School Choice

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Journalist Brandon Waltens on school choice

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense breaking down
the world's nonsense about how American common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Will see us through With the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston dot com.
This is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by
viewind dot Com.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I start today's show with a restaurant story that I'm
getting the biggest kick out of it. I'm trying to
figure it out, and I don't know what's going on
with this story. There's something there's something about it that
doesn't make sense, but there's also something about it that
just kind of piques your interest. It's the story of
a restaurant who evidently doesn't like complaints. That's all that

(00:55):
can here. They don't like complaints, at least they don't
like complaints from people that they find out obnoxious. And
I have to assume that's what's going on here. Somebody
found this guy obnoxious. Here's what happens this is this
is a little restaurant, like a pizza joint in Indiana somewhere,
and you could tell it's in the middle of the
heartland because the prices are so much cheaper than what

(01:17):
we're paying here in Houston for the same thing. So anyway,
I'll get to that in a second. But this guy
evidently goes into the restaurant and he gets a eight
inch pizza, which sounds like I think that's like ten
inches as small, right, so eight inch would be like
a personal pizza. He gets a personal cheese pizza. He
gets three miller lights. His bill comes to twenty two

(01:39):
dollars and fifty six cents, which is nice, seems nice
and cheap. But as he's reading the bill, he notices
there's a five dollar charge there and it says bitching fee.
What bitching fee? Five dollars? Even with that fee, it
came to like twenty two dollars, So he's going, what
is this? And you complained about us mistakenly giving you

(02:04):
the wrong beer evidently he ordered the first time he
ordered the beer, they brought him the wrong beer, and
he complained, so they charged him a bitching fee. Now
there's the part, there's the part of me that makes
me laugh because listen, you know, first of all, if
they bring you the wrong thing, I mean, don't you
have a right to complain? Or I mean, you could

(02:24):
be nice about it and just say no, that that's
not what I ordered. I ordered whatever, and then they
fix it for you right now. Maybe he was just
you know, maybe he was just, well, can't you get
your order right? This is not that hard. I ordered
a Miller Lite. This is not that hard. If you
do it with that kind of a tone, I guess
it's your right to do so. But evidently the restaurant

(02:46):
feels it's their right to charge you a five dollar
bitching fee for the way you are conducting yourself. Now,
anybody who's ever worked in the restaurant business is probably saying, yeah,
we should be able to charge these people of fiver
acting like asses. And then there's the other people that going, well,
wait a minute, they got the order wrong. If you
get the order wrong, you know I have a right

(03:08):
to complain. Isn't the customer always right? So it's kind
of funny and it kind of brings about an interesting
conversation here of what you are and are not allowed
to do as a customer. I personally believe in treating
weight staff with respect. I can appreciate honest mistakes. That
seems like a pretty simple mistake, I doubt very much

(03:30):
if they intentionally brought the guy the wrong beer, you know,
but without talking to whoever the weight person was, who
who put that on the on the tab and talking
to the guy who's miffed. Well, by the way, he
even showed a picture of it, and sure enough it
says right there on the received bitching fee five dollars.

(03:50):
And it's not handwritten either. He was keyed in on
the machine, so the machine must must have that feature.
This must be something the entire restaurant on support. That's
that's pretty amazing, all right. One local story here that
I want to get to because it's kind of a
follow up to what's been going on in Fort ben
County where you've got a couple of people, including by

(04:14):
the way, Judge K. P. George, who misrepresented themselves on
social media and during the last election and made it
look as if somehow there were racists in Fort Benn
that were threatening them in some way, shape and form,
and they managed to I think, garter some sympathy voters.
As a result of that. One guy ended up withdrawing

(04:39):
from the race because he was going to be the
first one going to court.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
KP.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
George has been charged now and he is. He's got
an attorney, Jared Woodfield, who we've talked to our on
our program many times, is representing KP. George when his
turn comes around. But yesterday was the sentencing for Patel,
who pleaded guilty very very quietly. He pleaded guilty and

(05:06):
he got his punishment yesterday. Here is the report from
Mario Diaz on our television partner KPRC two. I'm or
Old Patel and I want to show you my for ben.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
While running for county commissioner last year. Pateau was indicted
in June on multiple felonies and misdemeanors tied to a
criminal social media hoax. The former chief of staff to
county Judge K. P. George was creating fake social media
accounts with images of real people and attacking himself and
his opponent to garner sympathy votes. In September, George got

