Fort Bend County’s Power Struggle Shows Why Procedure Matters

A $2 billion school budget that still bakes in a deficit is a flashing warning light, not a rounding error. We start with the Texas education finance squeeze, looking at HISD’s projected shortfall, Cy-Fair ISD’s $80.9 million gap, and the familiar pattern of districts leaning toward tax increases and one-time patches while families keep asking the same question: where is the money going, and what are we getting for it? That leads straight into school choice and why enrollment declines, academic results, and basic stewardship have become inseparable in the public debate.

Then we zoom out to state policy fights that don’t stay inside state lines. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins a coalition challenging California’s Plastics Act, arguing it raises costs and exports California regulation nationwide. I also wrestle with the tougher angle: if we want state sovereignty, how do we stay logically consistent when different states regulate what comes in and out? From there, we hit Houston’s financial headlines as S&P Global Ratings revises the city’s outlook from negative to stable, plus what that does and does not mean for the city’s long-term fiscal reality.

Hour two brings in Charles Blaine from Urban Reform for a sharp local recap, including the Fort Bend County interim judge showdown, Harris County’s new flood control director, and Lina Hidalgo’s World Cup ticket spending story. We close with a federal judge blocking USDA SNAP waivers that restricted junk food purchases, the Make America Healthy Again argument over welfare incentives, a disturbing indictment involving a Houston police officer, and the SBOE fight over removing key Revolutionary War battles from social studies standards. 

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Transcript

Friday Kickoff And Fort Bend Tease

SPEAKER_07 0:13

Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_15 0:31

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the last edition this week of the Lone Star Conservative. That is, of course, because it is Friday, and I'm very excited. Of course, we'll have Charles Blaine on at the top of the second hour. We have lots to go over. I'm pausing talking about the Fort Benn County situation until we get Charles Blaine on. I think that'll be just a better, a better segment from both of us than it will be. I think it'll be fun to, especially since we kind of covered it a little bit yesterday already. Kind of got a little taste of what's coming. Let me just tell you, the drama, as we expected it to, by the way, uh, the drama amped up yesterday. Uh, and things are certainly in a messy position, to say the least. And of course, uh, the biggest issue I have is perception of things. Because of course, we have an election coming up, and it's very important that all the Republicans that are running for election look good and appeal to those who may still be undecided. My main concern with the Fort Bend County situation is just that the current interim Fort Bend County judge that would be Daniel Wong, who's running for Fort Bend County judge as the Republican nominee in the general election, that this may make him look unlikable or chaotic. I hope that's not the case. And and well, especially if you see, it's only been going on I mean, the the announcement literally, and I think this was done intentionally to kind of go after Daniel Wong, the announcement of all of this stuff about him not actually being the interim county judge, none of that came until the day before commissioner's court. So it's only been it's been less than 48 hours since all this came out. So it's been a very short time period, and a lot of stuff happened in a very short amount of time that again we'll cover in a little bit. But suffice it to say, I don't know what's I I have no idea what's coming. I have absolutely no clue where we're going from here. So we'll have to see. We'll have to see where it goes. I'm certainly very excited to see where it goes. I think it's I think it's high time. I I I will say one of the coolest parts of this story, to me at least, is if you look over in in a lot of places, Republicans, and I don't want to sound uh too rude here, and I don't mean conservatives, Republicans are cowards. Any any threat, any, any holdout, any level of you guys remember when we had the quorum busting Democrats last year? And the Democrats all said or the Republicans all said, we're gonna get those guys, and then we basically just had to wait for them, we had to wait them out, and then we finally did get them back, we basically didn't punish anybody at all. Remember that? That's that's that's Republicans a lot of the time. We we don't really stick it out to the very end, and and I'm saying colloquially, we, this is why I don't just call myself a Republican. I want to be a lot clearer than that so people know, you know, I'm I'm not your run-of-the-mill average, moderate Republican, okay? Because a lot of them just give up. They just kind of roll over at the first line of trouble. And there's gonna be a lot of trouble. That's not good. I'm I'm actually very excited to see what comes out of this Fort Bend County situation because as the the county attorney and the commissioner saying, you can't be here, can't show up. We already have the decision made. Daniel Wong goes, no. Showing up anyway. No what? I mean, that's just I think it's very cool. I think even if he ends up being and he can't be wrong because a judge really needs to rule on it, but even if the judge ends up ruling against him, I I actually think, and I know this doesn't necessarily appeal to the moderate, middle of the road centrist that hasn't picked who they're voting for yet, but it appeals to me, who says, that's awesome, and we need a lot more Republicans who are gonna do that. Well, we don't have a court ruling, you don't get to tell me what to do. I'm gonna show up and do what I can for the people that I I chose to serve. That's that's what's gonna happen here. So we'll see where it goes. Again, I I hope everything goes well and smoothly, realistically. They're going to need they're I mean, it's just inevitable, they're going to need a judge to rule on this stuff in order to find a conclusion. But like I said, I did I know I said I'm not gonna talk about it and then spent the first five minutes of the show talking about it. We'll talk more about what actually happened with Charles Blaine at the top of the second hour.

