1 00:00:01,040 --> 00:00:02,880 I am the chair of the Baum Mound Area Dems, 2 00:00:02,880 --> 00:00:05,520 and I'm going to introduce our co-host, uh Gina Daly 3 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:06,960 from Lantana Dems. 4 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:08,320 We welcome all of you. 5 00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:10,320 Gina, would you like to speak for them? 6 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:13,200 Real quick. 7 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:14,320 Hi, everybody. 8 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:16,240 I'm glad to see all of you all of you 9 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:17,920 are coming out tonight. 10 00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:19,600 It's been a great program. 11 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:29,360 Here you are on the leadership team for the question. 12 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:31,360 There we go. 13 00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:32,240 Okay. 14 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:35,520 So I am one on the leadership team for the 15 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:38,000 Lantana Area Democrats. 16 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:40,720 And I'm so glad to see so many faces here 17 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:41,280 tonight. 18 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:42,880 And I welcome you all here. 19 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:44,480 And it's going to be a great program. 20 00:00:44,480 --> 00:00:45,680 Thank you. 21 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:53,840 I'll give her a minute. 22 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:57,040 And I'm going to go ahead and introduce our candidates 23 00:00:57,040 --> 00:00:57,760 that are here. 24 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,080 They're both here and not here. 25 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:07,840 And Denise Woodman. 26 00:01:07,840 --> 00:01:09,600 She's in the back there. 27 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:15,120 HD 65, we have Dietrich Dubar. 28 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:17,120 I don't know if he's here. 29 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:21,680 HD 106, we have Dale Frey. 30 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:27,520 I don't know if I don't know if Hobbit John. 31 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:29,360 I don't see her. 32 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:30,160 I don't see her. 33 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:30,720 Okay. 34 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:33,760 Running against running for sheriff is Frederick Bishop. 35 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,280 I consider this one of our best opportunities to replace 36 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:38,400 the sheriff. 37 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:41,840 Alright, I'm just going to talk really loud. 38 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:49,640 So and then we also have um all right 39 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:51,040 there we go. 40 00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:53,600 Okay, and running and running against Dan Parker for our 41 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:57,040 Senate District 12 is Stephanie Goldguden Draper. 42 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,280 I don't believe she's here either, but we do have 43 00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:07,800 Jan McDowell from Congress from Congressional District 32. 44 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:11,240 And we have Annette Cook uh who is here for 45 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:12,520 Tommy Bedford. 46 00:02:12,520 --> 00:02:14,680 He is running against Burgess. 47 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:19,960 And he and he and Sandy, she and Sandy Swan 48 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:23,080 have signup sheets, so you know, so they don't have 49 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:24,920 to pay the fee to run. 50 00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:28,280 So if you haven't signed for um for uh the 51 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:33,160 sheriff or for um uh Tommy, then please seek them 52 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,200 out and um stand up, Sandy, so they know who 53 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:37,240 you are. 54 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:38,280 Thanks. 55 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,280 Yes, but please seek them out afterwards. 56 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:45,640 Okay, and um Gillia, do you want to stand up? 57 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:53,640 Hey, good evening, and thank you guys for coming. 58 00:02:53,640 --> 00:02:56,120 We are so excited to hear from the tickets. 59 00:02:56,120 --> 00:03:00,120 Did Tin County is the best Democratic Party in the 60 00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:04,600 DM. 61 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:07,160 Not sure who you're waving at, but they don't come 62 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:07,400 in. 63 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:10,520 I I think Stephanie just walked into the room. 64 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:10,840 Okay. 65 00:03:10,920 --> 00:03:12,200 Wanna wait? 66 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:15,880 This is our candidate against Pam Parker. 67 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:21,800 We're gonna have more luck and okay. 68 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:23,960 So this has been a long time in the making. 69 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:26,200 We the first time we had the we had Chris 70 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,000 Tackett on it right after COVID, it was on a 71 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:29,800 video screen. 72 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:32,280 I think we had like fewer than 10 people. 73 00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:35,160 We've been wanting to bring both Tackets back to come 74 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:36,040 talk to us. 75 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:37,880 U,h just a little bit about them if you don't 76 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:38,920 if you don't know them. 77 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:41,800 Um, Chris Tackett started his activism with the school board 78 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:44,200 as a school board trustee in Granbury. 79 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,760 Um, he was wondering why his representative wasn't doing anything 80 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:49,440 that they wanted the school district to do. 81 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:52,320 So he followed the money, and what he learned about 82 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,720 who's controlling our uh Austin is really frightening and fascinating. 83 00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:58,560 You can't look away, but it's awful. 84 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:02,400 And Mindy has made it her life mission to expose 85 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,920 Christian nationalism and its influence on Texas politics. 86 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:07,760 Both of them have done a lot of research, so 87 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,120 they speak from a place of knowledge and hardcore facts 88 00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:13,120 born of intense investigation. 