(05:41):
indicted for the same thing.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
I don't have any comment at this guy. Fast forward
to this morning.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Patel whispered to guilty police after cutting a deal with
the state and admitting in black and white he committed
the offense of misrepresentation of identity with his old boss KP.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
George he has promised to cooperate any future proceeding that
may arise out of this conduct.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Also a part of his plea deal no jail time
instead two years probation. The felonies will disappear if he
stays out of trouble, but also must complete four hundred
hours of community service, make a two thousand dollars donation
of Fort Men Partnership for Youth, and write this apology
letter to the people of Fort Men County as well

(06:28):
as a personal letter to those he victimized. So what
does Patel have to say about all this true? We're
on live television. What do you have to say to
the people of Fort Ben County in Houston?

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
I believe there's a written statement and you're welcome to
refer to it, and you guys have a great day.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
And then of course Mario is running running after him.
You know, Mario DS is not as young as he
used to be, nor do I think he's probably as
thin as he used to be. That gets to be
harder and harder as reporter as you get older. If
you're an investigator, REPORTO type it and you are basically
running after running after the person you're trying to interview,
try to get them to comment on something. It's it's

(07:07):
easier said than done. But anyway, that's that's kind of
where that story is at right now. So one has
been sentenced and there will be a trial coming, I
guess for the second one.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
KP. George, all right, we'll take a little break.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
We're back with more in the moments Jimmy Barrett Show
here on the A nine fifty KPRC. All right, we

(07:42):
are coming up, by the way, and say we number
three of the show, the Texas Scorecard. I don't know
if you follow the Texas Scorecard at all or not,
but they've been doing some pretty pretty dog one good
work here on a couple of different stories. One about
school choice. Today is the day that school choice is
being debated in the Texas House. I don't know if

(08:04):
there's gonna be a vote today on it or not.
Maybe when we wake up tomorrow the school choice will
have passed here in the state of Texas. We'll talk
to Brandon Walters from Texas Scorecard about that. I don't
know if he's worked on the Harris County story at all,
though they've been reporting on the Climate Justice that Harris
County wants to institute and in changing property taxes to

(08:26):
be paid based on your income versus on the value
of your home. Rent control, a whole variety of ways
they hope to circumvent State of Texas law by going
through which is what Democrats love to do these days,
you know, take your taxpayer dollars and funnel it to
their buddies and their cronies through you know ngs, you

(08:46):
know NGOs actually non government organizations. So we'll get into
all that with Brandon Bolton's coming up in our third
segment today. But first, speaking of people behaving badly, the
Internal Revenue Service, and of course we just had tax day, right,
we just had April to fifteen, So it's not like

(09:07):
the Internal Revenue Service not a favorite to begin with,
certainly not a favorite after tax Day, after you've paid
your taxes. Turns out that even if you've been paying
your taxes, many of them have not. You would think
that if anybody would be diligent about paying their taxes,
it would be people who are employed by the Internal

(09:27):
Revenue Service or by the federal government, right they would
you think understand that, you know, taxes are what fund
their jobs. Therefore, they should be sitting an example when
it comes to paying taxes more than just about anybody else.
But as it turns out that's not the case. That

(09:48):
there are multi millions of dollars in unpaid taxes just
by employees of the Internal Revenue Service. Here is Hillary
Vaughan on Fox talking about it.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
Over one hundred thousand federal workers are not paying their
taxes on time. In twenty twenty one, the IRS found
that almost one hundred and fifty thousand federal workers owe
about one point five billion in unpaid taxes. Over five
thousand of them work at the IRS and owe fifty
million in overdue taxes. Senator Jony Ernst introducing several bills

(10:21):
aimed at cleaning up the IRS. One bill would require
IRS employees to be audited every year and fired if
they don't pay their taxes. Another bill would sell off
the IRS's weapons stockpile. It has spent about ten million
taxpayer dollars buying guns and ammo, stockpiling forty five hundred guns,
five million rounds of AMMO, even fifteen machine guns. Ernest