Texas School Budgets And Deficits

SPEAKER_15 5:14

In the meantime, I want to kick it off with some school budgets. I know you're thinking, what a what a horrible way to start a show, Michael. You're gonna start a morning show. I'm starting off my day hearing about school budgets. No, that's why I wanted to talk about Fort Bend County for five minutes. So that you kind of, you know, you could you could see the the entertaining stuff, and now we'll get into the boring stuff. It's not boring. I promise you, we're gonna we're gonna we have two different districts, actually kind of three, but the third is kind of just a tag on, that are dealing with massive overbloeded budgets and big deficits, some bigger than others. Uh HISD, we'll start with them. And right now, everyone's aware, they're a board of managers, right? They're not the elected board of trustees, because of course there's the state takeover specifically in HISD. Uh, but they unanimously approved a $2 billion budget, which by the way, comes with an expected, not that they project there won't be a deficit, but they have it so close because they're not saving well. No, no, no. In the budget they passed, it has a projected deficit, which should just that should just automatically rule out passing it. I mean, I don't know why we don't have laws that government entities are not allowed to pass a budget that already projects a deficit that just doesn't make any sense. Bar like serious exemptions like times of war, right? Other than that, I don't know why we're passing budgets or why we're allowed to that come with expected deficits. Nevertheless, it comes with a $24.6 million expected deficit in its general fund, paving the way for Mike Miles to pay uh for his pay-for-performance teacher compensation system as well as AI focused schools. Now that deficit is smaller than other large Texas districts, which, by the way, we will get into all of them. Uh I we're gonna get a little bit more detail about SciFair, so I'll ignore them for now. Dallas ISD has a $104 million deficit. Austin ISD is a $60 million deficit. So a lot of the big districts kind of have this setup already. HISD's budget approval follows a shorter public budget process uh with fewer workshops. A lot of that, again, is probably related to the state takeover. HISD expects nearly a 4% decrease in general fund revenue compared with the 2025 to 2026 budget revenue, and nearly a 5% decrease in general fund expenditures. And so uh it plans to use nearly $800,000 of the fund to balance uh and support the upcoming year, according to their own agenda. This is they're announcing this. Uh the district also passed a tax rate of $84.21 of $100 of assessed value. Uh that rate can change again after the TEA calculates a maximum maintenance operations tax rate. Um that that tax rate, by the way, is a decrease from last fiscal years. But that rate was only higher last year uh because the district adopted a natural disaster-related tax increase, right? Which they really shouldn't have done, but they did, uh, which pulled in about $50 million in revenue. And so even though this is a decrease, we're like, yeah, tax decrease, how often you hear that? Uh you're only hearing it because they're basically obligated to do so because last year's was a natural disaster increase. So this is just getting it back closer to normal. It's not a decrease from, say, 2024, for instance, just from the natural disaster year. In addition to that, they're gonna wrap up their current fiscal year in five days, maybe four days now, after two budget amendments in February and earlier in June. Uh so in addition, they also estimated uh that nearly 63,400 students will attend campuses in the new education system reform model. HISD also changed its school funding formula so that campuses outside of that new system consider teacher salaries separately in their calculations. The district is also going to invest nearly $5 million into nine of these future two schools that will follow a revamped instructional model to prepare students for a world where AI, artificial intelligence, will be ubiquitous. They want to prepare them for AI by being an AI-focused school. But that investment in those schools comes after HISD closes at least 12 campuses and expects to lose almost $4 million in addition from closing schools. So we'll see how that goes. I also want to talk about Sci-Fair for a minute before I get into what all this means. Uh the Cyprus Fairbanks ISD Board of Trustees approved a $1.25 billion budget for the 2026-27 school year in a six to one vote. The general fund breaks down to $508 million in local revenue, $651 million in state revenue, and $6.7 million from federal and other sources. Now, in addition to that, they are expecting, again, when they passed the budget, they had the deficit projections, and they are expecting an $80.9 million deficit. Superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian pointed out the gap between the state's investment in public education and rising operational costs, of course, because in order to operate at all, they have to spend $1.2 billion. There's just no way to run a school district without doing that. He said, well, public education benefited from a historic $8.5 billion state investment. Rising costs for basic operations like utilities and fuel have outpaced those gains, resulting in a projected $80.9 million deficit for Cypher ISD. Now, district documents outline several contributing factors. Here's what they say is the problem: state funding that has not kept pace with inflation, unfunded mandates from the state, a 20% local optional homestead exemption, declining enrollment and average daily attendance, and a drop in revenue from the school health and related services program. The enrollment has been deteriorating for a while. This is not new for SciFair. They lost more than 3,200 students in a single year, which by the way, they expected to kind of unfold. They expected to lose that number over years, and they lost it in one. And so they projected the district could continue to lose between four and eight thousand students over the next four years if the trend continues. Again, they say that's driven by falling birth rates, the growth of charter schools, and the state's new education freedom accounts. As part of the adopted budget, a full all full-time employees are guaranteed a one-time, $500 recruitment and retention stipend, regardless of any future tax election income outcome. But I wanted to highlight that because they also announced that they want what's called a vatchery, a voter approval tax rate election. In other words, they want you to vote for a potential 12 cent tax rate increase, which means that in addition, if the board calls for that election and the voters were to approve it in November of this year, full-time hourly and paraprofessional employees would receive an additional $2,000 stipend, and all of their full-time employees would receive a $1,000 stipend. By the way, for a home value to $350,000, which is like the median home value, $350,000, the proposed tax increase would add roughly $126 per year to your property tax bill. So pay another $126. Superintendent Killian has been direct about kind of what comes out if the battery doesn't pass. He said the district would be looking at that $80 million in cuts for the school year. He said, I don't want to be in the position of having to go through cuts again. It's traumatic for our staff, and it drives people out of the district for something more stable. Which feels a little bit like uh advocating for a this this tax rate increase, which is frustrating. Well, you need to pass this, or it's traumatic for our staff, which is bad for students, really. It's it's this emotional manipulation. Uh the board has not yet called for that election, by the way. That's what they're expecting to do. They just haven't called for it yet. Keep in mind, I mentioned Dallas ISD, Boston ISD, Houston ISD, and Cypher ISD, Forebend ISD also is currently facing a $32.8 million shortfall of its own. So all of the basically large sizable districts around are all facing a budget deficit. None of them are spending within their means. None of them. And so I want to talk a little bit about that because it's it's a real problem, right? You know, you have two billion dollar budgets here with these deficits, another $1.25 billion budget over there with projected deficits. At some point, we have to admit, but it's not one district, one year, that this is a persistent, patterned, recognizable problem. Right? The job of a school district, do you does anyone know what the job of a school district is? Because maybe I'm wrong, and you're more than welcome to text in and let me know what the job of a school district is? Because I could be incorrect. I thought, from my perspective, that the job of a school district was to educate children and to do that by being good stewards of taxpayer money, respecting families and parental rights and and producing tangible results of educational quality. I thought that was the job. Uh instead, they're saying, well, we can't really do that with billions of dollars. If you can't do it with billions of dollars, I don't think it's that the taxpayers are being too stingy and need to give you more money. I think the problem is that your system is way too overbloated, way too political, uh, and it and it's and it's addicted to treating these failures as because you've had failures of growth projections going down and uh and other issues, you then blame that on the amount of income coming in. That's the real problem, is that you don't have enough billions coming into your pocket. Again, you look at that at HISD, uh, they're moving ahead with this new performance system, new AI-focused schools. And I've said before, look, innovation can be useful and technology can be good. I don't have an issue with that inherently. I'm not against using new tools. Uh but when you're closing campuses and you're losing students and having to restructure schools and still operating in a budget deficit, I think we are allowed to ask, hey, are we funding education at this point or are we funding new experiments to see if they work? Because that's not your job, is to try new things out when you're in a budget deficit. That's what you do when you've already fixed the system. When things are already operating well. You can say, hey, let's try this out at one school. And Sci-Fair is kind of in the same thing. Uh this is one of the biggest school districts in Texas. I think Sci-Fair is the third largest school district in the state, right? They have more than a billion dollars in spending and they're still facing an $80 million budget deficit. And then, of course, it's immediately, well, maybe we need more money. The district says, well, we're underfunded and the state didn't do enough, and the costs are rising and the enrollment is falling, there may be cuts. So this is a uh basically to you, approve the tax increase, or else we all lose. That's that's the again, it's the claim. It's it's hostage negotiations. It is emotional manipulation. And that also ties back into why I've generally been a supporter of things like school choice. Uh, because again, for for a very long time, you were told, hey, sit down, shut up, pay your bills, and we'll do our best. And our best is failure education quality, right? It is that your students can't learn to read. Half of them are not learning to read correctly. Half of them are not passing in math. And so if we wasted too much money, pay us more. If we ran a deficit, you need to pay more. School choice, I think, kind of changes that relationship at least a bit, especially going into the new school year. Um, it's a direct challenge to that sort of monopoly mindset that the schools have had for so long, because that argument, the argument for school choice, even if you don't like the way it was implemented or you don't want the money, at least the argument for it that I think stays logically consistent is that money is not primarily the money of institutions. That money is the money of the child for the education of the child, from whatever the parents thought is best for their children. And that's a a very large distinction between those two concepts, even if it's not a massive change. Just the the general basic overarching idea is a massive change from what we've had. Because, of course, the left and the education bureaucracy want to frame school choices, an attack on public schools. That's what they've been saying the whole time. And it's not. What it is is sitting the left also really hates a word they cannot stand, which is accountability. It is accountability for government schools, right? If a government school is excellent, do you think the families are going to leave? No. That would be a massive change for no reason. If it's safe and serious and academically producing great results, then families are probably going to stick around and still use it. But if the district is treating like parents, like they're obstacles in the way of what they want, and they're treating you, the taxpayer, like you're a never-ending ATM, then I think you should probably leave. And now you'll have the ability using your own money that you paid in to do that. And of course, that's a big shakeup to the way the system operates. Because for the first time, school districts aren't just competing for legislative appropriations from the state. They're competing for your direct choice of where to spend the money that they usually would just get. And that's a very good thing. Uh now the districts also say that you know this enrollment decline is part of the problem, fine. Uh, but also those issues are totally distinct from your spending. Falling birth rates, bad for everybody. I can acknowledge that. I can acknowledge that we're not having replacement rates in our births anymore, and that's not good. I can I can point out, right, and I was I was just seeing these stats the other day that are that are absolutely insane, by the way, that you would not believe unless you saw them. Like you just you just would not you would not fathom how bad it's gotten. Back in 1975, did you know that 91% of women were married by the age of 30, and 81% of of men were married by the age of 30? 91% and 81%, respectively. 2025. So it's been it's been 50 years. It went from 91% of women down to 25.6%, and went from 81% of men to 16.5%. Only 16% of men are married by the age of 30. So yeah, there's falling birth rates, largely because your prime they even will specify that over the age of 35. I think this is untrue generally. They'll call it a geriatric pregnancy because your body's getting older, it's not going to handle things as well, it's not going to heal as quickly, you're not young anymore. But I I I I think that's overdramatic, but it also is indicative of the same problem. Right? You you look at the falling marriage rates, part of that also is because they've completely demeaned the institution of marriage. And social- I mean, there's there's so many problems that we don't have time to talk about about how social media has catered to, not catered to, but almost created and then c catered to people who are antisocial and don't want to hang out with people, and relationships are all aligned, which of course means you're not getting married and you're not having kids. So there's lots of problems contributing to this issue. But none of that justifies tens of millions of dollars in deficits that you can't afford to be spending. None of it. Not a single bit of it. Uh we had a text in, by the way, and actually I just realized we actually got we got two texts in. One was yesterday, and I missed it. So I'll go ahead and read yesterday's text in and then the one we got today. Yesterday it said conservatives should convince Christian ministers that debt is judgment. The welfare state is an impediment to the kingdom of God, charity is the work of the body of Christ. We talk about revival as an end to the welfare state. I I actually wholeheartedly agree. Now that still requires a level of, again, convincing the politicians of that. And it has to be a dual effort, right? The government has to deflate and the church needs to inflate both kind of at the same time to keep pace. But I've said that a long time. That charity and and medical institutions, they all used to be run by the church and by Christians. Separate from the church, but just as Christians. Uh, this is still the case when you look at like a lot of these pregnancy crisis centers. They're who do you think is primarily funding them as nonprofits? Oh, yeah, the biggest contributors to those in terms of donations are, of course, the Christians. Always. Whenever whenever somebody comes out, this is why I always I always loved when leftists would say, Well, you guys don't care about women after birth. You just care about stopping them from from from getting to get an abortion, and then you you just leave them out in the cold with no help. I always love that argument because it's so easy to dismantle when I tell them that something like 90% of funding and a m a vast majority of fostering and adoption is being done by Christians. We care significantly more about women than the left does after birth. We are the primary contributors to any potential help and aid they can get. So that's just not a true argument. But yeah, absolutely. We need to do more, and the government needs to do less because that's not their job. The one this morning says, Good morning, Michael, you're injecting too much. Common sense on this, that's just crazy talk. Haha. Yeah. I know I know. I know it is. I know. It's it's it's so crazy that maybe school districts should not be spending your money like it's a never-ending ATM. That maybe there's the chance that like everybody else, they should be budgeting within their means. And it may be the reason why they're so scared of school choice is not because it's anti-public school, but because it's anti-failures of public schools, which they all seem to be. And so they're nervous because they recognize what all the parents recognize and that everyone's going to recognize soon, which is that people, it's not just birth rates as the main contributor of why people are unenrolling in public school. It's because people are fed up with an expensive system that doesn't serve children academically. When you're saying, hey, we need to raise tax rates because we have an $80 million deficit. Oh, and by the way, when we do get that money, it won't matter because half of the kids still can't read when they finish. And half of the kids can't do basic math at grade level. And grade level in the public school system is already far less academically suited than any other system. We're saying we have the easiest test possible for this age group out of any of the different types of systems. We have the easiest tests. And even with the easiest tests, our system still fails to get half of the kids there. Is an insane metric. And so, of course, we should be saying, hey, maybe money isn't the problem, and maybe you should stop demanding the taxpayers give you more. And maybe instead you should say, Clearly, something else has gone wrong, and we need to address those problems. Now, with that being said, when we get back from the break, we're gonna jump over to the Make America Healthy Again movement for a moment and talk about Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has now joined this legal challenge to the California Plastics Act. Uh it's now a coalition of 17 states, which says this act would raise prices and burden interstate commerce. We'll talk more about the details of that argument, what that looks like, and why we're joining that challenge, that legal challenge after the break. If you also would like to text into the show and let us know your thoughts on what we're covering, definitely text in. Let us know. Be great to hear from you here on this great Friday. Text in at 713-779-5978. One more time. That is 713-779 KYST. You are listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. Don't go anywhere because the Lord will be right back after this break to talk all about this California Plastics Act. So stick around and we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_08 24:39

