Who Benefits When Texas “Wins”

Texas is piling up wins on the scoreboard: companies relocating, jobs being announced, GDP projections climbing. But we don’t let a booming headline do our thinking for us. We ask the question underneath the celebration: who is that growth actually for, and what does it cost ordinary Texans trying to buy a first home, raise kids, and live without getting crushed by property taxes, insurance, and rising bills?

From there, we dig into the policy mechanics that can quietly turn “pro business” into corporate welfare. We talk targeted incentives, government picking winners, and why Texans should be skeptical when big companies claim they “can’t find” workers while American grads get auto-rejected. We also walk through the Houston controller’s investigation into a senior advisor in the Mayor Whitmeyer administration, and what real accountability looks like when the paycheck is funded by taxpayers. Remote work is possible, but deliverables and oversight should be provable.

Then we shift to culture and institutions. A higher education conference shows how DEI can survive by changing its vocabulary into words like belonging and culturally responsive pedagogy. We lay out what transparency and reform should look like, and why strong families and present fathers matter more than most policymakers want to admit. We also cover Southeast Texas flooding risks and a disaster declaration, plus a letter from attorneys general urging the EPA to review mifepristone as a potential drinking water contaminant and what that says about consequences that never stay private.

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Listen every day to our strong conservative programs on Patriot Talk 920 AM.  Tune-in on your radio in Houston to KYST 920 AM or download our app by visiting 920app.com or search for "Patriot Talk 920" from your app store!

Transcript

Sunrise Talk And Today’s Lineup

SPEAKER_02 0:04

In the heart of Texas, it's Houston's loving patriot, and the voice of reason. This is the most part conservative, Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_07 0:30

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot Talk, 9.20 a.m. It is good to be with you bright and early. And I get to say bright because finally the sun is coming up at a reasonable hour. I know that most people complain about the sun coming up early. They want the sun to stay out till 10 p.m. and come out at 7 or 8 in the morning. I, as somebody who has to go to bed early and get up early, significantly prefer when the sun goes down on my schedule. I'm sure that's a little biased, right? There's one of those very selfish desires. I want the sun to follow my schedule. But it it is it is nice when I can look up my window in the mornings while doing the show and it's kind of a little bit brighter and not feeling like it's in the middle of the night to kick off the show. Plus, I mean, come on, how many people are really sleeping in? If even if you have a nine to five, are you really sleeping in till eight? I guess some people could do that, but if I have to leave at 8 30, there's no way I'm getting up at 8 in the morning on a regular day. That's just not gonna, it's not gonna happen. I I don't know if some people are just well suited to not need any time. I mean, it's not that I couldn't get ready in in that amount of time. It's just that sounds miserable. I want to drink a cup of coffee, wake up, read some Bible, have some time, right? I don't, you know, you don't have to get up an hour and a half before your show or an hour before, but you you want to have the time in the morning. And so it's nice seeing the sunrise. Anyways, all of that being said, we have a lot to get into this morning, uh quite a few different sources and the weather reports coming out. When we do the weather report, I might actually not be able to get to these things in the weather report, so it might be a whole separate story between Governor Greg Abbott kind of instituting disaster state and all the flooding issues and houses that have caught on fire. The storms have been pretty gnarly yesterday and uh going through today and tomorrow. So we'll update you guys on how that's going, rest of the plans in terms of weather reports for today, tomorrow, rest of the week. I just want to kind of tease that a little bit. But we have a lot going on today all across the scale. Uh from I by the way, one of the stories I'm most excited to talk about is actually going to come in the second segment, and that's that's the controller. We know there has been an ongoing battle, it's a war, really, between the controller's office and the mayor's office. And now uh Chris Hollins, the Houston controller, has announced an investigation into a senior advisor. His name is Chris Brown, inside the Mayor Whitmeyer administration. The investigation is following questions about this guy, Chris Brown's attendance records, job duties, and oversight. He is a senior advisor for financial integrity. So a pretty important job uh to have. It also sounds like, and maybe I'm wrong here, but considering the controller's job is to deal with finances, I don't want to say it's jealousy, right? I don't wanna I don't wanna, you know, kind of come out and say that preconditionally or before we've really dove it into everything. But I do want to say it certainly sounds a little bit suspicious, giving the ongoing stuff between the mayor and the controller. We'll talk about it and we can all form our own thoughts and opinions on

