November 3, 2025 • 31 mins
Kenny Webster interviews Evan Mintz of the Houston Chronicle.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, I am here right now with Evan Mince,
one of.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
My good buddies, the editor of the Houston Chronicle editorial section.
I want to talk to you about local elections and
this is bonus content for the podcast. But Evan, first
of all, a lot of people are surprised that you
and I are friends. But we are both members of
a secret society where we go out at night and
we hunt down pedophiles and we throw their bodies in
the bayou.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's you and I that's where.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
They're coming from. Have you read The Chronicle had a
really good article where they tried to find every information
they could about all the bodies found in the bayou,
and they go down like who they were and what happened.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
It was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's my understanding that some of the bodies they couldn't
identify who it was.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Some of them they can't so they.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Couldn't find a common Some of them I could write DNA,
dental records, that sort of thing. I am told by
members of the local police department that part of the
reason why there was a bunch of people found in
the bayou in a short period of time is because
they just didn't check for a little while, right, And
then when they finally got around to it again, they
don't think they anything in common with each other.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, No, they think that it's just you have this
big city. And then like people will get drunk and
fall in the bayou, or people will be on drugs,
or there's a crash, or they commit suicide or something.
And then eventually all the bayous kind of converge at
the spot downtown where west where White Oak Bayou meets
up with Buffalo Bayou. And then they started looking for
(01:23):
bodies after they found a few, and it turns out
there's a whole bunch of them in there. I remember
something like this happened a little bit less morbid with cars,
where they're looking for cars that were in the bayou, right,
and they started looking like, oh wait, there's a whole
bunch of cars in the buyo. And that's back when
Michael Kubash was on city council. Sure they got them
to spend about half a million dollars just get cars
out of the bayou.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, and what do we do with those now? We're
not even using them to make art or anything. Isn't
a Cadillac ranch out in the Panhandle. We should do
something like that in Houston. I think we should.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You made a great point.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Before I want to talk about props, but I want
to steal some content from a different podcast you were
on recently. You had such a fascinating way of the Astrodome.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
The Astrodome is boondoggle. It's very expensive. We don't know
what to do about it. It's this giant building. It's
a house for rats. It's right next to more much fancier,
more modern sports stadium, bigger, more comfortable, better amenities, and
that sort of thing. But you had a very positive
spin on the Astrodome.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
What was that It's our ruin, you know, great cities
have ruins, like you've got the Colisseum in Rome. We
have this, We have our astronome, and we shouldn't do
anything to it. We shouldn't tear it down, we shouldn't
try to make it nice. We should just let it
sit there and you should be able to buy tickets
to go on tours of it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Okay, I love that idea.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I am told by friends that have been in the
building recently that it's still fascinating.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yes, there's weird stuff in there.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Interesting it used to be owned by an eccentric millionaire.
Well it was graded basically by by county judge Hawfeines
got elected really young, was a bit of a huckster
and somehow convinced the county to build this thing. And
it's part of our county history too. Because they had
to take out all these bonds to build it. They
(03:10):
had to get support from the black community to pass
the bond. So they struck this deal where they said, Okay,
if we end segregation in Houston and we integrate all
the buildings, will you vote for the bonds. And that
was the deal struck. But all the city leaders and
like the media leaders at the time knew that if
they integrated, the KKK would come to town in March
and try to like make trouble. So they didn't tell
(03:32):
anyone they integrated. They didn't cover it in the news,
They didn't do anything. Just one day, the whites only
signs came down and then the astronome was built.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
The whites only signs came down.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Have you ever looked at I'm sure you've seen this before,
the old HOA, not the thing on the screen.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'll show you that in a minute. Have you ever
looked at the old HOA rules for river Oaks?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's so interesting. Oh yeah, Edna Meyer is a friend
of mine Meyerland. That's what it's named after. I love
aDNA Meers. She's got a bank. It's one of the
only women owned banks in Texas. And back in the day,
river Oaks did not allow Blacks or Jews. So ed
and his family went out and they built Myerland. Yeah,
that's how it got there. What an interesting story that is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I know, Well, Houston is this dynamic city. That's one
of the things I love about. We're talk about what
we like about Houston. People talk about say, you know,
Third Ward, it's this historic black community, and you know
it is, but before that was a Jewish community. That's
where my great grandfather lived. And then it's past its
peak population. Now, when we had the oil bust in
the nineteen eighties and we really ended you know, not
just formal but informal segregation, you had a whole lot
(04:32):
of folks who were living in the Third Wards saying well,
I'm going move out to the suburbs. Now suburbs are great,
and that's just how Houston works. Every neighborhood's changing. Yeah,
I think that's very interesting. It's a good way of
explaining it. I want to talk about this for a minute.
Do you know who you mentioned, Judge haw Feines. Yeah,
you know who lives across the hall from me.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I do not know.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
She was there for years and I never knew she
lived there. Judge Hawfeind's daughter is an award winning songwriter.
I think she may have even been Grammy nominated.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
No idea.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
She lives in the in the the Uni across the
hall from me, in my condo building not far from here.
Sweetest lady on earth. She was there for years before
I even learned who she was. And she's an advocate
for keeping the astrodome. She wants to save it and
protect it. You've met the family, Do you know any
of them? No, I'm trying to remember if I have,
I may have a long time ago. But I know
(05:18):
that some folks at the Rodeo are coming up with
this plan to try to do a big thing to
the astrodome to make it usable. But all of these
projects are just very expensive. I don't know where you'd
get the money from. You'd have to have a big
bond vote or raise a ton of funds, and I
think just just let it be. You could get you
could turn it into like an asset if you just
(05:38):
charge folks to buy tickets. Maybe set up like a
little like building next to it, where like you have
to watch a twenty minute documentary about the astrodome, and
then you do your tour, and then there's Q and
A and then there's a gift shop.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
No, I think it's the best idea. I frank, it's brilliant.
Why not why do anything with it? Weir, It's been
there for years, we haven't done anything with it. It's
not hurting anyone.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It looks cool.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, why not just let people do it tour? It's
our Roman Coliseum exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think it's such a good idea. Evin, all right,
let's talk about this.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You're a friend, and I may not agree with you
on all of your endorsements, but I want you to
explain him to us. So give us the cliff notes
real quick here, so we don't lose conservatives that are
watching that.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well. You know, something that we did this year is
recognizing that in some of the races, you've got your
race to replace Sheila Jackson Lee's seat. That's the Texas
eighteenth congressional seat. You've got a race for at large
four on city Council, and in the eighteenth we endorsed
the county attorney, Christian Menafie. Things a smart guy. He's
got a real vision about how we can actually move
(06:39):
policy in DC even while Democrats are in the minority.
And then at City Council we said, well, we like
Jordan Thomas. You know, he's bringing a lot of new ideas,
willing to get in the fight with the mayor on
this stuff because we've seen folks try to play nice
with the mayor. It doesn't go well. So he's going
to come up with a different tactic. But not everyone's
going to agree. And so we thought, okay, well, if
you're a Republican and you're voting an IV one of these,
(07:01):
who should you go for? Okay, no, you're gonna disagree.
