May 21, 2026 • 42 mins
This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features Houston Chronicle opinion editor Evan Mintz. ( @KennethRWebster )
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack gannic government sucks. Suit of happiness radio is dux
liberty and freedom will make you smile of a suit
of habing us on your radio toile justice cheeseburger is
a liberty prize at the suit.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of a scientist from the CIA claims four alien species
were recovered from a UFO. Their names, in order of
charisma are Alec, Billy, Daniel, and Stephen.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Okay, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hi, everybody, I'm Kenny Webster, and yes I did just
technically call Alec Baldwin charismatic. He's the rich one and
the successful one. Also, he's probably the one I hate
the most. But I digress. So now what we're talking
about today on the show, actually my special guest at
the bottom of the hour Evan Mince, Houston Chronicle opinion editor,
not a right winger, not a conservative, not a libertarian
(00:56):
by any means, and he and I are going to
have a frank discussion about what is about to happen
with these runoffs. We're gonna get dirty with the Texas
runoff elections. Early voting happening right now. Get out there
and vote before I get to any of that. Can
I indulge myself for just a minute. Kevin Hart just
got absolutely torched on Netflix at the Kevin Hart Roast,
(01:19):
which was pretty much the point. Everyone thought it was hilarious.
Shane Gillis hosted it like a beautiful, unfiltered freight train.
Tony Hingecliff dropped some great jokes, the crowd was howling,
and the clips went viral, and then Chelsea Handler, of
all people, goes on a media tour to talk about
(01:40):
how offended she was that she participated in this thing.
She acted like she survived a war crime instead of
a comedy roast. She called everyone racist, bigots, sexist because
the jokes were just too mean. Listen, you delicate, snowflake
clutching your pearls.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
No comedian in the.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
History of stand up has ever finished a Friar's Club
roast and then launched a media tour whining about how
mean everyone was. It's like showing up to a knife fight,
getting nicked and then crying to the referee that the
blades were too sharp. Pure Chelsea Handler. The roast tradition,
in case you're not familiar, started with the Friars Club
(02:22):
back in the early nineteen hundred's Broadway Wise guys in vaudeville.
That's comedians. People that made a living doing this needed
an excuse to drink and verbally water board each other
for charity. So that's what they did. It's a fun
thing to do at the Friars Club. Then Dean Martin
turned it into TV gold. In the seventies, HBO and
(02:43):
Comedy Central got involved, then Netflix cranked it up to eleven.
The rules have always been very simple. Nothing is sacred.
Everything's fair game. And if you can't take a joke
about your height, your exes, your politics, your unfortunate dinner companions.
Chelsea Hanler eate dinner with Jeffrey Epstein, by the way,
stay home.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And yes that's true.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Chelsea Handler did have dinner with Jeffrey Epstein and who
else was there? Woody Allen and the Prince of England,
Prince Andrew and her and it was a small dinner
party too. But I'm getting off topic. Roasts are not therapy.
They are ritual combat with punchlines. And what did Jeff
Ross say, He's the roastmaster general. We only roast the
(03:27):
ones we love. Chelsea knew the deal and she participated
in it, and then afterwards she whins that a Bonzei
Tree lynching joke about Kevin Hart's stature was somehow as
bad as sexual assault. By the way, you know who
wasn't offended by the joke, Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart was
(03:50):
not offended by the joke. Kevin Hart told Tony Hingecliff
and Shane Gillis to make at g offensive jokes. Elsea
Handler's entire brand is basically, Hey, I'm old and I'm slutty,
and I'm proud of it. She's written books about banging
anything with a pulse.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
She's fifty one years old.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
She still struts around talking about how sex got better
once she stopped caring what she looked like. And good
for you, Champ, that's great, but the comic's making funny.
You didn't invent the material. They just read your Wikipedia
page titled Chelsea Handler Greatest Hits and Regrets. Shane Gillis
reminded everyone about that cozy twenty ten Epstein dinner party
(04:33):
with you and Prince Andrew and Whitty Allen. Was that
a little awkward, sure, but as far as roast material goes,
it was Filet Mignon. You don't get to play edgy
feminist for decades and then cry when the mirror shows
up without a vasolene filter. Chelsea bombed her set. Then
she watched Shane Gillis and Tony Hinschliff go viral, and
(04:56):
she did what every fading star does. She blamed the
bigots and hoped nobody would notice that her career was
circling the drain like a bad assid trip. She's mad
because her career is dying. It's almost dead, dead like
all those babies.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
She aboarded. That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I look, you just such a pie hole and keep working.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Back to the pursuit of happiness radio.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It's a happiness Babio and Carmel.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Indiana is the best city in the US, according to
a new report. Residents have access to schools and parks,
and thanks to their proximity to the Indiana cults laughs
lots of laughter.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Hi, everybody, welcome back from break good to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Jeff Bezos has a lot of money and his wife
has big boobs and weirdly, as much as I've never
really been a fan of Bezos, he just said something
I absolutely agree with. Jeff Bezos, the guy who turned
selling books into a galactic empire and still has enough
bear change to launch his own penis shaped spaceship company.
(06:03):
Went on CNBC the other day and committed the unpartatable sin.
He told the truth, thou ought not tell the truth
ever on an NBC newscat Oh, that makes people so bad.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Do you have a SoundBite of this? I do not.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sorry, I don't have it. I'll just tell you what
he said. He said that, believe it or not. Politicians
that are screaming tax the rich aren't solving the affordability crisis.
They're just creating a villain so they don't have to
admit that they're the clowns who wrecked the circus. New
York City's got a new mayor. Maybe you've heard, Yeah,
(06:38):
I know. He wants a tax on fancy homes. He
thinks it'll bring in five hundred and ten million dollars
a year to the city, which is adorable. That's what
the federal government wastes on coffee and xs essential dread
before lunch. Jeff Bezos basically just said, you're creating a
villain because you don't know how to solve problems. He's right,
(07:01):
that's exactly correct. A progressive tax system doesn't solve anything.
We already have one so fair it makes robin Hood
look like a slumlord. The top ten percent, those heartless
monsters pulling in over two hundred and twenty eight thousand
dollars a year, are also paying about forty six percent
of the income tax. The bottom fifty percent they pay
(07:24):
next to nothing. Some are even net winners thanks to
the earned income tax credit, which is basically the government
paying you to exist while it robs Peter to pay well,
Peter's cousin who filled out the form better. It's like
a restaurant where the guy who ordered the filet mignon
pays for everybody's meal, including the vegan influencer who just
wants a little more equity on the side please. And
(07:48):
still leftists want a slap on a wealth tax. You
looked at me, funny tax. I'm jealous of you.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Tax.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Here's the newsflash, kids, Capital, as in money, is mobile.
Billionaires have options. They don't have to live in New
York City. You tax them like medieval kings squeezing peasants
for castle money, and they'll just move to Florida or
Texas or god forbid, Dubai, where the tax rate is
roughly thanks but no thanks. Government revenue, by the way,
(08:19):
is up. We're swimming it swimming, and at three point
three to two trillions so far this fiscal year. Yet
somehow we still have trillion dollars in deficit. How's that possible?
Because Washington spends money like a nineteen year old with
daddy's credit card in a Vegas strip club. I know
(08:40):
it's wild, it's hard to believe. And don't get me
started on the sacred cows. We're blowing tens of billions
on foreign adventures that make weekend at Bernie's look like
sound foreign policy. Meanwhile, back home, your rent is higher
than Elon's launch schedule because every mayor with a sociology
(09:01):
degreed is decided. Single family zoning and rent controls were
brilliant ideas. Supply and demand. Yeah, okay, that's just cis
heteronormative economics. Apparently, Jeff Bezos also floated exempting low income
folks from federal income tax entirely. That's an idea about
forty percent already pays zelch So I don't know what
(09:22):
he thinks that's going to change, but making it official
would be cute. Nothing motivates the working man, like knowing
the government isn't treating his paychecks like in All.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
You Can Eat b FE.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Okay, the affordability crisis isn't caused by too few taxes
on billionaires. It's caused by too much government, too much regulation,
strangling housing supply, too much money printing, turning your dollar
into monopoly money. Too many politicians who think the solution
(09:54):
to every problem is another tax. Of course, we should
tax the rich. Everybody should pay taxes. Now, I'm not
suggesting Bezos as a hero, but he's not a villain.
He's the guy who built something massive without needing a
government bailout or a taxpayer funded slush fund. The real
(10:18):
villains are the ones who look at innovation and wealth
creation and rocket ships and online retail and they go,
how can I punish them? So, next time some congress
critters starts moaning about people not paying enough taxes, remember
it's the government that's hoarding it, it's not the people.
They're using it to do things government couldn't manage with
(10:39):
a map, a flashlight, and a three trillion dollar budget.
Maybe try leaving the innovators alone and there will be
more innovation. Or you know, just let the economy and
the free market do what it's going to do, because
the government will never move as fast to the free market.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Shocking, I know.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But if we let the free market exist and breathe,
it just might make our groceries cheaper than their therapists.
