Deplatforming Backfires While Texas Debates Birthright Citizenship

The fastest way to wreck a country isn’t a single bad law, it’s getting people to stop talking to each other. We start with a blunt look at deplatforming and political censorship, using a surprising panel pairing as proof that “shutting someone up” rarely works. When speech gets pushed off mainstream platforms, it doesn’t disappear, it concentrates. That can radicalize the right, radicalize the left, and leave millions of people unable to explain why they believe what they believe. Our goal is the opposite: keep the argument in the open, take pushback seriously, and make you sharper, not angrier.

Then we pivot to Texas immigration politics and the fight over birthright citizenship, birth tourism, and the incentives created by recent Supreme Court rulings. We break down what proposed legislation like the Citizenship Act of 2026 is trying to do, why lawmakers are using national security language, and how the policy debate can drift toward bigger, harder options like an immigration moratorium if narrower fixes fail.

We also hit major Texas headlines that affect real life: an update in the Lorenzo Salgado Araujo case and why transparent investigations matter, the Houston heat forecast, and a practical Medicare Monday with Justin White from Senior Health Services. Justin walks us through the annual Medicare timeline leading to Oct 15, plus how an indemnity or “gap” policy can help manage rising daily hospital coinsurance on Medicare Advantage plans. We close with online child safety and Ken Paxton’s temporary injunction against Discord, concerns about Flock license plate reader misuse, and new moves to make data centers pay for their own ERCOT grid upgrades instead of hiking residential bills.

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

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Time Is Flying So Focus Up

SPEAKER_11 0:08

The voice of reason, and then it's the most dark conservative, Michael Wilson.

SPEAKER_12 0:30

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on Patriot Talk 920, here making it to another week of the show. And by the way, the last week, really, it's not even the last full week. By the end of the week, you're not even in July, but it's the last full week of July. We're heading into August. And we're going to be in August here in just a few days, which again, time is flying, so I hope you are spending each and every day wisely. Because we'll be hitting August by what, Saturday? Saturday. Saturday may August. And so we'll be there before we know it. And then before you know, you'll be in September, you'll be October. We'll be in election season. We'll be in the midterms. Then we'll be in the next legislative session. And that's a very short amount of time away. And so I would recommend that you take every thought captive, which includes all the things that you think about what you need to get done. Those need to be taken captive so you can, you know, formalize what do I need to do today? What do I need to do tomorrow? What do I need to get done this week so that you can be productive? Because you know, time does this very weird thing where it there are a couple there are some periods where things kind of move really slowly every once in a while. But for the vast majority of the time, it just speeds on. Don't care, it doesn't care who you are, doesn't care what your status is, doesn't care how much money you have, doesn't care how successful you've been. Everybody gets treated the same, doesn't discriminate, time does not discriminate at all. And it just it keeps going. We're all heading into August this week. So do be aware of that. I also

