Transcribed by Otter.Ai
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No more driving around getting appraisals, you aren’t sure our fair no more dealing with flaky direct buyers, not with room sell or trade in your car with room and try out your new ride for a full week to make sure it’s right for you go to room.com Now to get an instant offer on your used car. Don’t wait room, it’s the better way to buy and sell used cars. So head over to room.com now to see what your current ride is worth. And check out 1000s of cars to find your next one. That’s room.com froome.com you know the job was dangerous when you’re talking for him. I have a question for me. One might even go so far as to Hey, he’s mediocre. I guess I should salute you with a worthy adversary and all that but the truth is, I really did he had gut signals for podcasts. As I told you several times, folks, I do a show on AM 700k SCV, the voice of Texas it’s based in Houston. And you can hear that Monday through Friday. It’s a two hour talk radio program simulcast on rumble and getter. And because it is it what’s happening in Houston is so instructive to the rest of the country about what kind of battles we’re fighting. It’s the stories there that come out of Houston being a huge, huge city in the United States and one of the biggest in Texas. It is what comes out of there is instructive as to what the other side is doing and what we should be doing to fight back and and also Houston as a consequence of what happens when you lose these fights. Because the downward spiral of Houston is significant. Let me read a couple of stories to you. First off, Texas scorecard.com Mike Reiss writes, three Houston mayoral candidates violated campaign finance laws. Three Democrat candidates accepted donations from contractors after the city had awarded contracts, which is prohibited by law. Three Houston mayoral candidates, US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, State Senator John wittmeyer. And local attorney Lee Kaplan illicitly accepted campaign funds during a period prohibited by city law of course they did they’re Democrats the rules don’t apply to them. And that’s what happens when you put these degenerates in charge. And if you keep on electing these people, they’re gonna keep on violating the rules themselves. While they they hold you to the impossible standards they set. Houston campaign finance law dictates that after the city awards contract Houston political candidates may not accept donations from the awarded contractors for 30 days. However, when Meyers campaign received 21 grand from contractors, notably 5600 came in three payments from proxies of lock Lord, a law firm that previously employed wittmeyer and is currently fulfilling a $757,000.02 year contract with the city of Houston. Another $5,000 came from Precision task group, President Massey via rial, the firm that has raked in $7.7 million in contracts from the city of Houston. You guys see the incestuous relationship that develops between leftists in in certain areas in government and those who are allegedly in the private sector, but really, they’re just parlaying exorbitant fees to the city to turn right around and donate it back as a money laundering operation. Shouldn’t to the political folks, the Democrats who facilitated such large paydays to begin with, so that’s one area of corruption. The other area of corruption of course is surrounding elections. Harris County is now synonymous with crooked and corrupt elections in the state of Texas, growing calls for Texas Secretary of State to address Harris County elections. This is a piece of Texas scorecard by Sidney Henry a Republican county judge candidates plea for the state to release its audit and uphold state law follows her own challenge of Harris’s 2022 County Judge election, by the way, this is Alexandria del Morales Miller, who we have interviewed right here on the Salcedo storm podcast, and her going up against lunatic Lena Hidalgo. And she is one of many My understanding is record number of election challenges in Harris County because of the corruption that happened there in 2022. For those of you who don’t remember, in the primary leading up to 2020 two’s general election, the leftist who was in charge woman by the name of Longoria, who was put there by the aforementioned lunatic Lena Hidalgo. She stole 10,000 votes from Texans 6000 Democrat votes were not tallied and 4000 Republican votes were not tallied in the primary. So because of that, they they didn’t do any serious reforms. They just got a bigger left winger in there to better hide their to hide their malfeasance and it didn’t go so well. In Houston K h. O you did a story that 120 precincts ran out of out of ballots on election day and wasn’t that they didn’t have any ballots there in Harris County. They just weren’t handing them out a bag to the Texas scorecard piece. Harris County, the largest county in Texas. 15% of the state’s registered voters has become notorious for its election fiascos and is being audited by the Texas Secretary of State once again, for it’s 2022 malfunctions, air quotes malfunctions. However, the SOS audit has not yet been released. And Mila is highlighting the lack of progress by Secretary of State. Jane Nelson. I do not understand why the state of Texas has turned their back on Harris County, Mueller said in a video demanding transparency. And by the way, Muller is not the only one. Chip Roy is out there wondering what in the hell the Secretary of State is doing with this? What folks, I hate to admit this, but I think they’ve discovered so much malfeasance, and that that they they’re just trying to keep it under wraps maybe until the next election. So they can just write those wrongs because frankly, my friends, they’ve probably found so many wrongs, that