December 1, 2025 • 36 mins
Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:
- What's going with Black Friday?
- Stories you might have missed
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common breaking down the world's nonsense about how American common sense.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We'll see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Well we're here. It's Cyber Monday. Is there any gas
left in the tank after Black Friday? Anybody buying anything today?
I'm just kind of curious about that because I heard
the heard that Kevin Hassett from the Trump administration, you know,
bragging about the Black Friday numbers and how good they looked,
(00:54):
and how he thinks it bodes well for the economy.
But I remember for the last few years that we
heard the same thing from the previous administration about, you know,
well we got great shopping numbers on Black Friday or
Cyber Monday, and then everything just kind of fell apart
after that. And the reason why I asked the question
(01:14):
is have you heard anything about FedEx or UPS hiring
temporary drivers for deliveries. I don't know if Amazon is
taking on extra staff for the holidays, but the UPS
is laying people off. You know, FedEx is laying people off.
They're not doing their usual seasonal hiring. So I would
(01:35):
think if they thought they were going to have a
lot of packages to deliver, they would have hired some
extra people's That's what makes sense to me. So anyway,
I'm not sure what's going on with that. I guess
we'll just have to kind of wait and see how
things actually turn out this year versus the way that
things have turned out in the past. You never really look,
but here they were talking about it on The Big
(01:56):
Money Show Holiday hiring. You know, companies do layoffs, right now.
Here's a little bit of that conversation.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
It does seem like by this time we usually have
heard that, you know, UPS is hiring ten thousand extra,
and we haven't heard so much of it this year.
And I have to say, Taylor, the jobs are one
area of the economy that I am concerned about. And
it's frustrating because in a truly free market there's an
unlimited amount of jobs. We don't have that. We've got
a lot of regulation, we've got minimum wages that have
(02:24):
gone up. I mean, that's hurt. Just look at California
scores of businesses, restaurants, especially jobs taken away because of
all those regulations. So what I'm looking at is what
the economy seems to be needing.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
We've talked about it in the show before.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Are some of those trade positions, positions that you necessarily
don't have to go to college to to get, maybe
just to go.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
To a trade school. So AI is going to prompt
that I think.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Are rejiggering, if you will, of employment economy wide.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
And that's sort of the debate, you know, Jackie and
Brian that we were having earlier. Where does AI free
us up to engage in other activities, you know, or
is this sort of going to be the death of jobs?
You guys heard my take that I think that humans
are innovative and we will find a job and where
if there's a will, there's a way, and AI will
(03:11):
allow us to find something new. But there is a
lot of hesitation, and we've heard this from Marcus Lamonis
as well, that AI is coming and it could be
really painful.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
I want to believe the half glassful. I think you're
probably right. Over time, I think the question becomes again,
does it come soon enough to offset the people who
are going to be displaced as a result of AI.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
You know, AI is far from perfect. In fact, before
the show's over, I should have a little clip for
you to share of some problems that they're having with
AI and toys. They haven't been putting guardrails on the
artificial intelligence they've been putting into toys. So if you
have a you have a teddy Bear, for example, the
(03:57):
talks and they're telling you that, well, this teddy Bear
can interact with your child and answer questions and do
whatever because it's set up with artificial intelligence. The problem
is there's no guardrails on it. Anyway, We'll get into
that in just a little bit. But to get back
to the whole Christmas shopping thing, now that Thanksgiving is over,
Black Friday is over, today's Cyber Monday. Today will be over.
(04:20):
Then we'll have some you know, sales figures from today.
Does this have legs? Does this keep going? Or are
we going to see the same thing we've seen for
the last number of Christmases, which is we're all shooting
our wad, you know, on those two days, either Black
Friday or Cyber Monday, and there's no money left to
(04:40):
shop shop After that, Fox did a poll that indicates
that affordability is having impact, that people are not feeling
like Christmas is as affordable as what has been in
the past, and it's going to impact their shopping habits.
Here's the folks at Fox talking about that there's a
tail of two consumers out there right now.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
The top ten percent of American consumers are planning to
spend more than they were last year. They're driving about
fifty percent of our US economy. So the top ten
percent continue, can you to do well? It's the bottom
that aren't doing as well. And I think that's probably
a reflective of the fact that in an uneven economy
where you feel like the job market is softening, they're
just not sure if they can spend as much as
(05:20):
they like. Now we have a very high discretionary income
in our pockets because we're not buying homes and we're
not buying cars. But in spite of all that, they're
just not confident to fight now to go spend the
way they want to do, and so as a result,
they're holding back for sales.
Speaker 9 (05:35):
We expect more sales and more.
Speaker 8 (05:37):
Promotional shopping to be done in the part of the
last two weeks of the holiday season than we've seen
in past seasons.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Really in the last two weeks of the season, because
the week before Black Friday, I was seeing promotion saying
get your Black Friday price. Now, I mean I hadn't
started earlier than I'd ever seen it.
Speaker 8 (05:53):
Yeah, well, it's just started in October, and I'll keep
getting these emails from so many retailers that I attract,
and I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We'll see those things.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
Although up till December twenty fourth, we've got a very
short holiday season to keep in mind. So with only
about twenty five days of the holidays, isn't relative to
in the past when you had like thirty thirty five days.
You're going to see a lot of sales starting early.
And I wouldn't have surprised me sales, sales going all
the way until December twenty fourth.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Okay, well, I guess what it is the things that
we have stopped. We've stopped buying houses. I mean, this
is a generalized statement. Obviously there are still people out
there buying houses, but we've kind of stopped buying houses.
We've kind of stopped buying cars because they've gotten so expensive,
so On one hand, you've got the discretionary income of
(06:35):
people who are not spending money on those two items
right now. Are they going to put it into Christmas?
Or do they look at the prices on certain items
that maybe they've shopped for and gotten in the past,
and and they're looking at that going I don't know, man,
what am I going to do? I'll give it. I'll
give you an example, and I'll just use myself as
(06:56):
an example. I get some of the crew here little
something for Christmas is a thank you for helping me
out with the show all year long, and traditionally some
sort of a gift card and it's for a specific amount. Now,
I've been giving the same amount for that gift card
for the last seven eight years that I've been here,
(07:21):
and I'm just thinking of myself, now do I do
the same thing again. On one hand, I'm sure they're
grateful to get whatever it is I'm giving up, because
after all, it's for free. But by the same token,
the same amount on that gift card, it's not worth
what it was seven years ago. It's worth maybe half
(07:41):
of what it was seven or eight years ago. So
do I need to double the amount of gift card.
The staff right now was going, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jimmy,
double it? Or do I just need to you know,
just need to say, Okay, I need to keep this affordable.
I'm not going to spend more than I've spent, but
at least I'll keep getting a gift card. I think
a lot of people are going through that dilemma right
now about what to do. You know, do I do
(08:02):
I spend more knowing that by spending more, I'm really
giving the same or what do I do? Do I
spend the same I had before? Because that's all I
can afford? What do I do? So as we all
try to figure that one out, let's take a little
break back, but more in a moment. Jimmy Baird Show,
you're an AM nine fifty KPRC. What I had no
(08:35):
problem taking a break from politics. I'm guessing you probably
didn't have a problem taking a break from politics too.
