Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack gannon government sucks. Pursuit of happiness. Radio is DeLux.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile of a suit
of happing and us on your radio to ol just
as cheeseburg, just a libity rise at the food.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah yeah, this is the wrong music, guys. It's it's
uh Saint Patty's day. Can we get I'll get some
appropriate music please something to go there we go?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Kids.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
If you're looking for a reason to drink, just check
your four oh one K balance. You don't need Saint
Patrick's date, but it is Saint Patrick's date. So if
you see an Irish guy stumbling around, say hi to
Joe Biden for me. You know he's like the roomba
when he walks around the room. Legend has it that
Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland and
if he did that today, those snakes would have been
(00:54):
hit with a twenty five percent tarra. And by the way,
if you didn't pour a pin of guinness over a
ball like you try this morning, you're.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Doing it wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
So you eat some green food or as single guys
living alone call it, I don't feel like going out,
let's see what's in the fridge day.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
It's good to be here with you. You know, we
got a full.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Show this afternoon, and since it is Saint Patrick's Day,
Daniel Turner will be stopping by. The question we're going
to try to answer on the show is when Joe
Biden signed something with an auto pen, meaning he didn't
really sign it. Is the document legally binding? I hope
it's not, but that's for personal reasons. Also stopping by
today Holly Hanson of the Texan News. She's a journalist
(01:34):
and she is going to share some of her journal
with no She's going to tell you what's going on
right now in Austin, Texas with the DOGE Committee assignments,
and even here in Houston and Harris County, they are
trying to clean up some of the waste and excessive spending.
Did you know Harris County employees have been working from
home for five years. A lot of them don't even
live in Houston. They're living in places like Dallas and Austin.
(01:56):
We'll explain to you why that matters anyway, before we
get to any of that. Vance He's Irish, right, I
think he is? Isn't he Irish Scottish descent Appalachian American guy.
And he's a Catholic too, so I know he's celebrating St.
Patrick's day to day. Jade Vance and Usha, his wife,
were booed by a crowd as they attended a concert
(02:16):
at the Kennedy Center over the weekend. The Vice President
and the second lady were jeered as they sat down
to watch the National Symphony Orchestra. Imagine showing up to
see a symphony perform and then booing the vice president
while you're there.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
That's not very nice?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Kind of sad and sick thing to do? Breitbart dot
com today, reporting.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
On the news.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
As the young couple took their seats, about thirty seconds
of booze rang out from those angry that the Kennedy
Center will no longer be grooming children with musicals about
transgender preteens?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Why did we need that? Here is some of that
video in case you're caius what. It sounded like.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
A lot of booing going on as all the gray
and purple haired losers booed. Vance's response was perfect. First,
he looks at his gorgeous wife, then he takes a
sip of his drink. Next, he gives everyone a nice
wave before settling in, like the Kennedy Center is his
own private man cave. He doesn't care. He seems to
kick back very comfortable. Anyone who is at all familiar
(03:16):
with JD. Vance's background, anyone who knows what this guy
went through to get to where he is now knows
that booing coming from the worst people in the world
means less than nothing.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
To him, and it's probably a badge of honor.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
How can you not like a guy that gets cheered
at NASCAR events but boode by the wealthy elitist at
the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You know what I mean? You get it. He's spoiled
and titled.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Leftist elitists angry because Trump did what they always do.
He got control of an institution by winning a presidential
election and ruthlessly took it over. When Democrats do that,
they call it progress and then prey on our children
with filth like transgendered operas. When we do that, it's
called fascism. It's attack on democracy, except it's not. Trump
(04:04):
was voted in as the new chairman of the Kennedy Center,
and he fired all eighteen members of the board of
trustees appointed by former President Joe Biden. And by the way,
every one of those eighteen people was okay with grooming
little kids. Donald Trump quickly appointed Richard Grenell as interim
executive director, and along with the White House Chief of
Staff Susan Wilds and Fox News anchor Laura ingram Our
(04:27):
second Lady, serves as a board member. The Vances were
there Thursday to enjoy a performance of the National Symphony
Orchestra and stayed until it was over.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So yeah, go ahead, boo away, losers.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Jd.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Vance will be your vice president for four more years.
