Shoplifting

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Shoplifting
• Covering the elections

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Breaking down the world's nonsense about power. American common sense.

Speaker 4 (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 3 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I was opening up the show today talking about shoplifting.
If you ever stolen anything, I mean even a piece
of bubblegum or a jawbreaker or something when you were kid,
did you ever do that?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I don't think I ever did, and I think the
reason why I never did, well, I'm pretty sure the
reason why I never did was my old man, because
I knew for sure there would be punishment, and it
would be it would be a fate worse than death.
There's actually two ways my dad would punish me. One
is the old fashioned corporal punishment, a good swat on

(01:06):
the butt or something along those lines. He wasn't much
of a timeout guy. I don't think he saw that well.
For one thing, he wasn't from that generation. He was
not from the Timeout generation. I wasn't from the Timeout
generation either. I gave my kids a little spanking every
now and again, only when they did something I found

(01:29):
to be egregious, which, unfortunately for Brian, my youngest son,
was fairly often because he just didn't seem to get
the message. But the time out we kind of went.
We started in the eighties and nineties, really kind of
the nineties with the timeout thing. You know, no more
corporal punishment, We'll give them a time out, until we

(01:54):
found out that in many cases the kids really liked
the timeout, so it didn't turn out to be that
much much punishment at all. Now I don't even know
what passes for punishment anymore. Take away your cell phone,
see you can't watch video games? Is that kind of
the ultimate punishment these days? In how long does the
punishment last? It depends on the parent. I always tried

(02:18):
to inflict a punishment that would at least cause enough
pain where a lesson would be learned, But unfortunately, my
wife at the time was very lenient. She could very
quick to get angry at one of the kids about something,
but also very quick to let them off the hook. So,
you know, more often than not, if I would try

(02:38):
to instill the punishment, she would end up ondoing the
punishment in fairly short order, and I think that happens
a lot unfortunately in marriage. Is it helps if you're
both on the same page when it comes to trying
to figure out what appropriate punishment is. But I say
all this to get to the point about shoplifting. If
I'd ever been caught shoplifting, even if it was a
stick of gum, the retribution would have been fierce. I

(03:02):
would have been forced to go into the store, admit
to what I had done, pay for what I had taken,
and then go home and probably get a good swat
on the as. I think all those things would have happened.
Now we can't even get that much out of the
criminal justice system. If you shoplift, if you go into
a store a new shoplift, if the store is willing

(03:22):
to actually call the police an attempt to make a
prosecution in the case, then what happens is is that
if the police actually do arrest you and book you,
you'll be let out of jail almost immediately, and chances
are very good when you go to court nothing will happen.
Nothing will happen. It's just not considered to be that

(03:42):
important a crime. And because of that, we've made it
very easy for people to do it, and because there
is no retribution civilly, not just criminally, but civilly, there's
no retribution either. There's no stigma attached to shoplifting anymore,
at least I see very little of it, and in

(04:04):
certain sectors there's no stigma addressed to it whatsoever. In fact,
we have a lot of people out there whose shoplift
who have found a way to justify it in their minds. Well,
I needed it, Okay, you needed it, so you stole it.
Why didn't you pay for it? Well, I don't have
the money to pay for it. Well, if you had

(04:25):
the money to get your hair done, you had the
money to get your nails done. You're on snap and
your kid goes through an elementary school where they feed
them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So why did you need
to steal that steak? Well, the truth of the matter
is if they're stealing something, more often than not, it's
just something they want that they don't think, for whatever reason,

(04:48):
they should have to pay for it. So trying to
come up with a way to solve the problem is
really really hard. And what brought all this up is
we've got Walmart in Dollar General among other retailers or
shutting down self serve lines which originally were put in
to try to streamline the process and to make it
to make them not have to pay for a bunch

