Union Pressure And Budget Chaos In Houston Government

Tulsi Gabbard’s warning about Islamist ideology hits differently when you live in Texas, where immigration, local politics, and cultural pressure points collide in real time. We talk through why “ban Sharia law” can become an easy talking point that avoids the harder question: are lawmakers willing to confront ideology and influence directly, and do they even understand what they are defending when they cite the Constitution and the First Amendment?

Then we bring it home to Houston and Harris County. GOP County Judge runoff candidate Warren Howell joins us to break down what he calls a backdoor push toward public sector unionization through an “employee consultation policy.” We connect that fight to the county’s budget deficit, long-term debt, and a Commissioner’s Court culture that seems to approve more spending while residents get priced out. Charles Blaine from Urban Reform also jumps in for the weekly local recap, including Tom Ramsey’s stalled resolution tied to Lina Hidalgo, the continued cost of sending inmates to Louisiana, HPD and ICE policy constraints, TSA call-outs, and the latest on the KP George trial timeline.

We close with a look at Texas legislative accountability after quorum breaks, a real-world impact of Senate Bill 29 as a Southwest Airlines shareholder lawsuit gets dismissed, and a University of North Texas “algorithmic equity” program that raises new questions about woke AI and education standards. 

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Transcript

Opening And Guest Preview

SPEAKER_08 0:03

From deep in the heart of Texas, it's Houston's God-loving patriot, the voice of reason. This is the Lark Conservative, Michael Wilson.