Deplatforming And Political Radicalization

SPEAKER_12 2:11

wanted to mention to people that I'm I'm watching a video right now. I've not watched the whole thing, so I can't speak to you know the content in the whole thing. But from what I've listened to so far, it's a pretty interesting conversation. But he uploads to YouTube, and he managed to get two individuals for like a panelist conversation. It's like an hour and 45 minutes uh for a panelist conversation. And it's two of the people that I would expect almost you'd never expect to find in a room together. You know, you sometimes when you see a panel, there are people you don't know, and so okay, they go together. Or there are people that you do know and you'd expect them to end up on the same panel. They're both congressmen, or they're both, you know, this or that or the other. There's something that kind of ties them together. They used to be friends, whatever the case may be. Or it's just a big, big panel, and so you get someone on the left and someone on the right. But when you have a sort of private, intimate panel in the same room live with two people, sometimes you there's an expectation that those people at least know each other. And that is not the case here. You know what they got. I don't know if you guys know who Nick Fuentes is. He's a he's a far-right political commentator, has been for a number of years, has been around really since the start of the first Trump administration, a little bit before that, helped with the Ted Cruz campaign. But far-right political commentator. And then you also have Hunter Biden in this interview. And it's over on YouTube. I could not believe, I could not believe that they got a a young, far, far right political commentator, um, who's much more brash than me, by the way. And Hunter Biden. And what Nick Fuentes points out, and I think he's right on this, what Nick Fuentes points out in the at the beginning of the interview, on this point at least, that he's correct on, he said, what that did is, as it turns out, it didn't really shut anybody up. They think that it did. They still probably hold that it did work, but it didn't actually shut anyone up. It actually pushed people to corners of the internet and to other people that maybe aligned with them or were further than they were. And all it did really was to some people it radicalized them. To some people, it it it took, you know, maybe a normal conservative position and turned it into something that was much further to the right. And the danger of that, of course, is that you know, you can go so far, and it's tough saying it's so far to the right, because at some point, what I say often is they'll try to paint anything that is, you know, in any form or fashion, you know, in these sorts of things, that those are inherently conservative. Sometimes things that appear on the right aren't actually right-wing concepts, they actually pull back towards the left, regardless. You know, it pushed people towards radical positions. And Nick says that's what was going to happen because when you push people away from being able to have conversations, when you take that away from them, there's a reason why the First Amendment works so well. When you take away the ability to speak and have conversations, and by the way, the importance of this to receive pushback, but to still be able to converse with people that maybe you disagree with, and not only with people that you agree with, the benefit of that is that maybe it keeps you in check a little bit. Maybe it tells you, hey, maybe I'm wrong on this. Maybe there's a potential that you are able to hear things that wouldn't generally be your position, but that can challenge you a little bit and cement some of your beliefs, maybe make you stronger in them rather than force you to become more radical. And so what happened in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 really was when this hit peak. It went, it was just continually went up till you had massive BLM riots, the whole George Floyd debacle, mid-COVID, with everything going on already, with vaccine cards and everything else. You know, people were were literally talking about hey, I I know somebody that can maybe get you a vaccine card that that that you didn't actually get the vaccine, but they can get you one. That's insane. And we all recognize that how insane that was. And the left wants to just gloss over it like it was just a year of just, well, there was a pandemic. And that's all they want to think about, what happened during COVID. That's not all that happened during COVID. COVID was an entirely terrible time for everybody, for the country. And he says, you know, what that did to people is that it created significantly more divisiveness, that you didn't actually shut people up and sway the culture, that you you didn't actually manage to bring people back. You didn't actually manage to say, you're not allowed to say that. And they went, okay, I guess you're right. I shouldn't have said that. Instead, what it did is it almost cemented, well, you're shutting me up because I had something important to say and you didn't want to hear it. So I must be on the right track. And then they would follow that track even further, maybe to the point of ridiculousness. Maybe to the point they followed that track to where the train ran out of track, right? Maybe they followed it so far they got to a bridge that the tracks were out and just kept going into the water. Maybe that happened. Maybe it didn't. But to some people it certainly did. People that have have legitimately lost their way and are saying things that are actually just verifiably untrue. And that's why it's so important that we're able to have conversations. It's why I leave the text line open. It's why I'm willing to go on panels with Democrats. It's why I'm willing to go to, you know, protests or have conversations with people that I vehemently disagree with. I think it's important that we have those conversations for two main reasons. The first is that it in a in a real way, it does keep us on our toes, right? It does actually force you to be able to defend your beliefs. Because if you can't defend them, do you really hold them? Or are they just something that are there that can be swayed with the wind? Right. It is important that you are able to defend your beliefs well. The other reason for that is you have to live with these people. I I know that people forget that they just want to have these right-wing enclaves. And they just want to have these communities where no one disagrees with them ever. And that would be great if everybody actually agreed with you and it wasn't just your community. If the whole country was more aligned on a right-wing perspective, of course that would be good. But when you start these these right-wing sort of in-groups where you're no longer willing to have conversations with anybody that doesn't agree with you, what you're not doing is actually moving the country at all. Instead, the divisiveness, and we've seen this, the divisiveness continues to grow and the divide continues to get wider. People are moving further to the right, and the people on the left are also moving further to the left. By silencing people on the right, what they did was a twofold problem, right? Not only did they radicalize a whole lot of people, but they also radicalized themselves because now they're also receiving no pushback from these people that they've silenced. Now they're also getting no conversations from the right. Now they're also not being challenged on their own beliefs and having to defend them. And it's resulted in a lot of people on both sides of the political aisle who maybe are incapable of defending their beliefs, don't know why, couldn't tell you why they actually believe what they believe, certainly couldn't defend it in a logical way. And that's not good for anybody. That does not aid our country. That doesn't support any sort of cultural cohesion at all. And it's going to continue to destroy our country if we let it. And that's why I've said I I'm willing to have tough conversations with people that I know are going to push back on the things that I'm saying. And I'm I'm prepared to go in and defend those things, as everyone should be, right? We and this is a biblical principle too. We know that we're supposed to always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us. You shouldn't, you shouldn't be, you should not believe things that you can't actively defend why you believe them, right? Because that's not actually a belief that you hold. That's just something that for the moment you might think. And that's a bad position to find yourself in in a country that's already on the brink of I mean, just catastrophic divisiveness is to have a whole lot of people who can't defend why they believe what they believe. And of course, it results in both sides pointing at the other one saying, you guys are insane, you guys don't know what you're talking about, you guys are just dumb, you guys are just idiots, right? And you hear that all the time, again, from both sides. And sometimes they're right, right? Sometimes it's only true. You talk to some people who genuinely seem to believe in communism, and you listen to their beliefs and their inability to discuss history, their unability to discuss the the absolute catastrophe that has resulted from a lot of communist ideology. They can't, they can't defend those things. There are people that today really, really genuinely believe that China is just wiping the floor with America. And they say, well, most people in China own a home. See, they're doing better than us. Most people in China can feed their families. You know, the the uh the actual poverty rate in China is quite low. They'll point to all these things. And they can't they can't have any level of nuance, say, yeah, they own a home, but what about their lifestyle? What about any sort of work-life balance? What about any sort of joy? What about any of those things? Well, if you start to look at those things, well, China is failing majorly. They're way behind on any of that because they don't care, because they don't have human rights. They don't care about the quality of life for their citizens. They don't care about any of that. But they can't see the conversation from that lens because they're never challenged on it. And when they are, they just walk away angry rather than trying to defend why they believe what they believe. And wokeness, by the way, did that. That was not a right-wing position that pushed people out of the public square. And that that that did not come from the right. And and today, you know, the right will utilize that sometimes. And I think sometimes it's good, right? And and it looks different because we're not talking about deplatforming, right? We're not talking about removing people's ability to speak. In a lot of cases, what they call cancel culture that when we do it is saying, hey, if a teacher is openly celebrating the assassination of a right-wing pundit, maybe they shouldn't be teaching and educating young people. Maybe they are insane, and maybe that's a bad person to have in charge of raising up the next generation. Maybe I don't trust their view of the world enough to let them teach kids. And they'll say, well, the right, see, the right does cancel culture too. Well, it's it's a little different because the left's version of cancel culture, of course, was take away their right to speak, make it where no one can ever hear what they have to say again. And the rights version, of course, is simply to, you know, is is very simply the rights version is to say, hey, maybe there's a reality that you should not be allowed to do certain things if you hold certain beliefs. So those are two very different things, right? The left was big on debanking. We know that was a big problem. That's where you got Old Glory Bank from, who used to be a sponsor of the show, who we've had on numerous times. They're a great group of people that do great things. There's a reason why they had to start the bank. There's a reason why Old Glory Bank even had to start. And that was because there was a massive problem of debank conservatives and conservative companies. And so that's at least where the conversation started. Again, I have no idea where it's going to go from there. And I can't speak to any of that or recommend it as a video because I don't know what's in it. I don't know what the content you know contains. So I I can't speak to any of that. But I think what's being acknowledged right from the get-go isn't it that we have to understand, and that is the fundamental reality that when people stop talking, when people are incapable of defending their beliefs, people that don't agree with them, and when we're unable to reach any sort of consensus at all, the result is going to be doom. I mean, it is undeniably going to end in catastrophe because you can't have uh I know that you have you've had a two-party system for a long time, but the two party systems largely aligned. The two parties largely were in agreement on most things and just had some disagreements on specific policy points. That's no longer the case. In 2026, that's no longer what we're what we're witnessing. Nowadays, the quote unquote disagreements are not minor policy differences. They're entire differences on the form of government. I've pointed out before the DSA, the Democratic Socialist of America, the goal is to eliminate the Senate. Right? They they don't want each state to have equal representation. They think that's bad. They want, you know, overwhelming power to be situated in in areas that have bigger populations. They want the big cities in liberal states to make the decisions for everybody else at the federal level. Well, that certainly can't work, right? They don't like the they want to do away with the Electoral College, right? All of these sorts of things that they don't uh disagree on little minor policy points of how do we handle this foreign affair, or how do we raise the tax rate by 1% or 2%? Like none of those things are the conversation anymore. They're complete differences in the way that we view the world. And and a country that is that divided is not going to survive if we can't find a way to reunite people. And if we can't continue speaking the truth and saying, hey, we have to fix this. We we've got to bring our country back from the brink of disaster. And we have to do that in a variety of ways. I've said this before. It's not simply just speaking, right? There are a variety of ways that we can influence the culture. The way that you raise your children is one of them. How present you are as a father in raising young people is crucial to that. It's also crucial that we're making good content. And I mean that in the form of films and books. We've allowed the left to basically capture that landscape. And again, the result has been very bad. When the left is the one that is consistently making the movies and writing the top books and selling the most this, that's what people are hearing. And it's going to be a total and cataclysmic failure. We have got to get back in the square again and say we have a wide range of things where we can have influence, that we need to have influence so that we can bring the conversation back again. So that we can bring the conversation to the forefront and say, now let me speak the truth and let's have a conversation about it. And that doesn't work when you're in a woke society that refuses to allow for any sort of speech that doesn't fall under the guidelines of what you personally think. That doesn't work. And again, I get it. Right? There are people that would consider themselves on the right that I think are crazy. There are people that I listen to and I say, I have no idea what you're talking about. I I what you're saying is absolutely insane. It's historically illiterate. And I can do all that all day long, but those people are pushed there by something. There's a reason they wound up there. And a lot of it is because of the inability to speak, the inability to have conversations, the inability to reach conclusions with people that generally you disagree with. And that's why I'm kind of excited about the video in general. Because again, Hunter Biden being on a show with a far-right political commentator for two hours is just an excellent opportunity to have real conversations about the direction the country's going and about what we can do to solve it and why there's so much divisiveness and what we actually believe. And we have to be able to exhibit those things and we have to be able to defend them. That that that I don't want to lose sight of that. I don't want anyone, this is why I've said I don't want to, I don't want anyone to outsource their critical thinking to my show. I don't want anyone to walk away from my show saying, well, I believe that thing now without any sort of thought put into it. I don't want that. I want every single person that walks away from my show. It's like the old, uh, I don't want to teach you what to think, I want to teach you how to think. That's certainly part of it. I want people to know why they believe what they believe and to actively be able to defend it. I want that. I desire that. I want everyone that listens to do more research. Again, that's why the text line gets left open. You can text in at 713-779-5978 at any point during the show because I want people to have the opportunity if they disagree or have clarifying questions or have something that they heard that they want to get my position on so that they can maybe come to terms with what they think about it. There's a reason that that's the case. And it's because I want people to be able to disagree. I want people to be able to think through why they believe what they believe and to reach logical conclusions on their own. Now, with

Birthright Citizenship And Birth Tourism Bill

SPEAKER_12 17:51

that being said, we have a lot of stories that I want to get into this morning, and we're gonna kick it off with this guy. You've probably seen him. If you if you're on social media at all, he's he's been going viral for a little bit now. His name's Brandon Gill. Uh, he's a congressman out of Texas. He's now filed legislation. Yes, President Brandon Gill, uh, alongside, by the way, a guy named Senator Jim Banks, they've filed legislation in each chamber, so the Senate and Congress, to end the awarding of citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and foreign nationals temporarily in the country. Of course, with everything going on the Supreme Court right now, and the decision that came out about birthright citizenship, which then incentivized, of course, by nature, incentivized birth tourism. Um, I think people are looking for some direction. Where can we go from here? Because obviously, again, this is another one of those things. If we let this happen, it's going to be very bad. It is going to be catastrophic. Where can we go from hill here? What direction can we go to sort of solve this problem that the Supreme Court has now put into constitutional law? Where can we go to sort of fix these problems? Well, Brandon Gill and Senator Jim Banks have at least some sort of answer for that, which we'll talk about after the break. If you would like to text into the show and let us know your thoughts on any of the stuff we're talking about, if you do have a disagreement, if you do have something that you want clarified, text in and let us know. It's 713-779-5978. One more time. That is 713-779-KYST. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and we'll be back with the rest of the information on that new bill after the break. Stick around. We'll talk soon.