(11:25):
Hey everyone, my name's Kenny Webster, and I'm proud to
endorse lear Capital, just like Rush Limbaugh did. There's a
reason why. You see what's going on right now in
the market. Things are up, things are down.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Well.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Gold and silver recently reached record highs. You've probably heard
silver's being used in all kinds of new technology, anything
from AI to solar panels. You get the idea. It's
a smart investment. Congress is spending your Fiat currency at
a rapid pace inflation, munching away on your savings.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Don't miss the next dip.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Call Dear Capital right now for a free gold kid
and see if you can qualify for twenty thousand dollars
in bonus coins. Call eight hundred three six four nine
two zero zero. That's eight zero zero three six four
ninety two hundred.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Lear Capital is easy to reach.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I am proud to say I called him you can
to call Lear Capital today at eight zero zero three
sixty four ninety two hundred. Rush Limbas says it's a
smart idea and I agree. Okay, I have a guest
in the studio right now. What's a joke I could
tell to make him uncomfortable? Let me think?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The head of the Border Patrol is accused of a
soliciting prostitutes. Apparently he's I don't know, being around illegals
taught him how to sneak through openings. Evan mins in
the Houston Chronicle, go ahead, thanks for having me Evan
Minz in the building right now. Evan, I am a
fan of you, despite the fact that I think some
of my followers don't want me to be. Evan Mints
(12:50):
is the opinion and community Engagement editor at The Chronicle.
Legit sharp pullets er finalist writer. He's been a Houston
media staple for years. Quick on his feet, great with words,
one of the few lefties willing to step into the
right wing gauntlet of violence that he is in right
now with actual conservatives instead of just virtue signaling from
(13:10):
the sidelines. You and I may not agree on every
political issue, but you show up, Evan, and that's the
difference between you and others.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Try not to ruin my conservative street cred. How are you?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
I'm doing great. I gotta say the feeling is mutual.
I appreciate you at a great piece in the Houston
Chronicle this week explaining why MAGA voters love Ken Paxton.
I think it was really valuable for progressives who might
not get it, for even corn and fans who don't
get it. And I gotta say, I love that you
write for us. We reach out to lots of conservatives
to try to get them to writ in the Chronicle.
(13:40):
I say, we'll never do it. I'll never write for you.
It's like, please, I want to publish it. And we
reach out to these candidates. I reach out to Bo
French to say, Bo, come in, make your pitch to us.
We want to hear it. We're nice, we're not mean.
He doesn't respond to our emails. Okay, let's start off
with the conversation about Bo French. Bo French has been
on this radio show. Tell him to talk to us.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I understand Bo has some opinions he don't agree with.
He's running for railroad commissioner. He was in charge of
the fort ben Republicans the chairman, you guys are comparing
him to a woman named Maureen Galindo, the Democrat sex
therapist running for Congress, went full nineteen thirties on Instagram.
She wants to turn a Texas Ice detention center into
(14:22):
a brand new and I'm quoting Zionist prison and castration
processing center for as it's described online American Jews who
support Israel plus x ice guys for human trafficking. She
added that most Zionists are probably pedophiles. That's a lot,
big le guys. I gotta say Democrats accused people being
(14:44):
a Nazi a lot. But we got this guy, Graham
Plattner up in Maine literally Nazi tattoos, and then this woman,
Maureen Glindo. Evan your bored called Glindo the dem version
of Beau French. Yeah, which is a very loaded statement
because you're insulting her. But I think you're also trying
to insult bo. Please tell us why. I mean, Beau
French has said things like that about Muslims. He put
(15:07):
out on social media a poll where you could vote
who's worse for America, Jews or Muslims. Dan Patrick said,
that he was a bigot and an anti Semite, and
he's running for a position that has actual authority when
it comes to overseeing the oil and gas industry. And
Greg Abbott, the governor, came out and said, don't vote
for this guy. He's going to be bad for the industry.
(15:28):
When I listened to Boufrench, it feels like I'm hearing
a toddler who just learned a curse word, and they
keep saying it to get attention. If I say crazy things,
people pay attention to me. And I feel the same
way with her. I think she might be a little
bit more like touched in the mind. And to the
Democrats credit, all of them have come out and said,
don't vote for this crazy lady. Vote for the other
(15:49):
guy who's running, who's a former sheriff's deputy, Like he's
a pretty moderate Democrat kind of guy. We don't know
how she got through the primary to get to the runoff.
It was a pretty big primary, so she got through
with just like a little more than twenty percent of
the vote. But at this point everyone is realizing she's
not even Some of the crazier pro Palestinian groups like
(16:09):
the APAC Watch Group that marks people who have been
not even supported by APAK. But this got apacky vibes,
Like they've come out and said, we don't support her anymore.
She's cuckoo. Wait wait wait what are what are apacky vibes?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
What is though?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
So you would think that a group called APAC Watch,
I would think.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
A packaged vibes.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I would think it was an asexual Pakistan man who
owns a convenience store.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Is that not what it is? I mean that's the
foundation of America right there? No, No, so what it
is is? Uh the idea would be like, oh, well,
the APAC gave money to this politician, you should know
about that. But they're marking people who didn't even get
money from a pack they're just kind of like generally
pro Israel or like they took money from Like I
think they called out J Street, which is like the
(16:53):
pro Israel, pro piece, mostly democrat kind of group. They're
like the diet coke version of APAK And like, even
that's too far, and they're associating J Street with APEC.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's a little nutty something.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I think both sides are doing wrong, right, And you
know this isn't specifically about Maureene or bou or anyone.
But it feels like we spend more time worrying about
stuff that won't actually affect the position, like Corpus Christy
for example. Right, Ben has had this water issue right
for a long time. It's a real concern. Nobody talks
about that. That's I mean, that seems like it's a
(17:28):
little more important than Israel. If you're a Texas voter.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Right now, that that is absolutely spot on. And I
would say even if you're diehard conservative, you won't agree
with a lot of the stuff. The Houston Chronicle editory
board says, we really try to ground what we do
in what's going on here in Houston and what's going
on here in Texas. We just had a great piece
from a water expert from ut talking about all the
things Texas should and could be doing to tackle water shortages.
(17:52):
Here's a fascinating idea I haven't even thought of. You
use the leftover heat, the residue heat from data centers
and use it to power diesel plants to take fresh
water out of salt water. Apparently there's research showing you
can do this. To get it all together, or the
idea of you incentivize the oil and gas industry to
pay farmers to improve their water efficiency use so that
(18:15):
the oil and gas guys can use the extra water
that they've now got on hand. Just trying to get
everyone to work together to be more efficient and effective.
But this stuff is kind of boring. I get it's
not as exciting as people saying crazy things about Jews
and Muslims. But this is like the foundation of it.
But what's really great about is if you actually look
at the legislature, if you have ideas or concepts that
don't really like trigger the partisan part of people's brains,
(18:38):
you get folks working together really well. The legislature has
done some really good stuff of putting together a water
infrastructure like funding bank. The problem is it's like ten
years too late and a couple billion dollars too short,
but they are on.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So as a stand up comedian, I did some jokes
about water infrastructure, nothing right back to Jews and Muslims.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Pow, the audience loved it. That's the problem. You gotta
go like to a bunch of like think tanks and
do some stand up there. I was once I used
to work for a think tank and they had an
economist come in and do economist jokes and like he
killed there.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It was great. I don't think it would have worked
anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Mostly I'm getting booked to perform in front of drunk
redneck but if they're a great audience, all right, let's
talk about that for a minute. Trump wants all this
money for a ballroom. You want money for the ike Dyke? Yes,
what if the ballroom could stop hurricanes? Think about it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I am one hundred percent there for compromise, and I
feel if we wanted to build a like fifty billion
dollar ballroom that just stretched the entirety of Galveston, you
could call it the Trump Ike Dyke. If that's what
it takes, I'm there. We gotta protect our infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Okay, I'm in a group right now with it's a
group chat, and I won't out anybody in it, but
you know some of them. And there's a conversation right
now about why Cornin did not get the endorsement, and
I just want as an outsider, you don't have a
horse in this race, right, You're not voting in the
Republican No, I am, You're voting in the Republican, right, now.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, I vote in the primaries. I follow our own endorsements.
I vote in the Republican primary. You don't vote in
the Democrat primary, no what my wife does, and I
vote in the Republican one. That way, I get all
the mailers from like all the candidates, and I can
see what everyone's talking about, even the stuff they kind
of want to keep out of the media eye keep
out of like the public view, but they want their
supporters to see. And I get to see everything. And
(20:22):
the problem is that like we'll get things, We'll get
mailers that are like Republican candidates will say like I'm
going to fight gay marriage, but most like throw that away.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Don't want anyone thinking. We believe that the people.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Who you know, my audience loves the idea of closing
the primary. So you just made some heads. I'm sure
I did watching and listening to this right now. Okay, Well,
here's what I was going to ask you, and that's
and you have a legal right to do it. You
do as open closed primaries. We have open primaries. People
in this conversation, I'm in this group text and they're
having a conversation about why Cornyn didn't get the endorsement.
(20:54):
One group of people thinks it's because of the Save Act.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Paxton did a very clever thing, I was.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I think he went out and he said, if you
can pass the Save Act, I'll drop out. And Thune
impacs Cornyn and the other establishment GOP, the old school
Bush GEO. They don't want to do that for one reason,
they can't campaign on it anymore. If they passed the bill,
what are they going to talk about in four to
six years or what are they going to talk about
the other group of people think it's because of the
(21:21):
ballroom that they couldn't get funding, which it's not even
for the ballroom, if I'm not mistaken. It's supposed to
be for security for the ballroom. The actual infrastructure, the
marble and the gold pains supposed to be paid for privately.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
They claim, I'll believe it when I see I say, hey,
same here.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm skeptical too, as ask me, should the government spend
money on anything? Stop right there? But even still they
think it's because corn In and Thune couldn't get behind
payning for the ballroom.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, I mean it's possible.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
There's a nuance here, no room for nuance on social media,
What do you think the real answer is?
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I think it is that uh, Trump likes loyalty
and that Paxton is more loyal to him than Cornyn.