(05:09):
of cashiers, but they found that people were stealing from
them blind. And it's not just people who would be
the quote unquote usual suspects. It's housewives, It's people in
all sectors. In some cases even upper income people who
just think, well, why should I pay for that, I'll
just take it. So Dollar General and Walbart find themselves

(05:31):
having to close down some of these self served lines
bring in more cashiers because they're losing so much in
things being stolen. And in addition to that, you know,
they're having to put things behind glass. You know what
I'm really surprised is behind glass right now? Based on
the price toilet paper and paper towels. How are paper

(05:54):
products not behind the glass somewhere? And of course the
rest of us, when we go into a store where
everything's behind glass to get somebody to come get it
for you, you feel like you're shopping, you know, really bad neighborhood,
right even though the neighborhood's not a bad it's not
a bad neighborhood. It's just bad people who are shopping there.
So I was asking this morning on the morning show
on KTRS, can you think of any creative things that

(06:14):
we could do? The criminal justice system isn't helping, It's
not likely to help much when it comes to shopliving.
What could we do? What could maybe make a difference?
What could we incorporate? What could stores retailers do incorporate
in their business to discourage this kind of behavior?

Speaker 5 (06:32):
This is Charles from West Columbia. I think the most
practical way that stores can do with the theft problem
is having a user account system that you scan into
like Sam's or Costco whenever you enter the store, and
stealing or otherwise causing problem can cause you to get banned.

(06:53):
I also feel that the criminal justice system should have
adult corporate punishment.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
As a.

Speaker 6 (07:00):
Skip from Webster dealing with the shoplifting problem. Have the
court supposed to put an implant in their arm that
sets off a detector at the door when they walk
into your business, they have to be accompanied by a
security guard while they do their shopping.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Just a thought, It's a great thought. I love that idea.
I love that idea.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
You steal you are a convicted shoplifter, maybe on the
second offense, on the second offense of being a convicted
somebody who's been arrested for shoplifting, you have to have
a chip implanted that would set off an alarm when
you next anytime you go into the stores, so that
the store would know that you are somebody who likes

(07:40):
to shoplift, and they would then it becomes on their
ONWNUS to have you that somebody escort you through the
store to get your products, or to maybe say, well,
I'm sorry, we don't serve shoplifters, you can't come here. Actually,
be completely banning them is going to be difficult because
if you, first of all, it's really hard to wreckon
even with the chip like that.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
You got.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
If people have legal tender to buy food and stuff,
you've got to allow them to do that, don't you.
You can't ban them from all stores for shoplift. They're
also not even going to be able to feed themselves.
But those are some pretty good ideas anybody else.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Missus Henry from Spring I saw a YouTube video yesterday
where they have cages in public in Walmart that people
are getting put in for stealing so everyone can see them.
Public shaming is a great idea for starters. I think, Hey, Jimmy,
this strict mes that. I know it's just wishful thinking,

(08:39):
but maybe we could do like some of the other
countries do for stealing and do some public caney in
the front of the store.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
Hey, Jimmy, if you do what they do over in
the Middle East and.

Speaker 7 (08:51):
Cut somebody's hand off for shoplift and it'll put a
stop to it real fast.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's a biblical response. Cane corporate. I guess kannan would
be a corporal punishment for adults. Public shaming, that's always
an interesting one to me, you know, I see all
the time judges try to get creative and make people
like stand out on a street corner holding a sign
I'm here because I shoplift lifted, or I'm here because

(09:18):
I did this that or the other. I wonder how
effective that is. Does public shaming still work? It because
it feels like as time has gone by, people have
less and less shame. It's hard to make them feel
shameful about some of the things that they've done. But
this is some pretty good ideas. I like them, all right,
quick little break back with Warner moment, Jimmy Barrett show
here anning of nine fifty k PRC. All right, So

(09:56):
yesterday was the election such as it was, I'm not
really surprised, I have to be. I would have to say,
if I'm disappointed in any election, I think I'm disappointed
most by Virginia because I used to live in Virginia.
In fact, I lived there for seventeen years. And when
I first moved to Virginia in two thousand and one,

