Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's the week of June eighth, twenty twenty five, and
this is what's on the People's News. The corrupt and
criminal Donald Trump doubles tariffs on aluminum and steel. The
GOP in Texas continues to bring religion into schools with
multiple unconstitutional actions. Environmental protections protected as the Texas legislature
(00:30):
ends trash methane and private landfills in Houston, A legendary
band comes to Houston's Eldorado to perform all that and
more on the People's News. I'm Steve Gallington. This is
the People's News, and the People's News starts now. When
(00:54):
you put a criminal, a convicted felon into the White House,
you getality, you get law breaking and convicted felon. Donald
Trump continued his illegal tariffs, which are making their way
through the courts until he's forced to remove those tariffs.
He's going to continue to break the law. And this week,
(01:17):
convicted fellon Donald Trump sign an order doubling tariffs on
steel and aluminum imports to fifty percent. Canadian and Mexican
officials and the European Union called foul as this violates
the earlier agreements that they had with Trump, this will
raise prices on everything across the board. We talked again
(01:42):
to Richard Messon, executive fellow at the University of Calgary
School of Public Policy and former CEO of the Alberta
Patroleum Marketing Commission.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I mean the effects have been huge. Our government foul.
We had an election, the party that was leading for
the previous year didn't win because of concerns around Trump
tariffs and how we would react. So it's been huge
from a political point of view, and then from an
(02:14):
economic point of view. We released statistics today that showed
I think it was in March our exports to the
US dropped seventeen percent and our imports from the US
dropped eleven percent, And so it's having a big economic
impact for Canadian businesses and consumers and US businesses and
consumers as well.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Currently being alertic Prime Ministry, it seems like people went
for what he was. He's trying to stand up to
the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Is that Yeah, I think both parties were doing that.
It's just a question about who probably had the best
ability to do that. And of course the Liberal government
had been in power for ten years and a lot
of people knew the cabinet ministers who elected and things
like that. I think they went for the safer choice
as opposed to the changing out the parties completely. And
(03:12):
so yeah, it's it's a big deal. I think Canada
is trying to figure out how to deal with this
because a lot of it still doesn't make any sense
to us.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
One thing is one thing that we'll fall out of
the elections with DP. I thought INDP, A lot of people,
include myself, thought INDP would maybe make a dit in
this election is past election.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, and they didn't do very well because everybody decided
to either go with the Liberals, you know, and try
and give them as strong amandate as possible, or the
Conservatives and the NDP kind of got wiped out. So yeah,
quite a quite a big change from what we expected,
you know at the end of last year.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Where did we go from here? Is because I don't
think Americans really uh understand the fix that Canada can
have on their buying power here in the States.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, the one of this week, I mean there's a
new one every day, it seems. But the moving the
steel and aluminum tariffs to fifty percent is just wild
because you don't have the ability to produce aluminum. You
don't have the box site in the US, and so
you get sixty percent of the aluminum that you use
(04:31):
from Canada. You can't get it anywhere else, and so
all you're doing is adding a cost to American consumers
and hurting jobs all the way along the line. I
don't none of us understand what the endgame is here.
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
What the long the longer the longer this goes, the
you know what, what what the longer this goes? How
hard will it Canadians?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's hitting us hard? You know, Like I said, the
exports have dropped a lot in the first month where
it really got clear that the tariffs were being implemented.
Investment isn't happening. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's you know,
been layoffs and lots of different companies. The steel and
the luminum thing, if that carries through, is going to
(05:23):
be even worse. And so yeah, and plus you know,
now most Canadians don't trust the US anymore. Right, we
are trying to figure out how we're going to change
our relationship with the US and how we're going to
build relationships with the rest of the world because we
don't trust you as a reliable partner because you make
(05:44):
decisions that don't make any sense, and there's no ability
for us to negotiate with you to get to a
good answer because you keep changing what you want.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And unions here have been saying that this is going
to be great for unions and their jobs to come
back to the back to the United States, which a doun'ts.
I really don't see that happening personally, But the unions
here seem to least some of them seem to be
supporting these tear if they're being put in place.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, there seemed to be some like in the auto sector.
But when I listen to the people from Canada in
the auto sector, they say that the integration we have
is the most efficient way and it creates the most jobs,
which allows us to compete against the world better than
if we're separate. And it's you know, not possible for
(06:38):
US plants to ramp up production and Canadian plants to
close quickly. Right All that takes time. You have to
spend billions of dollars to build new assembly lines. You
have to, you know, So what's happening right now is disruption,
and the more this carries on, the more layoffs are happening.
(06:58):
And there's already been a bunch. And of course auto
sales are going down because auto prices are going up.
And that's kind of the only unions that seem to
be supporting this that we hear about. If you think
about the steel and aluminum folks, there's no ability to
ramp up production in the US. There's you know, Canada
has been a reliable supplier for a very long time,
(07:21):
and it's not like you have a bunch of idle
capacity sitting there waiting to be turned on. You just don't.
And so if the fact that the tariffs are going
to fifty percent on your biggest supplier has to mean
that prices are going up for all the rest of
the value chain and for consumers in the US.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, how Carney answered it is he went to Washington
and it seemed where we left, it seemed like he
had it gained some type of guidance, made some type
of network and with Trump. But I guess we're square
one again. What are how amazing? What's the alternatives now?
(08:04):
What you know? Because I've heard that Canadian business now
looking to other sources or the places to sell. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Absolutely, we're we're trying to reduce internal barriers in our
country to you know, improve trade amongst our provinces, and
we're working to improve trade with Europe and Asia and
other markets. And Canada has many free trade agreements already
with those places, and all of them want to improve
trade with US as well because of the tariffs that
(08:36):
the US has put on them. So, you know, I
think over time a lot of trade will you know,
move away from the US and move to other parts
of the world. But you know, that doesn't happen quickly
because you've got to change all your supply chains, and
it's you've got to you know, make sure your ports
can handle it and and all those things. It's it's
totally different, and so it's going to take time for
(08:57):
that to happen. In the meantime, there's a lot of disruption.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
What happens with what happens with so called the pipeline
I think we're coming from coming from the oil that
was coming from Canada to the US. What happens with
all these all these treaties that had been worked on
for years.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, so far, there's been no impacts on oil or gas,
which is a demonstration of how reliant you are on
us before. You know, back in January, the differential between
our heavy oil and West Texas was around fourteen dollars
a barrel. When Trump's starting to threaten the tariffs, that
(09:39):
differential widened a bit. But because you guys are so
short heavy oil right now, the differential has been as
low as eight dollars a barrel in the last few days.
And that proves that you need our oil and you're
willing to pay for it, pay up for it because
you don't have alternatives. And so this is the again,
the goofy part about it. It's not like the US
(10:01):
produces heavy oil. You don't. You get it from Venezuela.
You get it from Columbia. You get it from Canada
and Mexico. And if if you're not going to allow
it to flow freely, then you're going to be short.
And so because the refiners are desperate to get that oil,
they're paying a higher price now than they did before
it all started. The other thing is travel from Canada
(10:24):
to the US is way down. I mean people are
not going there, even people who own homes are not
going there. It's it's going to hurt your tourism sector
a lot, because we're your biggest tourists, and you know
it's Canadians are are angry and this isn't gonna you know,
there's no even if you wanted to. The relationship is
(10:46):
damaged and it won't be fixed quickly. But there's no
sign of wanting to fix it because you know, you
imposed higher tariffs and stealing a loon a couple days
ago for no reason. So's there's a lot of Canadians
who are pretty pissed.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That was Richard Massan, executive fellow at the University of
Calgary School of Public Policy and former CEO of the
Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission. The dust is settled from the
Texas legislative session, and it was a mixed bag for
the people of Texas. Republicans were able to pass their
voucher bill, which gives away seven hundred and fifty million
(11:24):
dollars to rich, mostly white families for private school tuition relief.
They passed a partial school funding bill, which will help
ease the pain that most school districts are feeling across
the state, but not fix the problems They were unsuccessful
in being able to get rid of star testing. They
(11:46):
did ban THCHC and they did require that the Ten
Commandments be displayed in K through twelve classrooms across the state.
The bill requires every classroom divisibly disp lay up poster
sized at least sixteen by twenty inches of the Ten Commandments.
The poster can include any text other than the language
(12:08):
laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters
may be displayed. Added this session as well, lawmakers have
advanced bills that will allow a prayer or religious study
period in school, and one that would require that teachers
use the terms Anno Domini Latin four in the year
of the Lord and before Christ b C When expressing dates.
(12:31):
In other states where these laws have been put in place,
namely Louisiana, they've been challenged and ruled unconstitutional. We talked
with Will Judy, with Houston atheist and American atheist.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
The state of Texas is scied to this paths session
a statitude enact the posting the Ten Commandments in class
rooms and also the posting also given time in schools
of prayer sessions in public school. Your opinion on that
(13:05):
and what is it What is your organization just going
to do about this? You guys have planned for this.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, SP ten, which is the bill for the ten
to post the Ten Commandments in schools, and SB eleven
that's the one that protects prayer time and Bible study
in schools mandated by the state. Yeah, both of those
we pushed back on pretty hard during the legislative session
(13:35):
that just ended.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Two days ago.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
So that's squarely in our wheelhouse, in the lane that
we occupy, and we pushed back on it pretty hard
as it went through committees and then as it went
to the to the four vote for both bills, especially
SB ten which is a Ten Commandments bill, in my
opinion of both obviously unconstitutional and there is there is
(14:05):
precedent to the Supreme Court, uh saying hey, you can't
post him commandments stone versus Grandma. I believe with the
with the case decades ago. But and it's in the
Constitution and the establishment clause. But this current administration, the
current environment is kind of rife for them pushing the
(14:29):
boundaries and pushing this through.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Oh so what so in it's just this Supreme Court
thing we have right now, it's in service Supreme Court
do you think they will rule in your favor even
though even though.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
It is it is unconstitutional, right, Yeah, So it passed
to the Texas legislature, is going to be signed into
law by by Governor Abbott, and and then so there's
already lawsuits lined up to sue based on this be
done constitutional about the a c l U a a
CLU Texas, I believe the Freedom for Religion Foundation Americans United.
