Why Texas Says Data Centers Must Pay Their Own Grid Costs

HISD test scores are climbing after the Texas Education Agency takeover, and that’s real news. But we don’t let a headline number become a victory lap. We talk through what’s actually changed under Superintendent Mike Miles, why “better but not good” is still a warning sign, and why parents should demand more than a system that teaches kids to memorize instead of think. If you care about Houston schools, STAAR test results, and what real student success looks like, this first segment sets the stakes.

From there, we shift to Texas energy policy and the ERCOT grid. Governor Greg Abbott is directing regulators to stop data centers from pushing their infrastructure costs onto everyday Texans. We break down why data center expansion is exploding in Texas, how corporate welfare can sneak in through transmission upgrades and interconnection costs, and what it would look like to protect residential electric bills while still welcoming investment and innovation.

Then we hit two more pressure points: Houston Public Library Pride Month programming that includes events marketed as family friendly, and a border enforcement update that argues policy and prosecution drive deterrence more than slogans do. We also cover newly unsealed details on an ICE detainee escape from a Houston contract facility and close with a look at Senate Bill 37 and the fight over academic governance at Texas public universities.

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Transcript

GOP Convention Plans And Podcast Plug

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The voice of reason is the most part conservative, Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_10 0:30

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative, back and with you this early morning, June 11th, that's Thursday. And the start, by the way, of the State GOP convention here in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center. We'd love to see you there, by the way. We at Patriot Talk 920 will be at booth 210. We're going to have a Patriot social hour coming up 3 to 5 today that'll have free bourbon tastings, some cigar giveaways. That'll be a lot of fun. And then from 4 to 6 p.m., I believe, I'll be doing a live broadcast there at George R. Brown. So we would love to have you come on out, say hi to the team. I think we'll also be there with Gun Owners of America, so you can meet those guys too. They're pretty cool. And we'd just love to see you. There'll be lots going on all weekend at the convention. You know, we had Brandon Waltons on yesterday. And this is also a really cool feature that I forget to promote because I'm so busy talking about the actual show and what we're going over. But we have a podcast now. And one of the perks of having a podcast is not just that you can listen. If you've already listened, you don't need to go back and listen again. So if you've if you listen to the radio show live, you probably don't also want to listen to the podcast unless you like really enjoy the show and that's all you want to listen to. But the reason I bring that up is if you ever miss, if we ever have an interview that you wanted to tune into, for instance, yesterday we had Brandon Waltons on. If you missed that interview, we kind of went over what the convention is going to look like, what they do, a lot of things that are on the agenda, speculation as to their legislative decisions, all of those sorts of things. If you missed that and you kind of want to know what you're getting yourself into with the convention, it might be helpful to check out the podcast and go back and listen to that interview. By the way, if you ever want to check out the podcast, you just search the Lone Star Conservative on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It should be right there at the top when you when you search that. Should be pretty easy to find. But that'll be what's going on in the next few days. And that'll be that'll be very exciting. We'll see what comes out of that. Lots of stuff is is kind of you know going on over the weekend. Lots of different stuff is going on. And uh we'd love to see you there.

HISD Test Scores Under State Control

SPEAKER_10 2:49

With that being said, I want to kick off the show this morning talking a little bit about HISD. HISD uh is kind of releasing new data, new data is coming out about the test scores. Uh, you guys might remember that HISD is still under a state takeover, particularly under the superintendency of Mike Miles. Mainly because the state, year after year after year, was failing miserably, was ridden with riddled with corruption scandals, uh, had a variety of other problems, but I think the the biggest one was your students aren't succeeding, so we need some better leadership. And so since the DEA took control of the Houston Independent School District, we now have kind of how they've how they've upgraded. And they, by the way, have increased pretty significantly. Um, the new education system, which we've talked about before, put forth by Mike Miles, has centralized education and curriculum across schools all over the city. Um and substantial improvements have then occurred in the state of Texas, the the Star Test. The State of Texas assessments of academic readiness, the star test. Uh and those improvements have been substantial from I believe it's it's grade three through eight since the Texas Education Agency takeover. Miles, in an interview, uh, which he won't, by the way, do with the Houston Chronicle. I find it very funny. I I don't I don't actually care. I don't like the Houston Chronicle. They do some pretty good reporting, mind you, but you can always hear, you can almost hear when the information I've gotten comes from the Houston Chronicle, because they always have I'll give you an instance of where you can hear this. A lot of the info coming out about the SBC and their uh their anti-woman, anti-woman preacher. That article was from was from the Houston Chronicle. And so, of course, it was again, let's highlight how this is anti-woman and anti-equality. And uh, I don't actually care that Bobby Miles is giving an interview. So he gave an interview to Fox News instead of to the Houston Chronicle. And he said, the state took over and intervened in the Houston Independent School District, and the reason is the district was failing academically and in its special ed services. We have improved this tremendously, and it's been the largest turnaround in any school district in Texas. Now, they expect scores for this year to come out sometime next week to get the actual data from the star test this year. Um, Houston ISD schools have also shown significant improvements in other curricular areas like math, biology, English, U.S. history, further suggesting that this new education system actually kind of works, at least better than the other program. Works is still a relative term relative to how it used to work. If if if I'm cooking a meal and I burn everything that I'm cooking, uh let's say it's Thanksgiving, and I burn the turkey, and the pie isn't cooked all the way through at all, and there's like raw, the meal is horrible. You give it like a one out of ten. And then the next year, I get it up to a four out of ten. Nothing's really burnt, but it's kind of flavorless. That's kind of, I think, the best analogy I can give of these test scores, right? They were very, very bad, very bad, and now they're just bad. Okay, they're they're significantly better, but you got to find that balance, right? Between you've improved a ton and things are still going horribly compared to how our children should be educated. Nevertheless, the reforms have also had a lot of backlash, as you probably are well aware. Uh you have civil rights groups like Lou Lac, right, United League of Latin American Citizens, and the NAACP, which they they really should change the name. It's a racist name. Uh they've argued against a lot of the changes, citing the fact that, or the fact, the belief, really, that the new education system, the changes that have occurred have taken power away from communities of color, right? That that's that's been the model. Uh the ACLU, the LULAC, and the NAACP have all filed complaints against the reforms with the DOJ, the Department of Justice. Miles acknowledged that he, quote, understands that when you have an outside group, the state, sidelining the elected board and putting in a board of managers, that also draws a lot of concern and anxiety about a process where your elected representatives don't have the same amount of power and influence. Despite that criticism, even Governor Abbott has praised a lot of the rising scores from HISD, which of course links back to those reforms. So we'll see how the lawsuit kind of plays out how all that goes. But I want to draw this back to the conversation, really two conversations. The first about the scores in general, right? Because of course, I have and really there's two subpoints, so it gets a little confusing, but I have I have kind of two subpoints I want to I want to talk about. The first is better but not good. And I kind of already touched on that. But you look across the board, and I don't mean the board literally in the sense of the board of managers, but I mean you look across the the board of different availability in terms of educating your children, you look at what the potential options are for the education of young people, and you quickly find out that yes, HISD has made significant strides compared to where they were. But where they're at now is not something we should settle for. Right? We should be able to look at that and say, hey, you know what? If we can improve this much in a short period of time, how about we stay on that trajectory instead of kind of you see a graph that goes up and then kind of just stagnates? We don't want that. We don't want it to stagnate or go down. We want it to keep going up. We can't say, let's let's all applaud and move on. That can't be the response. It has to be that we demand better. When you still look at not just the test scores, because I think, and that's gonna be my second point, so I don't want to say too much on it in this context. But a lot of the test scores, as I've highlighted before, test scores alone are very difficult as a metric of educational success. And you know that because you can have some of the highest test takers in the world who are simply not critical thinkers, who are not capable of debate, who are not capable of questioning their own beliefs, who are not capable of forming their own thoughts and opinions. They're very good at memorizing information, they're very good at memorizing dates, they're very good at memorizing, I mean, in in any subject. I had friends who were excellent at any given subject, math, biology, any other science, great at memorizing English rules and grammar rules, who could be good at writing, and they were dumb as a box of rocks. You you would talk to them and you'd say, How are you getting the same grade? How are you getting better grades than I am? I I'm talking to you, and you can't seem to pick up the logic in this conversation. And so test scores, uh that that'll be another issue, but across the board, a lot of the issues in our educational system are that despite everything that's happening, we still have significant strides to make. And even in the test score specific area, you look and you say, then why are homeschoolers still doing so much better? And of course, I think to a degree, homeschoolers might always do a little bit better because I I personally believe that it just makes sense from a scale perspective. When you have a one-on-one relationship in teaching, there's far better availability to t to educate your children correctly. Right. I I think it's inevitable that if you have tailored curriculum to a specific student, you have one-on-one tutoring for that specific student, that that student is probably more likely to succeed just in general. And so it'll be difficult for the public school to ever really approach

