Latest / The People's News / Historic Strike in Houston Continues; Republicans Scapegoat Trans People; Remembering Redford - TPN 9/28/25

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Historic Strike in Houston Continues; Republicans Scapegoat Trans People; Remembering Redford - TPN 9/28/25 · The People's News

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the week of September twenty eighth, twenty twenty five,
0:06
Speaker 1: and this is what's on the people's news. Another execution
0:12
Speaker 1: in Texas. Striking workers continue their battle with a downtown hotel.
0:20
Speaker 1: The same old target for the Republican Party gets trotted
0:23
Speaker 1: out again. Trans people get the blame again. Terror County
0:29
Speaker 1: judge has a temper tantrum. Another legend lost as film
0:34
Speaker 1: star and philanthropist Robert Redford dies. All that and more
0:38
Speaker 1: on the People's News. I'm Steve Gallington. This is the
0:42
Speaker 1: people's News, and the people's News starts now. The strike
0:52
Speaker 1: of Houston Hotel workers continues at the Hilton America's hotel
0:56
Speaker 1: in downtown Houston. More workers are joining the fight for
0:59
Speaker 1: higher weight and respect, with the lowest paid workers earning
1:04
Speaker 1: an hourly wage of only sixteen dollars an hour. Convention
1:07
Speaker 1: center workers will be calling for a living wage of
1:09
Speaker 1: at least twenty three dollars an hour as the cost
1:12
Speaker 1: of living in Houston remains on the rise. Fellow union
1:16
Speaker 1: members joined the striking workers this week at a protest
1:20
Speaker 1: at Houston City Hall to bring to focus the ongoing
1:24
Speaker 1: strike and the lack of a contract being brought to
1:27
Speaker 1: the table. The City of Houston owns the hotel, but
1:30
Speaker 1: contracts out the operating of the hotel to a secondary company.
1:35
Speaker 1: Unite twenty three, the organization that represents the striking workers,
1:39
Speaker 1: say that they're not being taken very seriously even though
1:43
Speaker 1: the hotel is looking to make billions on the upcoming
1:46
Speaker 1: FIFA World Cup coming to Houston. We talked to Francesca Cabalo,
1:51
Speaker 1: Texas Chapter president of Unite here Local twenty three.
1:54
Speaker 2: Well, we're still out here. This is day twenty three
1:58
Speaker 2: of the strike. We announced last Friday that we're extending
2:01
Speaker 2: the strike for three more weeks until October twelfth. So
2:07
Speaker 2: the workers are still hanging in there, still holding strong,
2:10
Speaker 2: you know, to fight for what they deserve.
2:13
Speaker 3: What is uh, what's what's management saying right now? Uh?
2:17
Speaker 2: Well, we know, I mean the Hilton is definitely feeling pressure.
2:19
Speaker 2: I know there's conversations happening this week. Don't have any
2:22
Speaker 2: real update right at the moment, but you know, we're
2:26
Speaker 2: planning to go to city Hall tomorrow, you know, to
2:31
Speaker 2: continue the pressure on the city and on Houston first.
2:35
Speaker 2: Who are the owners of the hotel? So you know,
2:38
Speaker 2: we still were sticking to our plans and continue to
2:41
Speaker 2: to uh you know, mount the pressure so that Hilton,
2:45
Speaker 2: you know, comes to the table with a real offer.
2:49
Speaker 3: Is the branding name Hilton, are they is the company
2:53
Speaker 3: itself Hilton seeing anything?
2:56
Speaker 4: Uh, there hasn't been any meaningful movement in bar gonnaing
3:00
Speaker 4: as of yet as far as the wages to go.
3:03
Speaker 4: So as of right now, you know, things still stand
3:05
Speaker 4: the same, you know, which is why you know, we
3:10
Speaker 4: are planning to go to city Hall tomorrow, you know,
3:14
Speaker 4: so it's sort of announced like any upbates we might have,
3:18
Speaker 4: like like you mentioned, know this this conversation is happening,
3:21
Speaker 4: but you know, we have not you know, been able
3:23
Speaker 4: to sort of get what those specific updates are at
3:26
Speaker 4: the moment.
3:27
Speaker 3: The city said they we're gonna do there, We're gonna
3:30
Speaker 3: especially the mayor said he was going to try to
3:33
Speaker 3: put more pressure on the company to settle just just
3:36
Speaker 3: wage dispute. Has that done anything?
3:41
Speaker 2: Well? The mayor did postpone his State of the City
3:43
Speaker 2: address which was supposed to be happening this week, So
3:47
Speaker 2: that's kind of like, you know, that speaks louder than
3:50
Speaker 2: than words, right, so incited the the Negoshta ongoing negotiations here,
3:57
Speaker 2: so we definitely see that as a form of pressure
4:00
Speaker 2: from the city to the company.
4:03
Speaker 3: Has it been I know, I know you say that
4:06
Speaker 3: the workers are strong. How long can they come?
4:11
Speaker 2: I mean as long as it takes. Right now, this
4:13
Speaker 2: latest extension is until October twelfth, you know, worker, of course,
4:19
Speaker 2: it's a sacrifice. You know, we are you know, we're tired,
4:23
Speaker 2: but you know, the you know, the workers have the
4:27
Speaker 2: drive to keep going because, I mean, the way things
4:30
Speaker 2: are going here in Houston, the way the economy is going,
4:32
Speaker 2: workers cannot afford to, you know, just accept whatever men
4:37
Speaker 2: you offer that the company has put on the table
4:39
Speaker 2: thus far. So you know, despite being tired and frustrated,
4:43
Speaker 2: workers are still holding strong and because they know that
4:46
Speaker 2: this is the right thing to do, and they know
4:47
Speaker 2: that this is what it takes to win you know,
4:49
Speaker 2: the life changing wages and proposals that we are fighting for.
4:54
Speaker 4: And then I'll just add that, you know, the workers
4:56
Speaker 4: have been struggling much longer, you know, than this strike
4:59
Speaker 4: you know, has has gone on. So it's a much
5:02
Speaker 4: you know, it's a sacrifice, but you know the gain
5:05
Speaker 4: and the long run is gonna be much greater. And
5:08
Speaker 4: you don't have a great outcome on them where can.
5:12
Speaker 3: Of course, you guys are still taking donations and you
5:14
Speaker 3: give it that ways of donating time and listen.
5:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, we have a strike fund, We have a
5:23
Speaker 2: go fund meme that's on our like social media pages,
5:27
Speaker 2: and we've received a lot of support from the community
5:29
Speaker 2: and like other unions, which has been amazing. But you know,
5:33
Speaker 2: with this, with this extension, you know, it wasn't something
5:36
Speaker 2: that was planned ahead of time. So like any donation
5:40
Speaker 2: really counts, and it's going straight to the workers so
5:42
Speaker 2: that they can you know, take care of what they
5:45
Speaker 2: need financially, but also stay focused on the fight, you know,
5:49
Speaker 2: and and stay on the picket line. So any donations
5:53
Speaker 2: and contribution is a big help to us.
5:56
Speaker 3: Can you have you seen any signs of a company
6:00
Speaker 3: failing to meet their obligations as far as the work
6:04
Speaker 3: that needs to be done, well.
6:06
Speaker 2: I mean just the fact that these groups have been
6:09
Speaker 2: like postponing and you know, canceling their events obviously that
6:13
Speaker 2: that definitely hurts the pocketbook of the company and these companies,
6:16
Speaker 2: I mean these groups you know saying straight up it's
6:20
Speaker 2: because they're not going to cross the picket line. Or
6:22
Speaker 2: they don't want to deal with the labor dispute, you know.
6:24
Speaker 2: So obviously the company is feeling financially hurt by that.