(15:14):
There's gonna be a bunch of lawsuits if it does
get to the Supreme Court, which I think I say
they the Christian nationalists, they really do want this to
get to that point because they they're confident that this
current Supreme Court will rule in their favor despite their
(15:34):
being precedent. But precedent doesn't mean what it used to
in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So what do I predict?
Speaker 5 (15:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I know really smart people in my world that they also.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Say the same thing.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
They don't know how this will will will break. But
the numbers just don't look good six to three as
far as conservatives versus I guess I'm doing air quotes
liberals on this current Supreme Court and what this Texas
(16:09):
law is just SB ten, the Ten Commandments. Still what
they have they've learned from other from other states, and
that they can't just say, hey, this is Christianity, this
is good for kids because it's God. They attached the
label of history and tradition to the Tenth Commandment, so
(16:30):
they're skirting their religious component of it, and they're saying, no, no, no, no,
this is history and tradition. This is foundational to the
laws of this land. And that's why we're putting it up.
It's it's it's blatant, it's just a thin veneer. Everyone
knows what they're doing. But maybe that's just enough for
the Supreme Court to kind of agree with them and say, yep,
(16:51):
this is a history and tradition because they have ruled,
they have ruled for pushing the boundaries of true, say
separation with this label of history and tradition. This is
something you're going to hear a lot during this case.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
What happens to people that are atheists, Muslim, Jewish, or
other religions, and what are the states saying about that,
especially if you're atheists, you know, and you don't.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Want to hear this, right, They essentially shrug their shoulders
and they don't say anything about about the other religions,
because they smirk and say, this isn't a religious bill,
this isn't a religious text. It's history and tradition. So
they smirk as they say that because they because they
know what they're doing. And I mean, it's all about
(17:45):
a hierarchy. You establish a hierarchy, and the Muslims, the atheist,
the Hindu students you get in line, which is less than.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And the it the.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Aspect of when they say traditional or history, well, history
has shown in the past that this is a nation
that's not based on any type of anyone religion. It's
based on it's based on getting away from religious persecution, persecution,
and this is uh, this seems to be going in
(18:23):
the rock direction a lot of ways. Am I correct
on that?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Absolutely correct? The yes, this country wouldn't. I don't agree
with the founding fathers for a lot of things. But
they got the church state separation thing right. They on
purpose separated the two and made this government a secular government. Now,
most Americans back then and even now are were Christian.
(18:49):
But that's fine, but they wanted to They knew what
athocracy brings. They knew they knew back then in the
seventeen eighties, what state sponsored religion can do. Streets run
red with blood and it's just it's chaos. They knew that.
They didn't have to look very far back in history
(19:09):
at that point to understand that, and they wanted no
part of that. To establish this young country, they wanted
a secular government and it was the first We were
the first country to do this, to codify a secular
government in the constitution. We were the first ones to
put it in writing in our constitution and that's something
we should be proud of.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
How can people find out more about your organization, which
you guys are.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Doing so American Atheists is as a national group and
again we do a lot of advocacy at the state
legislative level, so Center for Free Thought Equalities and another
group that I am involved with, and again just trying
to advocate for church state separation at the state and
national level with that organization. But you look up both
(19:58):
organizations and that's the way you can you can see
what we're up to.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
That was Will Judy with Houston Atheist and American Atheist.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
This is Steve Gallington, producer and host of the People's
News The People's News is people powered news. We are
free to report the unvarnished and unspun truth and challenge
the status quo of corporate propaganda and social media advertising
disguised as real news. Shiny new one hour episodes of
(20:29):
The People's News drop each Sunday on The People's News Podcast.
Thanks for listening. As the Texas Legislature wrapped up its
eighty ninth session, there was a mix of environmental progress
and missed opportunities. In a state where fossil fuel interests
holds significant sway, Environment Texas is celebrating a string of
(20:52):
victories in stopping major threats to clean energy and local
environmental protections while helping to advance an number of positive bills.
We talked to Luke Metzger, Executive Director of Environment Texas.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Yeah, fortunately, there are a lot of positives.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I think most noteworthy is what the legislature didn't do.
There were a number of bills that passed the Texas
Senate that would have gutted wind and solar energy in
the state by assessing onerous new fees and instituting discriminatory
permitting requirements and even outright bands of some technologies. And thankfully,
(21:36):
you know, while they passed the Senate, they ended up
dying in the state House. And that's great news because
of course Texas, you know, our rulable energy industry is booming.
We are generating more and more clean winded solar power
and battery storage every day, and that is critical for
(21:56):
our climate and for our environment. By offsetting UH emissions
from you know, polluting fossil fuel power plants, and so
by the legislator not throwing a wrench in the works,
you know, that boom can continue. And that is a
you know, a really bright spot you know for Texas's
environment and climate action. So really good news that they
(22:20):
didn't gut and you know, grind renewal energy developmental a halt.
They also took some positive steps forward for clean energy,
including making it easier to install solar panels on your
own home by streamlining the permitting process, as well as
adopting some good measures to increase the environmental responsibility of wind, solar,
(22:49):
and batteries at the end of their lives. So, for example,
a new bill was passed to make sure that when
batteries end their useful life that they're decommissioned properly removed
from the land and dealt with properly, and so that
was good news, as well as new recycling requirements for
(23:11):
wind and solar panels at the end of their lives,
and so all in all, you know, I think from
a clean energy perspective, we took steps forward. The other
thing I would mention that's more of a mixed bag
on the energy front is the Texas Energy Fund. That
was something that was created two years ago, and the
idea was to create a ten billion dollar fund to
(23:34):
invest in energy, mostly giving you know, grants and loans
to build new gas power plants. And of course, you know,
we think that was you know, the wrong direction. We
don't want at a time that we're facing a climate crisis.
We don't want to be you know, adding more fuel
to the fire by you know, subsidizing you know, more
methane gas power plants. However, there's a bright spot in
(23:57):
that program in that that eighteen percent of the money
is supposed to go to provide funds for backup power
at critical infrastructure, so that's like nursing homes, wastewater treatment plants,
things like that, will get funding to install solar batteries
as well as kind of you know, gas generators, but
(24:18):
that could mean you know, several you know, thousands of
megallots of additional kind of clean energy behind the meter
that will help make sure that you know, those you know,
critical infrastructure are able to keep the lights on, keep
the power on when there are outages, as well as
be producing power you know, throughout the year onto the grid.
(24:39):
So that that was definitely a bright spot as well
in terms of energy. Well, yeah, so the other things
I would point out is, uh, Texas became the first
red state, you know, pending the governor's approval of legislation
to give people the right to repair their consumer electronics.
And I think you know of us have had the
(25:00):
experience where a product, you know, a cell phone or
other things needs repair, but we're only only able to
take it to the authorized dealer to get the repair.
And that means that often the price of repair is
very expensive, or you get pressured to instead of repairing
it just by a brand new phone, even though your
(25:22):
you know, old phone is perfectly fine with just a
small repair. And you know, the problem is that a
lot of manufacturers make it very difficult for you to
fix your products and they much rather sell you something new,
and so they would hold the tools or the software.
They prevent third party dealers from you know, fixing your things,
(25:43):
and so that as a result, that means we end
up throwing away you know, huge amounts of electronic waste
or electronic products every every day in the United States,
something like you know, six hundred thousand cell phones get
thrown away every day in the US. And those are
you know, good products that we could be refurbishing and reusing,
(26:05):
but instead a lot of those parts, which you know
can include some toxic components, to get thrown into our
landfills where they could include the environment. And so a
bill by representatives Geoe could freely own would make sure
that Texans actually have the right to repair their own
their own electronic products. And you know, again, Texas would
(26:29):
be the first, uh, you know, Republican led state in
America to do that. There's about six or seven other
states around the country that have done at first, but
that would really be good news for helping reduce electronic waste.
And then I think the other thing I would highlight
is action of water. Of course, you know, the legislature
(26:52):
pass legislation that would invest more than twenty two billion
dollars in water infrastructure in the state, and that is
a bit of a mixed bag as well. The good
news is that a lot of that money will be
used to repair leaking municipal water mains, you know, and
Houston in particular has a big problem. You know, enough
(27:15):
water is lost from leaky pipes in Houston to meet
the annual water needs of the city at Fort Worth,
So a huge amount of water is being wasted. And
so a lot of this money will go to kind
of fix those leaks, which is great, as well as
to promote some other kind of water conservation measures. On
the other hand, you know, a lot of the money
(27:36):
will likely go to more questionable and you know water
supply strategies, many of which can have you know, some
harm for the environment, including you know, massive new reservoir projects,
you know, ocean desalination projects, which can generally require huge
amounts of electricity to uh kind of treat and and
(28:00):
that you know, more electricity use means more carbon emissions basically,
and then with oceand sal you also have this concentrated
brine that is pretty toxic to marine life that it's
often kind of disposed of and you know, sensitive estuaries,
So that is I think problematic as well as there's
a new move to use oil and gas wastewater and
(28:22):
try and treat it to the levels that we could
inject it into our rivers or aquifers, but that that
technology is still in its infancy and very unclear that
we can do that safely. So I think that you know,
again a lot of good in that water infrastructure build,
but also a lot a lot of things that are
(28:45):
potentially harmful to the environment as well.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That was Luke Metzker of Environment Texas. You can reach
the organization at Environment Texas put together DOT or RG.