Why Test Scores Are Not Enough

SPEAKER_10 10:44

the success of homeschooling just by nature of having a teacher with 20 or 30 students. It's just nearly impossible to do because you can't give every child the same amount of availability, the same amount of effort and tailored curriculum that you can give in a homeschooling environment. That leads into kind of the second subpoint here, which I already touched on, but I want to mention it. Test scores are not the only metric. I I might argue they're not even the main metric of success because of how many students you have, how many people you have who can be good at rote memorization but are not good at critically thinking. Which is something that's very very hard to test in general, by the way. It is very difficult to test how your students are performing when it comes to the ability to actually think, when it comes to the ability to actually reason and analyze. That's not an easy thing to do. But that's why, again, you see a lot of these students who might be very, very intelligent when it comes to reading books and writing papers and taking tests. And that also kind of falls under, I think, one of the issues that parents have raised when it comes to HISD, and I think it's a fair issue to discuss, which is, well, who determines how the test scores are given and applied? Who determines those? Well, it's the state, right? The state, it's the state of Texas readiness system. Well, if the state is determining how test scores, how tests are given and how test scores are analyzed, well, do they is it in the state's interest then for them to have the tests taken in such a way and graded in such a way that the areas where they've taken over, that that those areas are comprehensively better, that that whatever they're the way they're teaching is better for the tests they write? Sure. I think that's a fair, that's a fair criticism. I think it's fair to say, hey, you know what? Maybe, maybe it's possible that the people writing the test scores and giving the tests and and determining who does well, while also being the ones who are performing the actual job of education, maybe there's a possibility that those test scores aren't fully accurate. That that maybe it's in their best interest to make sure that any areas that are under a state takeover are performing better. And so they they tailor the tests in such a way that it particularly makes those districts look good. I think that's I I don't think that's impossible. I'm not saying that's what's happening, but I think that's at least a fair question and criticism to have.

Civil Rights Complaints And Race Politics

SPEAKER_10 13:16

Which leads to the second overall point, and I don't think that this is a fair criticism, which is that the new education system is, for lack of a better word, racist. Right? They're not saying it quite like that, generally, because you know that that's that word will land them in a little bit of hot water. But they do say that it seems like a violation of civil rights, which is another way for these organizations to claim racism. And it all ties back into the same issues you have culture wide, not just in education, where it's turned into these tribal race wars where it's all about, oh, well, what color are you? And that determines your belief about what happened. The Carmelo Anthony, we talked about it yesterday, but that's a phenomenal example of this sort of dichotomy. You look at that and you say, I think everybody should be able to acknowledge that the the situation with Carmelo Anthony was not even remotely acceptable. Right? We we should all be able to look at that case and and say, hey, all we have are initials. Right? KA stabbed AM. He he showed up, he was in attending he wasn't supposed to be, and he was asked politely, multiple times, to leave. And when he didn't leave, he threatened the the person asking him to leave. And when that person tried to push him out of the tent, he stabbed that person in the heart. Do you think that what KA did to AM was acceptable, deadly use of force? Almost everybody, if not everybody, would say no. And yet the left was been has been in an uproar, an absolute uproar over the fact that, well, it looks like, it appears like maybe this is all for you about purely race. It looks to me like you're not basing this on any sort of actual logical analysis, but you're basing it entirely on what? Well, the fact that the person who did the stabbing was black, and so it turns into, well, this should have been seen as self-defense. When everybody knows that it shouldn't have been. I'll give you an example of this. Uh you had a Twitter post that says, due to the scars of slavery, the family of Carmelo Anthony, the Carmelo Anthony did not have the know-how or the funds to secure a proper legal team. He was found guilty on the back of slavery by the jury of white people. Let that sink in. That's the claim from the left. That somehow this all ties back to slavery and the abuse that have come that has come from white people. And of course, we can all look at that and say that's absolutely objectively insane. That that is an insane claim to make that somehow, that somehow this whole situation is rooted in slavery and in the oppression of the black community, of African Americans in America. That somehow it's all rooted and harkens back to the racism that has been in a systemic in America for 250 years. That's that's the claim. And we should all be able to look at that and say, that's crazy. We all know that's not true. And you know that's not true because every single group of people at one point or another has been the subjects of some sort of aggressive oppression, right? When you look at slavery globally, if we want to pretend like Europeans um of of every different area were not under slavery and oppression at one point in history, often for longer uh than certain groups, then I think it I think we're just being historically dishonest. Of course, every group has undergone mass amounts of oppression. But we don't get to use that as an excuse hundreds of years later to say, well, we were we were oppressed for a time, and therefore the great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, well, they they don't have the opportunity to secure the proper legal team. Despite the fact that they raised over $600,000 from their support from people who donated to their campaign. No, that's irrelevant. It's irrelevant that they have the same access to everything that you do, often better, better, you know, availability because of the anti-racism campaigns. And yet somehow it's still never enough that that Carmelo Anthony is still an example of how oppression and slavery is harming the black community. Uh, we got a text in says, Good morning, Michael. The race card has no power anymore. When used it to justify anything that you don't like, it has no power. And that's that's exactly where a lot of people are at. And that's why, again, I don't care where it comes from. When someone accuses me of racism, and this goes back to the critical thinking conversation. Thanks for the text in, by the way. I greatly appreciate it. I think it highlights where we're what we're talking about here very well, which is you can say anything you want. You can use any sort of insulting terminology that you'd like, whatever, whatever way you want to go, right? Whether I'm talking about Islam and you start using the term Islamophobia or xenophobia, if I'm talking about how I don't think that transgenderism is real as far as you know it connects to biology, or that little boys should be playing against little girls in sports, or or boys against girls, or men against women in sports at all, you can call me a bigot. If I say, hey, there is very clearly an issue that is predominantly affecting the black community, and it's not because they were enslaved hundreds of years ago, I immediately, you know, the term immediately thrown around is racist. And so you have to be very cautious when you deal with these terms and realize, hey, maybe they're not being fair. Maybe those terms don't mean anything at all, and they've just completely rewritten what the terms mean in the first place. And maybe we shouldn't allow that to be used as some sort of mechanism to silence us. I should be able to cite FBI crime statistics. I should be able to cite the fatherlessness epidemic in the black community. I should be able to highlight those things with honesty and say that's actually happening, and we need solutions instead of being called a racist because I pointed out what is objectively true in statistics. And that's happening, again, across the board. When LULAC and the NAACP and the ACLU are saying, well, HISD has been violating civil rights. They can't tell you exactly how that's happening. They can't tell you exactly how that's actually impacted people of color, right? They can't tell you how that's happened, but they're telling you, well, it it has. I don't know how it is. I don't think that it is. But somehow that's their claim. And over and over and over again, that's the claim. Anytime we do something they don't like, anytime we we convict someone who very clearly was not acting in self-defense, anytime that we go, you know, that somebody stands up to someone of a different color, right? Daniel Penny in New York, it it immediately with Jordan Neely, it immediately turns into, well, it was because the aggressor was black and you killed him. Therefore, you're racist. That's always the way the claim goes. I think people are fed up with it. I think it's

Abbott Pushes Data Centers To Pay

SPEAKER_10 20:21

insane. With that being said, pretty exciting update coming out from the gubernatorial office, and that is that Abbott, Governor Greg Abbott, has now directed regulators to make data centers pay their own infrastructure costs, which should never have to be a sentence I should utter in the first place, just because why in the world would we assume anything else? Um, but he's warning that rapid data center expansion cannot come at the expense of Texans, basically kind of standing up to this sort of corporate welfare that's become all too common across the state. We'll talk about that in the next segment. As always, if you would like to text into the show, let us know your thoughts on what we're covering. Or if you'd like to hear a story that I haven't yet covered, feel free to text in, let us know at 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and Lord willing, I'll be right back in the next segment. So stick around. We'll talk soon.