And I'm be honest, I'd like to take a little
bit of a break. I mean, there's certain things we
need and we'll cover, but I'd like to take a
little break here between now and Christmas, because, after all,
you know, it gets tough to just kind of work
(08:56):
on that stuff all the time. We all need a
little bit of a break now. I did note there's
a couple of things that I did note from around
right around Thanksgiving up until today when we all kind
of tuned out. I mean, we didn't do a Houston
Morning News on Thursday, we didn't do a Houston Morning
News on Friday. We had special programming here in our
afternoon show, So we didn't really do anything with some
(09:19):
of the stories that you might not have even heard about,
and they're worth following up on, even if it's just
a comment from the president. Now, the President was talking
to forget what he was talking to was. I know
it was on Thanksgiving and he was talking about tariffs. Now,
I'm not sure if this message was for you and
for me, or if this message was more for the
Supreme Court, which is going to be ruling on whether
(09:42):
or not the President can do what he's doing on tariffs.
I sneakingly suspect it had something to do with the
Supreme Court. But basically, the President was making the point
that we've been making so much money from tariffs that
maybe we could reduce, i mean, really reduce the federal
(10:03):
income tax or maybe even better. Yet, maybe we could
afford to eliminate the federal income tax if we keep
bringing in this kind of revenue on tariff. Here is
the President talking about those possibilities.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Think of it. Hundreds of billions. Next year it'll be
a trillion dollars or more. But we're taking in all
this money at the same time protecting our country and
we're respected again, they actually respect us, and they made
the deals.
Speaker 9 (10:28):
They respect us, but they pay us.
Speaker 10 (10:30):
As an example, Japan six hundred and fifty billion dollars,
South Korea three hundred and fifty billion dollars, European Union
nine hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
Dollars, and.
Speaker 10 (10:41):
They are building plants now with the United States because
they don't want to pay tariffs. So this is one
of the biggest things economically that's never happened. Nobody's ever
seen anything like it. And over the next couple of years,
I think it will substantially be cutting and maybe cutting
out completely, but we'll be cutting income tax, could be
almost completely cutting it because the money we're taking and
(11:04):
is going to be so large. And yet other countries
who have been ripping us off for many, many years
and many years, they've just been ripping us as shreds.
China we're taking six hundred and seven hundred billion dollars
a year rebuild their military. And now we have a
fair deal with China. We've just met with Presidency. We
(11:24):
have a great relationship, we have a fair deal. We
taken a lot of money in the form of tariffs,
but so many even our friends, I mean European Union,
there are friends, Japan, there are friends South Career is
our friends. They're now paying US hundreds of billions of dollars,
and they're also paying tariffs to come in. We're not
paying tariffs to go in there. By the way, they're
(11:45):
paying tariffs, but we're not. So that's a total reversal.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well, again, he's making the case.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I don't think, well, maybe for our benefit, but I
think again more for the Supreme Court's benevate here. Guessing
that's kind of a frustrating thing for him to have
to deal with, the idea that, you know, every time
he tries to make a play on things that he
thinks are going to improve what's going on here in
(12:13):
the United States, he's got to deal with with a
Democrat who wants to take it to Court or an
activist judge who wants to knock it out, or now
with the Supreme Court who's going to take a look
at whether or not what he's doing is allowable by law,
whether or not it's constitutional. We'll see what happens with that.
But just being a government in general, I think is frustrating.
(12:36):
So when I heard that Troy Nails, who we talked
to all the time on a morning show on Katirah,
was not going to run for a re election, they
didn't really surprise me. I think he's been there. We've
been there what five years, so it'd be like his
third term. He's on his third term. I think I
think that's enough probably for your average guy. He's got,
(12:57):
he's got a youngster in school. I'm sure he's away
from home a lot more than he'd like to be,
and when he's in Washington, DC's probably frustrating as hell.
But anyway, we had Troy Nails on our show today,
I'm kat r H. I thought i'd share that conversation
with him about why he's decided that he's not going
to be running for reelection. Is this the job that
(13:18):
nature brain?
Speaker 11 (13:18):
Sir Eric, andyes, you can get frustrated after Jimmy, there's
no question you and I have discussed this over the
past five plus years. Of the frustration that's up here
in you've seen that recently in the last just couple
of weeks with it. Everybody wants to know, censor somebody
that's a man. We argue, we picker, we complain, but
(13:39):
we just don't seem to always put the America people first.
And you know, it is what it is. It's Washington,
d C.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah. I also got the impression from some of the
comments I saw that maybe you thought it was time
to spend a little more time with family. The other
part about this job, I don't think that people realize.
They probably look at what a great gig you make,
a nice salary, it's a part to job. You get
weeks on end that you don't have to go into work.
But the reality is you're spending I don't know how
(14:06):
many bunths out of the year living in Washington, DC
while your family's back here.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
My philosophy in the office, and everybody knows in our
office if you've worked for us as family first and
job second. And I say that because you can be
a very effective I think congress person and still put
your family first. And I believe it or not, I
have a thirteen year old and when I'm at home
and when we were at the chefdown to be able
(14:32):
to just take her to school and do some of
those things. And my beautiful bride, Jill, just retired a
few months ago from public education, thirty years of public education.
So I like spending more time with her and the girls.
And it's just a decision I made, but I feel
good about it. I really do. I'm not doing an MTG.
(14:52):
I'm not leaving where you're gonna have to have a
special election. I mean, I'm going to continue to spend
the next thirteen months up in DC my obligation to
the voters in District twenty two and do the best
I can to continue on with the America First Agenda.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I noted that you talk to President Trump before you
made the announcement. What did President Trump say to you?
Speaker 11 (15:15):
Well, I'm not going to tell you that. And he
just said, hey, listen, Troy, thank you. He knows that
we have spent a great deal of time together during
the campaign. I mean, my twin brother and I Rep
in Wisconsin several months and we carre in Wisconsin. So
the boss knows that I am committed to his agenda
(15:35):
and I believe in him wholeheartedly, and I will do
everything I can to support his agenda. And I think
I've done a pretty good job at that. So though
he's not disappointed, I did tell him that my twin brother,
who he knows, he knows my toy brother very well.
I told him that he would be seeking the position.
And he seemed to really really like that idea as well.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Because I was going to say, you're a super big
ally for the So he couldn't been real happy to
hear the news. But then again, if you had you
have an exit plan that allows him to get another
big ally in there, he'll probably be fine with it.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
Right, yes, sir, and I believe so. And if you
look at my twin brother, and I mean we're identical twins, Jimmy,
we lived next to each other. I mean, he's held
public office in Fort Benk County before.
Speaker 9 (16:19):
And then you tell you what.
Speaker 11 (16:21):
Two years ago when he ran for county judge, he
lost by a few, just a few thousand votes in
November against the Democrat. And what have we found out?
They cheated. Jimmy the incumbent judge, a guy there right
now has been indicted. His chief of staff was indicted.
They cheated and they ranked that election. So my twin
brother somewhat of a household name in Fort Pink County,
and I believe he'll I think he'll do very very
(16:42):
well in this in this primary coming up in March.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I want to ask you about the two National guardsmen
that were shot, one of whom was killed. Turns out
that it is somebody we brought to this country from
Afghanistan after our horrendous withdrawal from Afghanistan. You can only
bet somebody so much. But the White House is now saying,
or at least Christy Nome is now saying, that would
appear that this individual was radicalized once he got to
(17:06):
the United States. Have we learned anything about how he
was radicalized? Was he radicalized from a foreign power online?