Houston officials look at options for solving a growing trash
problem in Harris County. While landfill regulations are managed by
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in Harris County, seventy
(29:09):
eight percent of the methane emissions come from three privately
owned landfills over which the city and the state has
no jurisdiction. We hear more from Free to Ross and
the Texas News Service.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Like many major cities across the country, Houston has a
landfill problem. The city is projected to produce more than
five million tons of trash annually by twenty forty and
only has five landfills. The former director of Solid Waste Management,
Mark Wilfolk, says the city is working on a plan
to deal with waste and is looking for alternatives to landfills.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
Some places instill have in landfills, they have waste energy
plants that converts all the waste and energy, then that
energy gets sold off into the grid and just trying
to repurpose for that more aggressive recycling programs for trying
to find out the alternatives waste disposal separated organics now.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
A twenty twenty one report commissioned by the city showed
that Houston needed to start the process for a new
landfield as soon as possible. The report emphasized that even
under the best of circumstances, securing a new landfill will
take from ten to fifteen years to site, permit, and construct.
Nearly all waste operations in the Greater Houston area are
(30:26):
in communities with more than fifty percent black and brown residents.
According to a report from the Harris Galveston Area Council,
there's only one facility, a waste transfer station, located in
a predominantly white neighborhood. Well Falk says, although there isn't
an ordnance in place specifying where a landfield can and
(30:46):
can't be placed, he feels planners will be more cautious
when picking sites for future landfills nowadays.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
When people started landfills, there was a lot more consciousness
towards where you located at that from happening today's, so
I don't see Houston going down there.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Residents living near landfill's complain of the smell, illegal dumping,
and illnesses related to inhaling methane gas, carbon dioxide and
other toxins. This story was produced with original reporting from
Elena Briss with Houston Landing. I'm FREDA Ross, Texas News Service.
Find our trust indicators at Publicnews Service dot org.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Tweed Smith, longtime vocalist with the band War and Community
Music Center of Houston vocalist, is announcing that they are
holding a free event for Black Music Month on June eighth,
Sunday at the historic Eldorado Ballroom on twenty three to ten,
Elgin We spoke with her about the event, which is
free to the public.
Speaker 8 (31:48):
I'm with the Community gen Music Center of Houston. The community.
Gen Music Center of Houston is a non profit organization
that is a mission to get music into the community
by many entities. We are educators. We have classes for
every instrument that you desire to play, from ages of
(32:13):
five through adulthood. We have performances such as Philly Sound,
So Sound. We there's a production of music that comes
out of Philadelphia and artists that are affiliated with Philadelphia
that gave us a wonderful sound of Philadelphia. We also
(32:37):
have shows where we have multicultural shows where we blend
the music of black classical artists with fusion of other
countries such as India. We just had a show over
the weekend where doctor lundy Uh had a blend of
fusion of music of Indian music and classical music and just.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Music is what we do.
Speaker 8 (33:06):
We are building a building right in the heart of
third Ward, the historical spot architect by doctor John Chase
on Holman. There it was doctor Banfield's former office, right
across from the historic old Lego Hospital wants its Riverside Hospital,
(33:32):
but right in the middle of the mecca of our
third Board area. We're building there and we're continuing to
raise money to do this wonderful institution of music in
our community. Now on the eighth of June, I want
to share with you an exciting event that we are
(33:55):
doing at the historic Eldorado Ballroom again in the heart
the third ward right on Emoscipation and Elgin. That build
it has great history and we are doing our legacy
project there where we honor people of great a statue
(34:17):
and influence in the community of music. This year, our
honorary is mister Ron Stales, who is our founder of
the Community Music Center of Houston. In past years we
honored people such as doctor Jan Taylor and be honored
Missus Jewel Brown and many others. But this year we're
(34:41):
focused and on our founder and we lost on last
year but has been such a stable in the community.
We have the orchestra playing led by doctor Rondi, who
is just my she. I just admire her soul for
(35:02):
all the things that she does to keep music alive
in our community. She will be leading the orchestra. She's
the greatest conductor, female or otherwise of an orchestra. She
knows how to bring it together and give you a
paint a picture of music for you with her instruments.
(35:23):
We'll be there we're partnering with Miss Michelle Bonds and
the artists collected and other artists such as mister Charles
Washington grow renown artists and she and other artists. They
will have to hibit their art and musicians will be playing.
Speaker 7 (35:43):
We have.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
The Eddie v Band two laid back then working the
garden room there I think from three to five, and
then we have the big show starting at five to seven,
and whereas we will present a legacy of song from
the Music Center as we anser honor Ron Scales along
(36:09):
with the loss and family and other people that have
been influential in our journey at the Community Music Center Houston.
I from a vocal director and we have put back
enforced our community a choir the musical truth, and they
will be given an array of songs that will remind
(36:33):
you of days ago and make you smile. Ron Scales,
as I said, our Honoree was a great lover of
arzill and so slapstick music. And then we're going to
explore some jazz and some old Negro as they say, spirituals,
(36:56):
but Africa art will be painted through music. On the
eighth of June, By asked everyone to please be in attendance.
And this is all free to Frick's well.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Free.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
Yes, yes, uh free, and yes, come just to enjoy,
Come just to fellowship, Come just to see what's going
on around you. I'm gonna be flying back in from
Los Angeles as I am the only female member of
the world renowned group War. We're receiving our star on
(37:35):
the fifth of June of the UK of Bain, so
I will be there. Uh just want to let people
know that I'm right out of Houston, Texas. I give
back what was fed into me. I feed it back
into the community. I am a big stickler for the
youth and the elders. I love performing for them, to
(37:59):
show them what they said into me, and show the
youngsters that I have been this, this is me. You know.
You can go and I'm in the library compress, but
you too, I was right here with you right now.
My star is in the eyes of my baby. Yeah
that kind of thing. They're gonna put one on the ground,
(38:19):
But my stars are in the eyes of the people
lives that I touched. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
People, people don't know. Just people are even listening to
hip hop, they gotta understand a lot of listen to.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
The ball right now, I blew out. He's got flipping
into darkness. H looke right into it.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
We love it.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Oh, we just love it because it takes us to
another generation.
Speaker 7 (38:43):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (38:44):
And and people have to see that bridge.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
That's what it's all about, rich and young people and
older people together. Oh you still there, I'm sto.
Speaker 8 (38:55):
I please forgive my my absentine voice. Yes, people have
to uh understand that bridge you see.
Speaker 7 (39:03):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
The elders for so long don't understand the youth because
they don't relate to Let them see how they relate
to They want to say, Oh, they ain't never done done.
We'll let them see that. Let them hear that they
that make that connection, that that's what they are about today.
You can't make that connection wire the technology is. You
(39:24):
can't not connect. You can't get there. Yes, in the
old school, I've missed a thing on yesterday that I
needed to do, but I couldn't make the connection. So
you know, so my babies keep me up. They're gonna
uh fix my problem. But I'm glad to be here
with you this morning.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I'm glad
for the work that you did with the legendary group
War because Uh, if it wasn't for that group, a
lot of a lot of lot of what came behind
that sounds.
Speaker 8 (39:53):
Would not either that's right or for an innovative group.
I mean, uh I, I just I have years of
love for the for those guys, even way before they
put me in the group. They added me in celebration
of their second decade recording, So that means I had
(40:14):
ten years of World of Storm World by Storm music
that they did, uh to listen and paint my life's story.
So you didn't you understand what I'm said? Their their
music was the backdrop of my life? You know?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Yeah, how did you get just a quick question, how'd
you how did you get involved with the with the group?
Speaker 8 (40:36):
Well, my goodness, many years ago. Let me couldn't eye throws.
Many years ago. Uh, I had one of my brothers
was and he's just east now. He was one of
my my brothers, and he was not my mother's son,
but he was my brother through uh a family of
(40:59):
which and uh uh he was a clothes designer and
he had a wonderful vision of making some clothes for
this group Wars, especially Papa dy Allen because his thing.
His designs were African designs. He had a die shooting
that he wanted to put Papa D in. And they
(41:22):
were back in the day. And I've always been a musician.
I'm always uh a a performer. My mother was a
gospel stores my father was a quartet singer.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
But he said, look, I got Moore's coming to the
hat find pavilion, and I need to get with Papa
D twee. You got to get us in. He knew
that I had connections with some of the musicians. I
knew some of the radio people. I knew you know,
you got to get us in. I said, well, come
(41:55):
on left, Joe. No, no, we didn't have a ticket
or anything. But I found the guy that was over
the emrtandise. His name was Clyde Brown, and at the
time I didn't know he was Harold Brown, brother hal Brown,
drummer war And I told him, I said, look, this
is who I am, and this is my brother. We've
(42:16):
got to see Papa do. He's got a special guy shiking.
He's made the Papa de propa. He said, you know,
I'll you stand round here, I'll get you over there.
I'll get you there. So that's how I first met Moore,
And I'm thinking this was in seventy four or three,
nineteen seventy three or four here in Houston. Now, they
(42:37):
had been a group since Derry Burden took off with
him in sixty nine. I've been listening to him since,
still the whine. But my opportunity to touch them came
through having to them being here in Houston. Yes, I
met them, met them all left Houston going to wherever
(42:58):
that next gig was with him after I met That's
the connection. It was immediate, and we've been together every shinch.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
The event starts at five pm and it's all free.
Tweed and her group War just received a Hollywood Walk
of Fame induction. As federal support for key USDA programs
are cut without thought by the corrupt and criminal Trump GOP,
small scale Texas farmers warn of the damaging effects on
(43:28):
local agriculture, community health, and school nutrition across the state.
The cuts, both made and proposed, will affect the local
Food Purchase Assistance program and the local Food for Schools programs.
These are managed by the Texas Department of Agriculture, and
these USDA initiatives connected Texas Grown produce directly to schools
(43:49):
and local nonprofits. Their success relied on a crucial partner,
the Common Market Texas. The Common Market Texas worked with
a community and is located here in the third Ward
in Houston, Texas. The cuts to the USDA will be
devastating the local farmers in and around Houston. We talked
to Jeremy Logan, executive director of Common Market Texas.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Can you talk about what's happening with the USDA food
program and why concerns Texas farmers.