I think Cornan is a more effective senator. And I
think a lot of the problems with the Save Actor
that they are good parts of it. They are parts
that you could get through. But it's a very big
bill written more as a signaling thing. Like my understanding
of the language right now is that it's not just
you have to show ID. The only idea that would
(22:11):
really work would be, say, a passport, and most Americans
don't have passports. But if you wanted to get to yes,
if you wanted to sit down and figure out, Okay,
how can we get this across the finish line, there's
a way to do it. It's going to involve compromise.
But I don't think compromise is like the point of
this bill right now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Totally unrelated to what we're talking about. Yesterday, I went
to get the photo updated for my passport. Oh yeah,
where you going? You could do this online?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I think I'm gonna go to Italy this summer. But
that's another flight director. Now, I know very one of
the reasons I want to go. Yeah, So I go
to do it online. Are you aware you could do
this online now with your with your.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Phone to get your picture? Really? Yeah, But they're very
meticulous about it. They keep rejecting it.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Because the background wasn't white enough, which is weird because
I practically live in an art gallery.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
White walls everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So I go to the street, down the street to
the FedEx place, get the photo taken there, and they
tell me we can't send it. You're gonna have to
go around the block here to the USPS store US UPS. USPS,
they'll mail it for you. We can't send FedEx to
a pote po box. So I go around the building
to the UPS store and as the guy is mailing
this for me, he is having an argument with the
(23:17):
guy in the back of the store about gumbo and
I don't know what was happening before I walk in.
I walk in, I'm like, here you go. He starts
processing it for me. There's a guy in the back
of the store and he's on his phone like this, man,
I don't know what happened. Tomato bas ruin the gumbo
and the guy that's ringing me up goes, stop talking
about the gumbo, get over the gumbo. And the guy goes,
you're not on this phone call. You don't know me,
(23:38):
And that's all I could think about ever since.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Then they'll have strong gumbo opinions. I we don't even
have gumbo in Chicago. Yeah, yeah, but here in Houston
it's a very touchy subject.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
It is.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
So there's this social mediac count that I love. It's
a lady who moved here from Japan and she's just
talking about her experience of being a Japanese lady in Houston,
and she's always like, oh, I love HGB and like
I went on a t of the rodeo and it's
crazy and she had and like, here's a Japanese place
like that actually has good food, and she talked about
how much she loves gumbo and just like I found
(24:08):
this soup that they have here that's spicy and seafood
and it's kind of like rich, but it doesn't have
noodles in it's got rise Like this is great.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This is great stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Like one of the best things that we'd gotten out
of Twitter ever since Elon Musk could over is the
automatic translation. Were you there for the week when somehow
the algorithm had everyone from Japan talking to everyone from America,
and it turned out all these like Japanese folks love Texas,
They're obsessed with Texas. I had no idea about this
until the automatic translation happened, and like all the algorithm
(24:37):
had us talking to each other.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
All right, I'm about to blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
All right, my buddy Tony Ortiz from Current Revolt cost
he goes to Japan a lot. Yeah, he's really into it.
They have Texas themed bars there, I know. But what
really blew my mind was this. Let me see if
I could pull it up real quick. Back in the
nineties and the two thousands in Japan, I don't think
they understood what a touchy subject this was to people
(25:00):
in the West.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
They had Nazi themed bars, suboptimal. Have you seen you
gotta remember it. They were on the wrong side of
that war.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Have you ever seen this before? I have not.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I'm gonna throw this up on the screen here. They
had these bars in the nineties where people would walk
in and they just had swastikas on the walls, and
it was like just their charming version of what the
nineteen forties must have been like and I think Korea
had them too. I didn't know about this, but yeah,
here they are asias disturbing embrace the third Reich Nazi bar.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
And what would even be on the menu in a
place like that. I don't want to talk about it.
I guess I mean what schnitzel?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I don't know. God, I hope it schnitzel.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, just believe this is Spiny Santhus and you are
listening to the Pursuit of Happiness radio. Now give me
all of your money, because that's the only thing that's fair.
Very sad news, Evan Men's, very very sad news. The
oldest red lobster in America is in Florida. It's about
to close after fifty six years. No, they asked the owner,
what will you remember the most about having this frameanchise?
(26:00):
He said, I'll just remember we gave crabs to more
people than the Kardashians.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
These are cheap jokes, aren't they. It's good Friday June twelve.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
People could come watch me tell cheap jokes at the
right side of comedy with Alex Stein and Jesse Payin
and a bunch of other people. And speaking of comedy
of it, I'd love to get your take on this.
Let me put something up on the screen here. It
always shocks people to learn that I read.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
I really do. I read it.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I buy a lot of books because I like holding
a book, and they just sit there. I read the
first few chapters. It's almost always nonfiction. I don't read fiction.
I don't have time for that. And then I get
to once I understand the point of the book, I'm like, yeah,
I get it. And a lot of books nowadays are
like that, the whole You really only need the first
few chapters. The thesis is book essay, big, big time,
(26:47):
right and anyway, So I say all that to make
this point. I found a book recently online that I
was very interested in. It's about taking drugs, drugs that
are technically illegal in Texas. And one of the co
authors of this book is a guy named Rick. And
you actually know him quite well, yes, because his name's
Rick Perry. Rick Perry helped author a book it's kind
(27:09):
of hard to see on the screen there for those
of you are listening to us on the radio, The
Christian's Guide to Psychedelics, Finding Hope and Healing through God's Creation,
And the foreword was written by Rick former Governor Rick
Perry Marcus Littrelle featured testimony here. Joe Rogan is involved
in authoring this book. This is a book about taking
(27:30):
mushrooms so you can get closer to.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
God, which God, the Christian God?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
As a guy that is not necessarily Christian or a
psychedelic enthusiast.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
What do you think about this?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Now? This is actually pretty funny. So my wife is
an expert in child psychology. That's her background. She went
to Europe to help teach therapists for all the kids
fleeing Ukraine. Like that's her background. And she got asked
to take part in a study on psychedelic treatment for trauma,
which I think, what a lot of these guys are
talking about a lot of PTSD for veterans. And she
(28:02):
looked at it and she goes like, I don't want
to do this, Like why not? Like this seems like
it could be big for your career at the very least.
And she goes like, well, part of it is gonna
be me having to like trip sits some guys as
they do this. And she's like five foot four and
she's like, I don't want to have to deal with
some big guys having a bad trip like that doesn't
(28:23):
feel right for me.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I get that. Yeah, she's right. You know who's really
into it is Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Really he goes down to Central America, I think Costa Rica.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Have you ever seen how they do this, the ayahuasca
thing that they go in like the tents or something.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
They put a mattress down. Yeah, and there's a bucket
next to the mattress. Because one thing that people I've
never done it, but no judgment, I think you should
have the right to try this, especially if it cures
your PTSD or your emotional issues. You get on the thing,
you take the ayahuasca and you go somewhere else, and
apparently it's somewhat traumatic. But the thing that people are
(28:57):
the most surprised to learn is you have almost no
control over you bowels, You puke, and you explosive liquid,
all of it coming. And that's why the bucket's there.
And I gotta think that for me would ruin the experience.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
It doesn't seem like it'd be a whole lot of fun.
They get on an airplane to do this, Evan geez,
that seems bizarre.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Often I hear I've had a friend too who did
a lot of psychedelics. He said, like it was a
big thing of it was like ego death, like you
lose your sense of self and it gives you perspective
on the universe. Like it kind of sounds like you're
turning back into a baby, like you can't control your bals,
you're throwing up all the time, and then like you
grow back up again.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So I guess there's something there that's.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
A really interesting way of explaining it, because that's probably
there's probably an ounce of truth to that.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
At least you get what micro dosing is. Yeah, okay,
to me, it.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Seems like there's got to be a fine line between
you haven't taken enough mushrooms and you took way too
much mushrooms. That's the part of it that concerns me. Yeah,
as a liberty you could serve, I'm very much in
favor of legalizing non addictive psychedelics, especially something like mushrooms
where it's just growing around on a farm. It's not
like you need El Chopo and the golf cartel to
(30:04):
get your hands on that, or marijuana obviously same thing,
but still I don't know. To me, it seems like
I need to be in control.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I totally get that, and part of the thing that
I concerned to it. I'm generally there for legalization, but
we've done it really fast with marijuana, and we've learned,
like there's a certain whenever there's a sin out there,
whenever there's something that's indulgent, you're gonna get a situation
where like the top five percent of users are using
like half of it. And it's true with like alcohol,
with gambling, and so you got to find a way
(30:33):
to help out those people who are gonna indulge too much.
When it's freely available, you want to put a little
tension in the system. But that being said, I get
frustrated sometimes when it feels like the conversation is, well,
here's the good health reason to do these drugs, here's
the religious reason to these drugs. I think you're just
coming up with an excuse to do drugs sometimes, and
(30:54):
if you want to do the drugs, do the drugs.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
The religious angle is weird to me.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, But getting back to how we got on this topic,
did you ever think Rick Perry would be the guy
telling you to take mushrooms and smoke pot?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Do you remember when the big, like weird attack on
Rick Perry was that he was gay. No, there's there
were these rumors that he was gay, and that like
he when he sent out his Christmas card, his official
governor Christmas card, it had like two girls dancing with
each other in front of the Christmas tree, but his
kids were adults. We're having little girls on there, and
(31:27):
just all these rumors that he was, you know, he
was some sort of sexual and it wasn't hetero. I
don't know if anything that was true, but I just
kind of imagine going back to those guys at the
time going no, no, no, no, no, that's not the
thing with Rick Perry. He's not gay. He wants to
do a whole lot of drugs. He wants to do
listenagens like you're crazy, Like no, that's not that can't
be it.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
All right, I love that as much as I could.
I could, like I could.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Talk about this for a long time, like this is
the Joe Rogan podcast, let's just talk about drugs.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Let me ask you if you looked at this ibocane thing.