89 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:14,800 So I want to welcome them. 90 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:23,040 Thank you. 91 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:29,840 Oh, make sure I wouldn't see it. 92 00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:34,640 Maybe, yeah. 93 00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:40,640 All right, so I'm Mindy Tackett, and it's wonderful to 94 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:41,920 see so many of you here. 95 00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:44,320 Thank you for coming out to hear the two of 96 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:44,640 us. 97 00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:47,440 Chris, my husband is here too. 98 00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:51,120 Um so I'm gonna kind of start out with with 99 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:54,960 uh giving you guys some background about how all of 100 00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,520 this started and why we started talking to people. 101 00:04:57,520 --> 00:04:59,200 Um, back in 2014. 102 00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:01,520 Well, let me let me start further back than that. 103 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:03,680 Chris and I both grew up in Granberry. 104 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,120 We graduated high school there, uh, we moved back there 105 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:10,400 in 2008 with our children, and we thought, you know, 106 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:12,880 what a great place to raise our kids. 107 00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:16,320 Our family was there still, and so we were active 108 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:17,280 in the community. 109 00:05:17,280 --> 00:05:20,160 I volunteered with PTO and different things with the school. 110 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:23,520 Chris ran the baseball and softball league for a few 111 00:05:23,520 --> 00:05:27,120 years, and in 2014, he said, I think I'm gonna 112 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:28,240 run for school board. 113 00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:30,840 And I said, I think that's a great idea. 114 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:33,160 So he did run for school board 115 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:37,080 Um it was at that time in 2014, school board 116 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,320 races were still supposed to be nonpartisan, and so he 117 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:45,560 went to all of the local clubs and groups to 118 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:50,440 speak, but he came home after visiting the Republican club 119 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,720 meeting one night, and he said it was the strangest 120 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:54,360 thing. 121 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,720 The gentleman that they had as their key speaker for 122 00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:03,320 the evening said his entire speech was about how conservatives 123 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:05,800 need to take over school boards, and that was back 124 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:09,320 in 2014, and we were both like that is really 125 00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:10,360 odd. 126 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:13,880 We've it's never been partisan like that, we've never heard 127 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:14,920 that before. 128 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:17,080 So that was a red flag for us. 129 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:22,200 Chris won his school board race and yeah, and uh 130 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:23,720 and served. 131 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:28,440 Um, but after he was on the board, we started 132 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:33,640 seeing some just strange things politically happening in 133 00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:37,800 Granberry and Hood County that we hadn't ever seen before. 134 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:42,840 Uh in 2015, there was a mom in town. 135 00:06:42,840 --> 00:06:47,880 Um she raised uh raised concern 136 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:51,320 or wanted to have a book band, a couple of 137 00:06:51,320 --> 00:06:54,440 them, at our public library, not the school library, but 138 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:57,720 the public library, and these were a couple of LGBTQ 139 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:00,280 books that were in the children's section. 140 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:03,200 They were the sweetest little children's books. 141 00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:04,040 The werey picture books. 142 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:05,720 They were right. 143 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:05,440 Right? 144 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:08,680 So that kind of became a thing. 145 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:12,600 We had a rock star librarian uh who is still 146 00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:14,240 a friend of mine today. 147 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:19,200 and And she kind of led the way a lot 148 00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:22,320 of us in town organized, and we went to commissioners' 149 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,640 meetings, and you know, we were successful in keeping those 150 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:29,120 books on the shelves back in 2015. 151 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:32,560 But one of the things that we saw happening was 152 00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:35,360 that some of the loudest voices in town that were 153 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:40,160 coming to the commissioners' meetings to speak out for banning 154 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:43,840 the books were some of the local pastors, faith leaders. 155 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:46,240 And we were like, that's just strange. 156 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:49,920 Like we've never seen that sort of thing happen before. 157 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:57,280 We know Ted's dad, right? 158 00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:57,840 Right. 159 00:07:57,840 --> 00:07:59,120 Ted's dad. 160 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:04,240 Um there were local churches that were getting very involved 161 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:10,240 politically with very distinctive messaging, and it was messaging 162 00:08:10,240 --> 00:08:14,640 that we just hadn't seen or heard before. 163 00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:18,480 And then at that point, too, Chris had served on 164 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:23,760 the board for a while, and the the board 165 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:28,080 would talk to our newly elected house rep at the 166 00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:28,400 time. 167 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:33,440 His name was Mike Lang, and they would speak to 168 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:36,800 the to him about these are things that we would 169 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:40,800 like to see happen for public schools, or where we 170 00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:44,480 would request that you vote against this legislation in Austin 171 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,560 because it's not going to help us as public schools. 172 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:52,560 And every single time he voted the exact opposite of 173 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:55,760 what was being requested of him, or what the board 174 00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:57,440 was communicating. 