(10:44):
says it's time to sell that stockpile off to pay
down the debt helping DOJ's mission so far doses save
taxpayers one hundred and fifty five billion dollars in counting.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, I would expect, honestly, I mean, one hundred and
fifty five billions a lot of money be.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Didn't you kind of expect more by now? Yeah? I
did too. I expected.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I don't know what I expected, but I feel like
I expected more, but more than even more than the
money that is being recovered. It's it's more than just that.
It's it's it's finding out just how shady some of
our governmental departments and its employees are, which again is

(11:28):
not to say that we don't have great people working
for the federal government. We do have some fine people
doing it, but we have we have a lot of
fraud and abuse, and that is becoming, you know, very
very apparent. By the way, here's sixty three million dollars
they got saved yesterday from the Transportation Department.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Sewn Duffy.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
The Transportation of Secretary has canceled the federal grant for
the bullet train that was being proposed to go between
Dallas and Houston, or between Houston and Dallas, depending on
your point of VI. You and sixty three billion this
what was that money for? That money was just for
prep work that wasn't for any actual construction. Sixty three

(12:10):
million dollar federal grant that has been pulled. Seawn Duffy,
and I'm paraphrasing here, Sean Duffy basically said, yeah, we
think that's a waste of taxpayer dollars. And we think
that if if the people of Texas, if the good
people of Texas want a bullet train between Dallas and Houston,
they'll figure out how to you know, pay for it

(12:32):
through either state money or private donations, whatever the case
may be. And I agree with that. I don't think
it's the federal government's job to build us a bullet train.
If we think there's there's value in having a bullet
train between Houston and Dallas, then I guess we'll come
up with the money to do it. And if we
don't come up with the money to do it, that
tells me there's not enough interest in something like this.

(12:55):
By the way, that money was going to come through Amtrak.
Seawn Duffy went on to say, no, we see, here's
the we don't have very good Amtrak service, so we
shouldn't be spending Amtrak money. I'm building a bullet train,
you know, a high speed train in Texas when we
really should be spending that kind of money just to
upgrade our services in our system for Amtrak. And I

(13:17):
feel about just about everything that government funds in many
cases is something that could be funded by the private
sector if you really want it. I don't believe in
all the money we spend here in Houston on the
metro system that nobody rides, all these buses that nobody
rides or nobody wants, very few people ride, and we

(13:38):
spend you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, if not
billions of dollars on it each and every year. It's just,
you know, it's a waste. Most of it is just
a waste of taxpayer dollars. And speaking of a waste
of taxpayer dollars, PBS NPR, they both get a lot
of money from the federal government. Russ void Office of

(14:02):
Management and Budget is among those who thinks that we
waste a lot of money on those two things NPR
and BBS, and that needs to stop too.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
There are two parts.

Speaker 6 (14:11):
Number one is a billion dollar cut to unspent funds
at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting NPR PBS. We've known
for decades that they put out liberal information. What we
didn't necessarily know to the extent is the extent over
the last several years, the way that they are almost
pioneering the cultural indoctrination of our kids, putting drag queens

(14:34):
in children's programs, doing documentaries on pushing for reparations, and
dividing a country on the country on the basis of race.
So you have that that we're sending up. That's a
recision that we're very excited about. And then you have
eight point three billion dollars into straight DOGE usaid cuts
to make permanent and what those are all the kinds

(14:55):
of outrageous, wasteful, quite frankly fraudulent, fraudulent things where you're
proposed using to have you know, Sesame Street in Iraq,
you're proposing to have vegan education and Zambia electrical buses
in Rwanda. We want to make those permanent undersen and
those those up very soon.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
I think that made the anchor there uncomfortable. That was
one of the midday anchors. The midday anchors aren't quite
so conservative. Now Fox is a very different beast between
day and night. All of the all of the rhino types,
all the modern types are pretty much day side, and
all the conservatives are pretty much you know, from five

(15:35):
in the evening on two very different places, day and
night at Fox. But one one billion for NPR and PBS.
I know, billion dollars is a lot of money. But
I put the same philosophy to NPR and PBS that
I would I would put to the bullet train. If

(15:56):
the people want it, the people will pay for it.
Or you can start running some commercials like the rest
of us do the rest of us in broadcasting, you know,
pay the freight by you know, by revenue streams like
like advertising. You know, why why should PBS, you know,
not not for if if they want to stay in there,

(16:18):
run some advertising, you know, run run your business the
way the rest of our business has to be run.
We'll see if if these cuts ultimately happen, Well, they
are happening there. The one billion dollars is that's a
lot of money, is it not? That is a ton
of money. Hey, you know who I saw on on
UH on Fox? Kevin Brady. Do you remember Kevin Brady,

