This is Alamo Anka, where we the overtaxed remember our liberty.
Direct from the forgotten countryside outside of Alamo City San Antonio.
I'm your host Joe and we have two lovely co-hosts here with us. Would you
introduce yourselves? I'm Michelle and I'm Emily. Welcome to the show. Thanks Joe. By way of
introduction we live in the San Antonio area in Texas. Lately we've been getting
more involved in local politics, looking at our property taxes rise, that sort of
thing, and thinking what can we do about this other than what we're already
trying to do? You know, fight at the hearings for property taxes, going to
like community meetings or whatever. We thought well maybe we should start a
podcast and talk about these things, talk about local issues and just whatever
else interests us. That's right and I think that a lot of people go to the
polls and they're ready to vote and then they see what they're voting for and
they don't know anything about it. And who has time as a working-class person
to look up all of the news articles about everything that's on the ballots?
So I, Joe, Emily and I thought it would be a good idea to start this podcast to
inform local citizens of what their government is doing. We're all busy and
it would be really nice to have somebody who has gone to school board meetings,
who goes to city council meetings, kind of has an idea of what's going on a
little bit. On today's show, Joe, we're going to talk about a couple things. This
format will pretty much go like this. We will talk about some local issues such
as the local tax battle that we fight on the county level. We will also be
discussing some state-level things such as the constitutional amendments that
are going to be on the November ballot. We also will be talking about the issue
of migration that's happening in Eagle Pass. It's overwhelming the system. It
actually caused the city of Eagle Pass to go to have a state of emergency
declared by their mayor and Governor Abbott. And then we're gonna finish up
with some local fun stuff. I like to get on the Nextdoor app or as Joe likes to
call it the next dog app. So true. I assure you that we will not be discussing
lost dogs on this, okay? So that's my promise to you today.
I'd be more interested in that. No more dogs. I mean not that we're anti dog. A
little anti dog. Then you're anti dog. You're a hater Emily. Do you know what I am? I'm anti
people who leave their dogs home all day and they the dogs bark all day while
the people, while their owners are gone. That's what I'm anti. You've had
experience with this? All day every day. How? Can you hear him inside or just
outside? Both. Really? Well you know what I'm an anti dog of? People who let their
dogs wander. Yesterday I was walking in Devine and a husky and a dachshund
surround me as I'm walking to the golf course. And I was being hunted and then
there was a third one coming up. They're like raptors. I'm a dog person. You guys
know this. I have two Pyrenees here at home. I love dogs but honestly it's
unpredictable. You don't know what these dogs are gonna do. So I went in the
bathroom in the golf course bathroom and waited. Like maybe they'll go away. Sat
there for a minute and then I came out. They were still there. Scared me.
Moving on from the dog issue. No no I'm telling Emily to get closer to her mic.
I'd love to hear more about that. Yeah yeah yeah Pyrenees they're they're great.
Okay so what's our? We're not even talking about Pyrenees Joe. That's how much you don't care about dogs. You don't even want to hear. You mentioned what you have. You had two
Pyrenees at home and I said that great. Husky and a dachshund. But anyway go on.
No you're the one with the agenda. Okay so the first one. Yep the first one we're
gonna talk about is about the Hondo News. The headline that was in the Hondo News.
Emily's got it right there. Go ahead Emily. It says repairs all over city moving
forward. Street work begins this week south of 24th Street. So why in this why
in the world is this controversial Emily? How could you? It's like yeah what's
wrong with getting your the the roads repaired? Everyone wants nice roads right?
It's like hating dogs. So if you've ever driven through the streets of Texas you
might have encountered a pothole here and there and you know nobody likes that.
We all want it smooth and they're smoothing it out. They're finally doing
it after all this time and so I think we all appreciate that. I do find it a
little bit suspicious that they're doing it right before the election and after
an entire up to this point calendar year of people going in and protesting their
property taxes. What do you guys think about that? Well we were talking about
this earlier and I I can't help but this is just like such a perfect example like
the classic thing. If you talk to anybody in the world about you know reducing the
size of government or you know maybe we should abolish the government in this
area or this you know if we say taxation is theft I mean so just so you all know
we're pretty right-leaning libertarian leaning on this show.
