bidens told us decency
was on the ballot, but it was not. They had
a trainee on the White House lawn show off his
fake breasts. Joe faded and disappeared from view toward the
end of his presidency, and Jill's rival Court took charge

(14:50):
as she commandeered Air Force One, a big secret service
contingent for the frenetic round of solo campaigning. Anthony Burnell
joined Joe on Air Force One when she jetted back
to France for twenty four hours, a taxpayer expense, to
join her husband at the official visit of the D
Day commemorations, but she had to fly back to Delaware

(15:11):
so that she could attend a trial for her step son,
Hunter Biden and the gun crimes he committed. I think
I'm starting to notice something here. Joe's brain was always broken.
Jill never cared. She cared more about power. And it
kind of sounds like her and Anthony Burnell. We're up
to something sallacious, doesn't it. Pursuit of that penis radio

(15:33):
coming now, Just pek This.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Is Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness on KPRC nine, p.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Fifty Houston. The latest TikTok trend involves putting Halapino's in
white wine, and it's still less disgusting to drink than
mister pib I don't understand, mister Pibb. It's just Yankee
doctor pepper, drink dr pepper. Y'all coming up in a
little bit. We have a gentleman stopping by it to
talk about a bill that was proposed and basically roasted

(16:02):
and chopped up into little pieces over the weekend. It
was about vaping, basically a vaping advertising band in Texas.
You know, France banned outdoor smoking. Now what are the
French supposed to do with their hands when they're outside?
Oh yeah, that's right. Wave a white flag, of course,
that makes more sense. There's nothing the French enjoy more

(16:24):
than giving up and quitting at things. I noticed there's
a story today at town hall dot com about how
Donald Trump gave some advice to Emmanuel Macron. Remember last
week Emmanuel mccron got slugged by his own wife. Trump
offered some advice to the French president. After last week's
embarrassing incident. The French couple landed in Hanoi, Vietnam. It

(16:45):
was an official trip, and Brigitte Macron, who's definitely not
a tranny, can be seen shoving her spouse in the
face as the plane doors opened. Tensions were evident. The
two descended the staircase. Brigitte refused Macron's offer to help
her down the flight of day and she slapped him.
Peter Doocey brought up the incident with Trump on Friday,

(17:07):
and Trump gave some advice.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
Showed the first Lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel mccrump.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Do you have any world leaders, world leader marital life,
make sure the door remains flowing. That was not good.

Speaker 6 (17:27):
No. I spoke to him and he's fine.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
He's fine. Relax everybody, It's okay. You know, Elsey's fine
right now. The economy, the economy in general here in
the United State, if you looked at your four oh
one k lately, there's a reason why they came up
with this taco thing. Taco stands for Trump always chickens out,
and it's their way of saying that his trade deals
aren't as nefarious as we originally thought. Somehow that's a

(17:54):
bad thing. And because of it, over the past week
or two, the stock market's been doing pretty good. It's
down a little bit today last time I checked. Let's
see the Dow Jones down just a little bit, the
Nasdaq up just a little bit. So not a lot
of news there. The S and P five hundred is
same thing, not of a huge difference, kind of plateaued,

(18:14):
but you know, mostly good lately. If you look at
your retirement, it's great. And what about inflation. Breitbart dot
com today reporting that since Trump took office in January,
the average price for a dozen eggs has plummeted from
six dollars and forty nine cents to about two dollars. Wow,

(18:34):
that is a sixty one percent price drop. It's an
even bigger price drop from the eight dollars per dozen
average eggs hit in March. Some of that price drop
can be attributed to the decrease in demand caused by
those insane prices. Obviously the prices went up because of
the bird flu cases, but now the bird flu cases
have dropped, so both of those things that helped. But
where the Trump administration deserves the most credit is their

(18:58):
decision to proactively increase the iportation of eggs from foreign
countries until America's bird flu epidemic, which wiped out one
hundred and twenty seven million chickens, was under control. Just
days after her Senate confirmation hearing in February, US Department
of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rawlins stressed the quote Trump and
his administration are keenly focused on lowering the price of