Better still, he is a beautiful wife. He has adorable kids,
He has a fortune he accumulated before age forty, and
a future so bright you can only look at it
through a welding helmet.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I gotta think.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
This is Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness on KPRC nine
fifty Houston.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
All right, so it is Saint Patty's Day and one
American Irishman is having a tough day. I don't know
what it means, but Donald Trump says that Joe Biden's
auto pen pardons are void, vacant, and of no further
force or effect, he is vowing a probe on the
January sixth House Select Committee members. For those of you
(05:28):
who do not remember, in the eleventh hour of Joe
Biden's presidency, right as he was walking out the door,
he signed preemptive pardons for many, many members of the
deep state. I mean, besides his own son and every
member of his family. Gosh, what were they getting pardoned for?
He also pardoned doctor Fauci, and then people like Liz
Cheney and Adam Kinsinger and was that guy's name, Ben Johnson,
(05:51):
and all the members of the January sixth Committee, some
of whom were former insurrectionists themselves, interestingly enough. And the
problem is, as he wrote these pardons, he did it
with an auto pen signature, which means he didn't really
pardon these people. Somebody on his team did, one of
his staff members. And from a legal point of view,
I just don't think you can do that.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I don't know. I won't pretend that I know the answer.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But President Donald Trump thinks that he knows, and he
says that the signatures are not valid. Now it's going
to be really interesting to see how this plays out. Obviously,
it's going to depend a lot on which judge presides
over this case if he even comes to that, which
I think it probably will. Here with his take on
the whole matter, my good buddy Daniel Turner from Powerthefuture
dot com. Daniel, I know it's hard to say yet,
(06:37):
but if you had to guess, would an autopen signature
hold up in court?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
You know, that's a great question that I think the
courts are going to have to look at. And there's
a larger issue here at stake. If you recall, Speaker
of the House Mike Johnson went on record and said,
you know, I asked Joe Biden about his LNG pause
and he didn't know anything about it. And he said,
that's not what I did. Joe Biden doesn't know what
(07:03):
he did. And Auto Penn kind of confirms that I
don't know if Joe Biden was aware of any of
these these decisions that were made in and if you remember,
President Trump has made it very clear when he signs
an executive order, he shows it to the camera. If
you remember, every one of these announcements was made by
Karine Jean Pierre. We never saw Biden go out and
(07:23):
say I have pardoned my son because x Y z
I have pardoned the January sixth committee. It was Karine
Jean Pierre who did it. And then the Mike Johnson
story kind of reaffirmed that here's a really important executive decision,
and Joe Biden said, no, that's not what I did.
So there is a very valid question of how much
(07:44):
authenticity is there in these executive actions. And this is
why we have a court system. I think President Trump
has a great case to say this is all bogus,
this is all bs okay.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I've heard from constitutional experts, so called experts, over the
past twenty four hours way in both directions on this.
Some have said, as staff member can legally use an
autopen if authorized. Others have said they cannot. It sounds
like it really depends on the jurisdiction and the context
of it. And if I would think of the best
way to test this out to figure if the signature
(08:17):
has any validity or not, is just spring it on
Joe real like when he's not expecting it during an
interview about something entirely different. Hey, real quick, why'd you
give a preemptive partoner to Adam Kinsinger? If he doesn't
know the answer, then then then I would think the
autopen signature would not have any validity.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I absolutely look, having worked on Capitol Hill, autopen was
used because you know, your grandmother turned ninety and she
got a letter from the Senator autopen, Right. I'm sure
the Senator's office was well aware. The Senator probably anecdotally
knows he sends ninetieth birthday greetings. But that's what autopen
is for citations, congratulations to the boy Scouted Troop thirty five, etc.
(09:00):
These are huge executive decisions that not only did the
President not speak about them. He doesn't do press conferences.