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SPEAKER_12 23:46

Wild turn of events. Brandon Gill out of Texas has now filed legislation that would disincentivize birth tourism in the entirety of the United States, not just Texas, but it would certainly apply here. Entitled the Citizenship Act of 2026. The bill seeks to define, quote, any person who enters the United States illegally or for birth tourism as an invader, and amend the Immigration Nationality Act to exclude the children of individuals designated as invaders from birthright citizenship. Birth tourism is, of course, the pragnis, the practice of these sort of sort of these pregnant women, these pregnant foreign nationals entering the country with the intent to have their children in the United States, thereby making those children United States citizens, American citizens. That's the goal, right? They want to come over here. They want to have a child on U.S. soil so that definitionally that child is a citizen of the United States, regardless of how insane that sounds, that's now, according to the Supreme Court, a constitutional position to take. This practice is, of course, especially popular in countries like China, with conservative lawmakers warning that it creates a large national security risk as American-born Chinese nationals that have the ability to influence U.S. elections in the future. And if China can get enough of them over here, you know, have birth, give birth, have a child that's now a U.S. citizen, and then come back to China to raise that child to be loyal to China. Well, wouldn't you know it years down the line when they come back as adults and can vote in elections and run all these sorts of problems? Run. They're a born here citizen, right? They can run in the U.S. for p political office. I think we all understand how dangerous that can be. And so he said he came out uh and he wrote, I have officially introduced the Citizenship Act with Senator Banks, under which individuals who enter the United States illegally were for birth tourism would be classified as invaders and therefore would be excluded from birthright citizenship. Now, again, this all ties back to the Supreme Court ruling, the recent one that was handed down earlier this month, uh, which struck down the executive order out of the Trump administration that was entitled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, which sought the to end the practice of awarding citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and temporary residents. In other words, if you're here temporarily or you're here illegally and you have a child, you don't just get to be a citizen by nature of having been born here. That doesn't make any sense. And the Supreme Court said actually does make sense. That's what the Constitution says. And so it's ended up in this massive fight. And so Brian Babin also introduced HR 569, which sought to clarify that birthright citizenship applies on a person and is subject to the U.S. jurisdiction if he or she is born to a parent who is either a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident, or a non-U.S. national. That means an alien under federal law with a lawful immigration status, who is performing service in the armed forces. So that's the only time that he he would argue that it would count. Governor Greg Abbott also ordered several state agencies to investigate claims of birth tourism within the Texas healthcare system. Brian Harrison has publicly urged Abbott to call a special session in order to make it a felony to engage in birth tourism in Texas, arguing that Texans deserve action, not just rhetoric. Brian Harrison has, of course, suggested massive changes. We've had it on the show where he suggested some of these things, like making it a felony by criminalizing the operation of birth tourism, expanding the state's illegal entry offense so that entering Texas would be a specific criminal violation, stopping the issuage of birth certificates, right, because that's a state position to take, is that the state gives out birth certificates. Well, we don't have to. We can just adamantly refuse. Well, you can call them a citizen if you want, but we refuse to give them a birth certificate to prove it. Uh grant the Attorney General of Texas the explicit authority to investigate and prosecute birth tourism schemes, and ban certain adoption and surrogacy arrangements by prohibiting pre-planned adoption agreements and gestational surrogacy contracts if any party is a citizen or resident of a country of concern, uh, which is a provision basically already enacted in Florida, so we'll see how that kind of plays out in terms of the way that it kind of disagrees with the Supreme Court on a lot of this. And if it goes back to the Supreme Court with specific questions, they can take it up again and we'll see where they go. But I I think there needs to be more conversations. And I've said one thing that I find incredibly interesting, you know, you mentioned, I meant you mentioned, I mentioned at the start of the show that when you de-platform people, most of the time those people don't just disappear and and float off into the wind, never to be heard from again. Most of the time those people still have people that listen to them, but they end up far more radical. They end up believing things that are far further than they did before. And sometimes that's I I mention that it's bad. Sometimes that's actually good. Sometimes getting out of the mainstream and being able to think for yourself is actually a positive, because you wind up being by the mainstream standard, sure, you're radical, but you wind up to see, you know, searching deeper for the truth. You wind up in a position where you say, well, if I'm no longer bound to behave according to this modern liberal, you know, just being being sensible according to the modern liberal standard, well, maybe there are a lot of things that are true that I haven't thought about that are considered radical. And in many cases, that's a good pursuit to have, is to say, apart from all the biases that have been put on me by the modern complex, maybe there are a lot of things that I need to revisit and think about from an unbiased perspective, what do I think about the blank? And I've been saying that this pre-court decision could end up being a major benefit to the US in one particular facet. And that is that if you tell everybody in America, hey, if anybody comes over here and gives birth, that child is now a U.S. citizen, and everyone starts saying that's really terrible, that will destroy the country, that destroys the meaning of citizenship, that devalues what it means to be an American, and this is really bad for our culture, for our country, for our national security. And the list goes on and on and on. If people get irked up about that enough, they get fired up enough. You want to know a completely legitimate solution that would not violate the values of the Supreme Court, that would not violate the Constitution according to the Supreme Court, and would actually be a bigger fix, would actually completely end this problem entirely, would make it that no one is born on our soil that is not American citizen. I can tell you how to do that. Ban immigration all the way. You can't come here on visa. We we've ended all the visa programs. We've said no more immigrants, we don't need any more. Zero. From any country, zero. We have plenty of people here. We don't have some sort of crisis of having enough people, at least at the current moment. Maybe we can revisit it in 30 years. But that would solve the birth tourism problem because Supreme Court said if they're born here, well, then you can't come here to be born here. Well, then no one can come here, right? Already I've seen conversations about preventing women who are pregnant from entering the country whatsoever on any sort of visa, regardless of what states of pregnancy they're in, saying you can't come here at all. That's the direction you're driving people, right? That's the direction the Supreme Court decision is going to drive people, is to say, well, I hope you can clarify invader as being an important enough term that that would qualify. All right, I hope that's the case. That'd be great. If Brad Gill can manage to succeed on this and get it passed and it qualifies any sort of Supreme Court scrutiny and constitutional scrutiny, and it's a successful mechanism, a successful maneuver to end the problem, I think most people would be gleeful. Most people would celebrate and say, excellent, you did it. But if not, I I have a picture perfect solution that I guarantee the Supreme Court couldn't say no to because we're allowed to do it. It's not unconstitutional. There's there's no constitutional provision for for not letting us do it. And that is to say, to put an immigration moratorium. That means a stoppage. Nobody comes in. Nobody. You can't come in for work, you can't come in for school, you can't come in for citizenship. Ended. And there's a lot of people that don't want that, but that are gonna open their eyes and realize maybe that that's the only outcome if they're gonna tell us that by getting here, they're automatically granted some sort of citizenship. They just they just get it by nature of having made it here and given given birth to a child. Everyone recognizes how insane that is. Everyone recognizes how big of a national security risk that is. And I think what's going to happen is you're gonna have far more people. Already, I mean, this year versus five years ago, you already have far more people interested in an immigration moratorium. You're going to have even more. You're going to get more people who say, man, if you're telling us that citizenship is reserved for basically anyone that can just make it, then maybe no one should make it. If we can't fight that, if we can't stop that, if that's a constitutional principle, then I guess the only real combative thing we can do is either let our country just go. Right? Just say, okay, I guess I guess it the American time is over. The era has come to an end. Or if you're gonna stand up, you can say, well, maybe just end immigration then. If no one can get in here, then no one can give birth here, and we only reserve citizenship for Americans, for American children. That would certainly make sense because they're not here to give birth in the first place. I think that's gonna be the direction this conversation starts moving. I I'm I'm calling it now. And of course, a lot of that's dependent on what legislators are able to do to get around this, what terms they're able to manufacture to get around this, and I hope they're able to be successful. But I think the conversation is gonna start gravitating. I haven't seen it yet. But I'm telling you, I I as somebody who's thinking about this long term, the direction this the conversation is likely going to have to go is going to be well, if the Supreme Court says that we have no options and these people are US citizens, then our only option is to make sure that they never get here in the first place in order to be born. And that's gonna look like either a a total immigration moratorium, or it could potentially look like, you know, a gender discrimination case, right? Where you say we only let men come into the country because if we give a year past to a woman and she comes in and she sleeps around and she has a child and then takes that child back to China, you're in the same boat, so I guess we just can't have any women. Period. And and that is going to be the direction this conversation is going to go if they can't find other solutions, because no one wants to give this country up to anyone who just manages to get on our shores. With that being said, when we get back from the break, we're gonna hop over and talk about an update in the Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Araujo. I was I was corrected on that by Charles Blaine on Friday. I've been calling him around Joe. Now I realize it's it's Hispanic, it's Hispanic name. The J is uh not a J sound. So Salgado Araujo's work van, according to a congresswoman who's saying that it was not a narcotic. We'll talk about that update when we get back from the break. As always, if you'd like to text in the number, which does not change, and you can text in any time during the show with any questions, concerns, or something you want to hear more about, 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative, and Lord willing to be right back with the rest of that update on that case after this break. Don't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_17 34:43

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

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Hi, I'm Craig Klein, founder and CEO of Sales Nexus. I started Sales Nexus to help sales teams like yours close deals faster and more efficiently. Our all-in-one CRM and marketing automation platform streamlines your sales process. With Sales Nexus, you can manage leads, automate email and text campaigns, and gain clear insights into your sales pipeline. Visit Salesnexus.com. That's salesne-x-us.com to start your free 30-day trial today.

