March 2, 2026 • 40 mins
This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features gun rights advocate Brandon Herrera and Houston Chronicle opinion editor Evan Mintz. ( @KennethRWebster )
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Giganic government sucks. The suit of Happiness Radio is
d US Liberty and Freedom will make you smile. Of
a suit of happiness US on your radio. To ol Justice, Cheeseburgers,
a libity rise at.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Food Target, Target Food at Target grocery stores.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You know it's a department store.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
They're gonna stop selling cereal with synthetic color by the
end of May because everyone knows that when you want
healthy food, you shop at Target.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That makes sense, right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Does this mean that instead of fruit loops they'll just
be selling fruit or just selling loops?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Kenny Webster. Brandon Herrera joins us this afternoon. He's
the AK guy on YouTube. He's gonna be future Congressman
Brandon Herrera. We hope he defeats Tony Gonzalez. Stick around
for that, and Evan Mince will be here, the editor
of the opinion section in the Houston Chronicle, stopping by
the studio shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Stick around for that before we get to any of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To brightpart dot com reporting on the latest polling from
the Texas US Senate race for the Democrat nomination shows
Jasmine Crockett. Crockett excuse me, Jasmin Crockett stomping all over
James Tallerco better Still, this is shaping up to be
an Obama versus Kamala race certainly looks that way. The
(01:22):
primary election tomorrow in a University of Texas at Tyler
poll taken February thirteenth to the twenty second of eleven
hundred registered voters and nine hundred and fifty nine likely
voters says that Crockett will beat Tallerico fifty five percent
support to James's thirty seven percent support. That is way
outside the poll's three point two point margin of error.
(01:45):
Back in January, the University of Houston conducted a poll
and found Crockett up eight points. But polling in this
Democrat primary has been screwy. Another poll taken in January
had tallar Rico up nine points, and a poll taken
just last week had him down twelve up twelve points.
Excuse me? So who knows, I guess is the answer.
What we do know is that Kamala Harris is doing
robo calls for Crockett. That's interesting. Texas has a chance
(02:09):
to send a fighter like Jasmin Crockett to the US
Senate that's what she says in the robo calls in Dallas.
Harris ends the call with it's time to turn Texas blue. Yeah,
that's not gonna happen. For his part, back in October,
Obama gave Tallerico a Busi's James Tallerico also has fans
of the upper chaloons of the party. Former President Barack
Obama called taller Rico a really tailed young man during
(02:31):
a podcast interview in October.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It was kind of like a cross between Obama and
George w wasn't it. So there's this little question. Most
of the Democrat establishment wants to see James Wynn, believing
he'll have the best chance to defeat any of the Republicans,
who will either be Corny In or Paxton or Hunt.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Probably at this point it looks like it's Paxton, but
there's going to be a runoff no matter what.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
To vote your heart.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Don't feel like you have to vote for corn In
or Paxton, or if you don't want the other guy,
vote for Wesley Hunt. If you want him, vote for Cornyan.
Do vote for Ken Paxton. I think he's a good candidate.
The strongest evidence of this is establishment tody Stephen Colbert,
who made a fool of himself showing for James Tallerico
at any rate. Earlier this month, on his best basement
(03:14):
rated TV show, Stephen Colvert lied about CBS telling him
he could not have taller Rico on as a guest.
The truth is that CBS merely informed James of the
SCC's long standing equal time rule. They said, if he's
going to have James Tallerco on, he's also got to
have Jasmine Crockett on, because they were within the thirty
days of the broadcast day. Anyway, rather than host Crockett,
(03:38):
Colbert invented a censorship lie and posted his interview with
James on YouTube. The ensuing publicity boosted Tallarico's profile, brought
in millions and contributions, and it allowed Colbert to continue
to pose as a martyr when we all know he's
a failure. He loses CBS about forty million dollars a year.
That's a lot of money to suck, guys. I mean,
(03:59):
that is a lot of money to suck. You know,
it's amazing. These are the two best democrats that Texas
has let that sink in for just a minute.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It's kind of pathetic, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
There's a lot of big cities in Texas, Houston, for example, Dallas,
San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We know the rats in these big cities.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They're all full of trash, communism, progressivism, Marxism. We've done
a good job of cleaning the Democrats out of Texas.
We only have to worry about the transplants now, they
say from foreign countries. What surprises me is that they
found eleven hundred Democrats to conduct the survey.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That's incredible. We're not passive aggressive like some people.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
We know.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
This is Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Only one in.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Three American teenagers says diabetes or pre diabetes, probably because
they no longer get exercise from running away from Jeffrey Epstein. Hi, everybody,
welcome back from break. Oh you didn't like that. That
was distasteful, All right, there's a lot in the news
today that's distasteful. As a matter of fact, we know
a guy who's trying to get rid of some of
that terrible aftertaste in your mouth left behind by South
(05:07):
Texas lawmaker Tony Gonzalez.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Brandon Herrera.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
If you've not heard of him, it's time to get
acquainted with the name an absolute powerhouse in the firearms
world in a rising voice for the Second Amendment. Online,
he is known as the Ak Guy at Texas based
entrepreneur YouTube personality built one of the most popular gun
channels out there, racking up hundreds of millions of views,
no nonsense reviews, builds an advocacy. But at some point
(05:33):
he's decided to step away from that and take on
the world of politics. He's decided to go to Washington,
d C. Brandon is on the line right now. Brandon Herrera,
thanks so much for your time this afternoon. I gotta
tell you get paid a lot more being a social
media personality. They often say the only way to make
money in politics is to be dishonest. So I guess
(05:53):
my first question would be why, why do you want
to do that?
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Who is this?
Speaker 6 (05:59):
And how did you get this?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
What's going on?
Speaker 6 (06:02):
Brother? First of all, no, I appreciate you having me
on the show Man the It's it's been a long
time coming. I've been begging this guy to let me
come on the show and he just kept saying no, No,
you're not big enough yet, You're not big enough for me.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I doubt our humble little radio station here in the
fourth biggest market in the country does pretty good. But
I do wonder if I an average podcast episode for
you guys reaches more people.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's the world we live in.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Of course, people can't watch YouTube while they're stuck in
afternoon traffic, which is how they're hearing this.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Well, well, I at least listen to it.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
I definitely q up YouTube won't going down the road allegedly,
but no, no answer your question, man, the yeah, the I'm
taking about a ninety five percent pay cut to step
away from my businesses and you know, enter the dark,
deep swamp that is DC. And you know I've already
taken a pledge. I'm not going to buy, sell trade
(06:56):
a single stock while I'm there. I'm not taking any
special interest money. You know where We're doing this straight up?
For I would like to say love of the game.
I don't really love the game, but love of the people,
I think is a better way.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Of putting it.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and you know that being said, you aren't even
there yet, and you've already accumulated so many enemies. I
gotta think being a YouTube personality, you don't often have Washington, DC.
Lobbyists hire people to follow you around. But that's the
sort of thing that happens when you're running for office,
isn't it.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Yeah, No, it's definitely. It's definitely wild. It takes like
the you know everybody knows about, like internet drama between
social media personalities. I try to avoid that stuff, like
the plague, but you know, sometimes you get enveloped in it.
I've never experienced anything like this, where like last cycle,
I had thirteen million dollars spent by Tony Gonzalez and
his allies to basically defame me in my hometown. So
(07:47):
like that's a wild thing. It's like internet drama. You
just turn off your phone. This is like, Oh, I'm
trying to grab a beer with a friend at Texas
Roadhouse and I saw eighteen ads calling me a total
piece of crap.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Isn't that the weirdest thing? And then he called you
a Nazi? Now, if I'm not mistaken, aren't you hispanic?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (08:07):
Yeah, it's one of those rare todd What was the
joke a friend of mine set He's like, yes, Brendan Frere,
the notorious brown face of white supremacy. But no, he
called me a neo Nazi, a clan member, and a
California loving Liberal in the same primary.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It was kind of I.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Would have loved to have seen that political political chart.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
But at least you don't cheat on your wife with
everything that moves.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
So there's that, Yeah, with multiple staffers, none of which
who apparently wanted the relationship and who he pressured into.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, no, crazy, crazy stuff the more. Okay, let's talk
about that for a minute.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The race that you're in has gotten a lot of
national attention lately due to the allegations and controversy surrounding
your opponent. When we first learned about this months ago,
reported in Current Revolt, I don't think anybody realized how
bad it was. This went from wild speculation to people
now realizing it really looks like Tony Gonzalez groomed this
young woman. The text message conversations make it look like
(09:02):
he forced her or you know, basically talked her into
having sex. She didn't want to. She's a married woman,
he's her employer. This is a classic case of predatory behavior.
I mean, it could get worse, but it doesn't seem
like it could get much worse.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
No, absolutely, not, Like I so we've been monitoring this
situation for a while. I pretty much knew, I would say,
the vast majority of the details this very soon after
it happened, just my people in Uvaldy and people telling us, hey,
you need to be aware, this is what's going on,
that sort of thing. In the beginning, I didn't believe
it because it seemed like something that was too far
fetched for House of Cards. You know, I would have
(09:39):
rolled my eyes if I saw this sort of thing
on TV, right, But it turned out it was. It
was all correct and frankly like, I didn't even realize
just how bad it was until the husband came forward
with the text messages because I at the you know,
I knew about the affair obviously, I knew that it
split their family to the point where, you know, she
later took her own life. Be a self immolation, no less,
(10:00):
But I didn't realize the sex past predatory angle to
the story until I read those text messages.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, self immolation.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I don't think most people even knew what that was,
what that word meant, until this happened. And then we
looked at there was like four or five cases of
self immolation, someone lighting themselves on fire, which has caused
a lot of conspiracy theorists to go crazy with wild
ideas about what they think happened.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And you know, we won't go there. I don't.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It seems like Akham's razor. The most likely explanation here
is what happened? That being said a lot of memes.