You remember how often and how quickly they would shuffle
him out of the room as soon as he was
done speaking at the podium. So there's really no evidence
to say the President himself was part of this decision
making process. And heck, if the first Lady doctor Jill
(09:22):
Biden was sitting at the head of the cabinet meetings,
you know, sitting at the head of the table. There's
just a lot of corroboratory, collaborating evidence to say we
have an issue here, right, we have an issue that
there's no clear delineation of what Joe Biden did and
what the staff did on his behalf. So I think
(09:45):
President Trump is smart to push this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Probably going back to the mid twentieth century, there's been
a long list of presidents who were more of just
the figure, the symbol of the administration and the person
that was actually dictating or the strategists behind the scenes,
with somebody entirely different, you know. Is back in the day,
Valerie Jarrett, for example, was coming up with a lot
(10:09):
of Barack Obama's ideas, but he was the face of
the whole thing. The difference between that in this is
this is the one time when they're not even pretending,
Like we used to pretend that Bill Clinton was the
entire you know, Barack Obama was coming up with. We
would pretend BARACKO that Dick Cheney and Carl Rove weren't
really behind George W.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Bush.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
In the case of Joe Biden, this is the first
time that even Joe Biden would admit out loud, I'm
gonna get into trouble here if I asked the wrong
partake a question from the wrong journalist. Great point, and
it didn't seem to bother anybody, But by their own admission,
he was not really the president doesn't that the fact
that they carried themselves in such a manner kind of
prove that there's no validity to all these signatures.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah. Absolutely, it's a great point. And the contrast in
these last two months, and it's not even been two months,
right inaullguration wasn't even two months ago. The contrast has
been remarkable. You see the president like this tweet was
three am, and it's his language because it's riddled with
misplaced commas. Donald Trump loves commas. It puts them everywhere,
(11:12):
and it does. But you know it's his voice. And
you see him on Air Force One last night standing
at the door taking questions from the press. They've asked
him about everything from the FAA and plane crashes, to
going to Mars, to bombing the Huthis, to the whole gambit.
(11:33):
When has Joe Biden ever done this right? When has
he ever talked authoritatively on this whole the spectrum of
questions and topics. They completely shielded him. So the point
you're raising is is was he really just the figurehead?
It has a lot of validity, and the American people
are not stupid. You add on top of that, the
(11:54):
Karine Jean Pierre's and the Chris Murphy's Center. Chris Murphy's saying,
Joe Biden's the sharpest eye I've ever seen him. Wright
Senator Koon's from Delaware. He is at the top of
his game. I mean, you feel after a while, almost
a little insulted that this is who you know, this
is the chick who your friends set you up with.
And then you go on the date and you're like, seriously, like,
(12:15):
how could you guys think sole little a meal less?
It was a joke, but how could you not think
that this is a bad idea? Right? How could And
that's exactly how the American people are feeling these days.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, you know, I would imagine the analogies are great.
People love Nazi analogies, Liberals love Nazi analogies. I'm gonna
use a different I'm gonna use a medical analogy. What
if you had a procedure done, and you went in
and you got all the tests taken and for preliminary exam,
and then you met the surgeon and they said, hey,
I'll be condected, and then you find out after the
operation's over that the head nurse did the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
The surgeon came in that day.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
He was hungover, he was drunk, he had too much dementia,
his joints hurt, he didn't conduct.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
You would be pissed.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You'd probably sue the hospital, even if nothing bad happened
to you, just knowing that the head nurse conducted, I
did the whole operation, it wasn't actually the surgeon, and
you'd probably win. You know, how is this This seems
like it's as important as that this is the leader
of the free world.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Absolutely, and this is what higher ed does all the time.
You know, these universities make a big announcement that we
have hired former President X and he's going to come
on staff. And Hillary Clinton she's going to teach a
class at Columbia University. She's there on the very first
day and speaks for five minutes and then you never
see her again. And you say, well, I paid eighty
thousand dollars this year to go to this program, and
(13:35):
I was promised Hillary Clinton as a professor, and I
got a teacher's assistant, you know who may be a
very smart person, but that's not Hillary Clinton. So yeah,
we get that a lot and lots of different parts.
You know, financial brokers, how often do you sign up
for that and then you get relegated to some junior staffer.
You know, that's not the person who I interviewed with
when I told him to manage my money real estate.
(13:58):
You know we're going to get the head of the
company until you actually start looking at houses and you
get some junior employee. And that's how the American people
feel they voted for, well some of them voted for
Joe Biden, but they didn't get Joe Biden. They got
a staff, a staff of agenda driven individuals. And again,
(14:19):
if it were Clinton at the were Obama that he
was on camera talking to the American people, they'd say,
that's not what I wanted. But at least that guy
is aware. Joe Biden was completely unaware of what he
was doing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Daniel, you seem like you could be a little Irish?