Or was it somebody in this country that I.
Speaker 11 (17:16):
Do not know? And I do believe that's either Cash
Mattel or Christy or somebody will get to the bottom
of this find out, you know, I mean, it looked
like jim if you see it, it's like it was
an ambush. He had intent. And I don't know how
you know, law enforcement person when you're when you get ambushed.
I mean, you have to have your head on a
swivel three sixty all the damn time. And these ambush
(17:40):
attacks they're hard to survive, they really, really, truly are.
So if there's a if there's somebody out there that
really wants to cause a lot of harm and to somebody,
I guess they could go out and do it. And
I just think it's it's a sad state of affairs
where we can't have law enforce inter national car just
walking around trying to keep the American people safe without
(18:00):
some nutshob going out there and killing them. And so
I think it's the time we got to pray for
our country. But it's also a time to say, hey, listen, America,
wake up. They are here. They've been invited here, they're here,
whether it's from Afghanistan, whether it came through the southern border,
and they're here, and many of them, many of them
want to cause destruction, destruction to America, and they want
(18:23):
to kill Americans. They're doing it with their drugs, they're
doing it with obviously violent, violent acts like we saw
with these two National Guard members. Shameful, Jimmy, A shameful day.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, it certainly is. Congressman Troy Nails from our morning
show today on news Radio seven forty KRH all right,
Also from our morning show. In our next segment, State
Senator Paul Bettencourt turns out, Shotgig, I know that Harris
County has been ignoring a state law for four years
about not being able to put down post office boxes
(18:56):
for addresses for people who are registering the vote, which
tells us they're probably not people who are eligible to
vote in Harris County. So we'll have more on that
coming up next. Jimmy vertshow here in nine fifty kPr C. Right, So,
(19:25):
this morning on our morning show and ktr H first
morning show back from the holiday week vacation and Thanksgiving
and all that, we had State Senator Paul Bettencourt on
our program. The Senator concerned as we all are, about
this report that evidently Harris County has been ignoring a
(19:47):
law passed four years ago that prevents people from registering
to vote by using a post office box as their address.
Here is my conversation with State Senator Paul Bettencourt. Hump up,
Hang on a second here, hit the button too hard
once again. Here's my conversation with State Senator Paul Bettencourt.
(20:11):
How many people are we talking about, Senator.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
It's certainly into the thousands. And the problem with this
is that this is a law that passed four years ago,
and in typical Harris County fashion, they just decided that
they don't have to enforce the Voter Role Integrity law
that we passed that made it clear that no one
lives in a po box. See you know, you get it.
(20:37):
You know, a two by three inch po box. You're
not living there. So we passed this law to keep
people from registering because then we've had all sorts of
bad things happen when they're at po boxes because.
Speaker 9 (20:50):
They're not either in the county or they're in the.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Wrong district, et cetera. But you know, it's just as
amazing that no matter what you do, we have to
keep fighting this battle with Harris County over and over
again because they just won't do what they're told to do.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Well, you know what that tells me they're not the
least bit afraid of the state or what the state's
going to do or going to jail or being punished
or any of those things.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Well, and Jimmy, that begs the Now let's go back
real fast. We had an enormous problem in Harris County.
We had election where we had paper was shorted on purpose.
Speaker 9 (21:27):
Equipment failures. It was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And after that election, we ripped away what was an
incompetent and COPT Elections Administration Office, and then that was
one of my bills. And the second bill was say, look,
we're going to do what Reagan did, which is trust
would verify. If you are now running elections in Harris
County and you don't do the law, then we'll be
able to peel the Secretary State and if you don't
(21:52):
do it, they'll force you to do it up to
the point of removing you from office.
Speaker 9 (21:56):
So I wrote a letter.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
About this problem because we're just not going to take this,
you know, standing literally sitting down. And the first response
was kind of like, oh, well, we agree, there's a
couple places this is happening, and then I said there's
over one hundred and now the Secretary of State is
basically told him the running investigation, clean it up, or
(22:20):
we'll see Jimmy, it just goes to the point of
whenever you're dealing with a group that tries everything they
can do. You remember, for nine months they wouldn't even
respond to anybody's question about what happened in that disaster.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
Selection you just have to have oversight.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And because the state build nineteen thirty three named in
honor of a great guy, Alberta, who was a guy
that would come up and testify for these bills and
actually did investigative work on this, we've we've basically got
the hammer, so we're going to drop the hammer in
and get the job done. If they don't do the job,
then the state will literally step in into it.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Well, to go back to my original point, though, who
got fined or did jail time or was punished in
any way for the paper shortages and other problems we
had in that Harris Gunny election.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, Jimmy, this is why I wrote this new
law that we're using for the first time. You can
spend your life in court trying to get stuff done.
Speaker 9 (23:20):
By going to a judge and.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Basically say, look, here's the law, presenting the evidence, and
out of the twenty one Republican lawsuits that were filed
only one one and that's why Tandy Pierce is now
a judge.
Speaker 9 (23:37):
But it took two and a half years to get there.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
This law basically says within thirty days they have to respond.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
They have already done it.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
The Secretary of State has stepped up and said, you know,
here's the investigation. You're going to have to do the job,
and we'll know by Christmas whether we've got a lumpacole.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
Or we've got you know, got a present under.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
The tree, which means we've got to voter roll with integrity.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
It feels like there's enough evidence right now. Though, if
we really wanted to push the point based on not
only past behavior but this, you know, not following state
law for four years for the state to take over
Harris County elections at least on a semi permanent basis,
why don't we just why don't we just take it over?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Well, you know, this is the actual test case here,
because if they do what they're supposed to do, then
the answer is we don't have to. But if they
don't do what's been the law for four years, which
is get these thousands of people out of these po boxes,
and they can they can have any registration address they want,
(24:43):
but we'll find half of them live outside the county, Jimmy,
that's why.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
That's why we did this.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And then the other half are probably not living in
the right state, rep.
Speaker 9 (24:52):
District or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But they can either do the job or Secretary of
State can take over. And so this is literally the test,
but we're not in court. It's administrative. There's a thirty
day response period and were literally you know, well, we'll
be back on before Christmas trying to find out whether
or not this is a yes or no, because if
(25:15):
they don't do it, the law is crystal clear the
Secretary of State can walk in and force them to
do it or take over. And I'm okay, and I'm
I'm happy about it because we're finally getting out of
this just endless lawsuits, no finality to this. We've got
to have a voter roll with integrity, otherwise the folks
will never believe the results.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I will make one prediction though, and that is that
when these people come out of the p old boxes
and they have actual addresses, we're going to need to
check those addresses and make sure they're not vacant lots.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, we'll find out whether they're here are vacant lots
and oder.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Mondo wouldn't put anything past I wouldn't. I wouldn't put
anything past election officials in Aris County. That is just
the logical thing to do. If they if they keep
those names or even bring other names in, they're counting
on the fact that there's nobody at the state level
who would do things like check addresses to see if
(26:14):
the address really exists. I mean, how do we explain
that we had people on the voter registration rules for
four years with a pill box after the state had
ruled that that was illegal, and not just paying any
price for it. No, he's been arrested for it. No,
(26:35):
he's facing any charges for it. They're not the least
been afraid of any retribution from the state. They always
find a way to wiggle out of these things. And
until that stops, this will always continue because they just
seem to be one step ahead, and they there's nobody
on the left right now who's the least bit worried
about ignoring the law. I mean, we have judges at
(26:58):
the federal level who ignore law coming from the Supreme
Court of the United States, you know, I know as
far as I know, none of them have lost their jobs,
none of them are looking for work. They seem to
be doing just fine. All right, Oh, maybe I'll save
this for the next segments. We have enough time to
talk about. I don't know if you saw. There was
a piece that ran a few days ago. I didn't
(27:23):
really notice it until this morning. And it's a piece
about as long as we're talking about Harris County. It's
a piece about how much art is owned by Harris County,
where the art is, and how much money has been
spent on the art because we have a law in Houston,
the City of Houston, that is very similar to laws,
(27:45):
by the way, in other big cities across America, if
some of that are not even that big. Richmond, Virginia
was one of those places where evidently they felt it
was important to be a patron of the art. And
in order to be a patron of the arts, you
have to support artists right by buying their work. So
(28:06):
they made a rule that said a law that a
certain percentage of any construction project that is financed by
the city has to include a certain percentage for art.
