November 3, 2025 • 41 mins
This podcast edition of Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness features author Daniel Turner and Evan Mintz of the Houston Chronicle. ( @KennethRWebster )
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Giganic government sucks. Suit of happiness radio is dolus.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile. A suit of
happiness on your.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Radio to ol just as cheeseburgers living it fries at
the food.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
All right, let's see here.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
A World War One soldier's message in a bottle was
found on an Australian beach, and so somebody opened it up.
They looked at the note and it said tell Joe Biden.
His great grandson says hello, That's what it says. Hi, everybody,
thanks so much for being here today. You guys know
what it is today. It is Monday. It is the
first day. Weirdly enough, it's the first day of Christmas time,
(00:53):
because that's how it is in America. Thanksgiving it is
just pre Christmas for some. I don't know why. I
don't agree with that. I think Christmas should be its
own thing and thanks Giving should be its own thing.
Someone pointed this out to me over the weekend, Daniel Turner,
do you know why we go right to Christmas music
right after Halloween?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Because there's no money to be made in Thanksgiving season.
That's part of it. But there are no Thanksgiving bangers. Oh,
that's true.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
You don't have like a song that just slaps, like
just a song about Thanksgiving where you're like, it's turkey
time and Hollis Queen, let her make a gravy and cranberry.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
Something that sounds like a request to your audience, you know,
compose some Thanksgiving songs and you know, maybe.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
You can get them on the air. I would love that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I would love to, But I sadly, I am too
busy producing multiple talk radio shows, and I would love
to go out and create content for you know, the
Thanksgiving music zeitgeist, if you will. Yeah, Sadly, I lack
the ability to write a catchy jingle.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm not a musician. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I make that music you were listening to as we
were waiting to connect that people often complain about. I
made that with my thousands of dollars worth of synthesize.
And the only reason I do that, Daniel, is because
I can't play trademarked, copywritten music on a live stream
on the Internet or Mark Zuckerberg will take it down.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah, and shame me for that. Well, that's very good
what you put together. I mean, so you do have
musical talent. Yeah, synthesizers.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That's sort of your grandma would not agree, and mine
certainly went in either.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Daniel.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
If you were a New York City voter too, boy,
and you were looking at your options, Curtis Leewa, the
guy in the beret, the guy that touches fannies, or
the Muslim communist who eats rice with.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
His hands, what would you do? Yeah, move, that's what
you do. There's no good options here. I don't like
to vote to lose. And so people are saying, like,
if you vote for Curtis Leewa, you might as well
be electing Mandami. And there's truth to that. But you know, mom, Dommy,
I think he has had this thing wrapped up for a
(02:55):
very long time. And sadly, Cuomo is really the main
reason to blame, and Eric Adams is the main reason
to blame. Right when you get lousy elected officials, they
do a tremendous amount of damage. And when Eric Adams
was running four years ago, people said, watch out for
this guy. He's a big phony. He's going to be
a disaster. Well, this is what disaster leadership gets you.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Because outside of New York City, I think it's fair
to say that some people don't understand why Eric Adams
has hated so much. He got indicted for taking foreign money.
He got a political donation, and some I've heard the
argument before that that's not his fault. He's not checking
where all the money comes from for his campaign. And
then I've heard other people say the reason he's unpopular
(03:38):
is simply because he seemed to align himself with Trump
in the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
No, the reason why he's unpopular is because he inherited
a disaster from eight years of Bill de Blasio and
New York went from the greatness of the Juliani era.
I despise Mike Bloomberg as a human being, but as
a mayor he really was not that bad. He was
a little authoritarian, right. He punished a lot of things
he didn't like. He remade a lot of the city
(04:04):
in his own image. So there's a lot to dislike
about Bloomberg. But in terms of crime, garbage, pick up
the trains running, all those things that people vote for
in local elections, he wasn't that bad. Deblasio undid all
of that and then came along Eric Adams, who was
supposed to return New York to a little bit of greatness,
and he just continued it. He liked to party, he
liked to be out and be seen. He liked to
(04:26):
be at clubs at nighttime. He didn't like to get
to the office sometimes until noon.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Right.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
He wasn't really much of a worker. And I think Mom,
Dommy will be the same. People run for these offices
because they're cool, right, and because they're like an extension
of a great personality. But that's not what the constituents need,
is it.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
There's a what is her name? She's a supermodel named
Kara della Vigne. Do you know how to say this
woman's name. There's this weird video. You just reminded me
of it as you were talking here of Eric Adams
and he's out clubbing in twenty twenty two. Let me
put this up on the screen live streaming, by the way,
for you as you're listening to us on the radio.
He's out clubbing and he's with her and she clearly
(05:06):
looks like she's coked out of her mind. While I
have a better version of this, that's I have a
still shot on the screen. Here's a video of a
supermodel standing next to Eric Adams holding what appears to
be where did I go here? Here? It is a
bottle of alcohol. And if you had to guess, is
she just drunk or is she coked up?
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Daniel Turner, I don't think there's any cocaine in New
York City, this right, So I'm gonna say, especially at
private parties like this with all the VIPs, so no,
you know, And this is this is what the mayor
should not be doing, Not when your crime is through
the roof, not when your garbage is piling up on
the streets. And this is what our elected officials, especially
(05:50):
our Democrat elected officials. But you know, it's kind of
like the old Soviet Kamazars back in the day. You know,
they've they pushed their communism. Yes, the people were starving,
but life was great if you were married to the
mayor of Moscow.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Well, on that note, have you seen any of the
footage of Trump's Halloween party? Liberals are pretty mad about this,
Like they don't understand that mar A Lago is a
private country club where they have live entertainment three hundred
and sixty five days a year. It's not funded by
the government. I feel like there is a little unnecessary
(06:23):
outrage right now over what appears to be an adult
party over the weekend. I mean, I don't see any
kids in the video, but people on the liberal media
is pretty mad about this.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
There's a journalist in Texas.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Who I was previously friendly with named Scott Braddock, who
reports on I think he used to be the morning
show host on this radio station.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Actually is kind of on the left. He used to
be on the right, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Bloomberg, and he is outraged at the fact that at
mar A Lago over the weekend they had this Christmas party.
He thinks it's a Halloween party. He thinks it's bad optics.
What's your take, Daniel tr Why.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Can't the president have a Halloween party at his private club?
And these are you know, this isn't the president and
his family. These are the guests. And this is what
I also dislike about social media and what I dislike
about everyone having a phone and posting things on Instagrams.
Sometimes you need to just have fun and not have
it be documented for the world to share. I'm not
going to get outraged over this. You know, we're not
(07:18):
in the middle of the Vietnam War. The left doesn't
need a lot of reason to be outraged as something
President Trump does. So here's just another example of them
taking the slightest thing and blowing it out of proportion.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I will say I don't see Trump in any of
these videos, So would you say that that makes it
a little different than the Eric Adams, not may maybe
doing coke or not doing code the.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Supermodel video slightly.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
And it's also you know, it is a problem again
when your city is crumbling, and that was the issue
that people had with Mith mayor Adams. And you know,
my family is still all in New York City. I
left a long, long time ago and for this reason
and haven't been back. But again, when you're garbage is
piling up on the streets and your crime is through
the roof and you have all these COVID lockdowns, New
(08:04):
York was was epic when it came to COVID lockdowns.
And you know, we're talking four years ago. We were
still pretty much in the middle of the pandemic. It
was a little odd to see your mayor at some
sort of private club when the rest of us were
told we had to stay indoors or socially distanced et cetera.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yavin Newsom, Yeah, yeah, it's a perfect example. I feel
like the more I watched the photos from Trump's Halloween party,
where you don't even see him in the pictures, it
almost seems like he wasn't there, although I'm told he was.
There's this one part where they have a giant ice
sculpture that they pour alcohol into and it dumps into
a shot glass through some kind of I don't know
(08:43):
how to describe it, some elaborate maze, it says mar
A Lago. Doesn't this just sort of make Trump seem
like a cool guy? I want to go to this party?
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And you know, and again, this is a private club
that he owns and its members only. You're not walking
into this party, you know, like there's no VIP section
that you're just trying to get your name on the list.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
If you're there, it's because you're a member of this club.
How many country clubs had Halloween parties?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Good lord?
Speaker 5 (09:07):
How many Halloween parties, especially since it was a Friday.
You know, I'm sure there were a hell of a
lot worse than this.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, I gotta imagine they probably all do. Hey, Daniel
Turner is here, right, now from Power of the Future
dot com. We will talk about energy. We'll talk about
a lot of stuff coming up. Before we get to that,
I'm gonna do another segment with him. Then Evan Mins
is gonna be here in just a little bit from
the Houston Chronicle, the opinion editor of the Houston Chronicle.
As a matter of fact, some people have been surprised
to see that me and Evan are very friendly. He's
(09:33):
been publishing my articles lately. I like that, So stick around.
We're not going anywhere more. Pursuit of Happiness radio happening
right now.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
You're listening to Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness. How we're
everyone is welcome, even scum sucking maggots swallowing socialist bastards
you used to refer to as mom.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
All right, Problems of the airlines around the country. United
flight to Chicago was delayed after flight attendants got into
a fight. You know, it actually gets worse. They were
fighting over how drunk the captain was. I think that's terrible.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Daniel Turner, I landed at Houston yesterday and I'm dreading
flying out in a couple of days. Because the TSA
line was around four thousand people deep three plus hours
to get through Houston, TSA. So I'm actually it's weighing
heavily on me, whereas air travel never normally does.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
All Right, what have you heard so far about the
government shutdown? I start every day off on weekdays when
I do the morning show, listening to four different newscasts
while I'm getting ready, brushing my teeth, walking my dog.
I listened to ABC News, I listened to Fox News,
I listened to the BBC, and I listened to Al Jazeera.