6:29
Speaker 2: And we know we have workers out here on strike
6:32
Speaker 2: that have been working for the hotel for twenty years,
6:34
Speaker 2: you know, so they can try and bring in you know,
6:37
Speaker 2: temporary employees things like that, but it's never going to
6:40
Speaker 2: be the same quality, right as the workers that have
6:42
Speaker 2: put you know, so many years of their life into
6:45
Speaker 2: the into the company. So of course, of course it's
6:48
Speaker 2: not the same.
6:50
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna say, and again, you're getting support from
6:52
Speaker 3: a lot of the local unions and national unions. Great, yes,
6:57
Speaker 3: and how's that? How has that been a bit of
6:59
Speaker 3: fit to the worker as far as the emotionally, No,
7:04
Speaker 3: it's been great.
7:05
Speaker 2: I mean we've had so many union members from other
7:09
Speaker 2: unions and other leadership from other unions come out to
7:12
Speaker 2: the picket line to come out and give talks to
7:14
Speaker 2: the workers and just sit and get to know the workers,
7:17
Speaker 2: and that that's a boost. This is a morale boost
7:19
Speaker 2: for sure for the workers. This is the first hotel
7:22
Speaker 2: strike in Texas history, so it's something historic and the
7:26
Speaker 2: community and other union leaderships and memberships have been coming
7:29
Speaker 2: out and so the workers definitely feel supported and appreciated. So,
7:34
Speaker 2: you know, with this extension, we you know, we welcome
7:37
Speaker 2: that and we hope to see more because it's not
7:40
Speaker 2: easy what the workers are doing, but any boost of
7:43
Speaker 2: morale like that, it's really important to the workers to
7:48
Speaker 2: know that they have the support to keep going.
7:50
Speaker 3: And it didn't support the community also, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
7:54
Speaker 3: so many community groups have come through to the picket line, donated.
7:57
Speaker 2: Money, food, their time. You know, it's been amazing to see,
8:02
Speaker 2: you know, he's been come together in that way and
8:04
Speaker 2: the workers, like I said, the workers really appreciated and
8:08
Speaker 2: to note that they're not alone in this.
8:10
Speaker 1: That was Francesca Caballo, Texas Chapter president of Unite here
8:14
Speaker 1: Local twenty three. They are extending their strike until October twelfth,
8:18
Speaker 1: and we will continue to follow it on the people's News.
8:22
Speaker 1: They have a GoFundMe at Unite twenty three. Texas executed
8:26
Speaker 1: its fifth person this year as thirty five year old
8:29
Speaker 1: Blaine Milam was executed by the State of Texas Thursday night.
8:34
Speaker 1: He was convicted of the murder of Amora Carson in
8:37
Speaker 1: his trailer in East Texas along with his girlfriend, Jessica Carson,
8:42
Speaker 1: Blaine Milam's girlfriend at the time, claimed that the thirteen
8:45
Speaker 1: month old daughter of the girlfriend was possessed by the devil.
8:49
Speaker 1: There was evidence that mylem was innocent, but a stay
8:53
Speaker 1: of execution was denied by the US Supreme Court. Gloria
8:57
Speaker 1: Rubik of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement talked about
9:01
Speaker 1: the execution.
9:03
Speaker 5: Thursday, the twenty fifth of September, Texas executed an msent man.
9:11
Speaker 5: His name was Blaine Milem. He was put to death
9:16
Speaker 5: in hunts Hill. There was a large group of us
9:20
Speaker 5: they're protesting, and he was very good friends with some
9:27
Speaker 5: of the activists, including Danny who is the host of
9:32
Speaker 5: the prison show on KPFT. In fact, Danny witnessed the execution,
9:38
Speaker 5: and so did another activist who is the daughter in
9:43
Speaker 5: law of Robert Robertson, who's the next person's scheduled to
9:46
Speaker 5: be executed. And Robertson's daughter in law, Jennifer, visited him
9:55
Speaker 5: for his last visits, as did Danny, and then after
10:01
Speaker 5: the execution, they actually got to go to the church
10:06
Speaker 5: where they take the body and they got to hug
10:11
Speaker 5: him and tell him goodbye, and Jennifer posted that, you know,
10:18
Speaker 5: for fifteen years he hadn't had a human touch except
10:23
Speaker 5: the guard staking him down or something, and then now
10:28
Speaker 5: that he's dead, they let us hug him and so on.
10:31
Speaker 5: She said, it just doesn't make any sense. But his
10:34
Speaker 5: case was interesting because it involved the horrible murder of
10:40
Speaker 5: a little girl who was the child of the woman
10:44
Speaker 5: he was living with. And the mother is the person
10:48
Speaker 5: that actually killed her. And the mother apparently has some
10:52
Speaker 5: serious mental illnesses and decided that her little girl was
10:57
Speaker 5: possessed by the devil. He needed an exorcism, and in
11:05
Speaker 5: the one of the last appeals that was filed on
11:09
Speaker 5: his behalf with the Supreme Court, they actually named her
11:13
Speaker 5: mental illness and it has like eight or ten syllables.
11:17
Speaker 5: I'd never heard of it, but she really killed that
11:23
Speaker 5: little girl. Robert was in the house and had nothing
11:27
Speaker 5: to do. Actually, I'm not even sure if he was
11:30
Speaker 5: in the house when it happened, but they lived together.
11:34
Speaker 5: So the DA said, well, we found his his blain's
11:41
Speaker 5: violence DNA all over the house. Well, duh, he lived there,
11:46
Speaker 5: so how can you use that against anybody? That doesn't
11:49
Speaker 5: make sense. And the child had been bitten, and they
11:54
Speaker 5: said it matched Blaine's teeth. Well, that science is very
12:01
Speaker 5: outdated and no longer allowed in criminal trials. People have
12:06
Speaker 5: been what was his name, Ray Crone was exonerated after
12:11
Speaker 5: ten years. He was convicted on mark evidence. He wound
12:15
Speaker 5: up getting a nice paycheck. I can't remember what to
12:18
Speaker 5: stay he was in but because they wrongfully convicted him
12:22
Speaker 5: some evidence, so there was really no evidence pointing to
12:28
Speaker 5: blame's guilt or him having anything to do with it. Actually,
12:33
Speaker 5: in facts, he I think he has a relatively low IQ.
12:40
Speaker 5: He only finished fourth grade, which may or may not
12:43
Speaker 5: say anything. But he was a little naive because when
12:51
Speaker 5: he realized that this baby had been murdered, he told
12:56
Speaker 5: the woman, we'll call the police. Well, the police came,
13:00
Speaker 5: they rested both of them, and he told the police
13:04
Speaker 5: the sense of like something a child would say. He
13:06
Speaker 5: told the police, well, would I get in trouble if
13:09
Speaker 5: I just said I did it so that she could
13:12
Speaker 5: go home? And the police looked at him like, what
13:16
Speaker 5: are you talking about? But so to me, that really
13:25
Speaker 5: shows his at least how not easy he was, and
13:30
Speaker 5: also that he was in it because he won't know
13:32
Speaker 5: if he'd get in trouble if he said he did it,
13:36
Speaker 5: so that was a very sad case. All the details
13:41
Speaker 5: about this case really didn't come out until I guess
13:46
Speaker 5: the last maybe three or four months of his life,
13:49
Speaker 5: when they started filing his attorneys started filling a lot
13:53
Speaker 5: of appeals and explaining what had happened and explaining that, yeah,
13:58
Speaker 5: his DNA was in the house he lived there, so
14:02
Speaker 5: that's nothing. And by mark science has been totally discredited.