SPEAKER_06 35:30

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SPEAKER_21 36:00

The Medicare Minute with Justin White is brought to you by Senior Health Services.

SPEAKER_05 36:04

If you are of Medicare age or getting close or you have a loved one that is, be careful with those unsolicited phone calls that I know you know about. We get told about them all the time. What you need to know is that many of those phone calls are not even legal. They're coming from offshore call centers. Sometimes they're calling regardless of whether you're on the do not call list. Isn't that nice of them, by the way? It's really sweet of them to just do that because they are thinking that they can't get caught. Bottom line is when you get on there and you talk to them, they're already kind of operating sidelong of what should be done. And sometimes people end up in plans that they did not intend to enroll in. And so what do you do? Call somebody local. If you got a local agent, my gosh, call them and get in front of them. And if you don't have a good agent, think of an organization like Senior Health Services where you can sit down, talk about what you're looking for, and get the help that you need. You don't need to be talking to phone operators from other countries that you don't know who they are, where they are, or what in the world they're doing.

SPEAKER_21 37:06

Medicare choices are easier with a professional in your corner. Senior Health Services is not associated with the government, so you know you can trust them. Visit Senior Health Services.com today to connect with a trusted agent for a free consultation.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Aegis Arms Indoor Gun Range invites you to visit us at 3915-South Sam Houston Parkway East in Houston and see all what we have to offer. You can have our on-site gunsmith adjust your personal firearms, sign up for our various classes, plan your next event, and use one of our clean ventilated lanes to practice or to cite in a new purchase. You can also give us a call at 713-503-7645 or visit AGUSARMS.com. That's AGISARMS.com.

SPEAKER_11 38:00

Texalent AC Service isn't your average HVAC company. We don't just fix AC. We engineer comfort. Call TexLent AC Service today at 281-402-5100. That's 281-402-5100.

SPEAKER_09 38:16

Hi, this is Harold Gunn. And this is Bill Olson. Texas Outdoor News is the longest-running, most awarded outdoor radio show in the state for a lot of good reasons.

SPEAKER_10 38:24

We bring you the latest news and information about hunting and fishing across our great state and beyond. And our guests are Who's Who from industry, government, and the field. Texas Outdoor News is brought to you by Ford Trucks and your best in Texas Ford dealers. The state's number one outdoor radio show, Texas Outdoor News. Saturday mornings at 6 on Patriot Talk 920.

SPEAKER_12 39:06

That's U.S.

Salgado Araujo Case And Media Spin

SPEAKER_12 39:07

Representative Sylvia Garcia. Says that the substance found inside of Lorenzo Salgado Arajo's work van after the fatal shooting involving a U.S. immigration justice enforcement agent has been confirmed to not be a narcotic. Garcia's statement came late over the weekend as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus held an oversight hearing here in Houston focused on the recent deadly incidents. She said, We can now confirm that the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado's van was not a narcotic or any other illicit substance. As his family said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working out in the hot Texas summer. The attempt to cast a shadow over his name has failed. But again, here's what I want to highlight out of this story. Two things. First and foremost, again, I I don't know anyone on the right that goes, Oh, I wish it was drugs. Like, I I I know they didn't want to paint us as these crazy, insane types that want to justify anything bad. No. We we actually don't want illegals to be here. We actually don't want people to be doing illicit drugs. That's not a good thing. No one, no one hopes for that. And so her for her to say, like, we're trying to, you know, we wanted this, this takes away our power. No, we want the truth as much as anybody else, right? I've been calling for a transparent investigation that the American people are updated on since the day it happened. Since the day we reported on it, I said, I guess we technically reported on it on Wednesday morning because it was happened on Tuesday, but I I initially said I think everybody would desires a legitimate investigation. And that if there was wrongdoing, that the person involved is held accountable for whatever wrongdoing there was. I've said that from the get-go. There's nothing new. But the bigger thing that I want to highlight here is this position. The attempt to cast a shadow over his name has failed. That's the position of the left. It's always looked at with the most uncharitable position possible. I have a question to Sylvia Garcia. Do you think it's possible that they didn't know what it was and said that there was suspicion it wasn't illicit substance and that kind of kick-started things? And they found out, okay, this isn't illegal, and he's got white powder and a bag in his car. There's some concern. Do you view that as a legitimate concern? Even if you then do narcotics testing and find out, okay, it wasn't drugs. Great, but how would we know that without testing? We weren't trying to cast a bad name on anybody. That wasn't the goal. The goal was they were asked, hey, were there any sort of notions you got that things were were bad? Yeah, we saw a white baggy filled with white powdery substance. We thought maybe it was drugs. We had a concern and we wanted to send it off for narcotics testing. Totally fair response. And yet it's taken by the left to be you want to cast a bad name on him and make him look like he was the bad guy and all these things. No, that was never the intent. The intent was to be the transparency that you called for. Us telling you what the division was, us telling you why did we do what we did, why did things go the way they went. We're trying to give you all the details that led up to this moment, one of which was that we found what we thought could be narcotics in the van, which is still as true now as it was then. At the point, of course they thought it could be illegal narcotics. Of course they did. And for you to come out and to say, well, that must mean that they were trying to cast a bad name and they wanted him to look bad, and they wanted to no, they wanted to tell you what happened. They wanted to give you the basis of the investigation and they gave it to you. And now it's confirmed, as it should be, that it was not illicit narcotics, but they did the investigation as they're supposed to do. So these sorts of people just frustrate me that it's it's always the most uncharitable take imaginable, and always trying to pretend like we're the bad guys who hate people and want to justify insanity. And that's not that's not the case. With that being said, we can get back from the break. Of course, we're going to wrap up the first hour of the show with our weather report, letting you know what today's going to look like as we're moving into a new week, what the weather pattern is, what's kind of sitting over us right now, all that sort of stuff. If you would like to text in, let us know your thoughts on anything we're covering or anything we're not at, 713-779-5978. One more time, that is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You are listening to The Lone Star Conservative. And Lord Willing, I'll return after this break to wrap up the first hour of the show with our weather report. So hang tight. Don't miss it.

SPEAKER_17 43:21

Have you thought about buying a gun or even carrying a gun? But you don't know if that's smart or where to start. I can help. I'm Tom Gresham, host of Gun Talk. Call in Sundays between 1 and 4, right here on Houston's Leader for Gun Owners, Patriot Talk 920.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

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SPEAKER_21 44:08

The Medicare Minute with Justin White is brought to you by Senior Health Services.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

We talk to a lot of people who will literally come up and say, I hate shopping for Medicare plans so much. And I'll say, What's happened? And they'll say, My gosh, my phone won't stop ringing. I've got people showing up at my door. My mailbox is full of garbage. It's just so unpleasant. And I'm like, I get it, and I'm sorry. But you know what? Don't let that keep you for demanding the best out of the plans that you have. These are available to you. You earned these. So do not allow those practices to discourage you from reaching out to somebody who can help you understand what your options are and change each year when it's appropriate to do so. Did you know that these plans they change kind of a lot? So if you've been in a plan for a long time, there's a good chance that thing has degraded a lot since you put it in place. Not a guarantee, but you got to get it reviewed so you know because you deserve to be in a plan that is on the cutting edge of whatever your needs happen to be. So pick up the phone, call a trusted agent, or call senior health services. We do this every day for free. There's no reason to fear it, and do not settle.

SPEAKER_21 45:19

Medicare choices are easier with a professional in your corner. Senior Health Services is not associated with the government, so you know you can trust them. Visit Senior Health Services.com today to connect with a trusted agent for a free consultation.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

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SPEAKER_11 46:09

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SPEAKER_07 46:38

Here's Jim Dotton, host of Texas Home Improvement and owner of Dew West Foundation Repair.

SPEAKER_15 46:44

It's no secret, this year has brought us a lot of rain. And that means your foundation is about as good as it's gonna get. So if you're still noticing cracks in your walls and doors that are sticking, call us today so we can help correct the problem before it gets out of hand and more expensive. Call the best. Call Dew West Foundation Repair, 713-473-7156. Online at du-west.com.