Speaker 9 (44:18):
So, the USDA canceled the third installment of a program
called LFPA, which is Local Food Purchasing Assistance. We're currently
in the second version of that, and in December, the
USBA announced that there would be a third version that
(44:39):
would start as soon as the second version was over.
The second version was originally meant to end in May
of this year May thirty first, It was going to
be the last day, so they canceled the newest version
of that. They've extended the timeframe for the current one,
but they didn't add any money to it. So it's
(45:01):
just a matter of we have more time to utilize
those funds. But particularly here at the Common Market, our
model as a nonprofit is to purchase our food directly
from local farmers. So we source only from within the
state of Texas. Every piece of fruit, vegetable, rice, chicken, ground, beef,
(45:25):
everything that we purchase comes from the state of Texas.
It's grown and it's produced in the state of Texas
full stop. The other thing that we do is we
actually pay the farmers directly. We pay them full market price.
We don't accept any donated products. We're not a food bank.
We are partners with the farmers and with our distribution
(45:46):
partners who actually help us distribute the food to the
communities here in Texas. So without this additional funding, we
don't really have the resources to be able to support
these farmers. And considering that in December it was announced
that LFPA twenty five, which was going to be this
(46:07):
third version of LFPA, was approved, we started to plan
with our farmers for what the rest of twenty twenty
five and twenty twenty six was going to look like.
So we talked to them about crop planning and talked
to them about investments that they can make into their
farm Because we had good evidence that this program was
(46:29):
going to continue and that we all of the money
that we received from this goes into either our operations
or paying the farmers directly. So it's a big hit,
no question.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
And it was the reason why USDA is doing this.
Is they are they talk? Isn't you guys are at all?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
They have not.
Speaker 9 (46:47):
We worked directly with the Texas Department of Agriculture and
they simply said that the program has been canceled and
that it's out of their hands.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Saturday hands. But they know the Trump administration that was
saying how great they're i'm support they're getting from farmers,
and how much support they're given to farmers, especially local farmers.
Speaker 9 (47:10):
Well, so I didn't say that. What I said was
the USDA canceled LFPA twenty five, and without LFPA twenty five,
we don't have those resources that we use to support
local farmers. Our mission is to connect urban communities to
local food from sustainable family farms, so we work directly
(47:30):
with those farms. Those farms have access theoretically to other funding.
So if that's what you're referring to, I don't know
anything about that because I'm not a farmer. We run
a nonprofit regional food distribution outlet and we utilize LFPA funding,
which comes from the USDA through the Texas Department of Agriculture,
(47:51):
to support those farmers. That's what we use that money for.
But we have other resources that we also use to
support those farmers and to get this food into underserved areas.
That is our mission, that is what we do.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
But LFPA was.
Speaker 9 (48:06):
A great program that really helped support these local farmers.
And since we exclusively work with Texas farmers, and we
exclusively work with small and medium sized farmers, oftentimes first
time farmers, that was a huge boon. And now that
we don't have that funding, we're scrambling to find it elsewhere,
and in the meantime, we don't have those resources to
(48:27):
be able to continue to purchase, particularly at the volume
that we were doing before without this funding. If the
TDA comes up with other programs, which they have said
they're working on, then that could help solve that problem.
But LFPA was a great program and the canceling of
it has significant impacts here in Texas.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Can you talk about some of the challenges that farmers
in Texas have.
Speaker 9 (48:53):
Yeah, so, climate is a big part of it. We
are a seasonal group here because everything we supply and
everything we purchase is locally procured. So the seasonality, the
soil type, the temperature, the weather, those all affect Texas farms.
(49:15):
So this time last year, we still had access to strawberries.
Currently we don't because there was too much rain at
kind of the wrong time. This time last year, we
were talking about bringing on watermelons from certain parts of
the state and those just aren't available yet because other
parts of the state are suffering from drought. So our
(49:38):
farmers really need consistent year round support and they need
to be able to know that if there is some
sort of a weather event or if there is some
sort of a drought. There's a relationship between you know,
the southern border of Texas and Mexico in terms of
exchanging water rights, those have not been fully executed, and
(49:59):
in many ways, you know, the Texas farmers suffer because
they don't get the water at the right time. So
those are some serious challenges that we have. But also
there are other programs that had been run by the
USDA and by the Texas Department of Agriculture, like LSS,
which is Local Food for Schools, that give schools access
(50:19):
to funds to spend locally and So if we're talking
about really supporting small and medium sized Texas family farmers,
those programs incentivize, in this particular case, k through twelve
public schools to purchase locally. It's a lot cheaper to
buy produce from Mexico or from other places, depending on
(50:43):
the seasonality, it's a little bit more expensive to buy
it locally. And so when there are programs that help
support local and that encourage purchasing locally, that really drives
the Texas farm economy.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Can you back up a bit, he said, that is
cheap or the buy from Mexico and other places that
it is locally prep and why while with that, you know,
it seems like, you know, we'll explain that police.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Sure.
Speaker 9 (51:16):
So again, large farms have the benefit of scale. Farms
in Mexico have the benefit of having a different labor
model than we have here in the United States. They're
different regulations. So small local farms just have to spend
more per acre than large farms or farms in other countries.
(51:37):
So when we when we want to support Texas farms,
we need to be able to create programs that incentivize
schools and other local entities to purchase locally. And that's
what LFS did, That's what LFPA did. The l in
both of those is local, and so we at the
(51:59):
Common Market Texas work exclusively in the state of Texas,
and so we by definition procure only local products. We
by definitionure only directly from small and medium sized family farms,
and we purchase from them. We don't accept donations from them.
We are really invested in those farm programs. We provide
(52:20):
them with technical assistance, we provide them with pr and
marketing materials, all for free. We offer no interest loans
to these farmers that they pay back through purchase orders.
We make long term commitments to these farmers with our
purchase orders, but without the customers to then buy those products,
our model doesn't work. And so when Local Food for
(52:41):
Schools incentivizes k through twelve public schools to purchase locally,
they can then come to us and we have that
direct line and that direct connect to that direct connection
to these local farms.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
What about he kind of he kind of talked about
it a little bit, but he explained at the food
program of fixed students in schools around a state.
Speaker 9 (53:05):
So there's a couple of components to that. First and
foremost the further any piece of particularly like fresh produce, travels,
the less nutritional value it has when it reaches when
it reaches its destination. Time and distance are the biggest
factors in terms of the nutritional value of fresh fruits
(53:26):
and vegetables. So if they have to come from other
states or even from other countries, that's time and that's
a distance, and so those products just lose some of
their nutritional value, they lose some of their freshness. But
the other part of it is kids are in school
to get an education, and we want to educate them
on what farming looks like in their communities. And so
(53:48):
by connecting them directly with these farms, we really put
a face to the product. As I mentioned, we offer
them technical support. These are the farmers. We offer the
farmers technical support, we offer them pr and marketing material.
So when we have a school that purchases from us,
we share with them a farmer profile, which is we
have digital and physical.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Copies of it.
Speaker 9 (54:08):
But it's a nice, you know, eight and a half
eleven glossy with photos and with the story of the farm,
with the location of the farm, with the products that
they serve, with their backstory and we put those, we
display those in the schools, and so when the kids
come through the cafeteria lines and they see those Brussels
sprouts or they see those peaches, they then can look
up and see the farm that those came from, and
(54:30):
they can understand, oh, I know where Elgin, Texas is.
I know where these different places are, and all of
a sudden they have that connection of where their food
is actually coming from, and it sparts in them that curiosity.
It gives them that sense of place. It teaches them
that food has grown all over the world, but we
(54:51):
grow our own food right here in Texas, and we
want to be able to share that story.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Can you tell people about that don't know about common
life the Texas and how they can get involved and
how they can find out more information.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:05):
So we've been around as a total entity since two
thousand and eight. Were originally started in Philadelphia. We have
four regions, the Mid Atlantic, the Great Lakes, the Southeast,
and then here in Texas. We're located in Houston here
in third Ward. But really the best way to get
(55:25):
involved is to work with the school that your kids
go to or that you work at the hospital, the
clinic that you go to the faith based organization that
you attend or your local elected officials and say, we
want more access to local food, we want more access
(55:46):
to fresh, healthy produce. We want to know that our
tax dollars are going to support our local farmers. We
at the Common Market manage all of the infrastructure. We
do first mile pickup at the farms, We do last
miles delivery to the distribution sites to our customers. We
have our own warehouse here in Third Ward. We have
our own drivers, we have our own trucks, we have
(56:08):
our own full time staff. What we need is for
people to be aware of the fact that we are
connecting small and medium sized sustainable family farms in Texas
to these communities that don't have access to fresh fruits
and vegetables, and we want to be able to improve
(56:29):
and increase the amount of impact that we have with
these anchor institutions that are purchasing our food, whether it's
through grant funding, private funding, or through their own mission
driven procurement. So that's the story that we're trying to tell.
We can connect these communities with these great local farms
(56:51):
and we can provide them with a better product. We
can provide them with a more nutritious product, and we
can help tell that story.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
That was Jeremy Logan, Executive director of Common Market Texas.