And when you're talking about something that you're building for
hundreds of millions of dollars. Even one or two percent,
that's a significant amount of money. All Right, this next
(28:46):
conversation that we're kind of wrapped the show up with today,
it's kind of like having a conversation about libraries. Right.
Libraries to me, in the world we currently live in
are a waste of money. I'm sorry. I realized that
there are some library patrons out there. Maybe you got
a degree in library management. I don't know. I actually
(29:09):
had a niece who did that. I don't think she
was ever a librarian either. I don't know what the
world she did with a degree. Anyway, I digress. Libraries
are to me not a necessity. Maybe you could have
made a case forty or fifty years ago when people
didn't necessarily have access to books, certainly online, didn't have
(29:32):
access to a lot of books and information where when
you did a term paper and you were in school,
you had to actually go to a library and research
it so you could write your paper. You can do
all that stuff online now. The world of the internet
has completely changed the need for a library. A library,
(29:53):
generally speaking, I think they're probably in a big city
like Houston. There are probably more people who go there
because they're homeless and they need someplace to warm up
when it's cold or cool down when it's hot, that
are actually there to check out a book or to
do any sort of research that require you to go
to library. I'd love to be proven wrong about that,
(30:15):
but I'd be very surprised. Well, I'll put art in
the same thing. Art is a nice thing. I like art,
I really do. I appreciate a good painting. I could
appreciate the artistic talent that goes along with making good painting. Now,
I'm not a big fan of abstract art. You know,
if I have to look at it and go what
(30:35):
the hell is that? That's not my idea of art.
But that's okay. There are plenty of people out there
who love abstract art. I'm just not one of them.
I just have no real sense of appreciation for it.
Whether you like art or you don't like art, whether
you're a patron of the arts or you're not a
patron of the arts, can we all agree that the
arts is something that we really shouldn't be funding taxpayer dollars.
(31:02):
I don't believe that we should, and I'm sorry if
there's not enough interest in art. If there's not enough
rich people out there or snobs out there, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't call you a stop just because you're like art.
But if you want to donate a million dollars to
starving artists, that pay more power to you, and good
for that artist for affecting it a way that you
(31:23):
want to give up your money. There's plenty of people
out there who are willing to patronize the arts. I
don't believe that as a taxpayer, we should be subsidizing
on the mandatory way art. And here comes a great example.
The City of Houston, who had to cut hundreds of
millions of dollars from the budget in order to balance
the budget, is sitting on thirty million dollars worth of
(31:45):
art that they own. And the reason why they own
the art is because it had to be purchased because
they were making a construction project right now. For example,
technically Bush inter Continental Airport is owned by the city,
and therefore all the hundreds of millions of dollars are
being spent on renovating the airport, one point seventy five
(32:10):
percent of it has to be spent on art, not
on roads, not on parking structures, not on the facilities,
but on art, art that most people will never ever see.
Here's the report from our television partner KPRC too.
Speaker 12 (32:26):
What two investigates exposed were eighteen pieces of art that
require this elevator inside of a duty free shop to
get to the art hanging in a hallway to the
Centurion Lounge by American Express. And it was being ignored
by virtually everyone we saw.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But just look right behind you. Everybody's on their phone.
Speaker 12 (32:47):
No one has gotten up to go look at the
art behind us this entire time.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Again, that's again some people are enjoying the art and
they just glance.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Up at it.
Speaker 12 (32:55):
This is what Mayor John Whitmyer had to say.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
I agree, it's not the viewed by the public.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Are they looking at this art?
Speaker 9 (33:03):
Hell no, it would be interesting to see to hear
to justification.
Speaker 12 (33:07):
If you recall, the Houston Airport System is required to
use one point seventy five percent of an airport project's
budget to purchase art, according to a city ordinance passed
in nineteen ninety nine. Per the Airport System, the entire
collection is valued at more than thirty million dollars, with
two point sixty five million having been spent on this
(33:30):
Dale Chihuli piece. That piece, as to Investigates discovered, was
never publicly disclosed to the public when voted on by
city Council under former Mayor Sylvester Turner, any.
Speaker 8 (33:41):
Discussion on the remaining items discussion, discussion and favor.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
Of post ran.
Speaker 12 (33:45):
A spokesperson for the Airport system told to Investigates in
November of twenty twenty four that Houston City Council approved
funding for a two point sixty five million dollar commissioned
architectural element by famed glass blower Dale chi Hula to
Hooley is the same artist who rose to fame twenty
seven years ago when it was revealed he did the
(34:06):
lobby ceiling at the Bolagio Casino in Las Vegas.
Speaker 9 (34:10):
But earlier this year.
Speaker 12 (34:11):
To Investigates discovered, the public was kept completely in the
dark as former Airport director Mario Diaz no relation and
former Chief Economic Officer for the city Andy Iken had
it listed as decor installation and lighting.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Decor installation and lighting. Well, I guess art could be decor. Certainly,
if you have framed artwork in your home, it's part
of the decor, right so they're not exactly lying, I guess,
But what they don't say is that they could have
put in, you know, a lot more efficient and probably
(34:51):
cheaper lighting rather than putting in this big glass blown thing.
And again, if they I got the money to spend
on that, and that's how they want to spend it,
then okay to a certain extent. But there's a whole
bunch of artwork, just plain old artwork that they bought
just well, because you know, we have to buy art.
Speaker 10 (35:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
It was the same thing in the city of Richmond, Virginia,
where I lived before I came here to Houston. That's
a much smaller city, but the same problem. You know,
they built a new police headquarters, and because they did
with city of taxpayer money, they had to spend two
percent or whatever it was in artwork. So they got
these big honking abstract you know, police type artwork to
(35:36):
hang on the side of the building, which has nothing
to do with protecting people. But you had to be
done because there's an ordinance. They said you had to
do it. We got to stop this kind of craziness.
You know, if you've got the extra fund, if somebody
wants art at the airport. Let somebody buy art for
the airport and donate it. All right, you all have
a great day. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Hope
(35:58):
you're cyber money. Hope you're not too poor by the
cyber Monday today. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning. Right
now that five or on news Radio seven forty k
t r H. We're back here at four on EM
nine fifty k p r C
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common breaking down the world's nonsense about how American common sense.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We'll see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Well we're here. It's Cyber Monday. Is there any gas
left in the tank after Black Friday? Anybody buying anything today?