I bet you could probably tell why left wing, right wing,
domestic friendly foreign unfriendly foreign news like to hear what
(10:52):
they're all going to say, and very often they'll all
cover the same story. Right Israel is a common thing,
especially with Al Jazeera. The government shutdown is a common thing,
and the BBC explains it like this or like over
the weekend. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump spoke to
members of sixty minutes when he said he wasn't even
interested in negotiating. He got into the government's shutdown. And
then you flip over to the Fox newscast and they
(11:14):
have Ted Cruz, who is actually a member of the Senate,
who's actually involved in the negotiations of the government shutdown. Technically,
Trump's not in the Senate, it's not entirely his job,
right and Ted crew says he thinks it'll be over
by Wednesday or late this week. And I just can't
help but notice, if everyone's getting different news, if everybody's
getting a different narrative, if everybody's being told something completely different,
(11:35):
no wonder we all hate each other. Daniel Turner a
power of the future. Tell us all the people you hate,
most of the Jews, the Jews, No good, Lord, I
hate Washington, DC. You know what I think this shutdown.
I put this on my Twitter just a couple hours ago.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
I think this shutdown has shown a huge problem we have,
which is we have way too much concentrated power in Washington,
d C. Now, if you've been there for thirty plus years,
I remember Chuck Schumer got to DC, when Rey got
there in eighty one. That's a long flipping time, right,
when people like Marcy Kaptor from Ohio, these people have
been in DC for forty five fifty years. You want power,
(12:11):
I'm Mitch McConnell, right, you want all the power in DC.
You don't want to lose any of that power to
the States. But for example, I just mentioned TSA lines
at Houston Airport. Houston Airport has the CFO, it has
a CEO, it has its runs as up our organization.
How come they can't get their act together and say,
you know what, we don't need DC to operate this airport.
We're Texas, We're our own institution. We're gonna we're gonna
(12:33):
figure the damn thing out and education, snap benefits. All
of this crap has to get out of DC for
it to actually work.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I don't know if you've ever heard this before, but
here in Houston, Texas, especially with the previous mayor that
we had, not the current guy, the airport, where's where
they went to do corruption. It makes sense if you
think about it. It's a huge facility. There's two big
airports in Houston, but one of them is the size
of a small city. And there's so much much happening there,
so many moving parts, so much money going on. The
(13:03):
previous mayor supposedly had some call him an assistant, other
people call it his boyfriend had a what was it,
something like an intern working there, making one hundred ninety
thousand dollars a year and more than senior staffers of
the Houston Mayor's office. And then there was this deal
where supposedly a lot of the local food vendors were
(13:24):
getting pushed out in an effort to bring in food
vendors that were friends with the former mayors law partner.
And this is just par for the course in Houston, Texas.
And then the latest outrage is that they have a mosque,
a prayer mosque in the airport at bus Shure. So
if you want to get down and do some pray
into a law, they've got a place where you can go.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Daniel Wow.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
And you know that there's a little something ironic about
airports and mosques, so I guess they're kind of just
like tying the two things together, right. It's just you
know that it is a religion that has a lot
of history with air travel, to put it politely, So yeah,
that's that's odd. You know, this is when we look
at how come our kids can't read? You know, how
come the buses don't run on time? How come the
(14:07):
if you can't even run the damn airport. I mean,
the level of corruption we have nationwide is mind boggling.
But to get some of that, at least out of DC.
I have way more hope of Houston cleaning up its
airport than I do of Washington, DC figuring out the
TSA problem.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
All right, let's talk a little bit about what is
going on right now with SNAP and education and healthcare.
It's always interesting when the government shut down happens, because
you see all the little things the government's involved in,
and it forces a conversation on other stuff, like would
we be talking about the TSA or the need for
more TSA agents or air traffic control. Obviously, the other
thing everybody's talking about now is Snap benefits. So suddenly
(14:45):
on social media, I see this big conversation over whether
or not people getting Snap benefits should be able to
decide what food they spend the money on. And the
libertarian argument is, well, if we must have food stamps,
they should be able to buy anything that they want
with it, And I always hear that and think, well, anything, what, marijuana, gummies, anything.
I think if you're getting government aid that way, if
(15:07):
you're getting food stamps, then you're probably also getting free
healthcare Sure, which means I'm paying for both. And if
I have to pay for your healthcare. I'd really like
to see you use your food stamps for fruits, vegetables,
maybe frozen chicken eggs, milk, maybe bone broth so you
can make soup. And I know that's not sexy or fun,
but again, I also have to pay for your healthcare.
I don't want you eating twinkies. And isn't the end
(15:29):
goal to get people off the system? My end goal
is to shut down the system one hundred percent. I'm
way past my sympathy for you know, these are supplemental programs,
and I'm tired of being an atm our. Elected officials
are talking about the eight percent of Americans who are
on SNAP. No one talks about the ninety two percent
of Americans who have to pay for it all the time.
(15:50):
And no one ever comes to my aid and says,
how can we help you, Daniel Turner, you know, farmer
in rural Virginia, What can we do to make your life?
But all it is is like how much more.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Can you give? How many more taxes can you pay
so that we can then dole out your money to
whatever constituency we want. I don't believe forty two million
Americans are on SNAP. I believe forty two million Americans
take advantage of Snap, because I would take advantage of
it if someone's given you free stuff. I saw a
TikTok Kenny and I was almost threw my phone out
the window with this woman was saying that starting on Saturday,
(16:24):
the day they run out, my kids are going to
literally starve.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
We have nothing.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
And I thought, lady, if you get three hundred and
seventy dollars a month for a god knows how many
months nothing in your pantry, you don't have a damn
bag of rice, you don't have a bag of onions.
I have literally my kids will starve tomorrow. I'm sorry.
Your lousy parenting is not an obligation for me to
support you or your kids. So I am not about reform.
(16:50):
You can call me heartless and call me whatever you want.
I want all these programs completely and totally shut down.
I am sick and damn tired of paying for everybody.
Don't cry, sick, don't cry poor, don't cry. I'm in
a bad spot. That is what your church is for,
that is what your community is for. And if people
had more of their own money, then they would support
(17:10):
their church and their community. And help the people who
are in need. Government is done being the ATM.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Daniel, I'm curious. You know you work in the energy industry.
You're very involved.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
There is the government shut down affecting that at all? No,
not at all.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
It's probably, if anything, is probably making it better because
it's the government that gums things up.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
There may be a permitting or a processing going through,
but I'm sure furk is still, you know, functioning. A
lot of those jobs are considered essential, so they aren't
on the furlough schedule, right. Not every employee of the
federal government is is furloughed. The Senators are still getting paid, right.
Your congress people and their staffs are still getting paid.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
They exempted themselves from the shutdown. So I think, if anything,
the fact that we don't have a bunch of idiot
government bureaucrats who are sticking their nose in everyone else's
business means the energy industry probably.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Doing pretty well right now.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
One more question for you before we run out of here.
Evan Minch joining us shortly from the Houston Chronicle. He's
hanging out in our green room right now. I love
talking to Avan. He's a brilliant guy, he'll be in
the studio in just a few minutes. But before we go.
Cop thirty is going on right now or it's starting today,
is that right? So this is the you're not going
the climate summit in Brazil. I was not invited. No,
I do not get invited to a lot of summits
(18:20):
or unless it's like a young Conservative summit.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Nobody ever invites me to anything. Everyone else is going.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
It is the it ticket every year, cup whatever, you know,
And this is the thirtieth year, the thirtieth year of
the end of times because of climate change, and you
know this one, Kenny, Brazil was a good choice because
it's warm right now in Houston, so you know, you're
not realizing that in the northeast or coming from Virginia,
it's already cold.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The leaves are gone, it's you know, freezing.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
I wake up in the morning and I have to
break all the ice on my cattle troughs because that's
how cold it is. So the idea of going to
the land of Busty Buxom latinas drinking Kayperina and doing
the Lombarda for the climb, of course, right, brilliant, brilliant choice.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Brazil, Daniel. If people want to find out more about
you and the work that you do, where can they go?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Powerthefuture dot com And it's always great to be with you,
especially in person.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
This was awesome, my brother from another Hey, to those
of you watching this live stream right now, don't go anywhere.
Evan Minz joind so shortly from the Houston Chronicle. I
just got to run in the other room and go
grab them and bring them in here. It should be
an interesting conversation coming up.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
More Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness A safe space for
those who love liberty and try not to take themselves
too seriously.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Even if your name is Karen Hi, We're back. Turn
that racket down.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
That's going to upset our baby boomer demo. A cafe
in Dubai is selling a one thousand dollars cup of coffee.
What could have possibly made them think this is a
good business idea? Oh yeah, Starbucks. That's right, Starbucks Dubai. Hey,
look who just walked in the very brilliant Evan Mins
is here.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Evan.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
A lot of people turn that Mike play that Mike
ATUREPM out there got me. A lot of people are
surprised that you and I are friends with her. Yeah,
I like you a lot. I think you're a cool guy.
I don't care if you're kind of on the left
and I'm kind of on the right. I find what
you're doing at the Houston Chronicle to be important. You've
given a voice to local conservatives.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I have noticed. And I'm not going to ask you
to denigrate.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Your employer or whatever, but you used to work at
the Chronicle there and there were some great conservative authors
writing for the news outlet, and then you left to
do other things, and then I feel like the quality
you diminished rapidly, and then you came back, and now
I feel like the op ed section at the Chronicle
is interesting again.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
Well, you know, I'll take credit for it, but I
think that something that people got to point out is
that if you don't think that you have a voice
in the Chronicle, folks aren't going to proactively reach out.