Full disclosure of our bias. Liberty minded yeah and so the common you know thread in that is
that we feel like we're being robbed when we get taxed a lot of the times and
so then the the first thing anybody ever says all the time is what about the
roads right? And so it's just I think you know I'm with you I don't know that
this is much of a coincidence. It's the thing that everybody sees the most
everybody experiences on a day-to-day basis and it's the thing that everybody
knows is provided by the government and so it's like oh they are doing their
job you know it's hard to not think that that's really what's going on with the
timing at least. I also just want to add my beef is that we don't have a really
clear trustworthy you know the information isn't clear and trustworthy
as to how much goes in and how much goes out. I don't know how what what really is
going on with their budget and it is my understanding that constitutionally that
information is supposed to be clear. So I think that when forced to for example
there's a firm in the United States called Open the Books and they go around
and they try to make sure that on every level of government federal state and
local that every body of government does show right what it is like how much
transparency yeah they're trying to force transparency which
constitutionally they're supposed to do that anyway but they don't necessarily
and so you can go they actually have an app and a website OpenTheBooks.com
you can go and look in whatever county you live in and you can try and see like
how much do all these school district employees make you know for example or
any employee in your city or county. So I don't know and I don't I don't know if
anybody who besides probably a handful of people in the local government or
state government depending on what Rhodes were talking about knows how much
it's costing even though they put some information you know in these articles
and like did they find the cheapest best you know way to do it I don't know
because it's not their own checkbook and I don't know how much they have like how
much are they actually gathering all this information should be clear but it
doesn't seem clear to me so it seems to me even if they do at some point do a
good job of smoothing the roads over and you know maintaining them it it is not
obvious and clear that they are being efficient and that they're not way
overtaxing for that purpose. Especially when you read articles like this one
which I it's from the I guess the same newspaper Anvil Harold right is that
Hondo this is from Hondo Harold and Hondo Anvil what the heck is Anvil I
don't know Harold. It's the thing that falls on cartoon characters. Yeah it has nothing to do with
blacksmithing it's just like Wiley Coyote getting hit. Greenlight given to
supplement salaries of employees in several county offices okay this came
out recently. Medina County Commissioners voted four to zero to supplement
salaries for employees in the Medina County auditors treasures and tax
offices using tax increment reinvestment zone and public improvement district
fees. So say what that actually means. You translate it for us. Well it sounds to me like they're
saying they're using part of the money from taxes to supplement the salaries of
the auditor and treasury tax offices right but they already are tax getting
tax money so I don't know what that means like I don't know what do you think?
Well my understanding of this was that they had money left over whatever that
means. After the budget. Yeah surplus after the budget. After the budget and then they
were taking what was left over and decided to just give themselves raises
until the money ran out. Am I wrong? Then that's what it sounds like to me. Should I
read further? And it's especially galling that it's the people that's handling the
money. That's the thing. And like taking it you know. How about we give ourselves a raise we
deserve it we've worked hard this summer we had to endure many hours of
protesting of angry citizens. Can't imagine why they're so angry. You wouldn't
believe the amount of money we had to count this year. So I don't know who this
is Medina County auditor Edward or Eduardo Lopez noted quote we did reach
out to determine whether we can use some of the fees these offices received from
PID and TIRZ to supplement some of the employees salaries in these offices. The
answer was yes. Okay I don't know what PID stands for do you guys know? No. Oh
wait well we know that the TIRZ stands for Treasurer's I'm sorry Tax Increment
Reinvestment Zone. That's TIRZ but I don't know what PID stands for. So I mean
are you gonna come out against people treating themselves? I mean treat
yourself. Treat yourself. Remember that? I don't run parks in it. Yeah. There are people too. Treat yourself. It'd be nice to treat myself. I'm just happy we can pay our mortgage with an increase of the taxes. Don't have much to treat myself with. Yeah you know and
like I get it that there are some times where they miscalculate and then they
need to figure out what they should do with the money. One thing this is kind of
a tangent but if anybody's been following Vivek or Vivek Ramaswamy
who's one of the people running for the presidential nomination for the
Republican Party and one of the things that he points out and this is in the
federal budget obviously is that the language changed at one point with
budgetary considerations from being that Congress may spend you know X amount of
money to Congress shall spend X amount of money and so this is like an
accounting like a thing that they did to make it so if there is budget left over
it's not like they can be like well we'll take it or leave it we could leave it
there for next year whatever it's kind of written as part of the law implicitly
because a budget you know it's it's passed by Congress saying that you must
spend it and so even if it you reach all of your obligations for that budget well
you still need to spend it and I've heard this my whole life talking to
people that work in school districts and whatnot and it's like well we had this
money left over and if we don't spend it then our budget goes down next year and
that's why you get all like this crazy wild spending. Can we do a full
disclosure here so people know where we are because then I don't want ever to
get people to find out about our families and go those big hypocrites.
Both Joe and my husband work for the federal government. Can we say you're a
little bit less working for the federal government than Jay because you work for a
contracting company which gets their money from the federal. To clarify it's a
company with government contracts. That's right. I don't want to I'm not a
contractor like a freelancer like working through something like you know. You work for a company.
I work for a company and that company has defense contracts.
Yes and then my husband works directly he's prior military and he now works
still with the Air Force but I do want to say a couple things about the system
because it's especially with the education system and our property taxes
when it comes to this stuff I feel like we've done this to ourselves as citizens.
We've created a system by allowing government out of me I don't know why or
how. It seems like with the education system in the name of convenience in the
name of I don't know well we want that we want to educate our children and we
think that's the best way but we have handed over so much control and power to
this educational system that has become a monster that we cannot scale back.