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SPEAKER_10 25:36

For a little bit of background, Governor Greg Abbott is directing state regulators to ensure that Texans are not stuck paying for expensive grid upgrades tied to the rapid expansion of data centers. In a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas Chairman Thomas Gleason and ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas, Abbott warns that fast growing data center development must not burden Texans with infrastructure costs or higher residential bills. Since the economic boom of Texas has made the state a magnet, really, for data centers, Abbott insisted new oversight is needed to, quote, ensure that as data centers interconnect to the ERCOT grid, residential electric bills are not negatively affected. Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to take action so that data center interconnections result in reduced residential electrical bills and to require data centers to pay off all their electric infrastructure costs, preventing those costs from being shifted onto residential ratepayers. Now, while large data centers already pay part of their interconnection grid costs, Abbott's order presses regulators to shift as much of that burden as possible off residential ratepayers and onto the facilities themselves. He also instructed the PUCT and ERCOT to review their existing authority and identify additional actions they can take now to safeguard Texans, their property, and their resources. Under the directive, they must submit a joint memorandum to the governor's office by July 17th. That's a little over a month away, summarizing what they can do under current law, spelling out statutory limits and recommending legislative changes to implement those objectives. As part of that review, Abbott says that regulators should consider ways to prevent data centers from shifting development risks and costs onto Texans, require sustainable resource management, minimize adverse effects, all those sorts of things. He also separately ordered the Public Utility Commission to initiate action to reduce residential transmission costs by July 31st. So uh about about two weeks later, linking the data center issue to broader concerns about rising transmission charges on power bills. And he framed that as building on Senate Bill 6, which imposed stronger standards on large loads like data centers, but did not fully resolve the risk to consumers. He also said that he would be back requirements that all new data centers use water efficient technologies such as closed loop cooling systems, and that large sys large facilities annually report their electricity and water usage to the PUCT. I also propose repealing sales tax exemptions and other outdated or unnecessary incentives for data centers and requiring operators to reduce local impacts through measures like setbacks and noise reduction technology. Abbott wrote that while Texas will continue to invite innovation and investment, growth must improve quality of life without placing undue burdens on Texans and local communities. And I just want to say this is largely the right direction from our governor, right? Data centers are coming to Texas because we relatively have cheap energy, available land, a growing economy, and really a a state government that has generally welcomed business development. That's been a big claim. You know, if you want to move your business from New York or California and come here, we're all ears. We'd be happy to have you. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Uh economic growth can certainly be good. Uh technological development can certainly be good. New investment, new innovation, new productive industry, those things can all be good. But citizens should not be opposed to progress merely because it's progress. Right? That's not a good reason to say no. We should exercise dominion, cultivate the world, build, invent, and to use as good stewards the resources that God has given us in a wise fashion. We should use them wisely. But there is an enormous difference between productive development and what Governor Abbott is having to speak out against, which has historically been known as corporate welfare. Because there is a massive difference between a company building something that genuinely benefits those of us who live here, actual Texans, um, and these politically connected corporations demanding that we finance their expansions, that we kind of are left holding the bag, that we're the ones that have to handle the the finances. Which leads, I think, to the most obvious question. Why would this even be a concern in the first place? I get it. You we want to make sure that Texans are bearing the cost, I agree, but they should never have even been considering bearing the cost. Was there actually a possibility uh that Texas families would be the ones forced to essentially subsidize uh the these the the infrastructure that we need to operate these data centers? Was that was that on the table? Were were ratepayers gonna be stuck paying for these new transmission lines, the substations, the generation, uh, or or any other grid upgrades they say they need in the future, were we gonna be the ones stuck paying that so that some of the largest corporations in the world could expand their operations on our backs? Why would we ever even consider that? A private company wants to build a massive facility, fine. Right? Let them purchase the land. And even then there needs to be conversations about where they can purchase the land, how those operations are are going. But let them do it. Let them construct a building, let them buy equipment, let the corporation secure its own water, let it pay the employees and let it pay the full cost ultimately of connecting that facility to the electric grid. That's the cost of doing business. And we can still be a business-friendly state that says we don't impose the same regulations and the same requirements and the same extra taxes that other places do while saying we're also not gonna subsidize you. We're also not gonna let you come in here cheaper than should be possible because taxpayers are gonna be the ones bearing the burden. It is not free enterprise to allow a corporation to privatize its profits and then sort of socialize the cost. Right? And it's not that's not a conservative position. I get that we want to be, you know, focused on economic development and growth and the free market. If you believe in the free market, period, then corporations should not be subsidized in general. Uh when a business receives the financial benefit of an investment, we get all the money out of it, we get all the goodwill, et cetera, et cetera. But the risks and the infrastructure costs go on to the homeowners, the people that actually have to pay to live, those who rent, you know, farmers, other small businesses. That is not even remotely capitalism. It's it's there's a lot of words for it from corporatism, consumerism. I I think cronyism would even be a fine descriptor. It's it's fraudulent. It is corporate welfare that they want to call economic development. And it happens all the time. The average Texas family should not be opening up our electric bill and discovering uh that that we're paying more because this multi-billion dollar company is deciding to build this giant data center. That that should never even be a consideration, right? Anything from you know elderly to young families trying to make a living to the local hardware store should not be bearing the costs for a multi-billion dollar corporation. That should not be happening, right? We frequently campaign on free markets and limited government. Then then let it be an actual free market to a degree, right? Actually let it be. A free market is not riding tax breaks for industries that we like for the sake of economic growth. A truly conservative government is not the one going out there and saying, well, we're gonna subsidize this so that we can get the economic benefits of it, right? This is this is basic stewardship. We are repeatedly in scripture told to condemn dishonest scales, unequal measures. We're not supposed to manipulate the system so that one group is receiving some sort of special advantage while everybody else not only doesn't receive the special advantage, but we're paying for them to get the special advantage. It's entirely backwards from the role of government. There is there is nothing just at all about telling the ordinary Texan uh that we have to accept higher power bills because politicians wanted to announce another massive economic development project. It's absolute insanity. There's nothing conservative about offering these sort of endless incentive programs merely because you have a large corporation that's that's super impressive or or capable of hiring a ton of lobbyists to go in and change the law. I think some politicians have become mesmerized and expect you to become mesmerized by the phrase economic development. They hear that a company could invest billions of dollars in Texas and suddenly every moral principle when it comes to government-involved economics just disappears. Regulations have to be rewritten, we have to provide the infrastructure, the taxpayers have to handle it, ignore all the local concerns from real people, and we're told that we should be grateful because they chose Texas. Look at us go. No, no, the relationship should work both ways, right? We can welcome investment without really acting so desperate for it. We can say, you're welcome to build here, but you're gonna pay your own way. You're not gonna drain local resources, you're not gonna impose enormous costs on residents, you're not gonna receive a special arrangement that leaves everybody else covering your costs. And and frankly, if you're only successful as a massive corporation because Texans are subsidizing your infrastructure costs, then perhaps it's not really a viable project in the first place, if that's what you need. If you can't afford the infrastructure required to operate your own facility, then why should we be expected to afford it for you? If you're not profitable enough to handle it on your own, then maybe your project is just doomed to fail from the start, right? You're consuming tremendous amounts of electricity, significant amounts of water, you're putting strain on local infrastructure, you're generating and the noise is not small, you're generating persistent noise that affects property owners. And so we should defend against these sorts of policies. And I'm glad to see that Governor Abbott is standing in in the way of this. I think corporate welfare has been a massive problem for a lot of years in the state, and I'm glad to see it finally going in the other direction. With that being said, when we get back from the break, we're gonna talk about the Houston Public Library, who is now hosting in these LGBT events that are, of course, explicitly targeting children. The library, given that it is Pride Month, has come out and they've said that they are going to dedicate the month of June to LGBT programming at your local library. We'll talk all about it when we get back from the break. If you would like to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. And Lord Welling, I'll return to talk all about the Houston Public Library fiasco after the break. So hang tight and we'll talk about it very soon.