So in the congressional race, we said, Carmen Maria montel
and have you talked.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
To her, have you met her?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I have a lot of friends, we have a lot
of mutual friends. I have a lot of mutual friends
with their opponent too. I find both of the Republican
candidates to be great, and I appreciate that you guys
even took the time to endure somewhere, but I.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Think it's they're a long shot. Sadly it is.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
But when you have a bunch of Democrats running and
they split the vote a whole bunch of different ways,
you never know. You never know you can get into
that runoff. And that's what we're seeing in the city
council race too. I've seen some Republicans line up behind
former city council member Dwight Boykins. He was on city
council twice, he ran for mayor, he lost, and now
he's back.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know, some conservatives like him simply because he was
opposing He opposed Sylvester back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I know, but I just kind of feel like, what
is it that he's done that's really conservative.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And he does this thing that kind of always gets
under my skin and he says, well, I'm not a politician, Like, buddy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You're running for office.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You ran twice and lost twice, you won twice, you
ran for mayor, and now you're back and your day
job is a lobbyist. You're a politician, like, don't pretend
like you're something you're not. Now in that one, we
liked Martin Lemondink's Martino Lemon Dixon. Yeah I like her too. Yeah.
She's on the county assessor's board. She's been appointed by
Greg Abbott to several things. She's run as a Republican.
(08:21):
She was on Humble I SD and she's, you know,
gonna be sort of a straight down the middle Republican conservative.
We try to sort of poke at her when we
do our endorsement meetings. We meet with everyone to talk
to everyone to see, you know, what's going on there.
And basically she said, I think the mayor's doing a
good job. I want to support him in public safety
and cutting spending and doing all those kind of normal
republic anythings. And he said, well that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I voted for her. I think she's great. Yea, But
to your point, I think Dwight's a nice guy. I've
had a both on this show before Charming, but Marttino
is my vote.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, all right, what else you got, Well, then we've
got here's a really weird one. So there's a big
fight right now in sci Fair ISD. You've got this
board that is sort of six one maga conservative Republican
and they've caused a lot of headlines because they're getting
in fights about things that aren't really related to election,
related to education right now, and some parents are pissed
(09:12):
off about it. And so Democrats are running a slate
and Republicans are running their slate. But there's this one
race where there's the Republican incumbent. His name is Scott Henry,
and he's being challenged by this woman, Natalie Blasingame, who
has gotten in trouble because she has recorded other Republicans
around and said that, you know, if you don't support me,
(09:34):
to vote for me, I'm going to release this recording
of you. It's very weird, it's very chaotic.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
So we endorse the Democrat in that race, a Cleveland
Lane Junior. She's a professor, very smart, knows a lot
about kind of educational management. But it's one of those
things where if you're not going to vote for a Democrat,
we'd say, don't vote for Natalie because clues she's bringing chaos.
You don't want that, you want school boards to be
kind of boring. You vote for the Scott Henry guy.
(10:00):
He's on the board, steady hand still a Republican. You
don't like Caroline Ward? Mmm, I think that. Let me
look at a different race. I'm sure it's a different race.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, maybe you're right. Yeah, I like Caroline. I think
she's cool. But yeah, to your point, I think she
may be in a different race. I didn't need to
confuse everyone.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, go on. And so that's where we are.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
On there's HCC elections, we said stick with the incumbents
because HCC again is one of those things where you know,
you've got all these scandals in their past of people
taking bribes, and they say, just if they've been able
to just not mess up, that's kind of like a
good standard for where you want to be. We've also
got all these propositions, and I know you talked about
them previously. And one of the places where I think
(10:39):
we've gone a lot of attention is on Prop three,
that bail reform, one where folks were surprised to see
the Houston Chronicle supporting it. And what we've said is
that you need this ability to detain people before trial,
not based on how much money they have, but how
big of a risk they actually pose. Right, And this
does it part way where it makes it easier to
detain people if they're very high risk. But I think
(11:01):
there's a next step afterwards where the legislature has say, Okay,
we need to make it easy to release people who
do not pose a real risk. And there is a
bill that didn't get passed out, but the Republicans in
the House had done it that said if you're getting
arrested for your first offense and it's a nonviolent misdemeanor,
you automatically get to go home. You don't have to
worry about bail. Our presumption is that you're not really
(11:22):
a threat to anyone, and that seems like a good
kind of counterbalance there.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is something that we're talking about Prop three here.
This is something conservatives are very fired up about. And
the Chronicle and Conservatives were both four on this one right.
Interestingly enough, local libertarian groups were against it.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I voted for on that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
One, Yeah, and we voted for it. I voted for it.
I vote the Chronicle slate.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Some people, some of your critics, Evan would be probably
be surprised that you were for that one.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, you know, we did our research on it, and
I talked to a lot of civil liberties groups, and
some of them, you know, don't like it, but some
of them said, listen, we know we're in Texas, we
know how bad things can get, and we think that
this piece of legislation, this Concert'sman was actually written pretty
well because something that it has is that it guarantees
you get representation at an adversarial bail hearing. If this
(12:09):
applies to you right now, in Sex's you're not guaranteed
to get a lawyer, you're bail hearing. So if you're
going to have to go through one of these processes
where you might be held in jail with no opportunity
to bail out, you're going to get a lawyer. You're
going to get a hearing. And really that should be
a model for all of this. So the hope is
that if it works well here, we can do a
next step, a next step, a next step, And this
(12:30):
is kind of a proof of concept.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
This is so interesting because I want to throw something
up on the screen here for people watching us. This
is Prop three and Prop sixteen probably the most important
things on the vote, right on the ballot right now
for local conservatives that I hear to discussed because.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I would say, you know Prop sixteen is symbolic, but
people care a lot about it, and you're allowed.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Here is Rachel Hooper, former ADA and Deputy Chief Big
Law part Texas GOP attorney, telling people that Prop three
and Prop sixteen important Republicans should be for it. Yeah,
the Chronicle is for it. Local conservatives are for it.
And she is calling out Cindy Siegel here for not
knowing that Republicans were supposed to be for it. People
(13:12):
often think that the Republican Party and the Houston Chronicle
are at odds with each other, and yet those are
the two most important props. And you guys, both groups
seem to be voting the same way on this.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
You know, we look at it issue by issue, not
party by party, and so sometimes you're in agreement, sometimes
you disagree. I like to say we try to be
biased for Houston. If someone wants to banfracking, we're probably
not going to get along. If you're someone who doesn't
think that Houston should be a growing city, we're probably
not going to get along. And if you think that
this is a place where we shouldn't prioritize public safety,
(13:41):
we're not going to get along.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
All right, anything else on local elections you want people
to pay attention to, I'd say one of the most
important things on there. I know some conservatives have been
against this is proposition for to dedicate funds to build
water infrastructure. Texas needs water and we need ways to
make sure that we are getting water from places where
we have a lot of it the places that don't
have a lot of it. No proposition got on your
(14:04):
ballot unless it had agreement from majority of the Republicans
in the legislature and Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott, and
so it's not as if there's going to be any
kind of sneaky progressive thing ending up there. You know,
this has Republican buying. I know folks are skeptical of
spending a lot of money in the weight it's going
to go. But we don't want to find our place,
find our state in the place where we are running
low on water.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
All right.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
This isn't something that I claim to be an expert on.
I haven't done a lot of research on it, but
I will say that local conservative groups and the Texas
Policy Research in Republican Liberty Caucus, both libertarian groups are
against it. Yeah, and I won't try to whax intellectual.
I'm not sure why they're against it, but look, just
for the record, that's something conservatives are not into.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, I understand the instinct of your conservative and
you say government should be spending money, and then you
see a thing here where they're going to spend you know,
a billion dollars a year over twenty years, and they
go like, oh, I don't want to spend that money.
But this is one of those things where you know,
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Imagine how expensive it's going to be if we don't
have coming out of the faucet. We don't have the
water we need to run our refineries, to run our
(15:05):
ai facilities and just generally power the rest of the state.
