February 21, 2025 • 38 mins
This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features journalist and author Michael Quinn Sullivan. ( @KennethRWebster )
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack ganon government sucks pursuit of happiness. Radio is DeLux.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile. The Asuda habing
and us on your radio toile, just as Cheezburgers a
libity rise. It's for food.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The IRS is firing six thousand workers in the middle
of tax season. Finally some good news, huh. I don't
take any pride or joining other people losing their jobs,
but I will say this. People are mad about this,
and if you're one of those people, I want to
reassure you. While six thousand IRS workers may have just
lost their jobs, apparently six thousand openings have just been
(00:45):
announced in the agriculture business from recently deported illegal immigrants.
So just do that for a living. Just go pick avocados,
learn to code. What's the big deal? Hey, everybody, welcome
to the show. My guest over the next hour will
be Michael quick in Sullivan, Texas scorecard dot com. Things
are happening in the city of Houston and throughout the state,
(01:05):
and a lot of Donald Trump's new policies are affecting
us in very interesting ways, including some of the suspicious
groups you wouldn't have expected that have lost funding because
of USAID, and apparently it's actually affected local churches here
in the Houston area, including a church I attend. We'll
talk about all that stick around, but before we get
(01:27):
to any of that, I was just reading this report
from John Nolty. He was talking about some of the
questions he's asking to Ukraine supporters. You know, this week,
a lot of people got upset because Donald Trump called
Vladimir Zelensky a dictator. And you might not like that
he called him that, But I'll ask you this, what's
a dictator? A dictator, I would say, would be somebody
(01:50):
who mishandles money, misspends money, arrests and locks up their
political opponents, doesn't have elections. That's Ukraine. That Ukraine in
a nutshell. We gave them hundreds of millions of dollars,
and there's a very credible report out claiming that some
members of the Ukrainian government oligarchy sold the military equipment
that we gave them to the cartels in Central America
(02:12):
and Mexico. Doesn't that piss you off? That's your money,
Your money was given to people that are your enemy.
Very often is the case. We fund both sides of
a war. I bet you didn't know we were funding
both sides of the war at the border. So yeah,
it is odd that there are people that still think
Ukraine is the good guy in all of this. They
have not handled the war well. Now that's not to
(02:33):
say Russia's good. Russia's bad too. That's a no brain.
That's obvious. Right. You don't have to explain the obvious
part out loud, do you. But with all that being said,
polling shows that apparently most Americans don't support this Ukraine
war anymore. And if you're one of those people that
still supports it, if you're in the small group of
(02:55):
people that wants to keep pumping hundreds of millions of
dollars into a war that's never going to be one,
at least certainly not by our side, I have a
few questions for you. Russian President Vladimir Putin, bad guy, gangster.
We got that. The thought of rewarding the bad guy
with anything much less territory in Ukraine, that doesn't sit
well with me. But this war has been going on
(03:15):
for three years at this point, it's almost as long
as World War Two, which was four years. I hoped
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski would send the gangster home humiliated
with a bloody nose. That hasn't happened, And at this
point I've lost all faith it ever will happen. So now, what,
faced with reality? What do we do now? All I'm
(03:36):
hearing from the neo Khan Ukraine war fans and their
fellow Ukraine war fans on the rabid left is a
call for more of the same. First, they'll say, let's
define more of the same. More war, more death, more fear.
Desperate Putin will go nuclear, more tens of billions of
US dollars poured into a war that cannot be won.
More of the same makes no sense to me, And
(03:58):
after twenty freaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, it pisses me off.
I get all the nuance, I get the geopolitical strategy.
I also know Putin had his reasons. I know Putin
had some valid concerns, although none validated starting a war.
I know we'd love to drain Putin's economy to a
point where he's overthrown. I know we're sending a message
(04:19):
about invading an ally. I get all that I do,
But after three bloody, costly, futile years, much like after
twenty years in Afghanistan. You got to ask some questions
for those who demand more of the same. First to
ask him this, what is your definition of a victory?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What is a victory? What's your strategy for the victory?
Do you even know? How do you win the How
do you achieve the said goal you just explained to me?
Is it overthrowing Russia? Joe Biden actually made that point
once or twice. We need to overthrow this dictator. You
think we're going to go to Moscow and take out
somebody that is a nuclear power. Here's a third question,
(05:00):
When will this victory be achieved? Do I have to
wait another fifteen years? Do we have to go through
three more presidential elections or four or five administrations to
get there? And then there's this We're already three years in.
When I look at the map, at the back and
forth of territorial gains and losses in Ukraine, I'm reminded
of the trench warfare during World War One. You ever
(05:23):
watch a documentary on the History Channel about World War
One or World War Two. I know it's hard to believe,
but there was a time when the History Channel just
showed you documentaries about history. Now it's a lot of
reality shows where they I think they empty out a
storage walker or something like that. But it used to
be they'd show you these documentaries about thousands of young men,
an entire generation, dying in a war of inches. If
(05:48):
nothing changes, how long are you willing to demand this continues?
Give me a time limit, five more years, ten more years.
Tell us when you will say this war has gone
on too long. How much money should the US pour
into this war? We're already upwards of two hundred and
(06:08):
three hundred billion dollars, depending on who you ask and
where you look, much of that is unaccounted for. Tell
us what dollar amount will be too much for you?
And then here's another question that they've never answered. What
are the downsides of a peace deal? Now? I know
it doesn't sound good to tell Putin he can have
(06:30):
this but he can't have that, But but really, what
are the downsides? Did you know there are people in
Ukraine that don't want Zelenski to be president anymore? Apparently
there's enough of them that they can't have an election.
News Week even reported on it this past week. That's
not exactly a right wing news outlet. Have you considered
the fact that a peace deal might leave Ukraine with
(06:52):
more land than if the war continues or Ukraine loses.
You probably haven't thought about that. If all our previous
aid passckages didn't make a difference, what makes you believe
the next one will. We gave him hundreds of billions,
hundreds of billions, hundreds of billions, and nothing's been achieved.
Why would you keep doing the same thing over and
over again. I'm sure if you listen to talk radio
(07:14):
you're smart enough to be aware of the fact that
one of the definitions of insanity is yeah, you get
the idea. So what about this? Why are you really
okay with Zelensky outlying eleven opposition parties and canceling every
presidential election while the war is happening. If it's not
safe enough to have out an election in Ukraine, why
(07:36):
did Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn go there for photo shoots?
A war is no excuse. Abraham Lincoln stood for reelection
in the middle of a much more serious situation, a
civil war. Lincoln also believed he would lose. Must we
destroy democracy to save democracy? And if Trump is so
pro Putin. As we've heard so many times, why doesn't
(07:59):
he pull ourt from Ukraine and walk away? Enjoy your
warr pal. Instead, he's risking political capital to get a
peace deal. Doesn't exactly mesh well with the whole pro
Russia narrative unless you get all your news from some
liberal biased outlet. And finally, I'll ask this, when did y'all,
especially those of you on the left, but also the
(08:21):
neo cons begin to oppose the pursuit of peace? Why
and when? Say what you want about Trump, but he's
making his case for why this war must end now
and it must end with a peace deal. All I
hear from the other side is some version of more
of the same and more of the same as unacceptable.
Make your case. Let's hear it fly from.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Texas Broadcasting across the peoples Wee topic of America.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
This is preceed of How It Is Radio with Ken
Webstern JR. Akay producer Kenny keep it here, Okay, So
I am looking at health related news. Obviously it has
a lot to do with the economy as well. Everything
always does. Americans are cutting back on buying eggs because
(09:08):
of the absorbitant cost, which is why the average Americans
breakfast consists mostly of bacon these days, and more bacon
and also bacon. But I'm told you could supplement the
protein you're missing from eggs with bacon. I do love bacon.
Did you guys watch that hockey game last night. I
know everybody's excited about whether or not America is gonna
(09:30):
invade Canada and who's better at hockey, But when I
watch that, all I can think about is how they
ruined bacon. It's just ham. But I digress. We have
bigger things on our plate to worry about. Things right
here in the state of Texas. As a matter of fact,
we have a doge Texas of sorts happening with our
friends at texascorecard dot com. I love that they're doing this.