Texas Growth Versus Corporatism

SPEAKER_07 3:42

it. But to kick off the show this morning, the first story I want to talk about is it's this growing issue. We've talked about it before, but we have an updated kind of point of reference to go over it again. And I want to because I think it's very important for listeners of this station and and people who are all over the city of Texas, really all over the country, who might remember a time when American exceptionalism meant more than making money. And I know that's what the mainstream media and even the mainstream right wants you to think that the American dream was always about was getting rich. They always say that it was about the gold rush and it was about making money. And and yeah, there's some there's some part of that in American exceptionalism that you're able to afford a home and provide for your family. I'm not gonna deny that. I'm not gonna say that part of the American dream wasn't the economic opportunity. Certainly it was. But the economic opportunity for whom and for what? And that is a a very important difference to make when you're talking about the American dream. When you're talking about exceptionalism, when you're talking about what it means to be an American, because if you boil it down and you say it's just the opportunity to get rich, it's merely the opportunity to build a big mega corporation. If you say that it's the opportunity to be profitable, and that's it. That's the only metric that you put in there, you'll find very quickly that it turns into rampant corporatism, which is different than capitalism. And it works instead of working for the people, it actually ends up working against the people. And it can be allowed in a capitalist nation, by the way. In fact, it is. It's happening in America right now. We see it on display, and I think that a lot of conservatives, well-meaning conservatives, have made the mistake of associating corporatism automatically with capitalism, or they tend to believe that capitalism is a system that is inalienable in and of itself and is therefore inherently good. And that's simply not true. The same as any other system, it can be weaponized, it can be used for evil, it can be implemented improperly, and can result in catastrophic results. And it has to a large degree. When the average age of a homeowner is forty years old, there's a problem. And of course, if you compare it to other nations, we can still sit around and say, yeah, but America's better than all of them. But America was never good because we were better than somebody else. America was always good of our own accord. If you didn't look elsewhere, would America be the place that bar any other countries you say this is a good place to be. And the answer to that question used to be yes. And I'm not saying that you don't want to live in America and America's not a good place, and there's still not still it's not so rich with opportunity. It is. And I'm not denying that it's still the best place. But we've we've fallen short, I think, of our own standards or what our standards should be. And I think a large part of that is the fact that we've glorified material success for groups of people more than we've glorified the things that actually made America great in the first place, the things that were precursors to economic success. And when you lose sight of that, when you lose sight of the rich history and the heritage and the stewardship parts of this country, you actually lose what it means to be an American. And all of a sudden, the economic opportunity that you see all over the country isn't what it was actually supposed to look like. It's now in favor of these megacorporations rather than the people. I'm not saying that you don't have economic opportunity. That's I I don't want to I don't want to play this victim status that I've seen some people in the right plane, taking it too far and saying, oh no, we're doomed, we failed, you know, this class warfare. I don't want to I don't want to go that route because I don't think it's true. But I do want to say that we have to be cautious of it. We have to understand why people like Zoran Mamdani are getting elected, and a lot of it is because the young people, especially, are seeing a world where, in a lot of ways, the the kind of weights and measures, the scales are tipped against them. That's true. That's undeniably true. And it's not the fault inherently of capitalism. Capitalism is a tool like anything else. It's the way that it's being implemented and applied. And so to kind of dive into that, we have a report coming out about Texas kind of leading the nation in economic growth. Uh as California, of course, continues to impose very strict regulations, as we're well aware uh on businesses especially, many companies have moved or chosen to move to Texas, strengthening, of course, our position as sort of the new financial capital of the country for good reason. In a meeting in Houston over the weekend, Secretary of State Treasury, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant Besent, however you pronounce his name, spoke on the contrast between California and Texas. He said, In California, I saw firsthand what years of failed governance looks like a tax system that is hostile to ambition, a regulatory state that smothers enterprise, an economic climate indifferent to the consequences. Here in Texas, meanwhile, the contrast is so striking that it begins to feel like a tale of two states. So since 2018, 725 companies have moved to Texas, including behemoths such as Heela Packard, Charles Schwab, and Chevrolet, underscoring our very business-friendly appeal as a state. And I want to clarify that that moving doesn't even necessarily mean that your corporate headquarters are located in Texas. It just means that a lot of your production, manufacturing, and actual work come out of our state. You moved a lot of your operations here. And so we're currently the fastest growing state in terms of GDP acceleration, and we're set to surpass the overall production of California by 2036, according to current projections. If we continue down the pace we're on right now, that's where we're expected to land. By 2036, we should be ahead of California. It's kind of like two cars. I'll give you a kind of an example, an analogy of sorts. You have two vehicles. One is going 60 miles an hour, the other is going 30 miles an hour. Well, obviously you'd say that the 60 mile an hour car is going more quickly. It is currently at a faster speed. But it when you talk about acceleration, if the 60 mile an hour car is going to increase to 65 miles an hour over the next few minutes, and the 30 mile an hour car is going to increase to 60 miles an hour in the same time frame, well, you'd look at the 30 mile an hour car and say, if you're trying to get somewhere, that's the car you actually want to be in, because it's speeding up more quickly. Its acceleration is higher. That's kind of a comparison. Right now, California is leading us in technical terms of GDP. In terms of growth and projections, we're growing faster than California is. So Governor Greg Abbott also celebrated the creation of 132,500 jobs between December of 2024 and December of 2025 in a one-year period as the state reached a new high with the largest labor force in the state of Texas history. The influx of large businesses migrating to Texas has also increased demand on local financial institutions to meet growing levels of commerce. You have the Texas Bankers Association CEO, Chris Furlow. He said, Our banking sector's strength and depth is a true differentiator not seen in other states or other countries. America is choosing Texas. The world is choosing Texas. However, as companies continue to innovate in Texas, state banks also face their own unique set of challenges. In a meeting over the weekend with the Treasury of the Secretary, the Treasury Secretary, you have Seller Bank CEO Ramon Vituli, who stated that they have seen a 40% increase in fraud cases as well over the last 12 to 18 months. So lots of things to work on. The methods by which scammers are accessing vital financial information have become increasingly sophisticated, including the employment of AI. AI enhanced tactics mimic the voice of a customer, uh, to go to get a bank to do things ultimately that are, for lack of a better word, just harmful to the people that are banking there. So I think there is a danger there. Uh taxes also set to become home, as we're well aware, to hundreds of AI data centers, which of course is on that list of potential concerns. But the reason that I bring all of this up, the main thing that I kind of wanted to talk about in this regard, and I want to offer a little bit of analysis here because there is plenty in this story that we should be proud of, and I don't want to ignore that. Because Scott Bessent is right about California specifically. Right? We know that California spent years punishing productivity, taxing things like ambition, regulating business into submission from things like carbon emissions to DEI, a variety, a variety all across the board. California acts as though successful people and successful companies exist primarily to fund an increasingly radical government. And here in Texas, we've offered a very different model to that. We have no state personal income tax, we have abundant energy, we have land, we have ports, we have uh a rev a relatively favorable environment in terms of regulation. We know that. We have millions of hardworking people, and we possess, uh we still have, because we're Texans, this at least cultural memory of independence, private property, personal responsibility, limited government. We still believe in those things as a people. And so when a business leaves California and then moves over here to Texas, I'm not getting printing that that's inherently bad news, right? I know we all say don't California my Texas, but we also want to leave room for economic innovation. And so it's usually evidence when that happens, when you have businesses moving, that Texas does something right and California has done something very wrong. And this is where that I think the conservatives need to be a little bit careful because we cannot allow legitimate pride that we have in our state, as we should, to turn into mindless worship of economic growth, which is what I've seen. Uh we should not be cheerleaders for every big corporation simply because it puts a logo on a building in Austin or Dallas or Houston or San Antonio. And we we certainly can't allow politicians to point to GDP, gross domestic product, Fortune 500 headquarters, or ribbon cutting ceremonies or any sort of grand openings and exciting innovation as though those numbers automatically prove that we're all better off for it. Because those things actually don't prove that. We can have enormous GDP while young families can't afford to live, while young families cannot afford homes. We can add corporate headquarters to our state while our existing residents are being crushed by things like property taxes, insurance premiums, electricity bills, rising rents, D, all of the above. Uh we can continue to announce thousands of new jobs being created, hundreds of thousands of jobs being created while allowing a lot of those best positions to be filled through foreign worker programs like the H1B Visa program rather than by the sons and the daughters of Texas. And that is literally happening. Uh we can again call ourselves very business friendly and business minded while being increasingly hostile to any sort of family formation, homeownership, and the ability to raise your children on one income, which you should be able to do, right? It's actually bad when you actually need two incomes in order to raise a family profitably. That's not good for the country. It's not good for the state. And so those are not contradictions to desiring business-friendly relationships. So the growing question is not merely where whether our economy is growing, because of course that's undeniable it is. The question is who is that economy ultimately growing for? And I've I've asked that question on the show a myriad of times, but it's a question that's not being answered by our state. The economy was made for mankind, right? Man was not made for the economy. And our country and our state and our businesses have gotten that a little bit backwards. Markets are valuable. Capitalism is valuable in general. The free market is valuable because they allow human beings to work, create, to provide for their families so they can build households and support their churches, raise their children, and have an ability to exercise a level of responsible stewardship, things like charity. Those things are the reason that we have capitalism and why it works. It doesn't just work for its own purposes. And we've got it backwards, right? Economic liberty exists because the family is good, because property is good, because productivity is good, and because leaving an inheritance for our children and our grandchildren is a good thing. But economic growth on its own is not the highest good. GDP is a measurement, one metric of whether or not it's working. It is not some sort of moral backbone or moral philosophy that drives everything else. A rising GDP, for instance, can tell us over and over and over again that more goods and services are being produced and sold. It does not tell us ultimately whether a father can support his entire family on his income. It does not tell us whether people under the age of 40 can buy their first home. It does not tell us whether communities are safe, whether they're more stable, more faithful, more cohesive, if they're culturally aligned. None of those things are answered by GDP. It does not tell us, ultimately, whether the people receiving the benefits of that growth are loyal to Texas or to the American people. None of those questions are actually answered. And it certainly does not justify selling our own citizens down the river on the on the altar of cheap labor and corporate growth. Because obviously, if you can employ people for a lower price, well, then the GDP will go up. Boom, we're winning. And this is where I think the Republican establishment