This has spawned a lot of meme culture on the internet,
people making fun of a dark situation. But underneath all this,
there's still a little boy who lost his mom. And
you and the people on your team were cool enough
to start a GoFundMe account.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
How's that doing?
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Very well?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Very well?
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Last I checked, it was over fifty thousand dollars. And
you know, I do understand that because you know, if
we live in a meme age, right, we live in
meme culture, we're gonna you know, cope with dark things
or you know, everything's on the table, right there's nothing
that I mean good, better and different. There's a national tragedy.
There's going to be means about it, you know, that day.
(11:09):
But I would encourage people, especially people on my team
and people that are you know, trying to help us,
you know, to be tony. I would I would encourage
them to just keep in mind. You know, I've met
these people. Now, I've met Regina's husband, I've met her son.
You know, these are real people, and so like, let's
let's try to keep it kind of respectful because that's
(11:31):
that's not something that they need.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
To be subjected to.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All Right, it looks like and I don't want to
jinx it, but every Paul says that now your way ahead.
I think what bothers me the most about this situation
is most people that are really into politics realize Tony's
a problem. Most people that are really into right wing
conservative like talk radio listeners, know Dan Crenshaw's a problem, right,
you know what I mean. People on X note John
(11:54):
Cornyn has betrayed the conservative base.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But one of the on this is your second time
running against Tony.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
One of the only reasons why this got the attention
it deserved was because this other, vastly horrible thing had
to happen. But Tony Gonzalez was already a wretched pukel.
He was already a vile, disgusting swamp rat who helped
pass gun control laws and supported open borders everything he
claimed to be against.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
If you actually looked at his.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Voting record, which most you know, most primary voters don't
have the time to do that. You see a video
of him on the internet walking around at the border
with Elon Musk, and you just assume he's red pilled
and he's based.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
He's not.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I guess this is just a long way of me saying, boy,
it seems like a terrible tragedy had to happen for
one of the good guys to finally win.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
I know we last time in the primary in twenty
twenty four, we took him to a runoff and only
lost by about four hundred votes, so he came very close.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The grassroots is known for.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Years exactly what kind of Congressman Tony Gonzalez is. The
problem is with with casual voters and with people who
you know, maybe they don't have an time, or they
didn't do their research or what have you. He has
so much money that he's able to, you know, slander
anybody who runs against him, smear anybody who runs against him,
and make himself seem like you know, some great patriots,
great face of conservatism, which we all know he's really not.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
No, So we're.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
I hate that this happened. This is an entirely just
tragic situation altogether. But the one silver lining out of
it is that it was enough of a shock to
wake people up to see who the real Tony is.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
One of the reasons that it was claimed that they
spent so much money to try to stop you last time,
thirteen million dollars, was because Apak was involved. That Tony
is a very big Israel guy. And you know, Brandy
and I've never been to Israel. I'm not one of
these people with a lot of opinions about Israel or
Iran or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But on that note, neither are you.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You're not like an anti Israel guy or a pro
Israel guy. People on the internet speculate that you were
a threat to Apak the pro Israel lobby. That's not
really true though, is it.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Well, no, see, I'm not anti Israel by any means.
I just want to put America first. You know, I
feel like those those things can you know, aren't exactly incompatible.
But none of the truth is Tony Gonzales will stop
out to any big pack or any big super pack,
any big group, anybody that will help him get elected
because he can't do the strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
That we do.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Well, we did town halls in every single one of
the twenty nine counties in the district last cycle.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It's twenty seven.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Now we did it again, and we did at least
one big open town hall. Anybody can show up, Anybody
can ask questions, they can hear me speak, they can
hear me firsthand.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
He'll never do that.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
He will hide in the basement Joe Biden's style, and
he'll ask for He'll he'll ask all the big packs
in DC, all the special interests, to give him millions
of dollars so that he can run whatever attacks he
wants on TV, whatever promotions he wants to run.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
On TV, radio, wherever, mail, and.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
That's that's enough for him.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And he thinks that's enough for him.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
This cycle, we're very very quickly proving that it's not,
and he's he doesn't know what to do about it now, frankly,
because the one thing he'll never do is stand before
his voters and allow them to ask real, unscripted questions,
because I don't think he would like what they would ask.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
We have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. But Brandon,
I think most people are betting on you to win
you know, degenerate gamblers are very are better at polling
data than pollsters are, and they're all betting on you
to win.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
So let's hope, Allie mark it's crazy right now, it's wild. Right,
Let's say let's say pollimarket.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
I think it's like ninety five to five in.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
That wild Yeah, ninety five percent of people think you win.
So let's say Okham's razor the most likely explanation here.
You get to d C, Dude, you're going to be
surrounded by people that hate you. They didn't want to
get rid of Tony because he had these scandals. They
wanted to keep them because he's compromised. You don't have
anything like that. Would you be willing to create some
kind of low key scandal in an effort to build
(15:50):
trust around the Washington elites?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
H is, that's what I need to do. I need
you said, supurposely dive or nose first into a that
what I got to do?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Tell people you're in defeat or something embarrassing like that.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Yeah, some some fake compromising ran out there. I think
people are Frankly, I think it does make them uncomfortable
that somebody like me is coming there who didn't sell
out to the packs, the special interests. I didn't have
any big endorsements or anything. I'm happy to have once
that I have now after this scandal broke. We we
had a few people, like especially the House Freedom Caucus
that reached out that want Tony gon that you know,
(16:27):
this is their opportunity to pick a better coworker to
actually get some conservative stuff done in Congress. So very
appreciative of those folks, But really we.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Did it independently.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
There are no strings on.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Me, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You get a full endorsement here. I endorsed you last time.
I think that's how we met was a couple of
years back, and uh, it's it's nice to see somebody
good is actually winning this race. If people want to
get online and give you some last minute support, obviously
that's always welcome.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
How can they do that?
Speaker 6 (16:52):
So the the website is Brandon Herrera for Congress dot
com or I think just Brandon Herrera dot com redirects
if you want to learn more about gonzales voting record
and just how bad of a congressman he was before
all this. We have a website called Tonybefraid us dot com.
And you know I greatly appreciate your endorsement. It is
one of the most valued I have because, unlike the
(17:15):
swamp creatures in DC who you know Levy endorsements back
and forth, I actually know you. I know you're a
good guy. So we'll you know I value that that deeply, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Hopefully we see Brandon Friday, June twelfth. We celebrate this
at the House of Blues at the Texas Republican Convention.
In the meantime, find Brandon online. Future Congressman Brandon Herrera.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
According to a new report, exaggerated statements are up by
like a billion percent, and now more of the highest
rated show on radio, Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness, I.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Ran Supreme Leader has been killed. It is official. Rob
Reiner's son is out of control. You don't have to
let you don't not have to laugh with that at
men's That is not funny. Evan Minz used to Chronicle
Opinion editor in the building. Right now, welcome to right
wing talk radios.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Oh hang on, well you didn't even think about the mic. Okay,
thanks for having me. Hang on, we'll fix this right now.
To those of you watching us the thrill of live radio.
It's the one thing I didn't think of was your microphone. Hevin, Welcome,
my man.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
People are always surprised to find out that you and
I are friends, or that I'm friends with Olivia Juliana.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
They don't understand that.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I know there's a big difference between politics and personality,
and I think sometimes people don't get that. And it's
pretty healthy to be able to hear other people's perspectives,
even if you don't agree on everything, and just like
a nice way.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I may not agree with some of your political positions,
but I like you.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
You're a nice guy.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I'll meet right wing thinkers out at political events
and stuff, and I agree with their events, but I
don't like them. They don't they don't seem like people
i'd want to be at a party with.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
I think a lot of people get into politics and
becomes their whole personality, and they become very intense and
you just need to tell them relax please, Like politics
is a means and ends.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, it's true. And I think at the end of
the day, most of us want the same thing. We
want what's best for society. I want what benefits most people.
I want policies that are good for the average Texan.
You're an interesting It's almost you're almost a walking contradiction
because people assume opinion editor of the Houston Chronicle liberal,
he must hate Texas, and you're one of the most
(19:23):
patriotic Texans that I know.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh yes, Happy Independence Day. I love Texas. I love Houston.
There's some pride in it, and also some of it's personal.
You know, my family came here from the Old Country,
settled in Houston, and everyone's been pretty successful. This place
has been very good to us, and I wanted to
keep being good to those next generations.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Do you think that part of the reason why it's
been good to actually is cause of fiscally conservative economic policies.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I think a lot of it is very pro opportunity,
and I think a lot of it is looking at
we don't care where you come from. As long as
you just kind of want to work and make money,
we're happy to have you. There's this old story when
during the big oil boom days when you could put
a gorilla in a suit, drop in downtown Houston and
make a million dollars by the end of the week.
Like that's that attitude I want to have. I want
to have folks coming here. It's like, do you want
(20:07):
to work hard and make money and just be chill
with everyone else around you?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Like?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, sure. It's like okay, who do you hate? More
like various historic ethnic opponents? Or like Dallas. It's like, oh, Dallas,
It's okay, come on in.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I am you know, you know me, I am not
real socially conservative. I'm more of a social I'm a
moderate in that terms. But I think what attracted me
to Texas was a great entrepreneurial environment, low taxes for
the most part, except for property taxes.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
You know, as someone that's you're an intellectual, I mean
you are.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You are like the quintessential left wing and you are
because you're I think you're the perfect person to be
the editor of the Houston Chronicle opinion section because you
celebrate the diversity of opinions. You publish stuff all the
time you probably don't agree with. You are like a
left wing, an intellectual Jewish Man, and you recently published
an article about why someone loves Sharia law.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
People couldn't believe their eyes when they saw that article.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I mean This has been the core of so many
conversation debates happening, particularly right now in the Republican primary.