The state of Texas is spending fifty million dollars to
research ibocane which is a hallucinogen as a treatment for PTSD.
And I feel like you should study everything. And I
think sometimes it's the role of government to support like
(32:11):
first line research if there's not like a market incentive
to do it, particularly for provide social benefits, or if
there's you know, a cold war going on. But fifty
million dollars is a whole lot for the state of
Texas to research a hallucinogen.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
All right, how about this, how about we take that money,
uh huh, and we build an ibicaane growth facility in
the middle of Galveston Bay.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
We call it the Ibicaane.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Ikedyke, what do you think, Hey, listen, if that's what
it takes, I'm there. You can list almost anything. I'd say,
just build a big thing in front of it. So
when the hurricane comes, we don't get a lot of
oil spills, and our chemical facilities stay fine and everyone's
able to go, you know, work there. So we don't
get our own equivalent of what's happening in Iran right
now in Galveston, then we're really screwed.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I wonder how many people get the joke about Iikedyke.
You're the Iike Dike guy. Yeah, not everyone in our
audience may even remember the Iike Dyke idea because it
was twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
They're making progress on it. The bill that is moving
through Congress right now has some money in there to
keep it going. And I've got some friends saying, like,
Evan's just like a couple million dollars. This thing's going
to be a couple billion, Like how can you be
happy with this? And I say, well, I'm always believing incrementalism.
But also they don't even have the plans of permitting
ready to go, like to start building it.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
You know, if there ever was a Republican administration in
the federal government that would support it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Trump loves to build styck. I know he could put.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Trump put it the Trump Ike Dyke, big gold letters
on top, it'd be there.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It'd be done by the fall. Probably maybe put a
casino in it. Oh my.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
He says he likes to build, but like he made
these big promises about building high speed rail, I haven't
seen it. He's made big promises about building housing and
has it come to fruition. He likes to build his
own things. He wants to build his ballroom, he wants
to build the thing that Donald Trump can go and
that's I think maybe the ballroom is the best way
to get at this.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I don't know, you know, I have mixed feelings about
the ballroom. Let's talk about this. Republicans don't know how
Democrats feel about the Parker versus Plumber issue. Right, even
Harris County Judge for those that don't know, County judge
in tax is basically the King of Houston sort of.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It's the executive in charge of the county.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And in this race, we've got old school in East
Parker versus Letisia Plumber and a Democrat went off. One's
a former mayor who was not real controversial until the
transgender bathroom controversy came around.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
And even then they stripped that part out of the bill,
but it was too late.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The Hero Ordinance, it was called, and that got crushed
when they voted on it and way it passed, but
then opponents were able to get it on the ballots. Yeah,
then it failed there, right, you're correct, Yeah, that's how
it went down anyway. So that's Mayor Anise Parker now
running for County judge. The other Letitia Plumber, is more
progressive in a runoff where turnout it's going to be
(34:49):
like eight percent of the population who actually shows up
the tax fair funded bureaucracy lovers or the defund and
spend more anyway crowd. And does anyone outside county government
even know what this job does besides handout contracts and
complain about flooding.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Evan means go ahead.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Well, you know, the county judge doesn't have a lot
of direct authority outside of disasters and the natural disaster.
They're the point person in charge, but really each individual
commissioner and they're four commissioners at the county level, have
their own budgets, and they have their own staff, and
they have their own road crews and parks crews, and
they kind of do their own stuff. And so the
county judge is more like the informal person in charge.
(35:29):
They're like the person who has the bully pulpit. And
so the Houston Chronicle is endorsed in East Parker because
she's got a lot of experience in local governments. She's
very moderate in much of her disposition, but in her policy,
she very much just wants to get the job done.
I've said it's like if Mitt Romney were a lesbian
like that's a nice Parker. When she first got elected,
(35:49):
the city was in dire financial straits right out of
the financial crisis, and she was just steely coming in
and saying, we're gonna have to just lay off entire departments,
and she did it, and a lot of those things.
She got the private sector, the filthropic sector, to backfill
on some parks programs that she just cut. But it
was the sort of thing you kind of want to
(36:10):
see in government in ways that even John Whitmyer, he's
been a little bit nicer about Plumber is a whole
lot more progressive. She's also a whole lot more reflective.
Kind of the young, very activisty folks.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Do those people show up to primaries and run over Yes, yeah,
those sorts of people voters, older voters mostly show off,
But she's trying to actively.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
I know what happened and so and so. Plumber.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
She's been on city council and what we've written about
her on the editory board is that, you know, a
lot of her stuff's very well intentioned. Houston is really
behind a lot of other cities when it comes to
apartment oversight. Making sure that we are shutting down failing apartments,
keeping people safe from disease spreading through departments apartments, but
she failed to get stuff across the finish line. Good
ideas bad on execution, And so we said, she's she's
(36:56):
been a pretty good at large city council woman, but
she's not the right person to put in a role
where your real power is a convening power to get
people to the table and make them work on things.
And folks might not remember this because when Anise Parker
hadn't been in office since twenty fifteen, but she had
a lot of support from like the Republican business community
who viewed her as this no nonsense person. Folks think
(37:18):
of her as this LGBT activist, which she was. She
also spent like twenty years working in the oil and
gas industry where she just like oversaw budgets and spreadsheets. Yeah,
and so she is kind of if we are in
a world where gay marriage is illegal, she's like this
provocative sort of person. But it's legal now, so it's like,
(37:38):
all right, what have you got in East Parker's like, well,
I want responsible governments, It's like, and also lesbians can
get married, Like that sounds good?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I think if there wasn't for that Supreme Court ruling
in twenty fifteen, we might not have had a Trump.
I think a lot of gay people were one issue voters.
Gay marriage got legalized and they became Republicans. I think
there were a lot of them before we run out
of time here. I want to ask you about this,
who are they going up edge? You got Orlando Sanchez,
who Tony Buzby describes as he's gotten more votes than
(38:05):
any other person who's ever lost an election in Houston,
versus Warren Howell one. I'm for Warren Howell. He seems
more like the grassroots guide to me. Orlando Sanchez is
a River Oaks Republican. He's a Tanglewood Republican. And while
you answer this question, who you think that candidate's going
to be, do either of them stand a chance against
(38:26):
the Democrat opponent?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
I would say probably not. If Plumber wins, they'd stand
a better chance. But I think if in these Parkers
the candidate, it's going to be a good year for
Democrats almost certainly. And she's a very strong candidate, and
she's going to be a good fundraiser too. That said,
we've endorsed Orlando Sanchez over at the editorial Board. He's
got county experience. He has won several elections. This county treasurer,
it doesn't have a whole lot of authority, but he's
(38:48):
done a way better job during his three terms in
office than the current treasure has. But I think it's
facing another DWI charge. And he also is on city council,
so he understands how local governance works.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
He knows how to do the job.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Warren, how I think is really impressive candidate that he
was able to make his way into that runoff, and
you're right that he does a better job representing a
lot of the grassroots interest. But when we talk to him,
it was kind of clear that he viewed the county
judge position as more like a mayor is having a
whole lot more authority over the budget, and he really
doesn't have that. If you want to convince people to
(39:21):
do things as county judge, you've got to be able
to get them to yes.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
All right, one more question for you, Uh Lena Hidalgo? Yeah,
where does she go next? I don't know, has.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
She peaked, has her career peaked? Or are we yet
to see Elena headalgo Peak.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
I can see a future where she like leaves office
and then there's a redistricting that happens, and then she
comes in and runs for like a new congressional seat
in like twenty thirty two.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And becomes the wackiest pill poppingist lawmaker that Texas has
ever had.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I don't know if she pops bills, but she's pretty wacky.
But it's also one of those things where if you
are not constantly on camera and you're just like going
to committee me all the time. What I've heard from
people have talked to her is like she's actually knows policy.
While she can read and write a white paper, she
must be smart. She went to Stafford. Yeah a Stanford, Yes,
but she but she like doesn't do well with people
(40:13):
and being under the gun constantly in the role she's in.
She just doesn't have the personal constitution to deal with
constant criticism. She's got thin skin. She freaks out really easily.
You've got to have someone in that role. I remember
when an East Parker was mayor and she appointed she
was like about to leave office, and they created a
tax increment reinvestment zone in Mantras and she appointed her
(40:35):
wife to the board. Now, her wife was pretty well
qualified to do that, she'd been a business owner in
the area for a long time and involved in local politics.
But you don't appoint your wife to a board. And
we wrote an editorial saying as much, like, don't do this,
and an East Parker's response was, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Next, if I.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Was Warren, if I was Orlando, the only thing I
would be talking about right now.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Huh. It was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
No one ever thought that we would have a Democrat
county judge and Harris County now and look at how
it's gone with Lena Hidalgo.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
It's gone awful.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
And you know, the editorial board has never endorsed a
Republican for has never endorsed anyone but a Republican for
County judge since Republicans actually started winning at Harris County.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And people and people call you to liberal, imagine liberal,
but you know what it is.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
We're biased for incumbents. If you've been doing the job
and you're doing a good job at it, we like you.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
And that's about it. I want to thank Evan Menz.
We only have a few seconds, laft, so real quick.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
If people want to subscribe if they want to submit,
if they want to submit. I'm sure most people know
they could subscribe at Houston Chronicle dot com. But I
bet a lot of conservatives, grassroots people, activists, upcoming candidates
probably don't know they can write for you if they want.
We love to get it and that's it. Yeah, fine,
Evan mins online. I'm Kenny Webster. To the rest of you,
We'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning for more
(41:51):
of what you bought a radio
Speaker 4 (41:52):
For you listening to the Pursuit of Happiness RADI until
the government took Kiss your ass when you listen to
the show.