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Paxton Joins California Plastics Lawsuit

SPEAKER_15 28:51

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. Attorney General Ken Paxton is now challenging California's Plastics Act, arguing that it imposes burdensome regulations on companies doing business with California and will increase the cost of everyday American products. The lawsuit, which Paxton joined alongside the National Association of Wholesale Distributors and 16 additional attorneys general, calls the California law, quote, a blatant and unprecedented attempt to impose its own policy preferences on the entire nation, and argues that it infringes on the sovereignty of other states. Implemented back at the beginning of May, the Plastics Act places new requirements on goods containing plastic shipped into and out of California, affecting both producers and consumers nationwide. The Act forces companies that sell products in the state to reduce single-use plastic packaging, make it recyclable or compostable, and help pay for recycling and cleanup. It does this with strict reduction and recycling targets by 2032 and an extended producer responsibility program that shifts costs from taxpayers to packaging producers. Texan's office expressed alarm that the regulations and fees will drive up prices for everyday goods and discriminate against out-of-state businesses. Texan said I am challenging California's Plastics Act to protect businesses from unnecessary regulations and Texans from higher costs on the products they use every day. Texas has always been a place where businesses can thrive, and I will ensure it remains that way. I will not allow California lawmakers to harm Texas businesses. The lawsuit further challenges California's decision to place the private organization, Circular Action Alliance, in charge of implementing the law. According to the complaint, they're going to collect roughly $500 million annually for businesses while operating with very little public oversight or transparency in how they're operating. A similar challenge to Oregon's packaging law already prompted a federal judge to block enforcement there, a ruling the plaintiffs will likely point to as a roadmap for this case, saying, hey, let's also get at least a temporary injunction in this case to stop California from applying it. I have a couple of things that I want to say on this, and it's going to actually disagree a little bit with maybe what people automatically would say. The first response I have is that of course having a private company run this with basically no public oversight, very bad idea. But that's California. I mean, that's that's that's not even any sort of situation that you're even remotely surprised by. You you expect it coming out of California. You look at the way they operate and you say, okay, they're using a private company to do what they want to do, and it's going to look like the taxpayer's not having much input. Well, that's just California. That's that's not, I mean, it's it's a big deal, but there's nothing we can really do about it. Just let's keep Texas from doing stuff like that. That's up to them if they want to throw it away like that and lose their people. That's that's their choice. More than that, though, the bigger conversation is about state sovereignty. And here's where my position on this gets a little bit difficult to explain. Because I actually and this is the issue with with the this is the issue with sometimes the gray area in how states versus federal government operates. Because here's the reality, in a very similar logical sense, though our reasoning is of course better, and I agree with it differently. We're doing the exact same thing as California. You want to know how we're doing it? When it comes to abortion pills, we're doing everything in our power to mandate that abortion pills are not able to be shipped in. And right now, with the current law on the books, we're trying to go after people in other states who are shipping stuff into Texas because we have regulations on the fact that they can't ship here. Now, of course, one could look at that and say, Yeah, but that's the right of Texas. We're allowed to decide what comes in and out of our state. We're allowed, I know it's interstate commerce, and so how we ship it out and whatever, all of that is run by the federal government. But what we're allowed to have in our state and what we're allowed to ship out and produce, well, that's up to the legislature in our own state. Really? Because that's that's not what you're saying about California. I'm a little confused. I thought we believed in state sovereignty that you do decide your your legislation for what gets shipped in and out and what the requirements are for being shipped in and out. For us, we said no, we don't want abortion manufacturers shipping drugs in. We made it a law. That's great. I'm very proud of that. But then California says, well, we feel these ways about compostable, recyclable plastics. We don't want those things shipped in or out. Okay, great. No, not great. Now we're gonna have 17 attorneys generals suing you. I'm I'm just a little lost on the logical consistency here. And I'm not trying to come out against uh the perspective of our conservative attorneys general. I don't want to do that. I also want to make sure that I'm not applying unfair weights and measures just because I like the attorneys general in this case. I don't want to look at them and say, well, I like them, so I automatically support them. It's not that I couldn't be convinced, and if you have a reason why I should be, but on the issue of state sovereignty, I think we're going backwards if we start trying to tell states that they can't implement policy as to what they let come in. Because we're doing the exact same thing. If we were to apply this, it would be like New York suing Texas in federal court that we're required to allow abortions to happen in our state. They don't have the authority to do that. And even if the federal judge said, yeah, you know what? They're right, you don't get to do that. We should stand up to the federal government at that point. This is murder, right? We have a justification for it. And so we can disagree all day long about whether what California is doing is good or bad for Californians. And we can say, well, it it doesn't benefit us. Sure, but Texas is a massive state. I'm sure the drug producers and manufacturers of these abortion medications are very upset that Texas isn't allowed to accept them. I'm sure they're very frustrated by the loss of money they're getting, especially in a state that has outlawed surgical abortions, where it would be even more likely if it were legal for there to be many, many abortion pills, many more already than are being shipped in now. Many more would be shipped in. I'm sure that's a a very big negative on companies from other states. And if they saw the logic of this, they could certainly say, well, you said that states, when it comes to interstate commerce, can't regulate other states and what they're allowed to send. So it's incredibly frustrating to see uh what appears to be a lack of logical consistency in this case. That we have state sovereignty, state sovereignty for me, but not for thee. And I get it, if these are federal issues, right? There obviously is a level of that. We have to understand this. Abortion is one of those things that, of course, right now we understand falls under the purview of the state government. Now, I think that's bad anyways, and then the federal government should outright ban abortion because it's it's murder, right? That should be an obvious federal law. You can't do that, you can't murder babies. That should be a nationwide moratorium on abortion for sure. But as it stands right now under the current structure, that is a state-level governance. So the only argument you could maybe make is that this plastics act violates federal law. That there is federal law in place on plastics. I don't think there is. And so as far as it stands right now, then you should be lobbying the federal legislature to change that. That that's basically your main outcome. And if you do this, you are setting yourself up for other states to come after you. That's that's what you're doing. And they're gonna use the arguments, whatever they are, that you use if you manage to win, they're going to use them against you. And there will be court precedents for how states don't have the sovereignty uh to regulate the d distribution of things into their own into their own state. And that'll apply across the board. You start saying, Well, we don't accept this kind of this kind of marijuana, right? We only accept C BD oil. Well, they're gonna come after you and say, Well, you didn't like it when they had certain plastics that didn't benefit Texas companies. Well, Colorado has a lot of weed companies. We don't like that you're you're you're saying we can't ship our stuff in and we have you regulate how we produce it. We don't like that at all. We're setting ourselves up for the end of state sovereignty that's already on the ropes right now in a very bad way. I just I don't see the point of this just to save the big companies a little bit of money and how they produce plastic, in a way, by the way, that isn't problematic because it's not a big issue. Now, do I wish that California wasn't doing this? Sure. Do you think it's a terrible idea? Yeah. I don't care if it's recyclable or compostable. I'm far more concerned about the actual health aspects of plastic as being a terrible container for you to purchase in general that has leaking issues of the microplastics uh and and BPA into your bloodstream. That's not good. I'm much more focused on that than I am whether or not it's recyclable. But is that not the right of California to decide what they want in their state? People say we don't want this shipped here, just like Texas and every other state's allowed to do. I think it's a little bit logically inconsistent. And if I'm wrong, text in, let me know. If you think, hey, no, Michael, I think this is different because blank blank and blank, or it doesn't apply here, or it's not state sovereignty, text in, let me know. It's 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. As always, you are listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and Lord will be right back to talk all about Houston's financial outlook uh now by the SP Global Ratings, according to Mayor Whitmeyer. So stick around and we'll talk about that outlook for the city of Houston.