It's it's just too difficult because what's happened is it started small. I
mean I'm always a big picture person so I'm always looking at like okay how did
this even start where did we come from we used to have the you know Little
House of Prairie I imagine the 19th century the Little Red Schoolhouse with
the one teacher that the local neighborhood or citizens paid for
together they put their money together and paid this teacher and built this
house schoolhouse and they that educated the children in that area now we've
grown into this monstrosity of a public school system that we cannot scale back
and so I you know I look back at the 20th century and I see that parents have
pretty much just take given that away to the educational system in the name of
well first somewhere to send their kids while they go to school you know kind of
a daycare type system. That's what I meant work you know and then but and
also full disclosure my mother's a school teacher but we had this discussion
the other day how ironic it was that my mom she was divorced she had no she you
know she didn't have much of a choice because her degree was in education but
and so that was the only job she could get or at least didn't want to be in
squalor so she became a school teacher and anyway we were she schooled
everybody else's kids and then our our grades were suffering this is not a dog
on my mom my mom was fantastic it's just to show how we have kind of the school
system has become somewhat of a daycare center and there's no need for it to be
as long as it is like the school days don't need they I just talked to someone
the other day who was it that just moved here from Arizona I think or Utah I
can't remember and she was shocked at how long the school days are here hmm
her kids leave have to get up at 630 they have to be at school by 730 and
they're there to almost 4 o'clock that is a long school day for a kid why it's
not necessary you know it's interesting about that it's just the other day I was
listening to Chris Christie yeah he was the governor of what New Jersey yeah he
was also a presidential candidate one time he is right now oh he's running
again he's running again this is the first I've heard his name over and over
again but I had never read anything that he had written or listened to him or
anything until this one podcast I was listening to is Jordan Peterson's
podcast and he was being asked questions like how would you fix the school system
stuff like that and one of the things that he said as a Republican candidate
is that if he were president then he would have the federal government take
the lead in school choice so I think he knew that's one thing that everybody
wants he was saying that but then he also said he would make the school days
longer and add weekends and I thought does he have any idea who he's talking to like does he know who his
audience is because it's obvious that it's so long and so hard on the kids
already there's so little family time I mean how many families is it the
situation where their kids go they go to school or they get dropped off somewhere
first oh yeah they have the pre what do you call that before school care and
after school care right yeah and then they go uh-huh and then they go home they
eat and they go to bed and they start over that's right yep in the interest of
full disclosure we all homeschool our kids yep Emily and I are married and we
homeschool our kid kids kids just think anyway and Michelle also homeschools
her kid I can say that I was already moved on to your kid
all of us also have had school had our kids in the public school system as well
and we all grew up in going to public school yes government school I mentioned
this just because you know several years ago we started kind of looking into
homeschooling and one of the things that really kind of called to me was what
someone wrote about how when you sent your kids to school you are giving away
your kids best hours when they're you know well fed and well rested you know
whatever and then they get home and it's like they've endured you know
sometimes like mental social trauma they're tired you know they've been
sitting around for a long time and then you got to go home and it's like a my a
mad rush to get every all the night stuff done they're the end of the rope
and that one thing that this family found is that it's like we get to see
them like during the whole day and especially you know when they're like
bright and ready to go and you know I read someone's Facebook post the other
day saying you know something like always our kids are at school eight hours
a day please don't send them home with two hours of homework you know you've
had them for eight hours you can get this done like this is the only family
time we have and I just thought a like how sad that is because it's true can
you imagine real quick if you had to after an eight hour shift at work come
home and do more school more work yeah but that's what we expect our kids to do
I'm always just blown away at that I'd like give me a break I always also feel
like I can't believe how how long this has gone on without like major
blowback or resistance but where all these parents and there are so many of
them so many of us who've had this experience where you think you know what
I'm gonna do the right thing and I'm gonna take my kid out of school today
and we're gonna go have some family time we're gonna go to the beach how dare
you just do something together you know to strengthen our family and they get
these dirty we all have had them dirty letters you know in the mail from the
school district threatening you because it's a criminal offense right like a
criminal offense I mean it's supposed to be compulsory your kids it's a
compulsory it is and then also leading up to elections and stuff like that
seeing how much this message it goes on the message boards you know over
highways it's like on TV shows and radios and commercials and magazines
that come in the mail I'm sure through teachers unions and like everywhere you
look about how attendance matters and how your kids not gonna be able to get a
job when they get a high school if you do this you can't be taking these days
off because obviously if you're doing this you don't care about their education
and they're just not gonna have the certification that they need or there
they'll tell you how many hours for example I have seen this I'm not even
making this part up unlike the rest of where they'll tell you how many hours of
math they will not have done if you pull them out two days I can't represent a
month or a year but in either case to me that seems negligible it doesn't matter
and how by the time they get graduate they will have missed like so much like
six weeks of math or something like that and you're thinking they have got to be
joking the implication in that message is that every moment is hard like
learning right that they're doing there and none of it is just like all the
passing time please all of the time wasting yeah the waiting for the next
thing or just on even on tablets and stuff like that there's a lot of their
phones and let's say that like let's say they have you know an hour and a half or
an hour of math a day or whatever how much of it is like explaining something
that has already been explained and so like half the class they're either get it