Jack gannic government sucks. Suit of happiness radio is dux
liberty and freedom will make you smile of a suit
of habing us on your radio toile justice cheeseburger is
a liberty prize at the suit.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Of a scientist from the CIA claims four alien species
were recovered from a UFO. Their names, in order of
charisma are Alec, Billy, Daniel, and Stephen.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Okay, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hi, everybody, I'm Kenny Webster, and yes I did just
technically call Alec Baldwin charismatic. He's the rich one and
the successful one. Also, he's probably the one I hate
the most. But I digress. So now what we're talking
about today on the show, actually my special guest at
the bottom of the hour Evan Mince, Houston Chronicle opinion editor,
not a right winger, not a conservative, not a libertarian
(00:56):
by any means, and he and I are going to
have a frank discussion about what is about to happen
with these runoffs. We're gonna get dirty with the Texas
runoff elections. Early voting happening right now. Get out there
and vote before I get to any of that. Can
I indulge myself for just a minute. Kevin Hart just
got absolutely torched on Netflix at the Kevin Hart Roast,
(01:19):
which was pretty much the point. Everyone thought it was hilarious.
Shane Gillis hosted it like a beautiful, unfiltered freight train.
Tony Hingecliff dropped some great jokes, the crowd was howling,
and the clips went viral, and then Chelsea Handler, of
all people, goes on a media tour to talk about
(01:40):
how offended she was that she participated in this thing.
She acted like she survived a war crime instead of
a comedy roast. She called everyone racist, bigots, sexist because
the jokes were just too mean. Listen, you delicate, snowflake
clutching your pearls.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
No comedian in the.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
History of stand up has ever finished a Friar's Club
roast and then launched a media tour whining about how
mean everyone was. It's like showing up to a knife fight,
getting nicked and then crying to the referee that the
blades were too sharp. Pure Chelsea Handler. The roast tradition,
in case you're not familiar, started with the Friars Club
(02:22):
back in the early nineteen hundred's Broadway Wise guys in vaudeville.
That's comedians. People that made a living doing this needed
an excuse to drink and verbally water board each other
for charity. So that's what they did. It's a fun
thing to do at the Friars Club. Then Dean Martin
turned it into TV gold. In the seventies, HBO and
(02:43):
Comedy Central got involved, then Netflix cranked it up to eleven.
The rules have always been very simple. Nothing is sacred.
Everything's fair game. And if you can't take a joke
about your height, your exes, your politics, your unfortunate dinner companions.
Chelsea Hanler eate dinner with Jeffrey Epstein, by the way,
stay home.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And yes that's true.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Chelsea Handler did have dinner with Jeffrey Epstein and who
else was there? Woody Allen and the Prince of England,
Prince Andrew and her and it was a small dinner
party too. But I'm getting off topic. Roasts are not therapy.
They are ritual combat with punchlines. And what did Jeff
Ross say, He's the roastmaster general. We only roast the
(03:27):
ones we love. Chelsea knew the deal and she participated
in it, and then afterwards she whins that a Bonzei
Tree lynching joke about Kevin Hart's stature was somehow as
bad as sexual assault. By the way, you know who
wasn't offended by the joke, Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart was
(03:50):
not offended by the joke. Kevin Hart told Tony Hingecliff
and Shane Gillis to make at g offensive jokes. Elsea
Handler's entire brand is basically, Hey, I'm old and I'm slutty,
and I'm proud of it. She's written books about banging
anything with a pulse.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
She's fifty one years old.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
She still struts around talking about how sex got better
once she stopped caring what she looked like. And good
for you, Champ, that's great, but the comic's making funny.
You didn't invent the material. They just read your Wikipedia
page titled Chelsea Handler Greatest Hits and Regrets. Shane Gillis
reminded everyone about that cozy twenty ten Epstein dinner party
(04:33):
with you and Prince Andrew and Whitty Allen. Was that
a little awkward, sure, but as far as roast material goes,
it was Filet Mignon. You don't get to play edgy
feminist for decades and then cry when the mirror shows
up without a vasolene filter. Chelsea bombed her set. Then
she watched Shane Gillis and Tony Hinschliff go viral, and
(04:56):
she did what every fading star does. She blamed the
bigots and hoped nobody would notice that her career was
circling the drain like a bad assid trip. She's mad
because her career is dying. It's almost dead, dead like
all those babies.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
She aboarded. That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I look, you just such a pie hole and keep working.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Back to the pursuit of happiness radio.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
It's a happiness Babio and Carmel.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Indiana is the best city in the US, according to
a new report. Residents have access to schools and parks,
and thanks to their proximity to the Indiana cults laughs
lots of laughter.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Hi, everybody, welcome back from break good to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Jeff Bezos has a lot of money and his wife
has big boobs and weirdly, as much as I've never
really been a fan of Bezos, he just said something
I absolutely agree with. Jeff Bezos, the guy who turned
selling books into a galactic empire and still has enough
bear change to launch his own penis shaped spaceship company.
(06:03):
Went on CNBC the other day and committed the unpartatable sin.
He told the truth, thou ought not tell the truth
ever on an NBC newscat Oh, that makes people so bad.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Do you have a SoundBite of this? I do not.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sorry, I don't have it. I'll just tell you what
he said. He said that, believe it or not. Politicians
that are screaming tax the rich aren't solving the affordability crisis.
They're just creating a villain so they don't have to
admit that they're the clowns who wrecked the circus. New
York City's got a new mayor. Maybe you've heard, Yeah,
(06:38):
I know. He wants a tax on fancy homes. He
thinks it'll bring in five hundred and ten million dollars
a year to the city, which is adorable. That's what
the federal government wastes on coffee and xs essential dread
before lunch. Jeff Bezos basically just said, you're creating a
villain because you don't know how to solve problems. He's right,
(07:01):
that's exactly correct. A progressive tax system doesn't solve anything.
We already have one so fair it makes robin Hood
look like a slumlord. The top ten percent, those heartless
monsters pulling in over two hundred and twenty eight thousand
dollars a year, are also paying about forty six percent
of the income tax. The bottom fifty percent they pay
(07:24):
next to nothing. Some are even net winners thanks to
the earned income tax credit, which is basically the government
paying you to exist while it robs Peter to pay well,
Peter's cousin who filled out the form better. It's like
a restaurant where the guy who ordered the filet mignon
pays for everybody's meal, including the vegan influencer who just
wants a little more equity on the side please. And
(07:48):
still leftists want a slap on a wealth tax. You
looked at me, funny tax. I'm jealous of you.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Tax.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Here's the newsflash, kids, Capital, as in money, is mobile.
Billionaires have options. They don't have to live in New
York City. You tax them like medieval kings squeezing peasants
for castle money, and they'll just move to Florida or
Texas or god forbid, Dubai, where the tax rate is
roughly thanks but no thanks. Government revenue, by the way,
(08:19):
is up. We're swimming it swimming, and at three point
three to two trillions so far this fiscal year. Yet
somehow we still have trillion dollars in deficit. How's that possible?
Because Washington spends money like a nineteen year old with
daddy's credit card in a Vegas strip club. I know
(08:40):
it's wild, it's hard to believe. And don't get me
started on the sacred cows. We're blowing tens of billions
on foreign adventures that make weekend at Bernie's look like
sound foreign policy. Meanwhile, back home, your rent is higher
than Elon's launch schedule because every mayor with a sociology
(09:01):
degreed is decided. Single family zoning and rent controls were
brilliant ideas. Supply and demand. Yeah, okay, that's just cis
heteronormative economics. Apparently, Jeff Bezos also floated exempting low income
folks from federal income tax entirely. That's an idea about
forty percent already pays zelch So I don't know what
(09:22):
he thinks that's going to change, but making it official
would be cute. Nothing motivates the working man, like knowing
the government isn't treating his paychecks like in All.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
You Can Eat b FE.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Okay, the affordability crisis isn't caused by too few taxes
on billionaires. It's caused by too much government, too much regulation,
strangling housing supply, too much money printing, turning your dollar
into monopoly money. Too many politicians who think the solution
(09:54):
to every problem is another tax. Of course, we should
tax the rich. Everybody should pay taxes. Now, I'm not
suggesting Bezos as a hero, but he's not a villain.
He's the guy who built something massive without needing a
government bailout or a taxpayer funded slush fund. The real
(10:18):
villains are the ones who look at innovation and wealth
creation and rocket ships and online retail and they go,
how can I punish them? So, next time some congress
critters starts moaning about people not paying enough taxes, remember
it's the government that's hoarding it, it's not the people.
They're using it to do things government couldn't manage with
(10:39):
a map, a flashlight, and a three trillion dollar budget.
Maybe try leaving the innovators alone and there will be
more innovation. Or you know, just let the economy and
the free market do what it's going to do, because
the government will never move as fast to the free market.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Shocking, I know.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But if we let the free market exist and breathe,
it just might make our groceries cheaper than their therapists.
(11:25):
Hey everyone, my name's Kenny Webster, and I'm proud to
endorse lear Capital, just like Rush Limbaugh did. There's a
reason why. You see what's going on right now in
the market. Things are up, things are down.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Well.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Gold and silver recently reached record highs. You've probably heard
silver's being used in all kinds of new technology, anything
from AI to solar panels. You get the idea. It's
a smart investment. Congress is spending your Fiat currency at
a rapid pace inflation, munching away on your savings.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Don't miss the next dip.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Call Dear Capital right now for a free gold kid
and see if you can qualify for twenty thousand dollars
in bonus coins. Call eight hundred three six four nine
two zero zero. That's eight zero zero three six four
ninety two hundred.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Lear Capital is easy to reach.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I am proud to say I called him you can
to call Lear Capital today at eight zero zero three
sixty four ninety two hundred. Rush Limbas says it's a
smart idea and I agree. Okay, I have a guest
in the studio right now. What's a joke I could
tell to make him uncomfortable? Let me think?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The head of the Border Patrol is accused of a
soliciting prostitutes. Apparently he's I don't know, being around illegals
taught him how to sneak through openings. Evan mins in
the Houston Chronicle, go ahead, thanks for having me Evan
Minz in the building right now. Evan, I am a
fan of you, despite the fact that I think some
of my followers don't want me to be. Evan Mints
(12:50):
is the opinion and community Engagement editor at The Chronicle.