Corporate Welfare And H1B Concerns

SPEAKER_07 17:20

fails all the time. They speak about businesses, like it's it's it's the businesses are the bedrock of Texas, and the actual Texans are just the labor pool for those businesses, and that's not true, right? Uh a corporation says they need a tax break or they need support, and the politicians in local and state areas rush to aid them, right? We can look no further than the Hollywood corporate welfare, the corporate welfare we've seen uh from MUDs all over the state. Right? A developer says they need a subsidy or another special district, another infrastructure commitment. And somehow we're expected to absorb the costs of those questions. And then the same politicians stand in and announce that, well, yeah, Texas is open for business. Look, we're succeeding. We're growing faster than California. That's great. But for whom? It sounds wonderful, uh, but open for whose business and at whose expense is a much, much, much more important question, right? We have recreated a version, a form of corporate incentive systems through jobs, energy, technology, and innovation programs, right? We know that that we call that economic development, but ordinary Texans should and often do call it what it is, which is the government choosing who wins and who loses, right? The local family-owned gas station or repair shop or antique shop has to pay its taxes. The young couple who is trying to buy their first home has to pay their taxes. The ranchers all have to pay their taxes. The small business owner who has been in the community for 50 years, he has to pay his taxes. But this multinational company shows up with their attorneys and their lobbyists and these open promises of investment in the economy. And suddenly, suddenly our politicians say, Oh, well, that's good. Therefore, let's reduce their burdens so they'll come here. That's not a free market. That is what we call corporate welfare. A truly free market does not mean that government offers privileges to meet these politically connected corporations. That's not how this is supposed to work. It should mean low taxes for everybody, not targeted tax advantages for big companies that are wealthy enough to do these negotiations with our politicians. That's completely backwards. And that doesn't even get into the foreign worker question, right? We're repeatedly told that, oh, well, we need the H1Bs because corporations cannot find qualified Americans. But we should be skeptical of those sorts of claims, right? When massive companies claim they can't find workers while American graduates are sending out hundreds of applications and receiving these automated AI-based rejection emails, I think it's fair to say, hey, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't meet this, this doesn't pass the smell test, essentially. The H1B system contains wage rules and limited projections, but even the federal government's own description shows the narrow situations in which that actually works. Right? Some productions operate only within a 90-day window of a specific operating time. There's no ironclad guarantee that an American worker will not be passed over, undercut, or replaced. And we've seen that happen on scale over and over and over again. Texas should not be subsidizing a company, building infrastructure for a company, reducing a company's taxes, and then watching that company import workers for jobs that could have and should have gone to actual Texans, right? That arrangement privatizes the profit while socializing the cost of the profit. It is it is exactly the opposite of what we should actually expect and desire from our government. The corporation gets to receive cheaper labor and then also gets to receive the benefits of this sort of corporate social welfare for their business. And we're told the whole time, while all of that's going on, while they're using your money to bear their burdens and then not willing to hire you, they're gonna hire someone else that'll work for less money. You're then told that the entire process is evidence of prosperous and a prosperous state, of prosperity in general. No. That's just not correct. The first obligation of the American government is to the American people. The first obligation of the Texas government is to the people of Texas. And that does not mean hostility towards businesses. I'm not again, I'm not trying to go that route. It means that the policies we have should should uh strive to serve the common good of the average people that live here. When we offer in any sort of any sort of incentive to a company at all. Then we should demand very clear and enforceable benefits. How many jobs are you gonna create for Texans? Who will these jobs go to? How many will go to American citizens and to actual Texas residents? Uh are you gonna train young Texans to be able to do the job? Will local you know residents be forced to finance the new transmission lines as we've seen? The roads, the water systems, or any sort of tax advantages? Will the project raise housing costs near where it comes in? Will the company rain remain in our state after those incentives run out, or are you gonna threaten to leave unless we offer a new package to you with new benefits all over again? So that we have to continue to pay you to stay here. Right? We don't exist. Conservatism as a political philosophy does not exist to maximize quarterly profit earnings or to maximize the GDP, despite the fact that that is a single metric.

GDP Doesn’t Measure A Good Life

SPEAKER_07 22:50

We exist to conserve a people, a civilization, moral cohesion, and a specific heritage. A Christian economic vision recognizes that wealth is a blessing, but it also recognizes that wealth carries obligations, right? It's authority plus responsibility. Right? The Bible does praise productive labor, honest measures, wise stewardship, inheritance, generosity, the provision of one's household. It talks about leaving an inheritance for future generations. We're not saying that wealth is inherently bad. I know a lot of people say that on the right and and in Christian circles. That's not true either. It is not true. That is that is completely backwards. But it also, in the same vein, condemns fraudulent scales, exploitation, partiality, and powerful men who exploit other people for their own profit, for their own benefit. A government that is imposing a set of rules on ordinary families, and then a separate scale for big businesses is operating under par sinful partiality. It is evil. A company that demands your loyalty while showing no loyalty back to you is not acting as any sort of respectable or responsible institution. And that's what we're seeing over and over and over again. We are celebrating aggregate wealth, we are celebrating mass GDP growth. Well, look at us go, look at us succeed. And then and then and then turns around and ignores the average age of the homeowner, ignores the ability to raise children, ignores the ability to have a profitable family, and then confuses the means with the ends. The means of success should be capitalism, not the end. You don't say, see, big GDP, we did it. No, GDP is the start. That's how you start measuring things. But that's a means to an actual good end for your people, right? You have the Texas Demographic Center that has warned that home values have continued climbing, while median household incomes, as we know, have remained almost completely stagnant, right? The Census Bureau reports a Texas median household income of roughly $78,000, with about 13% of Texans living below the poverty line. We also continue to have the highest uninsured rates in the country. And I'm not saying the answer to that is to be California. Obviously not. That's not successful either. It is not higher taxes, bigger bureaucracies, rent controls, union domination, and endless expansion of the welfare state, right? We've already seen very clear demonstrations of where that takes us. But the answer is to be genuinely pro-family, pro-worker, pro-citizen free enterprise system. Right? That means affordable and reliable energy, less regulation for small businesses, and to end this sort of preferential corporate subsidies. Right? Serious restrictions on foreign worker programs when you have available Americans, which in almost every instance, if not every instance, you do. Right? Those things are all crucial, and they're things that we're ignoring while saying, see how good we're doing because the GDP is high. That that cannot be our measure, ultimately, a success, or we won't have a measure of success at all. Now, with that being said, as I mentioned in the second segment, we are going to get into the Houston controller, Chris Hollins, who is announcing an investigation into this senior advisor for financial integrity. His name is Chris Brown. He's in the Mayor Whitmeyer administration as an advisor. We'll talk all about that investigation and what it's looking for when we get back from the break. As always, if you would like to text into the show, 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 talk all about that investigation from the controller's office here in Houston after the break.

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Controller Probes Mayor’s Senior Advisor

SPEAKER_07 31:07

Following questions raised about Brown's role, work activity, and use of taxpayer funded resources. The investigation comes after a Houston Chronicle investigation raised concerns about Brown's attendance records, supervision, and job responsibilities while serving in a taxpayer-funded position within the mayor's office. According to Hollins, the review will examine compliance of city policies, oversight, and accountability measures, and whether taxpayers received appropriate value from that position, since again, they're paying for it. He said the questions raised are serious and bring about significant concerns that demand a full accounting to Eustonians. No one takes any satisfaction, not sure I believe this part. No one takes any satisfaction in having to examine the actions of a public servant, but public trust depends on responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, adherence to city policies, and accountability for work funded by the public. During a news conference announcing the investigation, Holland cited reporting indicating that Brown received a salary of more than $127,000 a year while badging into the facility, right? Actually showing up for work only thirteen times over nearly six hundred work days. He said Mr. Brown has collected a city a taxpayer funded salary of more than $127,000 a year while badging into the city facilities only 13 times during those 600 work days. Hollins also noted that Brown's current position did not previously exist and was created specifically for him within the Whitmeyer administration. According to Hollins, the investigation will focus on determining what work was performed and whether taxpayers received value for that position. He said, quote, the central issue in question is whether the work being paid for with taxpayer money was performed at all. What did Houstonians receive for the money that they spent? What advice was provided? What responsibilities were assigned? What deliverables were produced? Who supervised that work? And how was Mr. Brown's performance evaluated over this two and a half year period? Hollins also emphasized that the investigation is not finding of wrongdoing and said investigators intend to interview Brown, Mayor Whitmeyer, and other relevant parties. He said we intend to work together with the mayor in this investigation. We expect full compliance. We expect the documents that are necessary will be turned over. We expect when we interview the mayor and controller Brown that they will cooperate. Hollins also called on Whitmeyer to suspend Brown while the investigation is underway. He said, I'm calling upon Mayor Whitmeyer to immediately suspend Chris Brown pending the outcome of this investigation. Suspension, again, is not finding of wrongdoing. He said this is not a finding, this is not a conclusion. We have to follow the facts. Today is day one, and so there are no conclusions. There are only questions. Meanwhile, Mayor Whitmeyer has issued the following statement in response. He said Chris Brown has spent more than twenty years serving Eustonians, including eight years as controller, where he ran a serious, competent controller's office and helped define the problem of Houston's structurally unbalanced budget. This is exactly the experience I want on my team as we navigate complex city finances, reduce costs, and lay the foundation for long-term fiscal stability. Well, I'm sorry that you don't have time for it. You're gonna have to make time for it because this is a real investigation. And while generally I'm I'm I'm largely in support of a lot of the policies that Mayor Whitmeyer has has kind of authored and been a part of, at the same time, I think there are, as always, reasonable questions that I have, uh that the controller's office has, and that average Houstonians and those in the greater Houston area should also have. And so we'll be asking those questions and trying to give some answers in the next segment. So if you want to hear my analysis, my breakdown of what's going on here, you'll have to stick around through the break. As always, if you want 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, and Lord willing, I'll be right back after this break for the rest of that reporting. Hang tight.