SPEAKER_07 36:30

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.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

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Houston Library Pride Events For Kids

SPEAKER_10 40:45

Today is the start for a lot of us of the GO Peace Day Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I will be broadcasting live at the George R. Brown at booth 210 from 4 to 6 p.m. this afternoon. Also from three 3 to 5 p.m. at our booth, we'll be having a social hour with exclusive meet and greets, with free bourbon tastings, free cigars, everything you could possibly want, and so much more. We'd love to see you there. That is booth 210 at the George R. Brown Convention Center for the upcoming GOP State Convention. We'll be there all day. By the way, if you can't make it, you're like, ah, I'm I'm out of there by 2 p.m. We'll still be there. We'll be there all day. But we will be having that social air hour as well as my live broadcast from 4 to 6 p.m. So we'd love to see you over there. With that being said, let's talk real quickly here in this segment about the East Public Library, which is hosting a series of LGBT themed events throughout the month of June, including children's storytime, an author presentation, a fashion show, and art workshops. The programs, which are free and open to the public, and nothing is ever free, which means somebody's paying for it, are prominently featured on the library special events page. This Saturday, the library will read four LGBT themed children's books. Quote, This day in June, which is about a child a family attending an LGBT pride parade, Pink is for boys, which tempts to break down gender stereotypes, Lovely, which focuses on teaching children inclusivity, while Worm Loves Worm, is often used to paint same-sex marriage in a positive light. Controversial author Kyle Lukoff will also discuss his latest book, A World Worth Saving, which is about a transgender identifying teen who is forced to attend Save Our Sons and Daughters meetings run by a demon. Goodreads reviews for that book, warned that the author portrays those who disagree with him as demons, and at the end of the book, the author condones violence. Big time. Lugoff's books are not new to controversies. His book, When Aidan Became a Brother, has been banned in multiple Florida schools, and Call Me Max has also sparked concerns as it was read aloud in an Austin school without having gone through the curriculum review process, with both those books presenting and promoting gender confusion to young children. On June 18th, that's a week away, the Houston Public Library will be hosting a Pride fashion show. It is still unclear whether children will attend as the event is targeted towards adults, but is described as family friendly on the model registration page. The library will also be hosting a Pride Stories studio on June 27th and a meditative drawing workshop with LGBT artist Stephanie Gonzalez on June 29th. And the public library has requested around $50 million from the city for its 2026-2027 budget, meaning that these things are given by that budget that was passed yesterday, which we haven't talked about yet, but I wanted to bring it up. That's subsidized by the taxpayers. You're paying to have kids write books about perversion sexual degeneracy and perversion and to attend pride pride dress up shows, fashion shows, uh and to go to painting workshops and and studios and And and all these sorts of things to meet authors of books that condemn anybody who disagrees with the LGBT movement as demonic. I think we have to understand what we're facing here. This is my point. We got a text in it says, why do we insist on bending over backwards for a group of mentally sick people, especially when they are less than 10% of the population? May God have mercy on us. And again, this is exactly the sort of thing that we see over and over and over again. You have this minority of people that demands not just not just your silence, but your fealty. You have to support and celebrate it publicly. It can't be safe, legal, rare. It can't be going back and saying, hey, whatever two adults, contending adults, want to do in their own bedroom, that's fine with me, right? That's the libertarian perspective. That doesn't work because it inevitably winds up coming out of the bedroom and then saying kids also need to be indoctrinated into it. We also got a set of pictures from another texter at the Brisoria County Library, which has a pride flag with different colored hearts, and they have their pride section, which has before they were men, toxic summer, right? All of these, I leave it up to you, ordinary love, there where there's room for us. It's their LGBTQIA plus Pride Month at the Brazoria County Library System. If you think this is just a big city problem, you're wrong. It is spread to the ends of the country in the most rural of communities. It's everywhere. And they demand your celebration of their degeneracy and perversion. They demand it. And if you don't give it, I promise you, if if if you you know, I I'm in a position where, of course, at this point I'm I'm quite accustomed to having to deal with it, right? I I I'm quite accustomed to backlash and people being upset with the things that I say and finding myself being insulted and threatened. I'm consistently I'm used to that. But I I promise you, you almost have to be careful if you're just an ordinary citizen, they will come after you for these sorts of things. If you speak up against it, you're you're number one on their target list of people they wanna they want to attack, of people that they want put down and stopped. Because the and you know it's it's such projection. They paint everybody who opposes them as demons. But I think the the the LGBD QIA mission in general is demonic in nature. Right? Well, I can change genders. That sounds kind of demon y to me. It sounds kind of demon-y that you're not who God made you and you're just somebody else that's hidden in there. That kind of sounds like a demon. I'm not gonna lie, I don't know. I can't prove it, right? But but it does sound a little bit like a demon when you're changing the fundamental nature of who you are. That sounds demonic to me. And it happens over and over and over again in every community all across the country, and we have to stop, we we have to stop, you know, indulging them at all and just speak the truth and say, yeah, this is actually actually it's not just not good, it's actually kind of gross. I actually think this is disgusting, personally. And that's because God also says it's pretty disgusting. With that being said, we get back from the break to wrap up the first hour of the show. We're gonna have the weather report coming up for today and then going into the weekend so you can make plans, regardless of what the weather shows and has for us. Uh if you come out to the state GOP convention where we'll be today with our social hour and our live broadcast, you can escape the heat and or possible afternoon showers. We'll talk about that weather report when we get back from the break. If you would like to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. And Lord willing, I'll be right back to wrap up the first hour of the show with the weather report when we get back.

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SPEAKER_07 50:56

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.

Houston Weather And Weekend Outlook

SPEAKER_10 51:20

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. The next several days are going to feature a familiar combination of heat, humidity, and spotty afternoon storms. In other words, today's weather is going to look and feel like a lot, like a feel a lot like what the region has experienced for much of this week already. Hot and humid with a chance for afternoon showers and thunderstorms. Isolated to scattered showers are expected to continue through the afternoon, with a few rumbles of thunder possible in some spots. Rain chances again should remain limited overall thanks to a ridge of high atmospheric pressure over the region. Southeasterly winds will continue, pumping gulf moisture into southeast Texas, keeping weather muggy. Afternoon temperatures will remain in the nineties, while overnight stems stay warm in the 70s and lower 80s, but still very sticky, muggy, humid, etc. Actual temperatures will again be in the nineties, but of course, with the humidity, it'll feel like it's in the low to mid-100s. And so that'll be probably a similar story going into the early part of the weekend as well, before some possible rain chances ramping up going into next week. That'll do it for the weather report today. If you'd like to stick around in the next hour, we have lots more news coming out. So stick around, text in 713-779-5978. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative, and Lord Willing will be back at the top of the hour for the rest of our reporting. So hang tight.