And so we are trying to put in that infrastructure
now so that we don't run into a crisis in
the future.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
All Right, anything else on the elections there you want
to talk about? That was the big stuff. All right,
let's talk about Nigeria. Okay, we got this thing.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I'm no big expert on what's going on in Nigeria,
but I've seen the headlines. I think you have too. Yeah,
and there are folks there who are Nigerian Christians who
are being killed by terrorist groups, right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Exactly, there's Islamic groups and the government doesn't seem to
be doing anything about it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Right, And so I said, well, you know, one thing
that America does really well is like we welcome refugees
from around the world.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Houston particularly. It's a skill set.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
People like to say, you know, diversity is our strength,
and I think that's just their way of saying, we're
really good at integrating people, really good at taking anyone
from around the world. And then within a generation they're
cheering for the astros, they're getting stuck in traffic, they're
having barbecue, they're having a good time, and so we
should be well, I mean, folks from Nigeria. Help them
escape this terror and just settle here. We already have
a pretty big Nigerian population here. I am very much.
(16:08):
I like Nigerians. There's all these surprises people I get
along with the Nigerians. Nigerian Catholics seem to share a
lot of our opinions about barbecue and oil and gas
and firearms and that sort of thing. I welcome refugees
if they share our values. Yeah, I welcome like the Afrikaans,
for example, earlier this year.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Some people were surprised by that, but these are generally
Christians who like free speech and gun rights and things
that Americans are supposed to value.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Why did you not like the Afrikaans.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I just think that they're kind of racist, you know,
is another whole things that they're pretty racist. But I
don't think we shouldn't welcome them like we should.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I'm hi, you know they're racist. You don't know these people.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
You're right, I don't know them person by person. It
seems weird that we would prioritize just Afrikaans and not
like anyone else around the world that's dealing with discrimination.
You know, that just seems like a bizarre priority. I
feel like, if I were to make my list of
oak we got to welcome, we can welcome people from
around the world to come here as refugees, like I
(17:05):
think they might be at like a number twelve on
my top list. There's the other folks out there dealing
with worse. But that's my thing. I believe in, you know, addition,
not subtraction. We should Yes, we could let in the
Afrikaans and a whole lot more people too, right, I
think it one, we're good at it. You look at Europe,
they have trouble integrating people from around the world here, Like,
we're welcoming, we're flexible, we turn people into Americans, like
(17:28):
really quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Would you agree that we we don't have enough resources
to help everyone?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Wouldn't you agree with that?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
No? I think that you're looking at it the wrong
way because the resources that we spend on welfare aren't
for working people. You know, it's for education for the young,
and that's kind of an investment in the future. And
then it's like Medicare social security for old people, right,
and so we kind of need to welcome more people
(17:55):
to keep paying into that social Security and medicare.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
No disagreement there, No, I'm I'm for raising the age
of social security simply because the birth rate's gone down
and the average lifespan's gone up a live and longer.
I really upset some people this weekend by agreeing with
Rampaul on that. But this is just math, right, Yeah,
But we okay, seven eight million people in the world,
where are we at now?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We can't help them all?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
No, but we can't afford to help some And to
your point, immigration is not bad for my dog's name
is Milton Freedom.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I am not anti immigration exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But if we're gonna have refugees, if we're gonna have
people come to the country, wouldn't you agree that America
has culture, we have beliefs, we have basic principles, and
if we're gonna welcome people, they should probably be people
that share those principles, not people who contradict those principles.
I got people that advocate for sharia government. Well, I'm
not gonna use your religion against you, but you could
see how bringing a lot of them into this country
(18:44):
could be problematic for people from certain cultures.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Right. I think there's something about America that really changes
people because they see how we work and how we're
so functional, and folks slowly begin to adjust, particularly intergenerational.
You know, you take someone whose grandpa was you know,
a religious nut, doesn't matter the religion, and then you
give them a next generation and they're out there eating
pork and having a good time.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
But what if they.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Don't, And what if instead of bringing them in, we
could bring someone in who already shares our beliefs.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I mean, I don't disagree with that, but I think
that there are people here right now who seem to
be contrary to American perspective on things, and people who
want to, you know, turn this you know, proud, big, growing,
diverse nation into a much smaller, weaker nation for the
sake of promoting Christian nationalism. And I think that I
don't focus too much on trying to apply this kind
(19:32):
of philosophical litmus test to folks as much as I
say that we should be trying to find places where
we really can help. We can identify folks who want
to come here, and I think often it's a self
selecting thing. People know what America is, and if they
want to come here, they kind of know what they're
buying into. I like this idea that around the world
(19:52):
there are people who are Americans in their hearts, who
believe in individual liberty. We want to be entrepreneurs who
want to live in a big, broad, growing, diversus society,
and we just got to welcome them here. And probably
it's going to be folks who are, say, working hard
at the top of their class at universities, people who
are doing fun, interesting, innovative things, and they want to
come here. So they can live to their fullest potential.
(20:13):
And it's going to be folks who are refugees too.
You know, when my great grandfather came to America, he'd
spent his entire life living like in a schteeddle in
like Bulgaria, and he was studying to be a rabbi,
and he's a very religious guy. And when he came
to America, he knew nothing about this place except for
the fact that his brother was here. But it just
takes that next generation and next generation, You've got a
(20:33):
lot of folks who were waving the flag and happy
to be here.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
All right, let's go back to the thing with Africa
and Nigeria.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, Nigerians and Afrikaans, white people, black people, different
skin colors. I want to go back to your point
about the Afrikaans being racist. Something I have noticed and
they and they may be racist, I don't know them.
Something I have noticed is regardless of skin color, very
often the case is people that are not from America,
from anywhere China, Europe, South America, tend to be more
(20:59):
rare than people from the United States of America, Nigeria,
wherever they're from. But the people in Africa, the Afrikaans
and people from South Africa. The people from Nigeria love God.
They tend to be Christian Judeo Christian beliefs. They they
support capitalism, they support they seem to support free speech.
They seem to have the same belief system as us.
(21:20):
Wouldn't it be better to welcome those refugees here than
to welcome somebody from say a Sharia government who just
right off the bat is against what we stand for.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
If they're fleeing Sharia government, it must be for a reason, right.
But I think, well, because we went to war there,
that's the problem with that.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
That's that's kind of the whole America first argument is
would these refugees need to come to our America if
we weren't involved in Yemen or Nize or Pakistan or
And I think the answer is probably, they wouldn't even
need to have refugees.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I don't think it's since the too war is gonna happen,
and something that America does because we're so big and
broad and powerful as we fill a lot of power
gaps and it stops other countries from going to warrens
starting wars that otherwise they would have. You know, one
of the places where we messed up was really not
sending a message to Saddam where you know, he said,
if you go in to Kuwait, where did come get you?
He thought he had a green light to do that.
That's kind of a thing that you want every other
(22:10):
country to know that if you start war, America is
going to be there with our allies across the globe
to not let that happen. And if the chaos does happen,
We're going to be there as a refuge for folks
who have to flee that. So you're best and brightest,
you're going to kind of rely upon to rebuild your
country after this war. They're going to come here instead.
And these are the two our benefits we have.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I know this is anecdotal, but right journalists we'll walk
the streets of certain neighborhoods in Minnesota, Minneapolis and they
ask them about this mayoral race. I don't know if
you've seen these videos. I imagine your algorithm does not
show you.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I focus on Houston, Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean, I'm very interested in what's going on in
big cities around the country, and I want to talk
to you about the New York City mayoral race. Before
we're done, there are people on the streets in Minnesota,
Minneapolis right now voting in this mayoral race there that's
getting a lot of attention, who will openly tell you
to write into the camera right tell the microphone the interviewer.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I am here.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I do not like America. It's Somalia first for me.