(09:52):
They're picking through records of what people actually spend your
money on in the government, and one of the things
that has been revealed here is we're spending a lot
of money on subscriptions. Now, to be clear, I'm not
talking about Netflix or Disney Plus. These are subscriptions to
Texas based news outlets. Some of them are friends of ours,
(10:12):
like The Texan And don't get me wrong, I don't
think the Texan did anything illegal here. They sold a
news subscription to somebody that wanted to look at it.
You know, the Texan dot News. The Quorum report is
on here. Scott Braddock, if you're familiar with him, he's
a guy that goes to the Capitol and just reports
hard news with a slight slant to the left. Not
(10:32):
you know, we're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on
subscriptions at places like Austin American Statesman, the Dallas Morning News,
the Houston Chronicle, the Saint Augustine Tribune. Michael Quinn Suliman
of the Texas scorecard dot Com. I couldn't help, but
notice Texas scorecard dot Com is not on the list anywhere.
Why didn't you get in on some of this? Yeah,
(10:55):
well look up to you.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know, when you see what politicians are spending your
tax dollars on, it's kind of a good indication, I
think sometimes of a whole lot of things. But we
have a very firm policy that we don't take any
money that comes from government coffers period. Too many opportunities
for for compromise. In my mind, when you do that,
(11:19):
you know, when when the legislators and they're stablishing, well,
maybe we'll cancel our subcription. We'll get our you know,
we'll get our other officers to cancel our supercruption.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You know suddenly.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And I think that's my Quarner Report is so bad
is because that, you know, they they exist with taxpayer funding.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years
have flown to Corner Report out of state coffers and
you know, legislators over the last uh thirteen months have
given them sixty thousand dollars. I mean, so that's a
(11:48):
lot of cash for one guy in one website.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That was sixty thousand dollars for a subscription and to
a new do you.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Know no of that that's that's all of them, that's
the eighty seven combined.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Okay, that's okay, it's still it's still a lot. It's
still a lot of money. But part of what's so
weird about.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
When you do that, when when you when you're sucking
at the government, teat the government, uh has the ability
to pull that teet away if you're not careful. And
I think that's the that's the compromise you make as
a journalist when you start taking money from government, when
you allow because it's very easy for the politicians to
just know, hey, pay this invoice out of my office budget.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That that's very easy. It's also very easy to then
take it away. Yeah, you explained that quite well. And
you know what really strikes me is out about this, Michael,
is much like when we found out the federal government
was spending thousands of dollars on Politico dot com subscriptions.
The Quorum Report here in Texas, it's kind of like Politico.
It's a news outlet that just tells you what's going
(12:48):
on at the Capitol, what's going on at the governor's office.
That's that's pretty much all they report on Politico dot com,
same thing Washington, DC, Capital, Supreme Court, Congress, White House.
That's all they report on. And the people that are
getting these subscriptions for free are generally government employees, lawmakers,
people holding cabinet positions, staff members, which means we the taxpayers,
(13:14):
are paying for a subscription so that those people can
read news stories about themselves, their news stories about the
things that they are already doing. Don't they know what
they're doing?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Well, many of them do not Mitch McConnell case, in
point Joe Biden case, just to be bipartisan. But look,
I would suggest that that it is it is slightly
more than that they are paying not necessarily treat what
they're doing, but to massage and manipulate what the rest
of us think that they're doing. I would suggest you know,
(13:50):
you're also in the medium, I might agree with this.
I don't find many instances where Politico has lied what
they have done.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Though.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
What you know the Corn Report does do is it
allows a lie to be created in the mind of
the of the viewer, of the reader, of the listener
by selectively ordering facts out of context. They will cherry pick,
They'll they'll leave things that lead out critical details that
would be important for someone to make a good rational judgment.
And we have government supercharging that. When we have government
(14:22):
paying for that, suddenly it becomes the government narrative. That's
called propaganda.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Okay. So I don't know if this even matters to
anybody but me, but I can't help. But notice here
State Representative Gene Wu from Houston has two subscriptions here,
a Quorum Report subscription and a Houston Chronicles subscription combined
together he's spent over one thousand dollars of taxpayer money
on subscriptions. But what's interesting about that is his Houston
Chronicle subscription is two hundred and sixty dollars. Meanwhile, Aaron Zweiner,
(14:50):
another lawmaker from this end of the state, also has
a Houston Chronicle subscription for one hundred and thirty. What
that tells me is they're not paying the same amount
of money for subscrib which means presumably one of them
has more than one subscription. Can't the people in the
office just share a subscription. Why do they need more
than one subscription?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Look, you you would think that would be the case.
But again, uh, this is the problem with the Texas House.
This is the problem with with the government in general.
Is you know, if you've got a typical family, of course,
families don't subscribe to the Houston Chronicle. They're a dying dinosaur,
you know, the the asteroid plunge in the ground.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They're dying.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
You know, they only exist from government large just like this.
But back in the old days, mom and Dad wouldn't
both have a subscription to the Dallas Morning News of
the Houston Chronicle, for they'd get one and they would
share it, you know, they would share sections treating the paper.
That's how real people are, right, But when you're spending
other people's money, it becomes very easy say, ah, well,
you know, of course we can't have Billy and John
(15:54):
sharing the newspaper. They both have to have you know,
they both have to read the comics at the same
time or whatever it is that they're doing. So this
is the thinking that other people's.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Money that is so stupid. And yeah, you're right, that's
exactly what it is. No, hang on a minute here,
Only one of us can look at it at a time,
so we need two of them. It's it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Look, it's not like the Texas Capitol staff are doing
much anyway. They're they're playing, you know, Legends of Zelda
and there are you been watching Seinfeld episodes many days
out of the year. So you think that at the
minimum they could share the o bit section of the
Houston Chronicle, But they don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Hey, question for you. Attorney General Ken Paxton is now
seeking an injunction to go against the NAACP for trying
to protect women's sports, and I'm glad that he's helping
with this as a taxpayer in Texas, I don't have
a problem with that. I find what has taken place
with female athletes around the country to be disgusting. It
certainly happened here in the state of Texas. How it's
(16:55):
happened here in Houston. Female athletes in college and high
school getting screwed over, negatively speaking, because some guy decides
he wants their scholarship or he wants their place on
the roster. What I don't understand is why it's up
to Texas to do this. Is in the federal government
already going to solve this for us or I guess
as I'm asking the question out loud, I know it
sounds silly, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, it doesn't sound silly, And in fact, I would
suggest that what Ken Paxon and the State of Texas
doing is precisely what President Trump needs states doing. It's
one thing for the President United States to order and
issue an executive order saying we're going to stop stop
the flow of dollars into universities.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But you know, as we know, those.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Things get challenged and they have implementation problems. Other things,
you need states like Texas that are going to be
willing to sue, to take lawsuits that you know, the
go after the problem in a slightly different way. And
I think that's what Ken Paxson's doing here. This new
You could think of it as Belton suspenders maybe, or
(17:57):
you could think of it as fighting a multi front war.
This is the way that we have seen our liberties eroded.
This is why we've seen our culture debate is by
the left not pursuing just you know, one head on assault,
but they but they have you roaded our institutions in
multiple ways. They've eroded our culture in multiple ways. No
(18:20):
hitting at the same kind of topic from different angles.
And I think that's just see happening here. But this
time it's the good guys doing it.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Michael, we have talked about subscription services and trainees and
sports for so long. We didn't even get to the
most interesting topic yet. Can you hang with us and
do another segment or do you need to run? I
would love to. We'll make it real quick, I promise.
There is an odd thing happening here in the Houston
area where a church, a certain religious organization that is
near and dear to my heart. I gotta be objective
(18:49):
here seem to a beginning a suspicious amount of money
from the federal government. And it's a church. I'll tell
you the story right after this. Don't go anywhere. Listened
to the Pursuit of Happiness radio Pursuit of Happiness. We
don't have that. In Mexico. There's a campaign to make
(19:13):
Bigfoot California's official mythical creature. It's between him and Vegan,
who never talks about being vegan. Those are the two
things they're trying to decide on. California is an odd place,
isn't it. You know, California politics seem awfully wacky to
those of us that live here in the lone Star state.