How we're gonna ban Sharia law, We're gonna deal sharia law.
No one's really talking about what Sharia law is. You know,
what does it means different people. So we had a
guy who is a practicing Muslim here in Houston. He
is a Boy Scout leader, he is a business leader,
(21:28):
and he said, listen, I'm a practicing Muslim.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
This is what Sharia law means for me.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
And this is what I say to a lot of
people worrying about Sharia law in Texas. You'll go through
let's say, well, Sharia law means cutting off people's hands
if they steal. It means a pressing women. And I go,
I mean, I'm sure you could find that written down somewhere.
But if you go talk to an actual Muslim in Houston,
is that what they're doing? And answer is no, of
course not. I could flip through the Bible and say like, oh, man,
(21:54):
crawfish boy, we're gonna have to hit people with rocks
because you're not supposed to have your shellfish. But that's
not how the world really works. But I mean we
talked about this off the air a little.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In the New Testament, they tell you to forget some
of the stuff about the Old Testament. Yeah, for the
that's the general idea. There's not a New Testament to
the Kuran. It's like uh sri Rika is the amputation
of hands, Xena is the lashing of unmarried women or
stoning them for having sex. If you give up Islam,
that gets you into trouble. I feel like that is
(22:23):
not that does not correlate with Western values.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
I mean I don't see that actually happening here. And
you know, as a Jew, I could say I don't
have a New Testament. I have my Old Testament and
I can go through it. I also have centuries upon
centuries of rabbis arguing about how you actually enact these things,
and Islam has a similar structure because say, yes, yes,
it says this, but how do we actually practice it
right now?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I mean MJ.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Con was a Muslim Republican who's on city council. I
don't see him doing any of this. When Achem was
getting us our back to back champions I'd see him
doing any of this. You can find bad stuff in
any religion. You can find bad people in any religion.
But part of I think being biased for Houston and
Texas is saying, all right, I know they are Muslims here,
let's ask them what they're actually doing here in Houston,
(23:07):
here in Texas, and frankly, a lot of them probably
came here to get away from folks who were thinking
like that in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, and they love
being in Texas.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
You could find bad people in any religion except the Mormons.
They seem to be really nice people all the time.
I can't think of anything they've done wrong. They just
seem like good guys to me.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
It depends what you think about polygamy.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You know what's interesting about that is now in the
twenty first century, there's the polyamorous community, and men can
marry men and women can marry, and that's very much accepted.
Republicans for the most part, don't even have a problem
with it. But no one ever took up arms for
the old school polygamists. There's never been a movement of
marching through the streets to say, hey, these women want
(23:48):
to be sister wives.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Where's their political movement?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
You think, I don't know but I look at some
like Elon Musk or what has like twenty kids with
twenty wives, like there's something moremonesque about that.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yes, you know, you're right.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
One hundred percent of Elon is an interesting character, and
that just goes to speak to the exceptionalism of Texas.
Where did he move to he moved here. Let's talk
about this. We go from that to this. You have
an interesting article today. It's well, it's from over the
weekend in the Houston Chronicle. Let me put this up
on the screen real quick. I don't think I got this.
I didn't set this up correctly. Let me fix the
display here. For those of you who listening to us
(24:22):
on the radio, we are live streaming on social media,
so you can look at there's visual aids for today's program,
and here we are looking at seven cliches. Texas politicians
need to stop saying I thought this was a great list.
It seems to apply to people in both parties. I
hate when people say I am not a politician, because
there are always politicians. We need to cut waste, fraud,
(24:43):
and abuse. Kind of I'd agree with it, but it's
a vague thing. The only thing I would have put
on this that you didn't put was the fake cowboy
stuff more common in my party than yours. But our
party people will move to the state, buy a cowboy
hat and like these baby boomer women, I don't know,
they don't get like that.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
This is totally disingenuous. These people aren't cowboys. Oh yeah,
that pisses me off too. I'm a lifelong Houstonian. Can
you imagine me and like a cowboy hat and bootside
look ridiculous? Mete Houston. Houston really at its core, we're
a port city. Like people should be dressing up a
longshoreman to like show what our legacy is. What do
you see these guys going around with their cowboy hats.
Who's a doc who's going around with his saddle bags
(25:21):
over his shoe?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
What is in his saddle bag? I don't know. That's
a good question. Shobu should ask him what's in the
saddle bag? Who knows? It's like mentos dude.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I'll bet the older women though, love it. I'll bet
when he gets around older because he knows he's not
going to win. At this point, he's pulling it less
than five percent. But I mean the chicks, they must like,
you know, if you're in a fifty five year old women,
they must be throwing themselves to the goal.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Maybe this is kind of like a way to get
out and get some dates. I don't know, but you're
not dressing up to like put on this performance as
a politician. So much of like all these seven things
get at this core idea that being a politician is
a job, right in a way. You have to understand policy,
You have to work with a lot of different interest
groups that may be in conflict with each other. How
do you navigate that? If you're supposed to represent everybody's
(26:04):
interest it is hard. It's a job. And just to
be like, well, I'm not a politician. I'm coming in
and I know nothing about this. I don't know how
good of a job you're gonna do. It's true, yeah,
it's and that seems to be the case. People will
compare themselves to Trump. It's like, all right, hang on
a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Trump is a billionaire that ran this massive global corporate
conglomerate for decades that seemed to include thousands of employees.
Are like, well, I'm a businessman, yes, sort of. You know,
you ran a car dealership or something, not quite the
same thing as running the state of Texas.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Right, And it depends you know what job you're running
for too. If you are a car dealership owner and
you are running for city council, maybe state legislature. I
can kind of see how that translates pretty well. Trump
one of his biggest skills all the way through is
just knowing how to manage media. He did it great
with the New York Post. He did it when he
was on TV, and when you're a president, dealing with
media is a huge part of the job. If you're
(26:55):
good at running your media representation and you're running for
state legislator, like, I don't see the connection.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
No mean either. I mean we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
If you are listening to us on the radio, if
you are watching us live streaming, don't go anywhere. Evan
Mince will continue this conversation with me literally in seconds,
So stick around, quick break.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Our doctor told us the pills we took were just
a placebo. But he must not know what he's talking about,
because man, those suckers worked. This is Kenny Webster's pursuit
of happiness.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
All right, everybody.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The Supreme Court Tariff ruling means the government may have
to refund one hundred and seventy five billion dollars, or,
as Elon Musk calls it, a child support payment.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
So that's, you know, it's a reasonable amount of money.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Evan.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I tell bad jokes for a living on the radio
and on stage, and I recently authored an article for
the Houston Chronicle opinion section about my right wing comedy show,
The House of Blues. Published information online about the event.
A thousand people in the comments section either roasting us,
some of the comments were very funny, by the way,
or just upset that it was happening.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
So the Chronicle wrote an article about.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It, put that on social media, and then the comment
section on that was filled with conservatives that were outraged
over the fact that liberals were outraged or that you
guys even covered the story, which I thought was great.
It helped me sell dozens of tickets to a comedy
show that's like four months away.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Do people just like being mad? Is that what it is?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Well?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I think it totally is.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
People want to feel something in life, and if you
feel like you don't have a lot of other purpose,
anger is a powerful motivator and it's something that we've
realized is that a lot of algorithmic social media platforms
just reward outrage and engagements, and that's what they want
to do. And at the newspaper like thank goodness, there
are editors there to say, I don't care what the
algorithm saying. We actually want to do some real news
(28:48):
here and actually try to report what's going on. I say,
the biggest bias in media right now isn't left or right,
it's towards negativity. You report when planes crash, not what
they land, and gives you a perverse perspective on the world.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
A lot of people in Houston, Texas around the state
were upset about the Paxton impeachment. One of the lawyers
involved in that, I believe was Dan Cogdale. A lot
of people in the state were upset about Epic City.
One of the lawyers involved in that is Dan Cogdill.
You know, it's interesting how behind the scenes the people
that seem to be pushing or pulling the levers or
interestingly enough, my uncle rides motorcycles with him and tells him.
(29:23):
He tells me he's a great guy. He's just a
very good lawyer. And that's how he ends up in
these cases. Oh, that's absolutely how it works. He can
go down to the criminal courthouse and find people who
are representing just the worst folks in the world. Why
are you supporting these murderers like I don't support them.
It's my job. The Constitution says you're entitled to representation.
I'm gonna do the best job I can. It seems
like Dan's that kind of guy. He's gonna be a
(29:44):
good lawyer whoever can pay him. I'm told online, I've
never seen this before about you. I just stumbled onto
this live on the air. Here you imagined a bold
twenty fifty scenario where Houston hosts a North American Free
Movement Agreement treaty.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
What is that? A?
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Oh, just the idea that, like how in the EU
you can go from country to country to country without
a passport, that we should get to a point where
you can go from Canada, United States Mexico passport free.
And what city would be like a natural nexus for that?
But Houston, we already have those great Mexico connections with
the oil industry. We got good connections in Canada. We
(30:21):
should be the host for that. We are you know
this after this weekend. We have this terrible thing happened
in Austin.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Conservatives very quick to blame that on immigration laws, Liberals
very quick to blame it on gun rights. And one
thing I will say, whether you and I agree or
this or not, people really seem to be able to
solve that problem before we knew anything about.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What even happened.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Is it's frustrating to see people react before we have
all the facts on the ground. It's terrible. It's a tragy.