or they don't care and then how much of it is correcting your work passing
papers and I don't know how they do it these days but yeah back to my original
point with us we created this monster because we pretty much have given our
rights away to the schools Emily just made the point they made a compulsory
or kids have to be there unless you pull your kids out and what is sorry just
really quick what does that mean I mean just I want to make sure people walk
through the logic of that if they say it's illegal for you to not have them go
to school what's the next step let's say you just say no I'm just not gonna make
them today they're having a hard day you then what get if it's bad enough I know
they give you a few chances right okay so what have they send you a letter
chances then you have to go to court okay so let's say you go to court and
you're found guilty of not sending them to school when they think you should
have then what fine okay so now let's say you don't pay the fine well I think
it's like one of those things where if you keep doing it CPS it might be
involved but I'm not a hundred percent sure so this is just me guessing also my
experience with you know some of my work so then ultimately the separation of a
family right or you may be going to jail depends on the state too
yeah it depends on the state the locality or whatever yes I'm sure they
know that it's terrible PR if they actually follow through with it this
whole idea of you know whether you get like CPS involved because I think that
people in the community might quickly get on board with this idea that you're
being negligent if you are not you know educating you're not sending them to
school you're not cooperating with the school board or whatever I mean I would
think that realistically with people that don't want a lot of bad press they
would probably just say well here's the process for homeschooling them you just
need to affirm these seven things that you're gonna teach them it just sends
paper and then you can have them out of the school or whatever you know what I
mean I would think that they would kind of push that process along but yeah
absolutely I mean you hear about it every once in a while you read it about
a case of somebody being brought to court or having their kids taken away
or whatever it just seems like one of those leverage things where as much as
they want to do it to you they could you know it's just kind of fun if you stop
and look at it because at the beginning we were like here here's our kids and
then now it's like can we have our kids for a minute and they're like oh no can
we go see them in their class no okay but I don't want people to think that
I'm so anti public school I am not naive enough to think that everyone can be
homeschooled there are some people single moms that could not they would
need the help of the community because they have to they have to you know be
able to provide for their families and that my mom was one of them but it's
just ironic because the job she chose was a school teacher it's just funny to
me but can I clarify one thing right I think the problems that we have are
majorly with the system yes we all know a lot of like teachers like your mother
included right where it's like great people they want nothing more than to
uplift children every day absolutely you know like they and I think that a lot of
people recognize that these children are in bad situations and they're like this
is the one time during the day when they'll have somebody who loves them or
whatever depending on the teacher but you know I think there are a lot of
teachers like that kind of once you're in that system it becomes very
frustrating and one of the things is that schools are contingent like the
the money that they get is contingent on them teaching certain stuff and so like
oh well if you teach this curriculum then you'll get this amount of state
funding oh if you include this then you get some federal funding or our
district has to affirm that it's becoming bigger because now we've got more money
involved which it gets more employees involved. The day gets longer and longer recesses get
shorter and shorter and it's all this well we don't want to leave this money
on the table you know whatever so it kind of becomes a self-looking ice cream cone
it becomes a self-looking ice cream cone. Just really like that. Just that one of the things that school districts do for funding is they give kids all these different levels of disability status that benefit the school so the more types
of disabilities that they can label your kid with the more money your kid is
worth to that school from the state right so I just want to point that out and
then if you look around you think you know I remember when I was a kid it
didn't seem like there's so many kids who were disabled or were called disabled
or pathologized right there's a pathology for every little thing you know
I'm not saying they're actually disabled but they're labeled disabled. I know what I was gonna say I mean if your leg
disabled that makes sense but just if you're having trouble sitting in your
chair for eight hours straight then maybe they need to let you outside for a bit
maybe you're a child maybe you're a child imagine that yeah so what I was gonna
say about that here in Texas if you know if you're listening from out of state we
it's been in the news the property taxes have grown exponentially they're
unsustainable almost we're at the brink of unsustainability I'm sure that for
some people it is unsustainable I agree with that I think that we know several
people who have are have been right on the edge of selling their houses and
leaving that's right because they cannot afford their mortgages anymore with the
escrow because of the taxes that's the thing that just this is a wild card that
keeps changing which I want to say one other thing earlier when we were talking
about the extra money that the county had they were allowed to just give to
themselves as bonuses is this I mean I don't know this is just a crazy idea but
would it is there some reason they can't just give it back to the people that they
took it from that's like governor Abbott that's right I was gonna say so and I
think that that's one of these propositions yeah is to temporarily
increase the homestead exemption for property taxes from forty thousand to
a hundred thousand yes using this extra whatever surplus money in the state
budget so it'd be a temporary thing so that it is this temporary thing we're
voting as it isn't it a constitutional amendment I don't think it's temporary
it says temporary in it in the constitutional amendment well before you
start going into that let me finish my thought here so here in Texas like I
said we are going through this property tax problem and what's happening we keep
going it is a crisis but on top of that we have other things going on in our
country that's affecting us in Texas as well as it's affecting everyone else in
the country which is inflation and the increase of interest rates and just the
economy in general is starting to hurt Texans and so what my point was in
telling you about the system this education system that we've created
after disclosing that we are part of a system right Joe you're part of a system
Jay's part of a system we've got to think outside the box to make some