But here in Texas we have people who share those opinions,
(19:38):
and they move here all the time. In fact, some
of them even hold office Up in the Dallas Fort
Worth area. There's a woman named Congressman Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
Maybe you've heard of her. I'm sorry, congress person, I
don't mean to assume. Congressman Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett made news
so a little while back. You may recall when she
told everybody Wesley Hunt, local lawmaker for the Houston area,
(20:00):
is a white guy. He's actually black. Alex Soros is
the son of George Soros, and unlike his dad, whenever
he meets with a politician and he bribes them, he
likes to post a photo of the two of them
on social media together. His dad never did that. Alex
Soros literally flies around America writing giant checks to left
(20:22):
wing politicians, and then when he's done buying them, he
takes a photo with him. It's almost kind of demeaning
if you think about it. There's a picture of him
with Jasmine Crockett. They met together for a private meeting
in a hotel room where they made a deal in
exchange for a large political donation. If you had to guess,
what do you think she did for him? It's an
(20:44):
interesting question. Say what you will about Jasmine Crockett, but
this is the current leader of the Democrat Party. I
know that sounds crazy, Kenny. She's a young far left activist.
She's a hot brand on social media. Yeah, I mean,
minus the far left part. Doesn't that kind of sound
like I'm describing Donald Trump in twenty fifteen. Jasmine Crockett is,
(21:05):
at this particular moment, the most exciting member of the
Democrat Party. For young or old political activists. AOC is
no longer in that position. AOC has toned it down recently,
but Jasmin Crockett goes on CNN and says things like this.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
What's happening right now? I am tired of the white tears. Listen,
if you are competent, you are not concerned. When I
walk into Congress every single day. You know why I
don't feel away and why you can't make me doubt
who I am is because I know that I had
to work ten times as hard as they did just
to get into the seat. When you look and you
compare me to Marjorie Taylor Green or me to Lauren Bobert,
(21:43):
there is no comparison.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And that is the life that we have always lived.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
So the only people that are crying are the mediocre
white boys that have been beaten out by people that
historically have had to work so so much harder. This
is why they don't want us to have.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Education, guyszan Crockett is a wealthy kid who grew up
to become a politician, and she talks like she's not
from that kind of a background. Do you catch my drift?
She speaks as though she's from you know, the community.
But actually apparently she's a I'm told she's from a
(22:19):
very wealthy family, very well educated. She's costplaying. She's role playing.
It's a character and it's working. She's become very popular lately.
Part of the reason she's so popular right now it
isn't really because she's good. It's because everyone else in
her party is so bad. A report at breipart dot
com today reveals polling for the congressional Democrats have hit
(22:41):
a record low, record low job approval ratings with voters
and congressional Republicans currently enjoy a record high The thing
to keep in mind as you revel in these numbers
is the numbers are actually sweeter than they sound. You
see this Quinnipiac poll, and Quinnipiac is a shame was
left wing polster. But in the same poll, Quinnipiac shows
(23:04):
President Trump's approval rating at forty five percent and forty
nine percent disapprove of them, four points underwater. That is
far outside his current average, which has him at one
point five points above water in most polls. Anyway, twenty
one percent of voters approve of the way the Democrats
in Congress are handling their job, according to Quinnipiac, and
sixty eight percent of voters disapprove and eleven percent didn't
(23:27):
even have an opinion. The pollster asked this question going
back to two thousand and nine, and Democrats have never
scored worse. Congressional Democrats are forty seven points underwater. For
forty percent of voters approve of the way Republicans in
Congress are handling their job, which is a record high,
while fifty two percent disapprove and eight percent did not
(23:49):
offer an opinion. So not only are congressional Republicans enjoying
record high approval in a poll that generally always favors liberals,
they are also only twelve points underwater compared to the Democrats,
who are forty seven points underwater. So what's happening here?
Is the country coming together to join the GOP and MAGA,
(24:12):
I don't think so. No, this is good news, but
it does not mean the Trump train has captured a
wide majority of the approval. Only forty percent approve of
the job Congressional Republicans are doing a majority of fifty
two percent still disapprove. And all that tells us this
the Republican base is happier than normal with the job
Congressional Republicans are doing. That's it. Unfortunately, you cannot extrapolate
(24:37):
that number to mean anything more. When only twenty one
percent of those survey to approve of the job Congressional
Democrats are doing. All that tells us is that the
Democrat base is frustrated with their own guys. It would
be nice if that meant those sixty eight percent who
disapprove had decided to join the MAGA train, But it
doesn't mean that Democrats and their leaders are floundering in
(24:58):
their lay mass attempts, amount and effective defense against Trump steamroller. Democrats,
including those in the regime media, are being outworked, outsmarted,
and continuing to lose the public debate on every issue
from Ukraine to the border, to child mutilation to wasteful spending.
A Democrat in New York City organized a protest this
(25:21):
week because he was upset that Donald Trump was going
to get rid of the commuter tax. Imagine attending a
protest so you can keep a toll you know, like
a toll way. They're going to get rid of a
toll way, and Democrats are mad about that. You know,
nobody's stopping you from giving the government more money. You
can write a track to the government. You could pay
(25:42):
more if you want. It's kind of incredible, right, This
poll only reflects the left frustration at their own party's impotence,
and not to be a total party pooper, But this
pole does tell us Democrat base is depressed, it's demoralized,
and you'd have to possess a heart of granite not
to take some pleasure in that. But you know, what
are you gonna do? I'm Kenny Webster, I love you all.
(26:03):
Hang around for just a minute here. Michael Quinn Sulivan's
coming back in a minute. I'm having an issue with
my church. I love my church, I love my religion,
but I have noticed here in the greater Houston area
a lot of money was recently being given to the
Catholic charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston Houston. Might wonder why.
And suddenly it just went away. Sorry, my computer started
(26:24):
making noise. My computer just started playing a recording of
me talking. And that was probably confusing for you because
you probably thought I was talking twice at the same time,
and I wasn't. You probably didn't think that at all.
But Hey, that reminds me. If you are on social
media today, I posted a video talking about how young
American voters are shifting to the right. If you see
that circulating around, give it a retweeter a share for me.
(26:45):
I'll be right back free specially on right here on proceeds.
I'm happy to this radio. I was just talking to
my friend Michael quinn Sullivan texascorecard dot com. Honestly, I've
said he's one of the most dangerous men in Texas
(27:07):
political media. I think he's I think he's the most
dangerous guy. There are very few journalists or activists, or
you know, just grassroots people that have actually ended and
ruined the careers of corrupt politicians. Michael's dound it more
than once, and he's a very humble, down to earth guy.
As a matter of fact, Michael and I were just
(27:27):
talking off the air here about how sometimes our weird
little world actually affects public policy in a positive way.
One of those things I think was really cool was
when Steve Toath State Rep. Steve Toath and State Representative
brisk o'caine did something very useful. They're pitching a bill,
they're proposing a bill called the Pursuit of Happiness Act.
(27:48):
It was inspired by this radio show and an idea
that we had a lot of people listening to my
voice right now may have heard or seen on social
media how there are public school employees and hospital workers
democrats around the state bragging on social media about how
they're going to protect illegal immigrants from ice rates. If
there's a trend a arragua guy at a school or
(28:10):
a college or a hospital somewhere, you know, criminal illegal aliens,
they're actually going to protect them. And I said, that's wrong.
If you have been proven to have committed that, that's
a federal crime protecting and harboring illegal aliens. And if
it's been proven that you've done it, you should be
stripped of your occupational license. I mean, if you did
it while you were working, whether you're a hospital worker
(28:31):
or a public school employee or even a plumber, if
you're knowingly protecting illegal immigrants, that you shouldn't be able
to work in the state of Texas. Michael, is that
a crazy idea, No, it's not a crazy idea.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Look, this is the problem we've run into for years
and years and years, is that you know what you incentivize,
you get more of and when you give opportunities for
people to do bad things, that do bad things.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, it seems like a no brainer at me. I mean,
you guys every these stories all the time about public
school teachers doing unsavory things with students, and it's a
great argument for school choice. I think it seems very
logical to me. People should be able to spend their
own money how they want to educate their children, especially
if the local public school has dangerous characters in it,
(29:19):
like you know, like this New Kney ID teacher, a
Kilgore ID teacher, multiple stories you guys have covered today.