Am I wrong about that?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Half? So today's half my day? And as I put
on the social media formerly known as Twitter early this morning,
if you say kiss me, I am Irish and you
have no Irish blood, that is considered cultural appropriation and
a hate crime. So anyone out there wearing an Irish flag,
I kiss me, I'm Irish. Like, this is our holiday
(14:58):
and you cannot appro created so beware.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Have you seen the Jamison commercial that they there's a
black guy in Any's saying said, Saint Patrick's day isn't
just today, It's a season. And then like, wait, hang
on a minute, what percentage Irish are you? You're a
black guy?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Ireland is no longer Ireland And this is what happened
twenty years ago when the Celtic Tiger kicked in and
then they moved Every single European banker came to Ireland
to set up their financial headquarters, and then they turned
Ireland into a globalist, multicultural hellhole. I go to Ireland
a lot for vacation. I never go near a big town.
(15:40):
I mean there's only one big city. Really rural Ireland
still feels like Ireland. Commercial Ireland is you may as
well be in any other city in the world. It's
very sad.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
The Dublin is stay on, I believe, is what they're
calling it.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Do you do you think the Irish are having a
tough time this year with Rosie O'Donnell being there for
the this is our first patrick Ston, it's got to
be a real bummer for Ireland this year that now
that she is a local, she's not gonna leave, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Yeah. I think that's one of the things that I
find fascinating about Ireland is that when you are browbeaten
for several hundred years, and lord knows they have been
since the time of Henry and Oliver Cromwell through Elizabeth
through Victoria, a lot of your more scrappy people pick
up and leave and they go to America. And that's
(16:31):
kind of Europe in a hole, right. A lot of
the Italians, the Germans that everyone else who were like, Wow,
it stinks here, I'm going to go somewhere else. We
kind of took their best and they came to America
and they made America what it is. We've done the
reverse of that now with our immigration and the Biden
administration sent planes over and said, give us your dregs, right,
(16:53):
give us, give us the low life that even you
don't like, and we'll bring them into America. And that's
who we've imported now. Yeah. From I don't know if
Ireland's going to bounce back because their best ones have
been leaving for several hundred years, and the Irish sadly
is I'm going to get in trouble for saying this,
You'll be okay. And a lot of the Irish who
are still there are are are betas. They're like, well,
(17:16):
you know, the Muslims are running the place, but we
welcome them with open arms. So it's a little disappointing
to see. I hope they get some of their fight back,
but the scrappier Irish seem to all be in Boston
and New York.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
You know what I don't understand about the Irish. The
music is so sad.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The Irish music, Irish entertain is always very sad and glum.
And someone might respond to that and say, yeah, but
they've had a rough go at life. You know, they
were oppressed by the British. Hang on a minute, Black
people had the Transatlantic slave trade, they invented hip hop,
and then you got what the Jews had the Holocaust.
But they've got mel Brooks, you know, singing Springtime for Hitler.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
That's pretty uppy.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I feel like the Irish at it as hard as
those people have.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
But that's that's the joys of coming to America, right
and and I think that's the differentiator right there. And
that's just that's another reason to celebrate what is born
here in America and the good that comes out of it,
even the good of comes out of it from tragedy,
whether it's the strategy or tragedy of escaping English persecution,
(18:18):
the Holocaust, whether it's the tragedy be brought here on
a slave ship against your will. Would you plant seeds
in America and they grow into a great thing?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know why I think the Irish music is so sad.
It's the food, Daniel corn beef, hash, potatoes and cabbage.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Who's going to get excited about that?
Speaker 4 (18:35):
You know I'll be eating it later on.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
With some Jamison, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Daniel Turner Powerthefuture dot Com follow him on Act.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
This is Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness on KPRC nine
fifty Houston.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
All right, protesters are boycotting Target because Target eliminated DEI,
the department store, just so we're clear, got rid of
the diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Then the protesters realize
this means they have to shop at TJ Max and
they said, okay, fine, we forgive you. Also, a Starbucks
manager claims he was fired for being a heterosexual. What
(19:21):
kind of business would ever do that? I mean, other
than the gap, what kind of business? It's hard to say.
Starbucks is dropping thirteen drinks from its menu and adding
thirteen digits to its bathroom code. They do not want
you shooting heroin in the bathroom. They're not okay with
that anymore. They're saying no to it. I know it's Monday,
and there's a lot going on this week, but I
always feel like it's important to stop and take a
(19:43):
look at what happened last week before we move any further.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Here's your MAGA minute from last Friday.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
It's been another incredibly busy week here at the People's House.