Tulsi Gabbard Warns On Islamism

Sharia Bans Versus Root Ideology

SPEAKER_15 0:30

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative brought to you by Texellent AC Service. A couple of different exciting guests today at 6.30. We're having Warren Halcomb on, of course, running for Harris County Judge, Republican nomination. Made it to the runoff against Orlando Sanchez coming up on May 26th. Exciting stuff. We'll have him on at 6.30. And then, of course, at the top of the second hour, given that it's 7 a.m., we're going to have Charles Blaine from Urban Reform coming on for the weekly local recap. Which, if you're looking for just an overall weekly update of what's gone on here in the Greater Houston area, here on Patriot Talk 920 at 706 on a Friday is the place to be. Undeniably. Charles Blaine, I, you know, is one of those people that I think is so deeply entrenched in enjoying research. I I don't know how, but the guy seems to know so much about the Harris County politic, about Houston, and not just Houston, but all the areas surrounding it. Always up to date on all the stuff going on. And it's also wild because Friday at 7 o'clock is also a good time to be reminded about how big our region of the world is, how big our city slash, you know, greater Houston area area is, uh, for lack of a better phrase. You find that out because I'll report on dozens of stories over the course of a week. I I think I get an average of something like six or seven stories read per day, depending on interviews and and what have you. Some of those are statewide. So let's say four local stories per day. That means every week I'm reading 20 local stories. Right? And so then he gets in, then he he Charles Blair will come on, and then it'll be multiple stories I had not heard anything about. And so there's just so much going on here in the area every single day. So you should definitely check out that seven o'clock. Stay around through the whole show because we're gonna have a, again, like I said, a couple great interviews, and then we're gonna have plenty of stories to get into here on Friday. Friday is one of the best days for the show between you know the ability to have those multiple interviews. It's it's far more relaxing. So texts get read you know more quickly, it's easier to get to. Friday's just good all around. And uh the weather today is also gonna be nice, which we'll talk about at the bottom of this hour. Before we get into any of that, uh getting over to the weather, having interviews, the first story I want to kick it off with is actually about Tulsi Gabbard. You might be wondering, uh, Michael, how's that related to Texas? How's that related to Houston? Well, I'll tell you uh because Tulsi Gabbard, as it turns out, is warning about something that we here in Texas know a little something about. That we here in Texas have had quite a bit, unfortunately, of experience with. Uh something that we talked about actually with a guest named John Guandolo. Uh that by the way, if you still not checked out his website, he's got books. I I I rarely, you know, will pitch people. I like pitching companies that that we work with as sponsors because, you know, I know a lot about them. So I rarely pitch people because I I think people, a lot of them, get into these sorts of positions, and I start to see this sort of desire to please the masses. And so I don't recommend a lot of people, because unfortunately that happens to a lot of them. Uh they get into these positions where they're speakers and what have you, and their opinions change so d so dramatically for whatever the modern times ask that they believe. Uh, and I can't I can't stand that sort of grift. But John Guandolo has been doing the same sort of work and sounding the same sort of alarms for more than 20 years. So I think it's I think it's safe to say that he's in a position where you can probably uh go and and check out the stuff that he's doing, and it's great stuff, by the way. And it's stuff we all need to be more aware of uh if we're going to push back on a lot of the evil in our country. Because a lot of it is, of course, being perpetrated by Americans, certainly. Uh there are a lot of people here that believe in evil, from atheism to deism to just crazy beliefs about children and immigration. Of course, that's all a dangerous issue. But you talk about Islam and the influence of Islam here in America, here in Texas, here in Houston, and it's gotten so unbelievably out of hand uh that we're at a point in American history now where for the first time um there is legitimate concern that one day, I don't want to say we'll, you know, we're thinking that we'll be outnumbered, but one day we may, if we're not very cautious and very careful about the way that we approach uh this Islamic influence that's that's perpetrated a lot of evil here in our nation. And so I bring up Tulsi Gabbard to say that she's now warning of an increasing influence of Islam. Uh the warning from Tulsi Gabbard comes, of course, as US state lawmakers who are organizing around the issue of enforcing Sharia law, uh, but need to be doing far more than they're doing right now. And so let's talk a little bit about this warning. Uh, according to the director of national intelligence, that's Tulsi Gabbard, Islamist ideology poses a fundamental threat to American freedom, which I never thought I would hear the director of national intelligence uttering something so radical. And it shouldn't be radical because it's true. Uh, but unfortunately, the truth is often very radical to the average person. Unfortunately, people are so blinded to the truth these days that uttering it, the reason why you get called names like Islamophobe or racist or xenophobe, whatever terminology they want to use for whatever the issue is, the reason why those terms get thrown around so so often and so cruelly towards us on the right is that there are so many people who seem blinded to the truth that you you you utter the truth and all of a sudden you're target number one. And so I did not expect for this kind of warning to come out. Uh at the Senate's Worldwide Threats Hearing, Tulsi Gabbard, who moved to Texas a couple years ago, warned that Islamist movements are a central long-term danger, and that groups inspired by Sharia-based ideology threaten Western civilization from within and from without. Uh Gabbard testified that, quote, the spread of Islamist ideology, in some cases led by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood almost always, poses a fundamental threat to freedom and the foundational principles that underpin Western civilization, which, can I just say, is a beautiful sentence to come out of our federal government. Uh I I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we talk about on this sort of show, the kind of stuff that often does not get said by the mainstream, often will not get reported on by the mainstream. Again, we'll get you labeled all sorts of names because you're allowed now in America to start talking about how bad Sharia is. We're at a point where we can do that. That that even that used to be pretty radical a few years ago. But you're at the point where you can say that sort of stuff. Well, Sharia's bad. Uh you you can come out and you can say that jihad is bad. And by jihad, I'm not talking about, you know, the sort of stuff they're doing behind the scenes. I'm talking about the actual violence. Right? You you start talking about the terrorist attack in Austin, the these sorts of attacks, you can quickly see that that sort of stuff you're allowed to mention off-handedly and say that that's bad. That's evil. But you're not really supposed to mention that it's directly connected to the goal of Islam and it's Islamist ideology that's driving that. You're supposed to somehow separate Islam from Sharia. I I really don't know how people do that, but that's what you're expected to do. Is you're expected to somehow separate Islam from Sharia. You're expected to sell to somehow separate the Quran from what the Quran actually calls for. And that's and actually it's a it's an impossibility. It's a real conundrum to do that because it's actually impossible to do. But they the people on the left and even some on the right would expect you to do it nevertheless because the issue is not really Muslims. The issue is not really Islam. No, no, no. Somehow the issue is the effects of Islam, but only certain ones. The other ones are fine. Even though the ones that are bringing the other ones, the other ideas, are also coming with the Sharia connectedness. And so, like I said, I I never expected these words to come out from our federal government, uh, which, of course, the remarks also closely mirror commonly cited concerns by uh some of the more conservative Republicans who have long held that Muslim civic engagement is a precursor to parallel Muslim and Islamic legal systems that are incompatible with our version of constitutional governance at the state and national levels. Activists and lawmakers uh contend that a rising Muslim population connected with federal border and refugee policies is reshaping the identity of the state of Texas, uh, describing Islam not as one faith among many, but as a rival political and legal project, which is the the only real way to address Islam. I know that again, we live in a time where tolerance is of the utmost importance. It's considered, arguably to some people, the most important virtue that you must be tolerant above anything else. You put that above uh your requirement to follow the law of God, you put that above your requirement to follow the law. All of those things are ultimately in subjection to tolerance, right? That's why they'll push back on federal law enforcement, enforcing border policies through sometimes even violent means, because tolerating those who are in our country illegally is more important than following our federal law to many of these people. Um, of course, you also have Governor Greg Abbott, who's listed the Muslim Brotherhood, uh, the Council on American Islamic Relations as terrorist organizations. You had Paxton, who's been trying to block this planned Muslim development, Epic City, which turned into the meadows, this Islamic project. Uh again, you've had on this show us discussing all of the issues with the lawsuits trying to get Islamic private schools to become eligible to receive taxpayer dollars from the school choice program. And so you also have Brett Money earlier this month and several other Republican lawmakers who launched the Sharia Free Texas Caucus, which contends that Sharia, again, is incompatible with the constitutional protections afforded to U.S. citizens. According to Money, the stated inspiration for his caucus with the launching of a similar caucus by Texas congressmen, including candidate for Attorney General Chip Roy, in December of last year. Proposition 10, also the GOP question, if you remember uh back when you you voted, it was the proposition that was presented back uh earlier this month on whether Texas should prohibit Sharia law, which had 95% support among Republicans. And the other 5% was probably Democrats voting in the Republican primary, to be fair. But as we highlighted on this show, and I want to make it very clear, because what what Tulsi Gabbard actually said was much stronger than what you see a lot of Texas Republicans willing to say. A lot of Texas Republicans will, of course, go and say Sharia law is bad. We need to ban Sharia law. But that's kind of where they'll often stop the conversation. They'll often leave it with, well, Sharia law is bad, but they'll add the little butt that should not be there. There should be no but, no butt at all. They'll say, but there are good Muslims, right? When you see Greg Abbott's number one donor being a Pakistani Muslim, right? When you see Islam being this foundational principle that is somehow constitutionally protected, and this is a lot of my issue. Again, we could get into everything from the Constitution to the Founding Father's intent, we could get into Islamic ideology in general. Those would all be very long conversations. But suffice it to say, if you fall in the camp of people that somehow believe that our Constitution was designed to protect the worship of Allah in our country, then you fundamentally misunderstand American history and you fundly fundamentally misunderstand the intent of the Constitution, the intent of the First Amendment. And this is why, by the way, the founders try to make it as clear as possible that the Constitution that was written was written for a specific people. If you took that constitution and you applied it to a foreign country, it would not operate the same way. We'd like to say the Constitution is the end all be all, but it isn't because the Constitution cannot function correctly in a country driven by things like Sharia law, in a country driven by really, you know, one faith among many, by really any other faith. You try to apply the Constitution in Hindu countries or Buddhist countries, you're gonna find out very quickly it's not going to operate the way that you'd expect it to, the way that we desire it to, because it wasn't designed for those people. Right? If you have let's say you have the best car ever made, it has the fastest stop speed, somehow it also gets great gas mileage, it's it's phenomenal with takeoffs, it can do drag racing, it can do all these different things, but it's designed to drive on roads made of asphalt. Right? That's that's all that's all that it was made to do. Once you put it on a dirt road or a gravel road, that car all of a sudden it it's it fall it goes off the road, you can't control it, it slides out of control, all these sorts of things. You'd say, Well, that's a great car. You definitely should only drive it on asphalt, though. You you should probably be very cautious where you drive that car. The Constitution is the same way. Arguably one of the best documents uh to come out of the last few hundred years. Uh I mean, it's it's a phenomenal way of viewing the world. But it only works in a specific country. And a country is not merely a geographical area. A country is made up of people. And when you fundamentally change the people who are adhering to that constitution, all of a sudden the constitution doesn't work so great. And that's not me harping on the constitution at all. You guys know I'm a big fan of the constitution. It's actually harping on the people. It's actually more an indictment on the changes that we've allowed to occur here in the US. And so when you talk about the Constitution and the First Amendment, those protections were never designed to protect Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists because there was never the expectation that we'd have a large population of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, or any other religion. There was never an expectation that we would have those people here in the first place, because why would we? The founders never imagined that would be a problem. And now it is. If we can't acknowledge that the issue that we're facing right now is not one primarily of Sharia law, but is actually one of Islamist ideology in general, of large Muslim populations in general. If we can't see that distinction and see that the Islamic ideology is what leads to Sharia law in the first place, you can put as many bans in place as you want. You can codify as many laws as you want, you can change the constitution as many times as you want, and none of it's gonna fix anything unless we understand exactly what Tulsi Gavard said. So I'm gonna say her quote one more time just so we understand where we're at. She said, the spread of Islamist ideology, in some cases led by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. But let me let me cut that out, that middle part. Let me just because that's important and it's true, but let's just this is still a quote. The spread of Islamist ideology dot dot dot poses a fundamental threat to freedom and the foundational principles that underpin Western civilization. Not the spread of Sharia, not the ultimate extrapolation of Islam, no. Islamist ideology poses a fundamental threat to our way of life. And that sentence being uttered by your your director of national intelligence is something that we ha that has has gone frankly unnoticed. It has gone not talked about, and it has resulted in this vast Muslim and Islamic influence that unfortunately has led to the inability for us to actually address the real issues that we're facing. Now, with that being said, before we go to the break, we got a couple texts in. The first says, uh Chelsea Gabbard pointed out the Islamic takeover of Harris County in Houston during America Fest back in January 2026. Both Gabbard and John Guandolo pointed out Harris County as ground zero for the next Islamic takeover. Uh Bridget Gabriel gave an excellent talk. The peaceful Muslims are irrelevant because the radicals will step forward and take the lead. You should interview her as well. I'd love to have her on and have that conversation. Uh, because unfortunately, I actually do think that this issue with quote unquote peaceful Muslims is one of those things that people just fundamentally misunderstand. The peaceful Muslims are still funded by the same organizations that are funding the violence and the jihad. Because at the end of the day, the goal of Islam is one singular goal. And they have a variety of ways they try to achieve that goal through political influence, through being quote unquote normal and peaceful and kind. And they also have things like violence as a means. Both of those are two heads of the same of the same beast. And so you cut off the sharia and you still have the just as equal a big issue. You cut out the violence somehow. I don't even know how you're going to do that, but you do that and you still have the political issue. And so just driving out the radicals and putting an end to violence is not actually going to change the issue we're grappling with. Because the issue we're grappling with is not one of sharia, and it's not one of violence. The issue we're grappling with is one of Islamist ideology in general. And I love that our director of national intelligence is finally highlighting the massive issue there. With that being said, when we get back from the break, we're going to jump over and we are going to discuss uh a little bit about Harris County, uh specifically uh how uh Ramsey essentially, Tom Ramsey, was gonna bring up this issue with Lena Hidalgo, the possible resignation or reduction of duties, and basically just got shot down on it. We'll talk about it when we get back from the break. As always, if you would like to text in and be a part of the show. The number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You are listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. I'll be right back after the break.

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Warren Howell On County Unionization

SPEAKER_15 22:43

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SPEAKER_06 24:15

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_15 24:16

Good morning. Good morning. And I want to talk to you because yesterday was a big day for Commissioner's Court about some stuff that you'd been warning about beforehand, some stuff that's uh unfortunately kind of tricked its way into our county. Can we tell you a little bit of background on what you were warning about in regards to this sort of backdoor for unionization?

SPEAKER_06 24:34

Well, as you know, during the primaries, we were running against somebody that I thought was possible probably a plant from the AFL CIO. And I, you know, even endorsed by Governor Abbott for some reason I I couldn't figure out. And he's a good guy, don't get me wrong, but he he's he's pro-union. And I said, you know, we we don't need a union person uh in at the helm when we just got through a 200 million dollar deficit and we have uh inflated and bloated our bureaucracy to the point where people are being overpaid uh in many, many areas. Uh retirement program unsustainable, based on what I read. Yet just yesterday, the commissioner's court took up an agenda item to put on a consultant from the ASF CME largest public sector union in the country, and I'm telling you, it was asked go. I think there was 30 or 40 union people that showed up to testify and tell them to please adopt this employee consultation post, which gives a union member a permanent position in our Paris County government and that we don't need. That's how it's gonna end up. Everybody's gonna be consulted to vote for unionizing all 24,000 employees of Harris County, and you just think your taxes are high, when these Democrats get through, you won't be able to throw enough money at them ever.