SPEAKER_09 37:52

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Houston’s Outlook Turns Stable

SPEAKER_15 41:57

So the SP Global Ratings has revised the City of Houston's financial outlook from negative to stable, a move that John Whitmeyer, our mayor, says reflects the city's recent efforts to strengthen its finances. The revised outlook comes about two years after the SP changed Houston's outlook to negative, citing budgetary pressures related to increased debt service, salary obligations, and limited revenue flexibility under the city's property tax cap. In a statement released just over the past couple days, Whitmeyer called the change an indication that Houston is meeting its challenges and moving in the right direction. He said, When I took office, I promised to focus on good government, eliminate waste, fraud, and corruption, strengthen the city's finances, and restore confidence in City Hall. The mayor credited the recently approved fiscal year 2027 budget and his administration's financial management for helping improve the city's outlook. He said today's announcement shows that FY twenty twenty-seven budget, recently approved by the City Council, and the work my administration does every day are making a difference. This change demonstrates that the difficult decisions we have made are producing results and strengthening Houston's financial foundation. Now, the the SP Global Rankings Outlook revision, this change, does not change the city's credit rating. That's not how it works. But it does signal the agency's view of the financial direction for the future, right? Meaning that we could have a better credit report in the next few years, assuming we keep on pace. A stable outlook generally indicates that they expect the city's credit profile to remain steady if the current financial trend continue. Winmeyer also said the revised outlook sends a positive message to residents, businesses, and investors. He said a stable outlook can send this positive message, and it shows that Houston is serious about managing its finances and planning for the future. Houston is a strong city, and we're getting stronger every day. Now, SP revised Houston's outlook to negative back in July of 2024 while affirming the city's general obligation bond rating. At the time, the rating the ratings agency cited concerns over expected budget shortfalls, increased debt service, and salary increases, and the difficulty of raising revenue. But Mayor Winmeyer has done a pretty solid job of doing. All of those things without raising revenue. Which i again, for all the things that I don't like, the the cowardice he displayed in the ice issue and then kind of turn tail and run, all of those things, to adding a new fee I don't love, some of the issues with the podcast that we don't know the cost of, some of the issues with one of his uh so-called senior advisors who's making a hundred whatever thousand dollars a year that we don't know about, all of these things are concerning. But if you're comparing that to almost any other mayor of a large city, like Zaron Mamdani, uh uh I mean name name any of them, or you compare it even to what Houston's had in the past with Sylvester Turner and others, you get to a point where you say, you know what, comparatively, but if they got a C, this guy's getting an A minus. And I'm content with an A. I want it to be better. I want to continue to demand better. I want to fix all the issues there are between the senior advisor position, to the fees and the additions of this and the the actual cultural policy of things like ICE and LGBTQ issues, for sure. But Houston had a negative rating from the SP for a reason. We were insolvent. It was bad. And so just to get ahead on that, I think is a massive positive and is worthy of credit where credits do, in saying that Mayor Whitmeyer has done a good job on the financial side of things, especially comparatively to where we were and getting us out of a lot of the crises we were in. Now, with that being said, to wrap up the first hour of the show and we get back, we're of course going to jump over for our daily weather report to let you guys know if we've seen any changes what we see coming up today and then through the weekend, since it'll have to hold you over till my weather report on Monday. In the meantime, if you would like to text in, as always, that number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. You are listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and Lord willing, I will return with our weather report throughout the first hour of the show after the break. So stick around and we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

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Heat Humidity And World Cup Weather

SPEAKER_15 50:02

Now, Houston's weather forecast, if you're at all surprised, remains stuck in a summer cycle of heat and humidity throughout today. By the way, the city is also hosting its fifth FIFA World Cup match today, uh when Cabo Verde is facing Saudi Arabia here, um, with us f spinning on our wheels a bit with our familiar pattern of sunshine, hair and dust, and a very, very, very tiny chance of rain. You can also compare that with some of the other tropical climates of the places that are playing here. Just so you can kind of see what we're missing out on. Uh the local forecast again contains to remain continues to remain at fairly stable. High atmospheric pressure remains firmly in control of our weather, keeping rain chances very close to zero without actually technically being zero. And our afternoon temperatures in the low to mid-90s. Peak daytime temps again aren't going to threaten any daily records, but heat index values, or the humidity-driven feels-like temperatures because of the high humidity could exceed 105 degrees. And so with the Plum of Saharan dust, that's going to continue to create hazy skies across our area. By the time that the match is kicking off, the World Cup match kicking off this evening, temperatures may have already fallen into the eighties. Um and although the stadium will be climate-controlled, fans waiting in the line outside should prepare for a very warm evening. Now, Cabo Verde is probably pretty the the at least the people that are attending that game from Cabo Verde and the team themselves are probably pretty used to that weather. Uh the island nation in the far eastern Atlantic is currently in its dry season with temperatures that are topping out in the mid-80s. And so both both locations experience warm nights and strong maritime influence. Cabo Verde also sits along the path with the same as hair and dustplume, so that's also probably not a big shock to their system. Saudi Arabia also knows heat pretty well. Uh their their daily hides right now are hovering around 110 degrees. So I think they're even more accustomed to the heat, though it's usually much drier, so the humidity might throw them off a little bit. Because Houston summer area is of course loaded with atmospheric moisture coming off the Gulf of America. And the desert climate over in Saudi remains very dry. In fact, overnight dew temperatures can be lower during the wettest part of the year over there uh than what we experience during winter. So it's it's very dry. That leaves us somewhere between the two climates. It's hotter than Cabo Verde usually is, but it's more humid than Saudi Arabia, creating a weather profile that is very uniquely, let's say, us. And they'll have to deal with that. But that's our weather for the weekend, too. Highs in the 90s, lows in the low 80s to upper 70s, and that's what you'll have until at least Monday for our next weather report. In the meantime, text in 713-779-5978, and Lord William will have Charles Blaine from Urban Reform coming on in the top of the next hour. Stick around.

SPEAKER_07 52:49

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

Fort Bend Interim Judge Showdown

SPEAKER_15 53:15

Well, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot 920, and joining me for our weekly local recap is none other than Charles Blaine from Urban Reform.

SPEAKER_17 53:30

Good morning. I'm not I'm not my myself today.

SPEAKER_15 53:33

Yeah, I know. Usually you wait for me to say hi and introduce you, so I I know you're not yourself. You're not supposed to laugh. Stop laughing that respiratory illness is keeping you down, man. It's keeping you down. Okay, you gotta tell it to leave you low.

SPEAKER_17 53:48

You just gotta call me up. No, off my lock.