(16:42):
the congressman from the Woodlands. We used to have him
on all the time on Houston's morning news over on
kt r H. I'm not sure what he's doing these days.
They never gave his title, so I don't know if
he's working for a think tank or he's a lobbyist,
which is what usually seems to happen with most of
these people in the Leave office. He's probably making more
money whatever he is doing now, he's probably making more

(17:04):
money they was making in Congress. It has a few
less headaches doing it. But here is the former congressman
on Fox yesterday talking about social Security. Saving social Security
the way dose is trying to save it with making
the necessary cuts, eliminating the fraud and the waste, unlike

(17:24):
the way the Democrats try to portray that. While the
Republicans they don't want you to have social Security, they
want to eliminate it. That's a tough thing to fight
because it's very easy to scare old people where their
social security. But here's Kevin Brady yesterday.

Speaker 7 (17:37):
No matter what they do, they're going to be accused
of that, and they understand there's a double standard here.
So let me just tell you so when I was
sharing the ways and Means Committee. In President Trump's first term,
someone tried to steal my Social Security benefits. And we
have oversight over so Security and we had someone trying
to scam that this is real. So the short answers
every dollar, then Elon must can save, you know, integrity

(18:00):
and so is helpful. Yeah, these are huge numbers.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
I think at the end of the.

Speaker 7 (18:04):
Day, it's going to take a Byparson effort to save
Social Security. I think you're going to have to. You know,
there's some common sense things that can be done to
slowly raise the full retirement age, means test for the wealthy,
get a cost of living that relates to seniors, not
twenty somethings, you know. I mean, there's some really good things,

(18:25):
but it would help to start with some integrity, you
know what I mean within the Social Security Administration.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
I think that's the value of what Elon Musk is doing.

Speaker 7 (18:33):
I think more and more Republicans, you know, are willing
to lean into and explain, like get out there on
the campaign trail and explain why every dollar they save
strengthens it so for the poor. Medicaid is a great example.
We're incentive under Obamacare. You incentivize the wealth or the
well more well to do who aren't working mainly men,

(18:55):
but you starve the single mom who's giving birth or
senior nursing home.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
That makes no sense at all. Republicans, to their credit.

Speaker 7 (19:04):
We'll want to change the way we provide that safety
net in a good way.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah. Just explain it.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
That's all you really need to do, right, Just explain
why it is that you proposing to do what you do.
You know, I think people will become cynical enough of
the left at this point where they will they will
listen to what the other side has to say. They're
not just going to take whatever the left has to
say about things like social security and take that as gospel.

(19:31):
All right, quick glovee break back. In a moment, We're
going to visit with the folks in Texas Scorecard and
talk about school choice. Today's a big showdown in the
Texas House for school choice. Brandon Waltons will join us
in just a moment. You're on news radio seven forty
book the wrong station a m N fifty KHRC. All Right, Dob,

(20:06):
today's the big day Texas State Legislature of the Texas House.
I shouldn't just say to the state legislature. The Senate
has been doing its work, the House not so much.
Is meeting today and the big topic of discussion is
school choice. Maybe they'll pass it today, maybe they won't.
Maybe the Democrats will leave the building, maybe they won't.
We'll have to wait and find out exactly what happens

(20:28):
with all this. But Brandon Waltons has been following this
story for a Texas scorecard. He joins us here this afternoon,
nning nine to fifty KPRC. This has been a long
winding road, Brandon.

Speaker 8 (20:40):
Oh, absolutely, I mean this is something that goes back,
I mean years. People who have been advocates for school
choice have been advocating in the capital for you know,
over a decade certainly, but it especially goes back to
you know, last session where you had school choice legislation
die in the Texas House and Governor Greg coming out
during the primary elections campaigning against many of the incumbent

(21:05):
Republicans who voted against school choice legislation. And actually, now
we's gotten a pretty big turnover. Looks like you have
a majority of support in the House now for school
choice for the first time ever. Speaking of the House,
sings confident that they will pass it, but of course
Democrats are saying that they want to do everything they

(21:25):
can to stop it.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Here's the part that I don't understand, and maybe you
could help us out with whether the Democrats who are
so held bent out stopping this. I know that obviously
the public school system they don't want competition, no matter
how small the competition may be. They claim that they're
going to lose funding. The fact of the matter is
that this one billion dollars that's been set aside is
only going to impact about one hundred thousand students at

(21:49):
least to start, if that many take advantage of it,
and the public schools are not going to be missing
out on any funding. So what in the world are
they so worried about.