SPEAKER_06 52:59

This is the Lone Star Conservative, Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_10 53:23

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot Talk 920. And quick reminder: since we're launching off the second hour, that we will be out at the George R. Brown Convention Center for the State GOP convention going on this weekend. We'll be there all weekend. And today and tomorrow, I'll be doing live broadcasts from 4 to 6 p.m. there at booth 210. That'll be the Patriot Talk 920 AM booth. Also from 3 to 5 p.m., we'll be having our social hour with meet and greets, free bourbon tastings, free cigars, hanging out. It'll be a very good time. You certainly will not want to miss that, especially if you're already making plans to go to the convention. We'd love to see all our listeners there. It'd be a phenomenal opportunity. We'd love to see you guys. With that being said, we got a lot of news to get into here in the second hour before we wrap up the show and I uh head on out to the George R. Brown. So let's let's kick it

Border Wall Progress And New Tech

SPEAKER_10 54:20

off. Uh talking about an update coming out from the Commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection. Uh, that's Rodney Scott, who's been talking about the progress they've been making on the border wall. He says that new wall construction, technology, and lower crossing rates are easing the pressure on frontline agents at the Southwest border. In an interview uh that just came out this week with the Center for Immigration Studies, Scott outlined progress on the border wall, enforcement trends, and cooperation with Mexico. When asked about the construction of the border wall specifically, he said, quote, we're ahead of schedule and under budget. He noted the primary border wall is slated for completion in 2027, and the secondary barrier is scheduled for completion by late 2028, meaning as Trump is wrapping up his time in the White House, at least from a presidential perspective, that should be finished up. Scott described the project as a smart wall, meaning there will be fully integrated sensor suites that allow Border Patrol agents to spread out along the border and receive real-time data whenever someone even approaches the wall. CBP, Customs and Border Protection, is also integrating uh these barriers, these buoy barriers, in order to fully block the Rio Grande from illegal ingress. He said we're building about six miles a week. He said the big, beautiful bill will provide multi-year funding for border security systems, but noted that the bill does not provide salaries for ICE agents or CBP agents. Uh the House just also this week passed a $70 billion reconciliation package to prevent a lapse in salaries for CBP and ICE employees, officially ending the four-month pay gap law enforcement has endured, uh, which locks in funding for CBP and ICE through at least 2029. Scott argued that due to the reduced amount of total crossings, officials have been able to shift resources towards prosecution of every illegal alien detained at the border because you're spending so much money on letting them in here and that whole process that the lower border crossings has made that so much more inexpensive, meaning we we free up some of that money to go towards other things. He said, Nothing really beats prosecution. You cannot prosecute someone for felony re-entry if you haven't prosecuted them before. What hamstrung us before? Right now we're prosecuting everyone we possibly can. If we don't prosecute somebody, it's because we made a conscious decision to deport them because we believe that would have a bigger impact. He added that arrested illegal aliens are also being heavily interviewed in deep dives to collect data and evidence for Mexican authorities in order to better formulate a response to smuggling operations on both sides of the border. When asked whether or not Mexico has been cooperating with the U.S., Scott remarked that, quote, they've been very cooperative. We're sharing information in a way we never really had before and getting actual results. The migrant protection protocols, otherwise known as the Remain in Mexico policy, are alive and well. He said we have used it, but we haven't really needed it, which forced migrants to maintain Mexico while they wait for approval to enter the U.S. Scott added that CBP is working with the Mexican government to address the issues of drones, which are currently being used by cartel operations to survey U.S. entry points and smuggling routes. CBP is deploying its own drones in response, which range from anget portable to the military-style General Atomics MQ9 Reaper drones. So lots of promising things on the horizon. And there's a great deal here that I think is very much worth celebrating. For years, uh Americans were told that the border could not be controlled. Uh, we were told that walls were outdated, that a lot of the prosecution that was coming out would have been just cruel and unusual. Uh the Urmaine of Mexico policy was nearly impossible, and mass illegal immigration was simply an unavoidable force of nature. That was the claim that came largely from the left, but was was all throughout our mainstream media. Turns out none of that was true. What changed was not our availability. It was not the facts of nature, it was political willpower and the desire to do what is right. Now the wall is going up at roughly six miles a week. Uh, the administration is integrating all these sensors and surveillance technology, drones, uh, secondary barriers, physical obstructions, everything you need. Border patrol agents are are actually able to do their job because they're no longer being used as processing clerks for this endless stream of bureaucratic, illegal immigrant claims. They're getting back to their actual mission, which is protecting the sovereignty of the United States of America. That's their job. That's what their job was supposed to be, and now they can actually do that job. And Commissioner Rodney Scott's point about prosecution, I think, might be the most important part of the entire story. Uh, for years, this was the understood policy. And I said this back when it was going on. When you look at a lot of the illegal immigrants that were coming across, they even they understood that the odds of serious consequences were extremely low. They could cross illegally, make an asylum claim, be released into the country, which was very likely, and then disappear into the interior. That that was happening all the time. That was that was just the common result. Even repeat offenders were often just processed and returned without building any sort of criminal record, which you need so that you can have stronger felony charges down the line. That that is an essential part of it that we just weren't doing. Which, of course, as I've highlighted, created a sort of incentive structure where any time that you make a decision in business, I mean, even if you're not a business owner, even if you're just, you know, an employee, uh a mainstream employee of any business, you make decisions every day. And it's not even just in business, it's not even just in work, it's in anything. You make decisions that balance pros and cons. You balance the potential rewards with the potential risks. Everybody does this. You do this every time you get in a car to go somewhere. You do this every time you decide where you're gonna go shopping for groceries, you do this every time that you take a trip, every time that you go to work, every time that you're offered uh not just a promotion, but every time you're offered a a job at a different company, you weigh, okay, what are the potential risks and what are the potential rewards? We all do this every day. And when you tell illegal immigrants that the the risk is that you could get deported, but it's unlikely. And the reward is you're probably gonna get to stay in the country. And the wor again, the worst that happens, the worst possible option is that you do ultimately get deported and can just try again. The incentive, of course, is to do your best to get here. That that is the incentive structure that the the federal government set up. And so when every illegal crossing results in detent the way that it's changed now, the way we have it set up in in the modern age, in the 2026 time frame, when every single crossing can result in detention, prosecution, removal, and and ultimately you being banned from the country permanently. You can't even apply for citizenship. Well, that kind of changes the calculus a little bit. That kind of changes when you weigh the risks and the rewards. The reward is no longer that you're likely to get released into the interior of the country. That's not even the reward that you get. That's almost not happening at all. We don't have any crossers that are that are actually getting to come across anymore. That's not happening. And the risk is not only are you going likely to get deported, not only are you probably going to be held in detention, but you can be put on a list of people that are never able to return, period. Well, that that's an entirely different setup. Suddenly, the promise of being smuggled doesn't sound nearly as attractive to you, to the average person. Suddenly, the thousands of dollars that you might pay to a cartel is likely is more likely to buy you a prison sentence, followed by permanent deportation. And that's I think the kind of point of justice and deterrence in general. It's it's preventative in the sense that, of course, you can't prevent every crime and you can't punish someone before they do something wrong. But when when they're aware of the the massive repercussions for the crime they could potentially commit, well, they're much less likely to do that crime. I've said this before about a variety of crimes. All right. I always go back to the analogy because I think it makes the most sense and is very, very the most clear way to kind of view it. When you tell someone, hey, stealing is illegal, but if you do it, you're probably not gonna get prosecuted. We're not gonna come after you, and even if we do, it'll be a slap on the wrist, maybe some probation. People are likely to steal quite a lot. Turns out people are very likely to commit that crime because they don't think they're gonna be held accountable. As opposed to when you say, no, everything you steal, you're gonna be forced into manual labor camps to pay to make money working, to pay it back. Every dime will be paid back in restitution on top of you being confined to working a hard job. Well, all of a sudden, maybe I don't want to steal. That doesn't sound very worth it. And so I I think this proves to something the establishment has denied for decades that the border crisis was not a resource problem, it was a policy problem, right? It wasn't that the border wall was too expensive or that we couldn't afford ice agents. It was we didn't want to do it. Yeah, I mean, let's not I'm not gonna mince words and pretend like that we don't need walls or technology or personnel or vehicles and sensors and drones and aircrafts and and capacity at our s at our prison slash detention centers. Of course we need those things. But none of those things are even relevant when the policy of your federal government was to to apprehend people and then release them into the country. A well a wall, a a setup, a well, even a very well adjusted setup that's that's paired with a catch-and-release policy is just basically at worst for them a speed bump. It's you still get to drive through the parking lot, you just gotta slow down a little. And so uh you know, kind of contrast that with where we're at today, where you can kind of pair the wall with prosecution, with detention, and with almost guaranteed deportation, and all of a sudden that's actually a genuine border security system. And so, of course, we should welcome Mexico's cooperation, but we should now become dependent upon it. I know that's happened in the past. We don't want that. Mexico is actively cooperating today, at least, because the U.S. is applying pressure and demonstrating that we're pretty serious and that you you basically have to comply. But that cooperation, if I'm being honest, is only going to last just about as long as Mexico believes that there are consequences for refusing, as long as they believe that we have the upper hand. That's that's how long that lasts. Mexico should understand uh that that stopping the cartels and controlling migration is is not a favor, right? They actually should understand that it's it's not only behaving like a responsible neighboring nation to any other nation, but also that it does actually ultimately benefit them because they can more seriously charge their own criminals and deal with their own issues and their own cartels. But again, while this is genuine progress, I don't want to leave it