(10:16):
it was a reliably red state. When I left, it
had pretty much flipped itself over to blue. It had
been purple a few times, but it was pretty much
it flipping itself over to blue. By the way, That
made the decision to come to Texas really really easy,
and I'm so glad I made that decision. Can't imagine

(10:38):
living in Virginia now. As beautiful a state as it
is and as nice as the people are, there's just
way too many people north of Richmond who are causing
just way too many problems. It is the perfect example
of why a bloated federal government is dangerous. Northern Virginia

(10:58):
is filled of people who work or depend on the
federal government. Between those two things, you've got millions of
people who are always going to vote for a Democrat
because they want their free stuff or they wanted to
make sure that they saved their government job. And because
of that, they have become a reliably blue state for

(11:18):
the most part. There have been a few exceptions, you know,
when mccauluff lost his election to Youngkin because he thought
it was the government's place to be a parent of
the child and the parents shouldn't have any role in
the education of their children. Even the people who are

(11:38):
lean blue or are light blue were offended by that
and didn't vote for him. And Young Cain, by all reports,
did a great job. Unfortunately, he could not run for
reelection because it's one of those few states where you
cannot succeed yourself. You can't get two terms in a row.
He could run again next time four years from now,
not that he'd want to necessarily, but he could four

(12:01):
years from now. He just couldn't run again. So you
had a you know, I believe, a gubernatorial candidate who
was not a very good candidate. She's kind of on
the week side, you know, black female, but she wasn't.
I don't think the sharpest candidate that they could have fielded.

(12:21):
She basically ascended to it because she was the lieutenant governor,
and she basically was elected lieutenant governor because she's a
conservative and she was youngkin running me. But what surprised
me not even that John Reid did lieutenant governor lost.
I think I was telling the story the other day
about how he took my place at WRVA and Richmond, which,

(12:44):
by the way, to celebrate their one birthday when I
left to come here to Houston. And I'm not really
surprised because he was a bit of an underdog to
begin with. But what really surprises me is that the
Republican attorney general didn't win. Jade Jones won. The Democrat
won and run one rather handily, despite the fact that
he had made death threats against a Republican lawmaker and

(13:07):
the lawmaker's family talked about shooting them, and they voted
for him anyway. Incredible. But the biggest problem in Virginia,
maybe also in New Jersey, is the fact that you
had a lot of Republicans that just didn't show up.
It happens over and over and over again. They show

(13:29):
up if Trump's on the ballot, but they don't if
he isn't. And I don't understand why that is. Trump
can't save them, if they can't save their own state.
Why is this disconnect? Why do they not seem to
put those two things together? Having a hard time figuring

(13:50):
that one out. But at the end of the day,
you know, before getting upset about what happened yesterday, let's
analyze it. Does it really mean anything? Is it a
bell weather for the midterm elections?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
No?

Speaker 2 (14:04):
I don't think it's a bell weather for the midterm elections.
Will will the socialists succeed in New York City's mayor No,
I don't think he will succeed, And maybe people who
have had enough after four years of him, If there's
a New York City left to save, maybe the voters
there will have had enough of their little experiment with socialism.
In the meantime, I saw Bill O'Reilly on Newsmacks talking

(14:26):
about the election results, and he thinks that what happened
last night has nothing to do with the midterm elections.

Speaker 7 (14:34):
This has nothing to do with the midterms zero. And
the reason is so many things are going to happen
between now and this time next year, and it's going
to be a completely different country than it is now.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
Now.

Speaker 7 (14:49):
I can't predict which way that's going to go.

Speaker 8 (14:52):
Then how do you know it's going to be a
completely different.