Speaker 8 (22:00):
Well, I think I think there's a big threat, you know,
amongst the amongst Democrats and sort of your government education
bureaucrats that even with a limited program like this is
and MT's be clear right this is they're allocating a
billion dollars. That means at most this would probably benefit
about one hundred thousand students in Texas. Certainly there are

(22:22):
a lot more students than that in the state there
are millions, but I think there's a concern among those
people that if parents are given an option, that they
will take that option, and that you know, that will
put a lot of eyes, more eyes onto what's been
happening in government schools. And you know, unfortunately, just like

(22:43):
other aspects of government, right, public schools are no different.
A lot of the administrators at the top don't want
to change.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, they just don't want to change, and they got
a lot of union support. And then I'm guessing there's
been a tremendous amount of lobbing at the state legislation.
You're against this proposal of school choice. Any idea who
some of these lobbyists are. Who are the organizations that
are lobbying the hardest against school choice?

Speaker 8 (23:11):
Well, you know, as you mentioned, right, I mean the
school districts themselves. You look at you know, you look
at organizations like, you know, the Texas Association for school Boards,
but also the teachers' unions. You know, raise your hand.
Texas is another one, the Texas Educators Association. And then
just keep in mind that in Texas, you know, we
have we have a lot of public school districts, we

(23:33):
have everything over twelve hundred school districts in the state.
Each of them have a superintendent, each of them have
a school board president, a school board. So you kind
of get a built in army right there, and you
can see why, you know, why there's so much opposition,
or at least vocal opposition amongst those people against school choice.
Never mind the fact that, of course school choice is

(23:56):
supported by you know, you look at look at you know,
every poll it shows the school choice is supported by
vast majority of Republicans, like eighty plus percent. But even
among actual Democrat voters when they're posed to question without
all the politics, you know, most Democrats actually support this
as well.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, I believe that any parent who wants their child
to succeed, I would think it would be in favor
of something like this, especially you know, opportunity for kids
that are in underperforming school systems that haven't made any provements.
I mean, if you're if you're in a naturally poor,
underserved community where the where the public schools are graduating

(24:34):
kids who can't read and write, then obviously you're going
to be in favor of something like this because it
gives you a chance.

Speaker 8 (24:42):
Exactly, and so it'll be interesting to see. Obviously, Democrats
in bulk are opposed to this in the elected class,
I should say, in the Texas House. But it will
be interesting to see if if there might be one
or two Democrats that may be split off and say,
you know what, this would actually be good for my constituents,
I'm going to support this. That'll be another interesting thing
to see.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
I'm also going to guess here, tell me what do
you think, Brenda. I'm also going to guess that the
thing that the public schools fear the most is that
this will be just the beginning, that this will just
be the seed that plant gets planted and it's going
to grow from there, and that they're actually going to
have serious competition going down the road and uh and

(25:23):
and may end up losing you know, schools and public
school jobs as a result.

Speaker 8 (25:29):
Well, I think that you know, as we see in
just about every aspect of society and life and the
economy and all that, I think, you know, I'm in
favor of competition. I think most of the most people
are in favor of competition. And you know, I don't
think school choice. You know what people forget is that,
you know, competition makes everyone better and I think that

(25:50):
school choice when done correctly, and we'll see what happens,
you know, hopefully we'll make government schools better and more
responsive parents as well.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
I don't know if you folks have talked to any teachers,
I think you would probably find, I would guess have
fairly even split among teachers, because they're political animals like
everybody else. Some you know, here in Texas more than
other places, there are their conservative teachers still here in Texas.
I would think many of them would be in support
of this only if for no other reason, wouldn't the
increased competition actually be good for many teachers. If you're

(26:24):
a good teacher who actually turns child children's lives around,
you're good at teaching, your students learn from you, You're
going to be in demand, you know, whether at the
public school or at a private school. If there are
more private schools out there that are trying to give
kids the best education, they're going to be seeking out
excellent teachers.