We're going to keep learning more about it. But I
think the fact of the matter is that you can
look at crime rates and they go up and down,
totally disconnected from a lot of these other issues.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, you also had a fantastic idea which I have
stolen in That is my idea now, which I if
anybody ever hears me saying what do we do about
the astrodome? I think Evan is a better idea than
anyone does. And I've repeated this to people in my
gym many times. So those that are watching us on
social media not from Houston, you may be surprised to
learn the astrodome still exists. It's still there, huge nothing
(31:18):
is done with it except that it's a home for rats.
It's this giant thing, and Evan Is pointed out tearing
it down could be expensive.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Keeping it up is expensive.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Maybe it becomes like the Roman Colisseum, it becomes our
own ruins and people could take a view of it.
I have been told though, that the mold makes it
unhealthy if people were to take a tour of it.
I suppose some kind of oxygen mask would be necessary.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Whatever it is we need to do to let people
walk through it is fine. Actually have it an op
ed on this up right now. Just as folks are
going to the Rodeo, they're going to be seeing the Astroom.
They're gonna be thinking what do we do with this?
Just do nothing, Let it fall into disrepair like the Colisseum,
and we can do tours and we could have guys
like dressed up like astronauts outside where you can take
pics with them for ten bucks. I mean, even look
(31:59):
at the Alamo. The Alamo is fundamentally ruins. We don't
use it for what it was originally made to do.
It is a tourist destination. We should do that with
the Astrome. Just let it be a big tourist destination.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I hadn't even thought of that. Houston wouldn't even be
the first place where we had ruins. For those that
don't know, if you've never been in the Astrodome, it
used to be home to one of the gaudiest apartments
in the world. I always thought that this was above
that hotel, but it's actually above the Astrodome, and way
before Airbnb existed, you could stay in this apartment for
(32:32):
like ten thousand dollars a night, owned by Judge Huffines. Yeah,
his daughter is a very old woman, and I mean
no disrespect to her, she just does and she lives
in the apartment across from mine. Mm hmm, and I
guess she's a Grammy Award winning songwriter.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Did you know that Haffins family is just incredible for
our city. But it's so funny you think that when
he was pitching the Astrome, it really is kind of
like this self proclaimed huckster mentality. He was proud to
call himself a huckster because really, the idea of building
this job multi purpose stadium, it was never really going
to pay for itself. It was always going to be
this white elephant structure, and we used it, you know,
(33:08):
from nineteen sixty five, all the way through what two thousand,
two thousand and one when Enron Field opened ounce dyikon Field.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I always forget about that. Were you in Houston when
the en Run thing happened?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Not only was I hear my dad was a whistleblower
real and he got to go up and test got
to he had to go up and testify before Congress.
And he was freaking out this whole time as the
whole thing was going south, because he had this insider
role of recognizing they're doing all these spinoff companies, saying, Okay,
if you make these spinoff companies, you have to disclose
it to the board. You have to let the people
(33:43):
in charge know what you're doing. And then so there's
these pictures of him so arm up swearing in before Congress,
and he was worried the SEC was going to go
after him, that they wouldn't understand what he was doing.
And then, of all people, Jake Tapper, who at the
time was writing for Salon, wrote this article that said,
like the Enron whistleblower you never heard of, and it
(34:05):
was about my dad. Wow, He's like, thank God, Like
Jake Tapper saved my life.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The Enron whistle blower. You never heard of Salon dot com.
I've got to see this. Yeah, do you know what else?
Oh my god, look at this two thousand and three,
the betrayal of the whistleblowers.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I don't know if I don't know if I found
the right article or not.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Maybe, but one of the most interesting things about Enron
to me Elizabeth Holmes m hm, the young woman who
created Faranos, which sounds like a Marvel Comics supervillain, is
a Hustonian, yes, who was like the girl boss. Every
Kamala loved her, and Hillary loved her right up untill
hery scandal, and then they all washed their hands of her.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
But her dad was an Enron executive.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
He was, and he was involved in Enron's like green
energy portfolio, which was never like a real thing. That's
kind of a metaphor there. But here's another part of
the story.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You know. I went to school with Elizabeth Holmes Get
out of.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Here, and I went to I was in the same
class as her younger brother, who is involved in the
company a little bit. He got kicked out of the
school for cheating. Really really, it's.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Rund as in the family. Yeah, all three of them.
There's something there that is a lot. Do you think
it's genetic being a white dollar criminal.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I think this is probably a cultural things, like a
family thing.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Do you think that that technology will ever?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I mean, it must happen at some point to be
able to look at someone's blood and tell us what's
wrong with them.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
And it doesn't seem like a radical idea.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
That's why I mean it is, but it's like it's
not incomprehensible, which I think is why people believed her.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I'm always worried about, like the the unpredictable consequences of
doing stuff like that, but everybody wanted to believe. But
my understanding of it was that throughout all of the
experts involved, the people who really knew anything about this,
like this wasn't gonna work the whole, like testing blood
from a single drop just wasn't gonna work. But they
got ignored and all of like the influential people involved
(35:53):
in all of the investors were just like saw dollar
signs in fame.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
All Right, you've got a lawyer's background. I'm a law
school dropout. I don't know if you know that about me.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You made the smart move.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I took the alsat I started, I applied to law school.
I was all ready to go, and then man Cow
gave me a job making prank phone calls for a link.
Mom and Dad were not thrilled about that. As you
can see, it's turned out fine. But you have an
attorney's background. You also have a polis or finalist nod
for your sharp editorial writing. What's one piece of advice
you would give to people that listen to this radio
(36:26):
show who want to do submit to the newspaper, want
to get into what you do.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I mean the advice that I got from my old
opinion editor was, whatever it is it gives like a
stomach ache in the morning, whatever it is like pissed
you off in the morning, write it up and send
it in. And really we're looking for stuff five hundred
and fifty eight hundred and fifty words. Just what is
it you want to happen in the world or what
are you mad about? You can also write letters to
the editors a lot shorter, usually about stuff that we've published,
(36:51):
that are about two hundred and fifty words, and you
just send that to viewpoints at Houston Chronicle dot com.
We see it, and we like to run it.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We are about to run out of time. And there's
one thing I really didn't ask. We didn't even really
talk about tomorrow's election. No, but I love that you
have this article. I want people to go take a
look at. I may not agree with all of them,
but I do agree with some of them. Let me
put this up on the screen here. This was an
interesting article, the best and worst candidates. I thought it
was interesting. Let's just talk about the Senate race real quick,
(37:18):
and then we'll sign off, because I know you got
to run and I do too.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
It looks like, Look, I like Wesley Hunt.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
He's a friend. I think he's a great guy. I
like him too. Do you believe the polling data? What
do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I mean, you never know because turnout is so high
and this is all uncharted territory and Texas polling is
historically pretty bad because we don't have a lot of big,
heated elections and turn up, turn up is down. It's
not like you would do in you know, Iowa or
South Carolina or these states with like there's lots of
elections and there's lots of regular polling. I think that
(37:51):
probably wouldn't go wrong guessing that it's probably just gonna
end up being Cornyn and Paxton. But you never know,
You never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And since it's gonna be a runoff anyway, vote your
heart if you like Paxton or Hunt, vote for him
if you like corn In. Fine, let's say it's Cornyn
and Paxton. Who Where do you think Hunt's votes go?
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I mean, I think is something that could really end
up being split fifty to fifty because you get a
folks and say, I don't like Paxson's background.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
He's radioactive.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Also, I worried he'd lose corn In some better votes,
and he's just more of a reliable congressman or a senator.
But you could also have people who say, like you
sick of corn In, represents the past, want something new,
when something different? Yeah, that's Paxton, and I imagine that.
You know, folks who are voting right now for Wesley
Hunt could go either way. Jasmin Crockett and James Tallerico,
where do you think it goes? I think that you're
(38:39):
gonna have worst case scenario. It's going to be like
forty nine, just like some random third candidate running. I
guess yeah, yeah, and they're going to force to a runoff.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
It's not fair.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
But after the weekend we've had, I don't think I
don't think he's going to be getting.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
A lot of votes.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I don't think he was getting a lot of votes
in the first You said he was pulling at one percent. Yeah,
that sounds about right, and so by and ever now,
oh boy, could happen there. But it's gonna be an
interesting day tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
We hope to hear back from you after this happens,
and of course before we sign off today. If people
do want to subscribe or submit or whatever, Houston Chronicle
dot com easy to do it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's it's all there.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
There should be a big button at the top where
you can click to subscribe. I think it's ninety nine
cents for six months, So sign up and if you
don't like it, you can always just cancel.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Evan, I know you are the only reason I like
the Houston Chronicle. Well, you and Faith Bugenhausen. But she
quit Booginhi. Yeah, yeah, she went up to Austin. She
wanted to go work at Yeah the Statesmen there. Yeah,
is that what it's called Yeah. Well anyway, you always
say it's the separation between church and state. The opinion
editors and the people read new side. Yeah, I don't
know what they do until like they do it. Then
(39:41):
sometimes it gets a little frustrating. It's like, oh, they
have this great news article. We could have had a
really quick opinion piece on it if we knew it
was coming. All right, one more before we sign off.
Rodeo Houston. You're going to see any concerts? No, No concerts.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I like to go. It's a great place to go
with my family because like, there are very few places
I can hang out with my kids and have like
like three to five b Nobody bats an.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Eye, nobody bats and I that you're drunk watching people
feed baby lambs. It's complete exactly that My wife and
I are there just like had like one too many beers,
sitting in the little stands, watching my kids watch someone
milk a cow.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, it's like, this is life, this is what it's
all about. Amen to that. God bless Houston. Thank you
very much. Evan mentioned my guest this hour from the
Houston Chronic. Thanks for having then.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You are listening to the pursuit of Happyness Radio.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to this show.