people who have been in positions of authority now who don’t belong there have done so much damage. How are they going to unwind all this stuff? We talk more about this and many other things confronting Harris County coming up in the Saucedo storm podcast. And now a word from our sponsor. Does the state of the economy have your head spinning? Let American medical plans relieve one burden health insurance, American medical plan specializes and under 65 health insurance plans that have zero co pays and no deductibles you choose your doctors you choose your hospitals. These plans have nothing to do with your income and are 30 to 60% less than Obamacare. If you’re paying too much for your own health insurance, call American medical plans you deserve better. They will customize a plan managed and chosen by you not the government a liberty loving American takes on Washington, Hollywood and the whole media establishment is Chris Saucedo, join his fight. Tune in to the Chris Saucedo show every weekday afternoon on Newsmax. Have you been growing frustrated that all your favorite stuffs getting cancelled out there by the woke crowd when Fox News in deference to leftists got rid of Tucker Carlson Didn’t you say to yourself nobody asked me folks you have power to stop that stop funding woke companies support those who stand for America your rights and your values go with Patriot mobile. I know what you’re saying. How is Patriot mobile going to help me fight back? Well, not only do they have an industry leading coverage guarantee, they’re also America’s only Christian conservative cellphone provider. And then there’s this when you make the switch to Patriot mobile by going to patriot mobile.com/storm patriot mobile.com/storm you support me you keep my voice independent making sure the wolf crowd can’t touch me. So if you prize your values if you like good value and you want to keep your liberty loving Latino, conservative, strong and unafraid go to patriot mobile.com/storm use my promo code storm get free activation or call 972 patriot 972 Patriot take a stand against the woke at patriot mobile.com I’m slash storm. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to trust that where you get your news is accurate and pro citizen? Well, Texas scorecard has you covered. We give you real news for real Texans. Go to Texas scorecard.com. Today, close want to bring on to the program Charles Blaine. He’s the president of the urban Reform Institute. Mr. Blaine, welcome to the Salcedo storm podcast. Well, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here excited to talk about Harris County. So appreciate you having me on. Yeah, you know, it’s it is one of our most populous counties, of course, home to the fourth largest city in America, the city of Houston. So a lot of things going on there. And it’s a Democrat, socialist run city. And a lot of folks are curious what’s happening there, because it’s been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Let’s talk about the one of the most controversial things to come out of this left wing Haven, which is this Guaranteed Income program. I mean, they’re not the only left wing nut jobs to try this thing. But they’re rolling it out. Describe to us how the program is supposed to work. Yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s as crazy as you can imagine. So they came up with this program, starting with started in California, Stockton, California is kind of where it kicked off. And so all these other cities have been picking it up ever since then. And so Harris County, of course, had to join the bandwagon. And so the way that this program is supposed to work is that they’re going to kind of take this $20 million lump sum that of course, they get from COVID really failed, because they obviously have nothing else to spend it on. So why not create new crazy programs, and they’re gonna pick 1500 random citizens to give this money to and so they’re limiting it to 10 zip codes. And they’ll be handing out these checks of about $500 on a regular basis to these folks, no work requirement, no recording, no monitoring, and really just self reporting on what you spend it on. Now, the natural question that, you know, responsible people who go to work every day and believe in working for a living, they will ask where is the money coming from? Exactly. And so, you know, I mean, it’s coming from us. And that’s really where it’s coming from. So with the county got $915 million of COVID aid back when the federal government was bailing out all these big urban cities and counties, and so they had all this money. And you know, as of January 1 2024, they gotta get it out the door. And so they’re spending it on all these crazy things. And so what they’re doing is, they’re taking 20 point 5 million of that COVID aid that they’ve got, and they’re creating this program with it. So it’s coming from our pocket. Now, make no mistake, it’s definitely coming from our pocket. So let me get this straight, straight China virus money, it was set to mitigate and to help our society get through the rigors and the strain of the China virus. And so Harris County has taken that money and said, Well, that means we can create a universal basic income trial program out of this, I’m sorry, is the money coming from the federal government that loosey goosey, to where it really doesn’t matter? You could, you could, you could apply it to anything. I mean, pretty much they have a lot of flexibility with what they can do. And there are some parameters set on it. And they’re supposed to really, you know, replace lost lost revenue, and all these other things. But they do have, you know, some authority to some wiggle room, if you will, from the federal government to almost do what they want with it. And so, you know, this is what they’ve decided to do