Let's roll through everything President Trump did for you, the
American people. The Department of Homeland Security repurposed the CBP
one app into the CBP home app for illegal immigrants
to self deport. The number of illegal immigrant godaways has
(20:08):
plummeted to a daily average of just seventy seven. Egg
prices dropped this week in the Department of Agriculture unveiled
a strategy to curb egg prices even further. Inflation fell
in February to its lowest point in just under four years.
So Maha moms, myself included, got together at the White
House to discuss the first Maha Commission meeting and how
(20:31):
we are going to make our food and our country
healthy again. The Department of.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
Education initiated a fifty percent reduction of force as we
continue to make our government more efficient, and several more
companies like merk Ge Aerospace and Asahi Beer announced massive
investments in the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
We are building back our country. Yeah, how about that?
All right?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So, as Saint Patrick's Day, and I'm sure a lot
of you guys know people are celebrating Saint Patrick's this
year by crying. I mean, I guess they have green hairs,
so that's appropriate, right, But instead of getting drunk and partying,
the green haired weirdos are Oh, they're very mad at
Trump right now. They're out protesting him as we speak,
(21:17):
in the streets all over the country. The problem is
most of those protesters you see on TV paid agitators.
They're not real protesters. They're just people that have been
paid by George and Alex Soros to go out and
pretend to be mad. Some of those people are pretending
to be mad about what Lee Zelden is doing. Leezelden
is the new head of the EPA. Breitbart dot Com
(21:37):
today reporting on what just happened at CNN, proving once
again there are no editorial standards over there far left.
CNN humiliated itself with another fake fact check. This happened
sometime in the middle of last week, but I didn't
know about it till Friday. The intended target Wednesday evening
was President Trump's EPA director, Lee Zelden. Leez Elden announced
last week that he had canceled over four hundred DEI
(22:01):
and environmental justice grants, which will save us about two
billion dollars. We all know what this really is, a
taxpayer funded slush fund for Democrat activists, like the two
billion dollars the Biden administration tossed to election denier Stacy Abrams.
Why did Stacy Abrams need two billion dollars?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
You know why?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So, the new head of the EPA, Lee Zelden, released
a video laying out the thirty one historic actions his
departments taken to remove a bunch of stupid regulations. Obviously,
any action that decreases government power offends left wing fascists
at CNN. These are people that worship centralized federal authority
the same way Stacy Abrams worships Golden Kraals All you
(22:42):
can eat buffet. But because they had no intelligent criticism
to hurl at Lee Zelden, basement rated Caitlin Collins and
the environmental quote unquote, journalist Bill Wyer decided to fabricate
typos on some EPA press releases to fabricate chaos within
the EPA. I got some audio I want to play
(23:02):
for you here. Get a load of these smug idiots
as they misinformed dozens of Americans that bizarre symbols on
an EPA press release represent a placeholder until the true
information can be inserted. You see, the EPA is so
dysfunctional under orange Man, bad, RedHat evil. The statement was
released before the true info is added, which isn't actually true.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
Today, Lee Zelden put out a video on x and
they were putting out press releases with such a flurry
about thirty one different actions and rollbacks that some of
them had typos or placeholders at the top. We have
one of those there. Trump EPA announces zero zero zero.
You can see there. It's sort of shoot first fill
out the press release later.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Okay, but that's not what happened.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Zelden himself used his Twitter x account to set the
record straight. He says, quote another media fact check face
plant where the fact checker doesn't have the slightest clue
what he's talking about. Oh ohoh, because it's not a
typo forty CFR Part sixty subpart or quatto is a
federal regulation under the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Also, those aren't zeros, it's a letter end quote.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
The point is they're trying to make it sound like
Lee didn't have information to share, so he posted something
on his line as a placeholder, when in fact that's
actually what it was. That was the name of the regulation.
It would have taken five seconds for you to google
that and figure it out. But CNN didn't care. They'd
rather publicly humiliate themselves. This journalist at CNN, their environmentalist guy,
(24:27):
the chief climate correspondent, How did he not know this?
At the very least, shouldn't he have some experience in
what OOOBC is. That's the name of the policy. This
smug idiot is supposed to be on top all this stuff,
but all he saw was gibberish. Because he didn't understand it.
I get it, most people wouldn't have, but that's his job.
(24:50):
CNN is not interested in informing its minuscule audience. All
they want to do is attack Republicans and defend Democrats.