SPEAKER_11 35:09

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What Accountability Should Look Like

SPEAKER_07 39:23

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. As we talk about this issue between the controller's office and the mayor's office, I want to be clear that I think that Mayor Whitmeyer's administration has largely been a net positive for Houston, especially compared to previous mayoral administrations. He inherited a city that was struggling with violent crime, deteriorating infrastructure, financial instability, just massive budget deficits. We had dysfunction inside the HPD, uh, and and years of, at best, questionable management and at worst blatant corruption. And so on several major issues, I think that he's brought a very serious and very practical approach that far more than the administrations that sort of preceded him. But that what again, I talked about identity politics yesterday, but we can't let that that view do. We can't say as, well, I think he's been an overall net positive, comparatively, especially, therefore, he's immune from scrutiny. No. No. It's very important that we hold everyone accountable, regardless of how good they've been, what they've done, how important their job has been. And so you have this former controller who's now serving as the financial integrity senior advisor to the mayor's office. He's receiving more than $127,000 a year from us, we the people, uh, as his as the senior advisor. Right? And according to records, again, he he reportedly only badged into city facilities 13 times during during 600 work days. Um now that number by itself, again, does not necessarily mean corruption. And I I want to give an avid defense to say, hey, it's not proven. These are allegations, because look, it's entirely possible that that this guy, Chris Brown, performed a lot of his work remotely, that he did a lot of it from home. Right? Senior advisors don't have to sit in a cubicle from nine to five. I think it's totally fair to say that he may have communicated by telephone, reviewed all the documents from home, done all of the actual analysis and work from an office inside his house. He may have participated in private meetings at a different location, got and get in gotten lunch with the mayor. We don't know. Uh, or worked primarily on specific budget recommendations, so he only needed to show up to present those recommendations 13 times, and all the other work was done from some other location. But we need evidence of that, right? Where are the reports? Where's where's the memorandums? Where are the recommendations? Where are the meeting notes? That's what an investigation should seek to find. These are very basic questions, and I think every taxpayer has the right and the obligation to ask those questions. All right, of course, Mayor Whitmeyer responded it was not a good response uh by saying that, well, Brown has a lot of experience, he has eight years as a controller, uh, he was involved in passing this budget. That's a defense of his qualifications, and that is a logical fallacy we call uh appeal to authority, right? Whether you'll often take some sort of background credibility as evidence that everything's fine. It's not true. Right? You could be if you go and watch a movie and the acting on that movie, say it comes out from some really well-known actor like Robert Downey Jr., the acting is just a sham. It's just not good. You don't get to say, well, look at all these movies Robert Downey Jr. has done. He must be good in this movie. My eyes must deceive me. No, no, it was a bad movie. Okay, no matter who was in it or how good they've done before, it was a bad film, right? And and and look, I I get it, right? There is this political dimension to all of this. Uh Chris Hollins and John Whitmeyer have been battling repeatedly over the finances, the city budget, the the authority of the controller's office. Hollins may be going into this, I think it's fair to say that he's going into this investigation as an opportunity to damage Mayor Whitmeyer politically. That I I I wouldn't rule that out. And so we should be aware of that, not blindly support the controller either. Uh, but political motivations, which even if that were the case, that does not automatically make those underlying questions that we should have illegitimate. They're still completely fair and on the table. Right? Sometimes your political opponent identifies a very real problem. And sometimes the investigation begins for partisan reasons that you don't like, uh, but then uncovers misconduct. Right? The proper response to all of this is to examine the evidence rather than dismiss the investigation because we don't like who's doing the investigation, right? And we know, we know, I I I tie this all back to scripture as always. Scripture teaches us that a man who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much. Right? Government officials are handling money taken from working families. That is just the reality of it. That money does not belong to the mayor, it does not belong to the controller, it does not belong to any political appointee, right? It does not belong to the senior advisor for financial integrity, it belongs to the people who earned it and who paid it in as part of the social contract. We know are having a hard time paying electricity bills, water bills, property taxes, insurance, groceries. The list goes on and on and on. We know we've just approved this new monthly garbage fee while continually warning residents about continuing financial pressures, right? We we we we're asking people to surrender more of their income while then looking at a six-figure government position and saying, well, this is just a private thing. Yeah, but at $127,000 a year, you better make time. You're telling us all the time that you have to add these new fees and we have to save the money. But if you have an office where the guy is not producing verifiable benefit for the money we're paying him, snap, he's gone. That's how this should work, right? And we know when you don't have this oversight what happens, right? We know what happened with the Houston Public Works the water contract scandal. We know what happened there, where you had Patrice Lee pleading guilty to bribery and and that that 10-year sham prison sentence she got for it, right? Uh one contract we know that was worth millions went to her brother. Uh we also had to go through the HISD contracting scandal where you had the chief operating officer of the HISC who was convicted for bribery, false invoicing, other crimes, uh, which apparently cost the city, the district something like six million dollars. We know that's been an issue, and so we have to have these investigations, we have to have oversight. All right, Chris Brown, not been found guilty. I'm not comparing him to these other people. What I am saying is if you want to avoid stuff like that, if you want to avoid wastes of money and fraud and abuse, you have to investigate. You have to ask questions, and you can't just say, well, I don't have time for politics. Yeah, you you you need to make time. That'll do for this segment. When we get back, we will wrap up the first hour of the show with the weather report, which of course you won't want to miss. So stick around. If you want to text in the number, it's 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and I'll be right back to wrap up the first hour of the show with our weather report after this break. So stick around. We'll talk soon.

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Flood Risk Weather Report

SPEAKER_07 49:53

Another four to six inches of rain could fall across parts of our region through Thursday as a slow-moving area of low pressure develops near our coast, increasing the risk of flash flooding and, of course, flooded roads. The National Hurricane Center is also monitoring the system for possible tropical development, though the flooding threat exists, even if it doesn't turn into like some sort of tropical cyclone. That's a worst case scenario. But even really the I don't want to say the best case because things could just you never know what nature will do. But at the top of the list of potentially best case scenarios, you still expect a level of potential dangerous weather. And so yesterday kind of offered an early glimpse of what we expect this week's weather pattern to do. Most of Harris County and the surrounding areas received an inch to three inches of rain. You had parts of central Houston that picked up three to five inches. Those amounts are expected to only be a portion of what some locations could receive by the end of the week. So rain chances are expected to remain elevated through today, but the flood threat is expected to increase this afternoon and evening as a developing area of low pressure moves toward the upper Texas coast. The atmosphere will remain loaded with tropical moisture, allowing storms to produce intense rainfall rates and uh increase the risk of repeated downpours over the same places. Rain is expected to become more widespread tonight into tomorrow when the threat for flash flooding will be the highest. Some spots could pick up more than half a foot of more rainfall through Thursday, especially with thunderstorms again repeatedly track over the same areas. Confidence is growing that parts of Southeast Texas will re receive significant rainfall according to forecast models, though we don't know exactly where. The heaviest rainfall could develop on the eastern side of the low pressure system, meaning that even small shifts in its eventual track could traumatically, dramatically change exactly where we see the greatest flooding threat. For now, confidence is pretty high that the likelihood of higher rainfall is somewhere in the region. That's that's basically the bare minimum that we know. Uh the low pressure system could briefly organize after emerging from the Gulf of America today or tomorrow. And again, we can't rule out a tropical storm. I want to be clear about that. Whether it becomes a namestorm is less important, really, than the overall hazards. Heavy rainfall, flooding, gusty winds, and minor coastal flooding are remaining the primary concerns in the middle of the week. And you need to be aware of that as you plan for the rest of your day and the rest of your week, that there could be potentially dangerous weather, regardless of not of whether they call it a name storm. Regardless of all that, just be aware. Lots of rain coming today, tomorrow, and potentially Thursday. Either way, that'll do it for the weather report. We'll come back in the next hour with lots more news that you won't want to miss. So stick around. Text in 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and Lord willing, I'll be right back at the top of the next hour.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

This is the Lone Star Conservative, Michael Wilson.