175 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:01,160 And so at that point, Chris kind of started doing 176 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:02,760 a little research. 177 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:05,080 Yeah, and before I started doing the research, I wanted 178 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:07,000 to touch on one or two other things that were 179 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,120 happening in the community while I was serving on the 180 00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:11,320 board. 181 00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:14,760 And again, school board had been nonpartisan, right? 182 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:17,240 Had been this thing that you served because you wanted 183 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:21,160 to serve your community, not advance an ideology. 184 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:26,040 And the local pastor council started taking out ads in 185 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:31,240 the 2015 election before the 2016 election, saying 186 00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:34,120 in the in the local paper, saying they were looking 187 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:37,480 for conservative Christians to run for school board that could 188 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:41,640 expouse these certain ideals and bring them to the board. 189 00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:43,720 And it was shocking to us. 190 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:45,880 Dave Welch from the U.S. 191 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:50,200 Pastor Council was coming to town and advising the local 192 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:54,520 chamber of commerce on how to carry certain things forward. 193 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:09,720 Right? 194 00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:13,480 And again, at this point, I think we've all seen 195 00:10:13,480 --> 00:10:17,160 that happening across our communities. 196 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:25,880 This was just shocking to us because it was just 197 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:29,400 antithetical to what we thought all of this was supposed 198 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:33,320 to be and where we thought we were moving as 199 00:10:33,560 --> 00:10:36,440 a community and a country, right? 200 00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:39,320 This is not the direction we're supposed to be going. 201 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:44,800 So when Lange started voting against public education every 202 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:50,160 single time, and he was telling 203 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:54,000 us, oh, I'm pro public ed, right? 204 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:55,600 It was like, why? 205 00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:58,720 Help me understand why this guy would be doing that. 206 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,280 And I did the only thing I knew to do, 207 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,560 which was dive into the Texas Ethics Commission and start 208 00:11:04,560 --> 00:11:06,880 pulling campaign finance reports. 209 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:08,800 Because the only thing I could come up with is 210 00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:10,240 it's gotta be money. 211 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:12,560 Money has to be the reason why we're not being 212 00:11:12,560 --> 00:11:13,600 listened to. 213 00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:16,240 And Mike Lang was newly elected, right? 214 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:18,960 Elected for the first time in 2016. 215 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,720 And when I pulled his first chart, you see some 216 00:11:22,720 --> 00:11:25,200 big numbers, and if you've been to the Texas Ethics 217 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:28,640 Commission and tried to pull those reports, um, they're not 218 00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:32,720 overly user friendly, they're basically Excel or CSV files, which 219 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:34,000 are Excel files. 220 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:35,520 I love Excel. 221 00:11:35,520 --> 00:11:36,880 I geek out on it. 222 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:39,760 I like my pivot tables and all those things. 223 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:44,960 Um but it's hard to start to pull the information 224 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:48,560 together because every single one of those reports, every time 225 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:51,040 they have to file, it's a separate file. 226 00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:54,240 It doesn't consolidate it easily for you to be able 227 00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:56,240 to see patterns. 228 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:07,120 And I I I showed it, I saw big numbers 229 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:09,760 and I freaked out, and I showed Mindy and I 230 00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:14,480 was like, okay, because I'm not a spreadsheet person. 231 00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:16,880 So it was just rows and rows and rows of 232 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,920 data, and she was like, eh, do something different. 233 00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:21,680 I can't tell what this is showing me. 234 00:12:21,680 --> 00:12:23,440 And so I made a pie chart. 235 00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:25,360 And then I was excited. 236 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:27,760 Yeah, see? 237 00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:32,680 And all of a sudden, that pie chart showed that 238 00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:35,480 when all of the money that had gone into this 239 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:39,960 guy, there were three big slices that made up basically 240 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:44,760 75% of the total money that this guy had taken 241 00:12:44,760 --> 00:12:46,920 into his race. 242 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:50,920 And we were, I mean, we were talking like $400,000, 243 00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:51,400 right? 244 00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:53,400 Was the the numbers he had taken in in his 245 00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:55,640 2016 election set? 246 00:12:55,640 --> 00:13:00,440 And like 300,000 came from what looked like three people. 247 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:03,160 And when I looked at those names, and again, I 248 00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:05,880 hadn't been political, I hadn't paid attention to what was 249 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:06,680 going on. 250 00:13:06,680 --> 00:13:10,840 The biggest slice belonged to a gentleman named Ferris Wilkes. 251 00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:12,520 Right? 252 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:16,040 Fracking billionaire from Cisco, Texas. 253 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:19,640 The next biggest slice was this group that I had 254 00:13:19,640 --> 00:13:22,280 never heard of called Empower Texans. 255 00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:33,080 And so 75% was coming from those three at that 256 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:36,440 point, I thought unrelated individuals. 257 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:50,360 Because that's who's making sure he gets reelected. 