with it, I doubt the federal government is going to come down and tell them that they did wrong, and we know that they’re going to kind of back anything that that Harris County is doing or that that Lena Hidalgo is doing so yeah, I mean, they just got this money, and now they get to play loose with it. And we have to sit idly by and watch it happen. And unfortunately, we know that after this 18 month program, you know, they use they spent all this $20 million in the 18 months, they’re not getting rid of this program, they’re gonna keep it going and then it’s really going to be on the back of the taxpayers, because they’re gonna actually having to see it taken out of the budget every year rather than just free money from the federal government. Right? Because you know, right now, it’s what they call seed money from the federal government. And sooner or later, if it catches on, which is what the socialists and the Marxist wanted to do, then it’s going to it’s going to come from local taxpayers to feed this beast, which is only going to grow bigger, again, leading to the, in my opinion, the degradation of our society that covets sloth and laziness, in exchange for votes, apparently, and a universal basic income. So let me ask you Mr. Blaine. What is the reaction around Harris County? About about so called free money? Yeah, I mean, well, listen, you they were talking to a lot of individuals. I saw news reports of them just going out talking to random individuals on the street, asking what they thought of it and most people were like, This is the craziest thing ever one because I work for my money. But to just because someone is struggling more than I am does not mean that they should be given this free pass to get a monthly stipend and not have to work for it. So you have a lot of people lower income people who might You’re not qualified for this program and probably don’t qualify it for it, since we’re only given it to 1500 people in a county of 4.1 million. So you have a lot of lower income people who don’t qualify for it and won’t get it. And they’re looking at this saying, Well, how is that fair, and it’s not at all fair. And so we’ve seen a lot of just average people upset with it. Obviously, conservatives are upset with it. But across the board, there are people who aren’t happy with it. But of course, those who benefit from the government bureaucracy, they’re the ones who are supportive of it. So our local elected officials, appointed officials, everyone who’s kind of in on this social experiment to see what happens. They’re all you know, loudly in favor of it. We know what happens. Societies that go down this road, we know precisely what happens, which is what our exactly political enemies are trying to facilitate Charles Blaine, everybody, president of the urban Reform Institute, is our guest. Houston audits found security risks. I’m dying to know, first off who conducted the audit and what did they find? Yeah, so it’s interesting. So we have a duly appointed City Comptroller. So he’s elected separate and apart from city council and the mayor, unfortunately, the mayor still controls his budget. So sometimes that could be a little questionable. But our City Comptroller did this audit. And so they do these annual audits on various departments, they randomly select them. And this time, they decided to do it on the General Services Department. And that’s the department that just kind of oversees employees, and HR and badges and facilities and all these other things. And what they found one of the findings, there was many findings, but one of the findings was they found 1500 former employees who still had access to city facilities through their badges because the city failed to remove them off of the books when they were fired. Because these were fired employees, not those who just retired. These were people who were fired. So let me get this straight. Do we know what the offences were the firings they could have been? Mis mis using their power and authority in their jobs, they could have been embezzling something they could have been violent people. I mean, what what kind of crimes these were. We don’t unfortunately, that information has not come out yet. But because you do have 1500 employees who have been removed immediately separated from the from the city government, you can expect that it’s probably pretty bad for each reason that they’ve gotten out. And if not all of them, then certainly a good portion of them, I would be highly, you know, concerned about them still having access to city facilities. And we’re talking about, you know, obviously City Hall and council, council chambers and things like that. But we’re also talking about critical facilities like the water purification Land Infrastructure sites you’re talking about, I mean, very, very, you know, important stuff. So you would think that those people would be immediately removed. And I want to add that most of those employees of that 15 107 did come out of the public works department, which does have those critical assets added overseas. So I mean, it’s deeply concerning for both the city and for the average citizen. Well, to your point, you know, how difficult it is to fire somebody for a government job. I mean, it is because you really have to screw up royally and badly to get fired out of out of a government job. So these people must be one can rationalize the worst of the worst. And that’s what necessitates them getting booted out of a government job. So being alive, I can’t fathom why we have except such ineptitude at city government has has the government responded to these revelations, that they have actually put the city’s infrastructure and personnel at risk by not by these obvious security lapses. Right. And the crazy part is they have not and, you know, when the