So I've been trying really hard to get out there
and get folks like you, get Charles Blaine, and just
make sure people know that if you have something you
want to say about what's going on in Houston, what's
going on in Texas, we want to run it, and
(20:56):
you had that great piece about why you think the
mayors do do in a good job. We ran it
on the front page of the opinion section this Sunday,
and it was just contrary to a lot of the
perspectives we're getting from progressives. We want to have those
different views. People talk about how Houston is this big,
diverse place and that's too far our politics too, and
I want to make sure that the Houston Chronicle is
reflecting all of that.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Let's talk a little bit about something the mayor just
did here. I know this is not your news outlet,
but I just happened to have this article handy.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
It wasn't the reason why I pulled it up.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
But Houston City Council pushing through sixteen million dollar homeless hub.
This is kind of a great example of the left
wanted one thing, the right wanted something else, and so
we got together, we.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Negotiate it, and both sides are disappointed. Yeah, that's how
it goes.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
But the right wanted something to do something about homeless people.
The left wanted less focus on the immigrants. Isn't this
technically a former border facility?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Isn't that what this was?
Speaker 6 (21:51):
It is you know, and I think before that is
a Star of Hope facility. So a lot of folks
are frustrated that what they're calling this homeless super hub
is opening in their neighborhood. But if you go there, well,
first of all, this was here before a lot of
the housing opened up, so it's not as if this
was really a big surprise. And if you walk around it,
we had one of our writers do a great piece
on it, you'll notice that it really doesn't interact with
(22:13):
where people are. You know, the homes are on one side,
the opening is on another side. You kind of see
the side of a building. And also, you know, people
are concerned. They don't want a bunch of folks who
are homeless hanging around their homes. But this sort of place,
this is supposed to be, not a spot where people kind
of sit and wait. It is a spot where you
take folks in and then you send them on their
(22:34):
way to the place they need to go to, whether
it's treatment, whether it's housing, whatever it is. And we
thought the mayor did a pretty good job setting all
this up. There are questions about whether they'll get enough
funding to do it, because you lose a lot of
the arp of dollars we're getting during COVID. There are
changes in how the federal government's funding it. You got
to get money from the philanthropic sector. It's a lot
(22:54):
of charitable work. But like the mayor said, he was
gonna tackle this, and he did. And we don't always
agree with the mayor on everything, but you did a
good job here. Yeah, to his point, if we live
in a city where there's no public camping, right, and
you're a homeless person and the police pick you up,
they have to take you somewhere. Yeah, if they take
everybody to jail, then what happens. Eventually they get released
(23:14):
from jail, they're back on the street exactly. It doesn't
help anyone. And it's really expensive too. Jail is a
lot more expensive than providing like a homeless shelter.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, and I will say, I begrudgingly admit that that's true.
This the budget right now, the cost of this thing
is sixteen million dollars. The annual budget last year in Houston,
I think was seven billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
We have a deficit of something like five hundred million.
So even though sixteen million sounds like a lot, it's
still cheaper than it would be to put these people
in jail.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Got to put them somewhere right.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I was on the phone the other day with Ray Hunt,
the Houston Police Union president executive director. I think he's
a good guy too, And I was talking about this
with him, specifically homeless people.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
What do we do with homeless people?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I'd asked him, how many of the homeless people
do you talk to that are just on the street,
they don't have anywhere else to go, And how many
of them are there because they want to be there
because they want.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
To do drugs? And he said, surprisingly, it's a larger number.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Obviously the drug people are there and they don't want
to be helped out, And what do you do about that?
And he says, but weirdly enough, we do find people
that came to Houston pretty regularly for work, lost their job,
didn't have any way to get back to Nashville or
Cleveland or whatever. He had told me that hours earlier
they met a guy he didn't have a way to
get out of town. They put them, they bought them
a bus ticket, and they sent them away. I will
(24:24):
tell you I don't hate a police department that does that.
I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 6 (24:28):
No, And I find that when I talk to police officers,
especially police leadership, they're really clear eyed about what their
job is. And often they'll say like, we're not trained
to do the mental health response, we're not trained to
do the social work. But we're the folks who are
there on the ground and we have the guns, so
often we are the front lines of this. But they
get real nuanced views about the right way to respond
(24:48):
to all this. They don't want to just lock everyone up.
They want to get drug treatment to the people who
need it. They want to get social services to the
people who need it. And yeah, there's going to be
a small cohort of folks where after you provide all
those carots of trying to help folks, you need the
stick at the end. And I've been in rooms with
a lot of people who work in homeless services, people
who are working in law enforcement, and they'll get in
(25:10):
arguments about this, and what the police say is like,
we're there to help you. But if you don't have
that stick at the end of it, you've got too
many folks who are just going to be comfortable on
the street.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
All right, let's talk about local politics for a minute. Obviously,
conservatives and liberals don't agree on much, but lately, one
thing they seem to agree on is they don't like
Lena Hidalgo.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Not your part.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
You have a great way of explaining as a separation
between church and state, the editorial opinion section and the
regular section of the chronicle. You guys ran a story
recently about Lena Hidalgo's chat GPT searches. A lot of
people don't realize you could do this. There's Foyer Request
Freedom of Information Act. You can ask to look at
an elected officials searches either in Google or in chat
(25:52):
GPT or crock or whatever. She was on her way
to Paris, and they started asking chat GPT the silliest
questions things you would have I assumed they would have
already had the answers to before they booked the trip,
like what can Paris learn from Houston? And does Paris
have natural disasters? And think big chat GPT. And it
was so funny that when I wrote this on social media,
(26:14):
a lot of people did not believe that it was
the Houston Chronicle that had ran the story. They were like,
don't you mean it was urban reform or the Texan
Dot News or you guys ran that story. To your credit,
the Chronicle ran the story, not some right wing news outlet.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
You know, the Chronicle wants to hold local officials accountable,
and lean at Dog is a local official, and you know,
I've talked to the newsroom. They're trying to get this
stuff from as many elected officials, as many politicians as
they can. So you know, maybe we'll get to see
the mayor soon, who knows. But it was really interesting
to see how Idalgo and her staff were using chat GBT.
So I'm gonna say, don't use AI. It's good for research,
(26:49):
you know, maybe it's good for ideas. I use it
a lot to help out with like SEO and headlines,
but just they're asking very odd questions and very kind
of big picture stuff, where like you said, you thought
they would have had this figured out already. Yeah, all right,
let's talk about elections right now.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
We have tomorrow's election day.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I was election day, so a lot of our listeners,
hopefully of early voted, but.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
If you haven't yet. I like Caroline Ward. I think
she's great.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
We have been talking about a lot of these props
online lately, and don Hooper of the Houston Conservative for
I'm a controversial man, but a guy who's always happy
to have conversations about stuff like this. Right posted a
voter guide online for people, and it talks about what
the conservative, what his conservative allies are voting for, what
the Chronicle endorsed, and what two libertarian organizations endorsed, the
(27:37):
Texas Policy Research Institute and the Republican Liberty Liberty Caucus,
of which I happen to be a pretty big supporter.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
You and the Conservatives.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
The Houston Chronicle and the Conservatives agreed on almost nothing
except for one thing, PROPS sixteen clarifying citizenship voting. And
he put on that you were for it, but reluctantly yes,
why reluctantly?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Why were you for it?
Speaker 6 (27:57):
And why reluctantly, Well, we're worried that reluctantly this isn't necessary.
Already you have to be a citizen to vote in Texas,
non citizens can't vote. This is largely symbolic, but I
think sometimes people get very worked up about issues of
immigration and they care about it deeply, passionately. And if
you're just willing to give someone something and says okay,
(28:18):
if you're super duper quadruple worried about non citizens voting
and you want it in the Constitution of Texas again,
then we can give this to you and let some
steam out of the room, and that lets you focus
more on sort of the other issues that I think
are more pressing. And also the hope is that in
the next legislative session we won't have another push for
(28:41):
something else to restrict people's voting rights. In an attempt
to make sure that the law is enforced properly, can
say we already did this, Let's move on to the
next thing.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I'm sure you and I would probably not agree on
every hiccup recently that happened in local elections, but you
and I would probably both agree that every time the
right wins an election, the left call shenanigans, and every
time the left wins an election, the right calls shenanigans.
I don't remember it being like that when I was
a kid. I don't remember it being like that when
I was twenty in my twenties. I feel like that's
a thing that really came along just in the last
(29:11):
decade or so.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
I think there's always been those arguments back and forth
but I feel like that it's definitely gotten worse recently.
I mean you can point to January sixth, you can
point to people just pulling out their hair after Trump's
election in twenty sixteen, Russia Gate or stuff like that, right, Yeah,
And so the hope that you want to get to.
I remember hearing a metaphor that sometimes elections, when you
(29:35):
know you have a two party system, it's kind of
like zipper merging. You're getting from like six ten to
fifty nine. I go, then you go, then I go,
and you go. And if someone's trying to like zoom
up there and jam their way in, like of course,
you're gonna get pissed off. And then if someone does that,
was like, well I want to do that next, Like, no,
you've kind of understand that you're not gonna win them all,
and it's gonna be okay, you're gonna come back in
(29:56):
the mid turn. You're gonna come back in the general election.
What I worry about seeing stuff like jerrymandering, where basically
the parties, the politicians get to pick their voters. And
you had this process for a while where every party
would jerry mander, you know, they would do their own thing.
But before we had computers, he kind of had a
guess at it. And as we got really really good
(30:18):
at it, kind of home by home, you could technically
work your way into these like perfectly winnable positions and
ways you couldn't before. So you started to get states
where you had direct referenda citizens coming forward and saying, no,
we're going to put in place these non partisan redistricting
committees to get the politicians out of it. Some were
(30:38):
better than others. Okay, but we got to this point
now where everyone said where people couldn't work together on that.
You saw some blue states doing this, Red states weren't
really doing it. And then so when Texas went in
with this mid decade redistricting, and now you're going to
have California undo their fair district to get a more
(31:01):
partisan one, and everyone's basically punching each other in the face.