SPEAKER_08 47:09

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

Houston Heat Pattern And Forecast

SPEAKER_12 47:46

Houston's hottest weather of the summer is still ahead of us. But the forecast may finally be hinting at a pattern change. Houston, of course, is on the doorstep of its longest stretch of triple-digit heat so far this year after reaching 100 degrees only once so far this summer. But longer range outlooks increasingly suggest that the ridge of high pressure responsible for the heat may gradually retreat westward as August begins. Now today marks the beginning of what could become Houston's hottest stretch of the summer. Admiral and highs are going to climb into the upper nineties before reaching 100 degrees or higher across much of the Houston metro area by tomorrow, with several consecutive triple-digit days possible through the end of the work week. Humidity, of course, will make the heat even more dangerous. Heat index values are expected to peak near or above 108 degrees at times. Overnight lows will remain in the upper 70s to around 80 degrees. Again, that provides very little opportunity to cool off at night for your house, for you, et cetera. Rain is not going to offer much relief either. Most of Southeast Texas is expected to remain dry through at least Friday. Now, when meteorologists look more than a week ahead, they rely less on a single forecast and more on ensemble forecasts. That's dozens of slightly different versions of the same model that reveal the most likely, based on averages, the most likely weather outcome. And so the European model suggests that the hottest weather could peak around Friday before highs ease back into the middle nineties for the first week of August. The American model has temperatures somewhat higher, but also hints that that's going to weaken through the weekend. And so the Climate Prediction Center's 6'10 day and 8 to 14 day outlooks reinforce that signal. Both continue to favor above normal temperatures, while suggesting that we'll shift westward and rain changes will gradually increase during early August. That doesn't mean that we're headed for like pumpkin spice latte season, right, or anything like that. Um, but we'll we'll typically just kind of bring back slightly lower humidity, maybe some rain and temperatures back in the 90s instead of in the hundreds. Now, you guys know today is Medicare Monday. You won't want to miss that, so stick around. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. If you would like to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That's 713-779-KYST. And we're really right back at the top of the next hour.

SPEAKER_11 50:03

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

SPEAKER_18 50:15

I'm offended. Let's all be a fancy.

SPEAKER_12 50:38

Means

Medicare Changes And Indemnity Plans

SPEAKER_12 50:39

we have our good friend Justin White coming on from Senior Health Services. Welcome to the show, Justin. Hey, man. As always, thank you. It's great to be here. It's great to have you here. Now, I want to kick it off, uh, of course, with a little bit of background so people understand where we're going with this. Um, and that's just to re-highlight, I think, w what timeline we're on right now, because obviously we're we're coming up. This is the last, not even full week. We already had that, because we'll be hitting August by September. So we're coming up very quickly on a lot of these periods for what's going to be happening with Medicare changes. Can you kind of walk us through that timeline again?

SPEAKER_04 51:13

Yeah, right now we're in the doldrums. Right now it's the middle of the summer. The carriers are absolutely freaking out, trying to get their final plan designs fully uh approved by Medicare, figuring out what they're gonna do. So they're all huddled in the back rooms trying to figure that out. This process is such that you know they that's why everything seems so hurried at the end of the year, because it is. So that's where they are now. Um, we are starting to get some what they call first looks, which are just basically handed towards what these plans are gonna look like, and that will accelerate from here, and then we'll go into a frenetic, you know, training deal to where there'll be a lot of trainings to make sure that the agents get brought up to speed on the software and everything else that's going on. And uh, you know, so that's where we are, you know, and we have ideas of what might be happening, but honestly, none of us are gonna really know until they plop those plan designs that Medicare said yes to uh on the table, and we'll be able to start talking about them on the 1st of October. Right. And we'll be able to start actually enrolling people in them beginning October 15th and running through December 7th for an effective date of January the 1st, 27th.

SPEAKER_12 52:25

Awesome. So, so with that understanding, now is the time to start obviously we don't have any of the plan details as you just highlighted, but what we do know based on a lot of you know contributing factors from reimbursement rates to some of the changes we previously seen, some of the continued sort of I don't want to say frustration, but the continued stuff to do with the inflation reduction act, all these sorts of things kind of coming together. We have a general expectation of what direction we think the industry is headed. And I think a lot of people are worried about their plans changing, about their plans getting more expensive, about, you know, co-pays and all these things. And you mentioned something to me that I wanted to go over, and that isn't an indemnity policy. I hadn't even heard of this, and that's probably because I'm not, you know, big in insurance. But the the concept sounds great, especially if there's a lot of concern that this might help even the concept of hearing about it, ease some of that concern. Can you kind of walk us through that?

SPEAKER_04 53:18

Yeah, the indemnity policy is some you could also even call it like a gap plan. It fills in the gaps. It's kind of it kind of does similar to what a Medicare supplement does. Um, and you can actually pair it to some degree with like a high deductible Medicare supplement, or more commonly, the Medicare Advantage plans as time goes on and we get more and more of the daily coinsurances for hospital, for example, and as the other hospital co-pays and things are going up, we're noticing more and more people are wanting what's called this indemn, which pays a daily coinsurance or pays a daily rate that you choose when you're putting it in place, and you can actually make it mirror or make it fit your plan like a glove to pick up the stuff that you would rather not pay. And uh and you can hold it up to pretty much anything. I mean, they're very they can be very inclusive of a lot of things and cover cancer and other things like that. But generally speaking, we can get a solid, very basic indemn in place for you know forty or fifty dollars, um, you know, and that would cover like children control insurance in the hospital and just and make it to where you're you're not harmed or it doesn't hurt as much. Even when you go to the hospital instead of paying 400 bucks a day, you've got a plan that pays it for you, and it's and that's what they mean by indemnity. It pays pays out a certain amount of set amount of money for each day you're in the hospital or for each named situation that you find yourself in that you choose to cover. And they're they're very, very stable and they're very inexpensive, and it's something that that people are generally liking right now.

SPEAKER_12 55:01

Right, and my favorite point of it is that it's so flexible, right? Because as we highlight frequently on the show, you know, you can come on all day long and talk about, hey, this case and that case and these overarching changes. But one thing that we consistently have to highlight is but your plan may not fit under exactly what we're talking about. That that this is a generalized piece of information, and then your plan's very different from the next guy and the next guy, and everybody's plan is different based on what, and not just their plan, but what you're going through, right? What you, what health issues you already have, what you know you're gonna have to deal with. And so I think this policy, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it allows a lot of flexibility for regardless of who you are, that the specific things that are important to you based on your concerns can be better met.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

It does, it does. And then, you know, these uh these daily co-insurances, I mean, for what they're worth and compared to what people have that are not on Medicare, they're you know, they're not terrible. I mean, you know, to go in and say, hey, $400 a day up to the first five days, I mean, yeah, that's that's two grand and that's a pain. But when you look at the co-pays and the coinsurance and the high and the deductibles and max amount of pockets on today's average group plan, that is that is quite an improvement. For somebody that goes in and gets a fairly major surgery done over a day and they walk in having to pay only $40, that's you know, that's a great, great deal. But for somebody that's that's low on funds, that's not used to pay and then they're having trouble with it, you know, it may be easier to pay $40 a month or $50 a month than to pay that $2,000 and not have to worry about that plopping into the middle of your day. And that's the whole idea behind the indemnity plan. Standing on its own and not you know, not connected to anything, they're of limited value, but when you've got them as part of a larger overall, higher deductible, more powerful picture uh to pay the things that make it more powerful, uh, but also can be an inconvenience to the person paying them, they can provide a lot of relief for not very much money. And that's that's what we're seeing in the market right now.

SPEAKER_12 57:05

Right. And we'll also tie that back in because Justin White is not only an expert, he also, of course, has senior health services, which the whole the whole thing that you guys do is to make sure that people are not only aware and informed that you have a lot of stuff devoted to that, but also making sure that people walk away with something that is as closely tailored to their plan as possible so that they can get the most out of whatever it is. And again, that's going to be different from person to person. And these plans kind of allow for you to do that. Um, and I already know the answer to this, but I want to ask anyway, are indemnity plans something that you guys over at CNOT Services are frequently looking at, especially with a lot of the changes, as an option for people.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

Absolutely. I mean, we're because as we talk with folks, we get a pretty, we get not a pretty good idea, we get a very good idea of where the pain points are and what people are gonna have issues with. And so, yeah, we we will actually go through it. People that have got plenty of money, sometimes they're like, you know what, not really interested in that. Uh, not really concerned about it, but other folks are like, you know, this just looks like a very good trade-off. I don't like having to think about paying for those larger co-insurances and things at all. So this fits for me. And so it again, as I've as you've already said a couple of times, it's very individually driven. And uh co-pays and co-insurance go up, and more people are having to put more skin in the game, uh, you know, more skin it just relative to everybody's budget and everything. And so more skin may not hurt one person here, but the other person goes, look, you don't have any more skin to put in here, you know, and the and the threat, and it just continues to go up, it's gonna affect more and more people. So there's always different strokes for different folks, but but it's a great deal. You know, we've worked with companies that are A-rated and they they don't see rate increases on these types of policies very often. And so for that matter, they they are very stable, they are very solid, and uh and it's worth looking at if people are not knowing what these things are and they've been having trouble with copies and things. You know, ask your agent. If you don't have an agent you trust, call senior health services and we'll explain how they work and what they are for you and see if it might be something that would that would help.