14:07
Speaker 5: It's no longer a science. So I know that when
14:11
Speaker 5: Danny the prison shill Post visit him that last morning
14:17
Speaker 5: before he was executed, they keep him at death Throw
14:21
Speaker 5: till noon and then they drive him from Livingston, which
14:25
Speaker 5: is where death Row's housed, to Huntsville, but they get
14:29
Speaker 5: to have visits up until noon. And he told her,
14:33
Speaker 5: he said, you know, I'm just glad that the truth
14:36
Speaker 5: has finally come out, that people know what's happened. He said,
14:40
Speaker 5: that really makes me feel better because for a long
14:44
Speaker 5: time people just thought I was a monster, and I'm not.
14:48
Speaker 5: So Danny said that was really the only good thing.
14:52
Speaker 5: That he was happy that the truth had come out,
14:56
Speaker 5: but he knew that they were going to kill him.
14:59
Speaker 3: And this latest execution is what does that make for
15:04
Speaker 3: this year?
15:06
Speaker 5: Five, which isn't a lot. And I want to make
15:10
Speaker 5: one point. You know, there's been quite a number of
15:14
Speaker 5: executions this year in the United States, and people are saying,
15:18
Speaker 5: oh my god, we're gonna everything's gonna keep going and
15:23
Speaker 5: we're not near the end, and blah blah blah. That
15:25
Speaker 5: is not true, because well, Florida has killed out of
15:30
Speaker 5: ten or fifteen people this year and they still got
15:34
Speaker 5: some more, I believe. But the facts are that the
15:39
Speaker 5: defficulty is going away. Texas executed five people this year.
15:44
Speaker 5: Back in nineteen ninety eight, I think there were ninety
15:49
Speaker 5: nine executions in the country. In ninety nine, there was
15:55
Speaker 5: one almost every week in Texas. There's fifty three weeks
16:01
Speaker 5: in a year, and I think we had forty some
16:04
Speaker 5: odd executions that year, which was just talk about the
16:11
Speaker 5: machinery of death questioning. But the reason I say that
16:18
Speaker 5: the death penalty is going away is executions are down.
16:22
Speaker 5: They've gone down every year for the last decade. Public
16:27
Speaker 5: support is down, and particularly when you give people the
16:32
Speaker 5: alternative of life without parole, which I don't really like.
16:36
Speaker 5: It's less than half the people in the country even
16:38
Speaker 5: support the death penalty anymore. And juries are not sentencing
16:44
Speaker 5: people to death anymore. You know, for years and years
16:48
Speaker 5: and years, Texas had four hundred, four hundred and fifty
16:50
Speaker 5: people on death row, and as soon as somebody was executed,
16:54
Speaker 5: Houston or Dallas or San Antonio or for Worth would
17:00
Speaker 5: send somebody to death row, and those beds kept getting
17:03
Speaker 5: filled as people were being executed. That's not happening anymore.
17:08
Speaker 5: Juries are not sentencing people to death very often. Texas
17:15
Speaker 5: death row is down to one hundred and sixty I
17:20
Speaker 5: think one hundred and sixty two men and there's seven women.
17:25
Speaker 5: And like I say, so many years there was four
17:29
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty. So juries aren't sentencing. Public support is
17:34
Speaker 5: down and the numbers are down. It's going away. It's
17:38
Speaker 5: just still taking victims along its way, but it's going
17:44
Speaker 5: to disappoint. What do you say, why do you say
17:47
Speaker 5: that given a life centix you're against giving people a
17:51
Speaker 5: life citizen. Now I'm against anybody getting life without parole. Okay,
17:58
Speaker 5: because most crimes, and obviously everybody on death rows innocent,
18:04
Speaker 5: even though for every eight people executed, one is found innocent,
18:08
Speaker 5: but most are guilty. Most haed lousey lawyers when they
18:14
Speaker 5: went on trial. Most did not have money to hire investigators,
18:19
Speaker 5: and what do you call it? People that can give
18:27
Speaker 5: reasons why they shouldn't get death but life without parole.
18:35
Speaker 5: There is really no point in somebody who's nineteen twenty
18:39
Speaker 5: or twenty one or whatever doing something really awful going
18:44
Speaker 5: to prison and staying until they're sixty or seventy years old.
18:48
Speaker 5: We have people in wheelchairs in death row. We have
18:53
Speaker 5: people who have to use a walker just to go
18:56
Speaker 5: out for a visit. People are staying on death row
19:01
Speaker 5: longer because attorneys are fighting and fighting and using every
19:07
Speaker 5: appeal they can think of. So death row is becoming
19:13
Speaker 5: a home for a lot of senior citizens. If somebody does,
19:20
Speaker 5: you know, ten twenty years, they've become a changed person.
19:26
Speaker 5: They're not the same stupid kid that got high and
19:30
Speaker 5: went and went crazy and killed somebody. And a lot
19:34
Speaker 5: of countries that do have the death penalty limited to
19:41
Speaker 5: twenty years as the sentence. So I think that the
19:48
Speaker 5: right wing in Texas, we didn't Texas didn't have life
19:56
Speaker 5: without parole until two thousand and five.
19:59
Speaker 3: Twenty years ago.
20:01
Speaker 5: Before that, if somebody was found innocent or there was
20:06
Speaker 5: questions and they got commuted to life, they could get
20:10
Speaker 5: out before their whole life was gone. Instead of some
20:14
Speaker 5: of these men and women are not able to see
20:20
Speaker 5: their kids grow up or their grandkids grow up. And
20:25
Speaker 5: people like Rodney Reid has great grandkids. So no, I
20:31
Speaker 5: hate life without parole. It just totally negates the truth
20:37
Speaker 5: that people can redeem themselves, they can change, and they
20:41
Speaker 5: can turn over.
20:42
Speaker 3: A new leaf. All right, before I go, you on
20:47
Speaker 3: a Sara Secret passing? Before you go, what, oh would
20:52
Speaker 3: you thus on a Sata Secruz passing?
20:56
Speaker 5: Oh?
20:58
Speaker 3: And what are you asking about Asaba her passing?
21:02
Speaker 5: You thought, Oh, I Well, to me, she's a hero.
21:10
Speaker 5: She her passing is very sad. But she She was
21:17
Speaker 5: a member of the Black Camping Party and then later
21:20
Speaker 5: the Black Liberation Army. Her comrades freed her from prison.
21:27
Speaker 5: They went in with gunn and held guards hostage and
21:32
Speaker 5: kidnapped her from the prison. She has asked. She was
21:37
Speaker 5: underground here for a couple of years, and then she
21:39
Speaker 5: surfaced in Cuba. Cuba gave her political asylum and I
21:44
Speaker 5: was so fortunate to spend a week in with her
21:47
Speaker 5: in Cuba.
21:49
Speaker 3: She was she remained.
21:52
Speaker 5: The revolutionary, She remained committed to her principles that she
21:57
Speaker 5: had had all her life, and and it's very sad
22:02
Speaker 5: that she's gone. That she had gotten older, and you know,
22:07
Speaker 5: things happen when you get to be seventy five, eighty
22:11
Speaker 5: eighty five years old. I think she was close to eighty.
22:15
Speaker 5: But yeah, her memory and her spirit and her revolutionary
22:21
Speaker 5: love will live on.
22:25
Speaker 2: All right.