The Giganic government sucks. The suit of Happiness Radio is
d US Liberty and Freedom will make you smile. Of
a suit of happiness US on your radio. To ol Justice, Cheeseburgers,
a libity rise at.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Food Target, Target Food at Target grocery stores.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You know it's a department store.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
They're gonna stop selling cereal with synthetic color by the
end of May because everyone knows that when you want
healthy food, you shop at Target.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That makes sense, right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Does this mean that instead of fruit loops they'll just
be selling fruit or just selling loops?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Kenny Webster. Brandon Herrera joins us this afternoon. He's
the AK guy on YouTube. He's gonna be future Congressman
Brandon Herrera. We hope he defeats Tony Gonzalez. Stick around
for that, and Evan Mince will be here, the editor
of the opinion section in the Houston Chronicle, stopping by
the studio shortly.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Stick around for that before we get to any of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To brightpart dot com reporting on the latest polling from
the Texas US Senate race for the Democrat nomination shows
Jasmine Crockett. Crockett excuse me, Jasmin Crockett stomping all over
James Tallerco better Still, this is shaping up to be
an Obama versus Kamala race certainly looks that way. The
(01:22):
primary election tomorrow in a University of Texas at Tyler
poll taken February thirteenth to the twenty second of eleven
hundred registered voters and nine hundred and fifty nine likely
voters says that Crockett will beat Tallerico fifty five percent
support to James's thirty seven percent support. That is way
outside the poll's three point two point margin of error.
(01:45):
Back in January, the University of Houston conducted a poll
and found Crockett up eight points. But polling in this
Democrat primary has been screwy. Another poll taken in January
had tallar Rico up nine points, and a poll taken
just last week had him down twelve up twelve points.
Excuse me? So who knows, I guess is the answer.
What we do know is that Kamala Harris is doing
robo calls for Crockett. That's interesting. Texas has a chance
(02:09):
to send a fighter like Jasmin Crockett to the US
Senate that's what she says in the robo calls in Dallas.
Harris ends the call with it's time to turn Texas blue. Yeah,
that's not gonna happen. For his part, back in October,
Obama gave Tallerico a Busi's James Tallerico also has fans
of the upper chaloons of the party. Former President Barack
Obama called taller Rico a really tailed young man during
(02:31):
a podcast interview in October.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It was kind of like a cross between Obama and
George w wasn't it. So there's this little question. Most
of the Democrat establishment wants to see James Wynn, believing
he'll have the best chance to defeat any of the Republicans,
who will either be Corny In or Paxton or Hunt.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Probably at this point it looks like it's Paxton, but
there's going to be a runoff no matter what.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
To vote your heart.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Don't feel like you have to vote for corn In
or Paxton, or if you don't want the other guy,
vote for Wesley Hunt. If you want him, vote for Cornyan.
Do vote for Ken Paxton. I think he's a good candidate.
The strongest evidence of this is establishment tody Stephen Colbert,
who made a fool of himself showing for James Tallerico
at any rate. Earlier this month, on his best basement
(03:14):
rated TV show, Stephen Colvert lied about CBS telling him
he could not have taller Rico on as a guest.
The truth is that CBS merely informed James of the
SCC's long standing equal time rule. They said, if he's
going to have James Tallerco on, he's also got to
have Jasmine Crockett on, because they were within the thirty
days of the broadcast day. Anyway, rather than host Crockett,
(03:38):
Colbert invented a censorship lie and posted his interview with
James on YouTube. The ensuing publicity boosted Tallarico's profile, brought
in millions and contributions, and it allowed Colbert to continue
to pose as a martyr when we all know he's
a failure. He loses CBS about forty million dollars a year.
That's a lot of money to suck, guys. I mean,
(03:59):
that is a lot of money to suck. You know,
it's amazing. These are the two best democrats that Texas
has let that sink in for just a minute.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It's kind of pathetic, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
There's a lot of big cities in Texas, Houston, for example, Dallas,
San Antonio.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We know the rats in these big cities.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They're all full of trash, communism, progressivism, Marxism. We've done
a good job of cleaning the Democrats out of Texas.
We only have to worry about the transplants now, they
say from foreign countries. What surprises me is that they
found eleven hundred Democrats to conduct the survey.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
That's incredible. We're not passive aggressive like some people.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
We know.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
This is Kenny Webster's pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Only one in.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Three American teenagers says diabetes or pre diabetes, probably because
they no longer get exercise from running away from Jeffrey Epstein. Hi, everybody,
welcome back from break. Oh you didn't like that. That
was distasteful, All right, there's a lot in the news
today that's distasteful. As a matter of fact, we know
a guy who's trying to get rid of some of
that terrible aftertaste in your mouth left behind by South
(05:07):
Texas lawmaker Tony Gonzalez.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Brandon Herrera.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
If you've not heard of him, it's time to get
acquainted with the name an absolute powerhouse in the firearms
world in a rising voice for the Second Amendment. Online,
he is known as the Ak Guy at Texas based
entrepreneur YouTube personality built one of the most popular gun
channels out there, racking up hundreds of millions of views,
no nonsense reviews, builds an advocacy. But at some point
(05:33):
he's decided to step away from that and take on
the world of politics. He's decided to go to Washington,
d C. Brandon is on the line right now. Brandon Herrera,
thanks so much for your time this afternoon. I gotta
tell you get paid a lot more being a social
media personality. They often say the only way to make
money in politics is to be dishonest. So I guess
(05:53):
my first question would be why, why do you want
to do that?
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Who is this?
Speaker 6 (05:59):
And how did you get this?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
What's going on?
Speaker 6 (06:02):
Brother? First of all, no, I appreciate you having me
on the show Man the It's it's been a long
time coming. I've been begging this guy to let me
come on the show and he just kept saying no, No,
you're not big enough yet, You're not big enough for me.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I doubt our humble little radio station here in the
fourth biggest market in the country does pretty good. But
I do wonder if I an average podcast episode for
you guys reaches more people.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's the world we live in.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Of course, people can't watch YouTube while they're stuck in
afternoon traffic, which is how they're hearing this.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Well, well, I at least listen to it.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
I definitely q up YouTube won't going down the road allegedly,
but no, no answer your question, man, the yeah, the I'm
taking about a ninety five percent pay cut to step
away from my businesses and you know, enter the dark,
deep swamp that is DC. And you know I've already
taken a pledge. I'm not going to buy, sell trade
(06:56):
a single stock while I'm there. I'm not taking any
special interest money. You know where We're doing this straight up?
For I would like to say love of the game.
I don't really love the game, but love of the people,
I think is a better way.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Of putting it.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and you know that being said, you aren't even
there yet, and you've already accumulated so many enemies. I
gotta think being a YouTube personality, you don't often have Washington, DC.
Lobbyists hire people to follow you around. But that's the
sort of thing that happens when you're running for office,
isn't it.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Yeah, No, it's definitely. It's definitely wild. It takes like
the you know everybody knows about, like internet drama between
social media personalities. I try to avoid that stuff, like
the plague, but you know, sometimes you get enveloped in it.
I've never experienced anything like this, where like last cycle,
I had thirteen million dollars spent by Tony Gonzalez and
his allies to basically defame me in my hometown. So
(07:47):
like that's a wild thing. It's like internet drama. You
just turn off your phone. This is like, Oh, I'm
trying to grab a beer with a friend at Texas
Roadhouse and I saw eighteen ads calling me a total
piece of crap.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Isn't that the weirdest thing? And then he called you
a Nazi? Now, if I'm not mistaken, aren't you hispanic?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (08:07):
Yeah, it's one of those rare todd What was the
joke a friend of mine set He's like, yes, Brendan Frere,
the notorious brown face of white supremacy. But no, he
called me a neo Nazi, a clan member, and a
California loving Liberal in the same primary.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
It was kind of I.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Would have loved to have seen that political political chart.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
But at least you don't cheat on your wife with
everything that moves.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
So there's that, Yeah, with multiple staffers, none of which
who apparently wanted the relationship and who he pressured into.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, no, crazy, crazy stuff the more. Okay, let's talk
about that for a minute.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The race that you're in has gotten a lot of
national attention lately due to the allegations and controversy surrounding
your opponent. When we first learned about this months ago,
reported in Current Revolt, I don't think anybody realized how
bad it was. This went from wild speculation to people
now realizing it really looks like Tony Gonzalez groomed this
young woman. The text message conversations make it look like
(09:02):
he forced her or you know, basically talked her into
having sex. She didn't want to. She's a married woman,
he's her employer. This is a classic case of predatory behavior.
I mean, it could get worse, but it doesn't seem
like it could get much worse.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
No, absolutely, not, Like I so we've been monitoring this
situation for a while. I pretty much knew, I would say,
the vast majority of the details this very soon after
it happened, just my people in Uvaldy and people telling us, hey,
you need to be aware, this is what's going on,
that sort of thing. In the beginning, I didn't believe
it because it seemed like something that was too far
fetched for House of Cards. You know, I would have
(09:39):
rolled my eyes if I saw this sort of thing
on TV, right, But it turned out it was. It
was all correct and frankly like, I didn't even realize
just how bad it was until the husband came forward
with the text messages because I at the you know,
I knew about the affair obviously, I knew that it
split their family to the point where, you know, she
later took her own life. Be a self immolation, no less,
(10:00):
But I didn't realize the sex past predatory angle to
the story until I read those text messages.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, self immolation.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I don't think most people even knew what that was,
what that word meant, until this happened. And then we
looked at there was like four or five cases of
self immolation, someone lighting themselves on fire, which has caused
a lot of conspiracy theorists to go crazy with wild
ideas about what they think happened.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And you know, we won't go there. I don't.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It seems like Akham's razor. The most likely explanation here
is what happened? That being said a lot of memes.