I am only here because the jobs are here. I
am only here because it's so bad in my country.
And it's this country's fault that it's bad in my country. Now,
is that a refugee we should be welcoming here?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I mean, I think they're wrong in that regard. I
think they should love America. But I can go around
buying a bunch of like, I can find a bunch
of white Christians here think like America is terrible, we
don't have good values. They'll have all these gays and
trans doing all this terrible stuff, and we've got to
get rid of all of this.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And this is awful.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You know, I think you're gonna if you go around
with the camera, you're going to find dumb people saying
bad things any place you want to fight.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
But I don't disagree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But do you think that that sentiment of like hating
America is more common with right wing natural born citizens
than it would be with say, somebody from a Sharia
government who came here against their will.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I fear a lot of people who don't like America
who are in America. They hate how bad things get.
They want to they you know, this is something that
I'm gonna I'm going to disagree with you on. When
people say make America great again, it's like again, No,
I feel like every generation we're getting better. We are
getting bolder, We're getting more welcoming and stronger and smarter
(24:12):
and wealthier. I don't want to go backwards. Is that
because of the government or despite it? I think it's
a little bit of both. But I think that, you know,
I think that's something that we've done well and and
something that really makes does make America great is that
we don't define ourselves by our history, by our blood,
by our soil. We define ourselves by philosophy. We're no
nation founded on philosophical grounds and to reividual liberty totally,
(24:36):
and so it gives us this ability to say, did
we screw up in the past, Yeah, But that doesn't
define us. We're defined by our ideals and I want
everyone to get that kind of buy in to those ideals.
And you're going to find people, no matter your background,
who don't. But you're going to find a lot of
people in places you don't expect to that really do.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Eric Evan, that might be your second most conservative right
there with have a family that might.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Be Yeah, before we run out.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Of time here, because we've gone long on this and
I've been told not to do podcasts longer than thirty minutes,
and we're at twenty five minutes right now. No, I
think this is a great conversation. Time I could keep
talking to you. I think this is fantastic. We You
made a really interesting point to me earlier. There are
too many people in Houston who know more about the
New York City mayor all race than they know about
the propvotes.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So hilarioly and does that drive you nuts? It will
drives me nuts. And it makes sense that we've seen
this nationalization of media. You know where all the media
outs are based in New York City, uh, and it is,
you know, the biggest city in the country, but there's
constant coverage of it in a way where people are
gonna know more about the future mayor of a city
they may never go to that will never impact them.
(25:44):
They're dealing with with the psychic damage of having to
hear stuff that they disagree with, Like don't don't pay
attention to turn it off any time you see something
about Cuomo or Mom Dottie or Curtis Leewa, who actually like,
give that guy a talk show.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
He's great around forever. I think he was in talk radio.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So you've got the communist Muslim, the sexual predator, and
the weirdo with the beret.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Who would you vote for? Man? I'm glad I'm not there.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
You know, that's exactly what so I mean, uh something
that that that I've had to learn about that I'll
give Mamdani some credit for is on two things, okay.
One he has actively moved away from his unpopular position. Sure,
when he's asked about the Middle East, when he's asked
about cops, you know, all this stuff. He said, I
(26:31):
apologize for saying the cops are racist, you know, I
I NYPD is doing good work like most politicians aren't
willing to do that. That doesn't happen much. And it's
to his credit. He said he's going to keep on
the current police commissioner. That's probably a good sign because
people think she's doing good work. And also he's really
leaned into the idea that if you want to make
things affordable, and that's all his campaign is about affordability,
(26:53):
make New York more affordable, you need to let the
private developers build. You need them to build the housing.
So that's the I can meet demand. This isn't something
you can only rely on like government housing to do.
Now we'll see if he actually doesn't, but I think
that if he's just able to upzone big parts of
the city and just get more housing in there, like
(27:14):
that'll be a win for everyone.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
All right, question for you about that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
One of the most controversial opinions is free public transit
for everyone.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, and it's good point.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I didn't know this because I'm not an expert on
New York State or New York City government. Apparently the
public transit's handled by the state, not the city, so
probably he wouldn't have any effect on that anyway. But
let's say hypothetically accomplishes that goal free public transit for everyone,
which I think is.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
A bad idea, Like that's one of those things where
I'm not going to go to the mat on this,
but I just I think it's bad policy. Would you
ride that train? I mean, of course I would. I've
been in New York. I went to law school in
New York. A train that's like a homeless shelter. You'd
get on that train. That's that's most trains in New York. Okay,
But I kid, I kid, but you know, I think
that you're not wrong. No. I took my sister lives there,
(27:59):
and we went up for my nephew's briss and I
take my son. He's four and now he's three. Then
and we're riding on the subways, like, Daddy, this smells weird.
I'm like, yeah, it does. And then like later we're
on again. He goes, Daddy, it smells weird now but
in a different way, and like yead does. And I'd
explained to him, like the first one is like someone peed.
The second one was like a guy was smoking a joint.
And I had to explain what that was to a
(28:20):
four year old. So that's never fun.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Imagine how what is it the Union of bodega owners?
Did you even know that that was a thing? Have
endorsed Mom Donnie uh huh, which means they're indoors. He
wants to have government operated grocery store.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's a weird thing. And again that's the thing where
I disagree with them on. We've seen it tried in
other cities, not particularly successful. But something he has spoken
a lot about is how hard it is sometimes to
get your permitting and the fines and fees you have
to pay to do your permits as a bodega owner,
as a guy running one of the food carts. And
so this is a thing where his politics are a
(28:53):
little interesting. You know, this is a little more libertarian
way of thinking about See, I'm with him on that one. Yeah,
But imagine owning a little girl store that's what a
bodega is, and finding out your tax money is going
to go towards funding an institution that you will now
be competing with. Right, It's suboptimal. And again I don't
think it's a smart idea. I don't think that it
is where you really get the uh, the highest and
(29:14):
best use of government. I think government needs to lean
into doing core things very that it does well and
trying to do those things very well, and then just
kind of leave everything else out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
All right, here's my solution. Okay, taxpayer funded bodega is
operated by the Nigerian Catholics. Afrikaans do the security on
the New York City subway system. What do you think
I'm willing to try anything that's right. You know that's
not a sincereous suggestion, obviously, I know it's.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
But if you're gonna find any city where you where
that does happen, it's going to be New York City. Sure,
we're the weirdest place in the country, the world, well
the country at least.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Evan Mince. I always enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You are, You are a fantastic podcast guest, co host,
whatever you are guest, and young conservatives that watch this podcast.
People in Houston, Texas, they can submit op eds to you.
We want your op eds. And I would say something
that I didn't mention earlier is that it's always interesting.
One yes, if you have like personal experience and something
we want to talk about. But two if you have an
(30:13):
unexpected perspective on stuff, if you're crossing over that uh,
that partisan line in a bizarre way, that's always what
I want to hear too.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I love it. My man, Evan Mints. Follow him
on social media. His name's just what is it Evan
in seven five seven, Follow.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Him on x and check out the Houston Chronicle op
eds section. Even if you're a conservative, I think you'd
be surprised to find out.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Hey, I write for him. Check it out, everybody. I
love you all.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Have a great afternoon. We'll be back bright and early
tomorrow morning. From more What you bought a Radio for?