The people get screwed over are the Republicans in California
and the Democrats in Texas. And a certain point you
just want everyone to say, all right, can we just
come up with the truce? Can we just like strike
a deal? It drives me nuts, Okay, Well, on the
note of Jerrymanders.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
I always love using Chicago and Houston in comparison because
I'm from Chicago and I live in Houston. Now, one
of these states obviously controlled by Democrats, the other state
obviously controlled by Republicans, and I feel like, I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Know who's better at it.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Let me see if I could pull up the old
map here of Illinois or the current one. There's this
congressional district in Illinois in Chicago that is so comical.
Here it's District Yeah, we're looking at it on a screen.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Here.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
District four kind of starts in the north part of
downtown in Chicago at a rich white area, the Gold
Coast neighborhood, kind of wicker Park. Here goes all the
way out west to one of the worst neighborhoods in
the city. Then there's a single street where it goes
south comes back. This is the thinnest little congressional district
in the world. Right, So Republicans could look at that
(32:07):
and go, ah, look what the Democrats do. And then
you come over here to Houston and look at this map. Right,
Sheila Jackson, Jackson Lee and Silvester Turner's District eighteen has
this sort of hook. We're in the middle, so it's
a black and white liberal district, and then the middle
of it there's a Hispanic one. You go north, you're
in District eighteen. You go south, you're in District eighteen.
(32:28):
Obviously this is about to change, or it's already changed,
or it's changing out. It's about to change. Yeah, right, exactly.
But here's the new map on the right. Not much better.
No jerry mandering.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
What do we do about that? Is that something the
federal government needs to do.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
There's this period of time where people tried to sue
over it, and there's like a ten year period when
the Supreme Court said, oh, no, this violates certain civil liberties,
certain civil rights. You're not allowed to do this kind
of partisan jerry mandering if it's too extreme. But then
you had change of membership on the Court and basically
Scalia comes down and says, this is dumb, but it's
non just dishable, like we can't just make up what
(33:04):
a fair district looks like. Congress needs to pass a
law on it. And so we're kind of waiting for
Congress to pass a law and we're in this weird
moment where you know, since nineteen sixty five. You've had
the Voting Rights Act, which laid out how you can
draw these districts, and a lot of it was focused
on trying to get at real racism that existed in
the past. But it keeps on getting wheedled away at.
(33:29):
We've lost pre clearance. It used to be had to
get approval if you were in this place that had
history of racism before he made any changes. That's gone.
It looks like we might lose other parts of it too.
Is there an opportunity to say, we had this Voting
Rights Act for the twentieth century, those focused on racism,
we need a Voting Rights Act for the twenty first
century that's focused on partisanship and just gets rid of
(33:50):
all this partisan jerrymandering and really empowers voters no matter
who you are, where you are, all right, I.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Am live in studio right now from Evan Menz. He
is a lie, actual character from the Houston Chronicle, a
guy who is actually putting conservatives in the Houston Chronicle
op ed right now. People the opad section people are
shocked at that. I want to talk to him a
little bit about that in the next break. And since
we went along on this segment. I want to do
a bonus round with you when we get off the air,
(34:16):
for just our listeners on the internet. Viewers on the
internet talk about Nigeria. Oh yeah, yeah, stick around for that.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
If I were you, I'd stay put Kenny, You'll be
right back with more of what you came for.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Far jokes, all right, very exciting.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Dictionary dot com has named six seven the word of
the year.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I will use it in a sentence.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
When the Dodgers won the World Series, the number of
people outside of LA who were happy about it was
six seven.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I didn't say it was gonna be genius, did I ever?
In Vince it was a good joke. I liked.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
It's better than all the other six seven lines I
hear from my kids. You're a dad, Yeah, tell me
about that, Uh, well, about the a dead or about
six seven. My kids are seven and four. And then
one day my daughter's like making some line and she's
saying six seven eleven. You know, my dad's name is Evan,
And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I
know I've read like news coverage of six seven by
feign ignorance. I'm like, that's interesting. Where did you hear this?
(35:17):
Where is this from? What is this coming from?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Do you get the origin?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
At this point I refuse to learn about it. It's
so simple. First you have to understand what meme culture is,
which I'm sure you do. You're very much on the internet.
Sometimes people want bad news, Brian or whatever, things that
have been around for a while. People like that, Right,
it's stupid, it's pointless. It's There was a rapper in
Chicago named mc scrolla, and he lived on as you know,
the numbers on the south side of the city, kind
(35:42):
of like the heights are. The streets are numbered. So
on the south side sixty seventh Street. The further south
you go, the worst it is. You get to the
one hundreds. It's called the Wild one hundreds. So he's
from sixty seventh Street. Six seven six, that's where it
comes from. So he's in a rap song called six
seven and this white kid sometime later was a fan
of the song. Is at a high school basketball game.
(36:03):
His team either misses a point or scores a point,
I don't know. Camera scams over to him and he
goes six seven with his hands like this, like they're
basketball and some people thought because he was a goofy
looking white kid, yeah, they would mamathize, they would make
fun of him. Yeah, I can relate to. Weirdly enough,
the kid who was getting made fun of has embraced this.
He's launched an Instagram account that now has hundreds of
(36:23):
thousands of followers. He's become a celebrity because some people
love or hate him. And as semi public figures, you
kind of me and you, obviously you kind of have
to respect the game, right your social media account, speaking
as a public figure, you don't even put your name
on it.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
It just says Evan, Why Evan, I don't know. That's
what I was. That was my aim account when I
was twelve. Oh my god, did we talk about that?
And I haven't changed it since. And like I started
this Twitter account like when when Twitter first launched, and
you know, if you change it, like I don't know.
I just never went through to do it. So this
is just who I am. That's a picture of my
(36:59):
icon is a picture my old roommate did of me
and you.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I was wondering if one of your kids drew that.
Speaker 6 (37:04):
No, that's my old roommate Dan, who now works at
a Houstonian magazine.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Refresh my memory? What year were you born? I was
born nineteen eighty six. Okay, so you're just a little.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Younger than me.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, uh millennial, yeah, older millennial oldermo was same, right,
eighty two for me, aol instant messenger was a big
part of my youth, right, and I can remember keeping
it around even years after people stopped using it.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
Oh yeah, well it was. It was the best. It
was super easy, all right. So you and you do
not have the blue check mark?
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Did you know you could be getting paid for people
like flaming your posts.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
I don't need that incentive, like to post bats off.
I used to have a check mark before before it
got sold, and then they took everyone's check marks away.
And I remember, you know, they are these people who
did not like what I wrote and what I did
when I was at Rice University for the student newspaper,
and the moment I got it, a bunch of people
just got really mad. I can't believe they gave one
to Evan and you know, kind of smiled at that
(37:58):
and then I lost it. And you know, tears in
the rain, dust in the wind, sunrise, sunset.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I love that you and I do have something else
in common besides the fact that you're on the left
and I'm the right, which is a difference. Obviously, we
are both people who openly criticize and yet often advocate
for Houston. Yes, people think my criticism of Houston means
I don't like living here. I love living in Houston.
I am Houston's the coolest city in the world. We've
got great food and music. I don't even mind the weather.
(38:24):
Incredibly affordable. Yeah, I see you advocating for Houston all
the time on the internet. Would you agree that our
lenient zoning policies, very libertarians, are part of the reason
why it's so affordable to living.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
Absolutely, we make it easy to build housing, easy to
build anything. I just wish we don't have zoning per se.
But we have a whole bunch of other really weird
regulations about like how much parking have provide and setback requirements,
and all these are kind of made accidentally in the
nineteen eighties because like one person had a problem in
one neighborhood, and so then the city wrote a law
(38:58):
that applies to everyone. And I've written and you know,
with Charles Blaine about this that the city just needs
to cut that red tape get rid of it. I
trust the developers to build the amount of parking they
feel like they need. I trust developers to put the
UH their front scape where it needs to go in
relation to this UH to the streets. The city doesn't
need to micromanage every single little lot.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
All right, let's compare here. What is your most conservative opinion, Evan?
Is it that, oh my most concern? I mean, I
don't know, because it depends, like you're talking about like conservative,
like social conservative, economic conservative, like where we go. I think,
like fundamentally, I'm just like pretty like pro dad on
a lot of stuff. I think people should eventually just
like get like, don't be weird, get married, have kids
(39:42):
like that.
Speaker 6 (39:43):
I am very like established around that. And I see
lots of men who are like, you know, really focusing
on things where they're.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Uh, in my mind, being very vain. They're just like, I.
Speaker 6 (39:55):
Gotta work out, I gotta look good, I gotta have
like the best watch, and I'm like, doe it over yourself, man,
like so quit Like if I saw a guy who
all he did was like work out and talk about
how he didn't like women. I'd be like, so, like
you're gay, Like that's cool. I guess like, no, just
like got you gotta find a woman, be nice to her, like,
get married, have kids.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
We need you to do this. I mean, I feel
a little targeted here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
No, I know you know I love women personally, but
I am divorced and I don't have anything to do
with my free time, so I work out at I was.
I will tell you when I was not married, I
was not in good shape. Yeah, getting divorced will make
you lose weight real quick. But I agree with everything
you just said. I endorse everything you just said. Families
are fantastic.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
I will say, like Charlie kirk rip I did not
agree with him on a whole lot, but he gave
this interview at the end of his life where he
said that, you know, one of the challenges he sees
is just teaching like young men on the right, like
you should just kind of like settle down and get married.
And that's a good thing for you to do. And
that's something where I'm in absolute agreement.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I agree with that as well.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Evan, you know what we went along on this Can
you hang and do some bonus with us the air.
We're gonna do some bonus content right now for the
after show. Stick around. To those of you watching us
live streaming, you don't have to go anywhere. To those
you listening on the radio, subscribe to the podcast Kenny
Webster's Pursuit of Happiness the Walton and Johnson Show in
the morning. We have a smartphone app you can get
that allows you to listen to both shows and do
(41:16):
some great shopping at I LOVEWJ dot com.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss your ass when you listen to
this show.
The Giganic government sucks. Suit of happiness radio is dolus.