I'm just kind of curious about that because I heard
the heard that Kevin Hassett from the Trump administration, you know,
bragging about the Black Friday numbers and how good they looked,
(00:54):
and how he thinks it bodes well for the economy.
But I remember for the last few years that we
heard the same thing from the previous administration about, you know,
well we got great shopping numbers on Black Friday or
Cyber Monday, and then everything just kind of fell apart
after that. And the reason why I asked the question
(01:14):
is have you heard anything about FedEx or UPS hiring
temporary drivers for deliveries. I don't know if Amazon is
taking on extra staff for the holidays, but the UPS
is laying people off. You know, FedEx is laying people off.
They're not doing their usual seasonal hiring. So I would
(01:35):
think if they thought they were going to have a
lot of packages to deliver, they would have hired some
extra people's That's what makes sense to me. So anyway,
I'm not sure what's going on with that. I guess
we'll just have to kind of wait and see how
things actually turn out this year versus the way that
things have turned out in the past. You never really look,
but here they were talking about it on The Big
(01:56):
Money Show Holiday hiring. You know, companies do layoffs, right now.
Here's a little bit of that conversation.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
It does seem like by this time we usually have
heard that, you know, UPS is hiring ten thousand extra,
and we haven't heard so much of it this year.
And I have to say, Taylor, the jobs are one
area of the economy that I am concerned about. And
it's frustrating because in a truly free market there's an
unlimited amount of jobs. We don't have that. We've got
a lot of regulation, we've got minimum wages that have
(02:24):
gone up. I mean, that's hurt. Just look at California
scores of businesses, restaurants, especially jobs taken away because of
all those regulations. So what I'm looking at is what
the economy seems to be needing.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
We've talked about it in the show before.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Are some of those trade positions, positions that you necessarily
don't have to go to college to to get, maybe
just to go.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
To a trade school. So AI is going to prompt
that I think.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Are rejiggering, if you will, of employment economy wide.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
And that's sort of the debate, you know, Jackie and
Brian that we were having earlier. Where does AI free
us up to engage in other activities, you know, or
is this sort of going to be the death of jobs?
You guys heard my take that I think that humans
are innovative and we will find a job and where
if there's a will, there's a way, and AI will
(03:11):
allow us to find something new. But there is a
lot of hesitation, and we've heard this from Marcus Lamonis
as well, that AI is coming and it could be
really painful.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
I want to believe the half glassful. I think you're
probably right. Over time, I think the question becomes again,
does it come soon enough to offset the people who
are going to be displaced as a result of AI.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
You know, AI is far from perfect. In fact, before
the show's over, I should have a little clip for
you to share of some problems that they're having with
AI and toys. They haven't been putting guardrails on the
artificial intelligence they've been putting into toys. So if you
have a you have a teddy Bear, for example, the
(03:57):
talks and they're telling you that, well, this teddy Bear
can interact with your child and answer questions and do
whatever because it's set up with artificial intelligence. The problem
is there's no guardrails on it. Anyway, We'll get into
that in just a little bit. But to get back
to the whole Christmas shopping thing, now that Thanksgiving is over,
Black Friday is over, today's Cyber Monday. Today will be over.
(04:20):
Then we'll have some you know, sales figures from today.
Does this have legs? Does this keep going? Or are
we going to see the same thing we've seen for
the last number of Christmases, which is we're all shooting
our wad, you know, on those two days, either Black
Friday or Cyber Monday, and there's no money left to
(04:40):
shop shop After that, Fox did a poll that indicates
that affordability is having impact, that people are not feeling
like Christmas is as affordable as what has been in
the past, and it's going to impact their shopping habits.
Here's the folks at Fox talking about that there's a
tail of two consumers out there right now.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
The top ten percent of American consumers are planning to
spend more than they were last year. They're driving about
fifty percent of our US economy. So the top ten
percent continue, can you to do well? It's the bottom
that aren't doing as well. And I think that's probably
a reflective of the fact that in an uneven economy
where you feel like the job market is softening, they're
just not sure if they can spend as much as
(05:20):
they like. Now we have a very high discretionary income
in our pockets because we're not buying homes and we're
not buying cars. But in spite of all that, they're
just not confident to fight now to go spend the
way they want to do, and so as a result,
they're holding back for sales.
Speaker 9 (05:35):
We expect more sales and more.
Speaker 8 (05:37):
Promotional shopping to be done in the part of the
last two weeks of the holiday season than we've seen
in past seasons.
Speaker 7 (05:42):
Really in the last two weeks of the season, because
the week before Black Friday, I was seeing promotion saying
get your Black Friday price. Now, I mean I hadn't
started earlier than I'd ever seen it.
Speaker 8 (05:53):
Yeah, well, it's just started in October, and I'll keep
getting these emails from so many retailers that I attract,
and I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We'll see those things.
Speaker 8 (05:58):
Although up till December twenty fourth, we've got a very
short holiday season to keep in mind. So with only
about twenty five days of the holidays, isn't relative to
in the past when you had like thirty thirty five days.
You're going to see a lot of sales starting early.
And I wouldn't have surprised me sales, sales going all
the way until December twenty fourth.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Okay, well, I guess what it is the things that
we have stopped. We've stopped buying houses. I mean, this
is a generalized statement. Obviously there are still people out
there buying houses, but we've kind of stopped buying houses.
We've kind of stopped buying cars because they've gotten so expensive,
so On one hand, you've got the discretionary income of
(06:35):
people who are not spending money on those two items
right now. Are they going to put it into Christmas?
Or do they look at the prices on certain items
that maybe they've shopped for and gotten in the past,
and and they're looking at that going I don't know, man,
what am I going to do? I'll give it. I'll
give you an example, and I'll just use myself as
(06:56):
an example. I get some of the crew here little
something for Christmas is a thank you for helping me
out with the show all year long, and traditionally some
sort of a gift card and it's for a specific amount. Now,
I've been giving the same amount for that gift card
for the last seven eight years that I've been here,
(07:21):
and I'm just thinking of myself, now do I do
the same thing again. On one hand, I'm sure they're
grateful to get whatever it is I'm giving up, because
after all, it's for free. But by the same token,
the same amount on that gift card, it's not worth
what it was seven years ago. It's worth maybe half
(07:41):
of what it was seven or eight years ago. So
do I need to double the amount of gift card.
The staff right now was going, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jimmy,
double it? Or do I just need to you know,
just need to say, Okay, I need to keep this affordable.
I'm not going to spend more than I've spent, but
at least I'll keep getting a gift card. I think
a lot of people are going through that dilemma right
now about what to do. You know, do I do
(08:02):
I spend more knowing that by spending more, I'm really
giving the same or what do I do? Do I
spend the same I had before? Because that's all I
can afford? What do I do? So as we all
try to figure that one out, let's take a little
break back, but more in a moment. Jimmy Baird Show,
you're an AM nine fifty KPRC. What I had no
(08:35):
problem taking a break from politics. I'm guessing you probably
didn't have a problem taking a break from politics too.