SPEAKER_12 59:17

Absolutely. Well, again, this has been Justin White from Senior Health Services coming on for our Medicare Monday. Justin, as always, we're gonna thank you so much for giving us your time, uh, for coming on the show, and of course, for all the work that you do over at Senior Health Services to keep everyone informed and to make sure that everyone um is being able to take advantage of every plan that's offered that that meets their needs. So thank you so much. And Lord Willing, we'll talk to you again here in the soon-to-be future.

SPEAKER_04 59:38

Absolutely. We'll talk to you next Monday, Lord Willing, as you so aptly say. And uh, everybody be safe out there.

SPEAKER_12 59:44

And uh, as always, it's great to be with you. Absolutely. And like I said, if you want to reach out to Senior Health Service, you can of course give them a call at 281-894-7540. That is 281-894-7540. Check them out at senior health services.com. They do a lot of great work, and as I frequently highlight, you know, they can come on the show every Monday, and there's still no way for us to cover all of the information that's tied to your particular plan. There's just no way to do that. It's impossible. There are millions of people with a variety of different health needs, very specific health issues, very specific things they think that they'll use more than somebody else. Uh, some people will, even if you have the exact same health concern, some people want a different response to that health concern, right? Some people want chemotherapy, some people want this or that or the other. And so having someone in your corner who you can actively talk to and say, hey, here's what I'm going through. Here's the sort of response that I want to be able to have. Here's my particular income, here's what I'm comfortable spending, and go through all of these, and there's there's a myriad of questions. Going through all of those things and saying, and I need help, and being able to do all of that entirely free, by the way. Again, the the the carriers are the ones that get charged for this service. You don't. And so it's it's not gonna change based on you going to change your services. You're just all you're gonna do is get a positive out of it. All you're gonna do is receive the benefit. And so again, you can call them at 281-894-7540. Highly recommend you checking them out. Uh they can they can aid you a lot, especially as we're coming into a lot of these changes in just the next couple of months. Now, before

Texas Moves To Force Discord Safety

SPEAKER_12 1:01:15

we go to the break, I want to cover this story about our attorney general here in Texas, who has now won a court order that forces Discord, the social media messaging company, to protect children online. We'll talk about what that means here. Uh Ken Backton has secured a temporary injunction against Discord, which again is a very popular social messaging app. Um it differs from, say, an organization like Meta where you have Facebook and Instagram and threads or something like Twitter, X. The difference primarily is that on those platforms, the main form of sociality, right, is uh posting. You post something. And a post is different from a message insofar as it's designed to be seen by the masses and maybe you'll get comments, maybe you won't, but it's almost an entertainment vector. On something like Snapchat or Discord, which are still social media apps, the the social media, the media component is very different. Because when you look at Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all these places, you know, you're you're in a sense interacting with other people, but the interaction is very impersonal. It's very much that you have content creators and content consumers. On something like Discord, it's very often the case that everyone is both a creator and consumer, insofar as there are usually these sort of bigger groups of people like group chats where you're able to message other people consistently, and that's the main form of media that's being presented. And of course, you can send pictures. These are all private. So you can immediately start to recognize the danger. These are not publicly posted things that everyone can see and see how weird you're being, right? This is done in a private environment where no one knows what's being said or talked about. No one knows what you're sending and what you're receiving. So there's a lot of danger there. Um now Discord provides users with the ability to create servers, which is what I'm talking about, they're like a group chat, uh, which any user can join with an invite and then chat with the people in that group. The injunction notes, the people in the UK are already protected in this regard through Discord's same age, assurance, and default safety protections. Well, now they're saying we don't need you to create a whole new system. That might be uh a level of difficulty that we wouldn't secure an injunction over. If you had to create a whole new algorithm to do this, the harm there might be enough that a judge would look at it and say, yeah, that's not really fair to make you go through all those loopholes and go through all those changes for something that you may end up winning in court down the road. But they already have those. They're already in their servers. They already have the software to do it, and it's already implemented somewhere else. So they already have the full capability to do it. So the judge looks, okay, you're already doing it somewhere else. They're arguing there is a harm, and it's a pretty meaningful harm. So we're gonna say that if you want to continue operating in the state, you have to, while the litigation proceeds. Again, this is an injunction, as I've highlighted before, an injunction is a temporary uh statement of what has to happen in the mean it's in the meantime. Until we make a a full ruling on who's right, who's wrong, what that looks like, here's an injunction. So and it can go either way, right? The injunction could be that we can't enforce anything against Discord, you know, until the end of litigation. In this case, it's the opposite, the Discord has to meet those qualifications until we finish the litigation. And so they're saying that Discord has to activate the protections that, again, are already on their system for other places within the next 90 days. According to Faxon's office, they said for years Discord assured Texas parents that its platform was safe by design and safe by default. The evidence at the TI hearing told a different story. Currently, anyone in Texas, including children and adult predators seeking to do harm, can open a Discord account with nothing more than an email address and a self-reported birthday. This is a faulty honor system that anyone can clear within seconds. By default, anyone on the platform can send a child a friend request. Additionally, there are no restrictions around who can send a child a private message. When Texas investigators created an account as a 13-year-old girl, a stranger messaged her within moments, and within 30 seconds, he solicited her for explicit sexual acts. Now that hearing comes, of course, after the original lawsuit was filed back in May, alleging that the platform threatens child safety and provides a hunting ground for child predators as well as hosting explicit material. The suit alleged that the app violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by falsely marketing Discord as safe for children. According to data cited by the AG's office, in 2025 alone, last year, a single year, Discord submitted almost 500,000 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation on the platform, which, if you do the math out, just in the U.S., just last year, that's about 1,300 incidents per day that they We're reporting. When Discord, while Discord does claim, of course, that they don't let children under the age of 13 join, which already is a travesty, because if you're 13 years old, you didn't magically hit something from 12 to 13 that says that you're now safe online. But even if that, you know, that's assuming that it even is true. And according to a Texas mother who identified her 11-year-old son's account, and he made a Discord delete it, it required uh 10 months later, an assistant attorney general was able to log into her son's still active account in the courtroom. Again, he's 11 years old. And so the safety features are basically non existent. Discord again implemented enhanced job protection measures in the UK to comply with a law that passed over there. The company stated that it would also roll out the same protections worldwide in 2026. However, when the features were supposedly a few weeks from launch, Discord pushed the release date to the second half of 2026 when asked under oath you know regarding what their new target launch date was. Because originally it was just it'll happen in 2026, and then about halfway there they go, well, maybe the end of 2026. Now they're saying they couldn't commit to any specific date. And so Baxton said, Discord built a platform where adult predators could hunt children in Texas, then look parents in the eye and told them it was safe. It wasn't. Discord built safety measures to protect these kids, it extended these measures to children in Britain and denied them to children in Texas. That ends now. My office has forced Discord to turn those protections on for every Texas child, and I will never stop fighting to keep predators away from our kids. And so the temporary injunction uh requires Discord, this messaging company, to use its UK-style age assurance system so that only verified adults can access sensitive or adult-only content and spaces while teens receive locked-down default protections. And of course, as I mentioned, because this is an injunction, that case is going to proceed to determine the full, you know, requirements once the court actually finishes what it determines, while the protections are in effect. And so basically, again, in the meantime, those protections are just going to be the new default, at least here in the state of Texas. Though if they are able to do it within 90 days, which they have to, it would beg the question why are you not already doing it? And I this is a different direction than I originally intended on going, but the more that I think about it, the more I want to go this direction, you have the software that you already know is working. You you have it, it exists, and you use it to meet the laws of the UK. Those are laws which, regardless of everything else the UK does wrong, regardless of all the free speech limitations and people who get in trouble for literally praying silently outside an abortion facility, regardless of all those problematic laws, the fact that Discord was able to present an algorithm that kept children safe to a much, much larger degree, I think begs the question: why did you not just automatically apply that to your global platform? Why did you geographically limit it to a place where it was the law? Do you need the law to protect children? And of course, we want laws that protect children. I'm not denying that either. But if you're a company and you recognize, because you're the one doing the reporting, you recognize that you have almost 500,000 children a year that you're having to report because something's going on that's not good, some sort of pedophilic issue going on, 1,300 incidents every day that you are reporting. And you're gonna tell me that you have the software capable of basically ending that and you haven't launched it yet. And your excuse is, well, we just don't know. Well, we're gonna we're gonna launch it. You already have it. This isn't that you said we're gonna launch it because we have to develop everything and make sure that it works, right? This isn't that, well, it can shut the system down if we don't do this correctly. None of those concerns exist. You've already done it. You know how it works, you know how it implements into your system because you've literally done it in another country. Why did you not just automatically bring it here? Are Texas children, are American children worth less to you? Are you more concerned with the the pushback from legislators in America that maybe it would be bad to protect from pedophiles? What's your concern? Why did you not why why push it back at all? Why wait a year? Because again, you did this last year or the year before in in England. Why did you wait? What's the purpose of that? And I don't want to be come out and be the some conspiracy there that says, well, they they want to protect predators. I don't want to be some, you know, why I that's not my intent here. My intent is to say, we don't know. And it's it's a curious problem because it's not that you're trying to design things, you already designed them. You just didn't implement them globally. You just did not pursue them from a global standpoint. And I wonder why that is. Also keep in mind, and and I want to say this because I know that we have a lot of parents and grandparents that are listening to the show. And I like to, if at all possible, tie in what you can do in any story we present, right? That's why that's part of the reason why I like having such a localized show that we go over news from the Greater Houston area. A lot of the reason for that is that I want people to get the feeling that they can do something about it because you can. When when all you talk about is national news, part of the problem is people start to think, what well, I can't really impact that. There's not really much I can do other than maybe make a social media post and hope somebody sees it, right? There's very limited out you know, output that I can do that presents any sort of solvent, right? I don't have much of an impact on what Donald Trump decides to do or what JD Vance decides to do. I have very little influence over those individuals. But when you start to get into city council and commissioner's court, well, all of a sudden your influence grows exponentially. And even if you individually can't do something today, you have a much greater sphere of influence to help make those decisions because the elections are much smaller. Your vote counts as a percentage of votes, you have much greater influence over who's elected. You you can use, you know, neighbors and have a meaningful, you know, impasse just by one neighborhood standing up. You just have a couple hundred people that stand up at a single meeting, all of a sudden, now you now they've got a problem on their hands, right? And so I like to bring up things that you can do something about. I don't like leaving people feeling high and dry, like, well, I guess there's just nothing I can do. I guess it's just we just have to sit here and wait it out and hope for the best. I want people to feel like they can do something about it. And in this case, at least when it comes to your own children and grandchildren, you can. There actually is something you can do. And this is my recommendation: stop giving your children access to any of these things in general, even with the added safety features. There is legitimately no positive benefit whatsoever to your 13-year-old child having access to a private messaging app. There's just not one. There is not a reason why that would be beneficial for them from any standpoint, even if they're not being hunted by predators, which they're very likely to be, by the way, even if they weren't. What's the benefit? Because anytime that you give your kids anything, you should be weighing benefit and risk, right? You do this for every decision, hopefully, that you make. When you decide, am I gonna get my child a cookie? You weigh what time is it? What time are they going to bed? How much sugar have they already had today? Is this healthy? What did they put in this particular cookie? You might look at the ingredients, right? And you make the final determination. Well, it's already seven o'clock. They usually go to bed at eight. He's already had some sugar today, but we're hanging out, we're having a pizza night with the family, we're gonna watch a movie, we're gonna be up a little later, we'll let him stay up. He can have a cookie, right? You weigh all those things to make a decision. When you weigh, should I give my kids access to the internet and social media, what's the positive that you get out of that? Because with a cookie, well, my child enjoyed the cookie, we had a good time together. Well, what's the benefit of your child having access to an app like Discord? What where's the benefit at all? Because the risk is astronomical. I mean, it's not just because they're a predators, it's also the other people their age who have very little of the same values you hold as a parent, you don't know what other 14-year-olds are going to send them, what they're gonna say to them, what kind of jokes they're gonna make, what kind of language they're gonna use, what kind of photos and videos they're gonna send. Oh, great, no adults are doing it. What about the 15-year-old who's talking to my 13-year-old daughter? Is that a positive? No. The risk is still there, even if we reduce it, and that's a good thing. The government should be doing that. But from an individual perspective, you should not be letting your children on these apps. You shouldn't. There's no benefit for it. You're risking so much for literally no return on investment. There's no positive outcome. And so I I still just vehemently oppose giving your kids Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and Discord and X. There's no reason why your 13, 14, 15, even 16-year-olds should be on those. Maybe once they're 17, 18, they're getting into voting, they want to hear opinions from independent journalists. There could be a different argument. Maybe they're going into the workforce and they're trying to do reporting, so they need to talk to people. I couldn't tell you. But it that's not happening at 13 years old. There is no reason why your 13-year-old should be on these in general. Now, with that being said, when we return from this next break, we're going to bring it back home a little bit. Baytown.