Liberty and freedom will make you smile. A suit of
happiness on your.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Radio to ol just as cheeseburgers living it fries at
the food.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
All right, let's see here.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
A World War One soldier's message in a bottle was
found on an Australian beach, and so somebody opened it up.
They looked at the note and it said tell Joe Biden.
His great grandson says hello, That's what it says. Hi, everybody,
thanks so much for being here today. You guys know
what it is today. It is Monday. It is the
first day. Weirdly enough, it's the first day of Christmas time,
(00:53):
because that's how it is in America. Thanksgiving it is
just pre Christmas for some. I don't know why. I
don't agree with that. I think Christmas should be its
own thing and thanks Giving should be its own thing.
Someone pointed this out to me over the weekend, Daniel Turner,
do you know why we go right to Christmas music
right after Halloween?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Because there's no money to be made in Thanksgiving season.
That's part of it. But there are no Thanksgiving bangers. Oh,
that's true.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
You don't have like a song that just slaps, like
just a song about Thanksgiving where you're like, it's turkey
time and Hollis Queen, let her make a gravy and cranberry.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
Something that sounds like a request to your audience, you know,
compose some Thanksgiving songs and you know, maybe.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
You can get them on the air. I would love that.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I would love to, But I sadly, I am too
busy producing multiple talk radio shows, and I would love
to go out and create content for you know, the
Thanksgiving music zeitgeist, if you will. Yeah, Sadly, I lack
the ability to write a catchy jingle.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm not a musician. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I make that music you were listening to as we
were waiting to connect that people often complain about. I
made that with my thousands of dollars worth of synthesize.
And the only reason I do that, Daniel, is because
I can't play trademarked, copywritten music on a live stream
on the Internet or Mark Zuckerberg will take it down.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah, and shame me for that. Well, that's very good
what you put together. I mean, so you do have
musical talent. Yeah, synthesizers.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That's sort of your grandma would not agree, and mine
certainly went in either.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Daniel.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
If you were a New York City voter too, boy,
and you were looking at your options, Curtis Leewa, the
guy in the beret, the guy that touches fannies, or
the Muslim communist who eats rice with.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
His hands, what would you do? Yeah, move, that's what
you do. There's no good options here. I don't like
to vote to lose. And so people are saying, like,
if you vote for Curtis Leewa, you might as well
be electing Mandami. And there's truth to that. But you know, mom, Dommy,
I think he has had this thing wrapped up for a
(02:55):
very long time. And sadly, Cuomo is really the main
reason to blame, and Eric Adams is the main reason
to blame. Right when you get lousy elected officials, they
do a tremendous amount of damage. And when Eric Adams
was running four years ago, people said, watch out for
this guy. He's a big phony. He's going to be
a disaster. Well, this is what disaster leadership gets you.
Let's talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Because outside of New York City, I think it's fair
to say that some people don't understand why Eric Adams
has hated so much. He got indicted for taking foreign money.
He got a political donation, and some I've heard the
argument before that that's not his fault. He's not checking
where all the money comes from for his campaign. And
then I've heard other people say the reason he's unpopular
(03:38):
is simply because he seemed to align himself with Trump
in the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
No, the reason why he's unpopular is because he inherited
a disaster from eight years of Bill de Blasio and
New York went from the greatness of the Juliani era.
I despise Mike Bloomberg as a human being, but as
a mayor he really was not that bad. He was
a little authoritarian, right. He punished a lot of things
he didn't like. He remade a lot of the city
(04:04):
in his own image. So there's a lot to dislike
about Bloomberg. But in terms of crime, garbage, pick up
the trains running, all those things that people vote for
in local elections, he wasn't that bad. Deblasio undid all
of that and then came along Eric Adams, who was
supposed to return New York to a little bit of greatness,
and he just continued it. He liked to party, he
liked to be out and be seen. He liked to
(04:26):
be at clubs at nighttime. He didn't like to get
to the office sometimes until noon.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Right.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
He wasn't really much of a worker. And I think Mom,
Dommy will be the same. People run for these offices
because they're cool, right, and because they're like an extension
of a great personality. But that's not what the constituents need,
is it.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
There's a what is her name? She's a supermodel named
Kara della Vigne. Do you know how to say this
woman's name. There's this weird video. You just reminded me
of it as you were talking here of Eric Adams
and he's out clubbing in twenty twenty two. Let me
put this up on the screen live streaming, by the way,
for you as you're listening to us on the radio.
He's out clubbing and he's with her and she clearly
(05:06):
looks like she's coked out of her mind. While I
have a better version of this, that's I have a
still shot on the screen. Here's a video of a
supermodel standing next to Eric Adams holding what appears to
be where did I go here? Here? It is a
bottle of alcohol. And if you had to guess, is
she just drunk or is she coked up?
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Daniel Turner, I don't think there's any cocaine in New
York City, this right, So I'm gonna say, especially at
private parties like this with all the VIPs, so no,
you know, And this is this is what the mayor
should not be doing, Not when your crime is through
the roof, not when your garbage is piling up on
the streets. And this is what our elected officials, especially
(05:50):
our Democrat elected officials. But you know, it's kind of
like the old Soviet Kamazars back in the day. You know,
they've they pushed their communism. Yes, the people were starving,
but life was great if you were married to the
mayor of Moscow.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Well, on that note, have you seen any of the
footage of Trump's Halloween party? Liberals are pretty mad about this,
Like they don't understand that mar A Lago is a
private country club where they have live entertainment three hundred
and sixty five days a year. It's not funded by
the government. I feel like there is a little unnecessary
(06:23):
outrage right now over what appears to be an adult
party over the weekend. I mean, I don't see any
kids in the video, but people on the liberal media
is pretty mad about this.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
There's a journalist in Texas.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Who I was previously friendly with named Scott Braddock, who
reports on I think he used to be the morning
show host on this radio station.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Actually is kind of on the left. He used to
be on the right, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Bloomberg, and he is outraged at the fact that at
mar A Lago over the weekend they had this Christmas party.
He thinks it's a Halloween party. He thinks it's bad optics.
What's your take, Daniel tr Why.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Can't the president have a Halloween party at his private club?
And these are you know, this isn't the president and
his family. These are the guests. And this is what
I also dislike about social media and what I dislike
about everyone having a phone and posting things on Instagrams.
Sometimes you need to just have fun and not have
it be documented for the world to share. I'm not
going to get outraged over this. You know, we're not
(07:18):
in the middle of the Vietnam War. The left doesn't
need a lot of reason to be outraged as something
President Trump does. So here's just another example of them
taking the slightest thing and blowing it out of proportion.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I will say I don't see Trump in any of
these videos, So would you say that that makes it
a little different than the Eric Adams, not may maybe
doing coke or not doing code the.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Supermodel video slightly.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
And it's also you know, it is a problem again
when your city is crumbling, and that was the issue
that people had with Mith mayor Adams. And you know,
my family is still all in New York City. I
left a long, long time ago and for this reason
and haven't been back. But again, when you're garbage is
piling up on the streets and your crime is through
the roof and you have all these COVID lockdowns, New
(08:04):
York was was epic when it came to COVID lockdowns.
And you know, we're talking four years ago. We were
still pretty much in the middle of the pandemic. It
was a little odd to see your mayor at some
sort of private club when the rest of us were
told we had to stay indoors or socially distanced et cetera.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yavin Newsom, Yeah, yeah, it's a perfect example. I feel
like the more I watched the photos from Trump's Halloween party,
where you don't even see him in the pictures, it
almost seems like he wasn't there, although I'm told he was.
There's this one part where they have a giant ice
sculpture that they pour alcohol into and it dumps into
a shot glass through some kind of I don't know
(08:43):
how to describe it, some elaborate maze, it says mar
A Lago. Doesn't this just sort of make Trump seem
like a cool guy? I want to go to this party?
Speaker 6 (08:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And you know, and again, this is a private club
that he owns and its members only. You're not walking
into this party, you know, like there's no VIP section
that you're just trying to get your name on the list.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
If you're there, it's because you're a member of this club.
How many country clubs had Halloween parties?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Good lord?
Speaker 5 (09:07):
How many Halloween parties, especially since it was a Friday.
You know, I'm sure there were a hell of a
lot worse than this.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Yeah, I gotta imagine they probably all do. Hey, Daniel
Turner is here, right, now from Power of the Future
dot com. We will talk about energy. We'll talk about
a lot of stuff coming up. Before we get to that,
I'm gonna do another segment with him. Then Evan Mins
is gonna be here in just a little bit from
the Houston Chronicle, the opinion editor of the Houston Chronicle.
As a matter of fact, some people have been surprised
to see that me and Evan are very friendly. He's
(09:33):
been publishing my articles lately. I like that, So stick around.
We're not going anywhere more. Pursuit of Happiness radio happening
right now.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
You're listening to Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness. How we're
everyone is welcome, even scum sucking maggots swallowing socialist bastards
you used to refer to as mom.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
All right, Problems of the airlines around the country. United
flight to Chicago was delayed after flight attendants got into
a fight. You know, it actually gets worse. They were
fighting over how drunk the captain was. I think that's terrible.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Daniel Turner, I landed at Houston yesterday and I'm dreading
flying out in a couple of days. Because the TSA
line was around four thousand people deep three plus hours
to get through Houston, TSA. So I'm actually it's weighing
heavily on me, whereas air travel never normally does.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
All Right, what have you heard so far about the
government shutdown? I start every day off on weekdays when
I do the morning show, listening to four different newscasts
while I'm getting ready, brushing my teeth, walking my dog.
I listened to ABC News, I listened to Fox News,
I listened to the BBC, and I listened to Al Jazeera.