(19:20):
eggs in the United States. It's really imperative to her,
It's very top of her list. She said that they
could do something about this, but for the record, it
was really the last four years of insane inflation and
bad business regulation that caused this. Clearly, nobody could deny

(19:41):
that the bird flow epidemic didn't help, But boy, that
didn't last long, did it. The bird flu problem still exists,
but that's now headed in the right direction. And the
price of eggs, that was a big deal in the
twenty twenty four presidential election. That was a common topic
of a discussion, like the price of a gallon of gas.
Consumers are very much aware of egg prices and find
price fluctuations not only unsettling but a sort of barometer

(20:04):
about how things are going overall. For years, it at
least seemed that you could buy a box of five
dozen eggs for four five bucks. Eggs were a great deal,
a healthy source of protein, one of the few goods
for you available at a great price. Then came something
called bite inflation. Suddenly you're paying fourteen bucks twenty two

(20:24):
bucks for the five dozen eggs. Didn't seem like a
good deal anymore. What was still maddening about the Biden
administration's approach and the reaction from the Democrat parties left
wing extremist faction in the corporate world is that we
were only getting happy talk about inflation being transitory, about
inflation decreasing, when it was still increasing only at a

(20:48):
slower rate. They kept telling you, hey, inflation's not so bad.
Look inflation's slowing down, but it was still going up.
Now it's actually dropped significantly the cost price everything, and
they don't even want to talk about it. So Trump
might be a billionaire, but he understands what things like
egg prices mean to everyday Americans. He made it a

(21:10):
campaign issue, and now four months into his administration, he's
keeping his promise to lower egg prices and gas prices
and overall inflation. And the liberals hate him for it.
They hate him. They're miserable, they're so unhappy. They actually,
we solved a problem, and you're mad about it. They're
cheering for America to lose the Biden administration, but not

(21:33):
Joe deliberately because he was asleep. But the Biden administration
created the bird flu scare. They paid producers to kill
their flocks. They knew it would force up the price eggs.
They did nothing about the epidemic of the bird flu.
They knew it was coming. Sixty two percent reduction and
feckless demon rats spend all their time and efforts stealing

(21:55):
and drifting and granting government money while declaring the air
for the working people. But they're just not They've never cared,
They couldn't care less. They want America to fail.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Jay with a King. This is Kenny Webster's pursuit of
happiness on KPRC nine fifty Houston.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
I'm sold, I'm sold. I can remember when the cigarette
smoking ban in bars was a new idea, was very controversial.
In fact, it really all started in New York City
a couple of decades ago. A guy named Michael Bloomberg
got very annoyed by people smoking outside of his penthouse
apartment building. He was the mayor, it turns out, at

(22:40):
the time, so he went out and he created all
kinds of laws that prevented people from smoking cigarettes, and
not only public places, but even private businesses in their
own home. Boy, talk about it an authoritarian control frequel.
Turns out, liberals often feel that way. Isn't it odd
that liberals want to legalize marijuana while simultaneously making tobacco

(23:02):
products harder to get The Biden administration outlawed. What do
they call the menthol cigarettes right. I don't think they
ever officially went away, but they're supposed to eventually go away.
And for a lot of people out there, getting off
cigarettes was hard to do. Even with all the government
fervor and the anti smoking propaganda. It's still hard to

(23:22):
quit smoking. But as an American, as a human being,
you should have a right to decide if you want
to do it or not. Incidentally, Michael Bloomberg's ban on
smoking cigarettes in New York City, which eventually led to
other parts of the country everywhere, including places like New Orleans,
ultimately ended with Eric Garner dying. Trumer Eric Garner, I

(23:44):
can't breathe. Before George Floyd, there was Eric Garner. He
was a guy that was selling loose cigarettes on the
streets in New York City. He'd been arrested for it
many times. Nobody ever really cared if he sold loose
cigarettes right up until the cigarette smoking band started, and
then in cities like New York New York City, the
Democrats in charge of the city had anti smoking government