Speaker 7 (14:54):
Country because there is so many things that have to
be decided. There are too many undecided. And you can
start with the Supreme Court ruling on the tariffs. Can
start on that, and they'll rule in Donald Trump's favor
because of the nineteen seventy four law that Gerald Ford
signed into and they have to Supreme Court can't change

(15:19):
the law and uphold what's already been in president Now.
They'll ring Trump in a little bit, but that will
give Trump then a free feel to see if in
the next eight months the tariffs can kick in to
bring prices down and to help people. That's what the
midterms are all about. It's about economics here. It's not
about China. It's not even about Putin. It's about that.

(15:43):
In Virginia, you can't read much into it because the
Republican candidate, with all due respect because I do respect
her for running, was terrible. And the Democrats are much
more motivated in the northern part of the Commonwealth because
they hate Trump so much, and the maga people in
the rural areas they weren't. You're gonna see the turnout

(16:06):
in Virginia with so so. But the candidate now has
to have sizzle, has to have pop. We've changed. Calvin
Coolidge could never get elected cool Okay, you've got to
have some You've got to have some charisma.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
That's what's what men.

Speaker 7 (16:21):
Donnie's running on. Just that he you know, if you
watch the Saturday Night Live parody on him, they nailed
them because he's walking in on on this and that
he's got high energy, smiling all the time, and that
means a lot to people who don't know a lot.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
In other words, stupid people vote for people who smile
and laugh in their percival and they have no idea
what they stand for. And it doesn't matter because stupid
people don't follow politics like that. They don't know what
they stand for. They don't even know a lot of
them that voted for Bondani, they don't even know what
socialism is. Why would they They didn't learn it in school.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
If they did learn in the school, they learned it
was a good thing from their you know, from their professors.
Who are socialists themselves. They seem I mean, Quba was
not that far away. Ask the people in Miami about
how socialism worked in Cuba, but they don't even I mean,

(17:20):
I saw so many pieces of people man on the street,
interviews with people who were in favor of socialism, who
were asked to explain what socialism is. They couldn't. They couldn't,
they couldn't explain it. They couldn't explain what it was
or how it would work. But they voted for it
anyway because the guy's got charisma supposedly as charisma if

(17:45):
you're Jewish. And by the way, he got like forty
percent of the Jewish vote. This is a This is
a devout Muslim who believes in things like jihad. This
guy doesn't like Jewish people. They voted for him anyway. Crazy,
absolutely crazy, All right? Now going forward, Well, let's analyze

(18:07):
this one more way here before we move on to
something else, and that is simply this what at the
end of the day, did the government shutdown play a role?
The Democrats will likely reopen the government within the next week.
The election is over. Now, were they right? I mean,

(18:29):
did they actually make a smart move by making sure
the government stayed shut down through the election, and if
these polsters are correct, yeah, they probably did. The posters
are Matt Lowry and Robert K. Haley, and they agree
that the shutdown did play a role in how this

(18:52):
election turned out.

Speaker 8 (18:53):
Georgia, you had two statewide elected officials Republicans defeated at
a massive level. Looking at it, but the GOP has
to figure out how to turn out races without Donald
Trump on the ballot.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think that's all said, Robert. Let's get your take.

Speaker 9 (19:09):
Would you ever imagine Zora on Mamnani winning with his
radical positions in New York City?

Speaker 3 (19:16):
A simple answer to that is yes, it's New York City.
But okay, that's true.

Speaker 10 (19:22):
Shut down is everything. I mean, you know, when when
you have.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Club Robert, are you talking about what?

Speaker 9 (19:29):
When you say shutdown, are you specifically really referring to Virginia?
Considering in northern Virginia, so many people were impacted by
this government shutdown? And why didn't they blame Schumer because
I would argue he shut it down.

Speaker 10 (19:41):
Well, absolutely, But here's the thing. You've got so many
people who depend on the government for either aid or
a paycheck, and when when that is stopped. They're going
to blame the party in power. And when Republicans have
a house to senate to the president, they don't understand
all the details of filibuster. I mean they understand the

(20:02):
Republicans are control and that check's in jeopardy. And so
when that check is in jeopardy, when that aid is
in jeopardy, whether it's action in jeopardy or they just
perceive it's in jeopardy, they're going to vote their pocketbook,
even if they're ideologically feel a different way.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
That's what they're talking about.