The People's News is a production of Steve Gallington and
Richard Hannah and is protected by copyright laws. All the
information broadcast on air and online, as well as published
in both print and or online, including articles, audio clips, illustrations, graphics, photographs,
(57:19):
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(57:41):
our material in printed or electronic brochures, newsletters, or flyers,
as well as all website or email distribution. To obtain
permission to use copyrighted material, email Steve Gallington at Steve
atgallington dot com. Thank you,
It's the week of June eighth, twenty twenty five, and
this is what's on the People's News. The corrupt and
criminal Donald Trump doubles tariffs on aluminum and steel. The
GOP in Texas continues to bring religion into schools with
multiple unconstitutional actions. Environmental protections protected as the Texas legislature
(00:30):
ends trash methane and private landfills in Houston, A legendary
band comes to Houston's Eldorado to perform all that and
more on the People's News. I'm Steve Gallington. This is
the People's News, and the People's News starts now. When
(00:54):
you put a criminal, a convicted felon into the White House,
you getality, you get law breaking and convicted felon. Donald
Trump continued his illegal tariffs, which are making their way
through the courts until he's forced to remove those tariffs.
He's going to continue to break the law. And this week,
(01:17):
convicted fellon Donald Trump sign an order doubling tariffs on
steel and aluminum imports to fifty percent. Canadian and Mexican
officials and the European Union called foul as this violates
the earlier agreements that they had with Trump, this will
raise prices on everything across the board. We talked again
(01:42):
to Richard Messon, executive fellow at the University of Calgary
School of Public Policy and former CEO of the Alberta
Patroleum Marketing Commission.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I mean the effects have been huge. Our government foul.
We had an election, the party that was leading for
the previous year didn't win because of concerns around Trump
tariffs and how we would react. So it's been huge
from a political point of view, and then from an
(02:14):
economic point of view. We released statistics today that showed
I think it was in March our exports to the
US dropped seventeen percent and our imports from the US
dropped eleven percent, And so it's having a big economic
impact for Canadian businesses and consumers and US businesses and
consumers as well.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Currently being alertic Prime Ministry, it seems like people went
for what he was. He's trying to stand up to
the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Is that Yeah, I think both parties were doing that.
It's just a question about who probably had the best
ability to do that. And of course the Liberal government
had been in power for ten years and a lot
of people knew the cabinet ministers who elected and things
like that. I think they went for the safer choice
as opposed to the changing out the parties completely. And
(03:12):
so yeah, it's it's a big deal. I think Canada
is trying to figure out how to deal with this
because a lot of it still doesn't make any sense
to us.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
One thing is one thing that we'll fall out of
the elections with DP. I thought INDP, A lot of people,
include myself, thought INDP would maybe make a dit in
this election is past election.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, and they didn't do very well because everybody decided
to either go with the Liberals, you know, and try
and give them as strong amandate as possible, or the
Conservatives and the NDP kind of got wiped out. So yeah,
quite a quite a big change from what we expected,
you know at the end of last year.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Where did we go from here? Is because I don't
think Americans really uh understand the fix that Canada can
have on their buying power here in the States.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, the one of this week, I mean there's a
new one every day, it seems. But the moving the
steel and aluminum tariffs to fifty percent is just wild
because you don't have the ability to produce aluminum. You
don't have the box site in the US, and so
you get sixty percent of the aluminum that you use
(04:31):
from Canada. You can't get it anywhere else, and so
all you're doing is adding a cost to American consumers
and hurting jobs all the way along the line. I
don't none of us understand what the endgame is here.
It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
What the long the longer the longer this goes, the
you know what, what what the longer this goes? How
hard will it Canadians?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It's hitting us hard? You know, Like I said, the
exports have dropped a lot in the first month where
it really got clear that the tariffs were being implemented.
Investment isn't happening. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's you know,
been layoffs and lots of different companies. The steel and
the luminum thing, if that carries through, is going to
(05:23):
be even worse. And so yeah, and plus you know,
now most Canadians don't trust the US anymore. Right, we
are trying to figure out how we're going to change
our relationship with the US and how we're going to
build relationships with the rest of the world because we
don't trust you as a reliable partner because you make
(05:44):
decisions that don't make any sense, and there's no ability
for us to negotiate with you to get to a
good answer because you keep changing what you want.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And unions here have been saying that this is going
to be great for unions and their jobs to come
back to the back to the United States, which a doun'ts.
I really don't see that happening personally, But the unions
here seem to least some of them seem to be
supporting these tear if they're being put in place.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, there seemed to be some like in the auto sector.
But when I listen to the people from Canada in
the auto sector, they say that the integration we have
is the most efficient way and it creates the most jobs,
which allows us to compete against the world better than
if we're separate. And it's you know, not possible for
(06:38):
US plants to ramp up production and Canadian plants to
close quickly. Right All that takes time. You have to
spend billions of dollars to build new assembly lines. You
have to, you know, So what's happening right now is disruption,
and the more this carries on, the more layoffs are happening.
(06:58):
And there's already been a bunch. And of course auto
sales are going down because auto prices are going up.
And that's kind of the only unions that seem to
be supporting this that we hear about. If you think
about the steel and aluminum folks, there's no ability to
ramp up production in the US. There's you know, Canada
has been a reliable supplier for a very long time,
(07:21):
and it's not like you have a bunch of idle
capacity sitting there waiting to be turned on. You just don't.
And so if the fact that the tariffs are going
to fifty percent on your biggest supplier has to mean
that prices are going up for all the rest of
the value chain and for consumers in the US.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, how Carney answered it is he went to Washington
and it seemed where we left, it seemed like he
had it gained some type of guidance, made some type
of network and with Trump. But I guess we're square
one again. What are how amazing? What's the alternatives now?
(08:04):
What you know? Because I've heard that Canadian business now
looking to other sources or the places to sell. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Absolutely, we're we're trying to reduce internal barriers in our
country to you know, improve trade amongst our provinces, and
we're working to improve trade with Europe and Asia and
other markets. And Canada has many free trade agreements already
with those places, and all of them want to improve
trade with US as well because of the tariffs that
(08:36):
the US has put on them. So, you know, I
think over time a lot of trade will you know,
move away from the US and move to other parts
of the world. But you know, that doesn't happen quickly
because you've got to change all your supply chains, and
it's you've got to you know, make sure your ports
can handle it and and all those things. It's it's
totally different, and so it's going to take time for
(08:57):
that to happen. In the meantime, there's a lot of disruption.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
What happens with what happens with so called the pipeline
I think we're coming from coming from the oil that
was coming from Canada to the US. What happens with
all these all these treaties that had been worked on
for years.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well, so far, there's been no impacts on oil or gas,
which is a demonstration of how reliant you are on
us before. You know, back in January, the differential between
our heavy oil and West Texas was around fourteen dollars
a barrel. When Trump's starting to threaten the tariffs, that
(09:39):
differential widened a bit. But because you guys are so
short heavy oil right now, the differential has been as
low as eight dollars a barrel in the last few days.
And that proves that you need our oil and you're
willing to pay for it, pay up for it because
you don't have alternatives. And so this is the again,
the goofy part about it. It's not like the US
(10:01):
produces heavy oil. You don't. You get it from Venezuela.
You get it from Columbia. You get it from Canada
and Mexico. And if if you're not going to allow
it to flow freely, then you're going to be short.
And so because the refiners are desperate to get that oil,
they're paying a higher price now than they did before
it all started. The other thing is travel from Canada
(10:24):
to the US is way down. I mean people are
not going there, even people who own homes are not
going there. It's it's going to hurt your tourism sector
a lot, because we're your biggest tourists, and you know
it's Canadians are are angry and this isn't gonna you know,
there's no even if you wanted to. The relationship is
(10:46):
damaged and it won't be fixed quickly. But there's no
sign of wanting to fix it because you know, you
imposed higher tariffs and stealing a loon a couple days
ago for no reason. So's there's a lot of Canadians
who are pretty pissed.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
That was Richard Massan, executive fellow at the University of
Calgary School of Public Policy and former CEO of the
Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission. The dust is settled from the
Texas legislative session, and it was a mixed bag for
the people of Texas. Republicans were able to pass their
voucher bill, which gives away seven hundred and fifty million
(11:24):
dollars to rich, mostly white families for private school tuition relief.
They passed a partial school funding bill, which will help
ease the pain that most school districts are feeling across
the state, but not fix the problems They were unsuccessful
in being able to get rid of star testing. They
(11:46):
did ban THCHC and they did require that the Ten
Commandments be displayed in K through twelve classrooms across the state.
The bill requires every classroom divisibly disp lay up poster
sized at least sixteen by twenty inches of the Ten Commandments.
The poster can include any text other than the language
(12:08):
laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters
may be displayed. Added this session as well, lawmakers have
advanced bills that will allow a prayer or religious study
period in school, and one that would require that teachers
use the terms Anno Domini Latin four in the year
of the Lord and before Christ b C When expressing dates.
(12:31):
In other states where these laws have been put in place,
namely Louisiana, they've been challenged and ruled unconstitutional. We talked
with Will Judy, with Houston atheist and American atheist.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
The state of Texas is scied to this paths session
a statitude enact the posting the Ten Commandments in class
rooms and also the posting also given time in schools
of prayer sessions in public school. Your opinion on that
(13:05):
and what is it What is your organization just going
to do about this? You guys have planned for this.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, SP ten, which is the bill for the ten
to post the Ten Commandments in schools, and SB eleven
that's the one that protects prayer time and Bible study
in schools mandated by the state. Yeah, both of those
we pushed back on pretty hard during the legislative session
(13:35):
that just ended.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Two days ago.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
So that's squarely in our wheelhouse, in the lane that
we occupy, and we pushed back on it pretty hard
as it went through committees and then as it went
to the to the four vote for both bills, especially
SB ten which is a Ten Commandments bill, in my
opinion of both obviously unconstitutional and there is there is
(14:05):
precedent to the Supreme Court, uh saying hey, you can't
post him commandments stone versus Grandma. I believe with the
with the case decades ago. But and it's in the
Constitution and the establishment clause. But this current administration, the
current environment is kind of rife for them pushing the
(14:29):
boundaries and pushing this through.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Oh so what so in it's just this Supreme Court
thing we have right now, it's in service Supreme Court
do you think they will rule in your favor even
though even though.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
It is it is unconstitutional, right, Yeah, So it passed
to the Texas legislature, is going to be signed into
law by by Governor Abbott, and and then so there's
already lawsuits lined up to sue based on this be
done constitutional about the a c l U a a
CLU Texas, I believe the Freedom for Religion Foundation Americans United.