drastic changes which is why I brought this up about the school system and why
I brought up homeschooling because everyone thinks that you think we're
gonna keep going on status quo and status quo is bankrupting us is what I'm
trying to say we went to the the school board meeting last last year when it was
just starting in 2022 at Medina Valley High School and I remember addressing
them and just saying like there's good people in this community who've worked
as teachers ironically and are retired and now they're getting hit you know not
just teachers but I'm just saying I gave them an example of teachers at this they
had a retirement and now their own the property tax that are funding the very
schools that they taught at and retired from are what bankrupt is bankrupting
them which is so ironic so we need to make some serious changes in how we do
things so that you know we got to fix this system and that you know that's
kind of why I homeschool my daughter and I'm not saying that everyone should do
it but I am saying it's worth looking at it's worth looking at other alternatives
to what what we're doing currently that's bankrupting us it's like do we
really want to shoot ourselves in the foot or do we want to try to find a way
out of this so that's good so looking over that a minute real quick I it seems
to me like what the change in the Constitution might be is to allow them
to clarify that Constitution not US Constitution yeah this is what's coming
up in the ballot right in November yeah I don't know I could be wrong about this
but I know I've read the short part should go ahead it says the
constitutional this is how it will read on the ballot to increase the amount of
the exemption from ad valorem taxation by a school district which is the
lion's share of the property taxes that we pay okay so this goes to the school
district it's at least half applicable to residents homesteads so right now
we're exempt from being taxed on the first forty thousand dollars of value on
our homesteads mm-hmm this would take it from forty thousand to a hundred thousand
but it does say it's temporary right if I were to guess it would be the change
that the Constitution would do allow them to create temporary exemptions and
then they at the same time they would pass this temporary exemption as a as a
house bill or something like that so it's got to be an amendment so we have
to vote on it yeah and my guess is every educator in the state is gonna be voting
against this measure right because it's protecting their salaries right well and
the way that it's you know they're like I was saying earlier they're like with
the school attendance thing same thing with this election that's coming up I've
seen magazines in the mail I assume from teachers unions and
organizations like that you know and in other places but where the way that it's
proposed is do you want education first or not right so if you want to lower
this property tax if you want to pay less property tax that means that you
do not think the education is the number one important thing that's the way that
they frame it and it's unfair to say that because a lot of the people that
are suffering from this are people who are retired and I'm not talking about the
65 year old you know grandpa who's exempt from this I'm talking about
people in the in-between stage that don't have children at home they're not
benefiting from the school system per se they are as a community I you know
there's that argument presumably we're all benefiting from a quote-unquote
educated citizenry but you have to define what that means to me because I
don't know I to me it's just okay it's it's just okay education you know well
none of that I mean it would be a whole nother long long discussion it would to
go into the harms right like some of the harms that are coming to students in
these government schools so what's an alternative why don't we talk a little
bit about what we're doing just a little bit go yeah go for it so there's a few
of us and this is what I suggest to our listeners who are considering the same
things we've thought about which can I just say yeah probably to begin with
most of our listeners will just be people we know we love you and a lot of
them don't agree with our views on the schools of whatever but okay but um for
those who are listening who thought about these things and are like hey
what's the first step we actually know someone who is is our good friend
Jonathan Hodnett who is starting a school he doesn't call it a school he
calls it a learning center which I think is a good name for it and because it
isn't necessarily a school a traditional school right well and there's a
technical reason for that too like if he were to call it a private school then
the government gets to tell him how to do it all the hours that needs to be and
what he has to teach and that's exactly what we don't want that's right so it's
a learning center that a few kids get together every day well see three days a
week and then they do different projects they work with animals because they're
they have a farm a small farm there they work on projects like they just recently
built a go-kart which I thought was really cool they work on their sports
whatever they're playing they have practice right now it's soccer I believe
did see him do basketball the other day a little bit of that some music some
student-led peer-led yeah they're starting a band over there yeah I think
it's great awesome and the philosophy behind it is that well hold on one
second before you tell that so that's the first half of the day is when
they're doing all the stuff that you just talked about Michelle then they
like super practical skills to there they make lunch make their own lunch
right like they cook yep you know and they and all of this is supervised by
the way it's not just a bunch of kids randomly cooking and burning down stuff
there but they do you do a lot themselves at the same time so it's not
like constantly over their shoulder but they are gaining you know mentorship and
help and everything and encouragement along the way and then in the last three
hours of the day that's when they do their more traditional academic stuff so
they do an hour of reading an hour of language arts and an hour of math or if
they have other things that they need to work on like they have lately they've
all needed to write papers for a class that they're doing then they would work
on their essays and and yeah so go ahead I was just a beautiful thing I mean so
they're socializing so a lot of the things we get from and by the way this
podcast was not meant to be focused on homeschooling we just we're talking
about and I'm very passionate about it being someone who wasn't homeschooled
went through the public system I just felt like I got a subpar education I
can't complain enough about it at part of it was my own family issues that were
going on but what's beautiful about this is our kids aren't on screens right and
they socialize and they have and this is part of the experiment right like it is
like one of the main goals of this school or learning center is to have a
particular culture right and so that all the kids love each other like they're
they're good to each other and they encourage one another and they play