You are listening to the pursuit of having miss radio.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Tell the government to kiss yours when you listen to
this show, do
Hey, everybody, I am here right now with Evan Mince,
one of.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
My good buddies, the editor of the Houston Chronicle editorial section.
I want to talk to you about local elections and
this is bonus content for the podcast. But Evan, first
of all, a lot of people are surprised that you
and I are friends. But we are both members of
a secret society where we go out at night and
we hunt down pedophiles and we throw their bodies in
the bayou.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
It's you and I that's where.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
They're coming from. Have you read The Chronicle had a
really good article where they tried to find every information
they could about all the bodies found in the bayou,
and they go down like who they were and what happened.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
It was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's my understanding that some of the bodies they couldn't
identify who it was.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Some of them they can't so they.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Couldn't find a common Some of them I could write DNA,
dental records, that sort of thing. I am told by
members of the local police department that part of the
reason why there was a bunch of people found in
the bayou in a short period of time is because
they just didn't check for a little while, right, And
then when they finally got around to it again, they
don't think they anything in common with each other.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, No, they think that it's just you have this
big city. And then like people will get drunk and
fall in the bayou, or people will be on drugs,
or there's a crash, or they commit suicide or something.
And then eventually all the bayous kind of converge at
the spot downtown where west where White Oak Bayou meets
up with Buffalo Bayou. And then they started looking for
(01:23):
bodies after they found a few, and it turns out
there's a whole bunch of them in there. I remember
something like this happened a little bit less morbid with cars,
where they're looking for cars that were in the bayou, right,
and they started looking like, oh wait, there's a whole
bunch of cars in the buyo. And that's back when
Michael Kubash was on city council. Sure they got them
to spend about half a million dollars just get cars
out of the bayou.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, and what do we do with those now? We're
not even using them to make art or anything. Isn't
a Cadillac ranch out in the Panhandle. We should do
something like that in Houston. I think we should.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You made a great point.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Before I want to talk about props, but I want
to steal some content from a different podcast you were
on recently. You had such a fascinating way of the Astrodome.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
The Astrodome is boondoggle. It's very expensive. We don't know
what to do about it. It's this giant building. It's
a house for rats. It's right next to more much fancier,
more modern sports stadium, bigger, more comfortable, better amenities, and
that sort of thing. But you had a very positive
spin on the Astrodome.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
What was that It's our ruin, you know, great cities
have ruins, like you've got the Colisseum in Rome. We
have this, We have our astronome, and we shouldn't do
anything to it. We shouldn't tear it down, we shouldn't
try to make it nice. We should just let it
sit there and you should be able to buy tickets
to go on tours of it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Okay, I love that idea.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I am told by friends that have been in the
building recently that it's still fascinating.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yes, there's weird stuff in there.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Interesting it used to be owned by an eccentric millionaire.
Well it was graded basically by by county judge Hawfeines
got elected really young, was a bit of a huckster
and somehow convinced the county to build this thing. And
it's part of our county history too. Because they had
to take out all these bonds to build it. They
(03:10):
had to get support from the black community to pass
the bond. So they struck this deal where they said, Okay,
if we end segregation in Houston and we integrate all
the buildings, will you vote for the bonds. And that
was the deal struck. But all the city leaders and
like the media leaders at the time knew that if
they integrated, the KKK would come to town in March
and try to like make trouble. So they didn't tell
(03:32):
anyone they integrated. They didn't cover it in the news,
They didn't do anything. Just one day, the whites only
signs came down and then the astronome was built.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
The whites only signs came down.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Have you ever looked at I'm sure you've seen this before,
the old HOA, not the thing on the screen.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I'll show you that in a minute. Have you ever
looked at the old HOA rules for river Oaks?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's so interesting. Oh yeah, Edna Meyer is a friend
of mine Meyerland. That's what it's named after. I love
aDNA Meers. She's got a bank. It's one of the
only women owned banks in Texas. And back in the day,
river Oaks did not allow Blacks or Jews. So ed
and his family went out and they built Myerland. Yeah,
that's how it got there. What an interesting story that is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I know, Well, Houston is this dynamic city. That's one
of the things I love about. We're talk about what
we like about Houston. People talk about say, you know,
Third Ward, it's this historic black community, and you know
it is, but before that was a Jewish community. That's
where my great grandfather lived. And then it's past its
peak population. Now, when we had the oil bust in
the nineteen eighties and we really ended you know, not
just formal but informal segregation, you had a whole lot
(04:32):
of folks who were living in the Third Wards saying well,
I'm going move out to the suburbs. Now suburbs are great,
and that's just how Houston works. Every neighborhood's changing. Yeah,
I think that's very interesting. It's a good way of
explaining it. I want to talk about this for a minute.
Do you know who you mentioned, Judge haw Feines. Yeah,
you know who lives across the hall from me.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
I do not know.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
She was there for years and I never knew she
lived there. Judge Hawfeind's daughter is an award winning songwriter.
I think she may have even been Grammy nominated.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
No idea.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
She lives in the in the the Uni across the
hall from me, in my condo building not far from here.
Sweetest lady on earth. She was there for years before
I even learned who she was. And she's an advocate
for keeping the astrodome. She wants to save it and
protect it. You've met the family, Do you know any
of them? No, I'm trying to remember if I have,
I may have a long time ago. But I know
(05:18):
that some folks at the Rodeo are coming up with
this plan to try to do a big thing to
the astrodome to make it usable. But all of these
projects are just very expensive. I don't know where you'd
get the money from. You'd have to have a big
bond vote or raise a ton of funds, and I
think just just let it be. You could get you
could turn it into like an asset if you just
(05:38):
charge folks to buy tickets. Maybe set up like a
little like building next to it, where like you have
to watch a twenty minute documentary about the astrodome, and
then you do your tour, and then there's Q and
A and then there's a gift shop.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
No, I think it's the best idea. I frank, it's brilliant.
Why not why do anything with it? Weir, It's been
there for years, we haven't done anything with it. It's
not hurting anyone.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It looks cool.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, why not just let people do it tour? It's
our Roman Coliseum exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think it's such a good idea. Evin, all right,
let's talk about this.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You're a friend, and I may not agree with you
on all of your endorsements, but I want you to
explain him to us. So give us the cliff notes
real quick here, so we don't lose conservatives that are
watching that.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well. You know, something that we did this year is
recognizing that in some of the races, you've got your
race to replace Sheila Jackson Lee's seat. That's the Texas
eighteenth congressional seat. You've got a race for at large
four on city Council, and in the eighteenth we endorsed
the county attorney, Christian Menafie. Things a smart guy. He's
got a real vision about how we can actually move
(06:39):
policy in DC even while Democrats are in the minority.
And then at City Council we said, well, we like
Jordan Thomas. You know, he's bringing a lot of new ideas,
willing to get in the fight with the mayor on
this stuff because we've seen folks try to play nice
with the mayor. It doesn't go well. So he's going
to come up with a different tactic. But not everyone's
going to agree. And so we thought, okay, well, if
you're a Republican and you're voting an IV one of these,
(07:01):
who should you go for? Okay, no, you're gonna disagree.