22:26
Speaker 5: And I want to tell you about a couple of
22:28
Speaker 5: things coming up, if that's okay. Yeah, we got message
22:34
Speaker 5: from the attorney for Robert Robertson, whose execution is actually
22:38
Speaker 5: in I don't know, like three weeks, less than October sixteenth,
22:44
Speaker 5: less than three weeks. But his attorney has asked all
22:48
Speaker 5: his supporters to meet her at the state Capitol at
22:51
Speaker 5: one o'clock next Saturday, October fourth. There's going to be
22:56
Speaker 5: a press conference and then a rally, and there will
23:02
Speaker 5: be some some of the Texas exanna rees joining the attorney,
23:08
Speaker 5: not exoneries from death row, but people who did a
23:11
Speaker 5: lot of time in prison and then were exonerated. They've
23:16
Speaker 5: come out very strongly in support of him, and then
23:23
Speaker 5: his attorneys have announced that he's not even they're not
23:26
Speaker 5: even going to file for clemency for Robert, because when
23:29
Speaker 5: you file for clemency. It's basically like, well, I'm sorry,
23:34
Speaker 5: I've I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm not going
23:36
Speaker 5: to do it again. He didn't do anything. In Robert
23:39
Speaker 5: Robertson's case, there was no crime.
23:44
Speaker 1: That was Gloria Rubik of the Texas Death Penalty abolition movement.
23:48
Speaker 3: Hi.
23:48
Speaker 1: This is Steve Gallington, producer and host of the People's News.
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24:36
Speaker 1: to find a disadvantaged group and attack them, and the
24:41
Speaker 1: trans community, particularly black and brown trans people and young people,
24:46
Speaker 1: have been the targets for many years. We talked with
24:49
Speaker 1: Kathy Renna with the National LGBTQ Task Force about attacks
24:55
Speaker 1: from the White House on down from Republicans blaming the
24:59
Speaker 1: lgbt Q community for the right wing attacking their own I.
25:04
Speaker 6: Think the more accurate way to say it is that
25:06
Speaker 6: they're really trying to blame the trans community. There's a
25:10
Speaker 6: tremendous amount of scapegoating that's happening lead you know, with
25:15
Speaker 6: a sea of lies and misinformation, and I think one
25:18
Speaker 6: of the biggest challenges is that the media is really
25:21
Speaker 6: picking up these very preliminary, unfounded and then proven to
25:28
Speaker 6: be inaccurate statements about any kind of engagement or involvement
25:33
Speaker 6: of transgender individuals, any messaging that's you know, anti anti Trump,
25:41
Speaker 6: that is coming from LGBTQ people and particularly trans people,
25:45
Speaker 6: and you know, using phrases like transgender ideology, which is
25:49
Speaker 6: really at the end of the day, feels like just
25:51
Speaker 6: an attempt to erase the existence of trans people. You're
25:54
Speaker 6: not even talking about people who are part of our
25:57
Speaker 6: community as people, as human beings, and it's I think
26:00
Speaker 6: it's really escalated to the point where we really need
26:03
Speaker 6: to be increasingly concerned about it.
26:07
Speaker 3: And one thing that that's missing from all this. I know,
26:09
Speaker 3: we just had a couple of deaths right now, but
26:14
Speaker 3: one thing that's missing the the deaths of assaults on
26:18
Speaker 3: trans people across the country. We had two in Texas
26:22
Speaker 3: on in the Houston area. It's gone, that's gone. That's
26:25
Speaker 3: nobody's been nobody's been charged with the killing here in Houston.
26:30
Speaker 3: But that seems to be a non issue right now.
26:34
Speaker 6: Well, I think that we understand that the media has
26:38
Speaker 6: not done a good job forever, such a long time
26:41
Speaker 6: of really covering the issue of anti LGBTQ violence, particularly
26:47
Speaker 6: the epidemic of violence against trans sally trans women of color. Uh,
26:51
Speaker 6: and it's only gotten it's only gotten worse given the
26:54
Speaker 6: political climate we're living in. UH, that that these incidents
26:58
Speaker 6: happen and that they are invisibilized. I mean they're not
27:02
Speaker 6: They're not not only not responded to appropriately, often by
27:05
Speaker 6: law enforcement, but even in local communities that are trying
27:08
Speaker 6: to amplify these stories, that are trying to help the
27:11
Speaker 6: public understand what our community is truly facing, is near
27:15
Speaker 6: impossible with the lack of response from media. And so
27:19
Speaker 6: even when communities organize, and they are organizing, it's it's
27:25
Speaker 6: just it's it's beyond tragic that we're not seeing any
27:28
Speaker 6: attention paid to the reality of trans people's lives, not
27:33
Speaker 6: what is being perpetrated by white nationalists and anti LGBTQ
27:37
Speaker 6: organizations and frankly a lot of our elected officials, which
27:41
Speaker 6: is that you know, trans people are somehow the cause
27:44
Speaker 6: of some of the violence and divisiveness we're seeing. It's
27:47
Speaker 6: it's utterly ridiculous, but at the end of the day,
27:50
Speaker 6: it's also extremely harmful.
27:53
Speaker 3: How are you the community going to fight against this,
27:55
Speaker 3: because it's only going to get stronger when we look
27:58
Speaker 3: at what the what was talked about at the ceremony
28:03
Speaker 3: for the Charlie Kirk ceremony and a turning point and
28:06
Speaker 3: they talking about putting turning point in classrooms now and
28:10
Speaker 3: what they're teaching. How hard is that going to be
28:13
Speaker 3: for your people that you work with in your organizations
28:17
Speaker 3: to try to change people gratitudes. We're not We're not.
28:21
Speaker 6: We've never stopped doing it. We're only going to continue
28:23
Speaker 6: to do it, and we need to do it even
28:25
Speaker 6: more and we need the support more than ever of
28:29
Speaker 6: everyone in our community, including of course our allies. I mean,
28:32
Speaker 6: the challenge is that we face are multifold right. There's
28:35
Speaker 6: the challenge of the attacks coming from the right. There's
28:38
Speaker 6: a uh uh, the challenge of this see literally sea
28:42
Speaker 6: of misinformation and lies and propaganda that's being put out there.
28:46
Speaker 6: And we're also seeing what is extremely disappointing, which is
28:49
Speaker 6: that so many folks who have stood with us, whether
28:52
Speaker 6: that's corporations, whether that's selected officials, whether that's folks within
28:57
Speaker 6: our even within our own community, who are not stepping
28:59
Speaker 6: up to fill in these gaps of support that we're facing,
29:04
Speaker 6: whether it's financial or whether it's you know it, boots
29:07
Speaker 6: on the ground and folks in the streets and folks
29:10
Speaker 6: calling their elected officials, and folks holding the media accountable.
29:13
Speaker 7: And none of us have.
29:13
Speaker 6: Stopped, not only not stopped doing the work. We're doing
29:16
Speaker 6: more than ever, and unfortunately we're having to do it
29:19
Speaker 6: with less resources. So you know what my message to
29:22
Speaker 6: anybody who will listen is that if you are not
29:24
Speaker 6: engaged as much as you possibly can be in this fight,
29:28
Speaker 6: then you're going to look back one day and regret
29:30
Speaker 6: that because if we don't do all we can now,
29:33
Speaker 6: we're going to be in just an increasingly authoritarian environment
29:38
Speaker 6: politically and socially, and culturally.
29:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd like to add to that, we've gone from
29:47
Speaker 3: that type of houseile investment. But what do you say
29:52
Speaker 3: the President of the United States President actually is just pushing,
29:55
Speaker 3: pushing even more, even harder on issues of elsbachs you
30:01
Speaker 3: as being the enemy, as being using and using that
30:04
Speaker 3: with Christian organizations, also as being I mean.
30:09
Speaker 6: None of this is surprising, and frankly, none of it's new.
30:11
Speaker 6: I mean, the pendulum swings back and forth. The fact
30:15
Speaker 6: that we were making the projects that we were making
30:17
Speaker 6: in the Obama years and the Biden years naturally has
30:20
Speaker 6: led to backlash and we're seeing that in full force.