SPEAKER_15 53:51

No, all of the I ever since COVID, I don't believe in respiratory illness anymore, so I think you're faking it. Um but that's okay. That's okay. I get it. We all need a fake sick day every once in a while. So let's kick it off with the biggest sort of it's not I don't know say the the biggest, but with the sort of most adverse situation going on around right now, which is down in Fort Bend County. Could you give us some background on I would say where all this kicked off, but it kicked off literally what two days ago? So this is like all of it happened in a very short period of time, which is very rare. I think it was done intentionally. But can you walk us through what happened here?

SPEAKER_17 54:28

Yeah, so for those of you who haven't been paying attention, Fort Bend County has kind of an interim county judge who is uh interim county judge because the previous county judge, KP George, who we talked about plenty of times on this show, uh was convicted of I don't even remember what the conviction was for at this point, uh, but it was convicted, like did you think of public money for other people?

SPEAKER_15 54:49

Yeah, campaign finance thing.

SPEAKER_17 54:51

Yes, yes. So he so he was removed from office and they input or uh Daniel Wong as the internal county judge, who's also up for election uh as county judge in November. And so um you now have a Grady President, well, it's actually led by Dexter McCoy, who is the opponent to Wong, who's run on the Democratic opponent who's running for county judge in November, who's arguing that that he is no longer an order that put him in place and no longer stands and he is not the county judge, and therefore anything that they do, anything that he kind of touches is not really going to be upheld, really based on, I guess, his own interpretation, because there's really no legal opinion, like solid legal opinion or any sort of like legal precedent saying that's the case. All the legal precedent says that you have a holdover until the person who is supposed to be filling that seat actually takes the is able to fill that seat. So even if what he was saying is correct, being that Daniel Long was appointed, he would be the holdover until that seat is filled in November. So yesterday at Commissioner's Court, uh Grady Prestige and Dexter McCormick, two Democrats on uh Fort Ben County Commissioner's Court walked out of court because they were arguing that we don't want to sit here and be a part of this and it's not really doing justice for the people because anything we vote on is not going to be upheld. Again, based on really nothing other than their own interpretation.

SPEAKER_15 56:10

Right. And a lot of this came out. So for a little extra background, is for our listeners, it's it's such a weird this is why the law is so difficult, is because I know we would like everything to fit in the same precedent box. It it never works that way. That's why, you know, I don't get overly excited at court precedent being set unless it's a massive, like wide-reaching case. Because you look at this, and he wasn't even actually appointed when K when KP was sentenced. The the appointment of Daniel Wong, for those who don't know, this is kind of getting into a little bit of territory that might get a little bit um messy, but I want to bring it up just people understand why this is happening. They appointed him, he was appointed by a district judge because of the first amendment lawsuit brought by a woman who was kicked out of commissioner's court by KP George. And so, of course, it was the same time as the conviction and this, and so it made sense. Okay, he's been convicted, he's suspended, and we needed a new one because of this other case. So it all kind of fit together so that it looks like Daniel Wong is here because he was thrown in jail. But that lawsuit for the First Amendment stuff was dropped. She ended up filing non-suit because she's like, well, he's been convicted. I I don't need the I don't need the sue anymore. And of course, there's like rumors as to whether or not she was pressured to drop the suit by the Dexter McCoy's and the county attorney and saying, hey, we want you to drop this and we think it'll get rid of Wong. Like we don't know any of that. That that would make sense, and I don't think it would be above what we expect them to do. We just don't know that. There's been rumors of it. But the big thing here that I take issue with, and the guy they they do this all the time, and this is why I say stop just listening to people. Charles, give me your take on this. Basically, and it wasn't just Dexter McQuay, it was also from the county attorney who made a very long statement, but the culmination of which was essentially according to court precedent. And that was the period. And the Daniel Wong team essentially said, Okay, that's great. Which one? Like that's awesome. You're citing case law, but then there's no actual citation of case law. So then his lawyer draws up and says, So here's actual citations that are about as close as we could get to talk about the holdover doctrine and talk about constitutional law for since 18, whatever. This is the closest we have, and it's not exact. You're right. So if anything, we need a judge to rule specifically on this case to set precedent, though we'll probably never use it again, because what are the odds that this exact situation ever happens again, where you have a suit for First Amendment at the same time as a criminal conviction, at the same time as an appointee, and then the person drops? The odds of that ever happening again are like I don't think it's ever happened. Hence why there's no precedent.

SPEAKER_17 58:36

So what's and and that and basically and like in how many times have we seen this, whether it's been a city council seat or a county commissioner seat or any other seat where they go to run for another office or for whatever reason they are they choose to leave that office. One of the council members thought that when he was going to run for another office, then he resigned his, and he wasn't going to show up until they said, No, you have to show up because there's a holdover provision because we are not allowed to have a vacant, unless you know there's death or something like that, a vacant fee because you're here to represent the people, and that's what you signed up for. And so at the end of the day, like if if nothing else, if you're on the side of the next coins and the the uh great grady prestiges, why would you want a vacant county judge seat? Why would you want someone not being able to? I mean, yes, you don't have the votes on the court, but why would you want a vacant seat and not being able to have someone there to deliver for the people if you genuinely care about this role for the reason of the role and not care about it for political purposes? But of course, you, you know, this is 2026 and no one actually cares about that stuff.

SPEAKER_15 59:39

I could answer your question for you because I I know what Grady Prestige has said about this, which is he's the senior member of the court, which means he would be filling the seat.

SPEAKER_17 59:49

Ah it's the Rodney Ellis effect where Rodney gets to take take control every time Levi's gone. That makes sense. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_15 59:56

Yes. And so they're saying Grady Prestige should be current interim county judge right now, just based on the nature of it, if Daniel Wong's not. So they get more power, makes the the left look good, and they get the power over commissioner's court. So it all makes sense. But one thing that I'm very proud of that I want to highlight before we move on real quickly is that it would have been very easy for Daniel Wong to say, okay, I believe the county attorney, that's her job. I guess I'll step to the side and let them do whatever. And he didn't do that. He said, uh, no, there's been no judge order. He went to a a law firm, got their support uh of a massive defense, which again can't it can't have been very affordable if you read the entirety of the document. That was a a very well researched document that they put out. He decided to go full in and say, no, I was put in this position to serve, and I'm going to do that until somebody tells me that has the authority to tell me I'm not doing it. And I don't often see that fight from Republicans anymore. It's it's it's the Trump effect almost, where like or hate Trump, you you can't really deny that when Trump wants something and thinks it's the right thing, that that thing is basically going to happen unless you have something that can stop a train.

SPEAKER_17 1:01:01

Yeah, and I think more people should take that approach because too often I think we see, especially in our it doesn't happen as much at the state level, although it does, but it happens so much more at the local level, where we see our local Republican-elected officials just acquiesce and roll over to whatever the demands of the Democrats want, just because of the fact that they're very loud and vocal and are able to kind of gin up support from a vocal limited base, mostly on social media. And so they often will just roll over. And so the fact that he's fighting this, and I think he's he's fighting it, and having only really been an elected official for a short period of time, you know, like we have been elected officials at the local level who's been there for years and won't stand up and fight, and yet he's kind of there and willing to fight and and without knowing what's going to happen in November anyway. I yeah, I give him a lot of credit for that. A lot of credit for that.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:45

Right. I I and I think that I think that that hopefully, I'm hoping that that goes because I said it earlier on the show when I first kind of announced this, I said I I saw the danger of moderates seeing the fight and saying, like, that's not good. But the more I think about it and analyze it, I I think because, of course, Dexter McCoy is on the other side, there's already at least all the moderates are in a position where they have to pick a side. So it's not like they're saying, well, one is fighting and the other one's trying to be calm. Either way, you're picking somebody that's fighting it. And I actually think the way Daniel Wong is doing it has been phenomenal. Because Dexter McCoy's argument is, well, like, oh, I want greedy prestige on there, and I just don't like Wong, and it just doesn't make sense with no citations. And Daniel Wong says, Well, here's all the citations we currently have. I'm willing to take it to court to actually figure out the truth. But in the meantime, I was appointed for a purpose to serve the people, and I'm not just gonna walk away because you don't want me to. I I think that's a phenomenal campaign argument.

SPEAKER_17 1:02:34

No, absolutely. I mean it's it's just a solid argument to stand on that then any reasonable person who hears that would understand and would agree, I would think. If you can remove the political and partisan blinders from it and you just see it for what it is, I think any person would get behind that and say, well, that's probably the best mess the best course forward, and that is what we expect our elected officials to do when we put them in office.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:56

Right. Now, with that being said, I want to talk just a couple more

Harris County Names Flood Director

SPEAKER_15 1:02:59

stories. We now have a Harris County flood director being appointed. What did that look like? How did that go? What happened?