(15:14):
There's gonna be a bunch of lawsuits if it does
get to the Supreme Court, which I think I say
they the Christian nationalists, they really do want this to
get to that point because they they're confident that this
current Supreme Court will rule in their favor despite their
(15:34):
being precedent. But precedent doesn't mean what it used to
in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So what do I predict?
Speaker 5 (15:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I know really smart people in my world that they also.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Say the same thing.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
They don't know how this will will will break. But
the numbers just don't look good six to three as
far as conservatives versus I guess I'm doing air quotes
liberals on this current Supreme Court and what this Texas
(16:09):
law is just SB ten, the Ten Commandments. Still what
they have they've learned from other from other states, and
that they can't just say, hey, this is Christianity, this
is good for kids because it's God. They attached the
label of history and tradition to the Tenth Commandment, so
(16:30):
they're skirting their religious component of it, and they're saying, no, no, no, no,
this is history and tradition. This is foundational to the
laws of this land. And that's why we're putting it up.
It's it's it's blatant, it's just a thin veneer. Everyone
knows what they're doing. But maybe that's just enough for
the Supreme Court to kind of agree with them and say, yep,
(16:51):
this is a history and tradition because they have ruled,
they have ruled for pushing the boundaries of true, say
separation with this label of history and tradition. This is
something you're going to hear a lot during this case.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
What happens to people that are atheists, Muslim, Jewish, or
other religions, and what are the states saying about that,
especially if you're atheists, you know, and you don't.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Want to hear this, right, They essentially shrug their shoulders
and they don't say anything about about the other religions,
because they smirk and say, this isn't a religious bill,
this isn't a religious text. It's history and tradition. So
they smirk as they say that because they because they
know what they're doing. And I mean, it's all about
(17:45):
a hierarchy. You establish a hierarchy, and the Muslims, the atheist,
the Hindu students you get in line, which is less than.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And the it the.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Aspect of when they say traditional or history, well, history
has shown in the past that this is a nation
that's not based on any type of anyone religion. It's
based on it's based on getting away from religious persecution, persecution,
and this is uh, this seems to be going in
(18:23):
the rock direction a lot of ways. Am I correct
on that?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Absolutely correct? The yes, this country wouldn't. I don't agree
with the founding fathers for a lot of things. But
they got the church state separation thing right. They on
purpose separated the two and made this government a secular government. Now,
most Americans back then and even now are were Christian.
(18:49):
But that's fine, but they wanted to They knew what
athocracy brings. They knew they knew back then in the
seventeen eighties, what state sponsored religion can do. Streets run
red with blood and it's just it's chaos. They knew that.
They didn't have to look very far back in history
(19:09):
at that point to understand that, and they wanted no
part of that. To establish this young country, they wanted
a secular government and it was the first We were
the first country to do this, to codify a secular
government in the constitution. We were the first ones to
put it in writing in our constitution and that's something
we should be proud of.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
How can people find out more about your organization, which
you guys are.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Doing so American Atheists is as a national group and
again we do a lot of advocacy at the state
legislative level, so Center for Free Thought Equalities and another
group that I am involved with, and again just trying
to advocate for church state separation at the state and
national level with that organization. But you look up both
(19:58):
organizations and that's the way you can you can see
what we're up to.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
That was Will Judy with Houston Atheist and American Atheist.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
This is Steve Gallington, producer and host of the People's
News The People's News is people powered news. We are
free to report the unvarnished and unspun truth and challenge
the status quo of corporate propaganda and social media advertising
disguised as real news. Shiny new one hour episodes of
(20:29):
The People's News drop each Sunday on The People's News Podcast.
Thanks for listening. As the Texas Legislature wrapped up its
eighty ninth session, there was a mix of environmental progress
and missed opportunities. In a state where fossil fuel interests
holds significant sway, Environment Texas is celebrating a string of
(20:52):
victories in stopping major threats to clean energy and local
environmental protections while helping to advance an number of positive bills.
We talked to Luke Metzger, Executive Director of Environment Texas.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Yeah, fortunately, there are a lot of positives.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I think most noteworthy is what the legislature didn't do.
There were a number of bills that passed the Texas
Senate that would have gutted wind and solar energy in
the state by assessing onerous new fees and instituting discriminatory
permitting requirements and even outright bands of some technologies. And thankfully,
(21:36):
you know, while they passed the Senate, they ended up
dying in the state House. And that's great news because
of course Texas, you know, our rulable energy industry is booming.
We are generating more and more clean winded solar power
and battery storage every day, and that is critical for
(21:56):
our climate and for our environment. By offsetting UH emissions
from you know, polluting fossil fuel power plants, and so
by the legislator not throwing a wrench in the works,
you know, that boom can continue. And that is a
you know, a really bright spot you know for Texas's
environment and climate action. So really good news that they
(22:20):
didn't gut and you know, grind renewal energy developmental a halt.
They also took some positive steps forward for clean energy,
including making it easier to install solar panels on your
own home by streamlining the permitting process, as well as
adopting some good measures to increase the environmental responsibility of wind, solar,
(22:49):
and batteries at the end of their lives. So, for example,
a new bill was passed to make sure that when
batteries end their useful life that they're decommissioned properly removed
from the land and dealt with properly, and so that
was good news, as well as new recycling requirements for
(23:11):
wind and solar panels at the end of their lives,
and so all in all, you know, I think from
a clean energy perspective, we took steps forward. The other
thing I would mention that's more of a mixed bag
on the energy front is the Texas Energy Fund. That
was something that was created two years ago, and the
idea was to create a ten billion dollar fund to
(23:34):
invest in energy, mostly giving you know, grants and loans
to build new gas power plants. And of course, you know,
we think that was you know, the wrong direction. We
don't want at a time that we're facing a climate crisis.
We don't want to be you know, adding more fuel
to the fire by you know, subsidizing you know, more
methane gas power plants. However, there's a bright spot in
(23:57):
that program in that that eighteen percent of the money
is supposed to go to provide funds for backup power
at critical infrastructure, so that's like nursing homes, wastewater treatment plants,
things like that, will get funding to install solar batteries
as well as kind of you know, gas generators, but
(24:18):
that could mean you know, several you know, thousands of
megallots of additional kind of clean energy behind the meter
that will help make sure that you know, those you know,
critical infrastructure are able to keep the lights on, keep
the power on when there are outages, as well as
be producing power you know, throughout the year onto the grid.
(24:39):
So that that was definitely a bright spot as well
in terms of energy. Well, yeah, so the other things
I would point out is, uh, Texas became the first
red state, you know, pending the governor's approval of legislation
to give people the right to repair their consumer electronics.
And I think you know of us have had the
(25:00):
experience where a product, you know, a cell phone or
other things needs repair, but we're only only able to
take it to the authorized dealer to get the repair.
And that means that often the price of repair is
very expensive, or you get pressured to instead of repairing
it just by a brand new phone, even though your
(25:22):
you know, old phone is perfectly fine with just a
small repair. And you know, the problem is that a
lot of manufacturers make it very difficult for you to
fix your products and they much rather sell you something new,
and so they would hold the tools or the software.
They prevent third party dealers from you know, fixing your things,
(25:43):
and so that as a result, that means we end
up throwing away you know, huge amounts of electronic waste
or electronic products every every day in the United States,
something like you know, six hundred thousand cell phones get
thrown away every day in the US. And those are
you know, good products that we could be refurbishing and reusing,
(26:05):
but instead a lot of those parts, which you know
can include some toxic components, to get thrown into our
landfills where they could include the environment. And so a
bill by representatives Geoe could freely own would make sure
that Texans actually have the right to repair their own
their own electronic products. And you know, again, Texas would
(26:29):
be the first, uh, you know, Republican led state in
America to do that. There's about six or seven other
states around the country that have done at first, but
that would really be good news for helping reduce electronic waste.
And then I think the other thing I would highlight
is action of water. Of course, you know, the legislature
(26:52):
pass legislation that would invest more than twenty two billion
dollars in water infrastructure in the state, and that is
a bit of a mixed bag as well. The good
news is that a lot of that money will be
used to repair leaking municipal water mains, you know, and
Houston in particular has a big problem. You know, enough
(27:15):
water is lost from leaky pipes in Houston to meet
the annual water needs of the city at Fort Worth,
So a huge amount of water is being wasted. And
so a lot of this money will go to kind
of fix those leaks, which is great, as well as
to promote some other kind of water conservation measures. On
the other hand, you know, a lot of the money
(27:36):
will likely go to more questionable and you know water
supply strategies, many of which can have you know, some
harm for the environment, including you know, massive new reservoir projects,
you know, ocean desalination projects, which can generally require huge
amounts of electricity to uh kind of treat and and
(28:00):
that you know, more electricity use means more carbon emissions basically,
and then with oceand sal you also have this concentrated
brine that is pretty toxic to marine life that it's
often kind of disposed of and you know, sensitive estuaries,
So that is I think problematic as well as there's
a new move to use oil and gas wastewater and
(28:22):
try and treat it to the levels that we could
inject it into our rivers or aquifers, but that that
technology is still in its infancy and very unclear that
we can do that safely. So I think that you know,
again a lot of good in that water infrastructure build,
but also a lot a lot of things that are
(28:45):
potentially harmful to the environment as well.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That was Luke Metzker of Environment Texas. You can reach
the organization at Environment Texas put together DOT or RG.