Speaker 8 (26:44):
No, I think that's that's a great point. I think that,
you know, that's why it's so interesting to see the
split sometimes between for example, the teachers' unions that are
down in the Capitol in Austin lobbing against this, But
then you actually talk to actual teachers, you see that.
I think there a lot of kind of what the
general populace thinks about this. Many of them do think

(27:05):
this is a good thing. Many of them have seen
maybe they've worked in school districts that are struggling school
districts in low economic areas, and they've seen just how
beneficial school choice could be. And so you know, I think, yeah,
very interesting.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Do you think, first of all,
I hate to put you on the spot here because
you know, if we tape this show a little bit
ahead of time, so we may already know the answer.
You don't know the answer, and I don't know the
answer as we're talking right now. But a vote could
well have happened at this point. If you had to
put money on it, would you bet that it, even
if it doesn't necessarily pass an initial vote, that we

(27:43):
will end up a school choice either by the end
of this legislative session or the end of whatever special
session you know the Governor's going to call if it
doesn't pass.

Speaker 8 (27:53):
I think we will have some form of school choice.
I think you know how big bill is what it
looks like, what the restrictions are, et cetera. I think
some of that, you know, could still be up in
the air, depending on what the House and Senate decide
to do. But I think that I think that, especially
given the results of the last primary election, I think

(28:16):
that now is the time where we will finally see
some school choice proposal, finally make it to the governor's desk.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
You know, I think the thing too, that'll be interesting
to see. Let's assume, for the sake of argument here
and for this discussion, that it does end up passing.
What we're talking about here is what about ten thousand
dollars per students that would be provided in the form
of a voucher unless you have a disabled student, then
it goes up to eleven thousand, five hundred. There's even
a two thousand voucher for homeschool students. Obviously, I would

(28:43):
assume that you'd have to spend that just buying the
necessary supplies in order to be able to teach that
child at home. But as you take a look at
the price of your typical private school education here in Texas,
ten thousand dollars is it's a good down payment, but
that's about all, isn't it?

Speaker 8 (29:01):
For some?

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Certainly?

Speaker 8 (29:03):
And you know, for some that would certainly offset at
least some of the cost of a private school. I
also think an interesting phenomenon that you could see happen
that certainly is up in other states, is you can
see more private schools maybe open saying okay, and trying
to open it at a price point to where they
can be you know, lower cost. And so you know,

(29:25):
we'll see what happens there. But I think, you know,
you look at the current status quo right now, where
parents are getting getting nothing right, and I think that
this is this is certainly an improvement.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, that's for sure, concerning the fact they're all required
even if we haven't had kids in school for the
last twenty or thirty years, we're all still required to pay.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
For it, aren't we.

Speaker 8 (29:45):
Yes, exactly all right.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Brandon, Hey, thank you, appreciate you joining me today. Thanks
so much, absolutely, thank you you do. Brandon Walton's Texas
scorecards back with more in a moment. Jimmy Bertschew, you're
running in nine fifty khr set All right, here's the

(30:14):
big scare tactic for today from the letter and it's
about deporting Americans. President Trump gave an interview to the
Spanish language Fox network, whatever that's called, and he sat
down and they were talking about illegal immigration, and they

(30:38):
were talking about deportations, and he brought up the idea
that he wouldn't mind taking US citizens who are just
hainous criminals, you know, the handibal lecters of the American public,
and sticking them in a maximum security foreign prison somewhere.

(31:00):
Here's a little bit of that conversation, and the reaction
on the left is very, very predictable. Hear from the
usual left spokespersus. At the end, you're going to hear
from the United States one of the US senators from
Maryland who evidently got on board a plane today to
go down to talk to or try to talk to

(31:24):
the MS thirteen gang member who got deported to El Salvador,
and now they're trying to Supposedly they wanted to get
him back, but Del Salvador does want to give him
back because he's an L Salvador citizen, not assist in
the United States. Wait, do you hear the way this
senator describes this guy. Anyway, here we go with what
Trump said and reaction to it.

Speaker 9 (31:44):
We're getting rid of our criminals out of the United States,
so we're allowed to come in by Biden. We're getting
them out and the President is helping us with that,
President Bugh Kelly. But we use it for violent criminals,
our own violent criminals.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I call them homegrown criminals. I mean the homeownng the
ones that grew up.