If those people aren't allowed to be public school employees
anymore for doing something unsavory with a kid a federal crime,
right certainly a state crime, why wouldn't we have the
same rule for people that have helped illegal immigrants. It
(29:39):
seems like a no brainer to be Michael, now. It
absolutely is.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And to the extent that you're allowing illegal aliens to
to work and operate, it is no difference committing any
other crime. You, for some reason have adopted the leftist
mentality that breaking the laws of our country and entering
the country illegally is somehow different than someone entering your
(30:06):
backyard without your permission and taking food from your refrigerator
without your permission, and sleeping in your bed without your permission.
All those things we would call the police on. We
you know, we we you know, while we might have
compassion on the individual who did that, they did actually
break the break of the law and that you so
(30:26):
for whatever reason we've we've allowed this kind of uh,
you know, bifurcated view of this kind of law breaking.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And and it is two our detriment. Hey, let's talk
about government, spending and religion for just a minute. An
odd thing happened here in the Greater Houston area. I
love a good excuse to play religious music in the
background while I have a conversation. I think it really
sets the tone, doesn't that I think it does. I'm
(30:54):
a Catholic, as our radio listeners may be aware. I
attend Saint Michael's Church in the Greater Uptown area. Beautiful church,
and the pastor there, what the priests do. There's a
couple of priests there. One of them's father Peter, the
other's father Stephen, give great sermons. Really understand theology understand
the history of the Bible and all the different holidays
(31:16):
and things we celebrate in the Catholic Church. I appreciate
them for that. And now I'm going to pick on
my church just a little bit. I recently learned that
after USAID, USAID was cutting off spending, well, the federal
government was cutting spending to USAID, and that was affecting
a lot of NGOs, non government organizations. We now learn
(31:39):
the Catholic charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston and Houston
are laying off about twenty percent of their workforce this
past week, well this month, it's over one hundred people. Hundred,
let's just say hundreds of people. I don't have the
exact number in front of me, but it's a lot.
Here we go, more than twenty percent of nearly five
hundred total employees. That's a lot of employees, right. And
(32:00):
I asked about this at church as I was walking out.
I won't say which priest it was, Okay, it was
Father Peter. Nice guy. Clearly he's been instructed not to
talk about this with people. At least that's the impression
I get, Because Michael I approached him and I asked
him you know what's all this about. And he told
me to write him an email or call his office
and we'll book an appointment to talk about it. And
(32:21):
I did that and they never got back to me. Michael,
how crazy is this look?
Speaker 3 (32:27):
I think that it's probably indicative that if you know
you've got nothing good to say, you know, just kind
of shut up. And I think that that's where I'm
a number of the good, right thinking folks inside the
Catholic Church and inside other churches are kind of realizing, Ugh,
our leadership made some bone headed decisions here and maybe
(32:48):
you Ritt, but I can't really say that, so maybe
I'll just not say anything at all.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah. I don't know if I'm getting anyone into trouble
for this, but Father Stephen and I have had some
brief conversations about politics. He is clearly on our side.
He clearly doesn't like the gender queer education standards in
the country, the transgendering of kids. That clearly doesn't like
that stuff. And you know, I don't know how he
(33:12):
feels about this, but when I see that they were
getting an absurd amount of money from the federal government,
I got to think it was not for Catholic Church.
I got to think that this had something to do
with illegal immigrants, which is probably not how they would
describe it. But what else could it have been for? No, Look,
that is all it was for.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
In fact, you know what we've seen this week in
Houston two NGOs, Catholic Charities, which is obviously not exactly
the Catholic Church, right, it's not. That's right, you're right,
and then the YMCA, which is affiliated with no church,
despite they used to have the word Christian in their name.
(33:51):
Now they're just YMCA. But these two ostensibly faith oriented
organizations getting millions and millions of In fact, Catholic Charities
last year alone received eleven point one million dollars from
the federal government specifically earmarked to help illegal aliens or
undocumented migrants or you know whatever whatever lefty phrase you
(34:15):
want to use, this gram for someone who came to
the country illegally enough money, enough cash involved, and enough
of their services and operating budget that this week both
Catholic Charities and the YMCA are having to let people
go because the Trump administration said, no, we're not We're
not paying for that stuff anymore. We're not We're not
going to be funding these magnets that in many cases
(34:38):
are providing benefits and services to illegal aliens that no
one provides to the citizens and the legal residents of
this country. So it's cutting off the money and so
therefore Catholic charities and YMCA are having to lay people off.
And now would suggest that if you're a charity and government,
and a government not funding a program makes you lay
(35:00):
people off, you might have lost sight of what you
were doing originally. Maybe you need to rethink some priorities.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
The thing that always confused me was as a Catholic,
obviously it's supposed to we're supposed to help out the homeless,
We're supposed to help out the pilgrim, we're supposed to
help out the orphan. Absolutely, but what if in doing so,
we're allowing a system to exist where people are being trafficked,
Because that's exactly what's happening at the border. I remember,
back after Biden took office, we learned one of these NGOs,
(35:28):
I don't know if it was this one or which
one it was, was handing out as people came over
the border. They were getting bottles of water, lunchables, and
a copy of Kamala's book, and kind of like the
Joe Biden when Joe Biden gave out money for safe
crack smoking kits around the country, another thing that NGOs
were funding a lot. A lot of people said, Ah,
that's not true, that's not a real thing. Well and
(35:49):
behold it was. It was on a government website safe
crack smoking kit. Evidence of their existence started showing up
at clinics all over the country. Well, surely do people
have such a I guess the question I'm trying to
get to is this, Michael, how short of an attention
span do people have? When everybody's up at arms about this,
we all acknowledge that it's bad, and then fifteen minutes
later we all move on to talking about the porn
(36:11):
star who had sex with a thousand men and now
she's pregnant.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, Look, I think that this is where you know,
we have to we all have to own our own culpability, right,
we all have to recognize that if it is not
sufficient to get our blood pressure up and yell at
the TV and then think that we've done something worthwhile
each one of us. We live in a self governing republic,
(36:35):
and each of us have citizens have an obligation to
continue speaking about these problems, to continue speaking out and
not and not just come assuming well because I yelled
at Kenny, you know, on the radio while I was
driving home. You know, the universe is magically taking care
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
No, you and I have an obligation to take care
of Thanks, Michael. You guys have cool projects going on
at Texas squarecard dot com. I'm always interested to hear
about them. You have a new series out where you
go out and you interview average Texans. I think that's
very awesome. I've I've been interviewed before by the Texas Scorecard,
and I appreciate the high production standards and the quality
(37:11):
of the stuff you guys are publishing. I always thought
it was really cool. What's the latest project you're working on.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Hey, We've got a fantastic new mini documentary coming out
on Wednesday this next Wednesday that's going to be narrated
by Brandon Waltons and it's called Hijacked, and it's taking
a look at how the Democrats in the Texas House
were able to once again control who would be the
Speaker of the Texas House. I'll be coming on Wednesday
(37:38):
it's called hijacked and hope folks will check that out.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Wait a minute, Brandon Waltons, I know him. He's on
this radio show every week. You guys know each other.
He is a really cool guy. I had no idea
you guys are Wow. That's quite a small world this is.
He's here every Tuesday. Michael Quinnsollivan Texas scorecard dot com.
If I were a radio listener of this show and
I appreciated the high quality product we put out, I
(38:03):
would take Kenny Webster's advice go to Texas scorecard dot com,
subscribe to their email list, follow my buddy Michael on
social media. A brilliant guy, he really is. I don't
offer compliments like that for a lot of people, but
you know it's a shortlist. All that being said, I
love you all. I hope you all drive safe. Please
be safe out there this weekend. Have fun, of course,
but get back here bright and early Monday morning for
(38:24):
more of what you bought a radio. You are listening
to the Pursuit of Happy Miss Radio.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to this show.