This has spawned a lot of meme culture on the internet,
people making fun of a dark situation. But underneath all this,
there's still a little boy who lost his mom. And
you and the people on your team were cool enough
to start a GoFundMe account.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
How's that doing?
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Very well?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Very well?
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Last I checked, it was over fifty thousand dollars. And
you know, I do understand that because you know, if
we live in a meme age, right, we live in
meme culture, we're gonna you know, cope with dark things
or you know, everything's on the table, right there's nothing
that I mean good, better and different. There's a national tragedy.
There's going to be means about it, you know, that day.
(11:09):
But I would encourage people, especially people on my team
and people that are you know, trying to help us,
you know, to be tony. I would I would encourage
them to just keep in mind. You know, I've met
these people. Now, I've met Regina's husband, I've met her son.
You know, these are real people, and so like, let's
let's try to keep it kind of respectful because that's
(11:31):
that's not something that they need.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
To be subjected to.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
All Right, it looks like and I don't want to
jinx it, but every Paul says that now your way ahead.
I think what bothers me the most about this situation
is most people that are really into politics realize Tony's
a problem. Most people that are really into right wing
conservative like talk radio listeners, know Dan Crenshaw's a problem, right,
you know what I mean. People on X note John
(11:54):
Cornyn has betrayed the conservative base.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
But one of the on this is your second time
running against Tony.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
One of the only reasons why this got the attention
it deserved was because this other, vastly horrible thing had
to happen. But Tony Gonzalez was already a wretched pukel.
He was already a vile, disgusting swamp rat who helped
pass gun control laws and supported open borders everything he
claimed to be against.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
If you actually looked at his.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Voting record, which most you know, most primary voters don't
have the time to do that. You see a video
of him on the internet walking around at the border
with Elon Musk, and you just assume he's red pilled
and he's based.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
He's not.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I guess this is just a long way of me saying, boy,
it seems like a terrible tragedy had to happen for
one of the good guys to finally win.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
I know we last time in the primary in twenty
twenty four, we took him to a runoff and only
lost by about four hundred votes, so he came very close.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
The grassroots is known for.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
Years exactly what kind of Congressman Tony Gonzalez is. The
problem is with with casual voters and with people who
you know, maybe they don't have an time, or they
didn't do their research or what have you. He has
so much money that he's able to, you know, slander
anybody who runs against him, smear anybody who runs against him,
and make himself seem like you know, some great patriots,
great face of conservatism, which we all know he's really not.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
No, So we're.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
I hate that this happened. This is an entirely just
tragic situation altogether. But the one silver lining out of
it is that it was enough of a shock to
wake people up to see who the real Tony is.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
One of the reasons that it was claimed that they
spent so much money to try to stop you last time,
thirteen million dollars, was because Apak was involved. That Tony
is a very big Israel guy. And you know, Brandy
and I've never been to Israel. I'm not one of
these people with a lot of opinions about Israel or
Iran or whatever.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But on that note, neither are you.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You're not like an anti Israel guy or a pro
Israel guy. People on the internet speculate that you were
a threat to Apak the pro Israel lobby. That's not
really true though, is it.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Well, no, see, I'm not anti Israel by any means.
I just want to put America first. You know, I
feel like those those things can you know, aren't exactly incompatible.
But none of the truth is Tony Gonzales will stop
out to any big pack or any big super pack,
any big group, anybody that will help him get elected
because he can't do the strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
That we do.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
Well, we did town halls in every single one of
the twenty nine counties in the district last cycle.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It's twenty seven.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Now we did it again, and we did at least
one big open town hall. Anybody can show up, Anybody
can ask questions, they can hear me speak, they can
hear me firsthand.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
He'll never do that.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
He will hide in the basement Joe Biden's style, and
he'll ask for He'll he'll ask all the big packs
in DC, all the special interests, to give him millions
of dollars so that he can run whatever attacks he
wants on TV, whatever promotions he wants to run.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
On TV, radio, wherever, mail, and.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
That's that's enough for him.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And he thinks that's enough for him.
Speaker 6 (14:56):
This cycle, we're very very quickly proving that it's not,
and he's he doesn't know what to do about it now, frankly,
because the one thing he'll never do is stand before
his voters and allow them to ask real, unscripted questions,
because I don't think he would like what they would ask.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
We have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. But Brandon,
I think most people are betting on you to win
you know, degenerate gamblers are very are better at polling
data than pollsters are, and they're all betting on you
to win.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
So let's hope, Allie mark it's crazy right now, it's wild. Right,
Let's say let's say pollimarket.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
I think it's like ninety five to five in.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
That wild Yeah, ninety five percent of people think you win.
So let's say Okham's razor the most likely explanation here.
You get to d C, Dude, you're going to be
surrounded by people that hate you. They didn't want to
get rid of Tony because he had these scandals. They
wanted to keep them because he's compromised. You don't have
anything like that. Would you be willing to create some
kind of low key scandal in an effort to build
(15:50):
trust around the Washington elites?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
H is, that's what I need to do. I need
you said, supurposely dive or nose first into a that
what I got to do?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Tell people you're in defeat or something embarrassing like that.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Yeah, some some fake compromising ran out there. I think
people are Frankly, I think it does make them uncomfortable
that somebody like me is coming there who didn't sell
out to the packs, the special interests. I didn't have
any big endorsements or anything. I'm happy to have once
that I have now after this scandal broke. We we
had a few people, like especially the House Freedom Caucus
that reached out that want Tony gon that you know,
(16:27):
this is their opportunity to pick a better coworker to
actually get some conservative stuff done in Congress. So very
appreciative of those folks, But really we.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Did it independently.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
There are no strings on.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Me, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You get a full endorsement here. I endorsed you last time.
I think that's how we met was a couple of
years back, and uh, it's it's nice to see somebody
good is actually winning this race. If people want to
get online and give you some last minute support, obviously
that's always welcome.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
How can they do that?
Speaker 6 (16:52):
So the the website is Brandon Herrera for Congress dot
com or I think just Brandon Herrera dot com redirects
if you want to learn more about gonzales voting record
and just how bad of a congressman he was before
all this. We have a website called Tonybefraid us dot com.
And you know I greatly appreciate your endorsement. It is
one of the most valued I have because, unlike the
(17:15):
swamp creatures in DC who you know Levy endorsements back
and forth, I actually know you. I know you're a
good guy. So we'll you know I value that that deeply, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Hopefully we see Brandon Friday, June twelfth. We celebrate this
at the House of Blues at the Texas Republican Convention.
In the meantime, find Brandon online. Future Congressman Brandon Herrera.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
According to a new report, exaggerated statements are up by
like a billion percent, and now more of the highest
rated show on radio, Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness, I.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Ran Supreme Leader has been killed. It is official. Rob
Reiner's son is out of control. You don't have to
let you don't not have to laugh with that at
men's That is not funny. Evan Minz used to Chronicle
Opinion editor in the building. Right now, welcome to right
wing talk radios.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Oh hang on, well you didn't even think about the mic. Okay,
thanks for having me. Hang on, we'll fix this right now.
To those of you watching us the thrill of live radio.
It's the one thing I didn't think of was your microphone. Hevin, Welcome,
my man.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
People are always surprised to find out that you and
I are friends, or that I'm friends with Olivia Juliana.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
They don't understand that.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I know there's a big difference between politics and personality,
and I think sometimes people don't get that. And it's
pretty healthy to be able to hear other people's perspectives,
even if you don't agree on everything, and just like
a nice way.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I may not agree with some of your political positions,
but I like you.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
You're a nice guy.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I'll meet right wing thinkers out at political events
and stuff, and I agree with their events, but I
don't like them. They don't they don't seem like people
i'd want to be at a party with.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, I think.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
I think a lot of people get into politics and
becomes their whole personality, and they become very intense and
you just need to tell them relax please, Like politics
is a means and ends.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, it's true. And I think at the end of
the day, most of us want the same thing. We
want what's best for society. I want what benefits most people.
I want policies that are good for the average Texan.
You're an interesting It's almost you're almost a walking contradiction
because people assume opinion editor of the Houston Chronicle liberal,
he must hate Texas, and you're one of the most
(19:23):
patriotic Texans that I know.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh yes, Happy Independence Day. I love Texas. I love Houston.
There's some pride in it, and also some of it's personal.
You know, my family came here from the Old Country,
settled in Houston, and everyone's been pretty successful. This place
has been very good to us, and I wanted to
keep being good to those next generations.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Do you think that part of the reason why it's
been good to actually is cause of fiscally conservative economic policies.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I think a lot of it is very pro opportunity,
and I think a lot of it is looking at
we don't care where you come from. As long as
you just kind of want to work and make money,
we're happy to have you. There's this old story when
during the big oil boom days when you could put
a gorilla in a suit, drop in downtown Houston and
make a million dollars by the end of the week.
Like that's that attitude I want to have. I want
to have folks coming here. It's like, do you want
(20:07):
to work hard and make money and just be chill
with everyone else around you?
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Like?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Yeah, sure. It's like okay, who do you hate? More
like various historic ethnic opponents? Or like Dallas. It's like, oh, Dallas,
It's okay, come on in.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I am you know, you know me, I am not
real socially conservative. I'm more of a social I'm a
moderate in that terms. But I think what attracted me
to Texas was a great entrepreneurial environment, low taxes for
the most part, except for property taxes.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
You know, as someone that's you're an intellectual, I mean
you are.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You are like the quintessential left wing and you are
because you're I think you're the perfect person to be
the editor of the Houston Chronicle opinion section because you
celebrate the diversity of opinions. You publish stuff all the
time you probably don't agree with. You are like a
left wing, an intellectual Jewish Man, and you recently published
an article about why someone loves Sharia law.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
People couldn't believe their eyes when they saw that article.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I mean This has been the core of so many
conversation debates happening, particularly right now in the Republican primary.