And I'm be honest, I'd like to take a little
bit of a break. I mean, there's certain things we
need and we'll cover, but I'd like to take a
little break here between now and Christmas, because, after all,
you know, it gets tough to just kind of work
(08:56):
on that stuff all the time. We all need a
little bit of a break now. I did note there's
a couple of things that I did note from around
right around Thanksgiving up until today when we all kind
of tuned out. I mean, we didn't do a Houston
Morning News on Thursday, we didn't do a Houston Morning
News on Friday. We had special programming here in our
afternoon show, So we didn't really do anything with some
(09:19):
of the stories that you might not have even heard about,
and they're worth following up on, even if it's just
a comment from the president. Now, the President was talking
to forget what he was talking to was. I know
it was on Thanksgiving and he was talking about tariffs. Now,
I'm not sure if this message was for you and
for me, or if this message was more for the
Supreme Court, which is going to be ruling on whether
(09:42):
or not the President can do what he's doing on tariffs.
I sneakingly suspect it had something to do with the
Supreme Court. But basically, the President was making the point
that we've been making so much money from tariffs that
maybe we could reduce, i mean, really reduce the federal
(10:03):
income tax or maybe even better. Yet, maybe we could
afford to eliminate the federal income tax if we keep
bringing in this kind of revenue on tariff. Here is
the President talking about those possibilities.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Think of it. Hundreds of billions. Next year it'll be
a trillion dollars or more. But we're taking in all
this money at the same time protecting our country and
we're respected again, they actually respect us, and they made
the deals.
Speaker 9 (10:28):
They respect us, but they pay us.
Speaker 10 (10:30):
As an example, Japan six hundred and fifty billion dollars,
South Korea three hundred and fifty billion dollars, European Union
nine hundred and fifty billion.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
Dollars, and.
Speaker 10 (10:41):
They are building plants now with the United States because
they don't want to pay tariffs. So this is one
of the biggest things economically that's never happened. Nobody's ever
seen anything like it. And over the next couple of years,
I think it will substantially be cutting and maybe cutting
out completely, but we'll be cutting income tax, could be
almost completely cutting it because the money we're taking and
(11:04):
is going to be so large. And yet other countries
who have been ripping us off for many, many years
and many years, they've just been ripping us as shreds.
China we're taking six hundred and seven hundred billion dollars
a year rebuild their military. And now we have a
fair deal with China. We've just met with Presidency. We
(11:24):
have a great relationship, we have a fair deal. We
taken a lot of money in the form of tariffs,
but so many even our friends, I mean European Union,
there are friends, Japan, there are friends South Career is
our friends. They're now paying US hundreds of billions of dollars,
and they're also paying tariffs to come in. We're not
paying tariffs to go in there. By the way, they're
(11:45):
paying tariffs, but we're not. So that's a total reversal.
Speaker 11 (11:48):
All right.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well, again, he's making the case.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I don't think, well, maybe for our benefit, but I
think again more for the Supreme Court's benevate here. Guessing
that's kind of a frustrating thing for him to have
to deal with, the idea that, you know, every time
he tries to make a play on things that he
thinks are going to improve what's going on here in
(12:13):
the United States, he's got to deal with with a
Democrat who wants to take it to Court or an
activist judge who wants to knock it out, or now
with the Supreme Court who's going to take a look
at whether or not what he's doing is allowable by law,
whether or not it's constitutional. We'll see what happens with that.
But just being a government in general, I think is frustrating.
(12:36):
So when I heard that Troy Nails, who we talked
to all the time on a morning show on Katirah,
was not going to run for a re election, they
didn't really surprise me. I think he's been there. We've
been there what five years, so it'd be like his
third term. He's on his third term. I think I
think that's enough probably for your average guy. He's got,
(12:57):
he's got a youngster in school. I'm sure he's away
from home a lot more than he'd like to be,
and when he's in Washington, DC's probably frustrating as hell.
But anyway, we had Troy Nails on our show today,
I'm kat r H. I thought i'd share that conversation
with him about why he's decided that he's not going
to be running for reelection. Is this the job that
(13:18):
nature brain?
Speaker 11 (13:18):
Sir Eric, andyes, you can get frustrated after Jimmy, there's
no question you and I have discussed this over the
past five plus years. Of the frustration that's up here
in you've seen that recently in the last just couple
of weeks with it. Everybody wants to know, censor somebody
that's a man. We argue, we picker, we complain, but
(13:39):
we just don't seem to always put the America people first.
And you know, it is what it is. It's Washington,
d C.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah. I also got the impression from some of the
comments I saw that maybe you thought it was time
to spend a little more time with family. The other
part about this job, I don't think that people realize.
They probably look at what a great gig you make,
a nice salary, it's a part to job. You get
weeks on end that you don't have to go into work.
But the reality is you're spending I don't know how
(14:06):
many bunths out of the year living in Washington, DC
while your family's back here.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
My philosophy in the office, and everybody knows in our
office if you've worked for us as family first and
job second. And I say that because you can be
a very effective I think congress person and still put
your family first. And I believe it or not, I
have a thirteen year old and when I'm at home
and when we were at the chefdown to be able
(14:32):
to just take her to school and do some of
those things. And my beautiful bride, Jill, just retired a
few months ago from public education, thirty years of public education.
So I like spending more time with her and the girls.
And it's just a decision I made, but I feel
good about it. I really do. I'm not doing an MTG.
(14:52):
I'm not leaving where you're gonna have to have a
special election. I mean, I'm going to continue to spend
the next thirteen months up in DC my obligation to
the voters in District twenty two and do the best
I can to continue on with the America First Agenda.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I noted that you talk to President Trump before you
made the announcement. What did President Trump say to you?
Speaker 11 (15:15):
Well, I'm not going to tell you that. And he
just said, hey, listen, Troy, thank you. He knows that
we have spent a great deal of time together during
the campaign. I mean, my twin brother and I Rep
in Wisconsin several months and we carre in Wisconsin. So
the boss knows that I am committed to his agenda
(15:35):
and I believe in him wholeheartedly, and I will do
everything I can to support his agenda. And I think
I've done a pretty good job at that. So though
he's not disappointed, I did tell him that my twin brother,
who he knows, he knows my toy brother very well.
I told him that he would be seeking the position.
And he seemed to really really like that idea as well.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Because I was going to say, you're a super big
ally for the So he couldn't been real happy to
hear the news. But then again, if you had you
have an exit plan that allows him to get another
big ally in there, he'll probably be fine with it.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
Right, yes, sir, and I believe so. And if you
look at my twin brother, and I mean we're identical twins, Jimmy,
we lived next to each other. I mean, he's held
public office in Fort Benk County before.
Speaker 9 (16:19):
And then you tell you what.
Speaker 11 (16:21):
Two years ago when he ran for county judge, he
lost by a few, just a few thousand votes in
November against the Democrat. And what have we found out?
They cheated. Jimmy the incumbent judge, a guy there right
now has been indicted. His chief of staff was indicted.
They cheated and they ranked that election. So my twin
brother somewhat of a household name in Fort Pink County,
and I believe he'll I think he'll do very very
(16:42):
well in this in this primary coming up in March.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I want to ask you about the two National guardsmen
that were shot, one of whom was killed. Turns out
that it is somebody we brought to this country from
Afghanistan after our horrendous withdrawal from Afghanistan. You can only
bet somebody so much. But the White House is now saying,
or at least Christy Nome is now saying, that would
appear that this individual was radicalized once he got to
(17:06):
the United States. Have we learned anything about how he
was radicalized? Was he radicalized from a foreign power online?