So in the congressional race, we said, Carmen Maria montel
and have you talked.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
To her, have you met her?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I have a lot of friends, we have a lot
of mutual friends. I have a lot of mutual friends
with their opponent too. I find both of the Republican
candidates to be great, and I appreciate that you guys
even took the time to endure somewhere, but I.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Think it's they're a long shot. Sadly it is.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
But when you have a bunch of Democrats running and
they split the vote a whole bunch of different ways,
you never know. You never know you can get into
that runoff. And that's what we're seeing in the city
council race too. I've seen some Republicans line up behind
former city council member Dwight Boykins. He was on city
council twice, he ran for mayor, he lost, and now
he's back.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know, some conservatives like him simply because he was
opposing He opposed Sylvester back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I know, but I just kind of feel like, what
is it that he's done that's really conservative.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
And he does this thing that kind of always gets
under my skin and he says, well, I'm not a politician, Like, buddy.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You're running for office.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You ran twice and lost twice, you won twice, you
ran for mayor, and now you're back and your day
job is a lobbyist. You're a politician, like, don't pretend
like you're something you're not. Now in that one, we
liked Martin Lemondink's Martino Lemon Dixon. Yeah I like her too. Yeah.
She's on the county assessor's board. She's been appointed by
Greg Abbott to several things. She's run as a Republican.
(08:21):
She was on Humble I SD and she's, you know,
gonna be sort of a straight down the middle Republican conservative.
We try to sort of poke at her when we
do our endorsement meetings. We meet with everyone to talk
to everyone to see, you know, what's going on there.
And basically she said, I think the mayor's doing a
good job. I want to support him in public safety
and cutting spending and doing all those kind of normal
republic anythings. And he said, well that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I voted for her. I think she's great. Yea, But
to your point, I think Dwight's a nice guy. I've
had a both on this show before Charming, but Marttino
is my vote.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, all right, what else you got, Well, then we've
got here's a really weird one. So there's a big
fight right now in sci Fair ISD. You've got this
board that is sort of six one maga conservative Republican
and they've caused a lot of headlines because they're getting
in fights about things that aren't really related to election,
related to education right now, and some parents are pissed
(09:12):
off about it. And so Democrats are running a slate
and Republicans are running their slate. But there's this one
race where there's the Republican incumbent. His name is Scott Henry,
and he's being challenged by this woman, Natalie Blasingame, who
has gotten in trouble because she has recorded other Republicans
around and said that, you know, if you don't support me,
(09:34):
to vote for me, I'm going to release this recording
of you. It's very weird, it's very chaotic.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
So we endorse the Democrat in that race, a Cleveland
Lane Junior. She's a professor, very smart, knows a lot
about kind of educational management. But it's one of those
things where if you're not going to vote for a Democrat,
we'd say, don't vote for Natalie because clues she's bringing chaos.
You don't want that, you want school boards to be
kind of boring. You vote for the Scott Henry guy.
(10:00):
He's on the board, steady hand still a Republican. You
don't like Caroline Ward? Mmm, I think that. Let me
look at a different race. I'm sure it's a different race.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, maybe you're right. Yeah, I like Caroline. I think
she's cool. But yeah, to your point, I think she
may be in a different race. I didn't need to
confuse everyone.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, go on. And so that's where we are.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
On there's HCC elections, we said stick with the incumbents
because HCC again is one of those things where you know,
you've got all these scandals in their past of people
taking bribes, and they say, just if they've been able
to just not mess up, that's kind of like a
good standard for where you want to be. We've also
got all these propositions, and I know you talked about
them previously. And one of the places where I think
(10:39):
we've gone a lot of attention is on Prop three,
that bail reform, one where folks were surprised to see
the Houston Chronicle supporting it. And what we've said is
that you need this ability to detain people before trial,
not based on how much money they have, but how
big of a risk they actually pose. Right, And this
does it part way where it makes it easier to
detain people if they're very high risk. But I think
(11:01):
there's a next step afterwards where the legislature has say, Okay,
we need to make it easy to release people who
do not pose a real risk. And there is a
bill that didn't get passed out, but the Republicans in
the House had done it that said if you're getting
arrested for your first offense and it's a nonviolent misdemeanor,
you automatically get to go home. You don't have to
worry about bail. Our presumption is that you're not really
(11:22):
a threat to anyone, and that seems like a good
kind of counterbalance there.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
This is something that we're talking about Prop three here.
This is something conservatives are very fired up about. And
the Chronicle and Conservatives were both four on this one right.
Interestingly enough, local libertarian groups were against it.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I voted for on that.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
One, Yeah, and we voted for it. I voted for it.
I vote the Chronicle slate.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Some people, some of your critics, Evan would be probably
be surprised that you were for that one.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Well, you know, we did our research on it, and
I talked to a lot of civil liberties groups, and
some of them, you know, don't like it, but some
of them said, listen, we know we're in Texas, we
know how bad things can get, and we think that
this piece of legislation, this Concert'sman was actually written pretty
well because something that it has is that it guarantees
you get representation at an adversarial bail hearing. If this
(12:09):
applies to you right now, in Sex's you're not guaranteed
to get a lawyer, you're bail hearing. So if you're
going to have to go through one of these processes
where you might be held in jail with no opportunity
to bail out, you're going to get a lawyer. You're
going to get a hearing. And really that should be
a model for all of this. So the hope is
that if it works well here, we can do a
next step, a next step, a next step, And this
(12:30):
is kind of a proof of concept.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
This is so interesting because I want to throw something
up on the screen here for people watching us. This
is Prop three and Prop sixteen probably the most important
things on the vote, right on the ballot right now
for local conservatives that I hear to discussed because.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I would say, you know Prop sixteen is symbolic, but
people care a lot about it, and you're allowed.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Here is Rachel Hooper, former ADA and Deputy Chief Big
Law part Texas GOP attorney, telling people that Prop three
and Prop sixteen important Republicans should be for it. Yeah,
the Chronicle is for it. Local conservatives are for it.
And she is calling out Cindy Siegel here for not
knowing that Republicans were supposed to be for it. People
(13:12):
often think that the Republican Party and the Houston Chronicle
are at odds with each other, and yet those are
the two most important props. And you guys, both groups
seem to be voting the same way on this.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
You know, we look at it issue by issue, not
party by party, and so sometimes you're in agreement, sometimes
you disagree. I like to say we try to be
biased for Houston. If someone wants to banfracking, we're probably
not going to get along. If you're someone who doesn't
think that Houston should be a growing city, we're probably
not going to get along. And if you think that
this is a place where we shouldn't prioritize public safety,
(13:41):
we're not going to get along.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
All right, anything else on local elections you want people
to pay attention to, I'd say one of the most
important things on there. I know some conservatives have been
against this is proposition for to dedicate funds to build
water infrastructure. Texas needs water and we need ways to
make sure that we are getting water from places where
we have a lot of it the places that don't
have a lot of it. No proposition got on your
(14:04):
ballot unless it had agreement from majority of the Republicans
in the legislature and Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott, and
so it's not as if there's going to be any
kind of sneaky progressive thing ending up there. You know,
this has Republican buying. I know folks are skeptical of
spending a lot of money in the weight it's going
to go. But we don't want to find our place,
find our state in the place where we are running
low on water.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
All right.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
This isn't something that I claim to be an expert on.
I haven't done a lot of research on it, but
I will say that local conservative groups and the Texas
Policy Research in Republican Liberty Caucus, both libertarian groups are
against it. Yeah, and I won't try to whax intellectual.
I'm not sure why they're against it, but look, just
for the record, that's something conservatives are not into.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I mean, I understand the instinct of your conservative and
you say government should be spending money, and then you
see a thing here where they're going to spend you know,
a billion dollars a year over twenty years, and they
go like, oh, I don't want to spend that money.
But this is one of those things where you know,
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Imagine how expensive it's going to be if we don't
have coming out of the faucet. We don't have the
water we need to run our refineries, to run our
(15:05):
ai facilities and just generally power the rest of the state.