SPEAKER_17 1:03:06

Yeah, I it seemed like there was gonna be a lot of a much bigger fight heading into this. Um, so Marcus Duggett, who had worked in the flood control department in the past and went kind of worked in private um engineering. I think he has at some point worked for Fort Bank County. Um, he is he was who uh was elect or uh nominated and appointed to be uh county flood control director. And leading up to it, there was a lot of back and forth over one, whether he was kind of like being put in as somewhat of a proxy for Commissioner Ellis, but two, why they were bypassing so much of what they typically do when it comes to appointing a director. And Commissioner was thinking about his long statement the day before the vote saying that he was just kind of disturbed that they were bypassing all of what they traditionally do when it comes from a national search for a director for this one individual, despite it being one of the most important departments that the county has to deal with. And so uh and then oddly enough, the next day he's not voting for the unanimous vote. So that's just just even out the favorite to begin with. But uh it was it was interesting. I wasn't much of a of a you know fight as I think the people expected it to be. And so he was in, he was he was appointed unanimously and he's now in place. He has a I hope for the better of Harris County that he just does what he's supposed to do and doesn't get involved in the kind of the the precinct politics and the back and forth and all the the union uh not union um contractors who who donate and all that kind of stuff. I hope he just does what he's supposed to do and does it with a reasonable effort and timeline, unlike the previous one. So hoping for the best, we'll see. I'm just gonna we'll just sit idly by and see what happens.

SPEAKER_15 1:04:38

Yeah, that's my hope. I uh there's a lot of mess, there's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of of confusing stuff about it. My hope is, regardless of any of it, that it just works out. I I say that all the time. I'm not I'm not so partisan that I can't hope that, regardless of who's elected, that they don't do a good job. So I I'm hoping so. I said this anything that the mayor announced that the SP global rankings had moved us from negative where we've been for two years, back to stable. It was the same thing. I said, look, you don't have to like the Democrat Party to say Mayor John Whitmeyer comparatively to other mayors or to past mayors in Houston has done a great job, at least on the fiscal side of things, and we want to see that success, even if it's being done by a Democrat. It's the same thing here. And we'll keep I'm sure we'll create it too.

SPEAKER_17 1:05:16

Exactly. And yeah, and to that point, I about the SP, it was interesting that when I read the SP rundown, it kind of had the same perspective, I think, that that you would take it, or you just took and that I would take, which was like, yes, we are giving we were changing it from a negative to a stable outlook, but if any of these following things happen at any given time, we can reverse it. So it was like reserving the right to change our opinion, which they should. And it was all the things that you would expect. Like if they if public safety funding, you know, kind of blows past the budget that they that they budgeted. If he if he doesn't uh handle pension uh uh debt the way that he should so all of the things you would expect anybody to do appropriately, they kind of hedged and said, Yes, we're giving you this good rating, but we have all these contingencies, and you better make sure you. Stay in line with all these other things, and if you even follow out a lot of them just debate, we're going to go reverse our rating.

SPEAKER_15 1:06:05

And that's how we should. Absolutely. Now I want to talk about the World Cup, specifically Lena Hidago's

Lina Hidalgo’s World Cup Ticket Spend

SPEAKER_15 1:06:11

connection. What's can you just walk us through this whole thing? What's going on with Lena and the World Cup?

SPEAKER_17 1:06:15

Yeah, the last picture is a picture that came out from a reporter who who got a picture from an employee of Commissioner's Court who was standing behind Lena and she was shopping for World Cup tickets for hours. And I guess she I don't know if she's actually shopping for the purpose of enough to take or if she's shopping for herself and then he didn't figure out a way to clean it off. Yes, Lena has a press conference where she's bought 250 tickets, World Cup tickets for children of World Cup County so they can enjoy the World Cup. It's quite interesting because she argues that she uh she wanted to see this because this is just a world unifying event, and given all of the politics and all of the hatred and you know um the war going on, this is a great way to come and realize that we're just one loss. Um but she got the tickets for about 175 bucks a pop, apparently, which is way, way, way cheaper than you can get them for. And she said it was cheaper cut her a deal because they knew she was trying to get them for children. So uh she got these tickets for the kids, and her and Rodney Els will be bumping kids to the World Cup. I believe it's for today's game, if I'm not mistaken, maybe tomorrow's. I don't know. Wait, how much money do we spend?

SPEAKER_15 1:07:30

$41,000. Look, can I can I say something controversial? What is up with Lean on children? What I look, I'm not like I didn't say pet, I'm not saying any accusations at all. I want to be very clear. But like, this is the the like fourth time in a not long period of time that we've had one person who's always like for the kids. And then it's something expensive that just doesn't seem like if you want to help the kids, is there not something we can actually do to help the kids? I don't feel like 40 grand on a single soccer game tickets is maybe the best use of taxpayer money if you're trying to help. You gave up on helping education, and you're like, ah, you know what? Soccer game. That'll that'll help the community.

SPEAKER_17 1:08:16

I don't, yeah, I don't get it either. I mean, you know, it's it's it's a nice gesture, sure, but like I doubt any of those kids are like these aren't kids who are like dying to go to the World Cup. These are just like kids. These are picking kids from different uh nonprofit organizations and things around the city. So it's like I don't know that they're gonna have this memory embedded in their mind for the rest of their life. Like if I win, if I use like I don't know. It's it's it's it's a weird thing. Like, I just don't get it. It's it's they could have done something different. Like they probably could have had like a couple of the big players, Ronaldo or Messi or whoever, come and meet kids out of their vent that they county or something that would probably have a more lasting impact and probably be cheaper than paying $41,000 to have kids go to the local. But here we are.

SPEAKER_15 1:08:58

Here we are, and maybe, just maybe, this is the best use of money, despite how bad it is compared to what else they do. I I'm thinking back in the I'm reminiscing in the the gay softball world series debacle. Um yeah, I just can't believe this is what we've come to. Nevertheless, that's gonna do it. Charles, as always, we appreciate you coming on. Can you tell everyone where they can find everything that you're up to and reporting on when you're not here on the show and when you don't have a massive respiratory illness?

SPEAKER_17 1:09:23

Check out Charles Blade on social at Charles Blade on social media, um, at Urban Reform on Urban Reform.org at social media, all of the places there. Yes, you can find it.

SPEAKER_15 1:09:33

Yes, all of the places, Charles, is there. Charles, we appreciate you coming on Lord and we'll talk to you again next week.

SPEAKER_17 1:09:39

Thank you. Talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_15 1:09:41

With that being said, when we get back, we're gonna talk about what's going on with uh with Snap. The USDA waivers have been now blocked by a federal judge saying that the uh ban on junk food is allowed to stay. We'll talk all about it. Text in 713-779-5978. That's 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and Lord and I'll be right back to talk all about how all this ties into welfare, the Make America Healthy Again movement, all that when we get back. So hang tight. We'll talk soon.

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Judge Blocks SNAP Junk Food Waivers