Or was it somebody in this country that I.
Speaker 11 (17:16):
Do not know? And I do believe that's either Cash
Mattel or Christy or somebody will get to the bottom
of this find out, you know, I mean, it looked
like jim if you see it, it's like it was
an ambush. He had intent. And I don't know how
you know, law enforcement person when you're when you get ambushed.
I mean, you have to have your head on a
swivel three sixty all the damn time. And these ambush
(17:40):
attacks they're hard to survive, they really, really, truly are.
So if there's a if there's somebody out there that
really wants to cause a lot of harm and to somebody,
I guess they could go out and do it. And
I just think it's it's a sad state of affairs
where we can't have law enforce inter national car just
walking around trying to keep the American people safe without
(18:00):
some nutshob going out there and killing them. And so
I think it's the time we got to pray for
our country. But it's also a time to say, hey, listen, America,
wake up. They are here. They've been invited here, they're here,
whether it's from Afghanistan, whether it came through the southern border,
and they're here, and many of them, many of them
want to cause destruction, destruction to America, and they want
(18:23):
to kill Americans. They're doing it with their drugs, they're
doing it with obviously violent, violent acts like we saw
with these two National Guard members. Shameful, Jimmy, A shameful day.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, it certainly is. Congressman Troy Nails from our morning
show today on news Radio seven forty KRH all right,
Also from our morning show. In our next segment, State
Senator Paul Bettencourt turns out, Shotgig, I know that Harris
County has been ignoring a state law for four years
about not being able to put down post office boxes
(18:56):
for addresses for people who are registering the vote, which
tells us they're probably not people who are eligible to
vote in Harris County. So we'll have more on that
coming up next. Jimmy vertshow here in nine fifty kPr C. Right, So,
(19:25):
this morning on our morning show and ktr H first
morning show back from the holiday week vacation and Thanksgiving
and all that, we had State Senator Paul Bettencourt on
our program. The Senator concerned as we all are, about
this report that evidently Harris County has been ignoring a
(19:47):
law passed four years ago that prevents people from registering
to vote by using a post office box as their address.
Here is my conversation with State Senator Paul Bettencourt. Hump up,
Hang on a second here, hit the button too hard
once again. Here's my conversation with State Senator Paul Bettencourt.
(20:11):
How many people are we talking about, Senator.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
It's certainly into the thousands. And the problem with this
is that this is a law that passed four years ago,
and in typical Harris County fashion, they just decided that
they don't have to enforce the Voter Role Integrity law
that we passed that made it clear that no one
lives in a po box. See you know, you get it.
(20:37):
You know, a two by three inch po box. You're
not living there. So we passed this law to keep
people from registering because then we've had all sorts of
bad things happen when they're at po boxes because.
Speaker 9 (20:50):
They're not either in the county or they're in the.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Wrong district, et cetera. But you know, it's just as
amazing that no matter what you do, we have to
keep fighting this battle with Harris County over and over
again because they just won't do what they're told to do.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Well, you know what that tells me they're not the
least bit afraid of the state or what the state's
going to do or going to jail or being punished
or any of those things.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Well, and Jimmy, that begs the Now let's go back
real fast. We had an enormous problem in Harris County.
We had election where we had paper was shorted on purpose.
Speaker 9 (21:27):
Equipment failures. It was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And after that election, we ripped away what was an
incompetent and COPT Elections Administration Office, and then that was
one of my bills. And the second bill was say, look,
we're going to do what Reagan did, which is trust
would verify. If you are now running elections in Harris
County and you don't do the law, then we'll be
able to peel the Secretary State and if you don't
(21:52):
do it, they'll force you to do it up to
the point of removing you from office.
Speaker 9 (21:56):
So I wrote a letter.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
About this problem because we're just not going to take this,
you know, standing literally sitting down. And the first response
was kind of like, oh, well, we agree, there's a
couple places this is happening, and then I said there's
over one hundred and now the Secretary of State is
basically told him the running investigation, clean it up, or
(22:20):
we'll see Jimmy, it just goes to the point of
whenever you're dealing with a group that tries everything they
can do. You remember, for nine months they wouldn't even
respond to anybody's question about what happened in that disaster.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
Selection you just have to have oversight.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And because the state build nineteen thirty three named in
honor of a great guy, Alberta, who was a guy
that would come up and testify for these bills and
actually did investigative work on this, we've we've basically got
the hammer, so we're going to drop the hammer in
and get the job done. If they don't do the job,
then the state will literally step in into it.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Well, to go back to my original point, though, who
got fined or did jail time or was punished in
any way for the paper shortages and other problems we
had in that Harris Gunny election.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
You know, Jimmy, this is why I wrote this new
law that we're using for the first time. You can
spend your life in court trying to get stuff done.
Speaker 9 (23:20):
By going to a judge and.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Basically say, look, here's the law, presenting the evidence, and
out of the twenty one Republican lawsuits that were filed
only one one and that's why Tandy Pierce is now
a judge.
Speaker 9 (23:37):
But it took two and a half years to get there.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
This law basically says within thirty days they have to respond.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
They have already done it.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
The Secretary of State has stepped up and said, you know,
here's the investigation. You're going to have to do the job,
and we'll know by Christmas whether we've got a lumpacole.
Speaker 9 (23:56):
Or we've got you know, got a present under.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
The tree, which means we've got to voter roll with integrity.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
It feels like there's enough evidence right now. Though, if
we really wanted to push the point based on not
only past behavior but this, you know, not following state
law for four years for the state to take over
Harris County elections at least on a semi permanent basis,
why don't we just why don't we just take it over?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Well, you know, this is the actual test case here,
because if they do what they're supposed to do, then
the answer is we don't have to. But if they
don't do what's been the law for four years, which
is get these thousands of people out of these po boxes,
and they can they can have any registration address they want,
(24:43):
but we'll find half of them live outside the county, Jimmy,
that's why.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
That's why we did this.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
And then the other half are probably not living in
the right state, rep.
Speaker 9 (24:52):
District or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But they can either do the job or Secretary of
State can take over. And so this is literally the test,
but we're not in court. It's administrative. There's a thirty
day response period and were literally you know, well, we'll
be back on before Christmas trying to find out whether
or not this is a yes or no, because if
(25:15):
they don't do it, the law is crystal clear the
Secretary of State can walk in and force them to
do it or take over. And I'm okay, and I'm
I'm happy about it because we're finally getting out of
this just endless lawsuits, no finality to this. We've got
to have a voter roll with integrity, otherwise the folks
will never believe the results.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I will make one prediction though, and that is that
when these people come out of the p old boxes
and they have actual addresses, we're going to need to
check those addresses and make sure they're not vacant lots.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, we'll find out whether they're here are vacant lots
and oder.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Mondo wouldn't put anything past I wouldn't. I wouldn't put
anything past election officials in Aris County. That is just
the logical thing to do. If they if they keep
those names or even bring other names in, they're counting
on the fact that there's nobody at the state level
who would do things like check addresses to see if
(26:14):
the address really exists. I mean, how do we explain
that we had people on the voter registration rules for
four years with a pill box after the state had
ruled that that was illegal, and not just paying any
price for it. No, he's been arrested for it. No,
(26:35):
he's facing any charges for it. They're not the least
been afraid of any retribution from the state. They always
find a way to wiggle out of these things. And
until that stops, this will always continue because they just
seem to be one step ahead, and they there's nobody
on the left right now who's the least bit worried
about ignoring the law. I mean, we have judges at
(26:58):
the federal level who ignore law coming from the Supreme
Court of the United States, you know, I know as
far as I know, none of them have lost their jobs,
none of them are looking for work. They seem to
be doing just fine. All right, Oh, maybe I'll save
this for the next segments. We have enough time to
talk about. I don't know if you saw. There was
a piece that ran a few days ago. I didn't
(27:23):
really notice it until this morning. And it's a piece
about as long as we're talking about Harris County. It's
a piece about how much art is owned by Harris County,
where the art is, and how much money has been
spent on the art because we have a law in Houston,
the City of Houston, that is very similar to laws,
(27:45):
by the way, in other big cities across America, if
some of that are not even that big. Richmond, Virginia
was one of those places where evidently they felt it
was important to be a patron of the art. And
in order to be a patron of the arts, you
have to support artists right by buying their work. So
(28:06):
they made a rule that said a law that a
certain percentage of any construction project that is financed by
the city has to include a certain percentage for art.