DEI Returns Under New Names

SPEAKER_07 53:26

I'm going to kick off this hour with a pretty wild story. I know that we're being told over and over and over that DEI is out of our colleges, out of our higher education institutions, and we're told we've removed the offices, we've removed the majors and the minors, we've we've removed all of this stuff. We've removed any sort of race-based admissions, uh, you know, all of these things are gone. And you're good to go, and we're back to the norms, we're back to teaching what actually matters. And I I know that a lot of us want, we have a genuine desire to automatically believe that, even if we don't have the evidence for it. When we see that the majors are gone, that they won't use DEI language, we say, we did it. Right. And I I I will admit there is a level of that. There should be a level of celebration. Because obviously, even if it's still around, they've had to sh they've had to kind of shirk down into the shadows in the corners, uh, even if they want to survive, because of the cultural momentum that is not on their side. There is a reality that the culture has moved towards the right recently. There's been a cultural revolution of sorts uh from people saying, We're fed up with this, this is enough, we're not even gonna attend your schools, we're not even gonna go to college because of what you're promoting, we have no interest in this, we're gonna hold you accountable, we're gonna tell everyone what you're doing, and it we're gonna p you're gonna have you're gonna receive some sort of punitive repercussion as a result of your actions. That's a positive. And I'm not denying that, but I don't have to deny that in order to it is not mutually exclusive to say that yes, we've forced them to be to be kind of move around, we've we've forced them to get out, we forced them to do all these sorts of things to to discontinue this this sort of blatant indoctrination campaign in our institutions. We can also say they're still doing it. Right? Those things are not, again, mutually incompatible. We don't have to approve one to deny the other, or vice versa. We can say, no, we've done a good thing and we forced it to become not culturally acceptable for them to do this, and still say, but they're still trying to do it anyway. And that that's what I want to get into. Here in this story, a national trade association for higher education administrators held a conference last week in downtown Austin that demonstrates, again, the continued presence of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology that we've continually seen in higher education. Um at the conference, they highlighted a series of less politically charged terms, but that it that sought to seek that sought to achieve the same goals as DEI, right? The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, that's NASPA, described itself as the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession. That organization has a membership of over 15,000 professionals and t at 2,100 institutions across the globe. Now, while the conference was not like exclusively dedicated to DEI, most of the panel discussions across the three-day conference explicitly discussed the themes of DEI. I'll give you some examples of that. One of those meetings was Servingness and Beyond, an equity-minded leadership playbook for institutional transformation. Another was first gen Latinas leading first gen strategy, black first gen collective, operational equity, creating STEM circles of belonging, and building a neuroinclusive campus. In addition to these panel discussions, which again were explicitly dedicated to DEI, conference speakers introduced a series of these new terms they've come up with to express their concepts, to sort of express DEI without saying DEI. Uh I'll give you some of the words. Belonging, culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and first gen. They're using first gen as a new term of equity and inclusivity. We should be inclusive of the new outlook, right? And at least one conference speaker referred to Hispanics using the new phrase Latinx, right, rather than Latino or Latina. Now, both NASPA's national organization and the conference planning committees contained explicit ties to certain Text institutions. Uh Darby Roberts, who was in attendance, is Texas AM's director of student affairs. You also had Juan Gardia, Texas AM San Antonio's vice president for student affairs. They're both members of NASPA's board of directors. So again, these are very important leadership positions at AM. And I'm sure there are others. We don't have the full deep dive on every single person in attendance, every single person on the board and exactly where they are, what institution they're in. But Gardia, who again is the Texas AM San Antonio's vice president for student affairs, spoke on a panel titled From Insight to Impact: Data Equity and Institutional Change for Student Success. Clarissa Martinez is UT San Antonio's Assistant Dean for Student Success. And Daniel Ramirez Escobedo, who holds a similar position in UT San Antonio's College of Sciences, were also members of a leadership committee entitled Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Student Success. Systemic Barriers. Again, this is very clear DEI reworded and still very clearly on display in the leadership positions at our colleges. Liliana Gomez, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Research at UC San Antonio, was a member of another committee titled First Generation Student Success, which is the same thing. In addition, you have uh Texas Tachy Diversity Health Sciences Center, Vice President Chief Experience Officer Jody Randall, who at least previously has been a member of NASPA's gender and sexuality knowledge community. We don't have any evidence that he explicitly attended this conference, but again, he's there serving at our college, at our institutions, while very clearly being associated with this organization. You also had many attendees wearing branded clothing from UT Austin and Texas Tech. Um, and so a lot of this going on from a variety of state institutions. But what you're hearing, what you're seeing with your own eyes, is a perfect example of how an ideology continues to survive after, supposedly, lawmakers eliminated it, right? They abolished the official DEI offices. They removed the diversity statements from the websites, right? They prohibited taxpayer-funded institutions from hiring employees with a specific title called diversity officer. But if you keep those same people in charge, if you have the same world view worded differently, sort of dominating the leadership positions, and if those same objectives again are just repackaged, then at the end of the day, the ideology isn't gone. You can you can cheer and celebrate. And again, there is some celebration I I think owed for saying that they had to reword it in the first place. Because they only had to reword it because it's become not culturally acceptable. And that's a good thing. I'm not I'm not trying to come out and say it's bad that we banned the DEI office and the DEI director and all these things. No, those are positives. It is a it is actually a a net positive that they've been forced to change the wording. Right? The only reason they'd have to do that is because people don't like it. Because it's not considered a a a culturally accepted thing to do to use that sort of language. And so they've had to change it. But I don't want to take the celebration of we force them to hide, we force them to change, and view that as we won at the end of the day, because we haven't won, right? All we've made them do is change their vocabulary. That's it. And so I mean, things like diversity, equity, and inclusion just become belonging. They use that word instead. Um they they racial preferences just just turn into what did they use? Equity-minded whatever, equity-minded leadership. Um, this this ideological indoctrination campaign that they've been doing at universities for a very long time has just become culturally responsive pedagogy. Right? That that's what they turn these things into. And so they understand that DEI has become politically toxic. It is. We all know that. We're all well aware of that. We understand where the cultural momentum is today, uh, particularly here in a place like Texas, right? So instead of defending DEI, they keep the substance of the thing while adopting this language that sounds sort of harmless. Well, it's just belonging. Don't we all want to belong? Shouldn't there be a sense of belonging at our institutions? Don't we want new generation success? Don't we want, you know, uh student success and good leadership and and a pedagogy that's culturally responsive? Don't we want those things? Sure, but that's not what they mean by them. They're preserving DEI while while adopting this new language that again, it sounds compassionate and good and positive and like it can't hurt anybody. Because who could possibly oppose belonging, right? You'd be a horrible person if you oppose that, right? Who's against student success, right? Who doesn't want students to feel welcome? Who wants students to feel alone, really? That's why those terms are effective and why they've changed them, right? They're concealing the real heart of what they actually believe and the real heart of what they're trying to do under this language that no decent person, right, wants to challenge, right? Nobody wants to say, no, I don't support belonging, actually. They've they've intentionally coined these things these ways so that you just seem like a horrible person if you're against it. Right. This is the same thing they did about immigration, right? You'll remember when when the whole debate, and it's really it's still going down, but as the whole debate has gone down over immigration, of course the left consistently points to stories rather than numbers. Of course, the left continually says, Hey, that Joe Schmoe over there He came over in the 1990s as a refugee from Cuba. And he has worked and he's paid taxes, and he's doing his very darndest. He's he's gotten married, he's had kids who who grew up here. That's the guy you want to remove because he didn't come over illegally, because his visa expired. That's who you that's what they do, right? They paint these stories and they use this language in order to belittle you and to bully you into acceptance of these cultural norms that are not cultural norms. And so the question is not whether students should belong. I mean, of course we think that students generally should feel a sense of belonging at their institutions, that's a good thing. The question is what you mean when you say that. Right? Does belonging mean that you treat every student the same, that there's no sinful partiality? Does it mean that that that you are treating people with dignity and respect? Or does it mean that you're giving everyone uh the expectation of that they'll be hard workers and they'll be productive and and that they're given opportunities to succeed? Or or does belonging mean that students are divided into these groups by identity, that they're taught to interpret society through race and sexuality and victim status and and being told that every single personal problem, every single difficulty they face in their lives is the evidence of some sort of systemic injustice perpetrated against them. How what are you it by belonging? Do you mean that they're given the same opportunities as everybody else, right? Which is again the same claim the DEI makes, right? If you've ever debated a leftist on DEI, they will adamantly defend that DEI doesn't have anything really to do with race at all, but is ultimately just a metric to say that everyone has the same chance. Isn't that what everybody wants? But that's not what it actually does. It doesn't mean that everyone has the same chance. It means that no, you are given specific excuses and justifications and and propped up as if you're special just because you went through something hard. Right. That's why if you ever, if you ever read college admission essays, if you ever read them, they're they're absolutely horrendous. Because students are telling stories about the worst issues. It's like a victim, it's like a victim competition. What have I been through that justifies me getting admitted to this college? And the people that are accepted are not the people who are the best achievers, right? They're not often the people who perform the best. And you know, if if you're if you're in your essay, if you talk about your parenting, who parented you, and the fact that you were educated well and that you stayed secure in your faith, and that despite you know, struggles and temptations that you did. Good, you're not going to get admitted to a college that you want to go to. It's not going to happen. It really isn't. If you want to get into good college, not the way to do it. They'll teach you. I know this from firsthand experience. They will tell you when you write your college admission essays that you find or you make up the worst thing that ever happened to you. And then you tie that into your success. It is a victim competition at these universities. And so these are two completely different visions of education, what we believe about education and what the left believes, right? A university should be teaching people how to think, right? How to communicate, how to evaluate evidence, how to master whatever profession they're going into, how to become responsible contributing citizens, right? Instead, they're deciding that that responsibility is null and void. And instead, they should be giving students this political identity and then organizing the entire campus around supporting that identity. And if you don't, you don't believe in belonging. You want people to feel alone and afraid. That's what they're doing. And of course we know this inevitable night. It happened because uh we spent decades abandoning our institutions, right? We told young people to get a job, pay your taxes, raise your families, and leave politics alone. Right? You know the old libertarian, live and let live. Yeah. You know what live and let live gets you? You don't get to let live. That's that's what happens. It is inevitable. If we don't participate, if we don't stand up, no one's going to. The left is just going to take over. That's why the whole concept of I I I believe in live and let live just literally cannot work. It is an illegitimate argument. Not only from a logical perspective, because we know that just doesn't make any sense, but now we have all of the evidence we need to say, here's what happens when you do that. Look, look what happens. Someone's going to take over, right? It's not Christ or neutrality, it's Christ or it's chaos. And you gave up Christ in these institutions, you gave up Christ in our politics, and you said, Well, live and let live. I don't want to enforce my religion on people. And wouldn't you know it? Now there's chaos. And we're supposed to be just overwhelmingly shocked that that happened, right? And now we have university administrators traveling to conferences where they learn how to continue this same project, the same ideology, just under new language designed to survive the scrutiny of people like