That's the mindset. It leads to making this kind of mistake,
backed by so much certainty and arrogance. If that press
release had come across your desk or my desk, we
would have reached out to someone at the EPA to
ask if it was a mistake and avoid making fools
(25:11):
of ourselves. Think of the lack of curiosity required by
both both these people not to want to know what
the press release was supposed to say. If you thought
it was a placeholder, wouldn't you want to know that?
Isn't that how journalism works? And where the hell were
the editors? No way could I talk about that story
without my program director saying are you sure? Look into it?
Speaker 4 (25:32):
First?
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Look?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
We all make mistakes, I get it, but something like
this double check it. These guys put the capital J
in journalism. Actually, they don't stand back and make way
for the pros kids. You know just how vile CNN
has become. Not one viewer or reader tuning into them.
Is it all surprised when they misunderstand something, because that's
(25:57):
how bad they are these days. That's how low the
bar is is. It's CNN in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I'm listening to a Pursuit of happiness way.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
This is Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness on KPRC nine
point fifty Houston.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
It was an odd weekend in Houston, Texas. I did
not attend the rodeo this weekend as a you know,
a lot of people long lines.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
It's very crowded. I mean, I go, but still it.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Power went out on Journey, the rock band, Friday night
in Houston while they were in the middle of their
biggest song, Don't Stop Believing. Weirdly enough, it was the
third song they did do They were they gonna play
it twice. I don't get that. The crowd had no
idea what happened. Listen to how they handled it. Even
when they see the band waving at the end, people
still cheered. All right, So the music cut out, but
(27:07):
the audience keeps singing because people are not aware of
the fact that, well, you know that DJ trick they
do sometimes at nightclubs where they cut the music and
they let the.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Crowd share or sing along. That is all.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
This happened because of an electrical fire near the stage.
No one was injured. The stage did not go dark
necess But anyway, the point is, sometimes things in Houston,
Texas do not go quite as planned to do they.
I remember a while back we had another big concert here.
It was called Astro World. Do you guys remember that
Astro World. The mayor of the city and the county
(27:41):
judge got out and they told you Astro World. Yeah,
it's a gangster rap concert. Sure, but you should bring
your children to it. And we'll have an annual holiday
Astro World Day. We'll even bring back the old theme
park named after the rap music album and the festival.
And then like a dozen children died at that festival,
and now they don't do it anymore more. So I
guess whatever the new mayor's up to, it's not as
(28:03):
bad as what the old mayor was up to. Say,
what is the new mayor up to, Well, there's quite
a bit going on right now. The mayor just sent
a letter to all City of Houston employees noting structural
changes and voluntary employee buyouts. Which I think is exactly
what it sounds like. Meanwhile, Harris County employees working from
home are found to be living in places like Austin
and Dallas. And while I don't like that, I do
(28:25):
wonder does it matter and why are they still working
from home? We reached out to a city employee, Holly S.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Hanson.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
She is the city comptroller and Hall, you're still working
from home?
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 9 (28:38):
I am working from home, although this week I'm working
from Austin. But unfortunately I have to correct you. I
am not the city controller.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Oh okay, so give me the skinny here. Why is
it so important for these I mean, I think it's
obvious why they need to go back to work, But
the part of this that really upset people is that
they're working from Austin and they don't even live in Houston.
They live in other parts of the state. Does it matter?
Speaker 9 (29:02):
Well, you know what, I think there's an argument to
be made that they should live in the county, because
some have put it they are implementing policies that affect
county residents, they should have to live under the same
governance that they are helping to manage. And so I
think there's a lot concerned about that. Interestingly enough, you know,
(29:25):
Commissioner Tom Ramsey noted that there are some departments that
had ninety eight percent of their staff still working from home.
And here we are in twenty twenty five, very long
after the COVID panic pandemic, and you know, I did
really is probably time for a lot of these people
to come in. And you know, there is probably some
(29:45):
situations where it's legitimate for people to work from home.
Some of us do that pretty frequently, but I think
you most would like to see their county employees actually
in the office and managing things.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Well.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, well, they got their book shots, right, I mean,
they're vaccinated. Why can't they go back to work, right?
Speaker 9 (30:05):
Yeah, So, you know, unless there's some extenuating circumstance, it
seems like a no brainer for them to come back
to work. And you know, you mentioned the city of Houston.