Legit sharp pullets er finalist writer. He's been a Houston
media staple for years. Quick on his feet, great with words,
one of the few lefties willing to step into the
right wing gauntlet of violence that he is in right
now with actual conservatives instead of just virtue signaling from
(13:10):
the sidelines. You and I may not agree on every
political issue, but you show up, Evan, and that's the
difference between you and others.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Try not to ruin my conservative street cred. How are you?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
I'm doing great. I gotta say the feeling is mutual.
I appreciate you at a great piece in the Houston
Chronicle this week explaining why MAGA voters love Ken Paxton.
I think it was really valuable for progressives who might
not get it, for even corn and fans who don't
get it. And I gotta say, I love that you
write for us. We reach out to lots of conservatives
to try to get them to writ in the Chronicle.
(13:40):
I say, we'll never do it. I'll never write for you.
It's like, please, I want to publish it. And we
reach out to these candidates. I reach out to Bo
French to say, Bo, come in, make your pitch to us.
We want to hear it. We're nice, we're not mean.
He doesn't respond to our emails. Okay, let's start off
with the conversation about Bo French. Bo French has been
on this radio show. Tell him to talk to us.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I understand Bo has some opinions he don't agree with.
He's running for railroad commissioner. He was in charge of
the fort ben Republicans the chairman, you guys are comparing
him to a woman named Maureen Galindo, the Democrat sex
therapist running for Congress, went full nineteen thirties on Instagram.
She wants to turn a Texas Ice detention center into
(14:22):
a brand new and I'm quoting Zionist prison and castration
processing center for as it's described online American Jews who
support Israel plus x ice guys for human trafficking. She
added that most Zionists are probably pedophiles. That's a lot,
big le guys. I gotta say Democrats accused people being
(14:44):
a Nazi a lot. But we got this guy, Graham
Plattner up in Maine literally Nazi tattoos, and then this woman,
Maureen Glindo. Evan your bored called Glindo the dem version
of Beau French. Yeah, which is a very loaded statement
because you're insulting her. But I think you're also trying
to insult bo. Please tell us why. I mean, Beau
French has said things like that about Muslims. He put
(15:07):
out on social media a poll where you could vote
who's worse for America, Jews or Muslims. Dan Patrick said,
that he was a bigot and an anti Semite, and
he's running for a position that has actual authority when
it comes to overseeing the oil and gas industry. And
Greg Abbott, the governor, came out and said, don't vote
for this guy. He's going to be bad for the industry.
(15:28):
When I listened to Boufrench, it feels like I'm hearing
a toddler who just learned a curse word, and they
keep saying it to get attention. If I say crazy things,
people pay attention to me. And I feel the same
way with her. I think she might be a little
bit more like touched in the mind. And to the
Democrats credit, all of them have come out and said,
don't vote for this crazy lady. Vote for the other
(15:49):
guy who's running, who's a former sheriff's deputy, Like he's
a pretty moderate Democrat kind of guy. We don't know
how she got through the primary to get to the runoff.
It was a pretty big primary, so she got through
with just like a little more than twenty percent of
the vote. But at this point everyone is realizing she's
not even Some of the crazier pro Palestinian groups like
(16:09):
the APAC Watch Group that marks people who have been
not even supported by APAK. But this got apacky vibes,
Like they've come out and said, we don't support her anymore.
She's cuckoo. Wait wait wait what are what are apacky vibes?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
What is though?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
So you would think that a group called APAC Watch,
I would think.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
A packaged vibes.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I would think it was an asexual Pakistan man who
owns a convenience store.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Is that not what it is? I mean that's the
foundation of America right there? No, No, so what it
is is? Uh the idea would be like, oh, well,
the APAC gave money to this politician, you should know
about that. But they're marking people who didn't even get
money from a pack they're just kind of like generally
pro Israel or like they took money from Like I
think they called out J Street, which is like the
(16:53):
pro Israel, pro piece, mostly democrat kind of group. They're
like the diet coke version of APAK And like, even
that's too far, and they're associating J Street with APEC.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That's a little nutty something.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I think both sides are doing wrong, right, And you
know this isn't specifically about Maureene or bou or anyone.
But it feels like we spend more time worrying about
stuff that won't actually affect the position, like Corpus Christy
for example. Right, Ben has had this water issue right
for a long time. It's a real concern. Nobody talks
about that. That's I mean, that seems like it's a
(17:28):
little more important than Israel. If you're a Texas voter.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Right now, that that is absolutely spot on. And I
would say even if you're diehard conservative, you won't agree
with a lot of the stuff. The Houston Chronicle editory
board says, we really try to ground what we do
in what's going on here in Houston and what's going
on here in Texas. We just had a great piece
from a water expert from ut talking about all the
things Texas should and could be doing to tackle water shortages.
(17:52):
Here's a fascinating idea I haven't even thought of. You
use the leftover heat, the residue heat from data centers
and use it to power diesel plants to take fresh
water out of salt water. Apparently there's research showing you
can do this. To get it all together, or the
idea of you incentivize the oil and gas industry to
pay farmers to improve their water efficiency use so that
(18:15):
the oil and gas guys can use the extra water
that they've now got on hand. Just trying to get
everyone to work together to be more efficient and effective.
But this stuff is kind of boring. I get it's
not as exciting as people saying crazy things about Jews
and Muslims. But this is like the foundation of it.
But what's really great about is if you actually look
at the legislature, if you have ideas or concepts that
don't really like trigger the partisan part of people's brains,
(18:38):
you get folks working together really well. The legislature has
done some really good stuff of putting together a water
infrastructure like funding bank. The problem is it's like ten
years too late and a couple billion dollars too short,
but they are on.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So as a stand up comedian, I did some jokes
about water infrastructure, nothing right back to Jews and Muslims.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Pow, the audience loved it. That's the problem. You gotta
go like to a bunch of like think tanks and
do some stand up there. I was once I used
to work for a think tank and they had an
economist come in and do economist jokes and like he
killed there.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
It was great. I don't think it would have worked
anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Mostly I'm getting booked to perform in front of drunk
redneck but if they're a great audience, all right, let's
talk about that for a minute. Trump wants all this
money for a ballroom. You want money for the ike Dyke? Yes,
what if the ballroom could stop hurricanes? Think about it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I am one hundred percent there for compromise, and I
feel if we wanted to build a like fifty billion
dollar ballroom that just stretched the entirety of Galveston, you
could call it the Trump Ike Dyke. If that's what
it takes, I'm there. We gotta protect our infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Okay, I'm in a group right now with it's a
group chat, and I won't out anybody in it, but
you know some of them. And there's a conversation right
now about why Cornin did not get the endorsement, and
I just want as an outsider, you don't have a
horse in this race, right, You're not voting in the
Republican No, I am, You're voting in the Republican, right, now.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, I vote in the primaries. I follow our own endorsements.
I vote in the Republican primary. You don't vote in
the Democrat primary, no what my wife does, and I
vote in the Republican one. That way, I get all
the mailers from like all the candidates, and I can
see what everyone's talking about, even the stuff they kind
of want to keep out of the media eye keep
out of like the public view, but they want their
supporters to see. And I get to see everything. And
(20:22):
the problem is that like we'll get things, We'll get
mailers that are like Republican candidates will say like I'm
going to fight gay marriage, but most like throw that away.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Don't want anyone thinking. We believe that the people.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Who you know, my audience loves the idea of closing
the primary. So you just made some heads. I'm sure
I did watching and listening to this right now. Okay, Well,
here's what I was going to ask you, and that's
and you have a legal right to do it. You
do as open closed primaries. We have open primaries. People
in this conversation, I'm in this group text and they're
having a conversation about why Cornyn didn't get the endorsement.
(20:54):
One group of people thinks it's because of the Save Act.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Paxton did a very clever thing, I was.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I think he went out and he said, if you
can pass the Save Act, I'll drop out. And Thune
impacs Cornyn and the other establishment GOP, the old school
Bush GEO. They don't want to do that for one reason,
they can't campaign on it anymore. If they passed the bill,
what are they going to talk about in four to
six years or what are they going to talk about
the other group of people think it's because of the
(21:21):
ballroom that they couldn't get funding, which it's not even
for the ballroom, if I'm not mistaken. It's supposed to
be for security for the ballroom. The actual infrastructure, the
marble and the gold pains supposed to be paid for privately.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
They claim, I'll believe it when I see I say, hey,
same here.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm skeptical too, as ask me, should the government spend
money on anything? Stop right there? But even still they
think it's because corn In and Thune couldn't get behind
payning for the ballroom.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, I mean it's possible.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
There's a nuance here, no room for nuance on social media,
What do you think the real answer is?
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And I think it is that uh, Trump likes loyalty
and that Paxton is more loyal to him than Cornyn.
I think Cornan is a more effective senator. And I
think a lot of the problems with the Save Actor
that they are good parts of it. They are parts
that you could get through. But it's a very big
bill written more as a signaling thing. Like my understanding
of the language right now is that it's not just
you have to show ID. The only idea that would
(22:11):
really work would be, say, a passport, and most Americans
don't have passports. But if you wanted to get to yes,
if you wanted to sit down and figure out, Okay,
how can we get this across the finish line, there's
a way to do it. It's going to involve compromise.