Fix Universities With Transparency

SPEAKER_07 1:08:20

us. While we we we don't say the EI, we say belonging, right? What we really need is institutional reform. That that's what we need in our state, right? We need full transparency concerning which employees attend the conferences, who's paying for the registration, who's covering the travel expenses, what sessions they attend, what they support, and how that's brought back into our institutions, right? We we should be required. Our universities should be required to disclose their memberships, their conference expenditures, their programs that they're a part of, and their initiatives. Again, connected to race, sex, gender ideology, equity, inclusion, belonging, whatever the terminology changes to day to day, they should be forced to be transparent about it. And then we have to examine whether the structure that that we've had, this enormous administrative bureaucratic structure, uh, is actually working, right? Because the whole point of university is to educate students. They're not created to employ this vast group of ideological middlemen and managers to diagnose social problems and develop programs to solve those problems. No, no. We should be educating students. That's the whole point. Right. And there's uh an even deeper problem below this, if you get down a level below it, because the ideologies flourish in the first place because young people are searching for their identity, their purpose, authority, belong. They are searching for belonging and they're being told, hey, we have it here. They're looking for someone to explain who they are, why they matter, what their responsibility, what their purpose is, what their responsibilities are. And when you have fathers and churches and communities and leaders who are not providing those answers correctly, institutions are stepping in to fill that void. That's that's what's happening. Right? The university is telling them your identity comes from your race, your sexuality, whatever victimhood that you've achieved, uh, or or the group to which we assign you. That that's what they're saying. Whereas a good father would tell his son or his daughter, your identity is not built upon resentment. You actually have duties, you have gifts, and your responsibility is what you choose to do with those gifts. You're loved, but you are also, as a part of that love, expected to become disciplined, courageous, and honorable. And young men especially are desperate for that sort of mentorship and leadership. They don't need uh another HR administrator teaching them the vocabulary of victimhood, right? They need men who are going to teach them to have self-control, to keep their word, to be men of integrity, men of virtue, men of character, to protect the weak, to support a family, to serve their communities, and to be able to endure things that are difficult, to be able to be actually be victims and walk away with their head held high doing the right thing regardless. Even if you are a victim, we say it doesn't matter. You're you're supposed to be able to endure that hardship without without collapsing and failing. Right? We don't need institutions saying saying that these things are oppressive and oh well that you don't need to be strong or protect or be or sacrifice or love. No, yes, you do. That is exactly what you need, right? And children, by the way, who receive that love and leadership at home are a much, much harder group for these institutions to manipulate. A young person who already knows who he is and and what his identity is rooted in doesn't need to interpret every single hardship as some sort of oppression. Right? Someone as a young child who experienced love and discipline does not need to search for a sense of belonging inside a political movement. That's why you saw the skyrocket of of transgenderism among young people. It wasn't because all of a sudden gender dysphoria just got infected into everybody through through the water, right? Though if you listen to Alex Jones, that's certainly part of it. It's because young people being away from home, having their mother and father working and no sense of belonging found a sense of belonging in the trans community. For better and or f really, it's not even for better, certainly for worse. They found that there. They found acceptance and and they felt loved. They felt cared for and accepted. And so they turned to it. And so if we want to rebuild this, it it means that fathers need to be present. It means men that need to accept responsibility even when that results in difficulty, right? Especially when that results in difficulty. It means that pastors need to speak clearly, teachers need to tell the truth, coaches need to demand discipline, uh and we need to cultivate the young men. And we need older men who are willing to mentor the next generation, right? We should absolutely reform the universities. We should follow the money, we should, we should certainly remove these ideological people and ensure that we have Texas law enforced in in substance and in the actual point rather than just whatever the vocabulary is of the day. We don't just eliminate the DEI office. We say, no, the idea of these political and and and sexual and race racial sub subgroups, those don't exist anymore. We're done we're done with them, right? But we also have to rebuild those institutions that that come as precursors to that. If you want to fix the institutions, you also have to fix the family. That's that's a that's a prerequisite, right? The family has to be stronger than the bureaucracy, right? The church has to offer a more compelling vision for this country and for the future than whatever activist they go talk to. And fathers especially need to again understand that their presence, their instruction, their discipline, and their example of how to live it shapes not only their their children, but the future character of society in general. Because that's the bedrock of a of a good society.