30:23
Speaker 6: And so you know, at the end of the day,
30:25
Speaker 6: like I said, this is going to take all of us.
30:28
Speaker 6: And I think, you know, part of what we need
30:29
Speaker 6: to do is fight like hell, and the other part
30:32
Speaker 6: of what we do is to live our lives and
30:34
Speaker 6: not let this destroy our spirits. We've been through very
30:39
Speaker 6: difficult times before. You know, I talked to young people
30:42
Speaker 6: about this all the time. If they didn't weren't born yet,
30:45
Speaker 6: or didn't live through the AIDS pandemic in the eighties
30:47
Speaker 6: and nineties, they don't realize that we dealt with a
30:50
Speaker 6: government that also was more than happy to see us
30:54
Speaker 6: die in large numbers. And it took our own community
30:57
Speaker 6: coming together to really fight that and to fight for healthcare,
31:00
Speaker 6: to fight for research, to fight for access to medications,
31:04
Speaker 6: and to fight literally for the lives with our you know,
31:07
Speaker 6: gay and queer brothers and sisters and other people who
31:10
Speaker 6: were affected by HIV. You know, we had to fight
31:13
Speaker 6: for the ability to serve in the military. We've had
31:16
Speaker 6: to fight for marriage equality. We've had to fight for
31:18
Speaker 6: every bit of the rights that we enjoy, and we've
31:22
Speaker 6: seen backflighting. So we need to redouble our efforts. It's
31:25
Speaker 6: pretty it's pretty clear just from the arc of history
31:29
Speaker 6: that we know, we know that we will, we know
31:31
Speaker 6: what we have to do, we understand the assignment, and
31:34
Speaker 6: we've gotten through very challenging times before. I think the
31:37
Speaker 6: difference here is that you're now dealing with essentially the
31:40
Speaker 6: dismantling of institutions that were safety nets for us. We're
31:43
Speaker 6: seeing our federal government fail in ways that are extraordinarily harmful,
31:49
Speaker 6: whether it's a president who's talking about time and all
31:52
Speaker 6: causing autism or saying vaccines don't work and taking away
31:57
Speaker 6: money from PEP far and hundreds of thousands of people
32:00
Speaker 6: they're dying because they don't have access to AIDS medication.
32:02
Speaker 6: I mean, this is this is so much bigger even
32:06
Speaker 6: than the escapegoating of parts of our community. I mean,
32:09
Speaker 6: the White House is doing everything they can to create
32:12
Speaker 6: chaos and fear. And that's what that's the first thing
32:15
Speaker 6: we need to overcome is to understand in context that
32:19
Speaker 6: we don't need to live in fear, that we actually
32:22
Speaker 6: have still the means to fight back. And that's whether
32:25
Speaker 6: that's by you know, while we still have it, engaging
32:28
Speaker 6: in your free speech to speak out and and working
32:30
Speaker 6: and supporting organizations and getting out in the streets and
32:34
Speaker 6: and you know, and doing and voting and doing all
32:36
Speaker 6: the things that we know, uh work in a free democracy.
32:40
Speaker 6: The challenge is that our free democracy is very much
32:43
Speaker 6: under threat, which should only make us more more engaged,
32:46
Speaker 6: more inspired, more energized to really be part of the
32:50
Speaker 6: part of the solution and not part of the problem.
32:53
Speaker 6: Or we're sitting on the sidelines, old like and tell
32:57
Speaker 6: us about some of the things that's going on. Nationalists
33:01
Speaker 6: that you that you know, we have a game of
33:02
Speaker 6: this coming up, and what else is going on?
33:05
Speaker 7: So you know.
33:06
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that the other really important thing
33:08
Speaker 6: to do with all of this, right it sounds very overwhelming,
33:11
Speaker 6: is we also have to again, like I said, live
33:13
Speaker 6: our lives and not allow anyone, including the highest office
33:18
Speaker 6: in the land, to take away our joy. So, you know,
33:21
Speaker 6: while we are always in the process of you know,
33:24
Speaker 6: working to raise resources and funds to do the work,
33:28
Speaker 6: we also try and create spaces where we can also
33:31
Speaker 6: be in community and experience queer joy. And so you know,
33:35
Speaker 6: we do that in many ways of the task Force.
33:37
Speaker 6: We do have coming up on October eleventh, which is
33:40
Speaker 6: natural coming out today, our annual gala, which this year
33:43
Speaker 6: is the BU Ball. It's going to amplify ballroom culture
33:47
Speaker 6: and amplify the voices and lives and talents of particularly
33:51
Speaker 6: black and brown trans siblings of ours, and celebrate them
33:56
Speaker 6: in the community. We're also honoring individ Jewels who have
34:00
Speaker 6: contributed greatly in South Florida, who are working to raise
34:06
Speaker 6: money for organizations who are doing great advocacy. We're thrilled
34:10
Speaker 6: that this year we're honoring David Jobin, who is a
34:14
Speaker 6: philanthropic leader but also a cultural leader in the LGBT community,
34:18
Speaker 6: not just even in South Florida, but nationally working with
34:21
Speaker 6: choruses around the country from San Francisco to to South
34:26
Speaker 6: Florida and Miami. Dominique Jackson from Poe's many folks know
34:30
Speaker 6: her from her iconic role as as Oh my god,
34:36
Speaker 6: totally blank you on her character's name, Electra Sorry, her
34:41
Speaker 6: role as as Electra on on Poe. She's actually a
34:44
Speaker 6: very good personal friend. She's going to be hosting and
34:47
Speaker 6: is going to be bringing her again extraordinary voice, powerful
34:50
Speaker 6: voice as a black trans woman who has done work
34:53
Speaker 6: on the ground in the community for decades and is
34:56
Speaker 6: also an incredibly talented, beautiful per who promotes kindness and
35:02
Speaker 6: queer joy in everything she does. And we again, as
35:07
Speaker 6: folks probably best know the Task Force. We have our
35:10
Speaker 6: annual Creating Change Gathering, which is a convening of literally
35:14
Speaker 6: thousands up to three thousand or so LGBTQ and allied
35:18
Speaker 6: advocates who come together for political conversation, for leadership training,
35:25
Speaker 6: for skills building. I mean, we've called it in the past,
35:28
Speaker 6: we've called it a conference. It's really much more than that,
35:31
Speaker 6: because it's it's a community convening and gathering that gives
35:36
Speaker 6: us an opportunity to take stock and what we're dealing
35:38
Speaker 6: with and work together and make connections and learn from
35:40
Speaker 6: each other. But it's also an opportunity to again experience
35:43
Speaker 6: queer joy. Parts of the conference include things like a
35:46
Speaker 6: house fall and a cabaret evening events. You know, we
35:50
Speaker 6: film screenings in addition to course, you know, more than
35:53
Speaker 6: one hundred workshops and caucuses. It really is a way
35:57
Speaker 6: to start off the year. As we approach the second
35:59
Speaker 6: year of the stration in Washington, d C. This year
36:02
Speaker 6: we're doing the gathering. We haven't been in DC for
36:07
Speaker 6: more than a few years, and so I think people
36:08
Speaker 6: are very excited to come together for creating change. But
36:12
Speaker 6: also I'm sure there will be things happening in the streets,
36:17
Speaker 6: whether it's a lobbying or whether it's protesting, that we'll
36:21
Speaker 6: address what's happening in our nation's capital.
36:24
Speaker 3: All right and tell people how we get in touch
36:25
Speaker 3: with your organization.
36:27
Speaker 6: Sure, you can find us very easily on social media.
36:31
Speaker 6: It's the National LGBTQ task Force on Facebook, on LinkedIn,
36:35
Speaker 6: We're on Instagram at the task Force. That's our main site.