But I don't think compromise is like the point of
this bill right now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Totally unrelated to what we're talking about. Yesterday, I went
to get the photo updated for my passport. Oh yeah,
where you going? You could do this online?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I think I'm gonna go to Italy this summer. But
that's another flight director. Now, I know very one of
the reasons I want to go. Yeah, So I go
to do it online. Are you aware you could do
this online now with your with your.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Phone to get your picture? Really? Yeah, But they're very
meticulous about it. They keep rejecting it.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Because the background wasn't white enough, which is weird because
I practically live in an art gallery.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
White walls everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
So I go to the street, down the street to
the FedEx place, get the photo taken there, and they
tell me we can't send it. You're gonna have to
go around the block here to the USPS store US UPS. USPS,
they'll mail it for you. We can't send FedEx to
a pote po box. So I go around the building
to the UPS store and as the guy is mailing
this for me, he is having an argument with the
(23:17):
guy in the back of the store about gumbo and
I don't know what was happening before I walk in.
I walk in, I'm like, here you go. He starts
processing it for me. There's a guy in the back
of the store and he's on his phone like this, man,
I don't know what happened. Tomato bas ruin the gumbo
and the guy that's ringing me up goes, stop talking
about the gumbo, get over the gumbo. And the guy goes,
you're not on this phone call. You don't know me,
(23:38):
And that's all I could think about ever since.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Then they'll have strong gumbo opinions. I we don't even
have gumbo in Chicago. Yeah, yeah, but here in Houston
it's a very touchy subject.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
It is.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
So there's this social mediac count that I love. It's
a lady who moved here from Japan and she's just
talking about her experience of being a Japanese lady in Houston,
and she's always like, oh, I love HGB and like
I went on a t of the rodeo and it's
crazy and she had and like, here's a Japanese place
like that actually has good food, and she talked about
how much she loves gumbo and just like I found
(24:08):
this soup that they have here that's spicy and seafood
and it's kind of like rich, but it doesn't have
noodles in it's got rise Like this is great.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
This is great stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Like one of the best things that we'd gotten out
of Twitter ever since Elon Musk could over is the
automatic translation. Were you there for the week when somehow
the algorithm had everyone from Japan talking to everyone from America,
and it turned out all these like Japanese folks love Texas,
They're obsessed with Texas. I had no idea about this
until the automatic translation happened, and like all the algorithm
(24:37):
had us talking to each other.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
All right, I'm about to blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
All right, my buddy Tony Ortiz from Current Revolt cost
he goes to Japan a lot. Yeah, he's really into it.
They have Texas themed bars there, I know. But what
really blew my mind was this. Let me see if
I could pull it up real quick. Back in the
nineties and the two thousands in Japan, I don't think
they understood what a touchy subject this was to people
(25:00):
in the West.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
They had Nazi themed bars, suboptimal. Have you seen you
gotta remember it. They were on the wrong side of
that war.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Have you ever seen this before? I have not.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I'm gonna throw this up on the screen here. They
had these bars in the nineties where people would walk
in and they just had swastikas on the walls, and
it was like just their charming version of what the
nineteen forties must have been like and I think Korea
had them too. I didn't know about this, but yeah,
here they are asias disturbing embrace the third Reich Nazi bar.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
And what would even be on the menu in a
place like that. I don't want to talk about it.
I guess I mean what schnitzel?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I don't know. God, I hope it schnitzel.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, just believe this is Spiny Santhus and you are
listening to the Pursuit of Happiness radio. Now give me
all of your money, because that's the only thing that's fair.
Very sad news, Evan Men's, very very sad news. The
oldest red lobster in America is in Florida. It's about
to close after fifty six years. No, they asked the owner,
what will you remember the most about having this frameanchise?
(26:00):
He said, I'll just remember we gave crabs to more
people than the Kardashians.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
These are cheap jokes, aren't they. It's good Friday June twelve.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
People could come watch me tell cheap jokes at the
right side of comedy with Alex Stein and Jesse Payin
and a bunch of other people. And speaking of comedy
of it, I'd love to get your take on this.
Let me put something up on the screen here. It
always shocks people to learn that I read.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
I really do. I read it.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I buy a lot of books because I like holding
a book, and they just sit there. I read the
first few chapters. It's almost always nonfiction. I don't read fiction.
I don't have time for that. And then I get
to once I understand the point of the book, I'm like, yeah,
I get it. And a lot of books nowadays are
like that, the whole You really only need the first
few chapters. The thesis is book essay, big, big time,
(26:47):
right and anyway, So I say all that to make
this point. I found a book recently online that I
was very interested in. It's about taking drugs, drugs that
are technically illegal in Texas. And one of the co
authors of this book is a guy named Rick. And
you actually know him quite well, yes, because his name's
Rick Perry. Rick Perry helped author a book it's kind
(27:09):
of hard to see on the screen there for those
of you are listening to us on the radio, The
Christian's Guide to Psychedelics, Finding Hope and Healing through God's Creation,
And the foreword was written by Rick former Governor Rick
Perry Marcus Littrelle featured testimony here. Joe Rogan is involved
in authoring this book. This is a book about taking
(27:30):
mushrooms so you can get closer to.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
God, which God, the Christian God?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
As a guy that is not necessarily Christian or a
psychedelic enthusiast.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
What do you think about this?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Now? This is actually pretty funny. So my wife is
an expert in child psychology. That's her background. She went
to Europe to help teach therapists for all the kids
fleeing Ukraine. Like that's her background. And she got asked
to take part in a study on psychedelic treatment for trauma,
which I think, what a lot of these guys are
talking about a lot of PTSD for veterans. And she
(28:02):
looked at it and she goes like, I don't want
to do this, Like why not? Like this seems like
it could be big for your career at the very least.
And she goes like, well, part of it is gonna
be me having to like trip sits some guys as
they do this. And she's like five foot four and
she's like, I don't want to have to deal with
some big guys having a bad trip like that doesn't
(28:23):
feel right for me.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I get that. Yeah, she's right. You know who's really
into it is Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Really he goes down to Central America, I think Costa Rica.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Have you ever seen how they do this, the ayahuasca
thing that they go in like the tents or something.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
They put a mattress down. Yeah, and there's a bucket
next to the mattress. Because one thing that people I've
never done it, but no judgment, I think you should
have the right to try this, especially if it cures
your PTSD or your emotional issues. You get on the thing,
you take the ayahuasca and you go somewhere else, and
apparently it's somewhat traumatic. But the thing that people are
(28:57):
the most surprised to learn is you have almost no
control over you bowels, You puke, and you explosive liquid,
all of it coming. And that's why the bucket's there.
And I gotta think that for me would ruin the experience.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
It doesn't seem like it'd be a whole lot of fun.
They get on an airplane to do this, Evan geez,
that seems bizarre.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Often I hear I've had a friend too who did
a lot of psychedelics. He said, like it was a
big thing of it was like ego death, like you
lose your sense of self and it gives you perspective
on the universe. Like it kind of sounds like you're
turning back into a baby, like you can't control your bals,
you're throwing up all the time, and then like you
grow back up again.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
So I guess there's something there that's.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
A really interesting way of explaining it, because that's probably
there's probably an ounce of truth to that.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
At least you get what micro dosing is. Yeah, okay,
to me, it.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Seems like there's got to be a fine line between
you haven't taken enough mushrooms and you took way too
much mushrooms. That's the part of it that concerns me. Yeah,
as a liberty you could serve, I'm very much in
favor of legalizing non addictive psychedelics, especially something like mushrooms
where it's just growing around on a farm. It's not
like you need El Chopo and the golf cartel to
(30:04):
get your hands on that, or marijuana obviously same thing,
but still I don't know. To me, it seems like
I need to be in control.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I totally get that, and part of the thing that
I concerned to it. I'm generally there for legalization, but
we've done it really fast with marijuana, and we've learned,
like there's a certain whenever there's a sin out there,
whenever there's something that's indulgent, you're gonna get a situation
where like the top five percent of users are using
like half of it. And it's true with like alcohol,
with gambling, and so you got to find a way
(30:33):
to help out those people who are gonna indulge too much.
When it's freely available, you want to put a little
tension in the system. But that being said, I get
frustrated sometimes when it feels like the conversation is, well,
here's the good health reason to do these drugs, here's
the religious reason to these drugs. I think you're just
coming up with an excuse to do drugs sometimes, and
(30:54):
if you want to do the drugs, do the drugs.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
The religious angle is weird to me.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, But getting back to how we got on this topic,
did you ever think Rick Perry would be the guy
telling you to take mushrooms and smoke pot?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Do you remember when the big, like weird attack on
Rick Perry was that he was gay. No, there's there
were these rumors that he was gay, and that like
he when he sent out his Christmas card, his official
governor Christmas card, it had like two girls dancing with
each other in front of the Christmas tree, but his
kids were adults. We're having little girls on there, and
(31:27):
just all these rumors that he was, you know, he
was some sort of sexual and it wasn't hetero. I
don't know if anything that was true, but I just
kind of imagine going back to those guys at the
time going no, no, no, no, no, that's not the
thing with Rick Perry. He's not gay. He wants to
do a whole lot of drugs. He wants to do
listenagens like you're crazy, Like no, that's not that can't
be it.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
All right, I love that as much as I could.
I could, like I could.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Talk about this for a long time, like this is
the Joe Rogan podcast, let's just talk about drugs.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Let me ask you if you looked at this ibocane thing.