Deterrence Through Prosecution And Deportation

SPEAKER_10 1:05:30

there. I'm not trying to be a whiny complainer, but I also I would be I would be remiss if I was not honest about the fact that we still have a lot of work to do. Finishing the wall in twenty twenty seven and the secondary wall in late twenty twenty eight is better than abandoning construction. But a sovereign country like the US that is facing cartel infiltration and years of mass illegal entry should be moving with what I can only call wartime level urgency. This should be It happens today. And I understand you can't do everything in a day, but but it still seems like, even under the the better administration, that it's still not as much a concern as I think that it should be. Right? Uh six miles per week sounds impressive compared with the paralysis of the Biden administration. Uh, but we've waited decades for Washington to perform just the most basic responsibility of defending our own national security and our own borders. We have to build faster. If that means using additional crews, cutting unnecessary environmental reviews and bureaucratic delays, deploying barriers wherever the terrain lets you do that. Um, and don't just finish the sections that were previously planned. Reassess the entire southern border based on new threats that are going to come out as a sort of workaround to the progress we've made, right? Because the cartels are gonna do that. They're gonna say, okay, so they built wall in all these places. I guess we're gonna have to transform how we operate. Be prepared for that. Go ahead and start preventing that today and preparing for any sort of ultimatum we get in the future. There also needs to be, I think, a much harder response to the uh the cartel surveillance drones. I just want to harp on this for just a second. These are not hobbyists, bird watchers taking photographs, right? These are these are drones that are instruments of transnational criminal organizations that are watching, that are observing our law enforcement, American law enforcement, and helping move both drugs and human beings into our country, drug and human smuggling and trafficking into our country. Any cartel drone that is even remotely accessible to us should be destroyed. Uh, it should be blown up immediately. The operators and the organizations behind those drones should be treated as hostile criminal actors, not just, you know, a trespasser, right? And those are different things. Because we're treating them well, they're trespassing. No, no, no, no, no, no. These these are hostile, criminal murderers, rapists, and drug dealers. And that that needs to be treated again. That needs to be a perspective shift in how we're dealing with our border enforcement. We should be going after them tooth and nail to get every single one of them. We should just end it at the border. Um, we also can't allow low-crossing numbers to become an excuse for complacency, by the way. That's another issue. And and that's why I said I don't want to leave it at let's celebrate and have a good time, and we did it. Congratulations, give ourselves a pat on the back. I don't want to do that because America historically has had a very big issue with complacency. We know that. I've talked about it from a cultural perspective over and over and over again. And it happens all the time in in a lot of modern countries where people get comfortable and and they live a life of luxury and they kind of get complacent and willing to just go along to get along, go at the flow, kind of people. The border might be controlled today, but millions of illegal aliens are still in the U.S. after years of intentional and deliberate non-enforcement. After years where the federal government just let them come in, stay in, and live their lives, and they're still here. Right. We have to continue the enforcement of our interior, right? Mass deportations, we're still calling for that. We must do, you know, work site enforcement. If you're working at a place and you're an illegal alien, we should find you and deport you. Um, we must continue to address the people who are overstaying their visas. We must have have financial consequences for jurisdictions that are claimed to be sanctuary cities or states. We still have to go after them. We must prosecute all of the fraudulent, crony, fake asylum claims. And we have to remove every single one of them. We also have to close through through codifying into law all of these changes, we have to close all of the loopholes from the bureaucracy that that a future administration could sort of exploit to restart the border crisis, right? Trump has done a lot of good, and I'm not denying that. But if these things are not put into law, then the next president is just gonna undo all of that work. That that is that is the inevitable truth of the situation is that whoever gets in next, if God forbid it is a Democrat, like Gavin Newsom or AOC or whoever decides to run and win the Democrat nomination, should they win? Do you think they're just gonna let all this stuff stand? No, of course not, especially since so much of it is being done through the executive branch, through executive orders, and whatever else. Of course not. They're gonna undo everything they possibly can. And so we need these things done by Congress to make sure that this happens, right? And I think this is a the really important takeaway from all of this is that a nation like the U.S. or really any nation does not have a secure border just because crossings are low during one administration. That's not how we say we have a secure border. We have a secure border when our laws and our infrastructure and our institutions make it almost impossible, difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to come in in the future. That means prosecution is is the mainstream, is the is the status quo. That means that deportation is is certain through law, that cartels are continued to be confronted aggressively, that we do finish the wall, and that that any legal immigration we keep, if we keep any at all, which we shouldn't, but if we do keep any, that it serves the interests of the American people. That we stop with the lie that we are a melting pot of anybody who ever wants to have a better life. No, that was not the point of immigration. That was not the point of our immigration system. It was to benefit the people that live here. That's the goal of any good government, and that of course extends to immigration. The federal government needs to make it very clear that that entering this country is a massive privilege governed by the American people, not some global entitlement, which is what it's become, uh, that that can be claimed by anybody who reaches our country. That cannot be how we operate. So yeah, celebrate it. Celebrate that we finally have leadership to enforce the law. We can celebrate uh the return of the reign of Mexico policies and and the prosecutions and the deportations and the wall. But if we allow that celebration to become sort of a premature victory run, a premature victory lap, where we say, We did it, look at us go! We achieved the impossible, we have finished and ended the crisis, um, that then then then it's just gonna start again if we don't understand what drove this in the first place. And what drove this in the first place is not just our border policies, it is our entire mindset of what immigration is supposed to be for. And that's why I I harp all the time on how bad legal immigration is. Because if you start acknowledging that the purpose of immigration is to benefit anyone who wants to come here, the purpose is for people just to get a better life, then of course your mindset on legal immigration is going to fade to saying, well, why why is it illegal then for them to come here? Really, all we need the bare minimum then is a vetting process. As long as you're not a criminal coming here, we'll let you in. And that cannot be America's policy for our borders and for our system and for our people. That that's just it's evil, it's heinous, and it's wrong. And it all starts with our understanding of immigration in general, which of course will extend to the illegal version of that immigration. And so it requires conversations in saying, hey, you know what? I'm not actually a fan of legal immigration either. Because the way that we've butchered what immigration was always supposed to be will and has resulted in an immigration crisis, both legal and illegal. Now, with that being said, we get back from the break. Speaking of immigration, we'll bring this back home because this Houston ICE detainee escaped a federal facility using a yoga mat to scale the wall according to these new unsealed documents. This guy's name was Ladislav Petro. He was wanted in Slovakia on child sexual abuse material related charges. And he was back in Augustine within 24 hours. But we're just, we're just hearing about this. I think this was back from March, but they've just unsealed the documents. We're finally getting the inside scoop on it, which I want to cover in the next segment. As always, if you would like to text into the show, 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, and Lord willing, I'll be right back in the next segment. Talk all about these unsealed documents with this ICE detainee who was released. So stick around.