Speaker 9 (32:04):
And someone went wrong and they hit people over the
head with a baseball bat. We have and push people
into subways just before the train gets there, like you
see happening. Sometimes we are looking into it and we
want to do it.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
I would love to do that.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
We are watching our neighbors, students, and friends being.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Fired, targeted, and disappeared. It is real.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
The Trump administration's claim legally is that they can take
anyone in the United States and disappear them.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
To a foreign country.

Speaker 7 (32:41):
There is not included in Title eighteen send someone out
of the country, much less to a hellhole prison in
another country.

Speaker 10 (32:48):
What stops Donald Trump from wontfully labeling any American as
a non citizen gang member and abducting them in the
dead of night and rendering them to a foreign prison
to be torture torture is going to.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Do that to US citizens.

Speaker 7 (33:04):
I think the hosts of the view were about to
get administratively errred.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Uh. A Maryland man who's the.

Speaker 11 (33:11):
Father of three illegally detained in a notorious prison in
Al Salvador. It is absolutely unjust and illegal to have
this Maryland or detained one more day in a notorious
prison in Al Salvador.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
I mentioned the prison is notorious to me.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Of all of what I just heard, that might be
the most offensive because it's coming from a United States
Senator Democrat who's trying to portray that this is just
a family man who got caught up in the system.
He was illegally deported. Noticed no mention of the fact
that he was in Maryland illegally. He's a Marylander. Well

(34:03):
that's what they call themselves there, Marylanders. My mom used
to live in Maryland. Yeah, Maryland. He's a Marylander. No,
he's not, really, he's an illegal alien who is living
in Maryland. He's a father, he's a family man. He
has children, yes he does. Having children does not make
you a father or a family man as far as

(34:26):
that goes, which is I don't know what I shouldn't
comment there. I suppose I don't know who the relationship
he has with his kids are, you know, if he
has a relationship at all. He's an accused MS thirteen
gang member and he was in this country illegally, and that,
to me is the only part you really need to know.
He's being illegally detained. Well, that's kind of up to

(34:47):
El Salvador. He is their citizen right now. You can
go there and go to bat for the guy that
he wasn't really a gang member. He shouldn't be in
a jail in Ol Salvador. You could help him that
way if you want to. But at the end of
the day, he was in this country illegally. We have
every right to deport people who are not here legally.

(35:08):
That's how it's supposed to work. If you're not here legally,
you can be deported. The way around that is to
come here legally, as we've talked about so many times.
So anyway, and the other guy talking about where they're
sending him curs and American citizens to to to foreign
prisons where they will be tortured. Who's being tortured? I mean,

(35:32):
all that is is a red herring. All that is
is you know, trying to gin up emotions and unfortunately
for some people that works, you know, they buy that
stuff hook line and sinker. All right, Oh, here's one
you might want to be kind of interested. And it
kind of goes along with what we were talking about too,
with the whole you know, saving social Security by cutting
the fraud and the waist and you know, and making

(35:55):
sure that we're not sending benefits to one hundred and
fifteen year olds and unemployment checks to five year olds,
which we know has been happening in the in the government.
Here's what else we have learned thanks to Doze, all
Social Security claims made over the telephone are going to
be subject now to an anti fraud check moving forward, because,

(36:17):
as it turns out, more than half, more than half
of all the phone calls on the Social Security helpline
are fraudsters trying to steal information. They're going on pretending
to be somebody trying to get more information, more than half.
The Social Security Administration received backlash for proposing cuts to

(36:40):
phone services of requiring you to go in person, but
you know what, maybe we're at a point where we're
going to have to do something like that because they
were not able or couldn't evidently come up with a
way to verify legitimate claims over the phone or online
for that matter. So well, unless you have the ability

(37:02):
to prove who you are. Once again, you know, you
have to be able to prove who you are to
get your Social Security benefits. They're working on modernizing both
security and accessibility. According to the Social Security Commissioner, there
are going to be doing phone checks now in order
to try to make sure that when you are calling

(37:25):
for Social Security help and information and for benefits, that
you are who you say you are and you're not
somebody trying to steal somebody else's social security. I would
have thought they would have started doing that a long
time ago. All Right, that's it for today. Thank you
for listening. Sure to appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow morning,
bright nearly five am over on news radio seven forty KTIH.

(37:46):
Hope to have you back here tomorrow afternoon at four am,
nine fifty KPRCI.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
They bastard