Speaker 10 (20:18):
Earlier, Kelly Ane said that all these numbers said they
were going to vote one way based on how they
felt about issues like crime, but they voted the other way.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, they did. It doesn't matter whether you thought it
was the Democrats faulted the Republicans fall. At the end
of the day, you had all these people, snap benefit people,
people working for the federal government, people dependent on government
one way or another, who were voting, you know, voting
or they thought they were voting against the government shutdown.

(20:49):
I think they did play a role, and it illustrates
the problem we have with so many people dependent on
the government for either a paycheck or benefit in order
to be able to survive. They don't. You can't vote
like an independent person. That way, you're always going to
vote for whoever. You're going to be getting the hand

(21:09):
out from whoever's responsible for either giving you a paycheck
or a benefit. All right, quick, will break back with
more in the moments. To stay with us, please Jimmy Bart
show here at AM nine fifty K Parson, all right,

(21:36):
we got we've talked a lot about what happened yesterday.
We'll talk a little bit about what happened yesterday here
in Texas, which was pretty uneventful for the most part.
There were there a few local elections, you know, the
eighteenth Congressional District comes to mind, but that's that's like
City Houston. That's not most of our listeners, most of
our listeners in the suburbs. The one thing that was
out there that impacted everybody were the proposition and most

(22:00):
of the propositions, well all really of the propositions came
from a conservative background. I was a little surprised that
all seventeen passed, every single one of them, not a
one went done. They all were voted and approved and
in some cases by pretty large margins. Here is a

(22:21):
report of rundown, if you will, on the more important
propositions in how the vote total turned out. This is
from twelve News in Beaumont.

Speaker 11 (22:29):
There were seventeen statewide propositions on the Texas ballot, everything
from bail reform changes to tax exemptions. We're going to
break down some of these tonight. Prop one was sixty
nine percent of Texans saying yes. This is amendment that
creates an endowment for Texas State Technical College programs. So
the money will be used to improve campus infrastructure and

(22:51):
make upgrades to classroom equipment, that sort of thing. Let's
go on to Prop three. We're running some of the
big ones for you tonight. It has also passed. Sixty
four percent of Texans said yes. It requires judges to
deny the bail for people accused of specific felonies, including murder,
aggravated assault, and indecency with a child.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
We'll move on to Prop four.

Speaker 11 (23:14):
This was twenty billion dollars for water projects over the
next twenty years, and voters said yes seventy one percent,
approving the Texas Water Fund. This will fix aging pipes
and increase new water sources. There's also Prop five. This
will extend tax exemptions on animal feed to include when

(23:35):
animal feed is held as inventory to be sold. Sixty
six percent of Texas voters said sure, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
How about Prop seven.

Speaker 11 (23:42):
This is a property tax break on homes of widows
whose spouses died while serving in the military. Eighty seven
percent of Texas voters said yes to it, and Jordan,
we have.

Speaker 12 (23:54):
More tax exemptions on the ballot. Prop nine is called
the Inventory and Equipment Tax Exemption.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Now.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Prop eleven did pass.

Speaker 12 (24:01):
The state can raise a home set exemption for the
homes of elderly or disabled people. They will get a
discount on school property taxes that lowers how much a
home's value can be taxed to pay for public school
seventy nine percent voting for that one.

Speaker 6 (24:14):
Now.