I bet you could probably tell why left wing, right wing,
domestic friendly foreign unfriendly foreign news like to hear what
(10:52):
they're all going to say, and very often they'll all
cover the same story. Right Israel is a common thing,
especially with Al Jazeera. The government shutdown is a common thing,
and the BBC explains it like this or like over
the weekend. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump spoke to
members of sixty minutes when he said he wasn't even
interested in negotiating. He got into the government's shutdown. And
then you flip over to the Fox newscast and they
(11:14):
have Ted Cruz, who is actually a member of the Senate,
who's actually involved in the negotiations of the government shutdown. Technically,
Trump's not in the Senate, it's not entirely his job,
right and Ted crew says he thinks it'll be over
by Wednesday or late this week. And I just can't
help but notice, if everyone's getting different news, if everybody's
getting a different narrative, if everybody's being told something completely different,
(11:35):
no wonder we all hate each other. Daniel Turner a
power of the future. Tell us all the people you hate,
most of the Jews, the Jews, No good, Lord, I
hate Washington, DC. You know what I think this shutdown.
I put this on my Twitter just a couple hours ago.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
I think this shutdown has shown a huge problem we have,
which is we have way too much concentrated power in Washington,
d C. Now, if you've been there for thirty plus years,
I remember Chuck Schumer got to DC, when Rey got
there in eighty one. That's a long flipping time, right,
when people like Marcy Kaptor from Ohio, these people have
been in DC for forty five fifty years. You want power,
(12:11):
I'm Mitch McConnell, right, you want all the power in DC.
You don't want to lose any of that power to
the States. But for example, I just mentioned TSA lines
at Houston Airport. Houston Airport has the CFO, it has
a CEO, it has its runs as up our organization.
How come they can't get their act together and say,
you know what, we don't need DC to operate this airport.
We're Texas, We're our own institution. We're gonna we're gonna
(12:33):
figure the damn thing out and education, snap benefits. All
of this crap has to get out of DC for
it to actually work.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I don't know if you've ever heard this before, but
here in Houston, Texas, especially with the previous mayor that
we had, not the current guy, the airport, where's where
they went to do corruption. It makes sense if you
think about it. It's a huge facility. There's two big
airports in Houston, but one of them is the size
of a small city. And there's so much much happening there,
so many moving parts, so much money going on. The
(13:03):
previous mayor supposedly had some call him an assistant, other
people call it his boyfriend had a what was it,
something like an intern working there, making one hundred ninety
thousand dollars a year and more than senior staffers of
the Houston Mayor's office. And then there was this deal
where supposedly a lot of the local food vendors were
(13:24):
getting pushed out in an effort to bring in food
vendors that were friends with the former mayors law partner.
And this is just par for the course in Houston, Texas.
And then the latest outrage is that they have a mosque,
a prayer mosque in the airport at bus Shure. So
if you want to get down and do some pray
into a law, they've got a place where you can go.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Daniel Wow.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
And you know that there's a little something ironic about
airports and mosques, so I guess they're kind of just
like tying the two things together, right. It's just you
know that it is a religion that has a lot
of history with air travel, to put it politely, So yeah,
that's that's odd. You know, this is when we look
at how come our kids can't read? You know, how
come the buses don't run on time? How come the
(14:07):
if you can't even run the damn airport. I mean,
the level of corruption we have nationwide is mind boggling.
But to get some of that, at least out of DC.
I have way more hope of Houston cleaning up its
airport than I do of Washington, DC figuring out the
TSA problem.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
All right, let's talk a little bit about what is
going on right now with SNAP and education and healthcare.
It's always interesting when the government shut down happens, because
you see all the little things the government's involved in,
and it forces a conversation on other stuff, like would
we be talking about the TSA or the need for
more TSA agents or air traffic control. Obviously, the other
thing everybody's talking about now is Snap benefits. So suddenly
(14:45):
on social media, I see this big conversation over whether
or not people getting Snap benefits should be able to
decide what food they spend the money on. And the
libertarian argument is, well, if we must have food stamps,
they should be able to buy anything that they want
with it, And I always hear that and think, well, anything, what, marijuana, gummies, anything.
I think if you're getting government aid that way, if
(15:07):
you're getting food stamps, then you're probably also getting free
healthcare Sure, which means I'm paying for both. And if
I have to pay for your healthcare. I'd really like
to see you use your food stamps for fruits, vegetables,
maybe frozen chicken eggs, milk, maybe bone broth so you
can make soup. And I know that's not sexy or fun,
but again, I also have to pay for your healthcare.
I don't want you eating twinkies. And isn't the end
(15:29):
goal to get people off the system? My end goal
is to shut down the system one hundred percent. I'm
way past my sympathy for you know, these are supplemental programs,
and I'm tired of being an atm our. Elected officials
are talking about the eight percent of Americans who are
on SNAP. No one talks about the ninety two percent
of Americans who have to pay for it all the time.
(15:50):
And no one ever comes to my aid and says,
how can we help you, Daniel Turner, you know, farmer
in rural Virginia, What can we do to make your life?
But all it is is like how much more.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Can you give? How many more taxes can you pay
so that we can then dole out your money to
whatever constituency we want. I don't believe forty two million
Americans are on SNAP. I believe forty two million Americans
take advantage of Snap, because I would take advantage of
it if someone's given you free stuff. I saw a
TikTok Kenny and I was almost threw my phone out
the window with this woman was saying that starting on Saturday,
(16:24):
the day they run out, my kids are going to
literally starve.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
We have nothing.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
And I thought, lady, if you get three hundred and
seventy dollars a month for a god knows how many
months nothing in your pantry, you don't have a damn
bag of rice, you don't have a bag of onions.
I have literally my kids will starve tomorrow. I'm sorry.
Your lousy parenting is not an obligation for me to
support you or your kids. So I am not about reform.
(16:50):
You can call me heartless and call me whatever you want.
I want all these programs completely and totally shut down.
I am sick and damn tired of paying for everybody.
Don't cry, sick, don't cry poor, don't cry. I'm in
a bad spot. That is what your church is for,
that is what your community is for. And if people
had more of their own money, then they would support
(17:10):
their church and their community. And help the people who
are in need. Government is done being the ATM.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Daniel, I'm curious. You know you work in the energy industry.
You're very involved.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
There is the government shut down affecting that at all? No,
not at all.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
It's probably, if anything, is probably making it better because
it's the government that gums things up.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
There may be a permitting or a processing going through,
but I'm sure furk is still, you know, functioning. A
lot of those jobs are considered essential, so they aren't
on the furlough schedule, right. Not every employee of the
federal government is is furloughed. The Senators are still getting paid, right.
Your congress people and their staffs are still getting paid.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
They exempted themselves from the shutdown. So I think, if anything,
the fact that we don't have a bunch of idiot
government bureaucrats who are sticking their nose in everyone else's
business means the energy industry probably.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Doing pretty well right now.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
One more question for you before we run out of here.
Evan Minch joining us shortly from the Houston Chronicle. He's
hanging out in our green room right now. I love
talking to Avan. He's a brilliant guy, he'll be in
the studio in just a few minutes. But before we go.
Cop thirty is going on right now or it's starting today,
is that right? So this is the you're not going
the climate summit in Brazil. I was not invited. No,
I do not get invited to a lot of summits
(18:20):
or unless it's like a young Conservative summit.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Nobody ever invites me to anything. Everyone else is going.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
It is the it ticket every year, cup whatever, you know,
And this is the thirtieth year, the thirtieth year of
the end of times because of climate change, and you
know this one, Kenny, Brazil was a good choice because
it's warm right now in Houston, so you know, you're
not realizing that in the northeast or coming from Virginia,
it's already cold.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
The leaves are gone, it's you know, freezing.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
I wake up in the morning and I have to
break all the ice on my cattle troughs because that's
how cold it is. So the idea of going to
the land of Busty Buxom latinas drinking Kayperina and doing
the Lombarda for the climb, of course, right, brilliant, brilliant choice.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Brazil, Daniel. If people want to find out more about
you and the work that you do, where can they go?
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Powerthefuture dot com And it's always great to be with you,
especially in person.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
This was awesome, my brother from another Hey, to those
of you watching this live stream right now, don't go anywhere.
Evan Minz joind so shortly from the Houston Chronicle. I
just got to run in the other room and go
grab them and bring them in here. It should be
an interesting conversation coming up.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
More Kenny Webster's Pursuit of Happiness A safe space for
those who love liberty and try not to take themselves
too seriously.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Even if your name is Karen Hi, We're back. Turn
that racket down.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
That's going to upset our baby boomer demo. A cafe
in Dubai is selling a one thousand dollars cup of coffee.
What could have possibly made them think this is a
good business idea? Oh yeah, Starbucks. That's right, Starbucks Dubai. Hey,
look who just walked in the very brilliant Evan Mins
is here.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Evan.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
A lot of people turn that Mike play that Mike
ATUREPM out there got me. A lot of people are
surprised that you and I are friends with her. Yeah,
I like you a lot. I think you're a cool guy.
I don't care if you're kind of on the left
and I'm kind of on the right. I find what
you're doing at the Houston Chronicle to be important. You've
given a voice to local conservatives.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I have noticed. And I'm not going to ask you
to denigrate.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Your employer or whatever, but you used to work at
the Chronicle there and there were some great conservative authors
writing for the news outlet, and then you left to
do other things, and then I feel like the quality
you diminished rapidly, and then you came back, and now
I feel like the op ed section at the Chronicle
is interesting again.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
Well, you know, I'll take credit for it, but I
think that something that people got to point out is
that if you don't think that you have a voice
in the Chronicle, folks aren't going to proactively reach out.
So I've been trying really hard to get out there
and get folks like you, get Charles Blaine, and just
make sure people know that if you have something you
want to say about what's going on in Houston, what's
going on in Texas, we want to run it, and
(20:56):
you had that great piece about why you think the
mayors do do in a good job. We ran it
on the front page of the opinion section this Sunday,
and it was just contrary to a lot of the
perspectives we're getting from progressives. We want to have those
different views. People talk about how Houston is this big,
diverse place and that's too far our politics too, and
I want to make sure that the Houston Chronicle is
reflecting all of that.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Let's talk a little bit about something the mayor just
did here. I know this is not your news outlet,
but I just happened to have this article handy.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
It wasn't the reason why I pulled it up.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
But Houston City Council pushing through sixteen million dollar homeless hub.