Jack ganon government sucks pursuit of happiness. Radio is DeLux.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile. The Asuda habing
and us on your radio toile, just as Cheezburgers a
libity rise. It's for food.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The IRS is firing six thousand workers in the middle
of tax season. Finally some good news, huh. I don't
take any pride or joining other people losing their jobs,
but I will say this. People are mad about this,
and if you're one of those people, I want to
reassure you. While six thousand IRS workers may have just
lost their jobs, apparently six thousand openings have just been
(00:45):
announced in the agriculture business from recently deported illegal immigrants.
So just do that for a living. Just go pick avocados,
learn to code. What's the big deal? Hey, everybody, welcome
to the show. My guest over the next hour will
be Michael quick in Sullivan, Texas scorecard dot com. Things
are happening in the city of Houston and throughout the state,
(01:05):
and a lot of Donald Trump's new policies are affecting
us in very interesting ways, including some of the suspicious
groups you wouldn't have expected that have lost funding because
of USAID, and apparently it's actually affected local churches here
in the Houston area, including a church I attend. We'll
talk about all that stick around, but before we get
(01:27):
to any of that, I was just reading this report
from John Nolty. He was talking about some of the
questions he's asking to Ukraine supporters. You know, this week,
a lot of people got upset because Donald Trump called
Vladimir Zelensky a dictator. And you might not like that
he called him that, But I'll ask you this, what's
a dictator? A dictator, I would say, would be somebody
(01:50):
who mishandles money, misspends money, arrests and locks up their
political opponents, doesn't have elections. That's Ukraine. That Ukraine in
a nutshell. We gave them hundreds of millions of dollars,
and there's a very credible report out claiming that some
members of the Ukrainian government oligarchy sold the military equipment
that we gave them to the cartels in Central America
(02:12):
and Mexico. Doesn't that piss you off? That's your money,
Your money was given to people that are your enemy.
Very often is the case. We fund both sides of
a war. I bet you didn't know we were funding
both sides of the war at the border. So yeah,
it is odd that there are people that still think
Ukraine is the good guy in all of this. They
have not handled the war well. Now that's not to
(02:33):
say Russia's good. Russia's bad too. That's a no brain.
That's obvious. Right. You don't have to explain the obvious
part out loud, do you. But with all that being said,
polling shows that apparently most Americans don't support this Ukraine
war anymore. And if you're one of those people that
still supports it, if you're in the small group of
(02:55):
people that wants to keep pumping hundreds of millions of
dollars into a war that's never going to be one,
at least certainly not by our side, I have a
few questions for you. Russian President Vladimir Putin, bad guy, gangster.
We got that. The thought of rewarding the bad guy
with anything much less territory in Ukraine, that doesn't sit
well with me. But this war has been going on
(03:15):
for three years at this point, it's almost as long
as World War Two, which was four years. I hoped
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski would send the gangster home humiliated
with a bloody nose. That hasn't happened, And at this
point I've lost all faith it ever will happen. So now, what,
faced with reality? What do we do now? All I'm
(03:36):
hearing from the neo Khan Ukraine war fans and their
fellow Ukraine war fans on the rabid left is a
call for more of the same. First, they'll say, let's
define more of the same. More war, more death, more fear.
Desperate Putin will go nuclear, more tens of billions of
US dollars poured into a war that cannot be won.
More of the same makes no sense to me, And
(03:58):
after twenty freaking in Iraq and Afghanistan, it pisses me off.
I get all the nuance, I get the geopolitical strategy.
I also know Putin had his reasons. I know Putin
had some valid concerns, although none validated starting a war.
I know we'd love to drain Putin's economy to a
point where he's overthrown. I know we're sending a message
(04:19):
about invading an ally. I get all that I do,
But after three bloody, costly, futile years, much like after
twenty years in Afghanistan. You got to ask some questions
for those who demand more of the same. First to
ask him this, what is your definition of a victory?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What is a victory? What's your strategy for the victory?
Do you even know? How do you win the How
do you achieve the said goal you just explained to me?
Is it overthrowing Russia? Joe Biden actually made that point
once or twice. We need to overthrow this dictator. You
think we're going to go to Moscow and take out
somebody that is a nuclear power. Here's a third question,
(05:00):
When will this victory be achieved? Do I have to
wait another fifteen years? Do we have to go through
three more presidential elections or four or five administrations to
get there? And then there's this We're already three years in.
When I look at the map, at the back and
forth of territorial gains and losses in Ukraine, I'm reminded
of the trench warfare during World War One. You ever
(05:23):
watch a documentary on the History Channel about World War
One or World War Two. I know it's hard to believe,
but there was a time when the History Channel just
showed you documentaries about history. Now it's a lot of
reality shows where they I think they empty out a
storage walker or something like that. But it used to
be they'd show you these documentaries about thousands of young men,
an entire generation, dying in a war of inches. If
(05:48):
nothing changes, how long are you willing to demand this continues?
Give me a time limit, five more years, ten more years.
Tell us when you will say this war has gone
on too long. How much money should the US pour
into this war? We're already upwards of two hundred and
(06:08):
three hundred billion dollars, depending on who you ask and
where you look, much of that is unaccounted for. Tell
us what dollar amount will be too much for you?
And then here's another question that they've never answered. What
are the downsides of a peace deal? Now? I know
it doesn't sound good to tell Putin he can have
(06:30):
this but he can't have that, But but really, what
are the downsides? Did you know there are people in
Ukraine that don't want Zelenski to be president anymore? Apparently
there's enough of them that they can't have an election.
News Week even reported on it this past week. That's
not exactly a right wing news outlet. Have you considered
the fact that a peace deal might leave Ukraine with
(06:52):
more land than if the war continues or Ukraine loses.
You probably haven't thought about that. If all our previous
aid passckages didn't make a difference, what makes you believe
the next one will. We gave him hundreds of billions,
hundreds of billions, hundreds of billions, and nothing's been achieved.
Why would you keep doing the same thing over and
over again. I'm sure if you listen to talk radio
(07:14):
you're smart enough to be aware of the fact that
one of the definitions of insanity is yeah, you get
the idea. So what about this? Why are you really
okay with Zelensky outlying eleven opposition parties and canceling every
presidential election while the war is happening. If it's not
safe enough to have out an election in Ukraine, why
(07:36):
did Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn go there for photo shoots?
A war is no excuse. Abraham Lincoln stood for reelection
in the middle of a much more serious situation, a
civil war. Lincoln also believed he would lose. Must we
destroy democracy to save democracy? And if Trump is so
pro Putin. As we've heard so many times, why doesn't
(07:59):
he pull ourt from Ukraine and walk away? Enjoy your
warr pal. Instead, he's risking political capital to get a
peace deal. Doesn't exactly mesh well with the whole pro
Russia narrative unless you get all your news from some
liberal biased outlet. And finally, I'll ask this, when did y'all,
especially those of you on the left, but also the
(08:21):
neo cons begin to oppose the pursuit of peace? Why
and when? Say what you want about Trump, but he's
making his case for why this war must end now
and it must end with a peace deal. All I
hear from the other side is some version of more
of the same and more of the same as unacceptable.
Make your case. Let's hear it fly from.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Texas Broadcasting across the peoples Wee topic of America.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
This is preceed of How It Is Radio with Ken
Webstern JR. Akay producer Kenny keep it here, Okay, So
I am looking at health related news. Obviously it has
a lot to do with the economy as well. Everything
always does. Americans are cutting back on buying eggs because
(09:08):
of the absorbitant cost, which is why the average Americans
breakfast consists mostly of bacon these days, and more bacon
and also bacon. But I'm told you could supplement the
protein you're missing from eggs with bacon. I do love bacon.
Did you guys watch that hockey game last night. I
know everybody's excited about whether or not America is gonna
(09:30):
invade Canada and who's better at hockey, But when I
watch that, all I can think about is how they
ruined bacon. It's just ham. But I digress. We have
bigger things on our plate to worry about. Things right
here in the state of Texas. As a matter of fact,
we have a doge Texas of sorts happening with our
friends at texascorecard dot com. I love that they're doing this.