And when you're talking about something that you're building for
hundreds of millions of dollars. Even one or two percent,
that's a significant amount of money. All Right, this next
(28:46):
conversation that we're kind of wrapped the show up with today,
it's kind of like having a conversation about libraries. Right.
Libraries to me, in the world we currently live in
are a waste of money. I'm sorry. I realized that
there are some library patrons out there. Maybe you got
a degree in library management. I don't know. I actually
(29:09):
had a niece who did that. I don't think she
was ever a librarian either. I don't know what the
world she did with a degree. Anyway, I digress. Libraries
are to me not a necessity. Maybe you could have
made a case forty or fifty years ago when people
didn't necessarily have access to books, certainly online, didn't have
(29:32):
access to a lot of books and information where when
you did a term paper and you were in school,
you had to actually go to a library and research
it so you could write your paper. You can do
all that stuff online now. The world of the internet
has completely changed the need for a library. A library,
(29:53):
generally speaking, I think they're probably in a big city
like Houston. There are probably more people who go there
because they're homeless and they need someplace to warm up
when it's cold or cool down when it's hot, that
are actually there to check out a book or to
do any sort of research that require you to go
to library. I'd love to be proven wrong about that,
(30:15):
but I'd be very surprised. Well, I'll put art in
the same thing. Art is a nice thing. I like art,
I really do. I appreciate a good painting. I could
appreciate the artistic talent that goes along with making good painting. Now,
I'm not a big fan of abstract art. You know,
if I have to look at it and go what
(30:35):
the hell is that? That's not my idea of art.
But that's okay. There are plenty of people out there
who love abstract art. I'm just not one of them.
I just have no real sense of appreciation for it.
Whether you like art or you don't like art, whether
you're a patron of the arts or you're not a
patron of the arts, can we all agree that the
arts is something that we really shouldn't be funding taxpayer dollars.
(31:02):
I don't believe that we should, and I'm sorry if
there's not enough interest in art. If there's not enough
rich people out there or snobs out there, I'm sorry.
I shouldn't call you a stop just because you're like art.
But if you want to donate a million dollars to
starving artists, that pay more power to you, and good
for that artist for affecting it a way that you
(31:23):
want to give up your money. There's plenty of people
out there who are willing to patronize the arts. I
don't believe that as a taxpayer, we should be subsidizing
on the mandatory way art. And here comes a great example.
The City of Houston, who had to cut hundreds of
millions of dollars from the budget in order to balance
the budget, is sitting on thirty million dollars worth of
(31:45):
art that they own. And the reason why they own
the art is because it had to be purchased because
they were making a construction project right now. For example,
technically Bush inter Continental Airport is owned by the city,
and therefore all the hundreds of millions of dollars are
being spent on renovating the airport, one point seventy five
(32:10):
percent of it has to be spent on art, not
on roads, not on parking structures, not on the facilities,
but on art, art that most people will never ever see.
Here's the report from our television partner KPRC too.
Speaker 12 (32:26):
What two investigates exposed were eighteen pieces of art that
require this elevator inside of a duty free shop to
get to the art hanging in a hallway to the
Centurion Lounge by American Express. And it was being ignored
by virtually everyone we saw.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But just look right behind you. Everybody's on their phone.
Speaker 12 (32:47):
No one has gotten up to go look at the
art behind us this entire time.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Again, that's again some people are enjoying the art and
they just glance.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Up at it.
Speaker 12 (32:55):
This is what Mayor John Whitmyer had to say.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
I agree, it's not the viewed by the public.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Are they looking at this art?
Speaker 9 (33:03):
Hell no, it would be interesting to see to hear
to justification.
Speaker 12 (33:07):
If you recall, the Houston Airport System is required to
use one point seventy five percent of an airport project's
budget to purchase art, according to a city ordinance passed
in nineteen ninety nine. Per the Airport System, the entire
collection is valued at more than thirty million dollars, with
two point sixty five million having been spent on this
(33:30):
Dale Chihuli piece. That piece, as to Investigates discovered, was
never publicly disclosed to the public when voted on by
city Council under former Mayor Sylvester Turner, any.
Speaker 8 (33:41):
Discussion on the remaining items discussion, discussion and favor.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
Of post ran.
Speaker 12 (33:45):
A spokesperson for the Airport system told to Investigates in
November of twenty twenty four that Houston City Council approved
funding for a two point sixty five million dollar commissioned
architectural element by famed glass blower Dale chi Hula to
Hooley is the same artist who rose to fame twenty
seven years ago when it was revealed he did the
(34:06):
lobby ceiling at the Bolagio Casino in Las Vegas.
Speaker 9 (34:10):
But earlier this year.
Speaker 12 (34:11):
To Investigates discovered, the public was kept completely in the
dark as former Airport director Mario Diaz no relation and
former Chief Economic Officer for the city Andy Iken had
it listed as decor installation and lighting.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Decor installation and lighting. Well, I guess art could be decor. Certainly,
if you have framed artwork in your home, it's part
of the decor, right so they're not exactly lying, I guess,
But what they don't say is that they could have
put in, you know, a lot more efficient and probably
(34:51):
cheaper lighting rather than putting in this big glass blown thing.
And again, if they I got the money to spend
on that, and that's how they want to spend it,
then okay to a certain extent. But there's a whole
bunch of artwork, just plain old artwork that they bought
just well, because you know, we have to buy art.
Speaker 10 (35:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
It was the same thing in the city of Richmond, Virginia,
where I lived before I came here to Houston. That's
a much smaller city, but the same problem. You know,
they built a new police headquarters, and because they did
with city of taxpayer money, they had to spend two
percent or whatever it was in artwork. So they got
these big honking abstract you know, police type artwork to
(35:36):
hang on the side of the building, which has nothing
to do with protecting people. But you had to be
done because there's an ordinance. They said you had to
do it. We got to stop this kind of craziness.
You know, if you've got the extra fund, if somebody
wants art at the airport. Let somebody buy art for
the airport and donate it. All right, you all have
a great day. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Hope
(35:58):
you're cyber money. Hope you're not too poor by the
cyber Monday today. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning. Right
now that five or on news Radio seven forty k
t r H. We're back here at four on EM
nine fifty k p r C
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