36:40
Speaker 6: You can then find all of the accounts for for example,
36:43
Speaker 6: the Gala and Creating Change and you can get in
36:46
Speaker 6: touch with us very easily online. We love hearing from folks.
36:50
Speaker 6: We need volunteers for all of these events, so you know,
36:53
Speaker 6: this is not simply about folks who you know are
36:55
Speaker 6: able to buy a ticket right and support us financially.
36:58
Speaker 6: We are very focused on what we like to call
37:01
Speaker 6: radical welcome. So if you want to come to the
37:03
Speaker 6: conference then it might be difficult for you financially, you
37:06
Speaker 6: can volunteer and have your registration wave. You can volunteer
37:10
Speaker 6: at the gala, and you can get engaged with us
37:14
Speaker 6: in that way as well. We also do actually a
37:15
Speaker 6: ton of virtual planning and training. We have our organizing
37:19
Speaker 6: calls every month for activists. We have a boot camp
37:21
Speaker 6: that we just had hundreds of people applied for that
37:25
Speaker 6: we're going to be starting to do on a monthly basis.
37:28
Speaker 6: So we're you know, we're as engaged as we possibly
37:33
Speaker 6: can be, and we really honestly need and embrace and
37:37
Speaker 6: welcome the support of anyone out there LGBTQ or allies
37:40
Speaker 6: that are willing to be in the fight with us.
37:43
Speaker 1: That was Kathy Renna with the National LGBTQ Task Force.
37:47
Speaker 1: You can find out more about her work at the
37:50
Speaker 1: Task Force Action Fund all put together dot org. Republican
37:55
Speaker 1: Tarren County Judge Tom O'Hare, using the convicted felon and
38:01
Speaker 1: Governor Abbott's playbook, went after two Democratic Commissioner's Court Democrats,
38:07
Speaker 1: Elisa Simmons and Roderick Miles. They were absent, which temporarily
38:11
Speaker 1: denied him the fourth fifth quorum needed to amend the
38:15
Speaker 1: county budget in a way that he knew they opposed.
38:18
Speaker 1: He went on to cut their staff and any funds
38:21
Speaker 1: that were already approved going into the areas of the
38:24
Speaker 1: county that they support. We talked to Matt Angle with
38:28
Speaker 1: the Lone Star Project before he went on to talk
38:31
Speaker 1: about what happened in Terrant County. Richard asked him about
38:34
Speaker 1: the situation in Dallas where a shooting occurred at the
38:38
Speaker 1: Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office targeting immigrants. One
38:44
Speaker 1: immigrant was dead and two others were seriously injured, and
38:47
Speaker 1: the shooter died of a self inflicted gunshot. Here's Matt Angle, Well.
38:52
Speaker 7: I think we've got an extraordinary circumstance and that you've
38:55
Speaker 7: got Republican office holders who are exploiting what was clearly
39:04
Speaker 7: a horrible event. It was a horrible event when there
39:07
Speaker 7: was political violence of any type. And it is a
39:11
Speaker 7: tragedy in Dallas that you had two individuals badly wounded
39:17
Speaker 7: and two who died, one of them an immigrant, and
39:23
Speaker 7: that that's being exploited at every level by the Republicans
39:27
Speaker 7: to make it a political issue and to create division
39:32
Speaker 7: in a country that's already divided. Greg Abbott was shameful
39:36
Speaker 7: as the governor of our state to use that as
39:39
Speaker 7: a chance to attack Democrats and attack the left, when
39:43
Speaker 7: there is no reason to think that any rhetoric led
39:49
Speaker 7: to that other than the divisive rhetoric that we know
39:52
Speaker 7: starts at the White House. And then I will tell
39:56
Speaker 7: you it was also particularly galling to see Dallas Mayor
40:01
Speaker 7: Eric Johnson way in. Eric Johnson got re elected as
40:07
Speaker 7: Dallas mayor when he was a Democrat. He only switched
40:12
Speaker 7: parties after getting reelected because Dallas is an overwhelmingly democratic city.
40:17
Speaker 7: Kamala Harris got over sixty five percent of the vote,
40:20
Speaker 7: Joden got over seventy percent. Eric Johnson's never once been
40:24
Speaker 7: willing to put his name on the bout as a
40:27
Speaker 7: Republican because he knows he would overwhelmingly be rejected. It
40:31
Speaker 7: was an act of cowardice. And again, Eric's not looking
40:35
Speaker 7: to really be anything other than a mascot for Republicans
40:40
Speaker 7: because he'll never really be accepted as one. And it's
40:43
Speaker 7: shameful that Dallas has now such a weak mayor and
40:47
Speaker 7: then again such a governor that's not really willing to
40:50
Speaker 7: provide leadership. But we've seen that over and over again
40:54
Speaker 7: with Greg Abbott in times of crisis, he's at his
40:57
Speaker 7: absolute worst. Whether it's a school shooting, whether it's a
41:01
Speaker 7: terrible winter storm, whether it is a hurricane on our coast,
41:07
Speaker 7: Abbot fails to rise to the occasion every single time.
41:12
Speaker 3: What do we know about the as far as as
41:16
Speaker 3: how we're trying to tie.
41:17
Speaker 7: Us into the Democrats, Well, we don't know very much
41:22
Speaker 7: about the incident because the shooter committed suicide. We do
41:27
Speaker 7: know that there was shellcasings that were found that had
41:32
Speaker 7: the word anti Ice on it, and so, you know,
41:36
Speaker 7: it's reasonable to think that he was upset or at
41:39
Speaker 7: least focused on the activities of Ice, But there's no
41:42
Speaker 7: reason to believe that the rhetoric from Democrats or anybody
41:48
Speaker 7: else spurred his actions. And then the truth of the
41:52
Speaker 7: matter is that Democrats rhetoric is tame compared to Republicans.
41:58
Speaker 7: For goodness sake, Donald Trump has called Democratic leaders and
42:03
Speaker 7: called the press generally enemies of the state.
42:06
Speaker 3: Uh. He's all but.
42:10
Speaker 7: Set our society on fire with rhetoric in order to
42:15
Speaker 7: build a movement, and so any effort to somehow claim
42:23
Speaker 7: that what Democrats are saying is causing acts of violence,
42:29
Speaker 7: it's just not true. And what we know, of course, too,
42:31
Speaker 7: is the study after study over the last twenty years
42:34
Speaker 7: has shown that anti government actions are much more likely
42:39
Speaker 7: to come from the far right way from anybody from
42:42
Speaker 7: the list.
42:43
Speaker 3: And talking about let's talk about you. You were talking
42:48
Speaker 3: about local politics for state politics, and we had a
42:52
Speaker 3: we had a representative that has gotten a little bit
42:55
Speaker 3: of trouble, and we want to talk about that a
42:57
Speaker 3: little bit.
42:58
Speaker 7: Well, he's talking about Terren count And if you're talking
43:00
Speaker 7: about the county judge in Tarrant County, I mean, we've
43:03
Speaker 7: got a maga uh county judge in Tarrant County named
43:08
Speaker 7: Tim O'Hare who really is trying to create a microcosm
43:13
Speaker 7: of the of the destructive and divisive atmosphere that's in
43:18
Speaker 7: Washington now. I mean, Parent County is a purple county
43:22
Speaker 7: in which Democrats sometimes win top of ballot races, Republicans
43:26
Speaker 7: barely win down ballot races. It's highly competitive, uh going
43:31
Speaker 7: into this next election. And uh, the Tarrent County judge
43:35
Speaker 7: over the past years has generally been kind of a
43:39
Speaker 7: mainstream person, whether they were Republican or otherwise. Tim O'Hare
43:43
Speaker 7: is a very different type. He's very destructive and uh
43:48
Speaker 7: a divisive person.