SPEAKER_15 26:43

Right. And I think uh again, this conversation I think goes a lot deeper because the issues that we're dealing with right now in Harris County, you mentioned the budget deficit and how much money we're already spending, uh, and how you look at a lot of these employees in Harris County and how many of them are overpaid, how many, you know, allegations of corruption and fraud there have been. And this seems like arguably one of the worst places or times, even if you were pro-union, this seems like one of the worst scenarios you could possibly concoct for this sort of situation.

SPEAKER_06 27:12

I mean, we're at the point where we've got to go in and restructure our present government, restructure departments, get rid of departments we don't need, like the department of administration, which for 185 years we didn't need, and now we have it with a head of that department, which ironically is Sheila Jackson Lee's daughter. You know, that position running that department gives pays over four hundred thousand dollars a year, twice what a commissioner makes. If you own a business, would you pay anyone twice what you make? No, of course not.

SPEAKER_15 27:55

That would be that would be insane.

SPEAKER_06 27:57

Well, they're doing it every day. And these people have no business sense, no common horse sense at all. So, anyway, uh the in the agenda, by the way, that's a 57-page agenda with 471 items. And in those four hundred and seventy-one items, here we go again. We're gonna send inmates to LaSalle in Louisiana, a for-profit prison costing us almost 39 million dollars instead of fixing jail space right here in Harris County. Now, and here comes the Department of Administration, and they bring forth a request to spend eighty-eight million of your dollars for solar panels. We all know what solar panels are worth, and you know what the earth is like underneath a solar panel, it it's useless for like 20 years because of the cleaning agents they have to use to keep those things clean and operating. It is a terrible idea, and again, we're not in a position after a$200 million deficit, and don't forget the over five billion dollars in debt that most Paris County residents don't understand. They don't know that. When I tell people, oh, you know, by the way, we we owe over five billion dollars, and they go, really? And I feel really and this government is upside down. I don't know how else to describe it. It was and let me tell you, they can't even run commissioner's court yesterday was the worst example of a court and how it's to be run that I've ever seen in my life. And of course, Lena Hidalgo was out of the country as neat as she well should be. Can she stay? Yeah, yeah. I mean, so Rodney Ellis was running commissioner's court. Well, we we went through one ceremony after another, and I mean, wasted time everywhere. The uh agenda, I mean, half of what's in that agenda is incredible. Uh it should not be on the table to even be considered yet. It's there. Um let me explain the vetting process. The agenda, they go through the legislative system, any department that can do this and submit to the Office of Management and Budget uh an item that they want to be considered by Commissioner's Court and voted on. And so these things keep coming in, and then the Office of Management and Budget, they check the department's budget to see if there's enough money in their budget to handle the expenditure that they want to uh spend money on, and if it has legal ramifications, they run it through legal. But after that betting process for money and legal, it's put on the agenda. If I get in, we're gonna add one more thing to that betting process, and that's going to be is the item that they're requesting statutory or non-statutory. That's what's killing us. We're sitting on agenda items that should have never been even brought to the floor, let alone voted on.

SPEAKER_15 32:02

Yeah, and I think a lot of these issues also kind of just go back. You mentioned this sort of business-minded sense or really common sense in general. One of those things, I'm glad that you brought up the prisons in the area because it's just, I think, a very clear example of this sort of overbloated budget for no good reason, where we're sending, you said something close to$39 million sending prisoners over to Louisiana. And my question just to like, and and I think this is fair, right? And let's give them the benefit of the doubt. They're telling us we can't fix the Harris County jail because they haven't done enough audits. I know they've funded millions of dollars in like three different audit processes for understanding some sort of study on the Harris County jail. Millions more going to that while they're still putting prisoners out in other states. And we just don't go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 32:45

You know what the definition of a study is? It's that that is hard when the politicians in charge don't know what they're doing. There's a study.

SPEAKER_15 32:59

And I think the more studies you need on one topic, I think that's that's like you, you, you multiply that out. If you need one study, already we can tell you don't know what you're doing. By the time in which you've run it millions of dollars through three different studies and it's still not fixed, there there needs to be a conversation that the people that we put in these positions have literally no clue what they're doing.

Harris County Spending And Oversight Fixes

SPEAKER_06 33:18

Correct. I mean, it's it's uh it's terrible, but the good news is we can fix it. It's not that hard. Once we increase that betting process to include statutory versus non-statutory, and then get out of the non-statutory things that are already in place, which will take time, you know much mashing of teeth, but we can do it. And then once we I mean it'll take a year, maybe two years, to finally uh write the ship. But you know, the good news is we can do it, and we can do it, you know, within a couple of years. Once we do that, you know, my opponent uh bless bless his heart, wants to cut taxes the minute he walks in the door. You can't cut taxes the minute you walk in the door because we're five to six hundred million upside down. You have got to fix the government first so that you can cut the taxes. Right now, you can't cut anything in regards to revenue. We've got to fix spending. You know, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. So we have to keep our revenue where it is for a minute while we fix everything. Right, and it's it's I mean, that's just where we are.

SPEAKER_15 34:46

Right. And I think it's reasonable that people are now concerned uh about this potential unionization that's going on because, of course, on top of the, again, you mentioned this, but on top of the already overbloated budget where we're already five, six hundred million dollars in the hole, we're already every year uh being told that we have a crisis in terms of our funding and how we need more taxes to be taken, that we approach this unionization topic where you know, everyone knows what it's going to produce in terms of results as opposed to spending. And so I think that's another issue that's gonna have to be looked at and said, what what did we do here and how do we fix this problem?

SPEAKER_06 35:20

You know, let me say one thing. You know, when you unionize your firefighters or your police officers, they still have an obligation to provide for public safety. Therefore, under law, they really can't strike and do all the things that cause tremendous amounts of damage. But when you unionize the Harris County employees, these employees can strike because they're not dealing, you're not for the most part, they're not uh involved with the public safety, therefore they can shut us down, and we'll have chaos everywhere while they hold us hostage for more money. Yes, right now they're being paid more than what a normal position. I guarantee most all of them are being paid more than what their position would normally call for if you went about three or four stations and did an average, say for someone who drives a truck, someone who operates a tractor. I mean, it's so crazy. And and look at this. We you know, let's say you contract with the county to pour a sidewalk, you know, and normally one inspector shows up, yeah, good job, all right, you're you're done for certain specifications. No, it's three, four inspectors that show up that you have to deal with. And as a lot of contractors don't want to work with Harris County right now because they don't know what they're doing, and it's it's it costs them money, they don't get paid timely at all. It's just a mess. And so the whole it I can't think of a department that doesn't need to be revamped or reformed and or dismantled. I can't not once. It's pitiful, but it it took a long time to get to this point, I'll give them that. But they got there.

SPEAKER_15 37:32

Yeah, they they've been they've been doing it for a long time, unfortunately, and no one stood up. The other issue I have with this, uh, you mentioned the the unionization process in terms of when you look at firefighters and police law enforcement officers, that they still have an obligation to do this stuff, to do their job, regardless of what they're looking for, as opposed to those in Harris County government. My my question would be then if you look at the current makeup of commissioners to court, of the county judge, and you look at all of this, I I have a distinct feeling, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, Warren, but I have a distinct feeling that the people that are in positions right now are probably not gonna hold the line very well against that sort of a problem in the first place.

SPEAKER_06 38:11

No. I mean, they're not. And so uh in fact, uh these people way awake at night to figure out how they can spend more money. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen. I mean, I and reading all 57 pages, 471 items, I didn't see one item in there that cut calls for nothing. Everything was more and more and more. And we need to go less, less, less. A lot.

SPEAKER_15 38:41

Right. And I think it's gonna require a massive change in leadership, a massive change in the makeup of the court. And it's gonna, it's going to have to be someone in there uh who, when these things are being held hostage, who, when these things come up, somebody says, Yeah, we're not, we're not doing it, we're not bending the knee, we're going to fix the problems here, and that's that. And it ends. There's a period after that. There's no butts, there's no addendums, there's no we're gonna well, we need it. No. There needs to be a change in the way that we view the money in general, because this is supposed to be representative of the people of Harris County, and it's supposed to be beneficial, and people can afford to be able to live here. And so the result has been people are being priced out of their homes, they're being priced out of living, or what I I would argue is a f great that everyone wants to be here. But the things we're doing are not actually benefiting anyone, so we're spending money uselessly to price people out while not providing the benefit that should at least come if we're going to do that. Uh and so, of course, as I mentioned earlier, you're in a runoff collection, that's correct? Runoff election?