Flock Cameras And Police Misuse Risks

SPEAKER_12 1:14:57

You guys might remember we talked last week about this Pasadena officer who was facing, allegedly facing, internal investigations related to the misuse of flock cameras. Well, that's not been the last. It's not going to be the last, because now you've got a Baytown police officer who's being investigated for potential misuse of the flock. They're now calling them license plate reader systems, but they're flock. They're flock cameras. The Baytown police chief John Stringer announced the investigation via Facebook where he said he authorized an internal affairs investigation for potential policy misconduct, that there will also be a separate criminal investigation for potential criminal misconduct. Talk about all that when we get back. Text in 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. And Lord willing, I will return with the rest of the story out of Baytown after the break. So hang tight. We'll talk soon.

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SPEAKER_12 1:20:07

So Baytown Police Chief John Stringer on Friday announced this new investigation via Facebook, where he said that he authorized an internal affairs investigation and that there will also probably be a separate criminal investigation for potential criminal misconduct. For the criminal investigation, Stringer said that he has requested the help of the Harris County District Attorney's Office. Stringer said in the video the executive staff of the Baytown Police Department and I recognize our community's concerns for the protection and respect of individual privacy as well as for police accountability. If these allegations are sustained, then the employee involved will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and policy. Now, this again ties back into the conversation that has been frequently approached, not only in this show, but on probably thousands of shows all across the U.S., specifically in regards to flock, these flock cameras that have seemingly out of nowhere popped up everywhere. You can look even in the suburbs. You look down in Paraland and you look over in France. They're everywhere. Everywhere you turn, there's flock cameras all over the place. They have a map now of where they're concentrated, and you can see they're no longer just concentrated with a few of them in the big metro areas. They're all over the place. And so uh they're supposedly a public safety company, so public safety technology company, and they allow for 24 monitoring for police, 24-7 monitoring for police departments, businesses, neighborhoods, et cetera. And so, of course, again, this company and what they do has presented a lot of debate as to what liberties we're sacrificing to get a little bit of safety out of it, and whether that is ultimately a positive or a negative, what safeguards are going to be in place. And one of the things that I think people have consistently been concerned about is the obvious potential for abuse. Because these are not just, I know that they want to call themselves licensed plate readers. That is not all that they are. And there's a reason why, at least here in Texas, we've consistently said things like red light cameras are unconstitutional. The reason for that is because you don't have an arresting officer. You don't have someone to verify the information other than a computer system. Well, that's not fair. That's not right. That's obviously not constitutional. That's not how our system works. And so there's a lot of concerns about those same sort of problems when it comes to flock. You know, yeah, a police officer now, you know, can use it, and there are, I'm not denying that there aren't benefits, right? I'm not out here saying, no, you're not going to catch anybody with this. This is only going to be negatively used. I'm not making that claim. I think there are a lot of positive uses for a system like this one. I don't deny that. I think there certainly are. But as I have tried to highlight over and over and over again, anytime you make any decision, you have to weigh risk and reward. Everyone does it. Right? And it and and no policy you put forth will be without risk. I want to make that clear. There's not a single policy that says, oh, we passed this thing, and there could be no abuse. There can be nothing bad that could come of this. Of course, every policy can have negatives. But you have to weigh those negatives, you have to weigh the likelihood of those negatives with what the policy gives you in return. Right? That's why we pay taxes, right? Nobody likes taxes, right? Nobody enjoys when you get the tax bill. Nobody enjoys looking at their paycheck and seeing how much was taken out. But you really like having roads, you really like having functioning water systems, you really like having access to a lot of the things the taxes give you, and some you don't. And so you have to weigh those things and say, are taxes a worthy thing to pay for ever? Sure. And then you look at every single available tax and you say, Are we paying too much? It's the same here. Right? We can look at Flock and say, obviously there are benefits, obviously there are positives. But now we've got, just in the U scenario, we've now got at least two alleged investigations centered around officers who are supposed to be even better than the average person who have abused these things. Right. And I talk often the government will abuse the power you give them. And you have to be wary of that. Right. In fact, that's why we believe so strongly in our sponsor, Gun Owners of America, because of course they understand over at Gun Owners of America that the Second Amendment was written for this particular issue. Government tyranny. The founders were very concerned about federal tyranny. So much so they made sure the Second Amendment was in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, to ensure that you always had the God-given right to keep and bear arms. To make sure that government tyranny, there was an enforced mechanism to prevent it, to make sure there was a way to hold the government accountable, because there's no other way to do it. If you strip the Second Amendment out of the Constitution, if you just take it away, you have to understand there's no, there's no secondary switch. There's no backup. That is the backup. That is the enforcement mechanism, that is the protection right there in the Second Amendment. And so Gun Owners America is constantly fighting that fight by, of course, teaching information about what the Second Amendment is, what it actually meant, how it applies its context. They also campaign for candidates who are going to defend it and support it. They lobby for bills that are going to defend it and support it, and they sue. They go to court. They're willing to do that, and they do it to make sure that anything that does pass, whether that's an executive order or it's a policy or whatever it is, that it gets struck down in the courts for violating the defense and support of the Second Amendment. Now, if you'd like to become a member, you can go to G Oahuston.com. That is G Oahuston.com. It's a $25 annual membership, $25 a year, which is what they rely on memberships. They rely on you to make sure they can keep doing the work to defend and support your God-given, constitutionally enshrined Second Amendment rights. Again, that is G-O-Ahouston.com. Now, with that being said, when we get back from the break, we're going to talk a little bit about data centers because regulators have begun making data centers pay their own way after a directive from the governor, from the gubernatorial office. In a new filing, text regulators are laying out rules to make massive data centers pay for their own grid upgrades and curb their impact on residential power bills, which I think has been another one of the major concerns coming out of data centers on top of everything else. So we'll talk about that when we get back from the break. As always, if you would like to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You are listening to the Lone Star Conservative, and we'll be right back to talking about data centers and how we can kind of curb some of their impact after the break.