together well and they you know they help teach each other and stuff like
that there's no none of the anxiety that and the stress that I see kids having
at regular schools so yeah so what is it VFD learning center is that what it is
and so as far as I understand right now they're still kind of building out the
business and we have our kids there but they will it is a business and it will I
think they'll be accepting enrollment soon yes for new students we'll be
keeping you updated on that as that's speaking of it being a business I just
wanted that's one other thing I just remembered about it that I really like
is that so Jonathan knows how to start businesses and run businesses and so
that's one of the things for all the students who are interested that he's
letting them go through the steps of turning it into and like in a more
official business yeah so they know how to start a business and if they have any
business ideas of their own I mean I know some of the younger ones they want
to sell chicken stuff chicken eggs chicks what are they called when they're
between chicks and full-grown whatever those are don't put me on the spot
Jay would know that you know laying hens roosters yeah like they want to do this
and he knows how to do it and they're helping him with the web application and
all that yeah yeah and so great similarly like I would think just anything
that they want to do this is my understanding of it maybe you can correct
me is that part of the idea of the tuition is just if you wanted to start
a business where you're like I want to start selling these things on Etsy here
it's like okay well what would we need to be able to make those things okay
well let's buy this like leather working stuff or whatever it is right so that
they can do it then at the school and that to connect continually build out the
capabilities of what people are able to do there so they could say I have this
idea I want to start doing this and it's like okay well let's figure it out you
know instead of just being like well we don't offer that here so great all right
well next we were gonna talk about the issue that's going on in Eagle Pass
there was a growing wave of migration this is from the Wall Street Journal so
it was so bad that Eagle Pass mayor Rolando Salinas jr. declared a state of
emergency as thousands of migrants are entering daily quote overwhelming the
resources of the federal border agents and the communities only shelter so
total amount in like a week guess how many a hundred thousand not that many
okay ten thousand ten thousand in a week okay I don't know how much it's up to
this year but it's if it's been ten thousand a week must be quite a bit in a
year right it's getting so bad in fact and this is very controversial to some
people but for I'm kind of frustrated because I you know I'm Abbot is busing
governor Abbott's busing some of these people to like New York which I think
is kind of funny and Chicago and I hey listen if you're from New York I'm sorry
but we've been dealing with this border problem for years and we Texas has been
begging for the federal government to do something since Biden has been in office
and he's done zip nada nothing my understanding is that because wasn't it
right before Abbott got reelected he was like we're gonna just enforce our own
border or something like that yeah right but before that I seem to remember maybe
you guys can correct me if I'm just imagining this I thought that Texas all
the while was trying to but that Homeland Security would not allow them
to yeah because in the Constitution the borders are federal government
responsibility and so which to me I'm like there should be some like amendment
there that like comma unless you're a border state because how many of the
states in the country are border states? Those are the only borders that would have anything to do with the federal government?
No what about the one you know like the ocean you should they should be able to
defend you know the federal government can defend those parts but like the ones
that have that that affects the state there should be a caveat there in my
opinion where they go the state well you know this the state should have more
power to defend their own border in my opinion the way that the Constitution is
written and kind of the way that I think everything is set up is with a certain
attitude of conservative for lack of a better word leaning right so the idea
being if you don't have this branch of government and this branch of government
agree on something and thing happens right like it's that is to say that like
whatever is the status quo you should kind of like assume and I would say that
if you have a country at all what that means if you are controlling any border
at all then you're deciding who gets to come in who gets to come in who's a
citizen whatever and so between the federal government and a border state
whoever is the most conservative the most restrictive should win right like
that basically like I agree with you I think that if you're a border state and
there's a certain policy that you should have veto power over that if it's
towards the more conservative direction or saying like no we're not going to
admit like this many people and when I say that it's more conservative and more
and you might even say more traditional or more status quo is you look at any
other country in the entire world and they have tighter borders than the United
States does and like if you want to call that xenophobic then most everybody else
in the world is more xenophobic than the United States that's true because they
say here's the reasons you can come in and if we don't approve you don't get in
and if even if you do get in you you you're never a citizen I have strong
opinion life I have strong opinions on this because I have a daughter who's an
immigrant from Jamaica daughter-in-law from Jamaica and she had to go the long
way to get she's not even a citizen she's got her permanent residency which
took two years to get and these guys I think every immigrant that came here
legally and went through the proper channels probably feels the same way it
is not fair that they these people can just come in and just have all the
benefits that they get who had to pay the price wait in line and so this to me
is not an issue of race or being xenophobic of any sort to me this is
more of an issue of sovereignty law and order if we have a law then we should
keep the law if there are no borders then having a country has no
meaning there is no side that's right yeah because of the way that it affects
our if you want to use the buzzword democracy right even if they don't vote
you know legally or illegally or whatever they're still counted as people
who live in a certain area right so then that state gets more delegates and
whichever way that statement if they're not citizens they're still counted
they're still counted on the census yeah so you can just you know keep on pumping
more and more people into what let's say California so that seems like Abbott
should not be giving New York more people yeah well so it's funny I think
it's kind of I mean I think it's a political thing but just recently I
heard on another podcast that in Williamsburg New York just pretty liberal
area right so they're like typically the type of people that'd be like oh yeah you