SPEAKER_06 39:44

Yeah. I'm in a runoff with Orlando Sanchez.

SPEAKER_15 39:48

And that's, I believe, coming up here in just a couple months. Uh May 26th. May 26th. How can people keep up to date with everything else that you're still working on, all the stuff going on with your campaign, all these sorts of releases? How can they keep up to date with everything that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_06 40:01

Well, we're we're on Facebook, Instagram, uh, X. We're uh, of course, my website, Howell, you go to howell for Harris County.com, and you'll read all about me. And uh, you know, I'm just I'm a native stonian, a lifelong business owner in Harris County. So I've seen I've seen the days when we were great and uh all the way to where we are today, which is just the opposite.

SPEAKER_15 40:37

Right. And that also means that you know there's days ahead where things can be different.

SPEAKER_06 40:42

Oh they're gonna be way different. Court will you'll you'll show up and whether you're for or against what appears to be an item that commissioners are for, you'll get your one minute or your ninety seconds and that's it. They were yesterday, you can't believe people were testifying, and if they were for an item like this union thing, if they were kind of majority for it, not all of them, of course, Tom Ramsey's not. But they if you went over your one minute that was fine. And then they would have conversations with you and waste more commissioners' court time. But then you got up and you were against what the majority appeared to be for. Well boy, at one minute hit they cut your mic off. Okay, you're gonna you're done. Get off. I mean, these people are crazy, they're and they're killing Harris County. Harris County is the it could be the best place on earth to live, you know, work, own a business, raise a family. But when you have uh people like what we have now in Commissioner's Court, it's the worst place to live. And they want it to be another New York, California, Chicago. They'd have no problem with that. And that blows my mind, frankly.

SPEAKER_15 42:03

And of course, as always, you know, I'm I'm I'm torn between being upset uh that Lena didn't show up, and and yet again, I mean, she's missed more commissioners' court meetings than anybody else since January of last year. She's consistently missing stuff. And so I'm torn between being upset that her county judge isn't showing up and saying maybe maybe somehow that's actually better, uh, which is just such a terrible place to be. I'm gonna be honest.

SPEAKER_06 42:27

Yeah, it's terrible, but I'll tell you what, everyone's calling for her resignation and and and rightfully so, but we really need to hope and pray that somehow she can keep it together through November. We don't need Commissioner's Court appointing out of the Democrat ranks a temporary county judge. We need to just pray that she makes it to November. And then she can go wherever she wants to go. We don't need her anymore at all.

SPEAKER_15 43:04

Hopefully far, far away as Star Wars was.

SPEAKER_06 43:33

We will be going back to Commissioner's Court, and I'll give you updates uh after each one because uh they're continuing uh to try to do damage to Harris County. It's almost as if they hate Harris County. I don't know why, but uh it it is amazing. So we will be going to to Commissioners Court every time, and I'll be happy to give you a report after those uh meetings.

SPEAKER_15 43:58

Absolutely. We'd love to have you on. In the in the again in the future, Warren. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 44:03

My pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_15 44:05

And ladies and gentlemen, with that being said, when we get back from the break, we're going to jump over to wrap up the first hour of the show. Of course, cover what's going on with the weather and all that before at the top of the next hour, having Charles Blaine from Urban Reform for the weekly local recap. If you'd like to text it about any of this ever talking about Harris County, Islamic influence, all that, the number is 713-779-5978. One more time. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. Don't go anywhere. Because we'll be right back to talk about the weather drive of the first hour of the show after the break.

SPEAKER_10 44:43

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SPEAKER_15 49:04

So summer-like heat is expected to settle over Houston this weekend, but it's part of a much larger pattern that has already set temperatures into the nineties in California and is bringing unusually early triple-digit heat over to Arizona. Highs in Houston are going to approach 90 degrees for the first time this year on Saturday, with unseasonably warm weather lingering into next week. The conditions, more typical of late May, come as a sprawling heat dome is building over our state. Today is likely to be the mildest day for the next week or so, with afternoon temperatures peaking in the mid-80s, which would be about 10 degrees above normal already. Houston will be on 90 degree watch tomorrow as the western ridge of high atmospheric pressure moves overhead. Warm, dry, southwesterly winds will push temperatures up to 88 or 89 degrees. While Houston might end up staying just shy of ninety, temperatures are likely to either tie or break the March 21st daily record of 87, set back in 1907, 120 years ago. Similar heat is expected the day after tomorrow on Sunday, with daytime temperatures reaching near 90 degrees. The heat is being driven by a broad ridge of high atmospheric pressure that has stretched across much of the southern tier of the United States in recent days. As we mentioned already with California and Arizona, I think Phoenix had its earliest hundred degree day the day before yesterday on Wednesday when they reached 102 degrees. A similar setup was in place and Houston's had its daily record in 1907. It's not what we consider average, but it's certainly not unprecedented, right? It's not unexpected. It's not something that we look at and we say, ah, I can't believe global warming is killing us. No, no, this has happened. It's been happening for for hundreds of years. It's not something to be concerned about, possibly thousands of years because we don't have the data for it. It's not something we should be overly surprised about in general. And so uh rain is also staying away with all this heat and this high atmospheric pressure. I think nearly 80 percent of the Houston region is experiencing severe drought, which is the third highest level of drought category as categorized by the U.S. Drought Monitor. About 22 percent of Southeast Texas experiencing extreme drought, which is the second highest level, especially west of the Brazos River. The ongoing dry stretch is stressing vegetation, increasing concerns the drought could last into the upcoming summer, and high pressure is going to continue to limit cloud cover and keep rain out of the forecast through at least the next week or so. Um and when I look uh out at, say, uh the monthly forecast, that's what I like doing, just to kind of check where we're at, uh what we're expecting temperatures to do going into the future, where I expect them to go from here. When you look out at the monthly forecast, not only are we seeing this heat stay around for a significant period of time, but again, we're we're also seeing a distinct lack of something that I think we all realize that we're needing right now, uh, which is a little bit of rain. Uh when you look out, the next time that I actually see any real potential for rain is the week after next. That's like kicking off on March 29th, going into April, is the next time that I'm even seeing a chance really for rain uh to kind of kick off the week, and we'll see where that goes from here. We'll keep you guys updated on the show every morning with the weather. With that being said, when we get back from the break, as I've been teasing throughout the show, being that it's Friday, we're gonna have the weekly local recap with uh with Charles Blaine from Urban Reform, going over all the biggest stories from using the surrounding areas over this past week, some of the stuff that you may have missed or stuff that we might have covered, but is really important to rehighlight as we've gone through this week. We'll talk about that. When we get back, as always, if you would like to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That's 713-779-KYST. You're listening to Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, I'll be right back with Charles Blaine at the top of the next hour.

SPEAKER_08 52:46

From deep in the heart of Texas, Houston's God-loving patriot, the voice of reason. This is the Lone Star Conservative, Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_15 53:13

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative brought to you by Textellant AC Service. And on the line, as we do on Friday at seven o'clock, we have the weekly local recap with Charles Blaine from Urban Reform. Welcome to the show, Charles. Thank you for having me. Good morning. Glad to be here. Glad to have you here, as always. Very excited to get into this. Um a lot of these stories actually are coming out of Harris County Commissioner's Court yesterday. Uh, a wild turn of events. So we'll kind of go in that order. I think we'll kind of we'll we'll kick it off, kind of talking about Tom Ramsey's resolution, which I think everyone was waiting with baiting baited breath to hear. And uh I'm hearing that where we didn't get to hear it.

SPEAKER_07 53:52

Yeah, unfortunately, it kind of just fell a little bit flat because we didn't get to hear it. So they, you know, as you said, Mr. Ramsey had put forth this resolution, kind of just talking about what had happened a couple of weeks ago with the well, right? So it's two weeks ago now, with uh uh Josh Hidago and the rodeo. And so part of the resolution, or part of the effort, if you will, was to give credit to the rodeo and kind of just give them acknowledgement for all the great work they did. And he was able to do that. But then the second half of it, where he wanted to kind of you know call at Lisa Dago for her bad behavior and what he had alluded to across uh the county leading up to this was called for her resignation. That part did not happen. Um it didn't part of the resolution kind of got shut down because uh she was there and Commissioner Ellis, who was overseeing the meeting because it typically goes to the next senior member of Commissioner's Court, um, wanted to limit the discussion because of the rule change. I mean, he he didn't have the rules in his favor, um, but wanted to limit the discussion to uh on several ceremonial resolutions until she was there. So that was delayed until March 31st, and that's when we're gonna get to hear whether or not uh commissioner officially calls for her resignation, which you know it won't she probably won't give it, but you know, at least in front of her colleagues, we think we should resign.