Fatherhood And Real Belonging

SPEAKER_07 1:14:16

And on that point, I want to take just a moment of uh uh, let's say, personal privilege, uh, which is that I want to wish a very happy birthday to my dad. I've been blessed with a father who gave me a tremendous example of commitment, of responsibility and perseverance and a love for his family, uh, which matter far more than I think we realize when we're young. And that value becomes more and more clear as we get older, and especially as we begin raising families of our own, we start to understand the mass importance of fathers. I talk about fathers very often. I was very blessed to have a very hardworking father as an example in my life. Right. I I I knew from a I knew from a young age my dad, and I know every kid wants to say this, my dad was not like every other dad. I knew that.

unknown 1:15:02

Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:02

I knew that my dad, it was like it was always a sense of pride for me. Other day other other other boys would be like, my dad, he gets up early, he gets up at five o'clock, and go, Yeah, my dad gets up at two. And I would kind of like sneer at them, like, my dad's cooler, my dad's better. Right. And I believed that. I still believe that. And, you know, I I I saw, you know, other other other dads do a lot of things, and it's not a comparison game or a competition, but I was very blessed that I get to preach the truth because I was shown it. That that I I don't come at this from a place of of pride or from some sense of yeah, it's just that my dad was better than yours. No, I come at this because I understand that when I'm preaching these things, I I am evidence that it works. I I know all the time I get I get people talking to me, man, for a young guy, you're doing all this great stuff. Oh man, you're young. I no, no. It's not because of me. It's not it's not. I can point to my dad, I can point to my mom, I can point to God. That's about it. I can point to the church that I grew up in, I can point to I can point to a lot of things that are not me. Because I look at my peers. I look at the things they're doing. I look at young people today. And my main issue is not just that young people are failing or that they're struggling. My main issue is the fatherlessness issue. And I have that issue because I know what it looks like when you have a present, loving, hardworking example of a father. And I know how drastically that changes the outcome of your life. And I know how that builds you up, I know how that disciplines you. I know the results of that are wildly successful. I I again am evidence that that's true. And so to my dad, if you're listening, happy birthday. Thank you for the variety of lessons that you taught me directly and possibly more importantly, indirectly, um by by your example. Um, and for again, helping f foment that that foundation of of everything I believe today, that is the reason that I'm able to talk on the air. The reason that I would say that I I I love what I do, that I believe the things that I believe, that I'm willing to be courageous for my faith and for truth. Those things didn't just magically come out of a bottle. I didn't drink a magic potion and all of a sudden I'm good to go. I didn't wake up this morning and say, you know what, if I don't get my caffeine, I'm gonna be a scared little boy, afraid to speak the truth, because I'm gonna get called mean names. Oh no. Uh no. That came from somewhere. So when I talk about heritage and real belonging, when I talk about what was passed down, I have something real to point to. And I and all I want is for everyone else to be able to say the same thing in fifty, hundred years. That I I want to fix that for everybody. And so to my dad, I love you very much. I hope you have a wonderful birthday. And um yeah, happy birthday. I I I I spent the next last five minutes talking about it, but I just wanted to say happy birthday and tie that back in to understanding, hey guys, this is where that starts. If you want to raise more good young men, if you want to produce an effective society, if you want to bring Christianity back again into the cultural light of the day, if you want to change the the state of Texas, our higher education institutions, our government, our policy at the local, state, and federal level, it starts in the home and it starts with the leader of the home, which is good fathers, just like mine. With that being said, when we get back from the break, I do want to go back to the weather just for a minute. It's gonna be a shorter segment just because I wanted to highlight, I I I didn't get to get to it in the weather report, but I do want to highlight, you know, I said we're gonna get more rain, yada yada yada, but I want to highlight that the rain has already been a lot and kind of why we're kind of looking with a little bit of, I don't want to say despair is not the word I'm looking for at all. But we're looking with a little bit of caution towards the next few days. And we're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit about Governor Greg Abbott's disaster declaration and and also kind of what's gone on in Paraland specifically, as you have some firefighters here dealing with stuff. We'll talk about all of that in the next segment. As always, if you would like to text in to the show, let us know your thoughts on anything we're covering, anything we're not. If you have questions, concerns, disagreements, or maybe you you saw a story yesterday and you said, I didn't hear Michael talk about this, I want to hear more about this. You can always let me know. If I missed it, I missed it. Or if it wasn't on my list of priorities, I have a list of priorities and then I have extra stories that I always have in the backlog for whatever we need to cover. 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 to be right back to talk all about what's going on with our weather in terms of the storms moving through after the break.

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Abbott Disaster Declaration And House Fires

SPEAKER_07 1:24:05

So Governor Greg Abbott has come out and issued a disaster declaration for 101 Texas counties as severe storms continue to threaten the state. Harris County is, of course, among the counties on the list, really at the top of the list. He said Texas is prepared to respond to the severe weather threats that continue to move across our state. Because of the impact caused by ongoing storms and flood risks, I have issued a disaster declaration for 101 Texas counties to ensure that local officials and communities have access to the full range of state resources and support. Texans should heed the guidance of state and local officials and take all necessary precautions to stay safe during this severe weather. Governor Abbott also directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to activate additional state emergency response resources and implement 24-hour operations at the Texas State Emergency Operations Center as storm risks persist. And so Texans are urged to continue monitoring local weather forecast information, which we try to do every morning here on the show, and have emergency supplies readily available as storm threats continue. Texans are urged to stay informed, avoid driving through flooded redways, flooded roadways, and heed all warnings. We've already seen some of that risk. I'll compare that with what's going on in Paraland. The Paraland Fire Department responded to multiple house fires across the city within a four-hour period as severe thunderstorms through the area yesterday. As of 2 30 p.m. yesterday, four separate residential fire incidents had already been reported. The incidents included a mobile home fire on Amy Lane, an attic fire on Belmore Lane, a reported residential fire near Pine Knot Court, and an additional additional residential fire elsewhere in the city that we don't have the exact details on. The Parland Firefighters Association believes the fires may be weather-related with lightning strikes suspected as a contributing factor. As of now, no injuries have been reported, thank goodness. Despite the unusually high call volume and challenging weather conditions, firefighters are quickly containing each fire and limiting damage primarily to the areas of origin, and we have not seen a significant fire spread beyond the initial fire areas. Jason Pecknell, public information officer for the Paraland Professional Firefighters Association, said responding to four residential fires in four hours is a significant operational challenge for any department. The quick actions of our firefighters help prevent further damage and demonstrate the importance of training and preparation that takes place every day long before an emergency occurs. And so I just wanted everyone to be aware that these are not just fun little storms. I know, I know that we get used to we like the rain, especially after we've had some drought conditions over the last year. It's nice, helpful. I just want everyone to be aware, aware that these are dangerous, that there are risks to be aware of, and that you should plan accordingly. Obviously, you can't you can't be like planned for uh a lightning striking your attic and catching on fire. There's there's very little you can do in that regard. But just be aware of it and and plan accordingly. Stay safe, especially if you're gonna be out and about. You know, we don't get snow days as adults, usually, especially down here. And so you need to be aware of that as you're planning to drive to work or whatever you have going on today. You need to be aware of that. Another thing you need to be aware of is that not only is your house at risk, but your life is at risk. And not just from the weather, but from bad government policy, which is where our sponsor, Gun Owners of America, comes in. Gun Owners of America understands that your Second Amendment rights are the only thing standing between freedom and tyranny. That's it. None of the other, none of the other entire parts of the Constitution have any real protections against tyranny.

unknown 1:27:32

Right?