This is kind of a great example of the left
wanted one thing, the right wanted something else, and so
we got together, we.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Negotiate it, and both sides are disappointed. Yeah, that's how
it goes.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
But the right wanted something to do something about homeless people.
The left wanted less focus on the immigrants. Isn't this
technically a former border facility?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Isn't that what this was?
Speaker 6 (21:51):
It is you know, and I think before that is
a Star of Hope facility. So a lot of folks
are frustrated that what they're calling this homeless super hub
is opening in their neighborhood. But if you go there, well,
first of all, this was here before a lot of
the housing opened up, so it's not as if this
was really a big surprise. And if you walk around it,
we had one of our writers do a great piece
on it, you'll notice that it really doesn't interact with
(22:13):
where people are. You know, the homes are on one side,
the opening is on another side. You kind of see
the side of a building. And also, you know, people
are concerned. They don't want a bunch of folks who
are homeless hanging around their homes. But this sort of place,
this is supposed to be, not a spot where people kind
of sit and wait. It is a spot where you
take folks in and then you send them on their
(22:34):
way to the place they need to go to, whether
it's treatment, whether it's housing, whatever it is. And we
thought the mayor did a pretty good job setting all
this up. There are questions about whether they'll get enough
funding to do it, because you lose a lot of
the arp of dollars we're getting during COVID. There are
changes in how the federal government's funding it. You got
to get money from the philanthropic sector. It's a lot
(22:54):
of charitable work. But like the mayor said, he was
gonna tackle this, and he did. And we don't always
agree with the mayor on everything, but you did a
good job here. Yeah, to his point, if we live
in a city where there's no public camping, right, and
you're a homeless person and the police pick you up,
they have to take you somewhere. Yeah, if they take
everybody to jail, then what happens. Eventually they get released
(23:14):
from jail, they're back on the street exactly. It doesn't
help anyone. And it's really expensive too. Jail is a
lot more expensive than providing like a homeless shelter.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Yeah, and I will say, I begrudgingly admit that that's true.
This the budget right now, the cost of this thing
is sixteen million dollars. The annual budget last year in Houston,
I think was seven billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
We have a deficit of something like five hundred million.
So even though sixteen million sounds like a lot, it's
still cheaper than it would be to put these people
in jail.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Got to put them somewhere right.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I was on the phone the other day with Ray Hunt,
the Houston Police Union president executive director. I think he's
a good guy too, And I was talking about this
with him, specifically homeless people.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
What do we do with homeless people?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I'd asked him, how many of the homeless people
do you talk to that are just on the street,
they don't have anywhere else to go, And how many
of them are there because they want to be there
because they want.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
To do drugs? And he said, surprisingly, it's a larger number.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Obviously the drug people are there and they don't want
to be helped out, And what do you do about that?
And he says, but weirdly enough, we do find people
that came to Houston pretty regularly for work, lost their job,
didn't have any way to get back to Nashville or
Cleveland or whatever. He had told me that hours earlier
they met a guy he didn't have a way to
get out of town. They put them, they bought them
a bus ticket, and they sent them away. I will
(24:24):
tell you I don't hate a police department that does that.
I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 6 (24:28):
No, And I find that when I talk to police officers,
especially police leadership, they're really clear eyed about what their
job is. And often they'll say like, we're not trained
to do the mental health response, we're not trained to
do the social work. But we're the folks who are
there on the ground and we have the guns, so
often we are the front lines of this. But they
get real nuanced views about the right way to respond
(24:48):
to all this. They don't want to just lock everyone up.
They want to get drug treatment to the people who
need it. They want to get social services to the
people who need it. And yeah, there's going to be
a small cohort of folks where after you provide all
those carots of trying to help folks, you need the
stick at the end. And I've been in rooms with
a lot of people who work in homeless services, people
who are working in law enforcement, and they'll get in
(25:10):
arguments about this, and what the police say is like,
we're there to help you. But if you don't have
that stick at the end of it, you've got too
many folks who are just going to be comfortable on
the street.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
All right, let's talk about local politics for a minute. Obviously,
conservatives and liberals don't agree on much, but lately, one
thing they seem to agree on is they don't like
Lena Hidalgo.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Not your part.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
You have a great way of explaining as a separation
between church and state, the editorial opinion section and the
regular section of the chronicle. You guys ran a story
recently about Lena Hidalgo's chat GPT searches. A lot of
people don't realize you could do this. There's Foyer Request
Freedom of Information Act. You can ask to look at
an elected officials searches either in Google or in chat
(25:52):
GPT or crock or whatever. She was on her way
to Paris, and they started asking chat GPT the silliest
questions things you would have I assumed they would have
already had the answers to before they booked the trip,
like what can Paris learn from Houston? And does Paris
have natural disasters? And think big chat GPT. And it
was so funny that when I wrote this on social media,
(26:14):
a lot of people did not believe that it was
the Houston Chronicle that had ran the story. They were like,
don't you mean it was urban reform or the Texan
Dot News or you guys ran that story. To your credit,
the Chronicle ran the story, not some right wing news outlet.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
You know, the Chronicle wants to hold local officials accountable,
and lean at Dog is a local official, and you know,
I've talked to the newsroom. They're trying to get this
stuff from as many elected officials, as many politicians as
they can. So you know, maybe we'll get to see
the mayor soon, who knows. But it was really interesting
to see how Idalgo and her staff were using chat GBT.
So I'm gonna say, don't use AI. It's good for research,
(26:49):
you know, maybe it's good for ideas. I use it
a lot to help out with like SEO and headlines,
but just they're asking very odd questions and very kind
of big picture stuff, where like you said, you thought
they would have had this figured out already. Yeah, all right,
let's talk about elections right now.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
We have tomorrow's election day.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I was election day, so a lot of our listeners,
hopefully of early voted, but.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
If you haven't yet. I like Caroline Ward. I think
she's great.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
We have been talking about a lot of these props
online lately, and don Hooper of the Houston Conservative for
I'm a controversial man, but a guy who's always happy
to have conversations about stuff like this. Right posted a
voter guide online for people, and it talks about what
the conservative, what his conservative allies are voting for, what
the Chronicle endorsed, and what two libertarian organizations endorsed, the
(27:37):
Texas Policy Research Institute and the Republican Liberty Liberty Caucus,
of which I happen to be a pretty big supporter.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
You and the Conservatives.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
The Houston Chronicle and the Conservatives agreed on almost nothing
except for one thing, PROPS sixteen clarifying citizenship voting. And
he put on that you were for it, but reluctantly yes,
why reluctantly?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Why were you for it?
Speaker 6 (27:57):
And why reluctantly, Well, we're worried that reluctantly this isn't necessary.
Already you have to be a citizen to vote in Texas,
non citizens can't vote. This is largely symbolic, but I
think sometimes people get very worked up about issues of
immigration and they care about it deeply, passionately. And if
you're just willing to give someone something and says okay,
(28:18):
if you're super duper quadruple worried about non citizens voting
and you want it in the Constitution of Texas again,
then we can give this to you and let some
steam out of the room, and that lets you focus
more on sort of the other issues that I think
are more pressing. And also the hope is that in
the next legislative session we won't have another push for
(28:41):
something else to restrict people's voting rights. In an attempt
to make sure that the law is enforced properly, can
say we already did this, Let's move on to the
next thing.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I'm sure you and I would probably not agree on
every hiccup recently that happened in local elections, but you
and I would probably both agree that every time the
right wins an election, the left call shenanigans, and every
time the left wins an election, the right calls shenanigans.
I don't remember it being like that when I was
a kid. I don't remember it being like that when
I was twenty in my twenties. I feel like that's
a thing that really came along just in the last
(29:11):
decade or so.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
I think there's always been those arguments back and forth
but I feel like that it's definitely gotten worse recently.
I mean you can point to January sixth, you can
point to people just pulling out their hair after Trump's
election in twenty sixteen, Russia Gate or stuff like that, right, Yeah,
And so the hope that you want to get to.
I remember hearing a metaphor that sometimes elections, when you
(29:35):
know you have a two party system, it's kind of
like zipper merging. You're getting from like six ten to
fifty nine. I go, then you go, then I go,
and you go. And if someone's trying to like zoom
up there and jam their way in, like of course,
you're gonna get pissed off. And then if someone does that,
was like, well I want to do that next, Like, no,
you've kind of understand that you're not gonna win them all,
and it's gonna be okay, you're gonna come back in
(29:56):
the mid turn. You're gonna come back in the general election.
What I worry about seeing stuff like jerrymandering, where basically
the parties, the politicians get to pick their voters. And
you had this process for a while where every party
would jerry mander, you know, they would do their own thing.
But before we had computers, he kind of had a
guess at it. And as we got really really good
(30:18):
at it, kind of home by home, you could technically
work your way into these like perfectly winnable positions and
ways you couldn't before. So you started to get states
where you had direct referenda citizens coming forward and saying, no,
we're going to put in place these non partisan redistricting
committees to get the politicians out of it. Some were
(30:38):
better than others. Okay, but we got to this point
now where everyone said where people couldn't work together on that.
You saw some blue states doing this, Red states weren't
really doing it. And then so when Texas went in
with this mid decade redistricting, and now you're going to
have California undo their fair district to get a more
(31:01):
partisan one, and everyone's basically punching each other in the face.