And so we are trying to put in that infrastructure
now so that we don't run into a crisis in
the future.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
All Right, anything else on the elections there you want
to talk about? That was the big stuff. All right,
let's talk about Nigeria. Okay, we got this thing.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I'm no big expert on what's going on in Nigeria,
but I've seen the headlines. I think you have too. Yeah,
and there are folks there who are Nigerian Christians who
are being killed by terrorist groups, right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Exactly, there's Islamic groups and the government doesn't seem to
be doing anything about it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Right, And so I said, well, you know, one thing
that America does really well is like we welcome refugees
from around the world.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Houston particularly. It's a skill set.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
People like to say, you know, diversity is our strength,
and I think that's just their way of saying, we're
really good at integrating people, really good at taking anyone
from around the world. And then within a generation they're
cheering for the astros, they're getting stuck in traffic, they're
having barbecue, they're having a good time, and so we
should be well, I mean, folks from Nigeria. Help them
escape this terror and just settle here. We already have
a pretty big Nigerian population here. I am very much.
(16:08):
I like Nigerians. There's all these surprises people I get
along with the Nigerians. Nigerian Catholics seem to share a
lot of our opinions about barbecue and oil and gas
and firearms and that sort of thing. I welcome refugees
if they share our values. Yeah, I welcome like the Afrikaans,
for example, earlier this year.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Some people were surprised by that, but these are generally
Christians who like free speech and gun rights and things
that Americans are supposed to value.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Why did you not like the Afrikaans.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I just think that they're kind of racist, you know,
is another whole things that they're pretty racist. But I
don't think we shouldn't welcome them like we should.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I'm hi, you know they're racist. You don't know these people.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
You're right, I don't know them person by person. It
seems weird that we would prioritize just Afrikaans and not
like anyone else around the world that's dealing with discrimination.
You know, that just seems like a bizarre priority. I
feel like, if I were to make my list of
oak we got to welcome, we can welcome people from
around the world to come here as refugees, like I
(17:05):
think they might be at like a number twelve on
my top list. There's the other folks out there dealing
with worse. But that's my thing. I believe in, you know, addition,
not subtraction. We should Yes, we could let in the
Afrikaans and a whole lot more people too, right, I
think it one, we're good at it. You look at Europe,
they have trouble integrating people from around the world here, Like,
we're welcoming, we're flexible, we turn people into Americans, like
(17:28):
really quickly.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Would you agree that we we don't have enough resources
to help everyone?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Wouldn't you agree with that?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
No? I think that you're looking at it the wrong
way because the resources that we spend on welfare aren't
for working people. You know, it's for education for the young,
and that's kind of an investment in the future. And
then it's like Medicare social security for old people, right,
and so we kind of need to welcome more people
(17:55):
to keep paying into that social Security and medicare.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
No disagreement there, No, I'm I'm for raising the age
of social security simply because the birth rate's gone down
and the average lifespan's gone up a live and longer.
I really upset some people this weekend by agreeing with
Rampaul on that. But this is just math, right, Yeah,
But we okay, seven eight million people in the world,
where are we at now?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We can't help them all?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
No, but we can't afford to help some And to
your point, immigration is not bad for my dog's name
is Milton Freedom.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I am not anti immigration exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But if we're gonna have refugees, if we're gonna have
people come to the country, wouldn't you agree that America
has culture, we have beliefs, we have basic principles, and
if we're gonna welcome people, they should probably be people
that share those principles, not people who contradict those principles.
I got people that advocate for sharia government. Well, I'm
not gonna use your religion against you, but you could
see how bringing a lot of them into this country
(18:44):
could be problematic for people from certain cultures.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Right. I think there's something about America that really changes
people because they see how we work and how we're
so functional, and folks slowly begin to adjust, particularly intergenerational.
You know, you take someone whose grandpa was you know,
a religious nut, doesn't matter the religion, and then you
give them a next generation and they're out there eating
pork and having a good time.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
But what if they.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Don't, And what if instead of bringing them in, we
could bring someone in who already shares our beliefs.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I mean, I don't disagree with that, but I think
that there are people here right now who seem to
be contrary to American perspective on things, and people who
want to, you know, turn this you know, proud, big, growing,
diverse nation into a much smaller, weaker nation for the
sake of promoting Christian nationalism. And I think that I
don't focus too much on trying to apply this kind
(19:32):
of philosophical litmus test to folks as much as I
say that we should be trying to find places where
we really can help. We can identify folks who want
to come here, and I think often it's a self
selecting thing. People know what America is, and if they
want to come here, they kind of know what they're
buying into. I like this idea that around the world
(19:52):
there are people who are Americans in their hearts, who
believe in individual liberty. We want to be entrepreneurs who
want to live in a big, broad, growing, diversus society,
and we just got to welcome them here. And probably
it's going to be folks who are, say, working hard
at the top of their class at universities, people who
are doing fun, interesting, innovative things, and they want to
come here. So they can live to their fullest potential.
(20:13):
And it's going to be folks who are refugees too.
You know, when my great grandfather came to America, he'd
spent his entire life living like in a schteeddle in
like Bulgaria, and he was studying to be a rabbi,
and he's a very religious guy. And when he came
to America, he knew nothing about this place except for
the fact that his brother was here. But it just
takes that next generation and next generation, You've got a
(20:33):
lot of folks who were waving the flag and happy
to be here.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
All right, let's go back to the thing with Africa
and Nigeria.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, Nigerians and Afrikaans, white people, black people, different
skin colors. I want to go back to your point
about the Afrikaans being racist. Something I have noticed and
they and they may be racist, I don't know them.
Something I have noticed is regardless of skin color, very
often the case is people that are not from America,
from anywhere China, Europe, South America, tend to be more
(20:59):
rare than people from the United States of America, Nigeria,
wherever they're from. But the people in Africa, the Afrikaans
and people from South Africa. The people from Nigeria love God.
They tend to be Christian Judeo Christian beliefs. They they
support capitalism, they support they seem to support free speech.
They seem to have the same belief system as us.
(21:20):
Wouldn't it be better to welcome those refugees here than
to welcome somebody from say a Sharia government who just
right off the bat is against what we stand for.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
If they're fleeing Sharia government, it must be for a reason, right.
But I think, well, because we went to war there,
that's the problem with that.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
That's that's kind of the whole America first argument is
would these refugees need to come to our America if
we weren't involved in Yemen or Nize or Pakistan or
And I think the answer is probably, they wouldn't even
need to have refugees.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I don't think it's since the too war is gonna happen,
and something that America does because we're so big and
broad and powerful as we fill a lot of power
gaps and it stops other countries from going to warrens
starting wars that otherwise they would have. You know, one
of the places where we messed up was really not
sending a message to Saddam where you know, he said,
if you go in to Kuwait, where did come get you?
He thought he had a green light to do that.
That's kind of a thing that you want every other
(22:10):
country to know that if you start war, America is
going to be there with our allies across the globe
to not let that happen. And if the chaos does happen,
We're going to be there as a refuge for folks
who have to flee that. So you're best and brightest,
you're going to kind of rely upon to rebuild your
country after this war. They're going to come here instead.
And these are the two our benefits we have.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I know this is anecdotal, but right journalists we'll walk
the streets of certain neighborhoods in Minnesota, Minneapolis and they
ask them about this mayoral race. I don't know if
you've seen these videos. I imagine your algorithm does not
show you.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I focus on Houston, Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean, I'm very interested in what's going on in
big cities around the country, and I want to talk
to you about the New York City mayoral race. Before
we're done, there are people on the streets in Minnesota,
Minneapolis right now voting in this mayoral race there that's
getting a lot of attention, who will openly tell you
to write into the camera right tell the microphone the interviewer.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I am here.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I do not like America. It's Somalia first for me.