How we're gonna ban Sharia law, We're gonna deal sharia law.
No one's really talking about what Sharia law is. You know,
what does it means different people. So we had a
guy who is a practicing Muslim here in Houston. He
is a Boy Scout leader, he is a business leader,
(21:28):
and he said, listen, I'm a practicing Muslim.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
This is what Sharia law means for me.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
And this is what I say to a lot of
people worrying about Sharia law in Texas. You'll go through
let's say, well, Sharia law means cutting off people's hands
if they steal. It means a pressing women. And I go,
I mean, I'm sure you could find that written down somewhere.
But if you go talk to an actual Muslim in Houston,
is that what they're doing? And answer is no, of
course not. I could flip through the Bible and say like, oh, man,
(21:54):
crawfish boy, we're gonna have to hit people with rocks
because you're not supposed to have your shellfish. But that's
not how the world really works. But I mean we
talked about this off the air a little.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In the New Testament, they tell you to forget some
of the stuff about the Old Testament. Yeah, for the
that's the general idea. There's not a New Testament to
the Kuran. It's like uh sri Rika is the amputation
of hands, Xena is the lashing of unmarried women or
stoning them for having sex. If you give up Islam,
that gets you into trouble. I feel like that is
(22:23):
not that does not correlate with Western values.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
I mean I don't see that actually happening here. And
you know, as a Jew, I could say I don't
have a New Testament. I have my Old Testament and
I can go through it. I also have centuries upon
centuries of rabbis arguing about how you actually enact these things,
and Islam has a similar structure because say, yes, yes,
it says this, but how do we actually practice it
right now?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I mean MJ.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Con was a Muslim Republican who's on city council. I
don't see him doing any of this. When Achem was
getting us our back to back champions I'd see him
doing any of this. You can find bad stuff in
any religion. You can find bad people in any religion.
But part of I think being biased for Houston and
Texas is saying, all right, I know they are Muslims here,
let's ask them what they're actually doing here in Houston,
(23:07):
here in Texas, and frankly, a lot of them probably
came here to get away from folks who were thinking
like that in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, and they love
being in Texas.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
You could find bad people in any religion except the Mormons.
They seem to be really nice people all the time.
I can't think of anything they've done wrong. They just
seem like good guys to me.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
It depends what you think about polygamy.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You know what's interesting about that is now in the
twenty first century, there's the polyamorous community, and men can
marry men and women can marry, and that's very much accepted.
Republicans for the most part, don't even have a problem
with it. But no one ever took up arms for
the old school polygamists. There's never been a movement of
marching through the streets to say, hey, these women want
(23:48):
to be sister wives.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Where's their political movement?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
You think, I don't know but I look at some
like Elon Musk or what has like twenty kids with
twenty wives, like there's something moremonesque about that.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yes, you know, you're right.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
One hundred percent of Elon is an interesting character, and
that just goes to speak to the exceptionalism of Texas.
Where did he move to he moved here. Let's talk
about this. We go from that to this. You have
an interesting article today. It's well, it's from over the
weekend in the Houston Chronicle. Let me put this up
on the screen real quick. I don't think I got this.
I didn't set this up correctly. Let me fix the
display here. For those of you who listening to us
(24:22):
on the radio, we are live streaming on social media,
so you can look at there's visual aids for today's program,
and here we are looking at seven cliches. Texas politicians
need to stop saying I thought this was a great list.
It seems to apply to people in both parties. I
hate when people say I am not a politician, because
there are always politicians. We need to cut waste, fraud,
(24:43):
and abuse. Kind of I'd agree with it, but it's
a vague thing. The only thing I would have put
on this that you didn't put was the fake cowboy
stuff more common in my party than yours. But our
party people will move to the state, buy a cowboy
hat and like these baby boomer women, I don't know,
they don't get like that.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
This is totally disingenuous. These people aren't cowboys. Oh yeah,
that pisses me off too. I'm a lifelong Houstonian. Can
you imagine me and like a cowboy hat and bootside
look ridiculous? Mete Houston. Houston really at its core, we're
a port city. Like people should be dressing up a
longshoreman to like show what our legacy is. What do
you see these guys going around with their cowboy hats.
Who's a doc who's going around with his saddle bags
(25:21):
over his shoe?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
What is in his saddle bag? I don't know. That's
a good question. Shobu should ask him what's in the
saddle bag? Who knows? It's like mentos dude.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I'll bet the older women though, love it. I'll bet
when he gets around older because he knows he's not
going to win. At this point, he's pulling it less
than five percent. But I mean the chicks, they must like,
you know, if you're in a fifty five year old women,
they must be throwing themselves to the goal.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Maybe this is kind of like a way to get
out and get some dates. I don't know, but you're
not dressing up to like put on this performance as
a politician. So much of like all these seven things
get at this core idea that being a politician is
a job, right in a way. You have to understand policy,
You have to work with a lot of different interest
groups that may be in conflict with each other. How
do you navigate that? If you're supposed to represent everybody's
(26:04):
interest it is hard. It's a job. And just to
be like, well, I'm not a politician. I'm coming in
and I know nothing about this. I don't know how
good of a job you're gonna do. It's true, yeah,
it's and that seems to be the case. People will
compare themselves to Trump. It's like, all right, hang on
a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Trump is a billionaire that ran this massive global corporate
conglomerate for decades that seemed to include thousands of employees.
Are like, well, I'm a businessman, yes, sort of. You know,
you ran a car dealership or something, not quite the
same thing as running the state of Texas.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Right, And it depends you know what job you're running
for too. If you are a car dealership owner and
you are running for city council, maybe state legislature. I
can kind of see how that translates pretty well. Trump
one of his biggest skills all the way through is
just knowing how to manage media. He did it great
with the New York Post. He did it when he
was on TV, and when you're a president, dealing with
media is a huge part of the job. If you're
(26:55):
good at running your media representation and you're running for
state legislator, like, I don't see the connection.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
No mean either. I mean we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
If you are listening to us on the radio, if
you are watching us live streaming, don't go anywhere. Evan
Mince will continue this conversation with me literally in seconds,
So stick around, quick break.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
Our doctor told us the pills we took were just
a placebo. But he must not know what he's talking about,
because man, those suckers worked. This is Kenny Webster's pursuit
of happiness.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
All right, everybody.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
The Supreme Court Tariff ruling means the government may have
to refund one hundred and seventy five billion dollars, or,
as Elon Musk calls it, a child support payment.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
So that's, you know, it's a reasonable amount of money.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Evan.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I tell bad jokes for a living on the radio
and on stage, and I recently authored an article for
the Houston Chronicle opinion section about my right wing comedy show,
The House of Blues. Published information online about the event.
A thousand people in the comments section either roasting us,
some of the comments were very funny, by the way,
or just upset that it was happening.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
So the Chronicle wrote an article about.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
It, put that on social media, and then the comment
section on that was filled with conservatives that were outraged
over the fact that liberals were outraged or that you
guys even covered the story, which I thought was great.
It helped me sell dozens of tickets to a comedy
show that's like four months away.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Do people just like being mad? Is that what it is?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Well?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I think it totally is.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
People want to feel something in life, and if you
feel like you don't have a lot of other purpose,
anger is a powerful motivator and it's something that we've
realized is that a lot of algorithmic social media platforms
just reward outrage and engagements, and that's what they want
to do. And at the newspaper like thank goodness, there
are editors there to say, I don't care what the
algorithm saying. We actually want to do some real news
(28:48):
here and actually try to report what's going on. I say,
the biggest bias in media right now isn't left or right,
it's towards negativity. You report when planes crash, not what
they land, and gives you a perverse perspective on the world.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
A lot of people in Houston, Texas around the state
were upset about the Paxton impeachment. One of the lawyers
involved in that, I believe was Dan Cogdale. A lot
of people in the state were upset about Epic City.
One of the lawyers involved in that is Dan Cogdill.
You know, it's interesting how behind the scenes the people
that seem to be pushing or pulling the levers or
interestingly enough, my uncle rides motorcycles with him and tells him.
(29:23):
He tells me he's a great guy. He's just a
very good lawyer. And that's how he ends up in
these cases. Oh, that's absolutely how it works. He can
go down to the criminal courthouse and find people who
are representing just the worst folks in the world. Why
are you supporting these murderers like I don't support them.
It's my job. The Constitution says you're entitled to representation.
I'm gonna do the best job I can. It seems
like Dan's that kind of guy. He's gonna be a
(29:44):
good lawyer whoever can pay him. I'm told online, I've
never seen this before about you. I just stumbled onto
this live on the air. Here you imagined a bold
twenty fifty scenario where Houston hosts a North American Free
Movement Agreement treaty.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
What is that? A?
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Oh, just the idea that, like how in the EU
you can go from country to country to country without
a passport, that we should get to a point where
you can go from Canada, United States Mexico passport free.
And what city would be like a natural nexus for that?
But Houston, we already have those great Mexico connections with
the oil industry. We got good connections in Canada. We
(30:21):
should be the host for that. We are you know
this after this weekend. We have this terrible thing happened
in Austin.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Conservatives very quick to blame that on immigration laws, Liberals
very quick to blame it on gun rights. And one
thing I will say, whether you and I agree or
this or not, people really seem to be able to
solve that problem before we knew anything about.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What even happened.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Is it's frustrating to see people react before we have
all the facts on the ground. It's terrible. It's a tragy.