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ICE Detainee Escapes With Yoga Mat

SPEAKER_10 1:18:50

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot Talk 920. Newly unsealed federal court documents are giving the clearest answers yet as to how a Slovak man, Slovakian? Slovak? In immigration custody escaped a Houston contract detention facility back in March. Ladislav Petros, 51 years old, escaped from the Houston Contract Detention Center facility on March 15th, prompting about a 24-hour manhunt. After his escape, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman would not provide specifics on how he got out of the facility. They just said he did. After a federal grand jury indicted him on charges including willfully preventing or hampering departure after a final order, uh he had multiple criminal arrests and an interpol red interpol red notice for production and distribution of child pornography, according to ICE. And now we have these newly unsealed federal criminal complaints. Apparently ICE learned about the escape from a from the facility on Sunday, March 15th, around 4 22 p.m. Detention officers from Core Civic, the contractor responsible for the detention of ICE detainees, allegedly told ICE, the staff, that the escape happened sometime between 9 20 AM and 2 p.m. It was not discovered until around 4 p.m. during a facility headcount. Surveillance video showed Petro on the recreation yard, and when investigators searched the yard, they found a yoga mat. Further investigation revealed the defendant used that yoga mat to scale the recreation yard wall to the roof of the building and then subsequently jumped from the roof to an area outside of the facility. He had originally been ordered to move from the U.S. in May of 2024, and his case was pending with the Board of Immigration Appeals, which of course prompted a multi-agency manhunt. Quote, following the escape, detention staff immediately notified local, state, and federal authorities, and a coordinated multi-agency search was immediately launched to quickly locate Petro. Thanks to the efforts of all agencies involved, Petro was safely apprehended in just over 24 hours, not far from the Houston contract detention facility. The criminal complaint detailing exactly how you how he escaped was filed under seal. Even though he was arrested and in custody, the document remained sealed. In late April, the U.S. DOJ was asked why the document was still sealed. Um and finally, we we have an order to unseal the records coming out in the last few days. He remains in federal custody with a trial date still scheduled for this month. Meanwhile, uh ICE was kind of asked, well, have any of your procedures changed? Uh have yoga mass been removed or restricted access? And this was the response from ICE, quote, immediately following an escape at an ICE detention facility, a corrective action team is deployed to conduct an exhaustive review of the circumstances that led to the escape, to identify any deficiencies or vulnerabilities, and to make recommendations regarding potential enhancements to current policies, procedures, and training to prevent future escapes. In the event human error is discovered to have contributed to the escape, ICE leadership counsels the individuals at fault and takes further corrective or disciplinary action if warranted. We're unable to comment on any potential deficiencies or vulnerabilities that were identified or any remedial actions that were implemented following the escape. So they they're basically saying, yeah, we're gonna do that. We just can't tell you how, because of course, if we just put out there how we're running all these things, it'll be much easier to figure out how to get out. Uh but again, I I highlight this all the time. We should do everything in our power from a government perspective to prevent crime. That's everybody knows that or should know that. Everybody agrees or should agree with that. That should be the truth of the justice system is that everything we do should be with in mind, keeping, hey, we want to prevent this from happening again in the future. Now, do we have a 100% success rate at doing that? Of course not. Of course we don't have a 100% success rate. Right? We have dangerous criminals that are out on the streets all the time. We have career criminals that are out on the streets, people who have been out on bond and committed further crimes, people who have been accused of murder that are out on the streets, we have people that went to prison for a certain number of years, got back out, and are very likely, statistically speaking, to commit further crimes. We all know that. It's impossible to stop all of it, that we could be doing a much better job than we're doing right now. So the reality is that regardless of how quote unquote safe things feel, regardless of how well things are performing, or how our criminal justice system is doing, how our law enforcement is doing, there is the reality that as an American, as someone who values your life, your liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as someone who does believe that you should be safe in your country, sometimes, in fact often, that requires deliberate action on your part.

Self Defense Mindset And Second Amendment

SPEAKER_10 1:23:35

In many cases, that's going to require that that, you know, and and obviously none of us ever want to find ourselves in this sort of circumstance, but it's going to require that you're capable of defending yourself. That you are equipped with both the rights, the know-how, the willpower, the resources, and the tools to actively defend yourself from someone who would wish you harm. No matter how good your criminal justice system, no matter how good your law enforcement presence is, that's an undeniable reality of living in a world that has sin in it, is that people will commit sin, and often sin looks and is violent. And and it it kind of reminds you of a quote. I don't even remember who said it. So if somebody knows, feel free to text in, let me know. Um, but this is not plagiarism because I'm saying somebody said it, this did not come from me. But I remember a quote I heard a long time ago, and he said, You know what? A lot of people want to say that the difference between a bad man and a good man is the propensity for violence. And he says, That's not true. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of goodness versus evil. And he he pointed to Star Wars, I think. And he said, You look at someone like Darth Vader and you look at someone like Luke Skywalker, right? And you look at these people and you say, Okay, so both have a massive propensity for violence, both are fully capable of extreme amounts of of violence and of war and of fighting. And yet we all root for Luke Skywalker, or I guess most people root for Luke Skywalker. Why? Because it's not about your ability to be violent, it's about what the violence is used for. And it reminds you of another quote where we hear, you know what stops a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun. And we we know this, we understand this, that that a good man is not incapable of violence, a peaceful man is not someone who's incapable of being violent when the occasion calls for it. The difference between a good man and an evil man is not their ability to wage war, but what they're willing to wage war for. Who they're willing to wage war for and against. And the reality is that when you see all the violence on display and you see all these criminal actions and you see all these people that are dangerous, violent felons who are out on the streets, the difference between you and them is not that you can't commit violence and they can. The difference is that when you commit violence, you do it for the right reasons and in the right way. But in order to do that, in order to be good and to defend your home and your family, that requires not only that you have the tools and the ability, it also requires that you have the right to do so. Which is where our sponsor, Gun Owners of America, comes in. Gun Owners of America understands that the Second Amendment was written to defend from a variety of issues and support your rights in a variety of ways. Of course, they were coming off of a revolution. And so they understood, right, that that tyrannical government needs an accountability mechanism, an enforcement mechanism to keep them in check. That was the Second Amendment. They also understand that there are violent people, and you have a right to defend yourself from those people as well as the government. But the left wants to take those rights away from you. People want to take those rights away from you. We're constantly fighting a war to keep and defend our rights. And on the front lines of that war are our friends at Gun Owners of America. They are fighting through campaigns for candidates who will defend your rights. They are fighting through through their lobbying campaigns where they go into the legislative sessions and they say, hey, these are the bills that we need to pass, and these are the bills that we need to make sure that don't get passed. And should a bad bill get through or a bad ordinance or a bad executive order gets through, they're willing and able and will go to court to defend your rights and to make sure that your constitutional rights are left protected. If you'd like to become a member, you can go to G-Oahuston.com. That is G-O-A-Houston.com. It is a $25 annual membership, $25 per year, which goes right back to the continued defense and support of your God-given constitutionally enshrined rights. With that being said, we know the left has captured a lot of our institutions, so when we get back, we'll talk about a little bit more of that. Particularly in this case, you have this left wing faculty group. It's called the American Association of University Professors, which is attempting to revive this nineteen forties playbook by announcing an investigation into Texas. We'll get kind of into the details as to how Texas apparently allegedly violated uh academic freedom and a variety of other things they're claiming when we get back. As always, if you would like to text in with any of your thoughts, disagreements, concerns, something that you want to hear more about sometime in the next little bit of the show, let me know at 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative, and Lord willing, I'll be right back with that left-wing faculty group after the break.