The people get screwed over are the Republicans in California
and the Democrats in Texas. And a certain point you
just want everyone to say, all right, can we just
come up with the truce? Can we just like strike
a deal? It drives me nuts, Okay, Well, on the
note of Jerrymanders.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
I always love using Chicago and Houston in comparison because
I'm from Chicago and I live in Houston. Now, one
of these states obviously controlled by Democrats, the other state
obviously controlled by Republicans, and I feel like, I don't.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Know who's better at it.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Let me see if I could pull up the old
map here of Illinois or the current one. There's this
congressional district in Illinois in Chicago that is so comical.
Here it's District Yeah, we're looking at it on a screen.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Here.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
District four kind of starts in the north part of
downtown in Chicago at a rich white area, the Gold
Coast neighborhood, kind of wicker Park. Here goes all the
way out west to one of the worst neighborhoods in
the city. Then there's a single street where it goes
south comes back. This is the thinnest little congressional district
in the world. Right, So Republicans could look at that
(32:07):
and go, ah, look what the Democrats do. And then
you come over here to Houston and look at this map. Right,
Sheila Jackson, Jackson Lee and Silvester Turner's District eighteen has
this sort of hook. We're in the middle, so it's
a black and white liberal district, and then the middle
of it there's a Hispanic one. You go north, you're
in District eighteen. You go south, you're in District eighteen.
(32:28):
Obviously this is about to change, or it's already changed,
or it's changing out. It's about to change. Yeah, right, exactly.
But here's the new map on the right. Not much better.
No jerry mandering.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
What do we do about that? Is that something the
federal government needs to do.
Speaker 6 (32:41):
There's this period of time where people tried to sue
over it, and there's like a ten year period when
the Supreme Court said, oh, no, this violates certain civil liberties,
certain civil rights. You're not allowed to do this kind
of partisan jerry mandering if it's too extreme. But then
you had change of membership on the Court and basically
Scalia comes down and says, this is dumb, but it's
non just dishable, like we can't just make up what
(33:04):
a fair district looks like. Congress needs to pass a
law on it. And so we're kind of waiting for
Congress to pass a law and we're in this weird
moment where you know, since nineteen sixty five. You've had
the Voting Rights Act, which laid out how you can
draw these districts, and a lot of it was focused
on trying to get at real racism that existed in
the past. But it keeps on getting wheedled away at.
(33:29):
We've lost pre clearance. It used to be had to
get approval if you were in this place that had
history of racism before he made any changes. That's gone.
It looks like we might lose other parts of it too.
Is there an opportunity to say, we had this Voting
Rights Act for the twentieth century, those focused on racism,
we need a Voting Rights Act for the twenty first
century that's focused on partisanship and just gets rid of
(33:50):
all this partisan jerrymandering and really empowers voters no matter
who you are, where you are, all right, I.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Am live in studio right now from Evan Menz. He
is a lie, actual character from the Houston Chronicle, a
guy who is actually putting conservatives in the Houston Chronicle
op ed right now. People the opad section people are
shocked at that. I want to talk to him a
little bit about that in the next break. And since
we went along on this segment. I want to do
a bonus round with you when we get off the air,
(34:16):
for just our listeners on the internet. Viewers on the
internet talk about Nigeria. Oh yeah, yeah, stick around for that.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
If I were you, I'd stay put Kenny, You'll be
right back with more of what you came for.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Far jokes, all right, very exciting.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Dictionary dot com has named six seven the word of
the year.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I will use it in a sentence.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
When the Dodgers won the World Series, the number of
people outside of LA who were happy about it was
six seven.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I didn't say it was gonna be genius, did I ever?
In Vince it was a good joke. I liked.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
It's better than all the other six seven lines I
hear from my kids. You're a dad, Yeah, tell me
about that, Uh, well, about the a dead or about
six seven. My kids are seven and four. And then
one day my daughter's like making some line and she's
saying six seven eleven. You know, my dad's name is Evan,
And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I
know I've read like news coverage of six seven by
feign ignorance. I'm like, that's interesting. Where did you hear this?
(35:17):
Where is this from? What is this coming from?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Do you get the origin?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
At this point I refuse to learn about it. It's
so simple. First you have to understand what meme culture is,
which I'm sure you do. You're very much on the internet.
Sometimes people want bad news, Brian or whatever, things that
have been around for a while. People like that, Right,
it's stupid, it's pointless. It's There was a rapper in
Chicago named mc scrolla, and he lived on as you know,
the numbers on the south side of the city, kind
(35:42):
of like the heights are. The streets are numbered. So
on the south side sixty seventh Street. The further south
you go, the worst it is. You get to the
one hundreds. It's called the Wild one hundreds. So he's
from sixty seventh Street. Six seven six, that's where it
comes from. So he's in a rap song called six
seven and this white kid sometime later was a fan
of the song. Is at a high school basketball game.
(36:03):
His team either misses a point or scores a point,
I don't know. Camera scams over to him and he
goes six seven with his hands like this, like they're
basketball and some people thought because he was a goofy
looking white kid, yeah, they would mamathize, they would make
fun of him. Yeah, I can relate to. Weirdly enough,
the kid who was getting made fun of has embraced this.
He's launched an Instagram account that now has hundreds of
(36:23):
thousands of followers. He's become a celebrity because some people
love or hate him. And as semi public figures, you
kind of me and you, obviously you kind of have
to respect the game, right your social media account, speaking
as a public figure, you don't even put your name
on it.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
It just says Evan, Why Evan, I don't know. That's
what I was. That was my aim account when I
was twelve. Oh my god, did we talk about that?
And I haven't changed it since. And like I started
this Twitter account like when when Twitter first launched, and
you know, if you change it, like I don't know.
I just never went through to do it. So this
is just who I am. That's a picture of my
(36:59):
icon is a picture my old roommate did of me
and you.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
I was wondering if one of your kids drew that.
Speaker 6 (37:04):
No, that's my old roommate Dan, who now works at
a Houstonian magazine.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Refresh my memory? What year were you born? I was
born nineteen eighty six. Okay, so you're just a little.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Younger than me.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Yeah, uh millennial, yeah, older millennial oldermo was same, right,
eighty two for me, aol instant messenger was a big
part of my youth, right, and I can remember keeping
it around even years after people stopped using it.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
Oh yeah, well it was. It was the best. It
was super easy, all right. So you and you do
not have the blue check mark?
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Did you know you could be getting paid for people
like flaming your posts.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
I don't need that incentive, like to post bats off.
I used to have a check mark before before it
got sold, and then they took everyone's check marks away.
And I remember, you know, they are these people who
did not like what I wrote and what I did
when I was at Rice University for the student newspaper,
and the moment I got it, a bunch of people
just got really mad. I can't believe they gave one
to Evan and you know, kind of smiled at that
(37:58):
and then I lost it. And you know, tears in
the rain, dust in the wind, sunrise, sunset.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I love that you and I do have something else
in common besides the fact that you're on the left
and I'm the right, which is a difference. Obviously, we
are both people who openly criticize and yet often advocate
for Houston. Yes, people think my criticism of Houston means
I don't like living here. I love living in Houston.
I am Houston's the coolest city in the world. We've
got great food and music. I don't even mind the weather.
(38:24):
Incredibly affordable. Yeah, I see you advocating for Houston all
the time on the internet. Would you agree that our
lenient zoning policies, very libertarians, are part of the reason
why it's so affordable to living.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
Absolutely, we make it easy to build housing, easy to
build anything. I just wish we don't have zoning per se.
But we have a whole bunch of other really weird
regulations about like how much parking have provide and setback requirements,
and all these are kind of made accidentally in the
nineteen eighties because like one person had a problem in
one neighborhood, and so then the city wrote a law
(38:58):
that applies to everyone. And I've written and you know,
with Charles Blaine about this that the city just needs
to cut that red tape get rid of it. I
trust the developers to build the amount of parking they
feel like they need. I trust developers to put the
UH their front scape where it needs to go in
relation to this UH to the streets. The city doesn't
need to micromanage every single little lot.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
All right, let's compare here. What is your most conservative opinion, Evan?
Is it that, oh my most concern? I mean, I
don't know, because it depends, like you're talking about like conservative,
like social conservative, economic conservative, like where we go. I think,
like fundamentally, I'm just like pretty like pro dad on
a lot of stuff. I think people should eventually just
like get like, don't be weird, get married, have kids
(39:42):
like that.
Speaker 6 (39:43):
I am very like established around that. And I see
lots of men who are like, you know, really focusing
on things where they're.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Uh, in my mind, being very vain. They're just like, I.
Speaker 6 (39:55):
Gotta work out, I gotta look good, I gotta have
like the best watch, and I'm like, doe it over yourself, man,
like so quit Like if I saw a guy who
all he did was like work out and talk about
how he didn't like women. I'd be like, so, like
you're gay, Like that's cool. I guess like, no, just
like got you gotta find a woman, be nice to her, like,
get married, have kids.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
We need you to do this. I mean, I feel
a little targeted here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
No, I know you know I love women personally, but
I am divorced and I don't have anything to do
with my free time, so I work out at I was.
I will tell you when I was not married, I
was not in good shape. Yeah, getting divorced will make
you lose weight real quick. But I agree with everything
you just said. I endorse everything you just said. Families
are fantastic.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
I will say, like Charlie kirk rip I did not
agree with him on a whole lot, but he gave
this interview at the end of his life where he
said that, you know, one of the challenges he sees
is just teaching like young men on the right, like
you should just kind of like settle down and get married.
And that's a good thing for you to do. And
that's something where I'm in absolute agreement.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I agree with that as well.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Evan, you know what we went along on this Can
you hang and do some bonus with us the air.
We're gonna do some bonus content right now for the
after show. Stick around. To those of you watching us
live streaming, you don't have to go anywhere. To those
you listening on the radio, subscribe to the podcast Kenny
Webster's Pursuit of Happiness the Walton and Johnson Show in
the morning. We have a smartphone app you can get
that allows you to listen to both shows and do
(41:16):
some great shopping at I LOVEWJ dot com.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
You are listening to the Pursuit of Happiness Radio. Tell
the government to kiss your ass when you listen to
this show.
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