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Data Centers And Grid Upgrade Costs

SPEAKER_12 1:30:34

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Michael Wilson, and you're listening to the Lone Star Conservative. Now, people have a lot of concerns about data centers, reasonable ones, by the way. I'm on that. I'm on the list. When I say people, that includes me, a lot of reasonable concerns about data centers. And it's everything from noise, water usage, to impact on the grid, impact on the community, right? Power of megacorporations. All of those things are their own listed concerns. And so we have really two options. We either try to address each and every concern along the way, or we just say no data centers. I'm good at saying no data centers, but I understand that we're in a competition here. And so, you know, we can have a conversation about some of the solutions. Well, one of them, uh, and that is the the frustration I think that a lot of people have as to whether their rates are going to go up, what that'll look like for the energy usage, for their homes, for their families. And so, of course, Abbott had a directive that he released. Um, and now you got new moves by Texas regulators that are supposed to prevent residential ratepayers from subsidizing the sort of data center boom that we're seeing right now. In a filing which was sent to the governor last week, the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electrical Liability Council of Texas, that's PUCT and ERCOT, are outlining steps to make large computational loads, by which they're referring to data center loads, pay more of their own costs and to tighten reliability rules for massive new projects. Right. And that comes, by the way, as as new polling is coming out, showing that Texans are very concerned that these sort of energy intensive projects, whether that's data centers or the transmission line projects, are going to strain the power grid and water supply. And of course, families are rightfully and reasonably concerned about those outcomes. And so last month, Abbott ordered regulators to ensure that data centers are paying for the transmission and other infrastructure costs they require instead of shifting those costs onto families here in Texas, right? Saying, hey, we're having to build all these things, so rates are gonna go up. You're basically gonna fund what we're doing here by raising your rates. That's not good for anybody. That's not good for the community, that's not good for the reliability ratings, that's not good for politics, that's not good for families, that's not good for affordability in our economy. There's zero benefit other than the mega corporations are able to make more money and drive a bigger profit. And so uh he also directed the Public Utility Commission and Urcott, of course, to structure interconnections so that data center growth helps lower residential electric bills and develop additional protections for taxpayers. And so PUCT, the Public Utility Commission of Texas chairman Thomas Gleason, kind of embraces that framing, saying that Texas should welcome economic development, but it must do so in a manner that prioritizes affordability, reliability, and the interests of the residents who depend on the grid. He stressed that Texans will not be negatively impacted by the interconnection of these large electric consumers. And so the commission's filing describes how new rules and rulemakings are aimed squarely at large loads. A rule from back in February already standardizes how utilities report these big loads. Uh so the fact that we already have the reporting mechanism is is a great first start. At least we can know what they are and where they're coming from. So now the step is how can we make sure that the taxpayers aren't the ones funding that? How can we make sure that we the people are protected from what is and has been commonly known as corporate welfare, which is a major concern. And so when we get back from the break, we're gonna we're gonna wrap up the show talking a little bit more about what they're doing, where we can go from here, corporate welfare in general, and why that's such a problem. Because it has been, unfortunately, the status quo in Texas for quite a while now, that this is just a justified thing that we subsidize mega corporations coming in. Well, about why that's actually not good, even if it provides a level of economic, you know, f flourishing, even if the GDP, you know, line go up, that that's not always a positive. All of that when we get back from the break, if you would like to text into the show, this is your last chance for the day. So if you have any thoughts, feel free to let us know. If you have a disagreement, or you know, we have one more segment. If there's something that you particularly want to hear more about, something that you read that you want to hear us report on, we can do that instead of talking more about these data centers. But I think this is an important conversation. So if you don't text in, of course, that's the direction we'll go. But if you want to text in, the number is 713-779-5978. That is 713-779-KYST. I'm your host, Michael Wilson. You're listening to the Lone Star Conservative here on the morning show for Patriot Talk 920. We'll be wrapping up that morning show right after this last break. So stay tuned in and we'll be right back.

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Corporate Welfare And Texans First

SPEAKER_12 1:39:33

Talking about regulators and how they're dealing with this explosive growth of data centers. But rather than get into the weeds on more of this information, because we've got a ton of stuff in regards to generation that's available, batch zero studies, all the qualifying loads, eligibility requirements, reliability requirements, uh curtailing loads, mandatory registration of data centers, all those sorts of things that are all on the agenda. But I don't we don't really have time to get into all of those. And they're uh they're a little bit in the weeds, I think, for most of our listeners, anyways. Uh uh it's it's not super beneficial to have that in-depth on it. And if you want to go read about it, you can. It's all all over the internet right now. What I want to say is to give a more philosophical perspective on this, and that is to say, uh, go back to what I've I've had to frequently say on the show that I think a lot of the mainstream is forgotten. Which is supposedly the point of all these things is to make the life easy better and easier for Americans. That's that should be the goal of any policy that we pass. Right? That's that's that's the goal. Whether it's data centers or it's the food safety requirements, the FDA approvals, whatever it is, the end goal is supposed to be that the lives of Americans are made better. That's that's what we're pursuing. Right. And I I say that across the board, culturally as well. Right? The reason why I want Christians to make more content when it comes to movies and books is because people's lives have been derailed by listening to people who don't have their best interests in mind, who don't know what the truth is, and we're teaching them a version of the truth that's just gonna make them sad and depressed and anxious and and feel like they have they're living a meaningless, purposeless life. That's where all that stuff leads. And so for the betterment of everyone, I think it's good that Christians are more involved in the public square. It's the same thing when it comes to companies. The the the the the fundamental reality is, unfortunately, that these companies are not looking out for the best interests of you. They're not looking out for the best interest of your family and for your posterity a hundred years from now. They're looking at how can we make the most money in the shortest period of time, and we don't really care about what implications that has. We just want to do well for ourselves. That doesn't work in a in a republic. That doesn't work anywhere, but especially not in a republic. That doesn't function as an actual economic mechanism that makes everyone better. That actually is is the sort of mega corporation. Uh really, really, it gets into issues of oligarchy where you have a lot of these companies that are doing a lot of the lobbying and getting people elected, so they're choosing who's gets elected. It's it's a big mess. And it all flows out from what is our goal. And our goal should be Americans first. And here in Texas, Texans first. It should be how can we make people better? How can we make people's lives better? Not how can we subsidize these companies to make our line go up on our GDP? We've gotten it backwards.

Final Sign Off And Tomorrow

SPEAKER_12 1:42:15

Regardless, that will do it for the show today. Thanks everyone for tuning in to this show here on Monday. Lord will be back bright and early tomorrow on Tuesday at 6 a.m. for tomorrow's edition of the Lone Star Conservative. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your Monday. Probably the coolest day of the week, by the way. And God speed.