43:49
Speaker 3: Uh.
43:50
Speaker 7: He rammed through a racist redrawing of the County Commissioner's court.
43:56
Speaker 3: Uh.
43:57
Speaker 7: That's uh, that map is in uh in being challenged
44:01
Speaker 7: with under the Voting Rights Act now. And then of
44:04
Speaker 7: course he regularly attacks the two Democratic members of the
44:09
Speaker 7: commission who are also represent the two minority districts. And
44:14
Speaker 7: so his whole method of operation is to create dissension
44:18
Speaker 7: and division. H and again, because that's the style of politics,
44:24
Speaker 7: that's the style of a governance that has really resulted
44:29
Speaker 7: from Donald Trump being in the White House against Yeah, well.
44:33
Speaker 3: Goober key Vornco's these guys.
44:36
Speaker 7: Well, it's important to remember that is particularly in Tarrant County,
44:43
Speaker 7: that the Democrats are continuing to do better, and they're
44:48
Speaker 7: doing it without any resources. I mean Frankly, the Lone
44:51
Speaker 7: Star Project has been the only organization out that that's
44:55
Speaker 7: not exclusive to Tarrant County that's really invested in u
45:00
Speaker 7: uh Arrant County politics. And I'm hopeful that you'll have
45:03
Speaker 7: the state Party and others put some resources into Tarrant County.
45:08
Speaker 3: Uh.
45:09
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm proud that the Lone Star Project we've
45:11
Speaker 7: been in uh a key part of winning some key
45:14
Speaker 7: commissions races and some others. I think that Tim O'Hare
45:18
Speaker 7: can be defeated in the next election. UH, but it's
45:21
Speaker 7: gonna have to take uh it being a state priority,
45:26
Speaker 7: not just something that local Democrats are trying.
45:29
Speaker 3: To do in their own And this week in the
45:32
Speaker 3: state politics, we have uh a run another another intended
45:38
Speaker 3: run against Senator Cruz.
45:44
Speaker 7: I'm sorry you broke up a little bit there.
45:47
Speaker 3: I'll talk about called it out. Was running for uh.
45:50
Speaker 7: Yeah, Colin Alridge running again for the for the US Senate,
45:54
Speaker 7: this time in the seat that John Cornan holds. I
45:57
Speaker 7: don't expect that John Cornyn will be the nomination. In fact,
46:00
Speaker 7: I think Cornyn is pretty pathetically tried to abandon everything
46:06
Speaker 7: he's ever really done as a moderate Republican in the
46:08
Speaker 7: past and pretend to be maga that. I don't think
46:10
Speaker 7: that's going to work. I think that the Republicans would
46:13
Speaker 7: rather nominate a corrupt Ken Paxton than a cowardly John Cornyn,
46:19
Speaker 7: and I think that gives Democrats and atlaw opportunity to
46:22
Speaker 7: win a statewide seat. And Colin is running again. Colin
46:28
Speaker 7: ran a much better race in twenty twenty four than
46:32
Speaker 7: he's given credit for. He ran three and a half,
46:34
Speaker 7: almost four points ahead of the presidential ticket. No senate
46:37
Speaker 7: candidate in Texas has done that, going back to Lloyd Benson,
46:41
Speaker 7: but he didn't win, and there was some disappointment about that.
46:43
Speaker 7: And now you also have James Tallerica running and James
46:47
Speaker 7: is a new and a fresh face and there's some
46:49
Speaker 7: excitement around him. So I think that'll be a very
46:51
Speaker 7: competitive primary. I think whichever one of them is the nominee,
46:55
Speaker 7: we have a chance to beat a corrupt Ken Paxton
46:59
Speaker 7: in the fall.
47:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cornan is running a lot. I have a lot
47:04
Speaker 3: of money into these people put out on the air
47:07
Speaker 3: right now.
47:08
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, the Republicans in Washington, they know that Ken
47:13
Speaker 7: Paxton is a really dangerous nominee for them. The problem
47:19
Speaker 7: is that They've created a monster within their own primary
47:22
Speaker 7: that mainstream Republicans, even the notion of mainstream Republican is nostalgia.
47:28
Speaker 7: Now they don't exist. It's all Trump now. There is
47:32
Speaker 7: no Texas Republican Party anymore. It's all the national Trump Party.
47:37
Speaker 7: I mean, it seems that counterintuitive to a lot of
47:41
Speaker 7: people in Texas because it's been so long since Democrats
47:44
Speaker 7: have held state light office. But the truth of the
47:46
Speaker 7: matter is the only real Texas focused party in Texas
47:50
Speaker 7: now is the Democratic Party. The Republican Party are totally
47:53
Speaker 7: national in their scope, and they're totally submissive and doting
47:58
Speaker 7: upon Donald Trump. I mean, the Republican congressman from Fort
48:03
Speaker 7: Benn County said it most insultingly to their own party,
48:09
Speaker 7: but also accurately when he says, if Donald Trump says
48:14
Speaker 7: jump three feet into the air, we jumped three feet.
48:17
Speaker 3: Through he says a lot bet that.
48:20
Speaker 7: And the truth of the matter is that he was
48:23
Speaker 7: just being honest.
48:25
Speaker 3: Matt tells people how to get attention to you and
48:27
Speaker 3: your newsletter.
48:28
Speaker 7: Well, Lone Star Project is pretty easy to reach if
48:32
Speaker 7: you'll just go to Lone Star project dot net and
48:35
Speaker 7: sign up for our newsletters or feel free to just
48:38
Speaker 7: email me directly at matt Angle at Lone Star Project
48:41
Speaker 7: dot net.
48:42
Speaker 1: That was Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project. You
48:45
Speaker 1: can read his newsletter at the Lone Star Project dot net.
48:50
Speaker 1: Award winning legendary actor Robert Redford passed away last week.
48:55
Speaker 1: He was not just an actor, but a philanthropist who
48:57
Speaker 1: started the Sundance Film Festival to showcase young filmmakers around
49:01
Speaker 1: the world. He also spoke up on social issues like
49:05
Speaker 1: the treatment of Native people in the United States. Keith
49:08
Speaker 1: Hoak is an associate professor at the Jack J. Valente
49:12
Speaker 1: School of Communication at the University of Houston. We spoke
49:15
Speaker 1: to him about the life of Robert Redford, but first
49:18
Speaker 1: we talked about the controversy around the suppression of First
49:23
Speaker 1: Amendment rights through pressure from the FCC chairman and the
49:29
Speaker 1: convoluted path of Jimmy Kimmel being suspended and then restored
49:33
Speaker 1: by ABC and its owner's Disney.