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SPEAKER_10 1:32:49

Quick, quick announcement, real quickly, before we get back to the rest of the show, I just want to remind everybody we will be out at the State GOP Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center. All this weekend. Today, specifically, since we're on the show this morning, today we'll be having a social hour from 3 to 5 p.m. with free bourbon tastings, free cigars, exclusive meet and greets, everything you can want from a social hour going on from three to five. Uh really, it should be called the social two hours, but who am I, who am I to judge? And then from 4 to 6 p.m., I'll be doing a live afternoon broadcast from right there in booth 210. That's where we'll be all day, by the way. If you can't make it out that late and you're thinking about leaving early, we'll be there all day. We'd love to see you. But three to five is the social hour, and four to six will be my live showtime. If you'd like to come hang out, be around, you know, I get to see all that going on. We'd love to have you. I have a question unrelated to that, related to this story that we're gonna cover. Does anyone notice that all of the leftist agendas and principles are often intentionally forced onto children? Is that is that just me? It happens all the time. Is that just children? Let me rephrase that. Young people. They they desire so, so much to capture the institutions because they understand that young people are the most moldable, malleable people on the face of the planet. And if you can capture their ideology when they are young, yeah, yeah, you're gonna have a really hard time rewriting it when they're old. This is why you when you when you ask, hey, why why are they going after kids with all this pride stuff? Why is the conversation always about little boys and little girls? Why is it that every single time we're having this conversation about the libraries, which we just covered, about all these sexually explicit books and all of the push for transgenderism and LGBTQ issues, why does it always seem like it's targeted specifically at a young demographic? I'll tell you why. Because if you capture the hearts and the minds of the children, you capture the hearts and the minds of the adults of tomorrow. And the left understands that very well, very clearly. They're not dumb, right? They're evil, but they're not dumb. Many of them are dumb. Some of them are not. The ones organizing a lot of this are not. And for whatever reason, for a very long time, we on the right kind of just let that go. We said, Well, we're winning in the debates, we're winning when people listen to us, we're smarter than them, we're better than them, we're wiser than them, they're foolish, they're evil, they're gross, they're degenerate. All those things are true. But that's not really the question, is it? Because we don't live in a monarchy where the king is correct and then everything else is rather irrelevant. We live in a republic, a constitutional republic. And what that means is that somebody who is evil and foolish and unwise and sinful and unwilling to repent and to change and to be better has just as much weight in an election as your vote. That's where we live. That is the society in which we reside. Which means that those cultural battles will inevitably affect the political regime, will will inevitably affect what policies go forward. You can win every policy debate, you can win every every cultural debate, you can win every single point of contention in a formal setting. And it matters 0% when the left is capturing the hearts and the minds of young people. That is why the libraries are hosting family-friendly events, why they fought so hard to make sure drag shows were not considered explicit so that children could attend, why they always are pushing these a lot of the sexually explicit gay books, where are they? They're in the public school system, they're in the libraries, in the children's section. Why? Because if they can convince children from a young age, hey, this is how you should view the world, then when they're adults, you're gonna have a darn hard time turning that around. Because and this is true, if you raise them correctly, it's it's also true, by the way. If you raise them in the fear of adminition of the Lord, it's not that they're they can't be turned, it's not that they can't be changed, but it it gets immensely more difficult to change someone's adult perspective if you've already cemented their child perspective, their perspective from what from a young age. And that's why over and over and over again we're seeing this push to influence children and college students and people in the in the workforce who are young, because that's where the that's where the money's made. That's where the cooking happens. There's that's where the kitchen's at. And it's a long time play, right? It means and it may take 10, 20, 30 years to see their fruition, but that's how they're gonna win if we let them. We have to retake our institutions. We have to talk about these stories, we have to acknowledge what they're doing if we want to have any chance of combating it. Because little children are not listening to formal, elegant debates and determining a winner. Little children are reading colorful books, they're listening to their teachers, and they're trusting the curriculum that's in front of them. And with that being said, I just gave the whole background of the story without actually giving the story. So in the last segment, we'll wrap up the show talking about this left-wing faculty association of professors that are accusing Texas of alleged violations of academic freedom, where you have this committee which has launched a probe into the governance of taxpayer subsidized universities across the state of Texas and what they're claiming when we get back. As always, if you'd like to text in, this is your final opportunity to do so here in the morning show. The number, as always, is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You are listening to the Lone Star Conservative, and Lord willing, I'll be right back to wrap up the morning show with that story after this last break. So hang tight.

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SPEAKER_07 1:42:14

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.

Faculty Group Probes Texas University Law

SPEAKER_10 1:42:37

I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot Talk 920. So this investigation from this left-wing faculty group is going to quote examine the implementation of Senate Bill 37 and related state actions, growing political control over curriculum and teaching, restrictions on faculty governance, the closure of academic programs, increasing governing board intervention into academic affairs, limitations on protest and campus speech, and other state and institutional policies that affect the freedom to teach, learn, research, and govern our higher education institutions democratically. In 2025, uh that's when Senate Bill 37 really came out. It abolished the practice of shared governance. If you guys know anything about shared governance, that's when university presidents delegated decision-making authority to faculty representatives elected by their colleagues. So the professors and people on faculty were largely allowed to make a lot of decisions that ran our universities. Under the new law, faculty bodies only serve in an advisory capacity, meaning instead of making the actual decisions, they promote, hey, here's what we think are the best decisions because we actually have an in with the rest of the faculty. We know what the students want, we know what the professors want, and then they present all that information, all that evidence, and the actual authority makes those decisions. Boards of regents were, of course, that authority. And so, depending on the results of the investigation, they could issue a formal resolution of censure against Texas, which would be toothless and would have literally zero impact on the day-to-day operations of any Texas university. Um apparently this was used by the same group back at UT in the 1940s, where they vocally opposed efforts by the UT Board of Regents to remove University President Homer Rainey. They thought to em uh terminate his employment due to several acts of subord insubordination. And so basically they they tried to display block where they they conducted this investigation, they put forth their formal resolution of censure, and then they still the region still refused to reinstate the guy, and then they didn't repeal that until 1953, and still nothing came of it because they have no authority to do anything. They just say, We're gonna fight you. Okay, fight us. Who cares? Nobody cares. But this is why they push so hard. They want the control. They want to run how things operate. They don't like when it's being stripped away from them. And they say, Well, we have to be democratic. Says who? Who says that our our colleges that are funded by taxpayers have to be democratic? It's insane, it's a lie, none of it's true, but that will do it for the show today.

Final Convention Reminder And Sign Off

SPEAKER_10 1:45:18

I want to thank everyone for tuning in to the show. You've been listening to Lone Star Conservative again. Come out of the George R. Brown, 3 to 5 p.m. our social hour, 4 to 6, another live broadcast this afternoon from booth 210. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your Thursday and Godspeed.