(09:52):
They're picking through records of what people actually spend your
money on in the government, and one of the things
that has been revealed here is we're spending a lot
of money on subscriptions. Now, to be clear, I'm not
talking about Netflix or Disney Plus. These are subscriptions to
Texas based news outlets. Some of them are friends of ours,
(10:12):
like The Texan And don't get me wrong, I don't
think the Texan did anything illegal here. They sold a
news subscription to somebody that wanted to look at it.
You know, the Texan dot News. The Quorum report is
on here. Scott Braddock, if you're familiar with him, he's
a guy that goes to the Capitol and just reports
hard news with a slight slant to the left. Not
(10:32):
you know, we're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on
subscriptions at places like Austin American Statesman, the Dallas Morning News,
the Houston Chronicle, the Saint Augustine Tribune. Michael Quinn Suliman
of the Texas scorecard dot Com. I couldn't help, but
notice Texas scorecard dot Com is not on the list anywhere.
Why didn't you get in on some of this? Yeah,
(10:55):
well look up to you.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know, when you see what politicians are spending your
tax dollars on, it's kind of a good indication, I
think sometimes of a whole lot of things. But we
have a very firm policy that we don't take any
money that comes from government coffers period. Too many opportunities
for for compromise. In my mind, when you do that,
(11:19):
you know, when when the legislators and they're stablishing, well,
maybe we'll cancel our subcription. We'll get our you know,
we'll get our other officers to cancel our supercruption.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You know suddenly.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And I think that's my Quarner Report is so bad
is because that, you know, they they exist with taxpayer funding.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years
have flown to Corner Report out of state coffers and
you know, legislators over the last uh thirteen months have
given them sixty thousand dollars. I mean, so that's a
(11:48):
lot of cash for one guy in one website.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That was sixty thousand dollars for a subscription and to
a new do you.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Know no of that that's that's all of them, that's
the eighty seven combined.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Okay, that's okay, it's still it's still a lot. It's
still a lot of money. But part of what's so
weird about.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
When you do that, when when you when you're sucking
at the government, teat the government, uh has the ability
to pull that teet away if you're not careful. And
I think that's the that's the compromise you make as
a journalist when you start taking money from government, when
you allow because it's very easy for the politicians to
just know, hey, pay this invoice out of my office budget.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
That that's very easy. It's also very easy to then
take it away. Yeah, you explained that quite well. And
you know what really strikes me is out about this, Michael,
is much like when we found out the federal government
was spending thousands of dollars on Politico dot com subscriptions.
The Quorum Report here in Texas, it's kind of like Politico.
It's a news outlet that just tells you what's going
(12:48):
on at the Capitol, what's going on at the governor's office.
That's that's pretty much all they report on Politico dot com,
same thing Washington, DC, Capital, Supreme Court, Congress, White House.
That's all they report on. And the people that are
getting these subscriptions for free are generally government employees, lawmakers,
people holding cabinet positions, staff members, which means we the taxpayers,
(13:14):
are paying for a subscription so that those people can
read news stories about themselves, their news stories about the
things that they are already doing. Don't they know what
they're doing?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Well, many of them do not Mitch McConnell case, in
point Joe Biden case, just to be bipartisan. But look,
I would suggest that that it is it is slightly
more than that they are paying not necessarily treat what
they're doing, but to massage and manipulate what the rest
of us think that they're doing. I would suggest you know,
(13:50):
you're also in the medium, I might agree with this.
I don't find many instances where Politico has lied what
they have done.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Though.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
What you know the Corn Report does do is it
allows a lie to be created in the mind of
the of the viewer, of the reader, of the listener
by selectively ordering facts out of context. They will cherry pick,
They'll they'll leave things that lead out critical details that
would be important for someone to make a good rational judgment.
And we have government supercharging that. When we have government
(14:22):
paying for that, suddenly it becomes the government narrative. That's
called propaganda.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Okay. So I don't know if this even matters to
anybody but me, but I can't help. But notice here
State Representative Gene Wu from Houston has two subscriptions here,
a Quorum Report subscription and a Houston Chronicles subscription combined
together he's spent over one thousand dollars of taxpayer money
on subscriptions. But what's interesting about that is his Houston
Chronicle subscription is two hundred and sixty dollars. Meanwhile, Aaron Zweiner,
(14:50):
another lawmaker from this end of the state, also has
a Houston Chronicle subscription for one hundred and thirty. What
that tells me is they're not paying the same amount
of money for subscrib which means presumably one of them
has more than one subscription. Can't the people in the
office just share a subscription. Why do they need more
than one subscription?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Look, you you would think that would be the case.
But again, uh, this is the problem with the Texas House.
This is the problem with with the government in general.
Is you know, if you've got a typical family, of course,
families don't subscribe to the Houston Chronicle. They're a dying dinosaur,
you know, the the asteroid plunge in the ground.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They're dying.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
You know, they only exist from government large just like this.
But back in the old days, mom and Dad wouldn't
both have a subscription to the Dallas Morning News of
the Houston Chronicle, for they'd get one and they would
share it, you know, they would share sections treating the paper.
That's how real people are, right, But when you're spending
other people's money, it becomes very easy say, ah, well,
you know, of course we can't have Billy and John
(15:54):
sharing the newspaper. They both have to have you know,
they both have to read the comics at the same
time or whatever it is that they're doing. So this
is the thinking that other people's.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Money that is so stupid. And yeah, you're right, that's
exactly what it is. No, hang on a minute here,
Only one of us can look at it at a time,
so we need two of them. It's it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Look, it's not like the Texas Capitol staff are doing
much anyway. They're they're playing, you know, Legends of Zelda
and there are you been watching Seinfeld episodes many days
out of the year. So you think that at the
minimum they could share the o bit section of the
Houston Chronicle, But they don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Hey, question for you. Attorney General Ken Paxton is now
seeking an injunction to go against the NAACP for trying
to protect women's sports, and I'm glad that he's helping
with this as a taxpayer in Texas, I don't have
a problem with that. I find what has taken place
with female athletes around the country to be disgusting. It
certainly happened here in the state of Texas. How it's
(16:55):
happened here in Houston. Female athletes in college and high
school getting screwed over, negatively speaking, because some guy decides
he wants their scholarship or he wants their place on
the roster. What I don't understand is why it's up
to Texas to do this. Is in the federal government
already going to solve this for us or I guess
as I'm asking the question out loud, I know it
sounds silly, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well, it doesn't sound silly, And in fact, I would
suggest that what Ken Paxon and the State of Texas
doing is precisely what President Trump needs states doing. It's
one thing for the President United States to order and
issue an executive order saying we're going to stop stop
the flow of dollars into universities.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But you know, as we know, those.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Things get challenged and they have implementation problems. Other things,
you need states like Texas that are going to be
willing to sue, to take lawsuits that you know, the
go after the problem in a slightly different way. And
I think that's what Ken Paxson's doing here. This new
You could think of it as Belton suspenders maybe, or
(17:57):
you could think of it as fighting a multi front war.
This is the way that we have seen our liberties eroded.
This is why we've seen our culture debate is by
the left not pursuing just you know, one head on assault,
but they but they have you roaded our institutions in
multiple ways. They've eroded our culture in multiple ways. No
(18:20):
hitting at the same kind of topic from different angles.
And I think that's just see happening here. But this
time it's the good guys doing it.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Michael, we have talked about subscription services and trainees and
sports for so long. We didn't even get to the
most interesting topic yet. Can you hang with us and
do another segment or do you need to run? I
would love to. We'll make it real quick, I promise.
There is an odd thing happening here in the Houston
area where a church, a certain religious organization that is
near and dear to my heart. I gotta be objective
(18:49):
here seem to a beginning a suspicious amount of money
from the federal government. And it's a church. I'll tell
you the story right after this. Don't go anywhere. Listened
to the Pursuit of Happiness radio Pursuit of Happiness. We
don't have that. In Mexico. There's a campaign to make
(19:13):
Bigfoot California's official mythical creature. It's between him and Vegan,
who never talks about being vegan. Those are the two
things they're trying to decide on. California is an odd place,
isn't it. You know, California politics seem awfully wacky to
those of us that live here in the lone Star state.