258 00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:52,840 So I took my new fancy pie chart and I 259 00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:55,160 posted it on Facebook because that's what you do when 260 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:57,320 you find cool things, or at least that's what you 261 00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:00,360 did in 2016, 2017, right? 262 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:04,920 And talked about it. 263 00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,640 And I put it on Twitter and other places, and 264 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:11,560 people around the state were like, okay, the thing you're 265 00:14:11,560 --> 00:14:14,440 talking about that you saw with your rep, the not 266 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,840 hearing.ing you at all, I'm see that too 267 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,280 Can you make a pie chart for me? 268 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:23,040 So I did it. 269 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:26,240 I started doing them for people and races all over 270 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:27,200 the state. 271 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:29,040 And it got to where it was like, okay, I've 272 00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:31,760 got to get out of Excel because this is this 273 00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:32,960 is killing me. 274 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:38,000 Um and migrated, and then I took on the incredibly 275 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,760 stupid and challenging thing of at this point, and I'm 276 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:44,800 still doing it today, um, so whatever I'm talking about, 277 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:47,120 you can you can absolutely go find it. 278 00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:52,000 Um, I ripped the entire Texas Ethics Commission database, and 279 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,960 I drop it into a website that makes pie charts 280 00:14:55,920 --> 00:15:00,320 for like every single state level race. 281 00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:03,680 Um you can you can get to it. 282 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,560 Um the website I had been using was uh Chris 283 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:08,800 Hackettnow.com. 284 00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:10,240 It still gets you there. 285 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:12,160 It's not the most pretty site. 286 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:14,960 Um and I'll I'll talk about another way you can 287 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:17,360 get there that has even more cool information among other 288 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:20,240 things we're gonna talk about uh in just a little 289 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:20,960 bit. 290 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:26,960 But when you start to pull all the money, 291 00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:30,560 or at least money from races all over the state, 292 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:33,520 now the real patterns start to show up. 293 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,560 All of a sudden, this gentleman Ferris Wilkes, this pack 294 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,960 empowered Texans, and this gentleman Tim Dunn, you start to 295 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:43,440 see them show up on a whole bunch of other 296 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:46,400 people's pie charts. 297 00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:49,280 And when you start to then consolidate where are all 298 00:15:49,280 --> 00:15:54,400 these people going, you realize, okay, Wilkes and Dunn 299 00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:58,000 were the primary donors to empower Texans, right? 300 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:02,200 And so those were really all the same ideology pushing 301 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:02,680 things. 302 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:05,080 And then it's like, well, where else are Wilkes and 303 00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:06,200 Dunn giving? 304 00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:09,400 And you start to find all these other political action 305 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:13,960 committees that they're the primary funders for, giving millions of 306 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:14,760 dollars. 307 00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:19,960 Texas Right to Life, Texas Homeschool Coalition, Texans for Fiscal 308 00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:22,440 Responsibility. 309 00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:29,960 I mean, literally all of this whole entire web of 310 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:31,560 political action committees. 311 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:35,080 And we've all, when we go through an election season, 312 00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:39,880 you know the way your mailbox and your Facebook feed 313 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,440 and Twitter feed and everything else just gets inundated with 314 00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:43,720 political ads, right? 315 00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:47,560 You may be getting six, eight, ten, twelve mailers a 316 00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:49,480 day showing up. 317 00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:53,160 And you people, you're all you're on it, right? 318 00:16:53,160 --> 00:16:55,400 You know who the good ones are and who the 319 00:16:55,400 --> 00:16:58,680 folks that are like, yeah, I'm never gonna support them. 320 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:02,200 But there's a ton of low information voters out there 321 00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:07,400 who will hear the name over and over. 322 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:09,880 And if it was only coming from the candidate every 323 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:12,200 time saying, hey, vote for me, vote for me, they 324 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:13,800 might go. 325 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:18,280 But when you see six, eight, ten different groups all 326 00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:22,600 endorsing the same candidate, you go, well, there must be 327 00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:23,960 something here, right? 328 00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,160 And so maybe you tip into I'm willing to listen, 329 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:29,160 I'm willing to vote that way. 330 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:31,000 And that's what was happening, right? 331 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:37,240 They were taking what was a handful of billionaire oligarchs, 332 00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:42,440 were creating this web of not only political action committees, 333 00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,600 but also nonprofit organizations that they would sit on the 334 00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:49,680 board of that they were also influencing who were also 335 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,800 sending email, not about candidates but about issues, and it's 336 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:55,840 the same issues that the candidates were pushing, and that's 337 00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:58,320 all dark money because it doesn't actually get reported to 338 00:17:58,320 --> 00:17:59,600 the candidate. 339 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,640 So it makes it look like it's grassroots, and it's 340 00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,800 not grassroots at all. 341 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,640 It's a handful of voices creating astro turf, right? 