SPEAKER_15 1:14:22

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has now blocked U.S. Department of Agriculture waivers that let five states ban recipients of the supplemental nutritional census program from purchasing soda, candy, and other junk foods, which of course raises questions about how similar bans in states like Texas are going to be affected by it. So, of course, we know that Texas ruled banning the purchase of certain unhealthy foods and sugary beverages with SNAP funds. Uh, that took effect back at the beginning of April. The rules were a result of Senate Bill 379, which added candy and sweetened drinks to the list of prohibited items. Texas lawmakers have called the bill a cornerstone of the Make America Healthy Again movement, citing USDA data indicating that nearly twenty percent of SNAP benefits are used to purchase junk food. Texas had to ask the USDA for a waiver in order to implement the ban, uh, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins approved at the beginning of the year. Previously, they had denied waivers to ban junk food. Um but again, you have a new administration, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had already urged all 50 states to request waivers to ban unhealthy foods. However, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, representing low-income families who rely on food assistance programs, sued the US Day USDA over its waivers for states like Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The suit cites that low-income families are now unable to purchase goods that are required for health conditions, such as avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. The lawsuit reads, because of her daughter's ARFID, she can safely consume only a very limited number of safe foods. If she is unable to eat those foods, the only alternative is nutrition through a feeding tube. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in her order that per USDA policy, the Food Nutrition Act of 2008's definition of food guides what SNAP benefits can purchase. Jackson wrote in her order, Congress defined what food is supposed to be, and it did not authorize the agency to amend or waive the definition it enacted. It did not authorize the agency to cut types of food out of SNAP entirely. Jackson reversed the waivers for those five states, stating that federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store and can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way. Now again, the ruling does not impact us, at least yet. Essentially, the Tate's Health and Human Services Commission spokesman said that the agency is going to continue to work with federal partners and take any necessary steps to run in a line with federal requirements. But there's like three and a half million people in Texas that are on SNAP benefits. And so I think this ruling kind of gets at the heart of the problem with the welfare state over and over. The first point that I want to make is this that the federal government should not be running a national food quote unquote charity program in the first place. That was never supposed to be Washington's job. Charity is supposed to be local. It is supposed to be definitionally, if it's charity, it's voluntary. It's supposed to be very personal. It's supposed to come through families and churches and communities and private organizations that actually know who needs help and what kind of help they need. It's not supposed to be an ever-reaching if you make lower than this amount of money, we just give you money to purchase whatever you want. Right. And what we have now is not charity, it is not generosity. It is money that is being taken by force from we the people, filtered through this massive, this massive bloated bureaucracy state and then redistributed through a program where, again, the people who are paying that bill, we, the people, the taxpayers, have basically no say over how the money is used. Again, that is not charity, that is socialism that gives you a grocery card to pay for it. That that's all this is. And then when states say, fine, if we're forced to fund the system, can we at least stop taxpayer dollars from buying soda, candy, and junk food? And a federal judge wants to step in and say no. It's insane. If taxpayers are being forced to fund food assistance, which we shouldn't be, but if we're going to be, then we absolutely have a right to expect a level of limit and regulation on it. This is public money and it should have standards, right? And again, this this directly comes back to the Make America Healthy Again movement. If we're serious about making America healthy again, then we we should be very honest about what we're subsidizing with our money, right? We're subsidizing soda and candy and processed junk. And then, and then it's so funny, it's so ironic. It's not funny, it's just ironic. When the health consequences show up, which we know from sugary drinks and candy and junk food that shows up in the form of obesity and diabetes and chronic illness, we're then also paying through Medicaid and every other government health programs for the people we already paid for. We pay for them to buy things that then make us pay more, is this vicious cycle. So we pay for the junk food on the front end and then we pay for the medical consequences on the back end, completely twisted. Right? And again, the better model is not a bigger welfare system with more funding. Again, this is gonna be the claim as it always is, the same claim that we talked about earlier with the school districts. Well, we just need more money. It would be better if we just had more money. No. The better model is just to go back to actually having charity instead of having socialism, right? Churches and Christian ministries and local food pantries and community organizations that can provide food directly. They can give groceries instead of cash benefits. Meaning you'd get to select the groceries instead of buying them soda, you can buy them healthier things and directly give them to them to support families that you know. You can help families in a way that includes accountability and oversight and an actual relationship with the family. If they're a member of your church and you're helping them with a food haul, you can actually give them things that will be beneficial. And you're not nearly as limited in what they're being given. Uh, but the existence of all and and again, the main argument for this was the fact that they brought up, and the left does this every time. I I've always highlighted this, I will highlight it again. They debate abortion, and where do they go? Rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is less than two percent of all abortion cases, 98% are elective. Or or you talk about immigration and they point to, well, what about this guy that just wanted to do well for his family? And they showcase the just the worst situation they were in when they came here and how they've made a good life for themselves. They always do that. And so, of course, they're pointing to this person with a rare medical situation and this family that's dealing with these very complicated health needs. Uh, but the existence of there being those difficult exemptions is evidence for an exem an exemption, not the platform by which a national system where millions of people use taxpayre funded benefits on soda and candy with no meaningful restrictions takes place. They don't say this one person has a mental, or not a mental, but uh but an actual medical condition that they need access to uh certain care and certain certain foods that they maybe couldn't eat otherwise, so they need help with that. Okay, then maybe we have an exemption waiver for that specific family. You don't then run the whole program with tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people. I think it's har higher than the actual estimates they give, but where tens of millions of people are on a program that is failing because of this. Right? And we were right to draw a line here. Other states were also right to draw lines. The federal government should not be blocking states from saying welfare dollars should be used for actual food, especially healthier food. And again, this goes back again to the the state of affairs with our judicial system where it's uh almost unlimited authority giving to a federal judge who's insane. That's evil. And again, while right now it is a good goal to start limiting the food intake and saying, hey, if we're gonna give you dollars, if we're gonna give you money at all, it should be regulated. You should be given money for very specific things. You should be given things if you need the money that actually better the lives of your family. And it really also should be a limited amount of time if we're going to do it. It should be for six months while you're, you know, down on your lock, we help you out. We give you food assistance that you can buy healthy food for your family. It should not be an unlimited ATM card to buy whatever food you could possibly want to consume that makes you unhealthy with our money forever. That's a terrible system. It's not and and but again, I I said this, it's kind of a similar thing when I talked to you about the transgender issue. Yes, is our first goal. Let's stop trans and kids letting boys play in little girl sports. Absolutely. That's that's a very noble first goal. It's a very important first step. We should be protecting children first and foremost. But the end goal is transgenderism as an ideology is eradicated entirely from public life. That we don't justify it, that it's disgusting and it's evil and it's it's wrong, and that eventually it's band of doctors can't perform the procedures on anyone. That's the end goal of all of this. In similar fashion, when you're talking about the welfare state, it's a good goal to say, hey, let's make America healthy again by regulating what kind of foods you can purchase. That is a very important first step. But the end goal should be to phase out this federal dependency machine entirely and return quote unquote welfare back to charity and where it belongs, families and churches and local communities. But so long as Washington insists on taking money from taxpayers and then saying, well, this is forced compassion, th at the very least, that money needs to come with rules. It it it must. You you cannot demand taxpayer-funded assistance and then claim there can be no accountability or regulation on how it's spent. That is not compassion, that is not that is not charity or generosity, that is socialistic dependency. That's all that it is. And it's making America poorer, it's making America sicker, and it's making us less free. And I've highlighted before, at this point, you know, they always talk about the budget and the defense budget, but it it's so funny because the defense budget is not the largest portion of the federal government's budget. We know about the debt that we're in. Do you know what nearly half of our entire budget goes to? Welfare in one form or another. Um from the the medical programs to the food to the stipends, all of these things, all of them, all added together, make up about half of our of our federal budget. It goes to welfare. And so we got a text in, by the way. It says it's all ridiculous. If people are in desperate need, the fund should only be used for necessities and short term until they get back on their feet, and they should also have to take a budgeting class. And I I agree, again, that's a good step along the way is limits. Right? If you need assistance, and we're gonna have a program, well, it should be reserved for people who need assistance. But again, let me be very clear, this is part of the reason why that will never work, why the the goal needs to be to phase it out. When the federal government runs anything, right, and this is why we talk about states' rights often and local governments, and why I think it's very important that we have a show mostly dedicated to the local and state side of things. You know why that is? Because most decisions should be happening there. The federal government's job is supposed to be very limited in scope. Do you know why it's supposed to be? It's not just that it is. There's two reasons. One, federal tyranny that was a major concern of the founders. But the second and possibly even larger option is the the level of differences between people and groups in certain states. The people of Texas have very different needs than the people of California, which have very different needs than the people of Montana, which have very different needs than the people of Massachusetts and Maine. These things changed from state to state. And the reason we had states' rights wasn't just to prevent federal tyranny, though that was certainly there. It was also to say, hey, we need specific policies for our state. We we are primarily Baptists, so we want a more Baptist form of government. You're more Presbyterian, so you have different hierarchy in your state. Those were states' rights for a reason. And even the federal government runs any programs that are this sort of program, they can't do the short-term certain things with budgeting classes. They can't do that because that's too wide a spectrum for it to work. You're casting a wide net and hoping you get a certain kind of fish. You can't fish that way. There's no way to do it. And that's why I keep saying the end goal has to be to bring it back locally. I mean, it would even be better if it was being run by local government funding. It would still be socialism, but it would be far more successful because the federal government can't possibly keep tabs on the way this there's there's too much opportunity for fraud, waste, and abuse, which is exactly what we've seen. And what we're gonna continue seeing until it's changed. Because that's not the role of the federal government. It's not set up to do that. It can't be set up to do that. That has to come down to local municipalities. It should come down to local people and charities and churches. And it was wildly more successful before. Because, of course, if again, someone's a member of your church or a member of your neighborhood and you know them and you're aiding them, you can talk to them and say, hey, why are you not making enough money to afford groceries on your own? How can we help you get a better job? Right? It's more all-encompassing, designed to help the person and not produce people that are dependent. And so I've talked to people before who don't want to cross a certain threshold. They don't want promotions, they don't want to work more because once they do, they lose out. They would have to almost double their income to make up for the benefits they get from the welfare state. It's keeping people impoverished because it's not designed for short term, because it's very hard to do that from a federal perspective. That's a tangent, but I you texted in and I wanted to kind of cle clear that up a little bit. That's another reason why it just can't work and why we need to face it out entirely. But again, it's not just that it can't work, it's also the level of tyranny itself. It is socialism. It is federal tyranny from the judges and the federal government with the welfare state that we the founders fought against. And the main form of accountability against that sort of federal tyranny and states' rights and the rights of the people also comes from one other spot. You know what that spot is? Well, if you don't know, then you definitely need to become a member of our sponsor, Gun Owners of America. Gun Owners of America. America understands that the role of the Second Amendment was to defend your God-given rights, all of them. The Second Amendment is all-encompassing in its nature and is designed to hold the federal government, especially but all governments, accountable to the rights of the people. That's why the keep the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And Gun Owners of America believes that. They believe wholeheartedly in no compromise. No compromise in who they campaign for, no compromise in what they lobby for and against, and no compromise because if there is something that gets passed that is evil and unconstitutional, they sue. They take it to court and they say, enough is enough. You can't do that. It's a violation of the people's right. And that's what no compromise means. If you would like to become a member, you can go over to goahhouston.com. It is a $25 annual membership, just $25 a year, which all goes right back to the continued support and defense of the Second Amendment. Again, that is G-Oahuston.com. Now, with that being said, we can get back from the break. We're going to jump over and talk about this Houston police officer who's been indicted in an aggravated sexual assault of a child case. Get back into accountability, the importance of holding people, especially in positions of authority, accountable, maybe even more accountable. We'll talk about that case, the background, and where we go from here after the break. As always, if you too would like 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 William will be right back with that Houston police officer after the break. So stick around and we'll talk soon.