They have that efficiency audit that had some pretty interesting results,
one of which was the fact that Houston has more
city employees per capita than any other city in the nation,
(30:27):
any other big city. So obviously a lot of you know,
kind of administrative bloat. There a lot of middle managers
who just had, you know, two or three people reporting
to them, a lot of overlap. And so I think
this is a good first move on the part of
the mayor to offer these voluntary retirements. You know, let
people go ahead and take that option and start pairing
(30:51):
down what seems to be a bloated city administration as well.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
All right, it sounds a lot like Trump, if I'm
not mistaken, the offering people the chance to get bought
out from their city contracts and that sort of thing.
How are local democrats handling the news rationally and with
a calm response.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
You know, some of them are, I mean some of
the them are saying, Okay, this is a good way
to start addressing this problem that we have in the
city of Houston. And I think there are people on
both sides of the political aisle who, you know, when
they're really honest, they're looking at this, you know, kind
of administrative bloat and saying, you know, we really don't
need all of this personnel. Now on the other side
(31:32):
of it, there are some who are saying, oh, we
need each and every one of these positions and so forth,
and you know, people are going to lose their jobs.
But you know, we need tax payers need to get
a good return on the investment, right, So we pay
a lot of taxes in Houston and Harris County to
cover services, and you know, with Myers just trying to
create a more efficient city government, and some have suggested
(31:56):
that we need to do more on the county side
of things too. So haven't seen an efficiency audit yet
from the county, and which has grown their administration has
grown pretty tremendously since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So okay, I know we know the answer to this question,
So why even bother asking it? But if they find
that Whittmeyer offering the buyouts to help balance the city
budget is a reasonable way of governing the city, why
then are Democrats not responding the same way to Donald
Trump and Elon Musk doing that on a national level?
Speaker 9 (32:29):
Well, you know, I mean, I think that there is
some concern that, you know, to be fair, Elon Musk's
recommendations are kind of you know, a hatchet rather than
a scalpel, and even you know, some concern on the
right about Okay, let's be a little more precise about
what we're doing here. But I think by and large,
(32:49):
there's a huge impetus to cut some of these positions.
You know, one of the big topics that has been
the Department of Education, and the taxpayers I think funded
that office to the tune of about two hundred and
sixty eight billion dollars in the last fiscal years. So
we look at the Department of Education in the way
(33:10):
it's exploded in growth since nineteen eighty when it was created,
and not seeing you know, a lot of improvement and
student outcomes. Student achievement has been on the decline since
about twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, and so with all the
money that's spent, looking at what that department does, there's
(33:32):
some pretty significant argument to be made for toning it
down a little bit and shifting some of the responsibilities
to other more appropriate federal agencies.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I'm sorry, doing what to the responsibilities?
Speaker 9 (33:48):
Shifting them over to other departments?
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Oh, shifting, shifting, shifting. Okay, okay, what did you What
did you think?
Speaker 9 (33:56):
I said there, Kidney.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Nothing, never mind? Okay, So Doage Texas.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
That's still a thing, right, we're doging Texas House Doage Committee,
growing thes tasb on Profitable purchasing cooperative.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
That's a lot of words and letters. What does that
mean really?
Speaker 9 (34:13):
Well, I'll try to explain it in a nutshell. So
you have these associations in Texas. One of them is
known as the Texas Association of school Boards, and all
of your school districts pretty much in the state paid
dues into this organization and they see some revenues. They
are technically a nonprofit private organization, so they're not really
(34:35):
subject to scrutiny from state lawmakers, although state lawmakers sound
like they would really like to scrutinize this a little
bit more and what they're doing. They have been referred
to as a tax payer funded lobbying groups, so basically
they're supported by taxpayer funds and they lobby state lawmakers
in many cases for issues that a lot of Texas
(34:59):
would not support, such as transgender policies in the public
schools and some DEI initiatives. So there's been a lot
of concerns. Last week, the House Doche Committee took some
of the representatives from Texas Association of school Boards to
tasks because they also have this purchasing cooperative that your
(35:21):
school districts, your cities, counties, and municipalities all used to purchasing,
and it was supposed to make the purchasing process more
efficient and get better deals. But according to testimony from
some of these some city council members, they didn't get
a very good deal and they're having to pay these
(35:42):
fees that go back to Texas Association and school Boards.
And it's looking like the Texas Association and school Boards
got about four point one million dollars in fees from
these sales last year. Lawmakers were pretty harsh with these guys.