Houston officials look at options for solving a growing trash
problem in Harris County. While landfill regulations are managed by
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in Harris County, seventy
(29:09):
eight percent of the methane emissions come from three privately
owned landfills over which the city and the state has
no jurisdiction. We hear more from Free to Ross and
the Texas News Service.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
Like many major cities across the country, Houston has a
landfill problem. The city is projected to produce more than
five million tons of trash annually by twenty forty and
only has five landfills. The former director of Solid Waste Management,
Mark Wilfolk, says the city is working on a plan
to deal with waste and is looking for alternatives to landfills.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
Some places instill have in landfills, they have waste energy
plants that converts all the waste and energy, then that
energy gets sold off into the grid and just trying
to repurpose for that more aggressive recycling programs for trying
to find out the alternatives waste disposal separated organics now.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
A twenty twenty one report commissioned by the city showed
that Houston needed to start the process for a new
landfield as soon as possible. The report emphasized that even
under the best of circumstances, securing a new landfill will
take from ten to fifteen years to site, permit, and construct.
Nearly all waste operations in the Greater Houston area are
(30:26):
in communities with more than fifty percent black and brown residents.
According to a report from the Harris Galveston Area Council,
there's only one facility, a waste transfer station, located in
a predominantly white neighborhood. Well Falk says, although there isn't
an ordnance in place specifying where a landfield can and
(30:46):
can't be placed, he feels planners will be more cautious
when picking sites for future landfills nowadays.
Speaker 7 (30:53):
When people started landfills, there was a lot more consciousness
towards where you located at that from happening today's, so
I don't see Houston going down there.
Speaker 6 (31:03):
Residents living near landfill's complain of the smell, illegal dumping,
and illnesses related to inhaling methane gas, carbon dioxide and
other toxins. This story was produced with original reporting from
Elena Briss with Houston Landing. I'm FREDA Ross, Texas News Service.
Find our trust indicators at Publicnews Service dot org.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Tweed Smith, longtime vocalist with the band War and Community
Music Center of Houston vocalist, is announcing that they are
holding a free event for Black Music Month on June eighth,
Sunday at the historic Eldorado Ballroom on twenty three to ten,
Elgin We spoke with her about the event, which is
free to the public.
Speaker 8 (31:48):
I'm with the Community gen Music Center of Houston. The community.
Gen Music Center of Houston is a non profit organization
that is a mission to get music into the community
by many entities. We are educators. We have classes for
every instrument that you desire to play, from ages of
(32:13):
five through adulthood. We have performances such as Philly Sound,
So Sound. We there's a production of music that comes
out of Philadelphia and artists that are affiliated with Philadelphia
that gave us a wonderful sound of Philadelphia. We also
(32:37):
have shows where we have multicultural shows where we blend
the music of black classical artists with fusion of other
countries such as India. We just had a show over
the weekend where doctor lundy Uh had a blend of
fusion of music of Indian music and classical music and just.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Music is what we do.
Speaker 8 (33:06):
We are building a building right in the heart of
third Ward, the historical spot architect by doctor John Chase
on Holman. There it was doctor Banfield's former office, right
across from the historic old Lego Hospital wants its Riverside Hospital,
(33:32):
but right in the middle of the mecca of our
third Board area. We're building there and we're continuing to
raise money to do this wonderful institution of music in
our community. Now on the eighth of June, I want
to share with you an exciting event that we are
(33:55):
doing at the historic Eldorado Ballroom again in the heart
the third ward right on Emoscipation and Elgin. That build
it has great history and we are doing our legacy
project there where we honor people of great a statue
(34:17):
and influence in the community of music. This year, our
honorary is mister Ron Stales, who is our founder of
the Community Music Center of Houston. In past years we
honored people such as doctor Jan Taylor and be honored
Missus Jewel Brown and many others. But this year we're
(34:41):
focused and on our founder and we lost on last
year but has been such a stable in the community.
We have the orchestra playing led by doctor Rondi, who
is just my she. I just admire her soul for
(35:02):
all the things that she does to keep music alive
in our community. She will be leading the orchestra. She's
the greatest conductor, female or otherwise of an orchestra. She
knows how to bring it together and give you a
paint a picture of music for you with her instruments.
(35:23):
We'll be there we're partnering with Miss Michelle Bonds and
the artists collected and other artists such as mister Charles
Washington grow renown artists and she and other artists. They
will have to hibit their art and musicians will be playing.
Speaker 7 (35:43):
We have.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
The Eddie v Band two laid back then working the
garden room there I think from three to five, and
then we have the big show starting at five to seven,
and whereas we will present a legacy of song from
the Music Center as we anser honor Ron Scales along
(36:09):
with the loss and family and other people that have
been influential in our journey at the Community Music Center Houston.
I from a vocal director and we have put back
enforced our community a choir the musical truth, and they
will be given an array of songs that will remind
(36:33):
you of days ago and make you smile. Ron Scales,
as I said, our Honoree was a great lover of
arzill and so slapstick music. And then we're going to
explore some jazz and some old Negro as they say, spirituals,
(36:56):
but Africa art will be painted through music. On the
eighth of June, By asked everyone to please be in attendance.
And this is all free to Frick's well.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Free.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
Yes, yes, uh free, and yes, come just to enjoy,
Come just to fellowship, Come just to see what's going
on around you. I'm gonna be flying back in from
Los Angeles as I am the only female member of
the world renowned group War. We're receiving our star on
(37:35):
the fifth of June of the UK of Bain, so
I will be there. Uh just want to let people
know that I'm right out of Houston, Texas. I give
back what was fed into me. I feed it back
into the community. I am a big stickler for the
youth and the elders. I love performing for them, to
(37:59):
show them what they said into me, and show the
youngsters that I have been this, this is me. You know.
You can go and I'm in the library compress, but
you too, I was right here with you right now.
My star is in the eyes of my baby. Yeah
that kind of thing. They're gonna put one on the ground,
(38:19):
But my stars are in the eyes of the people
lives that I touched. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
People, people don't know. Just people are even listening to
hip hop, they gotta understand a lot of listen to.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
The ball right now, I blew out. He's got flipping
into darkness. H looke right into it.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
We love it.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Oh, we just love it because it takes us to
another generation.
Speaker 7 (38:43):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (38:44):
And and people have to see that bridge.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
That's what it's all about, rich and young people and
older people together. Oh you still there, I'm sto.
Speaker 8 (38:55):
I please forgive my my absentine voice. Yes, people have
to uh understand that bridge you see.
Speaker 7 (39:03):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
The elders for so long don't understand the youth because
they don't relate to Let them see how they relate
to They want to say, Oh, they ain't never done done.
We'll let them see that. Let them hear that they
that make that connection, that that's what they are about today.
You can't make that connection wire the technology is. You
(39:24):
can't not connect. You can't get there. Yes, in the
old school, I've missed a thing on yesterday that I
needed to do, but I couldn't make the connection. So
you know, so my babies keep me up. They're gonna
uh fix my problem. But I'm glad to be here
with you this morning.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I'm glad
for the work that you did with the legendary group
War because Uh, if it wasn't for that group, a
lot of a lot of lot of what came behind
that sounds.
Speaker 8 (39:53):
Would not either that's right or for an innovative group.
I mean, uh I, I just I have years of
love for the for those guys, even way before they
put me in the group. They added me in celebration
of their second decade recording, So that means I had
(40:14):
ten years of World of Storm World by Storm music
that they did, uh to listen and paint my life's story.
So you didn't you understand what I'm said? Their their
music was the backdrop of my life? You know?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Yeah, how did you get just a quick question, how'd
you how did you get involved with the with the group?
Speaker 8 (40:36):
Well, my goodness, many years ago. Let me couldn't eye throws.
Many years ago. Uh, I had one of my brothers
was and he's just east now. He was one of
my my brothers, and he was not my mother's son,
but he was my brother through uh a family of
(40:59):
which and uh uh he was a clothes designer and
he had a wonderful vision of making some clothes for
this group Wars, especially Papa dy Allen because his thing.
His designs were African designs. He had a die shooting
that he wanted to put Papa D in. And they
(41:22):
were back in the day. And I've always been a musician.
I'm always uh a a performer. My mother was a
gospel stores my father was a quartet singer.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
But he said, look, I got Moore's coming to the
hat find pavilion, and I need to get with Papa
D twee. You got to get us in. He knew
that I had connections with some of the musicians. I
knew some of the radio people. I knew you know,
you got to get us in. I said, well, come
(41:55):
on left, Joe. No, no, we didn't have a ticket
or anything. But I found the guy that was over
the emrtandise. His name was Clyde Brown, and at the
time I didn't know he was Harold Brown, brother hal Brown,
drummer war And I told him, I said, look, this
is who I am, and this is my brother. We've
(42:16):
got to see Papa do. He's got a special guy shiking.
He's made the Papa de propa. He said, you know,
I'll you stand round here, I'll get you over there.
I'll get you there. So that's how I first met Moore,
And I'm thinking this was in seventy four or three,
nineteen seventy three or four here in Houston. Now, they
(42:37):
had been a group since Derry Burden took off with
him in sixty nine. I've been listening to him since,
still the whine. But my opportunity to touch them came
through having to them being here in Houston. Yes, I
met them, met them all left Houston going to wherever
(42:58):
that next gig was with him after I met That's
the connection. It was immediate, and we've been together every shinch.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
The event starts at five pm and it's all free.
Tweed and her group War just received a Hollywood Walk
of Fame induction. As federal support for key USDA programs
are cut without thought by the corrupt and criminal Trump GOP,
small scale Texas farmers warn of the damaging effects on
(43:28):
local agriculture, community health, and school nutrition across the state.
The cuts, both made and proposed, will affect the local
Food Purchase Assistance program and the local Food for Schools programs.
These are managed by the Texas Department of Agriculture, and
these USDA initiatives connected Texas Grown produce directly to schools
(43:49):
and local nonprofits. Their success relied on a crucial partner,
the Common Market Texas. The Common Market Texas worked with
a community and is located here in the third Ward
in Houston, Texas. The cuts to the USDA will be
devastating the local farmers in and around Houston. We talked
to Jeremy Logan, executive director of Common Market Texas.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Can you talk about what's happening with the USDA food
program and why concerns Texas farmers.