342 00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:12,240 That's truly what was happening. 343 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:16,400 And look, the good news is we started making a 344 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:20,160 lot of noise about Empowered Texans and Wilkes and Dunn. 345 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,560 Not just us, but people across the people in general, 346 00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:22,880 right? 347 00:18:23,360 --> 00:18:25,360 We were a tiny bit of the noise, right? 348 00:18:25,360 --> 00:18:27,520 But I mean, other people started talking about it. 349 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:31,680 And in the 2018 elections, empowered Texans got their clock 350 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:32,960 cleaned, right? 351 00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:35,600 I mean, they lost and lost bad in almost every 352 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:36,320 election. 353 00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:40,320 And we thought they're done, right? 354 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:42,720 Because I mean, if you're if you're in this game 355 00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:46,160 for money and power, and you lose a lot of 356 00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:48,960 your money and you don't grab the power you want, 357 00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:51,360 at some point you push, you step away from the 358 00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:52,240 table, right? 359 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:54,720 And you say, I'm done. 360 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:57,440 And a lot of us were wondering will they be 361 00:18:57,440 --> 00:18:58,160 done? 362 00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:02,160 And then Mindy started digging a little further. 363 00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:07,440 So I was well, Chris mentioned that Raphael Cruz was 364 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:08,160 coming to town. 365 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:10,240 We had Dave Welch, who was the U.S. 366 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:13,920 Pastor Council uh leader go come to town. 367 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:18,560 Um, we had some local churches giving some pretty questionable, 368 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:22,720 in our opinion, sermons, um, going into like Seven Mountains 369 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:24,240 Dominionism and whatnot. 370 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:27,760 And I was listening to these sermons that Raphael Cruz 371 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:31,800 was giving in town, and he was telling the congregations 372 00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:34,760 that separation of church and state is a myth. 373 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:39,560 He was telling people that public schools were indoctrinating children. 374 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,680 He was just, you know, putting out all this nonsensical 375 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:50,200 uh information, and so then we also began 376 00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,960 to see, aside from what was happening locally, we started 377 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:58,360 to see some bills popping up that were y'all remember 378 00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:03,160 we saw we saw the bathroom bill, the the CRT 379 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,840 stuff, you know, as of late had had popped up. 380 00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:12,200 Um we had all these attacks on public educators beginning 381 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:13,320 to creep up. 382 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,360 There was the In God We Trust bill that came 383 00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:20,440 up the first time, and Chris and I knew from 384 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,240 some of the research we had started doing based on 385 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:26,440 what we were seeing happening locally, that that in God 386 00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:28,920 We Trust bill was part of what's called it's a 387 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,760 it's a it's a bill mill playbook basically called Project 388 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:35,320 Blitz, and we knew as soon as we saw it 389 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:37,080 that straight for Project Blitz. 390 00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:38,920 And if you looked at the bill that was filed 391 00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,480 in Austin and you looked at what was written by 392 00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:44,680 Project the folks who do Project Blitz who are not 393 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:47,880 right here in Texas necessarily, it was word for word 394 00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:49,400 verbatim. 395 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:54,040 So we made copies and drove to Austin and of 396 00:20:54,280 --> 00:20:57,400 you know of the Project Blitz playbook, and we went 397 00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:00,120 to Austin and we didn't get to meet with legislators 398 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:02,760 themselves, but we met with a lot of their staff 399 00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:05,960 members, and nobody knew what we were talking about. 400 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:10,200 We could have shown up from Mars and been equally 401 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:13,960 as you know understood. 402 00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:16,320 And I'm sure as we met with some of the 403 00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:20,880 staff and were like talking about this is Christian nationalism, 404 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:25,440 this is this playbook that's trying to again push an 405 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:29,200 ideology across 50 states. 406 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:32,160 They thought we were from Mars, right? 407 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,440 I mean, this idea that what are you talking about? 408 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:35,920 Right. 409 00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:39,680 And so anyway, we we had been watching these things 410 00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:44,000 happen locally, statewide, and we were we were digging everywhere 411 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,840 and reading everything we could to figure out what is 412 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:49,280 this that we're seeing, right? 413 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,000 And we did know at that point this is Christian 414 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,200 nationalism. 415 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,880 Um so to kind of stop right there, the first 416 00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:58,960 thing I want to do is give a disclaimer as 417 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:01,120 we talk about Christian nationalism. 418 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,840 Christian nationalism does not represent all Christians, it does not 419 00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:11,120 represent all churches, and it doesn't represent probably anyone 420 00:22:11,120 --> 00:22:12,080 in this audience. 421 00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:14,880 So that is nothing personal when we talk about Christian 422 00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:18,480 nationalism, it's not representative of Christianity. 