But here in Texas we have people who share those opinions,
(19:38):
and they move here all the time. In fact, some
of them even hold office Up in the Dallas Fort
Worth area. There's a woman named Congressman Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
Maybe you've heard of her. I'm sorry, congress person, I
don't mean to assume. Congressman Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett made news
so a little while back. You may recall when she
told everybody Wesley Hunt, local lawmaker for the Houston area,
(20:00):
is a white guy. He's actually black. Alex Soros is
the son of George Soros, and unlike his dad, whenever
he meets with a politician and he bribes them, he
likes to post a photo of the two of them
on social media together. His dad never did that. Alex
Soros literally flies around America writing giant checks to left
(20:22):
wing politicians, and then when he's done buying them, he
takes a photo with him. It's almost kind of demeaning
if you think about it. There's a picture of him
with Jasmine Crockett. They met together for a private meeting
in a hotel room where they made a deal in
exchange for a large political donation. If you had to guess,
what do you think she did for him? It's an
(20:44):
interesting question. Say what you will about Jasmine Crockett, but
this is the current leader of the Democrat Party. I
know that sounds crazy, Kenny. She's a young far left activist.
She's a hot brand on social media. Yeah, I mean,
minus the far left part. Doesn't that kind of sound
like I'm describing Donald Trump in twenty fifteen. Jasmine Crockett is,
(21:05):
at this particular moment, the most exciting member of the
Democrat Party. For young or old political activists. AOC is
no longer in that position. AOC has toned it down recently,
but Jasmin Crockett goes on CNN and says things like this.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
What's happening right now? I am tired of the white tears. Listen,
if you are competent, you are not concerned. When I
walk into Congress every single day. You know why I
don't feel away and why you can't make me doubt
who I am is because I know that I had
to work ten times as hard as they did just
to get into the seat. When you look and you
compare me to Marjorie Taylor Green or me to Lauren Bobert,
(21:43):
there is no comparison.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And that is the life that we have always lived.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
So the only people that are crying are the mediocre
white boys that have been beaten out by people that
historically have had to work so so much harder. This
is why they don't want us to have.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Education, guyszan Crockett is a wealthy kid who grew up
to become a politician, and she talks like she's not
from that kind of a background. Do you catch my drift?
She speaks as though she's from you know, the community.
But actually apparently she's a I'm told she's from a
(22:19):
very wealthy family, very well educated. She's costplaying. She's role playing.
It's a character and it's working. She's become very popular lately.
Part of the reason she's so popular right now it
isn't really because she's good. It's because everyone else in
her party is so bad. A report at breipart dot
com today reveals polling for the congressional Democrats have hit
(22:41):
a record low, record low job approval ratings with voters
and congressional Republicans currently enjoy a record high The thing
to keep in mind as you revel in these numbers
is the numbers are actually sweeter than they sound. You
see this Quinnipiac poll, and Quinnipiac is a shame was
left wing polster. But in the same poll, Quinnipiac shows
(23:04):
President Trump's approval rating at forty five percent and forty
nine percent disapprove of them, four points underwater. That is
far outside his current average, which has him at one
point five points above water in most polls. Anyway, twenty
one percent of voters approve of the way the Democrats
in Congress are handling their job, according to Quinnipiac, and
sixty eight percent of voters disapprove and eleven percent didn't
(23:27):
even have an opinion. The pollster asked this question going
back to two thousand and nine, and Democrats have never
scored worse. Congressional Democrats are forty seven points underwater. For
forty percent of voters approve of the way Republicans in
Congress are handling their job, which is a record high,
while fifty two percent disapprove and eight percent did not
(23:49):
offer an opinion. So not only are congressional Republicans enjoying
record high approval in a poll that generally always favors liberals,
they are also only twelve points underwater compared to the Democrats,
who are forty seven points underwater. So what's happening here?
Is the country coming together to join the GOP and MAGA,
(24:12):
I don't think so. No, this is good news, but
it does not mean the Trump train has captured a
wide majority of the approval. Only forty percent approve of
the job Congressional Republicans are doing a majority of fifty
two percent still disapprove. And all that tells us this
the Republican base is happier than normal with the job
Congressional Republicans are doing. That's it. Unfortunately, you cannot extrapolate
(24:37):
that number to mean anything more. When only twenty one
percent of those survey to approve of the job Congressional
Democrats are doing. All that tells us is that the
Democrat base is frustrated with their own guys. It would
be nice if that meant those sixty eight percent who
disapprove had decided to join the MAGA train, But it
doesn't mean that Democrats and their leaders are floundering in
(24:58):
their lay mass attempts, amount and effective defense against Trump steamroller. Democrats,
including those in the regime media, are being outworked, outsmarted,
and continuing to lose the public debate on every issue
from Ukraine to the border, to child mutilation to wasteful spending.
A Democrat in New York City organized a protest this
(25:21):
week because he was upset that Donald Trump was going
to get rid of the commuter tax. Imagine attending a
protest so you can keep a toll you know, like
a toll way. They're going to get rid of a
toll way, and Democrats are mad about that. You know,
nobody's stopping you from giving the government more money. You
can write a track to the government. You could pay
(25:42):
more if you want. It's kind of incredible, right, This
poll only reflects the left frustration at their own party's impotence,
and not to be a total party pooper, But this
pole does tell us Democrat base is depressed, it's demoralized,
and you'd have to possess a heart of granite not
to take some pleasure in that. But you know, what
are you gonna do? I'm Kenny Webster, I love you all.
(26:03):
Hang around for just a minute here. Michael Quinn Sulivan's
coming back in a minute. I'm having an issue with
my church. I love my church, I love my religion,
but I have noticed here in the greater Houston area
a lot of money was recently being given to the
Catholic charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston Houston. Might wonder why.
And suddenly it just went away. Sorry, my computer started
(26:24):
making noise. My computer just started playing a recording of
me talking. And that was probably confusing for you because
you probably thought I was talking twice at the same time,
and I wasn't. You probably didn't think that at all.
But Hey, that reminds me. If you are on social
media today, I posted a video talking about how young
American voters are shifting to the right. If you see
that circulating around, give it a retweeter a share for me.
(26:45):
I'll be right back free specially on right here on proceeds.
I'm happy to this radio. I was just talking to
my friend Michael quinn Sullivan texascorecard dot com. Honestly, I've
said he's one of the most dangerous men in Texas
(27:07):
political media. I think he's I think he's the most
dangerous guy. There are very few journalists or activists, or
you know, just grassroots people that have actually ended and
ruined the careers of corrupt politicians. Michael's dound it more
than once, and he's a very humble, down to earth guy.
As a matter of fact, Michael and I were just
(27:27):
talking off the air here about how sometimes our weird
little world actually affects public policy in a positive way.
One of those things I think was really cool was
when Steve Toath State Rep. Steve Toath and State Representative
brisk o'caine did something very useful. They're pitching a bill,
they're proposing a bill called the Pursuit of Happiness Act.
(27:48):
It was inspired by this radio show and an idea
that we had a lot of people listening to my
voice right now may have heard or seen on social
media how there are public school employees and hospital workers
democrats around the state bragging on social media about how
they're going to protect illegal immigrants from ice rates. If
there's a trend a arragua guy at a school or
(28:10):
a college or a hospital somewhere, you know, criminal illegal aliens,
they're actually going to protect them. And I said, that's wrong.
If you have been proven to have committed that, that's
a federal crime protecting and harboring illegal aliens. And if
it's been proven that you've done it, you should be
stripped of your occupational license. I mean, if you did
it while you were working, whether you're a hospital worker
(28:31):
or a public school employee or even a plumber, if
you're knowingly protecting illegal immigrants, that you shouldn't be able
to work in the state of Texas. Michael, is that
a crazy idea, No, it's not a crazy idea.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Look, this is the problem we've run into for years
and years and years, is that you know what you incentivize,
you get more of and when you give opportunities for
people to do bad things, that do bad things.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, it seems like a no brainer at me. I mean,
you guys every these stories all the time about public
school teachers doing unsavory things with students, and it's a
great argument for school choice. I think it seems very
logical to me. People should be able to spend their
own money how they want to educate their children, especially
if the local public school has dangerous characters in it,
(29:19):
like you know, like this New Kney ID teacher, a
Kilgore ID teacher, multiple stories you guys have covered today.