SPEAKER_15 55:04

Okay. Not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_07 55:07

I don't know what yeah, it was uh yeah, just it's kind of a show. It's kind of a show, but uh but didn't happen. And I'm sure though when it does happen, I think the the benefit we all have is that the fact that they're waiting for her to be there is that we're sure to get a very, very, very good uh like two weeks of content out of what happens from her reaction when this when this happens with her there.

SPEAKER_15 55:29

So yeah, the Friday after March 31st, I'm sure you and I are gonna have plenty to talk about. Oh, plenty. I'm sure of it, sure of it, absolutely sure of it. Well, one of the things that I found funny about this resignation in general, or about the the resolution in general, was he wanted to read it. And it kind of got a little I watched the clip, it got a little rambly because he wanted to read it, and Rodney Ellis is saying, She's not here, we'd have to suspend the rules because we have a real problem suspending the rules, as as we all know. Um, and uh Tom Ramsey's like, yeah, I get it, thank you. And he's like, So we're moving on. He said, No, I want to read it. And he's like, Well, you gotta do a motion. Tom Ramsey goes, All right, I do a motion. Rodney calls, is there a second? No second. And then he says, All right, we're waiting until she's here. And Tom Ramsey goes, Well, I don't know when that'll be. She's not really here.

unknown 56:15

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_07 56:16

And he offered to read it for anybody who wanted to gather around after and read it. But I he might have. I wish he would just kind of gone and read it on you know Facebook Live or something. But uh, yeah, but yeah, he did not have a second, which is interesting given how nasty the the rumors months ago, Adrian Garcia and and Leslie Grionis in their fight with with uh Judge Adazo, you would think that they had kind of maybe felt the urge to second it. But no, I think they've kind of fallen back to their old ways as well. And so, you know, everybody's kind of back in line at the election years, and and Commissioner Ramsey did not have the support he needed to at least just read the resolution that wasn't really gonna you know effectively change anything.

SPEAKER_15 56:52

Right. And we a lot of this came out because he went on Paul Bettencourt's show, uh, because Paul Bettencourt, Senator Paul Bettencourt, has been calling for Lena's resignation for a bit now as well. And so there's this, I think, sort of relatively sizable push uh for Lena to resign. One issue actually that I had Warren Howe talking about, uh, one concern that he has that I think is fair, and I want to get your position on this, is uh this claim that even if she resigns, well then we're putting someone as an interim in. He said, and and Lena Dalgo's bad, but we don't know who the interim is going to be. And if the Democrats are able to select whoever they want from the Democrat ranks to do this, and it and you know, we can say it's bad that she doesn't show up. What if it is somebody who does show up and does run the court with an iron fist, but it's a Democrat position doing that?

SPEAKER_07 57:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think we run that risk, right? If if that's the case and they want to swap her out and she chooses to go, I think we do run that big risk. I think the only save of grace would be is that we're kind of at the the um the election is kind of in the near future, and so we would be able to kind of get to that point, but who knows what damage can be done in that short order. I mean, it would be from now until January of 2026 or uh seventh. And so we don't know. And so yeah, I agree. I I don't know that that's necessarily the best solution. We we it's kind of like you uh uh what is it? You uh you stick with the with the devil you know, and so like we we know what we're gonna get, and for the next couple of months, we're probably just gonna get a lot of kind of angry tweets and kind of long statements and and fights here and there, but that's probably the worst of it if we keep her. And then if we get somebody new, we just don't know what they're gonna break.

SPEAKER_15 58:16

Right. If we keep her, we just never gonna get random claims of sexism and racism because uh she couldn't go where she wanted to at the rodeo. That's what we're gonna get. Unbelievable. Well, I also want to talk about another another thing that came out, which was the this unionization we talked with again Warren Howell earlier in the show about it, but this is wild to me. Uh because as we kind of highlighted, you know, Harris County government is paid some of the highest salaries uh of all time. Uh I think as you mentioned, we were talking about before the before we came on the show, underpaid is an under or overpaid is an understatement uh for a lot of these positions. And so it's not even an anti-union perspective to say there's times and places where maybe you could talk about the benefit, and I'm a little lost on what the benefit would be for our Harris County government and what this looks like.

Ramsey Resolution And Hidalgo Fallout

SPEAKER_07 59:04

Yeah, I mean, I don't think there really is one. I mean, is there okay, there's probably a benefit for Harris County government, not a benefit for Harris County taxpayers or anyone else outside of that. I mean, it's it's really so they voted 301 to improve this kind of uh uh union, it's quasi-union quasi-unionization. They're allowing for work uh place policy changes to be advocated for by labor organizations and um elevate grievances and make recommendations to commissioners' courts. So essentially they're saying that they can select an organization to represent them, although the organization doesn't really have like the teeth to force anything to happen, like you see with police or fire. Um, but it's still there, like it's still there and it's still kind of unionization by another name, if you will. And it's called the employee consultation policy. And a couple other counties have a two other counties have something like this, but not this. Um the Harris County is kind of the first to actually do this. And so some are concerned that this is a move towards collective bargaining, which you know it it could be. I mean, right now, state law does prohibit it explicitly prohibit collective bargaining for anybody outside of um some belief buyer, however, that the demeanor of things can't change, things have always changed. Um, and so I I don't know that I'm I I mean I certainly know that I'm not in favor of this, but I don't know what the outcome is going to be because even um the the budget director, Ramos, when asked how much this would cost the county, he couldn't really put a dollar amount to it because he just didn't know.

SPEAKER_15 1:00:24

Right. And I think the other concern, uh as has been highlighted, is when you look at, say, firefighter unions or law enforcement unions, one of the things that is at least beneficial for the taxpayers is that uh one of the big issues with unions consistently across our country has been this sort of strike mentality where they can essentially hold the government hostage or hold whatever organization hostage until they get their demands met uh and play this sort of game of chicken. And when you look at law enforcement and firefighter unions, that's not a possibility because they're so deeply entrenched in public safety that they're still obligated to fulfill their roles regardless of of a union, as opposed to, say, Harris County government, where there's not that sort of entrenchment into public safety. And so if they want to if they want to strike, that's on the table, and now we have Harris County being held hostage, our services going not taken care of. Um and you know, we look at this where we already have this hundred million dollar or five hundred million dollar budget deficit, and we're saying, yeah, you know what, why don't we spend more money on the one thing that we definitely don't need to spend more money on?

SPEAKER_07 1:01:25

Yeah, I I don't understand the logic behind it. Like, I don't know that there was a big call for this from the employees. I don't know that there was a big, you know, kind of need for this because they saw a ton of grievances that were going ignored. I think there's just really an effort for the county um Democrats uh to kind of give a little bit of a I don't know, a gift or a boon to their base and kind of say, look what we're trying to do in Progressive Harris County. And I mean, and hey, you know, they did. And now they can claim to coast for it, unfortunately. But I just don't know that they've even looked out into the kind of out years as to what this could mean, because at the end of the day, they're the ones who are overstating the budget. And when these employees do come with grievances or do come with uh increased uh requests for requests for increased pay uh salary and different things like that, they're gonna have to reconcile those and now they're gonna be dealing with a union and they're gonna be on the opposite end of the union because they're gonna have to be you know mindful of what the county can actually afford. And so I don't know that they've like really gazed this out to the great extent that extent that it could. Um and so we'll just have to see what that ends up happening. But you know, I Commissioner Ramsey again alone no vote on that one. Um, and and I, you know, give him credit for standing up against it, but I just I don't know what we're what Harrison is going to look like in the next few years if things like this continue to happen.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:34

Right. And the other thing I want to mention, speaking of Commissioner's Court, has also been this near$39 million we're spending uh on sending prisoners to Louisiana. And I I thought, Charles, I thought, I thought I was assured that we were getting so much better that we didn't really need to do this anymore, that we're gonna bring these people back to Harris County, not the opposite.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:53