49:37
Speaker 8: With the whole Jimmy Kimmel situation, there's a lot of
49:40
Speaker 8: people who are outraged and saying it's a First Amendment
49:44
Speaker 8: freedom of speech issue, But then you have to look
49:47
Speaker 8: at ABC is a licensed broadcaster and there's certain rules
49:54
Speaker 8: that licensed stations have to abide by and part of
49:59
Speaker 8: that is being in They have to be in the
50:01
Speaker 8: service of the community. And it all goes back to
50:04
Speaker 8: the early days of radio. When radio was first around
50:08
Speaker 8: in nineteen twenty one, it was unlicensed. Anybody could have
50:12
Speaker 8: a radio station, and the government actually stayed out of
50:15
Speaker 8: any kind of licensing until the radio industry said, hey,
50:18
Speaker 8: we need some help because people would once advertisement came
50:22
Speaker 8: in the game, and you would say, hey, I'm advertising
50:26
Speaker 8: your product at five pm today, somebody else could put
50:29
Speaker 8: up a rival station and just you're broadcasting at a
50:33
Speaker 8: certain power, and they make a more powerful broadcasting station
50:36
Speaker 8: and they knock you right off the air. So the
50:38
Speaker 8: government came in and started licensing stations, and part of
50:43
Speaker 8: that they had to kick some people off the air
50:45
Speaker 8: and made judgment calls about what content wasn't good for
50:48
Speaker 8: whatever communities were being served, because some people had radio
50:51
Speaker 8: stations that were just selling snake oil medicine, and so
50:57
Speaker 8: that's where the laws came in that broadcasters has to
51:01
Speaker 8: abide by. That's why you don't get profanity on broadcast
51:04
Speaker 8: television because it's part of the servicing the community. And
51:10
Speaker 8: back in the eighties when NYPD Blue was on certain stations,
51:15
Speaker 8: there was an episode that showed David Cruso's backside, naked backside,
51:20
Speaker 8: and certain stations said, we're preempting this, We're not going
51:23
Speaker 8: to air that because our community doesn't want to see that,
51:26
Speaker 8: and that's perfectly within the rights of the broadcaster to
51:30
Speaker 8: preempt things. And the end of the day, it's all
51:36
Speaker 8: about making money and if something isn't going to be
51:39
Speaker 8: making money and then rocks the boat, yeah, that's why
51:43
Speaker 8: he was off the air. And it puts ABC in
51:45
Speaker 8: a really difficult situation because we are in such a
51:48
Speaker 8: politically divided country. Everybody on one side of the aisle
51:53
Speaker 8: might be seeing what they did one way and while
51:55
Speaker 8: the other side is seeing it completely different. But in
51:58
Speaker 8: the base spaces, what happened seems to be you know,
52:04
Speaker 8: you have an employer, and if they want to take
52:06
Speaker 8: you off the air, they can take you off the
52:07
Speaker 8: air just like they can put you right back on.
52:11
Speaker 8: So there's a lot of outrage, but I don't know
52:14
Speaker 8: that it's I don't know, people like to be outraged
52:20
Speaker 8: really easily. Right now, there seems to just be anger
52:23
Speaker 8: in the air and they're grabbing it and feeding off
52:26
Speaker 8: of it. But you know, if you say something that
52:29
Speaker 8: your boss doesn't like, you still have a boss and
52:34
Speaker 8: you have a contract. And so I'm curious to see
52:36
Speaker 8: what happens when his contract is up, which is relatively soon,
52:40
Speaker 8: whether or not it's renewed or they just say move on.
52:42
Speaker 8: But it's he still can say as an individual, he
52:48
Speaker 8: can say and do whatever he wants to say and do.
52:54
Speaker 8: But you know, ABC can say that's that reflects poorly
52:57
Speaker 8: on us. So you're being fired. People are being fired
52:59
Speaker 8: all over the place now for statements they're making online.
53:02
Speaker 8: But it's not saying you can't make them, just you
53:06
Speaker 8: got to be aware that when you make them, you know,
53:08
Speaker 8: we're in a world that people are going to be
53:10
Speaker 8: You're not going to make everybody happy. It's just not
53:12
Speaker 8: going to happen.
53:13
Speaker 3: Just a quick narrative on the death of Robert Ridford
53:17
Speaker 3: when he went to actors and the film industry in general.
53:21
Speaker 8: Well, he's one of I'm Robert Redford is one of
53:24
Speaker 8: the last you know, Hollywood stars. He's one of the
53:27
Speaker 8: people that you don't think of him as a soliberty.
53:30
Speaker 8: He was a movie star and you always knew that
53:34
Speaker 8: he was going to give it as all when he
53:35
Speaker 8: was in a project, no matter what the project was,
53:38
Speaker 8: he was always going to he was always going to perform,
53:41
Speaker 8: he was going to be there. He's coming out of that.
53:45
Speaker 8: His breakout is in the in the late sixties early
53:49
Speaker 8: seventies with the new Hollywood, where there was a lot
53:51
Speaker 8: more freedom for younger actors to really make a name
53:58
Speaker 8: for themselves, and he was kind of an iconoclast in
54:03
Speaker 8: the early days and didn't necessarily follow He could have
54:07
Speaker 8: very easily been a pretty boy because he was, you
54:11
Speaker 8: know's I remember him being the first person I knew
54:15
Speaker 8: as a young kid. I'm like, why is my mom
54:17
Speaker 8: watching this movie? Why did my mom really want to
54:19
Speaker 8: watch The Electric Horsemen? And then I realized mom has
54:23
Speaker 8: a crush on Robert Rudford. He was a handsome man,
54:28
Speaker 8: but he also took roles that were challenging, roles that
54:32
Speaker 8: defied that being defined by simply you know, he's the
54:36
Speaker 8: handsome actor. He could have easily fallen into a pretty
54:41
Speaker 8: boy trap, and he actively didn't do that. And with
54:45
Speaker 8: his on screen persona and also his involvement in different
54:51
Speaker 8: political endeavors outside where he his environmentalism, his Native American
54:57
Speaker 8: rights issues. He took a couple a lot of causes
55:01
Speaker 8: that seem to be very near and dear to him.
55:03
Speaker 8: It didn't it wasn't performative for him. There's a lot
55:06
Speaker 8: of a lot of virtue signaling that can go on
55:09
Speaker 8: where people just jump on something because it's the popular
55:12
Speaker 8: thing to say that you're four. But he really was
55:15
Speaker 8: committed to his causes, and if you agree with those
55:19
Speaker 8: causes or not, you still have to admire his commitment
55:22
Speaker 8: and dedication.
55:25
Speaker 3: And he's also, you know, one of the founderies of
55:28
Speaker 3: the Sundance Film Festival.
55:30
Speaker 8: That's that's the other thing from a non political standpoint
55:34
Speaker 8: and from a filmmaker myself, Sundance was his foundation of
55:40
Speaker 8: the Sundance, well, the film festival, but there's the Sundance Institute.
55:45
Speaker 8: There's a lot of support for the film industry and
55:50
Speaker 8: the independent film industry. If it weren't for what he
55:53
Speaker 8: did and setting up Sundance, you wouldn't have Tarantino, you
55:57
Speaker 8: wouldn't have Richard link Letter, you wouldn't have a lot
56:01
Speaker 8: of major filmmakers, wouldn't have had that initial avenue and
56:06
Speaker 8: an initial way to be discovered and grow in all
56:10
Speaker 8: of the film festival industry, and it's a huge industry now.
56:13
Speaker 8: Film festivals wouldn't be what it is if it weren't
56:16
Speaker 8: for his commitment to sundance and he's a commitment to
56:21
Speaker 8: bringing exposure, to bringing the opportunity for outside voices to
56:29
Speaker 8: be heard.
56:30
Speaker 1: That was Keith Hope, Associate Professor at the Jack JA.
56:33
Speaker 1: Valente School of Communication at the University of Houston. That's
56:37
Speaker 1: it for The People's News this week. But before we go,
56:40
Speaker 1: we also want to mention the passing of Asada Shakur.
56:45
Speaker 1: Many people know her as mother of film star and
56:47
Speaker 1: rapper Tupac Shakur, but she was a freedom fighter, a
56:51
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party member and was chased by the FBI
56:55
Speaker 1: and the government. Escaped to Cuba and lived the remainder
56:58
Speaker 1: of her life in Cuba. We will have a story
57:00
Speaker 1: on her life and death next week. The People's News
57:06
Speaker 1: is a production of Steve Gallington and Richard Hannah and
57:09
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Speaker 1: atgallington dot com. Thank you.