(24:04):
agents all over the place. Eric Carner had been arrested
and detained and fined and ticketed dozens of times before
he eventually had a heart attack and died while resisting
arrest for doing something that he was probably doing. Did
anybody care that he was selling loose cigarettes? I assume
not so. As time has passed, the anti smoking propaganda

(24:26):
turned into anti vaping propaganda. Vaping became the new cigarette, right.
It's very popular with young people that don't even necessarily
drink alcohol. And when I say young people, I mean
young adults. These are people that grew up with anti
smoking propaganda. These are people that grew up with all
kinds of government fear mongering for any variety of things,

(24:46):
from smoking cigarettes to corn syrup in your food, you
name it. So young people have decided they want a vape.
Young adults want a vape, and some members of your
federal government or state government or municipal government don't want
like that. One person that is totally okay with it
is Donald Trump. Even seems to be at odds with
members of his own administration. Donald Trump promised to save

(25:09):
flavored vaping. His FDA head doesn't seem inclined to do that.
But this radio segment isn't about Washington, DC. It's not
even necessarily about Donald Trump. It's about the state of Texas.
Most people know Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's trying to outlaw
THHC products low grade THHD products, which seems a little
contradictory because we live in a state where every state

(25:31):
that surrounds ours has legal access to high grade THHC products.
Dan Patrick says that this stuff's killing kids and causing psychosis,
and there's no proof of that. He's just lied, He
made it up. Where are all these people getting psychosis
from low grade CBD? Nope, they don't exist. Children can't
legally buy this stuff over the counter in a shop

(25:53):
in Texas. They could illegally buy it in a dorm
room from someone or you know, their friend's apartment, but
that's another story altogether. Outlawing it would probably make the
black market vastly bigger, not getting quite as much attention
as the THHC feud, which, by the way, kind of
seems to be dead in the water at the moment.
Governor Admittt has signaled no support for it, and now

(26:14):
Lieutenant Governor dan Patrick's trying to scale back its rigidness,
which tells me the governor probably don't want to sign
the bill. But the latest controversy Connecting all of this
is SB twenty twenty four, the prohibition on marketing, advertising,
or selling certain e cigarette products, creating a criminal offense
out of it. You haven't heard much about this lately,

(26:36):
but it is a very unpopular subject with most people
that have followed the news. Once again, there seems to
be a loud, outspoken minority that wants something, but most
people either don't care or don't want it the ban.
That is, most people don't care if you vape. I
don't care if you vape. I've got to assume if
you're trying to quit smoking cigarettes. And this has been

(26:58):
challenged before and their differing opinions on it, but I
would assume if you're trying to quit smoking cigarettes, vaping
would be a great way to do it. We have
a regular guest on the show, Brandon Darby. Maybe you've
heard of him, one of the head editors of a
website called Breitbart dot com. Smoke cigarettes twenty thirty cigarettes
a day for years, eventually gave up smoking because he
started vaping well over the weekend. The bill SB twenty

(27:22):
twenty four was debated and dissected and really scaled down
quite a bit. Here do you explain it to us
as a guy named Mike Larson. Mike Larson is a
it describes himself as an entrepreneur, He's a free speech absolutist,
he is a Second Amendment ad advocate, and he apparently
is not a big fan of the government trying to
legislate morality. Mike, thanks for coming on the show today.