SPEAKER_07 1:27:32

We could go into states' rights and say that, well, states have the obligation to hold the federal government accountable. But after the Civil War, especially with the 14th Amendment and everything else that came out of that, we know the states have been basically castrated from their ability to stand up. It leaves just you, the average person, and your Second Amendment rights to protect against that tyranny. And Gun Owners of America is dedicated to defending and supporting those specific rights the right to keep and bear arms, which shall Not be infringed and they operate with that shall not be infringed. No compromise mindset everywhere they go from their campaigning of good candidates to their lobbying for good bills and obviously against bad ones to the maybe necessary need to go to battle in court and to get these bad laws and bad ordinances and bad policies that violate your rights shot down. No pun intended. If you want to become a member, you can go to G-O-Ahouston.com. That is G-O-A-Houston.com. It is a $25 annual membership, $25 a year, which of course goes back to the continued defense and support of your constitutionally enthrined, God-given rights to keep and bear arms. That is G-Oahahuston.com. With that being said, we get back from the break. We're going to talk about this abortive drug miphopristone. Um you now have a group of attorney generals, attorneys general, I'll say it wrong, requesting the EPA add miphopristone to the contaminant list. I mentioned this yesterday in passing, but I wanted to make sure that we talked about it today because it's an important kind of breakthrough in what we're doing. You can text in at 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on the morning show. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, host of that morning show. And I'll be right back, Lord Willing, after this break.

SPEAKER_11 1:29:28

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SPEAKER_19 1:32:10

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Mifepristone Concerns In Drinking Water

SPEAKER_07 1:33:41

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson, along with 13 other Republican attorneys general, signed a joint letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, expressing concerns that the abortifacient drug, Miphopristone, is contaminating drinking water. Miphopristone is classified as an anti-progestational steroid or a drug that stops the hormone progesterone from working in the body. Progesterone is a steroid produced by the ovaries that is, of course, critical for pregnancy. By blocking progesterone, the uterine environment is destroyed, which of course prevents an already fertilized egg, right? Somebody uh conception has occurred, there is a living baby. And by blocking that particular hormone, that that living child cannot receive nutrients, and then of course that child dies. That's the way this whole thing works. And so when the drug was introduced, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, imposed strict conditions on its use and later placed it on under a formal risk evaluation and mitigation strategy. In recent years, FDA has removed the in-person dispensing requirement and some related restrictions while maintaining prescriber certification and other elements of the risk evaluation strategy. Now, removal of those safeguards has, of course, increased the number of chemically induced abortions performed at home, which the Attorneys General has argued has resulted in chemically tainted waste being dumped into the nation's water supply. Chemically induced abortions constituted 63% of all abortions as of 2023, which does not include mailed order abortions facilitated by clinics mailing miphopristone into states with laws banning abortion, meaning those numbers are arguably far higher than the actual reported numbers. The Attorneys General argued that the uptick in these at-home abortions has dire consequences for the Safe Drinking Water Act, noting that miphopristone's active compounds and uh metabolites remain biologically active after they're out of the body, and that conventional wastewater treatment doesn't effectively remove them. They argue that this poses a serious health risk to pregnant women who consume that contaminated water. Recent research cited in the letter also suggests that miphopristone affects fertility and the development of reproductive organs. So if you take it and you're not pregnant, it may not kill your child because you're not pregnant, but it may prevent you from becoming pregnant. And so the 14 Attorneys General are therefore asking the EPA to add that particular drug to the contaminant candidate list under the Safe Drinking Water Act and to evaluate its potential risks to drinking water. Uh you of course have Ken Paxton on that list, but you also have Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, uh, that are the spearheaders of it, Ken Paxton and the Missouri Attorney General. You also have Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, who are all signed on to the letter. To wrap up the show when we get back, since all we've done is go over the actual details of the argument and the letter itself, we will address the actual commentary, the part of the show that I like the best, I don't know about you guys, where I talk about what I think about this particular issue, where this needs to go. Uh and one of those things, of course, is going to be how sin, as it turns out, doesn't isn't often limited to a single consequence for said sin, especially when it's a cultural sin. You find a lot of different consequences for that sin. We'll talk about all of that to wrap up the morning show when we get back. If you want to text in, this is your final opportunity to let us know your thoughts or disagreements or concerns or or just questions you might have on any of these topics. You can text in at 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on the morning show. And I'll be right back, Lord willing, to wrap up the show after this last break. So hang tight and we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:29

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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SPEAKER_07 1:39:59

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SPEAKER_11 1:40:29

Houston, this is Tom Gresham, inviting all gun owners to join me live every Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. for gun talk. Call in with your questions or range reports, and let's tackle everything Second Amendment. Here on Houston's Leader for Gun Owners, Patriot Talk 920.

Abortion And The Ripple Effects

SPEAKER_07 1:41:05

To wrap up the show, I wanna I wanna say that there is a larger principle here in the story we just covered, going over the 14 attorneys general trying to add Mifepristo to the EPA's contaminant list. Uh and this principle reaches beyond just this drug, beyond just the EPA or the environmental investigation, because sin almost, if not never, produces only one consequence, right? We like to imagine, people like to imagine, that sin can be neatly contained. Every per every person, right? We all do this. We think that we can min a we can commit a private act, maybe we'll suffer at most one isolated result, and then move forward as though nobody else is affected by that. But that's not how sin works, right? Uh I'll give you an example with infidelity, for instance. A man cheats on his wife, and the consequence is not merely that he violated his wedding vows, right, in that single moment. That betrayal can produce a variety of things. Uh, it can produce disease, sexually transmitted diseases, it can destroy a marriage, uh, result in divorce. It can leave children growing up without their father in the home as a result of that divorce. It can teach those children, because they they do watch their father or their mother, it can teach those children by example that marriage vows are temporary, they're not covenantal, and they can just be infidel they can they can commit infidelity if they so desire, right? It can create bitterness that ultimately last for decades. And at the end of it, it can damage relationships that didn't even exist at the time. Right? It can impact your son's marriage twenty years down the road because of what he what he uh believes and what he was taught by his father or a daughter with her mother, or vice versa, right? One act can produce a wide circle of destruction. And scripture teaches us this, we know this, right? A man sows and eventually he reaps, sin conceives, it grows, and it brings forth death. What what you want to be a secret thing rarely actually stays secretive, right? And that's part of what makes this particular controversy so so important. The abortion industry has spent years telling we the people that chemical abortion is the main argument for it. Chemical abortion is private, simple, and very self-contained. You take the pills at home, you avoid the clinic, you avoid any sort of public scrutiny, and they treat the destruction of a living human being as though it were just a medical transaction between one woman, one provider, and a single prescription. But the consequences don't often remain inside that home. First and most importantly, far more importantly than any contaminated water, a child dies, right? That's the whole point. And we should not let these arguments over environmental policy obscure this sort of primary moral reality. The central problem with minfoprestone is not what could enter wastewater afterward. The central problem is that the drug was taken to end the life of an unborn child. That's that's first and foremost why it should be banned outright. But then come additional consequences, right? We know that women have undergone intense bleeding and pain, often without any sort of physician physically present, or even told oftentimes not to go to a doctor, that everything will be fine. The remains of a child can be passed into a bathroom and flushed into the sewer system. State abortion laws are being circumvented by providers from out of state, sending pills to the mail. Fathers might not even know their children ever even existed. Families don't have opportunities to intervene in those issues. And now we also have the issue of whether or not the chemical compounds and the biological material produced by the system could create these sort of environmental consequences. And so, of course, we need to scientifically test the water claim. The EPA should determine whether it, you know, does enter the wastewater at what concentration and whether they re they're removed and whether they are a danger. They should measure it, they should test it, and they should publish it for everyone to see. But we should also be clear that monitoring the water is not the ultimate answer, and it does not solve the ultimate problem. The objective is not merely a cleaner method of disposing of the consequences of your actions. It is let's end those actions. Because those actions inherently are evil and destroy people's lives. That'll do it for the show today. I want to thank everyone as always for tuning in, texting in, letting us know your thoughts for being a part of the show. Lord willing to be back bright and early tomorrow at 6 a.m. in the meantime. Enjoy your Tuesday. Be aware of potential flooding risks, watch out on the roads, and Godspeed.