Speaker 9 (44:18):
So, the USDA canceled the third installment of a program
called LFPA, which is Local Food Purchasing Assistance. We're currently
in the second version of that, and in December, the
USBA announced that there would be a third version that
(44:39):
would start as soon as the second version was over.
The second version was originally meant to end in May
of this year May thirty first, It was going to
be the last day, so they canceled the newest version
of that. They've extended the timeframe for the current one,
but they didn't add any money to it. So it's
(45:01):
just a matter of we have more time to utilize
those funds. But particularly here at the Common Market, our
model as a nonprofit is to purchase our food directly
from local farmers. So we source only from within the
state of Texas. Every piece of fruit, vegetable, rice, chicken, ground, beef,
(45:25):
everything that we purchase comes from the state of Texas.
It's grown and it's produced in the state of Texas
full stop. The other thing that we do is we
actually pay the farmers directly. We pay them full market price.
We don't accept any donated products. We're not a food bank.
We are partners with the farmers and with our distribution
(45:46):
partners who actually help us distribute the food to the
communities here in Texas. So without this additional funding, we
don't really have the resources to be able to support
these farmers. And considering that in December it was announced
that LFPA twenty five, which was going to be this
(46:07):
third version of LFPA, was approved, we started to plan
with our farmers for what the rest of twenty twenty
five and twenty twenty six was going to look like.
So we talked to them about crop planning and talked
to them about investments that they can make into their
farm Because we had good evidence that this program was
(46:29):
going to continue and that we all of the money
that we received from this goes into either our operations
or paying the farmers directly. So it's a big hit,
no question.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
And it was the reason why USDA is doing this.
Is they are they talk? Isn't you guys are at all?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
They have not.
Speaker 9 (46:47):
We worked directly with the Texas Department of Agriculture and
they simply said that the program has been canceled and
that it's out of their hands.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Saturday hands. But they know the Trump administration that was
saying how great they're i'm support they're getting from farmers,
and how much support they're given to farmers, especially local farmers.
Speaker 9 (47:10):
Well, so I didn't say that. What I said was
the USDA canceled LFPA twenty five, and without LFPA twenty five,
we don't have those resources that we use to support
local farmers. Our mission is to connect urban communities to
local food from sustainable family farms, so we work directly
(47:30):
with those farms. Those farms have access theoretically to other funding.
So if that's what you're referring to, I don't know
anything about that because I'm not a farmer. We run
a nonprofit regional food distribution outlet and we utilize LFPA funding,
which comes from the USDA through the Texas Department of Agriculture,
(47:51):
to support those farmers. That's what we use that money for.
But we have other resources that we also use to
support those farmers and to get this food into underserved areas.
That is our mission, that is what we do.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
But LFPA was.
Speaker 9 (48:06):
A great program that really helped support these local farmers.
And since we exclusively work with Texas farmers, and we
exclusively work with small and medium sized farmers, oftentimes first
time farmers, that was a huge boon. And now that
we don't have that funding, we're scrambling to find it elsewhere,
and in the meantime, we don't have those resources to
(48:27):
be able to continue to purchase, particularly at the volume
that we were doing before without this funding. If the
TDA comes up with other programs, which they have said
they're working on, then that could help solve that problem.
But LFPA was a great program and the canceling of
it has significant impacts here in Texas.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
Can you talk about some of the challenges that farmers
in Texas have.
Speaker 9 (48:53):
Yeah, so, climate is a big part of it. We
are a seasonal group here because everything we supply and
everything we purchase is locally procured. So the seasonality, the
soil type, the temperature, the weather, those all affect Texas farms.
(49:15):
So this time last year, we still had access to strawberries.
Currently we don't because there was too much rain at
kind of the wrong time. This time last year, we
were talking about bringing on watermelons from certain parts of
the state and those just aren't available yet because other
parts of the state are suffering from drought. So our
(49:38):
farmers really need consistent year round support and they need
to be able to know that if there is some
sort of a weather event or if there is some
sort of a drought. There's a relationship between you know,
the southern border of Texas and Mexico in terms of
exchanging water rights, those have not been fully executed, and
(49:59):
in many ways, you know, the Texas farmers suffer because
they don't get the water at the right time. So
those are some serious challenges that we have. But also
there are other programs that had been run by the
USDA and by the Texas Department of Agriculture, like LSS,
which is Local Food for Schools, that give schools access
(50:19):
to funds to spend locally and So if we're talking
about really supporting small and medium sized Texas family farmers,
those programs incentivize, in this particular case, k through twelve
public schools to purchase locally. It's a lot cheaper to
buy produce from Mexico or from other places, depending on
(50:43):
the seasonality, it's a little bit more expensive to buy
it locally. And so when there are programs that help
support local and that encourage purchasing locally, that really drives
the Texas farm economy.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Can you back up a bit, he said, that is
cheap or the buy from Mexico and other places that
it is locally prep and why while with that, you know,
it seems like, you know, we'll explain that police.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
Sure.
Speaker 9 (51:16):
So again, large farms have the benefit of scale. Farms
in Mexico have the benefit of having a different labor
model than we have here in the United States. They're
different regulations. So small local farms just have to spend
more per acre than large farms or farms in other countries.
(51:37):
So when we when we want to support Texas farms,
we need to be able to create programs that incentivize
schools and other local entities to purchase locally. And that's
what LFS did, That's what LFPA did. The l in
both of those is local, and so we at the
(51:59):
Common Market Texas work exclusively in the state of Texas,
and so we by definition procure only local products. We
by definitionure only directly from small and medium sized family farms,
and we purchase from them. We don't accept donations from them.
We are really invested in those farm programs. We provide
(52:20):
them with technical assistance, we provide them with pr and
marketing materials, all for free. We offer no interest loans
to these farmers that they pay back through purchase orders.
We make long term commitments to these farmers with our
purchase orders, but without the customers to then buy those products,
our model doesn't work. And so when Local Food for
(52:41):
Schools incentivizes k through twelve public schools to purchase locally,
they can then come to us and we have that
direct line and that direct connect to that direct connection
to these local farms.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
What about he kind of he kind of talked about
it a little bit, but he explained at the food
program of fixed students in schools around a state.
Speaker 9 (53:05):
So there's a couple of components to that. First and
foremost the further any piece of particularly like fresh produce, travels,
the less nutritional value it has when it reaches when
it reaches its destination. Time and distance are the biggest
factors in terms of the nutritional value of fresh fruits
(53:26):
and vegetables. So if they have to come from other
states or even from other countries, that's time and that's
a distance, and so those products just lose some of
their nutritional value, they lose some of their freshness. But
the other part of it is kids are in school
to get an education, and we want to educate them
on what farming looks like in their communities. And so
(53:48):
by connecting them directly with these farms, we really put
a face to the product. As I mentioned, we offer
them technical support. These are the farmers. We offer the
farmers technical support, we offer them pr and marketing material.
So when we have a school that purchases from us,
we share with them a farmer profile, which is we
have digital and physical.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Copies of it.
Speaker 9 (54:08):
But it's a nice, you know, eight and a half
eleven glossy with photos and with the story of the farm,
with the location of the farm, with the products that
they serve, with their backstory and we put those, we
display those in the schools, and so when the kids
come through the cafeteria lines and they see those Brussels
sprouts or they see those peaches, they then can look
up and see the farm that those came from, and
(54:30):
they can understand, oh, I know where Elgin, Texas is.
I know where these different places are, and all of
a sudden they have that connection of where their food
is actually coming from, and it sparts in them that curiosity.
It gives them that sense of place. It teaches them
that food has grown all over the world, but we
(54:51):
grow our own food right here in Texas, and we
want to be able to share that story.
Speaker 3 (54:56):
Can you tell people about that don't know about common
life the Texas and how they can get involved and
how they can find out more information.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:05):
So we've been around as a total entity since two
thousand and eight. Were originally started in Philadelphia. We have
four regions, the Mid Atlantic, the Great Lakes, the Southeast,
and then here in Texas. We're located in Houston here
in third Ward. But really the best way to get
(55:25):
involved is to work with the school that your kids
go to or that you work at the hospital, the
clinic that you go to the faith based organization that
you attend or your local elected officials and say, we
want more access to local food, we want more access
(55:46):
to fresh, healthy produce. We want to know that our
tax dollars are going to support our local farmers. We
at the Common Market manage all of the infrastructure. We
do first mile pickup at the farms, We do last
miles delivery to the distribution sites to our customers. We
have our own warehouse here in Third Ward. We have
our own drivers, we have our own trucks, we have
(56:08):
our own full time staff. What we need is for
people to be aware of the fact that we are
connecting small and medium sized sustainable family farms in Texas
to these communities that don't have access to fresh fruits
and vegetables, and we want to be able to improve
(56:29):
and increase the amount of impact that we have with
these anchor institutions that are purchasing our food, whether it's
through grant funding, private funding, or through their own mission
driven procurement. So that's the story that we're trying to tell.
We can connect these communities with these great local farms
(56:51):
and we can provide them with a better product. We
can provide them with a more nutritious product, and we
can help tell that story.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
That was Jeremy Logan, Executive director of Common Market Texas.
The People's News is a production of Steve Gallington and
Richard Hannah and is protected by copyright laws. All the
information broadcast on air and online, as well as published
in both print and or online, including articles, audio clips, illustrations, graphics, photographs,
(57:19):
and videos, are protected by these copyright and other state
and federal intellectual property laws. Therefore, you may not use
our content in any prohibited way, including reproducing, publishing, transmitting, selling, rewriting, broadcasting,
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(57:41):
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atgallington dot com. Thank you,
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