423 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:20,720 So we always want to be sure that we're saying 424 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:24,880 that so everybody understands and doesn't misunderstand what we're talking 425 00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:25,520 about. 426 00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:29,200 Um I'm gonna give you the definition that Amanda Tyler 427 00:22:29,360 --> 00:22:29,760 uses. 428 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:33,760 She's with uh the BJC and Christians Against Christian Nationalism. 429 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,440 If you're not familiar with their organization, um, I would 430 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,200 highly recommend you look them up online, they have invaluable 431 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:41,840 information. 432 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:46,400 And Amanda is here in Texas now as their head 433 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:50,400 organizer, she's been in DC, but at any rate, um, 434 00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:55,120 her working definition of Christian nationalism is it is a 435 00:22:55,120 --> 00:23:00,280 political ideology and a cultural framework that seek 436 00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:04,280 to merge Christian and American identity. 437 00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:09,080 In other words, Christian nationalists believe that if you're gonna 438 00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:12,600 be a good American, you have to be the right 439 00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,480 kind of Christian with a certain kind of Christian ideology 440 00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:16,680 and outlook, right? 441 00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,400 Some very narrow-minded thinking. 442 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:24,120 If you're gonna be a good Christian, you need to 443 00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:28,360 hold certain political views that align with these super conservative, 444 00:23:28,360 --> 00:23:30,920 very narrow views, right? 445 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:35,960 Christian nationalism also seeks to elevate and privilege Christianity 446 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,240 over all other faith traditions, or those who are, you 447 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:42,600 know, or nuns, those who who don't subscribe, subscribe to 448 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:44,280 a faith tradition. 449 00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:48,440 So the whole idea of Christian nationalism is that you 450 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:53,000 know you're basing laws and policy, and your elected officials 451 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,600 are all coming out of this very specific and narrow 452 00:23:56,840 --> 00:24:01,880 Christian ideology that also plays into the political realm. 453 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:06,280 And that's just not that's not American, that's not democracy, 454 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,120 that's not what we do. 455 00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:13,720 That doesn't, our our constitution speaks very plainly to the 456 00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,680 contrary, that that's not what we do. 457 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,360 Um so, as you know, I was going to some 458 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:22,840 of these voter engagement events. 459 00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:26,840 Um, I was listening very closely, and then Chris and 460 00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,360 I just began to try to, between the money and 461 00:24:30,360 --> 00:24:33,240 the information that we had gained from experts that have 462 00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,880 been studying this for a really long time, um, amazing 463 00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:39,000 people. 464 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,840 We were trying to do everything we could to jump 465 00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,160 up and down, wave our hands., and make as much 466 00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,600 noise as we could because we knew this is happening 467 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:50,240 in Texas 468 00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:54,960 It's happening in local communities and it's happening statewide. 469 00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,400 And one of the areas that we saw the evidence 470 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:02,560 the most was in public education, the attacks on public 471 00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:03,200 education. 472 00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:07,200 And we we advocate a lot for public education. 473 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:11,280 There's a lot of issues that go into Christian nationalism, 474 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,560 but we do a lot of focus on public ed. 475 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,000 And we have seen, I mentioned while ago, we had 476 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,760 seen all of these different kinds of bills popping up, 477 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:25,360 and the folks on the far right, and the Wilkes 478 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:29,360 and Tim Dunn and multiple other people who are in 479 00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:35,040 their realm of donors subscribe to Christian nationalist 480 00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:40,320 ideology, and that's what they seek to that's that's 481 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,800 what they want for our entire state. 482 00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:48,880 And we could we could see that the money was 483 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,480 translating to a tax on public education. 484 00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,480 They started with bathroom bills, they were they were bad-mouthing 485 00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:57,600 teachers. 486 00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:01,760 We got the bathroom bills and the the initial transgender 487 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:02,960 bills didn't work. 488 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,760 They went to CRT scare, right? 489 00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,200 And and said, you know, history's being taught wrong, and 490 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:10,320 so on and so forth. 491 00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:12,960 And now we're at library books. 492 00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,400 And you know, we ended up with a library book 493 00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,640 situation in our public school in Granbury ISD as well 494 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:21,840 last year. 495 00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:26,000 But um the public education part of it is really 496 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,560 important, and it's one of the areas that you can 497 00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,280 see the most evidence. in the state of Texas because 498 00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:33,800 they want vouchers 499 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,280 And I'm I'm I'm wearing my shirt tonight on ventures, 500 00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,600 so we'll we'll touch on that in a minute. 501 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:47,080 But yeah, the attack on public education hits close to 502 00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:47,640 us, right? 