If those people aren't allowed to be public school employees
anymore for doing something unsavory with a kid a federal crime,
right certainly a state crime, why wouldn't we have the
same rule for people that have helped illegal immigrants. It
(29:39):
seems like a no brainer to be Michael, now. It
absolutely is.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And to the extent that you're allowing illegal aliens to
to work and operate, it is no difference committing any
other crime. You, for some reason have adopted the leftist
mentality that breaking the laws of our country and entering
the country illegally is somehow different than someone entering your
(30:06):
backyard without your permission and taking food from your refrigerator
without your permission, and sleeping in your bed without your permission.
All those things we would call the police on. We
you know, we we you know, while we might have
compassion on the individual who did that, they did actually
break the break of the law and that you so
(30:26):
for whatever reason we've we've allowed this kind of uh,
you know, bifurcated view of this kind of law breaking.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And and it is two our detriment. Hey, let's talk
about government, spending and religion for just a minute. An
odd thing happened here in the Greater Houston area. I
love a good excuse to play religious music in the
background while I have a conversation. I think it really
sets the tone, doesn't that I think it does. I'm
(30:54):
a Catholic, as our radio listeners may be aware. I
attend Saint Michael's Church in the Greater Uptown area. Beautiful church,
and the pastor there, what the priests do. There's a
couple of priests there. One of them's father Peter, the
other's father Stephen, give great sermons. Really understand theology understand
the history of the Bible and all the different holidays
(31:16):
and things we celebrate in the Catholic Church. I appreciate
them for that. And now I'm going to pick on
my church just a little bit. I recently learned that
after USAID, USAID was cutting off spending, well, the federal
government was cutting spending to USAID, and that was affecting
a lot of NGOs, non government organizations. We now learn
(31:39):
the Catholic charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston and Houston
are laying off about twenty percent of their workforce this
past week, well this month, it's over one hundred people. Hundred,
let's just say hundreds of people. I don't have the
exact number in front of me, but it's a lot.
Here we go, more than twenty percent of nearly five
hundred total employees. That's a lot of employees, right. And
(32:00):
I asked about this at church as I was walking out.
I won't say which priest it was, Okay, it was
Father Peter. Nice guy. Clearly he's been instructed not to
talk about this with people. At least that's the impression
I get, Because Michael I approached him and I asked
him you know what's all this about. And he told
me to write him an email or call his office
and we'll book an appointment to talk about it. And
(32:21):
I did that and they never got back to me. Michael,
how crazy is this look?
Speaker 3 (32:27):
I think that it's probably indicative that if you know
you've got nothing good to say, you know, just kind
of shut up. And I think that that's where I'm
a number of the good, right thinking folks inside the
Catholic Church and inside other churches are kind of realizing, Ugh,
our leadership made some bone headed decisions here and maybe
(32:48):
you Ritt, but I can't really say that, so maybe
I'll just not say anything at all.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah. I don't know if I'm getting anyone into trouble
for this, but Father Stephen and I have had some
brief conversations about politics. He is clearly on our side.
He clearly doesn't like the gender queer education standards in
the country, the transgendering of kids. That clearly doesn't like
that stuff. And you know, I don't know how he
(33:12):
feels about this, but when I see that they were
getting an absurd amount of money from the federal government,
I got to think it was not for Catholic Church.
I got to think that this had something to do
with illegal immigrants, which is probably not how they would
describe it. But what else could it have been for? No, Look,
that is all it was for.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
In fact, you know what we've seen this week in
Houston two NGOs, Catholic Charities, which is obviously not exactly
the Catholic Church, right, it's not. That's right, you're right,
and then the YMCA, which is affiliated with no church,
despite they used to have the word Christian in their name.
(33:51):
Now they're just YMCA. But these two ostensibly faith oriented
organizations getting millions and millions of In fact, Catholic Charities
last year alone received eleven point one million dollars from
the federal government specifically earmarked to help illegal aliens or
undocumented migrants or you know whatever whatever lefty phrase you
(34:15):
want to use, this gram for someone who came to
the country illegally enough money, enough cash involved, and enough
of their services and operating budget that this week both
Catholic Charities and the YMCA are having to let people
go because the Trump administration said, no, we're not We're
not paying for that stuff anymore. We're not We're not
going to be funding these magnets that in many cases
(34:38):
are providing benefits and services to illegal aliens that no
one provides to the citizens and the legal residents of
this country. So it's cutting off the money and so
therefore Catholic charities and YMCA are having to lay people off.
And now would suggest that if you're a charity and government,
and a government not funding a program makes you lay
(35:00):
people off, you might have lost sight of what you
were doing originally. Maybe you need to rethink some priorities.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
The thing that always confused me was as a Catholic,
obviously it's supposed to we're supposed to help out the homeless,
We're supposed to help out the pilgrim, we're supposed to
help out the orphan. Absolutely, but what if in doing so,
we're allowing a system to exist where people are being trafficked,
Because that's exactly what's happening at the border. I remember,
back after Biden took office, we learned one of these NGOs,
(35:28):
I don't know if it was this one or which
one it was, was handing out as people came over
the border. They were getting bottles of water, lunchables, and
a copy of Kamala's book, and kind of like the
Joe Biden when Joe Biden gave out money for safe
crack smoking kits around the country, another thing that NGOs
were funding a lot. A lot of people said, Ah,
that's not true, that's not a real thing. Well and
(35:49):
behold it was. It was on a government website safe
crack smoking kit. Evidence of their existence started showing up
at clinics all over the country. Well, surely do people
have such a I guess the question I'm trying to
get to is this, Michael, how short of an attention
span do people have? When everybody's up at arms about this,
we all acknowledge that it's bad, and then fifteen minutes
later we all move on to talking about the porn
(36:11):
star who had sex with a thousand men and now
she's pregnant.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, Look, I think that this is where you know,
we have to we all have to own our own culpability, right,
we all have to recognize that if it is not
sufficient to get our blood pressure up and yell at
the TV and then think that we've done something worthwhile
each one of us. We live in a self governing republic,
(36:35):
and each of us have citizens have an obligation to
continue speaking about these problems, to continue speaking out and
not and not just come assuming well because I yelled
at Kenny, you know, on the radio while I was
driving home. You know, the universe is magically taking care
of it.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
No, you and I have an obligation to take care
of Thanks, Michael. You guys have cool projects going on
at Texas squarecard dot com. I'm always interested to hear
about them. You have a new series out where you
go out and you interview average Texans. I think that's
very awesome. I've I've been interviewed before by the Texas Scorecard,
and I appreciate the high production standards and the quality
(37:11):
of the stuff you guys are publishing. I always thought
it was really cool. What's the latest project you're working on.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Hey, We've got a fantastic new mini documentary coming out
on Wednesday this next Wednesday that's going to be narrated
by Brandon Waltons and it's called Hijacked, and it's taking
a look at how the Democrats in the Texas House
were able to once again control who would be the
Speaker of the Texas House. I'll be coming on Wednesday
(37:38):
it's called hijacked and hope folks will check that out.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Wait a minute, Brandon Waltons, I know him. He's on
this radio show every week. You guys know each other.
He is a really cool guy. I had no idea
you guys are Wow. That's quite a small world this is.
He's here every Tuesday. Michael Quinnsollivan Texas scorecard dot com.
If I were a radio listener of this show and
I appreciated the high quality product we put out, I
(38:03):
would take Kenny Webster's advice go to Texas scorecard dot com,
subscribe to their email list, follow my buddy Michael on
social media. A brilliant guy, he really is. I don't
offer compliments like that for a lot of people, but
you know it's a shortlist. All that being said, I
love you all. I hope you all drive safe. Please
be safe out there this weekend. Have fun, of course,
but get back here bright and early Monday morning for
(38:24):
more of what you bought a radio. You are listening
to the Pursuit of Happy Miss Radio.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to this show.
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