comptroller came out, he called this a very serious security risk. I mean, he was not mincing words about how serious this was. And they kind of just ignored it and brushed it off. And I don’t know how long they’ll be able to do that. Because also in that audit, they were looking at the city facilities and the security of those city facilities. And they found some other lapses in insecurity there from things like security officers not being on duty doors open, that shouldn’t be open, not no training for security officers. And one of the things that came out of that, that we didn’t know until after the report was released was that on the Fourth of July, there was a registered sex offender who made it into City Hall got upstairs to the City Hall chamber, city council chambers, and where the offices are, and was yelling and causing a rocket and they had to call the police. And this was because of the lapses that were found in the audit. So I do think they’re going to be more questions asked about this and it’s gonna be hard for them to shy away from answering. Well, judging by how the Democrat party the socialist in the Democrat Party reacted to sound of freedom, the movie about child exploitation and they poo pooed that idea, you know, you might think a child molester might be welcomed inside inside of a government that is populated by Democrats. Who knows? I bet but I think most of us normal People would say, Man, that that’s that’s out of bounds and that that is a risk that to the public and risk to our public officials. That is completely unnecessary and a result of incompetence. Charles Blaine, our guest president of the urban Reform Institute. I think a lot of folks when they think about Harris County, Harris County has now become synonymous with election fraud with election malfeasance. When you had a Democrat appointee, hired by loony Lena Hidalgo responsible for the forfeiture and non recording of 10,000 votes, and a political primary, the majority of them Democrat votes of all things. You can see why Harris County is now synonymous with cheating at the ballot box. And then the 2022 election rolls around and everything going on with ballots and paper ballots not being properly distributed. As it turns out to 121 precincts, a lot of them in Republican areas didn’t get proper ballots. Where are we with all of this? You know, the county has been Stalin, Stalin, Stalin, and no surprise, I mean, they definitely want to keep what they have, you know, under wraps. But we are moving forward. One of the election contests that was filed was by a former judge who was running to be come a judge again, her name is Aaron Lunsford, and she filed an election contest because she lost I forgot what the vote difference was something around 1500 votes or so that she lost her race by so it was well within the margin, given all the other evidence that came in. And so her election, excuse me, her trial is starting next Tuesday. And so you know, they’re in pre trial right now trying to get everything ironed out. But I think that’s going to be really telling, because that’s the first trial, and we there’s 17 other candidates who have filed suit, and those are going to come after, so we’re thinking late summer, early fall, but it’s gonna be really interesting to watch. But we know the county is going to do everything they can to stall, and, you know, and stifle information and things like that. But I do think we’re gonna see some really interesting evidence and background detail about the conversations that were had leading up to election day and on election day, and what the election administrator was directed to do. And so I’m really excited to see what information comes out of this trial. Isn’t. Is it true that this is a record number of election challenges? For for Harris County? We’ve never seen this many before. For my understanding, that is the case. And I think, you know, we’ve heard them one or two here or there, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen 18 of them at one time. So yeah, for everything I’m hearing, it certainly is a record number, right. And then, of course, one of the more high profile raises was of the aforementioned loony Lena Hidalgo. And I’m not sure how close the other races were for Harris County Commissioners Court, but Looney Lena was was vulnerable here. Alexandria, mele Mealer. She she I think as as filed a lawsuit as well. I know you’re saying it’s going to be interesting to see what the results of this are. But these these people who wrongly one, many of us believe who wrongly one, have been putting in policies that have done tremendous amount of harm to Harris County, what happens to those policies? What happens to those individuals, when it turns out that they’ve been wrongly in office? Everything they’ve been doing has been unjust? And that and then what what do we do to make it up to those people who have now here we are, a year, half a year already gone by over a half a year gone by? And by the time this is all sorted out, maybe a year, year and a half gone by? What do we do? You know, it’s gonna be it’s gonna be like picking it up from the ashes and trying to rebuild again. I mean, we are seeing some changes, right. So with the ledge, the legislative legislative session ended recently, one of the bills that got passed up, the senator Betancourt really led on this representative risk, again, was to push to get our elections administrator removed, abolish that office. And that passed, signed into law. So we do know that he’s transitioning out now the county filed lawsuit to try to stop this. So we’ll see what happens. I do assume the state will prevail. And so we will be removing that office and then it goes to the elections then because now we’ve got that power returned to our county clerk in our in our tax