know we believe in open borders and amnesty cities or whatever they started
housing migrants in like one of the school gymnasiums and it was a gymnasium
that had just been built and so everybody was kind of looking forward to
it and now they can't use it and nor can they even go out for like recess and
stuff in this area because there's all these like men mostly men migrant men in
this gym that they are able to come and go because they're not in prison there
house them with our children exactly right so it's so they're trying to keep
them separate so then like what do you do oh you build a wall right you've got
to be kidding I think there's a fence right between this like separate building
and the other one those races right and then but and they're pretty upset
they're like we never agreed so they're not upset about the wall no they're
upset about the migrants yeah yeah yeah
in proximity close proximity to the school yeah the kids are all day
without their parents that's what's bothering you yeah crazy right I mean
it's like don't you trust the process come on trust us well it's the problem
here in Texas it's been a problem for a long time I live close not real close to
the border but fairly close to an interstate where they bring people and
dump them off and there's oh there's been a few stories of them being dumped
and they use the word dumped and then they really are they're like maybe that's
not the right word but like they let him go right here in this town and they've
ruined like farms they've like cut open fences they've broken water lines to get
water I mean the desperation that they have of course they're trying to survive
so they'll do whatever it takes to to survive and so but in the process other
people are being affected and they're upset about it and so it's causing a
problem I just read recently about you talked about New York well there's an
article here about Chicago where they're not happy about it I just while you look
for that you know there's a we have a mutual friend who just has terrible luck
with their trucks so they've had cats okay more than one time climb into the
engine and then when and you know they didn't know it and they start the car
and then it ruins the engine and ruins the time yeah it's not great for the cat
either and then another time they had their truck stolen and apparently their
truck is the most popular truck to be stolen what was it an f-150 yeah I think
so and so oftentimes what will happen and I believe it is you know these
people who have like you know they're in probably a pretty desperate situation
yeah that's right so they're good at stealing this particular truck or maybe
this particular truck is good at doing whatever it is they they tend to do steal
or both but one of the things that they do is they steal the truck and then they
know that once they're in pursuit or being pursued I mean by the police that
if they just go off the road and everywhere if you don't live in Texas
everywhere is fenced because it's private property everywhere so they just drive
through fences and then they just ride on people's land you know because
there's a lot of land and then they'll just go until they get like stuck
between two mesquite trees or something and this happened with these friends of
ours truck and so it was stolen and gone and they finally had received a phone
call that had been found and they're like well yeah you can come on down here
and here's your track so they came and it was just mangled with barbed wire
smashed all over the paint I mean everything is just completely comically
totaled and not comically because there's a consequence who pays the
responsibility for that who bears it right you know yeah so okay so here are
in this Chicago article it's the headline is as a number of migrants this
this was the end of August so this is a little bit old but as the end of as the
number of migrants in Chicago tops 13,000 which I'm sure it's more by now
the city struggles to provide housing continues and we're both we all can
relate a little bit to this but here's what's so interesting I am quote I am
absolutely livid livid unquote Doris Lewis yelled at a tense community
meeting in Hyde Park Wednesday Lewis is one of the many Hyde Park residents who
spoke out against the idea of approximately 300 migrants said to move
into Lakeshore hotels early next week quote I don't know where they come from
said Gail Baker another Hyde Park resident I don't know what the
intentions are I don't know the time frame I don't know if this is temporary
if this is long-term so they the residents in Chicago are feeling the
pain of this because I'm sure crime rate is going up I'm sure they are having
the same issue we're having here in Texas as they you know somebody has to
bear the responsibility of having that many people that are not just people but
people having fled their country who probably have massive need you know not
just you know they're relocating they they're needful people they're needy
people who need help from the community even if we just went on a trip you know
to Oklahoma with like nothing but like a backpack or something we'd be pretty
desperate by the time we got to Oklahoma definitely you know yeah so I mean it's
pretty understandable just like all these arguments come into mind you know
it's like well if they're this needy if they're this the need like isn't it our
responsibility as the United States you know shining city on a hill all these
things and I think it's like we need to be real in the sense that you have
borders property lines gates fences doors locks you have all of these things
for a reason and it's because you can't have everybody's problem all the time
you have to pick and choose and decide right like there are so many atrocities
in the world right every country I mean so many countries in the world they have
atrocities and if we just all of a sudden made all of the problems ours I
mean we would cease to have a country right if we took effectively solve any
of them just that it just doesn't come from a lack of I think it's exactly what
you said it's it's about law and order and it's about controlling you know the
aid that we give and I mean my personal opinion on it is that I I like
immigration I think it's great but only if it's if we know exactly who we're
getting if it's all legal like I would even be for increasing the legal amount
and then closing the border completely right yeah I mean closing the unsecured
border right right 100% close that and then just maybe even doubling the legal
you know immigration or whatever just so people have hope that if they wait a
little while and if they go through the system and if they have background
checks or whatever they can do it and then the people that you really don't
want well it makes it very difficult for them to come by because they're the only
ones trying to get over the board it's because because Democrats and Republicans
use it as a political issue they both use it to try to get elected yeah and
that's why it'll never get done because they're not serious about it they're not
they don't care one thing I want our listeners to know I think the biggest
thing is to make sure that the incentives are set up correctly right so
if you are offering free stuff and not allowing them to work those are bad