503 00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,040 I mean, I served on the school board in the 504 00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,400 public school system, we were both public school kids. 505 00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,360 Our families taught in public school. 506 00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,080 So I mean, it's this idea that it is the 507 00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:01,320 foundation of our democracy, right? 508 00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:06,600 This is where any kid from anywhere can go to 509 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:11,160 a public school, get not only an education, but learn 510 00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,720 how to be a good human with others who are 511 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,560 different to learn how to be successful out in the 512 00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,480 world, right? 513 00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:28,040 There is a huge cultural element where you have to 514 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:33,160 learn how to deal with difference, and when you 515 00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:38,200 think about public schools broadly, there's been disinformation 516 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,480 campaigns about the effectiveness of public schools that have gone 517 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,080 on for generations, right? 518 00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:44,680 And public schools aren't perfect, right? 519 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,000 I'm not I'm not gonna say that you know, up 520 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,040 front, they're not perfect. 521 00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,920 There's things we should be doing to make them better 522 00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,040 and continue to work. 523 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,040 And when you poll nationally and you ask people what 524 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,360 do you think of public education, right? 525 00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:03,560 Are you is it favorable, unfavorable, whatever? 526 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:08,200 It's usually polling favorable in the mid 40s, right? 527 00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:10,520 That's the number you see when you talk about public 528 00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,400 education at large. 529 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:15,760 But then when you ask the question about what do 530 00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,800 you think about your kids' school, right? 531 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:24,000 Your local district, all of a sudden that number historically 532 00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,880 jumps up into the high 70s, low 80s favorable. 533 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:34,080 So this idea of they're failing, it's this broad narrative 534 00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:34,800 that's out there. 535 00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,240 It's not my school because I know my school. 536 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,440 I know how great the teachers are that my kids 537 00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:42,400 are dealing with. 538 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,760 I've gone to those parent-teacher conferences, I've been on the 539 00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:46,880 PTO. 540 00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,520 We know there's no indoctrination in our school. 541 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:51,840 We know, you know, we know these people, we see 542 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,240 them in our community, they're good folks. 543 00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,360 We believe in our public schools. 544 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:02,480 So when you think about vouchers in Texas, 545 00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:09,200 when your goal is to gut the public education system, 546 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,760 when you see polling up in the high 70s, low 547 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,760 80s for public schools, it's hard to convince people to 548 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,920 say we need to blow it up, that we need 549 00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,240 to go do something different. 550 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,360 So, what do you do to make those numbers go 551 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,520 down? 552 00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:32,800 You gaslight, you push propaganda, you force this narrative 553 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:35,120 that schools are scary places. 554 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:36,960 And you underfund them. 555 00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:39,840 You did that too, right? 556 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,200 All and and all of that becomes almost a doom 557 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:44,400 loop, right? 558 00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,880 It's this perpetual cycle of well, they're failing because of 559 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,720 this, and it's because we're not doing these things, or 560 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,240 we're creating this situation where they can't succeed, so now 561 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,520 the next scary thing happens, or you start claiming there's 562 00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,880 porn in libraries and teachers are trying to indoctrinate kids 563 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:09,160 and Marxism and anti or LGBTQ agendas 564 00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:10,680 and all these things, right? 565 00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:15,400 And then when you're underfunding and you're not paying teachers 566 00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,720 what they're worth, right, and the great ones start to 567 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:25,240 leave the profession, and now it's this 568 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,880 again, it's this doom loop of where you're at. 569 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,320 And now all of a sudden that high 70, low 570 00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,320 80 number starts to in the community come down a 571 00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:35,720 little bit. 572 00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,800 People who've always been in favor of public education start 573 00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,720 to say, maybe if I had an option, I'd go 574 00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:45,800 somewhere else, right? 575 00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:49,560 That's what these folks are banking on as we're in 576 00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:54,360 our fourth special session talking about vouchers right now. 577 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,560 And the reality is when you talk about vouchers, you 578 00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,680 have to understand the root of where vouchers are really 579 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,000 coming from, right? 580 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,400 In 1954, Brown v. 581 00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,480 Board of Education came down from the Supreme Court desegregating 582 00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,240 schools. 