Yeah, I thought so too. I mean, if you if you listen to the kind of uh sheriff and and to some recent commentary about what's going on in the jail and and and being finally be passing one of the the uh audits from the CTJF, you would think that we wouldn't be moving in this direction, or not even moving, continuing in this direction, but we are. And then you have 38 million dollars to go yet again to the same facility that we have, private correctional facility that we've been paying to get hundreds of energy to forever. Um, and that also has had a lot of issues that we've ended up having to deal with because even though they're not in our country, well, they are technically in our custody, they're not in like our immediate care that still falls on us when something happens and we don't have uh control over those facilities or how they interact with the inmates. And so there have been in custody deaths, there have been uh you know assault and different things like that that Harrison has been responsible for kind of sending them to LaSalle. And so here we are, and they and they're alleging that this is a this is after a 12% drop in the jail's average population last year, so we still need to pay$38 million to send about 10 or 1,050 inmates to this jail in I don't know who you call it, not a churches or how the name is in Louisiana. But it makes no sense to me. I mean, a 10, a 12% drop, and we're still sending that many, and it's$38 million. Like at that point, we could buy a facility here in Harris County on the outskirts, and we can probably build a jail for a fraction of the pick of the cost to house a thousand people. I mean, it makes it crazy. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_15 1:04:18

Right. And on top of that, we also have to keep in mind, of course, uh that we're we're spending money on these studies uh to tell us how to fix our jail problem. Sean Tier, our district attorney, is coming out and saying it's not a big deal because finally our district attorney's office has brought down the number of pending cases, which is going to fix a lot of these jail issues. And there just seems to be these combating realities where what we're being told about pending cases and jail standards is competing with what's actually happening in our budget.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:45

Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, right? We keep hearing these stories, like you said, of just everything's good going well. They're home press conferences talking about how we're moving in the right direction. But yet, why are we still spending$38 million? Like if we saw a 12% decrease in the average daily population from last year to this year, why are we spending the same amount of money sending people out? That just doesn't make that logically makes no sense because we spent$38 million in one tranche towards the end of last year. And so if we're doing this now, there's something that's still wrong, very, very wrong in this situation. And so I don't understand how we're under. And also I don't get how you have these kind of you know, bleeding heart progressives on commissioner's court who always want to talk about kind of uh uh softening the the criminal justice approach, if you will. And yet they send inmates to these places that they have an oversight of, that we've we've had a number of dead inmates come out of that we have number of assaults, where they were actually legitimate assaults on inmates that guards that haven't been held accountable for. So, like all these things are happening, all these civil rights violations are happening in your jail and in other facilities that you're sending them to, but yet you don't care about that yet. You're still literally kind of on that side of the the aisle anyway. But it just it's it's it makes no sense.

SPEAKER_15 1:05:51

Right. And so as from before, I also want to go ahead and talk a little bit about HPD and ICE, because apparently there's been another change to the way they cooperate, that sort of policy. What what

Employee Consultation Policy Union Concerns

SPEAKER_07 1:06:39

And then 34 minutes that officers aren't allowed to be on the time of 30 to complete the traffic job for investigation. So if you're the last thing and the uh police she said one minute for 30 minutes, 30-minute window, uh one thing is then you have to learn the no. Well now she thinks no, it only entails the traffic job. You know, the broken tail light for that, you can't hold it any longer than that, no matter how long. No matter how short that is of the window. And then the last piece of that is they want the uh HPD to compile and provide a report to each council member twice a year on the use of city resources for immigration enforcement.

SPEAKER_15 1:07:13

Absolutely insane. The 30 minutes was insane. When we talked about it, you and I were both just thinking to ourselves, this is crazy. I I if that's crazy, then this is unfathomable. I I mean, this is flabbergasting. What's the what's the the goal here? The the goal, I I'm why am I asking a rhetorical question to myself? We all know the goal. It's that there's zero cooperation whatsoever, and we we have no part to play at all in serving administrative warrants. That's that's the point, obviously.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:43

I mean, you're gonna get there are some people out there, law enforcement officers who are probably sympathetic to the kind of like all debate right now. And who might have a small ticket? Or might not even write a ticket because they're failed. And then go and get out of here so you don't have to have a lot of people. You've you've got to end the victory on both of both. At the end of the day, you're giving them this discussion. So now you have a history officer who doesn't believe that this should be enforced. And you know, you think about what's gonna happen there. Then you have people protesting him, be like, you're you're doing this to your people. Like you should not be putting this on them any moment to decide whether or not it's kind of elevates into a federal issue. You should make sure that there's a politics across the board that people know.

SPEAKER_15 1:08:27

No, listen, Charles, the the life of a law enforcement officer is just not stressful enough, is what we're hearing. Um, that's what they're telling us. It's just not stressful enough. They need more responsibility, uh, they need to be held accountable for more issues. That's now the onus is on them. That's what we need. As we're wrapping up here, I also want to highlight these uh TSA shutdowns, which have of course been affecting our airports.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:45

Yeah, so 41% call outs is what they're saying is that Bush. So if you need to go to the airport, go early. And uh TSA prefect is only available in A and C in Bush, and then the standard screening is only available in A and E. So you need to go to different terminals. Like it's kind of like a mess down there. Even this morning, I was watching the news and lines along. So if you're flying out anytime soon, well, this partial government shutdown is going on, which I didn't even realize what's happening, then you need to get to the airport earlier because there are 41% of TSA call-outs.

SPEAKER_15 1:09:10

Wow. I just unbelievable. And of course, we know, again, the background on the government shutdown for those of our listeners who may be unaware, is they're trying to hold DHS hostage because they want to reduce ICE funding. Uh, rather than having a conversation on ICE funding specifically and on ICE operations, they're just holding the entire Department of Homeland Security uh basically hostage, where things like TSA are affected, cybersecurity is affected, all these sorts of flow down policies are are a result of this. And so we know exactly who who we're who we're talking about. As we wrap up, Charles, I just wanna I just wanna point out to you, because I'm excited for next week. I'm hearing that last night deliberations uh took a pause overnight in the KP George trial. That the closing arguments happened yesterday morning. Oh, and jurors break for the night in their deliber they're still deliberating. And so we don't we don't know. I was hoping there would be an outcome that when I checked back this morning. When I when I checked yesterday, I was hoping, oh, the closing arguments we might get an answer and we could talk about it. Uh but they they pause deliberations for an overnight break. And so we don't have an answer yet, but it's on the near horizon.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:09

Well, for your listeners' uh uh benefit, I hope they deliberate until like next Thursday evening so that we can talk about it threshold.

SPEAKER_15 1:10:17

I will make sure that I, regardless of what happens, I'm gonna keep everybody in the dark. I'm gonna say we're not talking about it. We're waiting for Charles before we find out this is this is gonna be big development. I need to get this live take on the air. Charles, as always, I appreciate you coming on and giving us your time this morning. Can you let everyone know how they can keep up to date with everything you're reporting on, video content, all that sort of stuff when you're not here on the show?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:40

Just check out Urban Reform org or social or uh TJ Blade 10, all across social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

SPEAKER_15 1:10:45

You'll find us stuff there. Perfect. Charles, as always, I appreciate you coming on, giving us your time this morning, uh, doing all the background research, keeping everyone across Harris County informed of what's happening here in the greater Houston area. Uh, because of course, as we all understand, the first step in fixing problems is knowing what those problems are. So I appreciate you giving us your time this morning coming on. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Talk to you next week. Talk to you next week. With that being said, when we get back, we're going to talk about these potential new rules uh for quorum breaking, what the penalties are going to be when we get back for this House Committee. If you want to text in the number is 713-779-5978. One more time. That's 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. I'll be right back with that update from the House Committee after the break.