incentives plus I mean who are politicians you know to like just say hey
I have funds for you well it's like well they're not yours there's people who've
been working you know all the time so you know I'm just saying it would just
be much better and it's much better for the recipients of stuff you know too if
instead they are allowed to work people are healthier and happier if they are
more independent totally that's a that's that's a fact right there that's true
all right so our last thing we're gonna talk about before we end so I want to
pull something from the next or app like I like I promised the beginning of of
this episode some of these things are funny they're comical if you get on here
there's some that are funny I posted one that was funny a few anyways not me
I wasn't talking about mine I was we'll just have to take your word for it
I read one here's one from and by the way if you want to be on our show you
know put something on next door up maybe we'll if it's zingy and fun and like you
know cleverly politically incorrect you will maybe we'll talk about it so today
we're gonna talk about Janice Torres from Great Oaks who said let people vent
that was her post she says it's important to let people vent we need a
place to share our complaints and concerns venting doesn't solve the
problem necessarily but it helps to blow off steam if people have no place to
vent they may take actions that are harmful to themselves and others stop
flagging people's posts if individuals are upset by certain posts let them
block or mute the person yeah I liked what this lady said who commented her
name is Marlene has step from Castroville she said I guess this was
your vent so I have a question for you okay yeah cuz I'm not on that app I
mean I'm not against being on it I just don't like hearing about dogs that so
it's it's other users that are flagging it or it's the platform itself that is
taking taking down I think the platform has hosts in every area
there's hondo next door app Castroville next door divine and so forth and I
think those hosts take it upon themselves to make it the way that they
feel it should be I think it's both no I think it's people flag it just like they
would on Facebook or Instagram or whatever but I also when I tried to post
I just did this is all I said okay I said amen what's the point of these
stupid apps if not the exchange of ideas there's such is there is such a thing as
scrolling and ignoring that was my I agree with that and so when I posted
that the app itself said be kind like you sure you want to say this maybe I'm
sure it is yeah maybe that's why yeah and then I hit send anyway you know but
they're like you sure you want to say this so it's like this weird filter yeah
like double think make you think twice before you post so that's why I don't
know well what do you think about that I mean I think there's a good reason I
mean I can imagine from you know like let's say you own next door right and
you're like well I don't want it to become I don't want it to become an app
where people say oh that's such a cesspool you know what I mean because
that's what they say about Facebook or they should say it's a cesspool for dog
law dog ads last dog found dog do you want a dog next dog I mean you know
obviously it's very useful for the dogs I don't want to get too down on that but
I don't know I think that they but I could see I could see that I could see a
case for that right where you're just like well we we want to make sure that
people get when they get on here they don't feel like a lot of negativity
right and you don't want to be turning people against their neighbors either but
I agree like free free speech should always win out and you know it's like you
could ignore people so well I just don't engage my opinion on it is just what I
said if you don't like it you don't have to react you can keep scrolling right
and that's the thing is a lot of it's not like you have to talk it's weird to
me that it rewards engagement and negative engagement is something that is
rewarded with the all these apps you know yeah just don't engage it's just
funny to me because like if you were having a normal situation where someone
was like talking to someone else and they were saying stuff you didn't like
you'd probably be like you know when they walk away rolling your eyes right
for some reason people act like children normal people do people act like children
when they're on social media and do this tattle-tailing thing it's weird like
yeah why can't you just walk away like you would if you were in person just not
look at it and you know ignore it I don't understand I have this theory that
it takes like it takes everybody a different amount of time but like maybe
like two or three years of being on these apps to real that realize like
these are people you know this isn't just like a computer screen I think
everybody has to like kind of grow up when it comes to that and maybe people
haven't been on long enough upbringing right exactly yeah see I was on Facebook
since 2006 when it first popped up and really used to be the most it was just
like we 13 years old now in your virtual life yeah maybe that's okay no holy
oh wait what year we in 2023 like so what am I 18 17 yeah yeah yeah yeah
smoke oh yeah there are moments there really but what's interesting to me
because it was like to me that was the golden age of the internet before like
from 2000 to about 2006 you could say the n-word on the internet back then you
could without getting flagged I think you could say anything without getting
flagged back then back then yeah yeah well why I think it's the golden age is
there was no there was no none of this big tech power it was kind of big tech
was on the rise but they hadn't they hadn't monopolized yet and so Facebook
was fun because I don't even think Mark Zuckerberg or whoever was on the board
back then even thought about having to censor they were just like here it is
here's this fake book or a Facebook you know whatever it is and then we all just
did what we wanted with it didn't it start out as like you needed a college
like a college address before you like in order to yeah thing back in the day
before they had internet face smash they had the Facebook which was like a year
book of sorts but it was like a directory so had your picture kind of a
bio your phone number and so if you needed to you know you know keep in
touch with a friend or something you would get your Harvard Facebook the
face never my face it was never my face like my space my face I saw it you were
on it I didn't get on it I was too old seen it I was too old but not too old
for Facebook but anyway and then they see nobody's too old perfect I know my
mother's on there love you mom my dad's on there might be too young for Facebook
that's true my kids are they on now primarily then tick-tock or Instagram
yeah I think I'm oldy-foldy I don't know my kids tell me that what if we never
set our ages and we just had people guess okay see how old how old they think
I'm sure that I pretty much yeah so if you have a idea of how old Joe and Emily
are go ahead and post on next door I'm gonna take this first video I'm gonna
post it on next door once we get it edited and I put it up there yeah and
then we'll see what happens with it hopefully people listen we'll see well
that's all I have today Joe Emily
you