I am only here because the jobs are here. I
am only here because it's so bad in my country.
And it's this country's fault that it's bad in my country. Now,
is that a refugee we should be welcoming here?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I mean, I think they're wrong in that regard. I
think they should love America. But I can go around
buying a bunch of like, I can find a bunch
of white Christians here think like America is terrible, we
don't have good values. They'll have all these gays and
trans doing all this terrible stuff, and we've got to
get rid of all of this.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And this is awful.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You know, I think you're gonna if you go around
with the camera, you're going to find dumb people saying
bad things any place you want to fight.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
But I don't disagree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
But do you think that that sentiment of like hating
America is more common with right wing natural born citizens
than it would be with say, somebody from a Sharia
government who came here against their will.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I fear a lot of people who don't like America
who are in America. They hate how bad things get.
They want to they you know, this is something that
I'm gonna I'm going to disagree with you on. When
people say make America great again, it's like again, No,
I feel like every generation we're getting better. We are
getting bolder, We're getting more welcoming and stronger and smarter
(24:12):
and wealthier. I don't want to go backwards. Is that
because of the government or despite it? I think it's
a little bit of both. But I think that, you know,
I think that's something that we've done well and and
something that really makes does make America great is that
we don't define ourselves by our history, by our blood,
by our soil. We define ourselves by philosophy. We're no
nation founded on philosophical grounds and to reividual liberty totally,
(24:36):
and so it gives us this ability to say, did
we screw up in the past, Yeah, But that doesn't
define us. We're defined by our ideals and I want
everyone to get that kind of buy in to those ideals.
And you're going to find people, no matter your background,
who don't. But you're going to find a lot of
people in places you don't expect to that really do.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Eric Evan, that might be your second most conservative right
there with have a family that might.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Be Yeah, before we run out.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Of time here, because we've gone long on this and
I've been told not to do podcasts longer than thirty minutes,
and we're at twenty five minutes right now. No, I
think this is a great conversation. Time I could keep
talking to you. I think this is fantastic. We You
made a really interesting point to me earlier. There are
too many people in Houston who know more about the
New York City mayor all race than they know about
the propvotes.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So hilarioly and does that drive you nuts? It will
drives me nuts. And it makes sense that we've seen
this nationalization of media. You know where all the media
outs are based in New York City, uh, and it is,
you know, the biggest city in the country, but there's
constant coverage of it in a way where people are
gonna know more about the future mayor of a city
they may never go to that will never impact them.
(25:44):
They're dealing with with the psychic damage of having to
hear stuff that they disagree with, Like don't don't pay
attention to turn it off any time you see something
about Cuomo or Mom Dottie or Curtis Leewa, who actually like,
give that guy a talk show.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
He's great around forever. I think he was in talk radio.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So you've got the communist Muslim, the sexual predator, and
the weirdo with the beret.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Who would you vote for? Man? I'm glad I'm not there.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
You know, that's exactly what so I mean, uh something
that that that I've had to learn about that I'll
give Mamdani some credit for is on two things, okay.
One he has actively moved away from his unpopular position. Sure,
when he's asked about the Middle East, when he's asked
about cops, you know, all this stuff. He said, I
(26:31):
apologize for saying the cops are racist, you know, I
I NYPD is doing good work like most politicians aren't
willing to do that. That doesn't happen much. And it's
to his credit. He said he's going to keep on
the current police commissioner. That's probably a good sign because
people think she's doing good work. And also he's really
leaned into the idea that if you want to make
things affordable, and that's all his campaign is about affordability,
(26:53):
make New York more affordable, you need to let the
private developers build. You need them to build the housing.
So that's the I can meet demand. This isn't something
you can only rely on like government housing to do.
Now we'll see if he actually doesn't, but I think
that if he's just able to upzone big parts of
the city and just get more housing in there, like
(27:14):
that'll be a win for everyone.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
All right, question for you about that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
One of the most controversial opinions is free public transit
for everyone.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, and it's good point.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I didn't know this because I'm not an expert on
New York State or New York City government. Apparently the
public transit's handled by the state, not the city, so
probably he wouldn't have any effect on that anyway. But
let's say hypothetically accomplishes that goal free public transit for everyone,
which I think is.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
A bad idea, Like that's one of those things where
I'm not going to go to the mat on this,
but I just I think it's bad policy. Would you
ride that train? I mean, of course I would. I've
been in New York. I went to law school in
New York. A train that's like a homeless shelter. You'd
get on that train. That's that's most trains in New York. Okay,
But I kid, I kid, but you know, I think
that you're not wrong. No. I took my sister lives there,
(27:59):
and we went up for my nephew's briss and I
take my son. He's four and now he's three. Then
and we're riding on the subways, like, Daddy, this smells weird.
I'm like, yeah, it does. And then like later we're
on again. He goes, Daddy, it smells weird now but
in a different way, and like yead does. And I'd
explained to him, like the first one is like someone peed.
The second one was like a guy was smoking a joint.
And I had to explain what that was to a
(28:20):
four year old. So that's never fun.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Imagine how what is it the Union of bodega owners?
Did you even know that that was a thing? Have
endorsed Mom Donnie uh huh, which means they're indoors. He
wants to have government operated grocery store.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's a weird thing. And again that's the thing where
I disagree with them on. We've seen it tried in
other cities, not particularly successful. But something he has spoken
a lot about is how hard it is sometimes to
get your permitting and the fines and fees you have
to pay to do your permits as a bodega owner,
as a guy running one of the food carts. And
so this is a thing where his politics are a
(28:53):
little interesting. You know, this is a little more libertarian
way of thinking about See, I'm with him on that one. Yeah,
But imagine owning a little girl store that's what a
bodega is, and finding out your tax money is going
to go towards funding an institution that you will now
be competing with. Right, It's suboptimal. And again I don't
think it's a smart idea. I don't think that it
is where you really get the uh, the highest and
(29:14):
best use of government. I think government needs to lean
into doing core things very that it does well and
trying to do those things very well, and then just
kind of leave everything else out of it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
All right, here's my solution. Okay, taxpayer funded bodega is
operated by the Nigerian Catholics. Afrikaans do the security on
the New York City subway system. What do you think
I'm willing to try anything that's right. You know that's
not a sincereous suggestion, obviously, I know it's.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
But if you're gonna find any city where you where
that does happen, it's going to be New York City. Sure,
we're the weirdest place in the country, the world, well
the country at least.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Evan Mince. I always enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
You are, You are a fantastic podcast guest, co host,
whatever you are guest, and young conservatives that watch this podcast.
People in Houston, Texas, they can submit op eds to you.
We want your op eds. And I would say something
that I didn't mention earlier is that it's always interesting.
One yes, if you have like personal experience and something
we want to talk about. But two if you have an
(30:13):
unexpected perspective on stuff, if you're crossing over that uh,
that partisan line in a bizarre way, that's always what
I want to hear too.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I love it. My man, Evan Mints. Follow him
on social media. His name's just what is it Evan
in seven five seven, Follow.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Him on x and check out the Houston Chronicle op
eds section. Even if you're a conservative, I think you'd
be surprised to find out.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Hey, I write for him. Check it out, everybody. I
love you all.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Have a great afternoon. We'll be back bright and early
tomorrow morning. From more What you bought a Radio for?
You are listening to the pursuit of having miss radio.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Tell the government to kiss yours when you listen to
this show, do
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