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unknown 1:16:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_15 1:16:01

To discuss penalties for Democrats who participated in last summer's special session quorum break. According to the committee notice, the hearing is scheduled for April 10th, here in just a few weeks, and will consider financial penalties for members that were absent from the House during the first and second called sessions. Invited witnesses will also appear before the committee. Democrats, of course, as we all should remember, do not let do not forget any of this. Uh they broke quorum last August at the start of Governor Greg Abbott's first special session, attempt to block the redistricting efforts. They went to other places in Texas, other states, uh to try to flee from our grasp in order to make sure that we could not redistrict the state of Texas. And following their return, several attempts were made to punish lawmakers and to increase penalties to prevent those actions from happening again later. Included in the second special session call was the directive for lawmakers to pursue legislation to impose penalties or punishments for legislators who willfully absent themselves during a session. Soon after that call, the House GOP caucus rejected efforts to punish Democrats. No, we don't want to we don't want to punish them for essentially breaking quorum for denying the will of the people and for causing massive issues and massive hysteria. No, no, no, no punishment for that. Um we don't we don't want any sort of all the motions for loss of seniority, steeper fines, forfeiture of chairmanships, none of those things move forward. And so a resolution was eventually adopted by the Texas House to ensure that such cornbreaking attempts carry heavier penalties in the future. They said, okay, we don't want to punish them this time. This is like a warning. But next time we catch you doing it, you know we're gonna get you, which I'm not sure I believe. We'll find out maybe more on April 10th. Uh but the resolution, should it all go according to plan, will increase fines and add penalties for those who deliberately break quorum. Now, although the resolution was adopted, house rules are not binding from one session to the next and require future action to maintain in effect. So even if they do this, I'm sure what's gonna come out from Republicans uh as they adopt all this stuff is they're gonna say, Look what we did, we fixed it, boom, done. And then we're gonna get to the next session and they're gonna break somebody's gonna break quorum or they're gonna break the rules, and we're gonna ask where's the penalties, they're gonna say, Well, that doesn't apply this session. So it was all showmanship. It was all performative art. It was all designed to make us feel like you're doing something, that you're actually fighting for us, that you're willing to have some backbone, and it was all for show. It was all for you to look good, and not for you kind of like the whole that this is my same issue with the calls for banning Sharia law. It sounds great. It sounds like you're finally taking on Islam here in Texas. It sounds like you're finally going after the bad guys who are trying to dramatically shift our Western way of life. And at the end of the day, it's all for show. Because sh as I've had I've tried to explain to people, Sharia law is already banned by the Constitution, by Texas law, by federal law. It's already all banned. Banning Sharia specifically is going to do basically nothing to actually change our current policy setup. And so it's it's a thing they can say, see, we're we're tackling the issue without actually tackling the issue at all. And that's the same thing they're doing here. See, we're going after the Democrats. We're not gonna let them do this again. But they're just rules that are gonna be ignored and changed and forfeited come the next legislative session. And so Republican Party voters have again been increasingly upset uh in the mechanics of how the House operates. During the primary election, voters approved proposition nine uh calling for the Republican controlled legislature to stop awarding leadership positions, including committee and subcommittee chairmanships and vice chairmanships to Democrats, which passed with about eighty percent support. So again, and again, we don't know how many Democrats voted in the Republican primaries because we have open primaries, goodness gracious. And so we don't know how many Democrats were a part of that. But even if you assume it was all Republicans, eighty percent is still a very wide margin to say that Republicans overwhelmingly are demanding that you stop giving any semblance of power to Democrats when we're a Republican-controlled state. Which shouldn't need a proposition for us to know that people would be upset by that. It's very obvious. It would be like Trump coming in and all of his all of his committees, all of his chairs, all all the people you know in his cabinet were all far left radical Democrats. And he says, Well, don't worry, our Republicans in charge. Well, then why are we putting our cabinet members as staunch Democrats who are going to deny the things we actually want done under our Trump administration? And it simply doesn't make any sense, and it's a total waste of the power that through the people God has given us in the state of Texas to pursue the things that Republicans desire, to pursue the things that Christians and conservatives desire. But that's consistently been a problem, which is why we need accountability mechanisms for those in government. It's why we need people held accountable, it's why we need lobbyists, it's why we need people who are going to fight for the truth and are going to fight for your rights. And that's not just the right uh to take away chairs, chairmanships from Democrats or to impose penalties, it also means fighting for your constitutional rights that every single day are on the chopping block for them to take away from you. And that's why it is essential as ever that you join with our sponsor as a member of Gun Owners of America. You see, Gun Owners of America is fully devoted to the preservation of the Second Amendment. Understanding that it is a God-given right, not a man-given right, not one that the government gives you, it's one that the government acknowledges, but it's given by God. And that means that it should not be infringed upon, it should not be stripped away from you. And that requires, as I was mentioning, a level of accountability that does not change from session to session. It requires someone that's going to be there in every session to hold people accountable. That means campaigning for candidates who are in staunch support of the Second Amendment. It means then holding them accountable uh by lobbying inside legislative sessions. It also means when things are overset that there are lawsuits against such nefarious laws and nefarious purposes and nefarious orders, uh like the ongoing lawsuit against the NFA with the DOJ. All these sorts of things are the work that Gun Owners America is doing uh behind the scenes and in the front lines every single day of every single week, of every single month, of every single year. And if you would like to support that mission, which I hope you do, you can go to GOAHouston.com. That is G Oahuston.com. It is a twenty-five dollar annual membership, twenty-five bucks per year, which go right back to continuing this fight, to continuing to support your rights, to continuing to defend what defends the rest. Again, that is GOAHuston.com. With that being said, when we get back from the break, we're gonna jump over and talk about SB twenty nine, uh Senate Bill 29, which was now used to dismiss a lawsuit against directors of Southwest Airlines. Uh we'll talk more about this federal court, uh, this dismissal, this shareholder lawsuit uh under newly passed Senate Bill 29 when we get back from the break. As always, if you would like to be a part of the show, and that can mean a variety of things, by the way. I I I highlight this sometimes. You know, a lot of people that text in are in support of, kind of add on to things that I say. That's great. And if you're texting in with that, keep doing so. We'd love to hear from our listeners in any capacity. But if you have a disagreement or you have a story that you want to hear more about, or you want to ask a question because you think you might have a disagreement, you want me to clarify something. Feel free to text in. Let us know your thoughts on any of the stuff we're covering, or even the stuff we're not at that number. That number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. Be right back with SB 29 in that dismissed lawsuit after the break.

SPEAKER_10 1:23:42

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Quorum Break Penalties And GOP Frustration