(27:43):
Can you tell us what happened over the weekend with
SB twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Thank you, Kenny, Absolutely so. What SB twenty twenty four
was is it's a push that's been going on nationwide.
That's the big Tobacco is behind Altria and RJ. Reynolds,
behind these types the bills that are called registry bills.
And what these registry bills do is they state that
any product that has not been approved through the PMTA
process by big by the FDA is no longer legal

(28:12):
for sale. Now, on it's face, that seems to make
sense that we wouldn't want products that aren't available. We
wouldn't want products available in the market that aren't FDA approved.
The problem is the PMTA process itself. This is a
giant process that we all had to go through in
the vapor industry. What we had to submit these giant
applications that cost millions of dollars to put forward. Six

(28:34):
million applications were filed by over ten thousand companies. Out
of all of those applications, the FDA approved thirty six,
every single one of them owned by big tobacco. So
what these bills actually do and they denied every small
business that applied. Now, there's no technical differences between a
big tobacco vapor product and a small business product. They

(28:57):
just chose winners and losers. And so what these bills
actually do is they create monopoly within these state and
within every state where they pass to where the only
products available are big tobacco products. And then in Texas
they actually tried to take it a step further, going
along the lines with Trump's push, with the anti China

(29:19):
push and the bringing manufacturing back to America, they wanted
to ban any product that had any part that was
manufactured in China, which also on its face, sounds like
a good idea. The problem being is that every single
vapor product that is on the market has some component
that's made in China. So what this bill would have

(29:39):
effectively done would have banned all vapor products in the
entire state of Texas. And why that's a major deal
is vaping has proven through study after study to be
the most effective smoking cessation products that have ever been created,
more so than the patches, gums pills that are FDA approved,

(30:00):
also improven by the Royal College of Position and many
many other studies to be at least ninety five percent
less harmful than vaper than smoking. There's actually, in the
twenty years now, that's how long vaping has been mainstream,
there has been a single case a COPD emphasema cancer
and not a single death that's associated with nicotine vapor

(30:20):
in that entire time. Meanwhile, smoking is the number one
cause of preventable death in America. So what they were
basically trying to do is strip away the rights of
every smoker in the state of Texas and every X
smoker that depends on vapor products of their right to vape.
And what we know from that is that every state
that started the first place has banned flavored vapor products

(30:43):
was San Francisco. The immediate the effects of that is
we saw team vapor or teams smoking rates all the
way through geriatric rates skyrocket as soon as you take
away vapes, people don't quit want nicotine, they go right
back to cigarettes. So that was their goal when this started.
I mean, this is pushed by R. J. Reynolds. This

(31:03):
is pushed by Altria, the makers of the biggest tobacco
brands in the country, you know, Camel, Marlborough, Newport. Luckily,
there was a contingent down in Texas of industry advocates
who worked long hours, in long days, and literally right
before the deadline, four hours before the deadline on Saturday,

(31:26):
they managed to get the language stripped out the registry
bill language and it managed to change it to where
instead of any part or component of these vapor products
being made in China being banned, only products that contain
get consumable. So the actual e liquid that you inhale,
if that is made in an adversarial country such as China, Russia, Cuba,

(31:48):
or North Korea, then those products are banned. So what
that does is it protects the American vapor industry that's
been working hand in hand with the FDA trying to
gain approval for going on six years, are going on
eight years now, and their products will still be available
in the state of Texas. Moving forward.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
All right, So that's fantastic news, right. I guess at
the end of the day of the system ate perfect,
but it seems to be working most of the time. Mike,
I find it fascinating that the anti vaping propaganda is
just funded by Big Tobacco. That blows my mind. I mean,
of course it shouldn't shock anybody, but it is remarkable
to me that the very people, the very industry, the
very corporations that have been screwed over by lobbyists in

(32:30):
the past are now trying to use lobbyists to screw
over other people. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised,
should we.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
No, And if you go back Michael Bloomberg, as you
were discussing before, as one of the biggest pushers of
this in the entire country. He's donated hundreds of millions
of dollars to these anti vaping organizations. And one thing
people don't understand is that a lot of this comes
from the MSA, the Master Settlement Agreement. If you remember,
back in the late nineties, the government sued Big tobacco