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SPEAKER_04 1:32:23

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SPEAKER_02 1:32:41

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SPEAKER_08 1:33:12

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

HPD Officer Indicted For Child Assault

SPEAKER_15 1:33:42

You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your morning host, Michael Wilson, and a Houston police officer has been relieved of duty after he was accused of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Pablo Diaz Bushill, who's 36 years old, has now been indicted by a Harris County grand jury. The one paragraph indictment accuses Diaz of causing a child younger than 14 to come into contact with uh, well, I think you could probably guess. The alleged assault happened back in October, according to the indictment. The victim is identified only by their initials, and their relationship with this guy is not specified in the charging document. Now he has worked for the Houston Police Department since twenty twenty-three, so not a long veteran or anything. He's been relieved of duty amid an internal investigation. A police department spokesman said just over the past couple days. A relieved officer is essentially suspended and is not permitted to carry a badge or a gun. The department had not yet moved to fire or further discipline him yet, though there is due process, so it's not really fair to discipline him if it turns out it was all not true or it was somebody else or misaccusations. Those happen all the time. So that's why we have due process. Additionally, it's not the first time that he's been arrested, by the way. In June of last year, he was charged with aggravated assault of a family member and accused of threatening a girlfriend with a handgun in during an argument. Uh Diaz Basio was arrested in that case, but the charge was later no-billed by a grand jury, meaning there wasn't enough evidence for a conviction or even for the the trial to move forward. Now he appeared in court this week and his bail was set at $25,000, which seems a little low for the aggravated sexual assault of a child from someone who's been arrested before. Uh but his next court appearance is now scheduled for August, meaning he'll be out and about for at least the next couple months. But again, you gotta balance two things. I always have to be very cautious because of course I get very angry at people that hurt people, especially people that hurt children. Uh it's why I'm I'm so angry, righteously angry and indignant at the abortion milk that is genocided. I mean, what half of Gen Zers will never or or a quarter of Gen Zers died in the womb, right? It's it's infuriating. Or when I hear about the transgender stuff on kids where you're mutilating them with irreversible damage. And especially when we talk about sexual assault of a children, uh, of children or of just a child, that even Jesus, right? You you go into scripture and you realize that a lot of the law and a lot of the information as to justice comes out from a lot of the letters, it comes out from a lot of the Old Testament. And so Jesus, a lot of what Jesus came to do was to seek and to save, right? And so there was there was much less of Jesus' earthly ministry focused specifically on justice, and yet when it came to children, Jesus was very clear that anyone who hampers children, anyone who hurts a child, should have a millstone head around their neck and dropped in the in the ocean, right? That that dropped into the sea. So you have to understand the way that we should look at this, this, if proven in court, is uh it it is absolutely one of the most evil things a human being can do. And we need to have standards. And listen, I get it, right? The conversation of course centers around the fact that this was a person in a position of authority, right? And regardless of the outcome in terms of what the sentencing looks like, the bare minimum the sentence should include that he's never allowed to be around children again. Needs to include that he's never allowed to hold any position of authority in any child's life, whether that's a police officer, school administrator, church volunteer, I don't care. The answer is no. That needs to be at least part of it, is that he's never allowed to be around children ever again. Now, with that being said, to wrap up the show, when we get back, one more update for the State Board of Education. Of course, the final votes are coming out today on a lot of these things, but we do have one update, and that is that they have now removed the revolutionary war battles in their proposed social media or social studies standards. Uh, the amendment to remove some of these battles was passed when Republicans, three of them, voted with Democrats. Again, this frustrating debacle we keep seeing over and over again. We'll address it to wrap up the show. As always, if you'd like to text in, this is your final chance to do so, and you can do that at 713-779-5978. One more time. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. And Lord willing, I will return to wrap up the morning show for today and this week when we get back. So stick around. We'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:07

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SPEAKER_21 1:38:24

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SPEAKER_06 1:40:08

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SPEAKER_10 1:41:39

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SBOE Cuts Revolution Battles From Standards

SPEAKER_15 1:42:16

Members of the State Board of Education have given preliminary approval to proposed K-12 Texas Education Knowledge and Skills Standards for Social Studies, despite receiving praise for giving solid American and Texas values in the standards for K-5th, concerned individuals have pointed out shortfalls made during the amendment process for the sixth through twelfth grade standards, one of which is the removal of significant revolutionary war battles. Mandy Drogan, who is the K-12 education expert with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said, quote, Texas should know that one of the most significant events in American history and world history was removed and replaced with pop cultural figures such as Oprah Winfrey. How any patriotic American can support the removal of significant revolutionary war battles, including Lexington, Concord, and Valley Forge, from Texas Public School's U.S. history standards is beyond me. Drogan said that activists in the Marxist Islamist History Alliance paid the SBOE to remove the shot heard round the world from the standards. Drogan said, I trust that Chairman Kenzie and anyone claiming they tribute to patriotism will fix this disastrous attempt to revise U.S. history. The amendment to remove these significant battles was passed by the Democrats with the assistance of three Republican members, Will Hickman, Kevin Ellis, and Pam Little. SBO member Julie Pickerin, by the way, a Republican out of Paraland, who we've had on the show, also highlighted the removal of Spindletop, which launched the modern Texas oil boom from the seventh grade standards. She also reported that Hickman was able to do this because of support from Democrats and that they removed Black Robe Regiment with help from the same voting block, which refers to uh the 18th century American Protestant pastors who supported and fought for the Patriot cause during the Revolution. Of course, because again, that's back to Christianity and how Christians can be strong-willed and and fight and stand up for truth. They don't want you to know that. They want you to think that Christianity is a weak religion that you have to just sit down, roll over, and take it. Not true, by the way. Reference to the relationship between Harry Tubman's role and the Underground Railroad and the rule of Moses, the Israelites, and the biblical history of the Exodus was narrowly retained, barely. Uh an amendment to add Charlie Brown was also voted down. And so, again, this is an attempt to rewrite history and educate children improperly. Does anyone think that children need to know more about Oprah Winfrey than the American Revolution? Because if you do, you're listening to the wrong show, I promise you. This is just going you're going to hate the show. If you don't agree with that, you're going to hate everything else. That's the bare minimum. You're going to hate everything else, I have to say, every day and every week. Speaking of every day and every week, that is going to do it for the show today. As always, I greatly appreciate everybody tuning in, texting in, being a part of the show, not only today, uh, but for all this week. Lord willing, of course, I'll be back bright and early Monday morning at 6 a.m. In the meantime, it will be warm. There will be some Saharan dust. So uh prepare yourself for the weekend. Enjoy it. Spend some time outside with your family. And Lord willing, I'll see you guys again on Monday. Enjoy your weekend. And ladies and gentlemen, God speed.