We're going to keep learning more about it. But I
think the fact of the matter is that you can
look at crime rates and they go up and down,
totally disconnected from a lot of these other issues.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, you also had a fantastic idea which I have
stolen in That is my idea now, which I if
anybody ever hears me saying what do we do about
the astrodome? I think Evan is a better idea than
anyone does. And I've repeated this to people in my
gym many times. So those that are watching us on
social media not from Houston, you may be surprised to
learn the astrodome still exists. It's still there, huge nothing
(31:18):
is done with it except that it's a home for rats.
It's this giant thing, and Evan Is pointed out tearing
it down could be expensive.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Keeping it up is expensive.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Maybe it becomes like the Roman Colisseum, it becomes our
own ruins and people could take a view of it.
I have been told though, that the mold makes it
unhealthy if people were to take a tour of it.
I suppose some kind of oxygen mask would be necessary.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Whatever it is we need to do to let people
walk through it is fine. Actually have it an op
ed on this up right now. Just as folks are
going to the Rodeo, they're going to be seeing the Astroom.
They're gonna be thinking what do we do with this?
Just do nothing, Let it fall into disrepair like the Colisseum,
and we can do tours and we could have guys
like dressed up like astronauts outside where you can take
pics with them for ten bucks. I mean, even look
(31:59):
at the Alamo. The Alamo is fundamentally ruins. We don't
use it for what it was originally made to do.
It is a tourist destination. We should do that with
the Astrome. Just let it be a big tourist destination.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I hadn't even thought of that. Houston wouldn't even be
the first place where we had ruins. For those that
don't know, if you've never been in the Astrodome, it
used to be home to one of the gaudiest apartments
in the world. I always thought that this was above
that hotel, but it's actually above the Astrodome, and way
before Airbnb existed, you could stay in this apartment for
(32:32):
like ten thousand dollars a night, owned by Judge Huffines. Yeah,
his daughter is a very old woman, and I mean
no disrespect to her, she just does and she lives
in the apartment across from mine. Mm hmm, and I
guess she's a Grammy Award winning songwriter.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Did you know that Haffins family is just incredible for
our city. But it's so funny you think that when
he was pitching the Astrome, it really is kind of
like this self proclaimed huckster mentality. He was proud to
call himself a huckster because really, the idea of building
this job multi purpose stadium, it was never really going
to pay for itself. It was always going to be
this white elephant structure, and we used it, you know,
(33:08):
from nineteen sixty five, all the way through what two thousand,
two thousand and one when Enron Field opened ounce dyikon Field.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I always forget about that. Were you in Houston when
the en Run thing happened?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Not only was I hear my dad was a whistleblower
real and he got to go up and test got
to he had to go up and testify before Congress.
And he was freaking out this whole time as the
whole thing was going south, because he had this insider
role of recognizing they're doing all these spinoff companies, saying, Okay,
if you make these spinoff companies, you have to disclose
it to the board. You have to let the people
(33:43):
in charge know what you're doing. And then so there's
these pictures of him so arm up swearing in before Congress,
and he was worried the SEC was going to go
after him, that they wouldn't understand what he was doing.
And then, of all people, Jake Tapper, who at the
time was writing for Salon, wrote this article that said,
like the Enron whistleblower you never heard of, and it
(34:05):
was about my dad. Wow, He's like, thank God, Like
Jake Tapper saved my life.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
The Enron whistle blower. You never heard of Salon dot com.
I've got to see this. Yeah, do you know what else?
Oh my god, look at this two thousand and three,
the betrayal of the whistleblowers.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I don't know if I don't know if I found
the right article or not.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Maybe, but one of the most interesting things about Enron
to me Elizabeth Holmes m hm, the young woman who
created Faranos, which sounds like a Marvel Comics supervillain, is
a Hustonian, yes, who was like the girl boss. Every
Kamala loved her, and Hillary loved her right up untill
hery scandal, and then they all washed their hands of her.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
But her dad was an Enron executive.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
He was, and he was involved in Enron's like green
energy portfolio, which was never like a real thing. That's
kind of a metaphor there. But here's another part of
the story.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You know. I went to school with Elizabeth Holmes Get
out of.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Here, and I went to I was in the same
class as her younger brother, who is involved in the
company a little bit. He got kicked out of the
school for cheating. Really really, it's.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Rund as in the family. Yeah, all three of them.
There's something there that is a lot. Do you think
it's genetic being a white dollar criminal.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I think this is probably a cultural things, like a
family thing.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Do you think that that technology will ever?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I mean, it must happen at some point to be
able to look at someone's blood and tell us what's
wrong with them.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
And it doesn't seem like a radical idea.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
That's why I mean it is, but it's like it's
not incomprehensible, which I think is why people believed her.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I'm always worried about, like the the unpredictable consequences of
doing stuff like that, but everybody wanted to believe. But
my understanding of it was that throughout all of the
experts involved, the people who really knew anything about this,
like this wasn't gonna work the whole, like testing blood
from a single drop just wasn't gonna work. But they
got ignored and all of like the influential people involved
(35:53):
in all of the investors were just like saw dollar
signs in fame.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
All Right, you've got a lawyer's background. I'm a law
school dropout. I don't know if you know that about me.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You made the smart move.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I took the alsat I started, I applied to law school.
I was all ready to go, and then man Cow
gave me a job making prank phone calls for a link.
Mom and Dad were not thrilled about that. As you
can see, it's turned out fine. But you have an
attorney's background. You also have a polis or finalist nod
for your sharp editorial writing. What's one piece of advice
you would give to people that listen to this radio
(36:26):
show who want to do submit to the newspaper, want
to get into what you do.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I mean the advice that I got from my old
opinion editor was, whatever it is it gives like a
stomach ache in the morning, whatever it is like pissed
you off in the morning, write it up and send
it in. And really we're looking for stuff five hundred
and fifty eight hundred and fifty words. Just what is
it you want to happen in the world or what
are you mad about? You can also write letters to
the editors a lot shorter, usually about stuff that we've published,
(36:51):
that are about two hundred and fifty words, and you
just send that to viewpoints at Houston Chronicle dot com.
We see it, and we like to run it.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We are about to run out of time. And there's
one thing I really didn't ask. We didn't even really
talk about tomorrow's election. No, but I love that you
have this article. I want people to go take a
look at. I may not agree with all of them,
but I do agree with some of them. Let me
put this up on the screen here. This was an
interesting article, the best and worst candidates. I thought it
was interesting. Let's just talk about the Senate race real quick,
(37:18):
and then we'll sign off, because I know you got
to run and I do too.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
It looks like, Look, I like Wesley Hunt.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
He's a friend. I think he's a great guy. I
like him too. Do you believe the polling data? What
do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (37:29):
I mean, you never know because turnout is so high
and this is all uncharted territory and Texas polling is
historically pretty bad because we don't have a lot of big,
heated elections and turn up, turn up is down. It's
not like you would do in you know, Iowa or
South Carolina or these states with like there's lots of
elections and there's lots of regular polling. I think that
(37:51):
probably wouldn't go wrong guessing that it's probably just gonna
end up being Cornyn and Paxton. But you never know,
You never know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And since it's gonna be a runoff anyway, vote your
heart if you like Paxton or Hunt, vote for him
if you like corn In. Fine, let's say it's Cornyn
and Paxton. Who Where do you think Hunt's votes go?
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I mean, I think is something that could really end
up being split fifty to fifty because you get a
folks and say, I don't like Paxson's background.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
He's radioactive.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Also, I worried he'd lose corn In some better votes,
and he's just more of a reliable congressman or a senator.
But you could also have people who say, like you
sick of corn In, represents the past, want something new,
when something different? Yeah, that's Paxton, and I imagine that.
You know, folks who are voting right now for Wesley
Hunt could go either way. Jasmin Crockett and James Tallerico,
where do you think it goes? I think that you're
(38:39):
gonna have worst case scenario. It's going to be like
forty nine, just like some random third candidate running. I
guess yeah, yeah, and they're going to force to a runoff.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
It's not fair.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
But after the weekend we've had, I don't think I
don't think he's going to be getting.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
A lot of votes.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I don't think he was getting a lot of votes
in the first You said he was pulling at one percent. Yeah,
that sounds about right, and so by and ever now,
oh boy, could happen there. But it's gonna be an
interesting day tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
We hope to hear back from you after this happens,
and of course before we sign off today. If people
do want to subscribe or submit or whatever, Houston Chronicle
dot com easy to do it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's it's all there.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
There should be a big button at the top where
you can click to subscribe. I think it's ninety nine
cents for six months, So sign up and if you
don't like it, you can always just cancel.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Evan, I know you are the only reason I like
the Houston Chronicle. Well, you and Faith Bugenhausen. But she
quit Booginhi. Yeah, yeah, she went up to Austin. She
wanted to go work at Yeah the Statesmen there. Yeah,
is that what it's called Yeah. Well anyway, you always
say it's the separation between church and state. The opinion
editors and the people read new side. Yeah, I don't
know what they do until like they do it. Then
(39:41):
sometimes it gets a little frustrating. It's like, oh, they
have this great news article. We could have had a
really quick opinion piece on it if we knew it
was coming. All right, one more before we sign off.
Rodeo Houston. You're going to see any concerts? No, No concerts.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I like to go. It's a great place to go
with my family because like, there are very few places
I can hang out with my kids and have like
like three to five b Nobody bats an.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Eye, nobody bats and I that you're drunk watching people
feed baby lambs. It's complete exactly that My wife and
I are there just like had like one too many beers,
sitting in the little stands, watching my kids watch someone
milk a cow.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, it's like, this is life, this is what it's
all about. Amen to that. God bless Houston. Thank you
very much. Evan mentioned my guest this hour from the
Houston Chronic. Thanks for having then.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You are listening to the pursuit of Happyness Radio.
Speaker 5 (40:33):
Tell the government to kiss your ass when you listen
to this show.
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