Speaker 12 (24:15):
Prop thirteen also passed. This is another home set exemption.
It increases the exemption from one hundred thousand up to
one hundred and forty thousand dollars. This could save hundreds
of dollars for the typical homeowner's property tax bill.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yep, so you save a little money on your property taxes.
There were three different propositions that dealt in some way
shape or form with taxes, three or four of them
in they all past, some of them by like super majorities,
like seventy five percent er higher. So and I think
the lowest one anyone passed was like sixty three percent.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
So it was.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
It was pretty overwhelming the way that whole thing turned out,
and good to see. Good to see. All right, what
else should we discuss before we call this day? Let
me think here? Well, oh, I know what it was.
What was it I wanted to want to do to
bring into the discussion here, Let's let's let's let's talk

(25:14):
about what I'm trying to I had this all planned too,
I had this thing I wanted to do here before before. Oh,
I know what I want to do now. I remember,
we're going to talk more about this on the morning
show tomorrow on knt R H. But I mentioned it
quickly today and it's worth mentioning again that HPD, I
think is doing something really really smart. Houston Police Department.

(25:38):
They are going to recruit NYPD officers. In fact, they
they put out I don't know if this is a
fire or if this is came from social media? Where
this came from. This was texted to me this morning
I'll read it to you. It says, NYPD, are you
disgusted with the election of zorn Mondam join us explanation point.

(26:04):
The Houston Police Department is hiring police officers competitive pay,
with thirty six point five percent pay raise just approved
over five years. Knows, they don't mention what the what
the starting rate is. But then again, then again, you
don't have to compete with the salaries in New York
because of the cost of living. All right, Next time,

(26:26):
it says supportive mayor and city council contract passed unanimously.
That's true. That's true in it's a Democrat mayor who
actually supports public safety and the police department, a cops
chief who has retired Texas ranger, not a politician. Governor,
Lieutenant governor, and legislative supportive passing drop for all officers,

(26:52):
affordable housing, supportive citizens, affordable insurance. Fair district attorney. Well,
I'm not really sure exactly how fair the district attorney is.
He's certainly more liberal than we would like him to be.
But I understand this is part of this is a

(27:14):
sales job. It goes on to say Texas's largest police
union invites you to consider joining the Houston Police Department.
HPD is hiring and paying for up to five years
of prior law enforcement experience called HPD recruiting, and they
give the phone number out or visit HPD career dot
Com also says at the bottom of you would like
to speak to a union representative, call and he gives

(27:35):
out the phone number. Now I'm not sure where the
supperior or where this went, but this is pretty clearly
an active attempt to recruit police officers who might be
discouraged that a socialist slash communist who is not supportive
of the police department, who likes he's one of those

(27:56):
alternative policing idea guys, he is not so port of
their crime fighting abilities. In fact, he's had some very
derogatory things to say about the NYPD. These people obviously
think that, hey, maybe we can get some of these people.
There are going to be officers leaving New York and
maybe instead of just retiring, maybe they'd like to continue

(28:19):
their law enforcement career here in Houston. I think it's
a hell of an idea. It's a good idea. Certainly,
there's nothing in the way of crime in Houston that's
going to scare somebody working in the NYPD. They've seen
it all in the New York Police Department, so I'm
sure they wouldn't be the least bit concerned about that.
To go somewhere where the weather's nice, we won't tell

(28:40):
them how hot it is in July and August. Where
the weather's nice, where you can make a decent living,
where you will be appreciated, and where you can afford housing,
might be very appealing. Do somebody's in New York City
right now, especially now that they have elected this new mayor.
It's gonna be interesting see how this works. We are

(29:01):
we are short, you know, thousands of police officers. We
need to hire people. If we can get some of these,
you know, some of these better NYPD officers to come
down here, maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. Can
we can? We also recruit to make sure that they're
you know, that they're going, that they're adaptable to our
southern culture and climate, because you know, somebody who's lived

(29:22):
in New York their entire life may not be adaptable
to our way of life. We need to we need
to figure that out too, all right, listen, Yeah, we
have a great day. Thank you for listening. We'll see
you tomorrow morning, right early five on news Radio seven
forty k t r H. We are back here at
four on AM nine fifty k t r C