(36:02):
You had Representative oh gosh, I think it was Pat
Curry asking, you know, these guys, you know, do you
own this fine cooperative? And they were trying to, you know,
hedge a little bit and say, well, we owned the
name of the cooperative. But you know, there were separate
entity and Representative Curry noted that, you know, they don't
(36:23):
seem to be very separate. They seemed to be one
and the same and there's some mixed financials there. One
of the most fiery comments came from Representative Briscoe Caine,
who represents Deer Park just near Houston Hill.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I know that is yeah, yeah, I heard of him.
Speaker 9 (36:42):
So, you know, he told the guys from the Association
of school Boards, you know your organization has already drawn
the ire of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and
conservatives across the state. And he kind of ended his
comments by telling this guy, you know, there isn't directed
at you. So and he said, I hope you find
another job with another organization eventually, because we want to
(37:05):
see this one shut down.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (37:07):
I think there's definitely pushed this session for lawmakers to
crack down on these taxpayer funded, private nonprofit associations that
you know, take in a lot of revenue. They can
have a lot of power in the state of Texas
and very little transparency about what they're doing and how
they're lawbying state lawmakers.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
All right, So do you think at this point in
time most Democrats actually care that much about trans rights?
Are they just doing it because they know that Republicans
will get mad?
Speaker 9 (37:37):
Oh? You know that could be. I couldn't speak to that.
I'm kind of careful not to you know, weigh in
on what someone's motivation.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Sure, but I mean you got to just objectively, speaking
as a journalist, you could see how trans people are
kind of gross.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Right.
Speaker 9 (37:53):
Well, you know what, I have a lot of contact
to our Democrats who are very disgusted by some of
this transgender ideology. They think it defies common sense. They
don't like the issue of these biological males competing against
girls in sports. It's very dangerous to them, and it's
(38:15):
very unfair to the women who have fought for their
own sports leaves and so forth for decades. And so
I think that there are still quite a few Democrats
maybe who are trying to draw a line in the
sand on this, but your more moderate centrist Democrats are
not liking it at all, and we've seen some of
(38:36):
them switch parties over the issues.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I think I've noticed on social media there's a lot
of these posts from transactivists where it's a guy with
a beard and he's balding and he's wearing a dress,
and then he'll post something in the comments like I
want to appear more feminine, I want to present myself
more like a woman. Could anyone offer any advice? And
then in the comment sections just people ripping on am
(39:00):
telling you know, to consider you know, a resurrection or
you know, come back to life as a different species,
that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Are these guys just trolling us?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I feel like they're just messing with us at this point, Holly,
they have to know.
Speaker 9 (39:13):
Themes like that. You know, again, I'm really careful not
to you know, impune someone's motivations. I do think, you know,
by large most of these people are actually mental health issues.
We used to call this gender dysphoria, right, and we
treated it much like we would treat anorexia. We don't
condone it. We try to help the person resolve these
(39:35):
issues and get the mental health therapy or support that
they need. We would certainly never condone and anorexic and
say yeah, that's you feel like you're overweight and you know,
we're going to help you start yourself. To us, we
would never do that. And I think there's a moral
equivalence here where you have, you know, these people who
(39:58):
think they're transgender, and we're especially when we're talking about
minor children, condoning them harming themselves permanently. You know, these
are not temporary effects when you intervene in ways that
are medical through chemicals or surgery and so forth. And
I think I think history is going to be a
(40:21):
lot harsher on this movement, this cultural movement that's taken
place over the last decade.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
When I see pictures of them online. I feel like
they smell like gas station food.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 9 (40:34):
I don't usually eat gas station food, sooo, you're going
to have to explain that to me. I hear that
gas station nachos are particularly dangerous.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Oh yeah, be careful. I am gas station sushi. She
is Holly Hanson of The Texan Don News. You should
follow her on x She is a great I believe
it or not. She's a good journalist. Despite the fact
that she is a contributor to this show, don't hold
it against her. Find her online The Texan Don News.
That's the website. I'm Kenny Webster. I love you all
so much. Remember if you are shopping for bikinis and
t shirts and tank tops and beach towels and all
(41:05):
kinds of cool stuff for your springtime or summertime needs,
go to I loovewj dot com to do your shopping.
A substantial portion of your the proceeds there go to charity.
It's a good cause, and I hope you all have
an awesome afternoon. We'll be back bright and early tomorrow
morning for more of what you bought a radio for.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss your ass when you listen to
this show.