SPEAKER_15 1:28:00

Shareholders' lawsuit against certain Southwest Airlines directors with prejudice under the newly passed Senate Bill 29. The law was designed, of course, to prevent frivolous leg uh litigation. SP C 29, which was signed into law back in May of last year, allows Texas corporations to institute stock ownership threshold requirements for shareholder derivative actions. That that's when a shareholder uh sues on behalf of a corporation against its directors. When someone who uh owns stock in the company says we don't like the direction that the actual leadership is taking it, so we're gonna sue the leadership. So in July of last year, this would be a couple months after the law was uh was passed and signed, Vladimir Gacinski, who has owned 100 shares of Southwest since 2022, brought that federal lawsuit against certain members of Southwest's board of directors. Gaczynski cited a September 2024 report concerning the profitability of the company's bags fly free policy. Research has established that ending the policy would cost the company approximately$300 million annually, which is funny because, you know, uh of course, if you don't understand the way that business works, you'd say, but people have to pay now. Won't that get us more money? No, because less people are gonna fly with you. That was one of the reasons, by the way, to fly with Southwest. Because you know, if you fly with Spirit or a lot of these other airlines, uh you're having to pay for extra bags. And so when you look at the cost and you look at Southwest and the fact that they're still or sometimes still relatively affordable, you'd say, well, I just don't want to go through the hassle of registering a bag. When I when I go, my bags are gonna go with me. And that's convenient, it's easy, it's nice, it's affordable, it's great. When you end that policy, you may think, well, now people are gonna pay even more because more people are, you know, now you have to pay for extra things that people are taking anyway. Uh no, actually, now less people are gonna fly with you because that was one of the defining factors of why they chose to fly with you in the first place. And this is what often happens in companies that don't seem to understand their target audience, they don't seem to understand who they're speaking to and who they're dealing with. It happens all the time, unfortunately, in businesses where people go off the rails uh in in this search of of higher profit margins without understanding why they had profit margins in the first place. Without understanding it's kind of like when they say, Hey, uh, we can if we change, it's a burger place. Hey, if we change our meat out and order it from Argentina, we can actually get cheaper meat, which means our profit margins will be bigger, which means we're gonna actually be making more money because we're not gonna make our product cheaper, but we're getting our inventory cheaper. What they don't realize is the people were showing up to that burger restaurant because they knew you had American beef and that meant something to them. That was the reason they chose you. It wasn't necessarily because your burgers were the best, but because you had American beef, and that mattered. And now that you don't, it doesn't matter what you thought the profit margins would be, that you thought you'd make more money because less people are going to show up. That's what happened. Nevertheless, um what I what I will say is that apparently, after the board change uh a couple years ago, defendants approved new policies that directly conflicted with their previous data supported customer-centric business model. Defendants were served a demand letter in which Kacinski alleges that they breached their fiduciary duties to Southwest by eliminating the bags fly free policy after entrenching themselves. And so two days after that law was passed and signed, the defendants amended Southwest bylaws to state that no shareholder may institute or maintain a derivative proceeding unless that shareholder beneficially owns at least three percent of the outstanding shares of the corporation. And so defendants responded to the shareholder's demand letter uh by essentially saying law protects us, we're good. And so on July 10th, he filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, repeating the allegations made in the demand letter. He also sought a declaratory judgment that SB 29 and the amended bylaws violate the Texas Constitution's prohibition against retroactive application of law, its open courts provision, and Texas contract law. And defendants argued that Gacinski's claims must be dismissed because they are barred by SP 29 and by their amended bylaws. And so, just over the past couple days, U.S. Ed Kinkeed granted the defendant's motion, dismissing the case with prejudice. He reasoned that although Gacinski's written shareholder demand against the defendants was served in April, his complaint was not formally filed until July after the enactment of SB 29 and the adoption of the amended bylaws. In other words, Gacinski, this guy, this shareholder, who's trying to do his best for the people and for the company, is not allowed to move forward because he wasn't harsh enough. I think is the best way to word this. Because he did it as a letter to try to persuade, because he did it in a nice way, because he said, Hey, I don't want to take this to the courts. I want this to be done, you know, internally. Because he didn't take it far enough and fast enough, he's now saying, you know, the judge is now saying, yeah, can't do it. Uh the judge wrote, plaintive admits that he owns 100 shares far below the threshold set by the amended bylaws. He noted the required 3% ownership of Southwest uh essentially equates to about 17 million shares. And so the opinion concluded the court finds that SB twenty nine and the amended bylaws bar plaintiff's claims as a matter of law. Accordingly, the court grants defendant's motion and dismisses the prejudice plaintiff's claims against defendants, uh, which means he didn't even consider the merits of the claims since he's saying that this is ruling on standing. You don't even have the standing to sue in the first place because of SB twenty nine. And so here's here's my position on all of this. Companies consistently have gotten away with treating their customers horribly. Uh, you guys may not know this because this is you know more of a younger generation thing. But over on Epic Games, uh, if you know anything about video games at all, you have different marketplaces where you can get games, right? On PlayStation, you of course have the PlayStation store. On Xbox, they now have Game Pass, but you had a different, you have the it's owned by Microsoft, you have the Microsoft store. You also, on, if you're playing on PC, you have access to the Steam library. It's a Steam catalog. Kind of to compare this to movies, it's like you have Netflix, Hulu, et cetera. Epic Games is a cross-platform. That means regardless if you're playing on a PlayStation or an Xbox or a PC, regardless of whether where you play your video games, you can get a lot of the same games from Epic Games. It's a downloadable service that you can get a variety of games. Uh those games, you probably heard of some of them, things like Fortnite, uh things like Fall Guys, Rocket League, they have a lot of different video games. And there's an ongoing issue right now because Epic Games has announced that they're going to essentially uh V-Bucks, this is so I I'm I'm getting into it, into the the the thicket of explaining this. Uh V-Bucks are essentially um a monetary amount that you can use to make purchases inside the video game Fortnite. You you purchase V-Bucks with real dollars, and then you use V-Bucks to buy things like skins, dances, all these sorts of things that are meaningless, but the game's free, and then people spend money on the cosmetic stuff, on on looking cool, playing cool, whatever it is. And they announced that the cost of the in-game V-Bucks is going to go up. That it 800 V-Bucks used to be 10 bucks. Well, now it's gonna cost you 12 bucks. And of course, the entire consumer industry has said these things cost you nothing. It's your it's your money. You give us this, it it already exists. You're not providing any new services that we're now paying for. The game is free. You are raising the cost on consumers, which means many of us who or many of the people who are talking about this stuff are saying, I can't afford to spend that kind of money. It may be a minor amount, but with all the other stuff that I'm already spending money on, I can no longer afford to purchase money in your game. And so while you think that's gonna drive your, your, your profit margins up, well, you don't understand your consumer base. And so I think it was fair for the shareholder to say, uh, this is not a good direction for the company. You can't do this. The problem is that he, because he tried to do it gently, because it was done and tried to handle it the right way, he's being punished for I think doing things reasonably. And what a lot of shareholders are gonna do as a result of this, rather than it being a moment where it prevents frivolous litigation, people are gonna do things entirely differently. They're gonna operate differently, sidelong of what they should be doing, and it's going to result in more frivolous litigation than less. I think it's going to unfortunately be the result of a lot of this. Now, with that being said, when we get back from the break, to wrap up the show, over at UNT, there's uh this this it's crazy. University of North Texas is now presenting what they're calling algorithmic equity. It's an algorithmic equity program, uh, which they recently approved, could lay a foundation for what some are calling woke AI using this person leading the project who calls herself an equity strategist, which does not make sense in any sense of the words, but I think we all understand what it means. It's just the woke agenda, again, in our public institutions, in our institutions in general. We'll talk all about the details of that algorithmic equity when we get back from the break. This is your last chance to text in. The number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. Don't go anywhere because I'll be right back to wrap up not only the show today, but the show for this week after the break.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:33

Patriot Talk 920 is your Houston base camp for the America first movement. I'm Todd Starns, and join me weekdays at 11 on Patriot Talk 920 and online at PatriotTalk920.com.

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SB 29 Blocks Southwest Shareholder Suit

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UNT Algorithmic Equity And AI Agenda

Final Takeaways And Listening Options

SPEAKER_15 1:41:28

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative brought to you by Texan AC Service. According to an email obtained via open records request, uh, this professor, Noreen Khan, told Mr Mario Casa de Calvo, Dean of the UNT College of Liberal Arts, that her aim for the project was to transform mathematics from a gatekeeping mechanism into an inclusive data-driven engine for social mobility and educational justice. These people talk like they're not real. Can I can I can I pause the show? I cannot highlight to you that the words that I can produce are incapable of highlighting how dastardly insane this sentence is. This sentence, if you try to say this sentence seriously, you wouldn't be able to. This is something the likes of which America has never seen. Let me read the sentence to you. So you understand. You don't even need to address the logic of the of the statement. There isn't any, by the way, to understand how insane the sentence is on its face. Could you imagine? You go back to to to Newton, you go back to any scientist, you go back to Nicola Tesla, you talk to anybody who's been in mathematics, who studied calculus, who who studied theoretical fit you go to any scientist in any realm, from math to physics to chemistry, you go to anything that involves mathematics whatsoever, and you tell them, you think we should transform mathematics from a gatekeeping mechanism into a data-driven engine for social mobility and educational justice? And they would look at you and say, literally, what the heck are you saying? I I don't even know. Is that English? What language are you speaking? I mean, your last name is Khan, but I don't think it's English. I just I don't think so. Apparently, the the request further elaborates that our intent is to integrate artificial intelligence with equity-driven practices. It further stakes states that the project's objective is to explore how artificial intelligence can support equity in developmental mathematics. Because of course, you know what? I was wrong all along. I I know I took calculus, I know I liked math a lot, but I was wrong on what math was. I thought math was to learn. I thought the purpose of math was to be educated. I thought the purpose of mathematics was to develop your ability to think critically, to think logically, because math is interconnected with logic. That's why it's so good. I always tell people the purpose of studying math for most people is not going to be because they're going to be engineers or often even need the math they learn. It's actually because it's like a workout muscle in your brain for understanding critical thinking and the ability to use thought to produce further thought. Anyways, I thought the purpose was general education. I thought the purpose was for you to learn and to be more intelligent. No, no, no. Turns out the goal of math is for equity and development. That's the goal. So that we can have equitable distribution. And you know what? We need AI to do it. I I mean, this, this, this is absolutely insane. Uh the guy wrote back and said that the proposal reflects an effort to connect research on pedagogy, equity, and artificial intelligence in ways that may benefit our students and faculty, which is a lie. It's not going to benefit anyone. It's going to result in more discrimination, as we have often found. And it's going to result in these sorts of programs where people are becoming dumber and dumber while being discriminated against. And that's an unbelievable combination. Nevertheless, that will do it for the show today and this week. Thanks everyone who tuned into the Lone Star Conservative throughout this week. If you missed any of the shows, you can check us out on Spotify or Apple by just searching for our podcast, The Lone Star Conservative. All the episodes go up each day that they go here on the air. You can check them out. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend. It'll be a warm one, especially for March. And Godspeed