The state of Texas is spending fifty million dollars to
research ibocane which is a hallucinogen as a treatment for PTSD.
And I feel like you should study everything. And I
think sometimes it's the role of government to support like
(32:11):
first line research if there's not like a market incentive
to do it, particularly for provide social benefits, or if
there's you know, a cold war going on. But fifty
million dollars is a whole lot for the state of
Texas to research a hallucinogen.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
All right, how about this, how about we take that money,
uh huh, and we build an ibicaane growth facility in
the middle of Galveston Bay.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
We call it the Ibicaane.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Ikedyke, what do you think, Hey, listen, if that's what
it takes, I'm there. You can list almost anything. I'd say,
just build a big thing in front of it. So
when the hurricane comes, we don't get a lot of
oil spills, and our chemical facilities stay fine and everyone's
able to go, you know, work there. So we don't
get our own equivalent of what's happening in Iran right
now in Galveston, then we're really screwed.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
I wonder how many people get the joke about Iikedyke.
You're the Iike Dike guy. Yeah, not everyone in our
audience may even remember the Iike Dyke idea because it
was twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
They're making progress on it. The bill that is moving
through Congress right now has some money in there to
keep it going. And I've got some friends saying, like,
Evan's just like a couple million dollars. This thing's going
to be a couple billion, Like how can you be
happy with this? And I say, well, I'm always believing incrementalism.
But also they don't even have the plans of permitting
ready to go, like to start building it.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
You know, if there ever was a Republican administration in
the federal government that would support it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Trump loves to build styck. I know he could put.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Trump put it the Trump Ike Dyke, big gold letters
on top, it'd be there.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It'd be done by the fall. Probably maybe put a
casino in it. Oh my.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
He says he likes to build, but like he made
these big promises about building high speed rail, I haven't
seen it. He's made big promises about building housing and
has it come to fruition. He likes to build his
own things. He wants to build his ballroom, he wants
to build the thing that Donald Trump can go and
that's I think maybe the ballroom is the best way
to get at this.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I don't know, you know, I have mixed feelings about
the ballroom. Let's talk about this. Republicans don't know how
Democrats feel about the Parker versus Plumber issue. Right, even
Harris County Judge for those that don't know, County judge
in tax is basically the King of Houston sort of.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It's the executive in charge of the county.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And in this race, we've got old school in East
Parker versus Letisia Plumber and a Democrat went off. One's
a former mayor who was not real controversial until the
transgender bathroom controversy came around.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
And even then they stripped that part out of the bill,
but it was too late.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The Hero Ordinance, it was called, and that got crushed
when they voted on it and way it passed, but
then opponents were able to get it on the ballots. Yeah,
then it failed there, right, you're correct, Yeah, that's how
it went down anyway. So that's Mayor Anise Parker now
running for County judge. The other Letitia Plumber, is more
progressive in a runoff where turnout it's going to be
(34:49):
like eight percent of the population who actually shows up
the tax fair funded bureaucracy lovers or the defund and
spend more anyway crowd. And does anyone outside county government
even know what this job does besides handout contracts and
complain about flooding.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Evan means go ahead.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Well, you know, the county judge doesn't have a lot
of direct authority outside of disasters and the natural disaster.
They're the point person in charge, but really each individual
commissioner and they're four commissioners at the county level, have
their own budgets, and they have their own staff, and
they have their own road crews and parks crews, and
they kind of do their own stuff. And so the
county judge is more like the informal person in charge.
(35:29):
They're like the person who has the bully pulpit. And
so the Houston Chronicle is endorsed in East Parker because
she's got a lot of experience in local governments. She's
very moderate in much of her disposition, but in her policy,
she very much just wants to get the job done.
I've said it's like if Mitt Romney were a lesbian
like that's a nice Parker. When she first got elected,
(35:49):
the city was in dire financial straits right out of
the financial crisis, and she was just steely coming in
and saying, we're gonna have to just lay off entire departments,
and she did it, and a lot of those things.
She got the private sector, the filthropic sector, to backfill
on some parks programs that she just cut. But it
was the sort of thing you kind of want to
(36:10):
see in government in ways that even John Whitmyer, he's
been a little bit nicer about Plumber is a whole
lot more progressive. She's also a whole lot more reflective.
Kind of the young, very activisty folks.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Do those people show up to primaries and run over Yes, yeah,
those sorts of people voters, older voters mostly show off,
But she's trying to actively.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
I know what happened and so and so. Plumber.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
She's been on city council and what we've written about
her on the editory board is that, you know, a
lot of her stuff's very well intentioned. Houston is really
behind a lot of other cities when it comes to
apartment oversight. Making sure that we are shutting down failing apartments,
keeping people safe from disease spreading through departments apartments, but
she failed to get stuff across the finish line. Good
ideas bad on execution, And so we said, she's she's
(36:56):
been a pretty good at large city council woman, but
she's not the right person to put in a role
where your real power is a convening power to get
people to the table and make them work on things.
And folks might not remember this because when Anise Parker
hadn't been in office since twenty fifteen, but she had
a lot of support from like the Republican business community
who viewed her as this no nonsense person. Folks think
(37:18):
of her as this LGBT activist, which she was. She
also spent like twenty years working in the oil and
gas industry where she just like oversaw budgets and spreadsheets. Yeah,
and so she is kind of if we are in
a world where gay marriage is illegal, she's like this
provocative sort of person. But it's legal now, so it's like,
(37:38):
all right, what have you got in East Parker's like, well,
I want responsible governments, It's like, and also lesbians can
get married, Like that sounds good?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I think if there wasn't for that Supreme Court ruling
in twenty fifteen, we might not have had a Trump.
I think a lot of gay people were one issue voters.
Gay marriage got legalized and they became Republicans. I think
there were a lot of them before we run out
of time here. I want to ask you about this,
who are they going up edge? You got Orlando Sanchez,
who Tony Buzby describes as he's gotten more votes than
(38:05):
any other person who's ever lost an election in Houston,
versus Warren Howell one. I'm for Warren Howell. He seems
more like the grassroots guide to me. Orlando Sanchez is
a River Oaks Republican. He's a Tanglewood Republican. And while
you answer this question, who you think that candidate's going
to be, do either of them stand a chance against
(38:26):
the Democrat opponent?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
I would say probably not. If Plumber wins, they'd stand
a better chance. But I think if in these Parkers
the candidate, it's going to be a good year for
Democrats almost certainly. And she's a very strong candidate, and
she's going to be a good fundraiser too. That said,
we've endorsed Orlando Sanchez over at the editorial Board. He's
got county experience. He has won several elections. This county treasurer,
it doesn't have a whole lot of authority, but he's
(38:48):
done a way better job during his three terms in
office than the current treasure has. But I think it's
facing another DWI charge. And he also is on city council,
so he understands how local governance works.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
He knows how to do the job.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
Warren, how I think is really impressive candidate that he
was able to make his way into that runoff, and
you're right that he does a better job representing a
lot of the grassroots interest. But when we talk to him,
it was kind of clear that he viewed the county
judge position as more like a mayor is having a
whole lot more authority over the budget, and he really
doesn't have that. If you want to convince people to
(39:21):
do things as county judge, you've got to be able
to get them to yes.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
All right, one more question for you, Uh Lena Hidalgo? Yeah,
where does she go next? I don't know, has.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
She peaked, has her career peaked? Or are we yet
to see Elena headalgo Peak.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
I can see a future where she like leaves office
and then there's a redistricting that happens, and then she
comes in and runs for like a new congressional seat
in like twenty thirty two.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And becomes the wackiest pill poppingist lawmaker that Texas has
ever had.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
I don't know if she pops bills, but she's pretty wacky.
But it's also one of those things where if you
are not constantly on camera and you're just like going
to committee me all the time. What I've heard from
people have talked to her is like she's actually knows policy.
While she can read and write a white paper, she
must be smart. She went to Stafford. Yeah a Stanford, Yes,
but she but she like doesn't do well with people
(40:13):
and being under the gun constantly in the role she's in.
She just doesn't have the personal constitution to deal with
constant criticism. She's got thin skin. She freaks out really easily.
You've got to have someone in that role. I remember
when an East Parker was mayor and she appointed she
was like about to leave office, and they created a
tax increment reinvestment zone in Mantras and she appointed her
(40:35):
wife to the board. Now, her wife was pretty well
qualified to do that, she'd been a business owner in
the area for a long time and involved in local politics.
But you don't appoint your wife to a board. And
we wrote an editorial saying as much, like, don't do this,
and an East Parker's response was, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Next, if I.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Was Warren, if I was Orlando, the only thing I
would be talking about right now.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Huh. It was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
No one ever thought that we would have a Democrat
county judge and Harris County now and look at how
it's gone with Lena Hidalgo.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
It's gone awful.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
And you know, the editorial board has never endorsed a
Republican for has never endorsed anyone but a Republican for
County judge since Republicans actually started winning at Harris County.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And people and people call you to liberal, imagine liberal,
but you know what it is.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
We're biased for incumbents. If you've been doing the job
and you're doing a good job at it, we like you.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
And that's about it. I want to thank Evan Menz.
We only have a few seconds, laft, so real quick.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
If people want to subscribe if they want to submit,
if they want to submit. I'm sure most people know
they could subscribe at Houston Chronicle dot com. But I
bet a lot of conservatives, grassroots people, activists, upcoming candidates
probably don't know they can write for you if they want.
We love to get it and that's it. Yeah, fine,
Evan mins online. I'm Kenny Webster. To the rest of you,
We'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning for more
(41:51):
of what you bought a radio
Speaker 4 (41:52):
For you listening to the Pursuit of Happiness RADI until
the government took Kiss your ass when you listen to
the show.
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