583 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:16,280 Immediately after that, Milton Friedman, 584 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:21,400 noted economist, right, starts advocating that maybe 585 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,520 we need to take you know the public money out 586 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,000 of public schools and just give it to parents in 587 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,160 the forms of vouchers so that they can take money 588 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,400 and go to the school of their choice. 589 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,880 And he acknowledged in 1955 that Brown B 590 00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,400 Board had occurred recently and said, you know, if we 591 00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,400 give them all their money and they end up with 592 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:50,240 all white schools, that's their choice, and that's okay. 593 00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:52,640 If they're going to religious schools, that's okay. 594 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,160 We'll let the market decide. 595 00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:59,360 And if people are really against segregated schools, then the 596 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,520 market will adjust and we'll have desegregated schools. 597 00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,720 That's when the voucher push started. 598 00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:12,160 Segregation academies popped up all over the South and persisted 599 00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,400 for decades. 600 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:19,440 And it was so much of it was about race 601 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,280 and racism. 602 00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:26,320 It was also about religion and the desire to 603 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:31,120 indoctrinate kids, to do the thing they're accusing public schools 604 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,000 of doing is really their agenda. 605 00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,880 And then the other element in all of this, it's 606 00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:40,560 the money, right? 607 00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:42,720 Somebody's making a profit. 608 00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,400 So when we think about and you follow the money, 609 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,520 right, and you you start to look at all of 610 00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:54,160 the people who are funding the agenda against our public 611 00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:58,880 schools, and they're the same ones driving the agenda against 612 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:00,880 the LGBTQ community. 613 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:05,520 They're the same ones driving the agenda trying to create 614 00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,000 this narrative about illegal immigration. 615 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:12,160 They're the same ones driving the agenda, trying to continue 616 00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:13,840 to erode choice. 617 00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,160 Not that there's much choice left, right? 618 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:17,280 With with where we're at. 619 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:19,600 They love national bands, right? 620 00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:21,840 The same people, when you start to look at the 621 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:26,400 money behind it, it's the same people driving all of 622 00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,920 these things, driving this same broad ideology. 623 00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,440 But when you look at the individual billionaire and the 624 00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,760 individual oligarch, those pushing into the voucher space, and it's 625 00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,640 it's Wilkes and it's Dunn, and it's people like Richard 626 00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:43,640 Weakley, uh, who runs Texans for Lawsuit Reform and some 627 00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:45,000 of his cronies, I mean H. 628 00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,720 Ross Perot plays in some of these places and things 629 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:48,440 like that. 630 00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:53,560 The individual billionaire may hit one, two, or 631 00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:56,520 all three of these buckets I've got on my shirt 632 00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:01,000 and my shirts, vouchers, their choice since 1954. 633 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,560 Because it is, right? 634 00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:09,240 It's the desire to segregate, indoctrinate, or line somebody's 635 00:34:09,240 --> 00:34:10,200 pockets. 636 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,080 That's why they're pushing vouchers. 637 00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:19,240 Now, individual parents will make decisions for vouchers on 638 00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:20,920 their individual circumstance. 639 00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,960 So when I'm talking about vouchers, I'm not talking about 640 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,760 the people who take them necessarily, but it's more about 641 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:31,560 those who are driving that agenda of their necessary. 642 00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:47,320 Which the Texas Public Policy Foundation is affiliated with the 643 00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,040 broader Coke network of things, right? 644 00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:51,960 And they're a policy shop. 645 00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,160 So when Wilkes and Dunn were trying to get people 646 00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,440 elected with Empower Texans and all their money, um, they 647 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,080 were counting on the Texas Public Policy Foundation to write 648 00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,560 the policies that they would try and pass, right? 649 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,040 Oh, and by the way, um, Tim Dunn is the 650 00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,000 vice chairman of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and has 651 00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:10,520 been since 2008. 652 00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:17,520 But in 2021,, Kevin Roberts wrote a letter a fundraising 653 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,640 letter that spelled out what the agenda was going to 654 00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,400 be against public schools in this next election and the 655 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,320 next legislative cycle. 656 00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,480 Talked about the Marxism that was taking over our schools, 657 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:35,840 talked about the LGBTQ agenda, the broad indoctrination 658 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,040 and Marxism that was happening every single day in our 659 00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:44,080 classrooms, and the need to elect people who 660 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:49,600 would allow this educational freedom to occur 661 00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:54,960 so that those poor kids could escape all of that. 662 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:55,440 Right? 663 00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:56,320 Vouchers.