(32:59):
for lying to con uomers and saying their products didn't
cause cancer. As a part of that settlement. Every time
you buy a pack of cigarettes in a state, the
state gets paid twice. They get tax money for their
tobacco taxes, and then they get an MSA payment from
big tobacco for the right to sell a deadly product
to citizens. This isn't a small amount of money. Last year,

(33:20):
that total thirty eight billion dollars that were paid out
the state budgets. And off of that thirty eight billion,
there's an entire ecosystem that exists of anti smoking organizations,
health organizations, everybody depends on that tobacco money. So the
reason you see this this fevered pitch against vapor products

(33:42):
and all these lives that come out about popcorn long
and the volley and just crazy stories that have no
basis in reality, is that they want to ban vapor
products because they are a threat to tobacco money coming
into these states. And many of these states knew that
since smoking was so hard to quit, they actually borrowed
money against future MSA payments because they figured nobody would

(34:08):
ever quit, and then when vaping came along. Just over
the last ten years, smoking rates and teams has gone
down from over twenty percent to under two percent. Now,
this is going to be the first generation that is
considered smoke free in American history that's being raised right
now because their parents aren't smoking anymore. So you break

(34:30):
that generational chain. And even though the teams are illegally vaping,
the ones that are, this generation of teams is doing
less harm themselves through their rebellious actions on tobacco and
on nicotine products than any generation before. You know, smoking
kills one out of two every long term smokers. Right, Yeah,

(34:51):
these aren't these aren't hidden facts. These are basic facts
that are admitted by the CDC, the FBA, who the
entire the lobby of them. But what it is a
threat to is it is a threat to their money train.
And that's what this all boils down to. So they're
allowing Rjr. In Altri had literally come in donate money

(35:12):
to senators and representatives, and then they're writing the bills
for them to create these monopolies for him and basically
turn state governments into an enforcement branch of the FDA
to bludgeon small vapor businesses out of business and regain
their market share. Yeah, and in Tim's looks terrible thing.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
And didn't big tobacco do the same thing to little
tobacco companies. We had a guy on this radio show
months ago, I forget what his name was. He was
a friend of a friend called in and he was
telling me how he had a small, independent tobacco company
I think in Georgia, and his biggest problem was getting
bullied and over and dealing with legislation and being basically
being strong armed by bigger tobacco companies to stop his

(35:56):
company from getting distribution. And to your point, I find
it kind of remarkable. Well, after they legalized marijuana in
places like Colorado, the percentage of teenagers using that stuff
decreased vastly because suddenly there wasn't much of a black
market anymore. To buy it, you had to be an adult.
And you know, it just goes to show you sometimes
legalizing something with a little bit of regulation is vastly

(36:18):
better than these outright bands. Hey, Mike, we went long
on this segment. If people want to learn more about
this subject, where can they go?

Speaker 3 (36:25):
I mean, they could reach out to any of the
national organs that exist. The VTA, it's the Vapor Technology
Association or CASAW, which is a consumer organization that does
a lot of great work. You can also online. If
you're on there, there's a couple of different people on
x that do really good work. Brady Bates is the
owner of fifty bar Is as well as myself and

(36:48):
one of the owners of Lowest Vaping Technologies. You can
look us up online and we're constantly battling this. I mean,
these fights are going on in state after state after state,
and we've won in many of the states this year.
We've also lost in a number of states this year.
The next battles are in Nevata in Pennsylvania. They are
putting forth these same bills right now. So it's not
something that's going away. It's something that we're having to

(37:10):
battle on a daily basis as small business owners in
America that are just out for one purpose, and that's
to stop people from smoking. You know, we want to
keep people around for longer and get them off the
deadliest edition in human history.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I appreciate it. MA man, hey, I'll tell you what, folks,
we got to run where. You're running out of time here,
but I will be back bright and early tomorrow morning.
You can find more of us right here on Cape
HEREC nine fifty and across our radio network. Download the
Walnon Johnson's smartphone app and follow us on social media.
We'll be back for more of what You bought a
radio for bright and early tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (37:50):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss You're waiting you listen to the
show