assessor. And so it’s going to be trying to make sure that those offices do what’s right. But I think the first step is getting it out of the hands of the elections administrator, because that’s when we know everything went sour, because it’s someone who directly reports to judge Lena Hidalgo and Commissioner Rodney Ellis, and there’s really no oversight from the citizenry or anyone else for that matter. And so I think that’s the first step in cleaning things up and I think we’re we’re inching our way there. Hopefully this lawsuit goes away of the state rather than the county though. Well, I would imagine it’s gonna be up to the judges to figure out because, again, this is just me forecasting, but But Mr. Blaine, I can imagine that that everything that These people have done Looney, Lena and everybody else if they are found to have actually lost their elections, then everything that they’ve handed down becomes challengeable and talk about talk about it just a mess in the courts. And maybe you would hope that not that I have high high hopes for the criminal court of appeals, but you’d hope that the state’s Supreme Court would would say something along the lines of, hey, everything they’ve done, blanket, it’s null and void. And we start over, because if we have to litigate every single thing that they’ve done, it’s gonna be a nightmare. Oh, it’ll be a nightmare. It’ll certainly be a nightmare on the taxpayers pockets. That’s for sure. I mean, yeah, that just to untangle. That would just be something that I don’t think anyone has ever seen before. And so yeah, ideally, you would hope that in that case, the state Supreme Court would kind of maybe make a blank slate something new. I mean, that would be an unprecedented situation. And so I think they would have to craft something specific to that. But yeah, I mean, if they were to sue over every single piece of items, each Commissioner’s court runs about eight or nine hours because they’re doing hundreds and hundreds of items on the commissioner’s court day. So by the time it’s lawsuits over, if that turns out to be the case, and every single one of the things needs to be challenged individually, will be in court for the foreseeable future. Yeah. And you’d have to look at, you know, how many of the votes in them even though the Harris County Commissioners Court, mostly it’s the leftist against the one lone, Republican slash conservative, but on the rare on the rare times when Looney Lena was the conceivably the deciding vote, all of those could be struck and null and void. Charles Blaine, everybody. He’s president of the urban Reform Institute. Folks want to catch up with what you guys are doing maybe back up your efforts, where can they go? Yeah, they can check us out at Urban reformed.org. And if they want to check us out on social media, urban reform org across all social media platforms, we put, you know, video content about what’s going on at county commissioners coordinate city council HSD all the entities here locally and everything we can find. So yeah, urban reform.org. Anywhere you can find us nice of you to keep tabs on what’s happening in Harris County, man, appreciate it. Thank you, appreciate you. And that’s as they say, a wrap for the Salcedo storm podcast. Do me and yourself a favor, folks visit a couple of websites first off Texas scorecard.com. You can find out what’s happening in Harris County, Dallas County, Denton County, Travis County, Tarrant County any any county in the great state of Texas, they will be writing it up there at Texas scorecard.com. Also check out Chris saucedo.com That’s where you’ll find me. Your liberty loving Latino, you can find the Chris Salcedo shows on ks evey and on Newsmax. Also drop me a note an email or a voicemail might be heard on future shows. Till we visit again my friends remember this. A society’s worth isn’t measured by how much power is stolen by government. It is rather measured by how much power is reserved for you in need. In short, we the people stay safe out there my friends room is the better way to buy and sell used cars. Looking for your next ride. Go to WW room.com. Now to shop 1000s of cars right from your phone. Not only can you buy a car on room.com But you can also sell or trade in your old car to when you buy a car on room. They’ll deliver it straight to you. If you sell your car to room they’ll come pick it up free of charge. No more driving around getting appraisals, you aren’t sure our fair no more dealing with flaky direct buyers, not with room sell or trade in your car with room and try out your new ride for a full week to make sure it’s right for you. Go to room.com Now to get an instant offer on your used car. Don’t wait room, it’s the better way to buy and sell used cars. So head over to room.com now to see what your current ride is worth. And check out 1000s of cars to find your next one. That’s room.com froome.com room is the better way to buy and sell used cars. Looking for your next ride. Go to WW room.com. Now to shop 1000s of cars right from your phone. Not only can you buy a car on vroom.com But you can also sell or trade in your old car to when you buy a car on room. They’ll deliver it straight to you. If you sell your car to room they’ll come pick it up free of charge. No more driving around getting appraisals, you aren’t sure our fair no more dealing with flaky direct buyers, not with room sell or trade in your car with room and try out your new ride for a full week to make sure it’s right for you. Go to room.com Now to get an instant offer on your used car. Don’t wait room it’s the better way to buy and sell used cars. So head over to room.com now to see what your current ride is worth and check out 1000s of cars to find you Our next one that’s room.com froome.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai