In this two-hour live episode from Eagle Pass, I kick things off with author and educator S.A. Schneider, a middle-grade fantasy writer on a mission to spark kids’ creativity through stories, video games, and music. We dive into his unusual co-creator—a rescue wolf named Hunter Moon Moon—then explore how video games can be powerful storytelling engines, why imagination should be nurtured before grammar, and how parents and teachers can help kids become lifelong readers and storytellers. We talk narrative design, simple tools that let kids build games, the value of failure, and practical ways families can turn creativity into a habit.
In hour two, I’m joined by Daphne Armour and Nate Smith of the Texas Nationalist Movement to unpack Texan Arise—their statewide volunteer training push for the 2026 primaries. We cover how the Texas Legislature really works, why primaries are where most races are decided, the Texas First Pledge, and the path to getting a referendum on Texas independence. We talk practical ways Texans can plug into campaigns (often from home), why focusing on Austin beats chasing DC, and how an independent Texas could streamline government, strengthen the economy, and keep power closer to the people. Want to help? Visit tnm.me or joerooz.com/tnm to learn more and get involved.
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Special thanks to:
Executive Producer Wayne Rankin
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(00:00:51) Opening banter and studio kickoff
(00:03:52) Show intro, host welcome, platforms, and housekeeping
(00:10:25) Tonights lineup and guest preview
(00:11:01) Guest Steven Schneider joins the show
(00:11:36) Rescuing Hunter Moon Moon: life with a wolf-hybrid
(00:15:06) Author identity, kid engagement, and the intergalactic 12-year-old
(00:20:47) Video games as storytelling engines for kids
(00:23:44) Game narrative vs. books: design, tools, and examples
(00:27:47) DfandD roots, creativity, and techefs impact on imagination
(00:30:13) What schools miss: let kids tell stories first
(00:32:11) Building books with words to know and classroom supports
(00:36:09) Making storytellers at home: campfires, failure, and practice
(00:40:26) Storytelling culture, screen time, and classics for games
(00:44:36) Simple game projects and time: from Grimm to small builds
(00:46:30) Careers in narrative design and the future of games
(00:48:25) AI in writing and art: risks, uses, and ethics
(00:52:45) Parenting, accountability, and letting kids fail
(00:56:10) Grandkids, Aspergerefs, and authentic representation in fiction
(01:02:17) Influences, banned books, and where to find Steven
(01:04:03) Hour break and schedule notes
(01:08:44) Hour two: welcoming Daphne Armour and Nate Smith (TNM)
(01:14:45) Getting to know the guests: origins and fun questions
(01:17:52) Why they joined the Texas Nationalist Movement
(01:24:03) Principles: nonintervention, federal overreach, and state focus
(01:24:35) Launching TEXAN ARISE: training volunteers to win campaigns
(01:25:37) Inside a TEXAN ARISE workshop: civics, primaries, and process
(01:29:33) Texas legislature frustrations: priorities and process stalls
(01:33:55) Speaker power, committees, and grassroots leverage
(01:40:27) Building a pro-referendum House: pledges and candidates
(01:45:38) Talk to your representatives: pressure locally
(01:49:54) Citizen-legislators, pay, term limits, and access
(01:54:21) Why Texas independence: removing federal layers
(02:02:24) Closer to home: efficiency, budgets, and benefits
(02:05:44) Global self-determination: other movements and Alberta
(02:10:24) Path to a referendum: votes needed and current status
(02:12:17) How to help now: pledges, primaries, and volunteering
(02:17:10) Final calls to action and upcoming workshops
(02:20:29) Show wrap-up, support options, and closing
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:00:52]
Unknown:
My fans, I have arrived. Me too.
[00:01:00] Unknown:
They look so cheery.
[00:01:05] Unknown:
Cheering. Asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Ruge Show, the show where we talk about anything and everything, where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC. Alrighty. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is great to be with you once again as we open up this show and transmit to you live from the asylum studios, from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and we are gonna do the very best that we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we can muster without all the bluster.
Hey, folks. Welcome to the Joe Ruse show. Well, it is Monday, Monday, October the twentieth two thousand and twenty five at nineteen zero one hours. We actually started on time. Can you believe that? That's pretty wild. Right? I think so. Hey, guys. I hope you had a great weekend. If you weren't able to catch the shows over the weekend, that's alright. They're still up there for you to check out. Also, the audio stream is available to you on Rumble. I'm sorry, Rumble. On, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Goodpods, you name it, we're on it. Check it out. Wanna check out the video? That you'll find on Rumble. That you'll find on YouTube. That you'll also find on Twitch, x, Fakebook, all of those great places. So make sure you head over there and check those things out. And, you know, if you can, if you're if you're watching or you're listening, if you can leave a comment, leave a rating, a review, whatever it is. Some, you know, some platforms let you leave, like, a star review, something like that. Do it. Let me know what you think. Really curious to to get some feedback from the folks. You know, are you are you happy with what content we're putting out?
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Alright. Well, we have a packed show here for you tonight. We have, actually three guests lined up here. We're gonna be starting off tonight on our first hour with, Steven Schneider, and, then we'll be going over to Nate Smith and Daphne Armour from from the Texas Nationalist Movement. That's gonna be a great conversation. Looking forward to it. As you know, I'm a member of Texas, a member of the Texas Nationalist Movement. I have my Texit mug here ready to go, and, so we'll be talking to them in just a little bit. But waiting in the wings, I see him sitting there in the in the little waiting room. We have Steven a Schneider. Steven, welcome to the Joe Russo. It's great to have you here with us. Hey, Joe. How are you doing? Good to see you. Thank you for coming. Now now now, Steve, you are, you're a a middle grade fantasy author. You've made a mission to inspire creative creativity and kids through stories, video games, and music.
You actually have a wolf. Yes. By the name of Hunter.
[00:11:22] Unknown:
Full name's Hunter Moon Moon.
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Hunter Moon? Moon Moon. Yeah. Moon Moon. Okay. So, without any further ado, I gotta ask you. A wolf?
[00:11:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, he's a rescue. Okay. My my ex wife actually rescued him. He was born with missing some bones in his forepaw, on his right leg, so they were go put him down. And he had been kept in captivity and abused a bit. It wasn't a real good situation. And the they rescued him, but they were go euthanize him. And she saw him and and said, nope. I want him. So we ended up with a wolf. He is 75% Sarlouse wolf, and the other 25%, we're not really sure. There was no real records of them, so the vet had to kinda do DNA test and guess and all that. Wow. But he's a he's a good happy boy. He's he's, you know, even with the bad paw, he gets running around and jumping around, and he's a big happy, he acts like a little puppy sometimes. But
[00:12:24] Unknown:
I didn't know you could rescue wolves.
[00:12:26] Unknown:
Well, the the they not there are wolf sanctuaries. I know there's one, close to me here, and they they will rescue hybrid wolves sometimes, but they try and stick with the purebred natural wolves that maybe get caught in hunter's trap, or somebody captured them as a pup and tried to raise them and realized, oh, this was a bad idea. They don't take hybrids as often. There are some that do, but they're they're all full, and they don't have tons of money. So there's, like, there you know, he's got a bad paw. He's only partly wolf. We're go pass, unfortunately. So he was gonna be put down, and, you know, now we have him. And he's a he's a good boy. He's fun.
He's a real he's a right now, he's getting his winter coat in, so he's all fluff. Oh, nice.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
My, my I I I don't have a wolf. I have I have two French bulldogs, and they are shedding like any like, you couldn't I can't believe how much these these two are shedding this year.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
I don't know if they're shedding that much ever. Right. The good thing is he's an outside animal, so a lot of his furs out there, he hates to be brushed, but he gets these big clumps, and we have to try and cut them out and brush them out. He hates it. I mean, even even though, you know, he's family and he loves us and all that, we pull his skin a little bit. He'll snap at us. And it it sometimes can get a little scary when he growls and bares his teeth, and you see the wolf come out. You know? Well, I could imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Respect for the wild animal there. That that would definitely give us pause for sure. No no not pause. Yeah.
[00:13:56] Unknown:
Right. Well, usually, when I usually, when we have guests on the show, I you know, usually, the first question that I ask is, you know, what's something most people don't know about you but should? But I guess having a wolf would satisfy that question. Yeah. Yeah. The the most people are coming to know that about me because I I use them a lot. Because I found out I I took some author pictures with him. I'm like, oh, you know, that'd be a nice picture,
[00:14:17] Unknown:
me hugging a wolf. You know? And people start start looking at the picture and asking me questions, and I'm like, well, lots of people are interested. So I started giving updates and more pictures, and I have a little wolf here that I put on my table for kids if they wanna get one,
[00:14:31] Unknown:
because they all are like, oh my gosh. It's Hunter, and they love it. You know? But I what I do is I tell people that in truth, you know, quiet. Hunter tells me all the stories, but because he can't hold a pencil, I have to write them down, and I just take all the credit for it. That's awesome. I like that. That's great. I was actually looking over your website earlier today, and, I I love the work that you're doing. I think I think it's great, and I kind of wish that, you know, something like what you're doing was available to me when I was a kid because I used to write a lot of short stories and things like that, you know, in school. And, it was it was my well, like, you told me, I'm gonna tell you a secret.
I I used to do that just to get out of doing certain assignments in the classroom. I would I would That's crazy. No kid has ever done anything like that. I know. Terrible. Right? That's I'm I'm a horrible role model out in this terrible absolutely terrible. Hey. So what's your go to beverage to help you unwind?
[00:15:24] Unknown:
You know what? Me and my daughter, when it was cold mostly, we would make ultimate hot cocoa. And that's I I'm not a huge, like, alcohol drinker. Actually, funny I say that. I've got a few Jack Daniels, but I'll do that around the kids, just occasionally.
[00:15:41] Unknown:
I'm Jack Daniels. Drink that before you came on?
[00:15:44] Unknown:
Earlier tonight. It's just one. I mean, those those things are basically Kool Aid. Well, I was just asking because if I have to, I I have a I have a bottle of bourbon out there. I can go pour myself a drink, and we can, you know Yeah. No. I drink I drink that one. But, no, I don't drink a whole lot. So me and my daughter would make, ultimate hot cocoa, and that's, you know, what I still make, especially in the winter as it gets cold, which it's finally doing. Alright. So what what is ultimate hot cocoa? So it we we use regular hot cocoa with milk, warmed up milk in the hot cocoa, but then we put in, some cinnamon and a drop of vanilla, and we get cinnamon sticks and or, peppermint sticks and mix it up with. Cool. And then, of course, some whipped cream on the top. Not marshmallows. Whipped cream. Well, that sounds great. I gotta try that. Yeah. A little bit. You're gonna have to send me you're gonna have to send me some some directions on this one. I'm gonna try this thing out. That sounds pretty good. I like that. And better yet, we we have big Star Wars mugs. We have Yoda and Darth Vader that were, like, really big mugs that we use. Who's who? Depends on who how we feel for the day. We switch back and forth. Alright. So so you embrace both the light and the dark? Yeah. Exact yeah. So So it came from me and my wife, this one townhouse we had. First time we ever had a dishwasher.
And we to get used to it, we we kept forgetting to take things in and out. So we got a Darth Vader and a Yoda magnet. Darth Vader was on there, they're dirty and need clean. If Yoda is on there, they're clean and somebody better pull them out. Oh, that's a great idea. I like that. That's fun. Yeah. That's pretty neat. So, so so I like I I I said earlier, that, you know, I I love what you're doing with with, with the kids and and and the storytelling and and the writing.
[00:17:22] Unknown:
Again, I wish I I wish I had something like that. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I probably still would have been writing today, through that. Now you write fantasy for middle grade, middle grade readers, and, that's really that's really kind of a special age, really, at at that because that's when your imagination just takes off, man. It just runs wild. What what what drew you to that audience?
[00:17:46] Unknown:
I I haven't really matured past it myself. So my my kids it's a quote from doctor who, but they they always called me the intergalactic 12 year old, because I was all you know, I was a scout leader, girl scout, and a boy scout leader, and the kids loved me. We had fun, doing things. My girl scouts, I took them out tracking in the snow. Got a couple stories about that. But, like, one year, we spent some time building a dollhouse because we thought the book's requirements sucked. You know? And I I had so much fun doing the dollhouse. And as always, building Lego, getting on the floor, and, you know, I remember GI Joe and My Little Pony and Star Wars all mixed together in big epic stories going on. So I I never got past that thinking and stuff. And I I see a lot of adults lose it, and they don't know how to do that anymore.
But I think part of it is now the kids aren't getting as much a chance to explore their imagination and live in fantasy worlds. So it it when I started to write, like anybody, oh, I'm gonna write the best novel ever, and everybody's gonna love it. And it's gonna be so good. And I'm writing, and I'm like, and I can't get anything that sounds good. And this sucks. And I was working with a author friend of mine who lives up in Cleveland. And he's talking to me, and he's he's finally like, dude, why are you trying to write an adult thriller? I'm like, well, I don't know. What should I try and write? I don't know. He's like, because everything you do, your life revolves around kids. Try and write a a kid's book. Oh, that's a good idea.
And it it's it flowed. It came out so much better. It worked so much better. And, you know, it just I had to discover that and realize it. And since then, I've realized my life really has revolved around working with kids, helping kids, doing things with kids, playing Legos with kids, and all sorts of things. So that's where it came from. Because I see in the school, teachers, I I admire and love, but they're stuck following certain curriculum. They have to do certain things. And I'm not trained as an academic teacher education anything. Okay. So I'm thinking a little differently outside the box and focusing more on the imagination and the storytelling.
And, you know, I I can help kids write. I can help kids use their imagination. I'm not as concerned if they put the comma in the right place or if that word is spelled a 100 we can fix the words. We can fix the grammar. That's what schools do well. So I work on the other stuff.
[00:20:20] Unknown:
Well, that's great, man. I I like I said, you got you you do great work, and I was, like, looking at your website. I would encourage folks to go to your website and check it out. Thank you. Because, I I got a chance to read some of the, some of the blurbs from your books. And, I mean, really well done. And I I really do appreciate it. And again, I I wish I had a resource like this when I was growing up because I probably still would have been writing today. Now now video games are, you know, video video game storytelling. Most adults think of video games as just entertainment, but you don't. You you look at them as storytelling engines.
Yes. How do you how do you help kids, understand that connection?
[00:20:58] Unknown:
Well, that one's not that hard. When you get a kid and tell the kids like, hey. I can show you how to make a video game, and they need people that can tell stories. So let me tell you about you know, kids wanna do video games. I've I've found, a software called Bloxels, which gives you a board and colored little blocks. And you put the blocks in, then you use an app to take a picture of it, and it turns it into a video game just like that. Really? And I started teaching some classes at the local rec center and stuff for younger kids and started to find out that older kids were coming in. And, occasionally, an adult would come in. And I'm always with the adults. I'm like, you know, this is not using, like, a game engine to create Assassin's Creed or anything. They're like, that's fine. I'm interested, but I don't know how to get into it. I'm like, this is just a taste of it. And they love it because it is so simple. They're not worried about screwing up. They're not trying to remember what combinations there are. They're just putting down colored blocks, taking a picture, and then playing a game.
And and once and I I've done classes with kids. I did it at a STEM school, one of the STEM schools in the area. And these are some really bright kids that work with tech all day long. Mhmm. And I'm, like, trying to get through the first ten minutes of explaining things, and I get kids going, hey. I just created this level, and I got to the top part, but I'm stuck. I think I broke and they found a bug in the first ten minutes before I was even done talking. And I I got inducted with the company. They're like, oh, yeah. That was a bug. We'll get that fixed. So, you know, it was a great experience because the kids just glom onto it and explode without having much instruction.
But what's really great is then I tell the parents, it's like, look. If would you rather have them making video games or playing video games? Because if we look back, like, a hundred twenty years ago, the film industry was just getting started. And if you said, I wanna be a screenwriter and go to Hollywood and write, movies or, you know, write stories for movies, people would be like, you're crazy. That's never gonna go anywhere. And now look at it. If somebody said, hey. I'm going to Hollywood to be a film writer. Oh, right. You that's awesome. You know, people love it. Yeah. Exactly. That's where video games are evolving to. The the storytelling their narrative designer is new. They actually didn't have a dedicated person doing story up until, like, the last ten or fifteen years in most studios. So there's still a lot of growth and opportunity as a storyteller in video games.
[00:23:20] Unknown:
So can you explain how, video game storytelling works and how it differs from traditional, book or storytelling?
[00:23:28] Unknown:
So that's the the I'm sure you've played some video game. Yeah. So you have an idea of how it works with you make the choices as most of the time of what you want. It's it's like a choose your own adventure, book, which is one of the things I use for training, doing choose your own adventure. Like Dungeons and Dragons where you you present to the player something, and they tell you what they're doing. That's kinda how video games work. So those are things I use in teaching kids to lead up to video games. What makes a video game story different is it's more than just the background, nowadays. You you have story within the levels. Look. Think of Space Invaders.
Aliens are invading Earth. You have a base, and you have to shoot them and kill them. End of story. That's that's the entire story of the game. Exactly. But then you look at, like I mentioned, like Assassin's Creed, and it's got multiple games with this interwoven storyline. And within the level, there are things you do that interact with the story or Skyrim. Not only did Skyrim have a great story of its own with lots of DLC, but it had lots of little books that told the history that you could gather throughout it. So for story a lot of times, story in video games, they come in afterwards.
That's not as true with something like Skyrim. They have to have that right away. Or the new Diablo four. I was talking to the guy that helped write some of the story for Diablo four. And they're there at the beginning, and they're coming up with the background to get you set up to start. Because in a book, you have your beginning. You have your setup. You have where it introduces the character. It introduces the world and then the conflict. Whereas a video game starts at the conflict and takes you on from there pretty much. Right. Yeah. So the store the the narrative designer has to help coordinate between the level designers and the game engine designers and all that for the for the story of the character, which means Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games.
Okay? Yeah. It'd be great game level designer if he pulled out a bazooka and was just shooting people like Rambo, but that's not fitting the character. That doesn't fit our story. It doesn't fit that. So you get that type of thing. The game Cuphead. I don't know if you ever played that. Really challenging vintage, old style video game. It's a screen that you shoot a guy or you're jumping over things, and it's very, very, very difficult. But they did the story at the last minute, and I I interviewed the guy that helped do the story. And it was more a matter of making a story fit what they were trying to do. So there's it's still a growing, changing thing that they're they're doing.
As an example, though, Assassin's Creed, one of the tools they use for that is a tool called Twine, and I use it in some of my teaching. Basically, Twine is a graphic, choose your own adventure creator. It's an app that helps you choose create choose your own adventures, and that is the exact tool they use to create the branching story elements
[00:26:31] Unknown:
in Assassin's Creed. Oh, wow. I don't know that. That that's interesting. And it's funny because you as you're telling the story, you're and you're explaining this, I'm I'm thinking you mentioned, vintage games. You know what popped in my head?
[00:26:45] Unknown:
What? Pong. Pong. Really? Pong? There's no story to Pong.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
No. No. Whatsoever. Pong was great, man. I I I I love that. And then I think probably the first game I ever played that had a storytelling element to it was, Resident Evil, the the original one. I just played that yesterday because it's on sale on Xbox. Man, I haven't played that in, like, forever. I I had it on PlayStation when it when it Oh, yeah. Came out. Well, if you still had it, it's worth quite a bit of money, the original. I wish. I wish. But, yeah, that was a great game too. And I I actually I like the storytelling element. And, I don't know if it really correlates with it, but it it reminds me also a lot of, like, like, I remember when when I was a teenager, we used to before, like, video games really became something big, we used to do a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and things like that. So so I I could I see how there there's, like, a little bit of a connection there. Like, it's the the the the transition from that type of gameplay to storytelling video gameplay. That that's that's pretty it's pretty interesting.
Now do you think technology, especially with video games and and screens, has helped to hurt creativity in kids?
[00:27:56] Unknown:
That's a really tough one, and I I think there's a couple different ways of looking at it. I think more so than the screens, I think our culture and the parents could be actually blamed a little bit more for that because parents aren't encouraging kids to be creative. They aren't encouraging them as much to to draw, to read, to create a cartoon instead of watching a cartoon. Well, if they even really have many cartoons, they have anime and stuff. You know? Yeah. So I I think parents it's too easy for parents just to let a kid stare at the screen whatever they're doing, watching YouTube or just playing a video game. I was always of the type I got my Commodore 64.
You know, I had an Atari. I I was lucky. I got an Atari right when they came out. I had plenty of games on that. Then I had to have my 64. But the best I had tons of games. Believe me. Tons of games on the 64. But the best thing was you could program it. You could learn to program and make your own games. You could do your own and, you know, and I was I've always been the that, creator type. You know, you mentioned D and D. Plenty of campaigns that I create and lead people through. In Fact, my son was in high school. I did one for Star Wars. All his friends came, and we played a Star Wars adventure. And it is great training for that, but I I just was always naturally that way. I I just think kids are not encouraged. It's not looked upon as a, oh my gosh. You can create that, thing as much as it may have been at one time or could be.
There's too many people that, you know, you're right. And I see this at my author tables. I get people that come up all the time and go, you wrote these? Oh, man. That is awesome. Then I get other people that go, oh, you wrote these? Yeah. It doesn't look that interesting. And they walk away. And it's like, really? You know, what have you done in the last week? You know? Right. It's just not as something that people view as important today, unfortunately.
[00:30:02] Unknown:
Yeah. And and that is unfortunate, actually. And that that kinda leads into my next question for you is, you know, and you kinda touched on it already is what what's missing most in today's education and parenting culture?
[00:30:14] Unknown:
I've talked to a lot of teachers about this. I I I I put right on my booth teachers. Big. I wanna get teachers talking to me. I think we worry about spelling and grammar way too early in school. Because when I talk to a lot of authors, they're like, I don't know how to write a book. And they spend all this time writing one book, But what they really do is spend a lot of time at conferences, at, classes, at reading books on how to write books, and they spend all this time. But the problem is until you've written a bunch, a lot of that advice doesn't click. It doesn't really make sense. It's it's known maybe academically, but it it how does it apply to writing? It's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah.
So when I talk to teachers, and I you know, I'm not gonna change the education system myself. I need a little bit more heavyweight behind this. But instead of worrying about spelling lists and grammar in first, second, third, fourth grade, just let the kids tell stories. Let them write stories. Let them draw stories. Let them dictate stories. Walk around talking to themselves, telling stories. Do a campfire, and everybody tells stories. Because if they're telling stories, they're using their imagination and creativity. And believe it or not, other things later in in school will be much easier the more creative their brain can be. But then once they've told these stories and they've written these stories and they see it, when they get spelling lists, it will click better because, oh, you know what? I misspelled that word. Now I know how to spell it. Or, oh, I spell I wrote this word, but now I'm learning how to spell it the next time I did it better. And the grammar, who cares about commas when you have one sentence on the board? It's just so academically disconnected from actual writing.
And if if we I I think if we just had let them tell stories for a couple grades,
[00:32:07] Unknown:
the rest of it would be easier for them later. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea, actually. I like that. That that's good. That's good. Now in in your stories, each one of your stories, you include words to know Yes. Which which highlight words that kids may or may not be familiar with. You you also have discussion questions, and there's also a section, for, where where the kids can write their own their own adventure ideas. Like a fan fiction, I hope. Yeah. Okay. So, tell us more about why you you you include that in in each one of your stories.
[00:32:44] Unknown:
Because I know teachers are burdened. There's a lot of stuff on teachers. I had a friend that just got assigned math teacher because the old guy, was leaving, and she came in. And she's like, I don't have anything for math. And, you know, to get a whole curriculum for a year, was, like, daunting to her. So I wanna help something that you normally do. It's gonna be a challenge. Yes. And she hadn't been a math teacher before, so she didn't have much to draw on. So yeah. Yeah. So I I wanted to make it easier for, teachers. Plus, my other stance is instead of shoving books down kids' throats or stories down their throats that they hate or don't enjoy or mean nothing to them, let them read something they enjoy. You know how many kids, young adults I know that read a lot and started off by reading comic books? RL Stine, who we would all consider very successful writer with a very good series, said, I didn't read books when I was younger. I read comic books. And then someone said, you might enjoy these and pointed me to Ray Bradbury, and it's like a world opened up. It's the same idea as the writing.
You know, if you shove things at them that they hate, they're always going to associate, I hate reading. But if you just let them read anything and they enjoy it, then when they see the when they see Shakespeare, when they see Bradbury and Asimov, when they see any of, you know, Game of Thrones or something when they're later, you know, they they'll enjoy it more because they've had that exposure. And I I think that's the other problem we we need to correct is let kids read whatever.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's great too because I I remember when I was a kid, like I said, you know, I used to, you know, write short stories and stuff. I had a teacher in my in fifth grade who would encourage me to to to read anything I can get my hands on. I was a great reader. I I always was, and I still am. I love to read. I love to sit down with a book and just and just kinda go through it. Sometimes I read them a little too critically. So, and, you know, and and what I like to do is I do surveys. So I'll read I'll I'll skim the book, and then I'll go back later, and I'll actually read more detailed into it and I kinda break it down. And I don't know why I do it that way. I did so I that's my fifth grade teacher taught me that, and it stayed with me all me on my whole life.
But, you know, he wouldn't key in card, like, just like you said, read whatever it is that you're interested in. You know, it doesn't matter what it is. And, he he actually would every every once in a while as a kind of like, like a reward for being a good kid, you know, he would, he'd he'd give me a comic book to read and, you know, or take home or or I was very I was a very big fan of, of the Star Trek books, the novels that would that would come out like the, the alternate not the alternate universe, but the, you know, the back stories and and such. And, yeah. And so he would do that. He, like, he he would if I if I did something really well, if I was struggling, like, I used to struggle with math a lot.
And if I did something successfully, he would get me a book, you know, something that I'd love to read. And so it made me, well, I want I want to get another book, so I'm gonna make sure I do this right. And it it motivated me to do it. And that's exactly what I think what you're saying. Yeah. So it's fantastic to do that. And I that's that's that's, and and I love that you do that. I think that's a fantastic idea. Now, you also, you also teach kids, you teach parents how to turn writing into a lifelong pursuit, even even maybe even a career. I guess, what's the first step that, that for a family, to take that would wanna
[00:36:30] Unknown:
kinda push them along the path for that? Everything we just talked about. The the kids gotta read, and they gotta enjoy reading and, know what they like. And then they just gotta tell stories. Not so I and I I I made this mistake early on at a couple author tables. I had some younger kids. I'm like, oh, do you guys like to write? Meaning, do you like to write stories? Oh, no. I hate that. And I realized I'm I was saying it incorrectly. The when they're in third grade, they may not like to write. It may be a difficult process. But telling stories, they may love telling stories. You ever have that chatterbox such as, oh, go to bed at night or back seat of the car? It's like, how many more miles at grandma's house do we have to list? You know? That was my son.
[00:37:12] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:37:13] Unknown:
My son just likes that. It's driving me crazy. We we took martial arts. In our first year there, they did a Halloween party, and they the the instructor made the mistake. Any kids wanna tell a story, which I thought was great. My son immediately, yeah. I do. And he got up there. He started telling a story. Twenty minutes later, he's still telling that story. The instructor's like, what the hell story is this? How long is it going? I'm like, I don't know. He's making it up as he goes. And he's like, oh. So he goes, alright. Good story. My son stood up, took a bow, and sat down right in the middle of a sentence. You know? But that's the first step that, you know, the kids gotta enjoy telling to enjoy reading, and they gotta enjoy telling stories. You know, when I was in scouts, we used to sit around the campfire and tell stories. That's another, you know, skill that people don't do. They don't sit around even, you know, on their back porch with a small little fire going and tell stories. You know, they may bitch about the day or talk about the sports game, but they don't tell a story.
Christmas time, in Victorian times, Christmas Eve was the time to gather around the hearth and tell ghost stories. That's where Christmas Carol comes from. Yeah. Yeah. And and that was a a tradition that we've lost telling those stories. So, you know, that's the first thing. And do I think every kid is going to read and tell stories and become a James Patterson author? No. That's just not realistic. Any more than every kid, out there swinging a bat right now is going to be on a pro team. It's just not happening. But I argue that if they're creative and learn to tell stories, they have a better chance of making money at it than the kid swinging the baseball bat. So that's, you know, my argument on that.
And and with narrative design in video games, if they know how to tell stories, there's a good chance they could get a good job. And I'm talking, like, Blizzard was looking for narrative designers, with no college experience no college degree. They wanted some experience starting at 94,000. Wow. So, yeah, experience starting at 94,000. Wow. So yeah. The these are wrong business. Exactly. There there are good jobs, out there for that, and you can't argue that the the video game business is too small and going away. It it brought in more money in 2020 than pro football. So the it's here to stay, and it's getting bigger.
And that's just one avenue. Especially especially with with,
[00:39:39] Unknown:
the advances they're making with AI, with the with video games and that the whole interactive, aspect of it, it it's it's I I've tried I've I've I've tried to play one of those AI games once
[00:39:53] Unknown:
with the goggles and all that stuff. Yeah. And I felt like a flipping idiot. So And that's actually we're going to need even more storytellers to help guide the AI and get the basics for the story on that. So it's not like it's going to replace storytelling. It's just maybe changing it again.
[00:40:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And story you know, like like you said, storytelling is a lost art. Yes. And that's that's the that's the sad thing too. Like, I like, you know, you talked about Victorian days, you know, telling stories around the around the the the fireplace at at home, Christmas time. I mean, that's not really that far back. I mean, when I was a kid, my my grandfather used to do that. We would we would all sit around. We didn't have a fireplace, but, you know, we would all sit around in the living room, on on Christmas or any holiday. Really, it didn't make a difference what it was. And my grandfather, my grandfather was an old Sicilian, you know, so he he would come out, he'd he'd bring out he'd bring out the guitar.
Nice. He would sit there and he would sing a couple of songs then tell a story about where that song came from and how it came about and why it was written and who wrote it and what it's really all about, and then he would tie that into another story and said he would just go on and on and on. And some of those are some of the best memories I have, is sitting around talking and and hearing those those stories. And and it's and it's sad. It's it really is sad that it's such a lost art. That people just don't know how to sit and tell the story. And I and I blame the fact that that they're so engaged with what they're seeing on TV. They're they're it just sucks the creativity out of you because it's all right there in front of you. Video games are just a step above watching TV because it's slightly interactive.
[00:41:25] Unknown:
Multiplayer video games, you know, at least you're talking to somebody. But, you know, I I I chuckle sometimes because people are like, oh, you know, oh, that's too much work to do that with my kids. And, you know, oh, I have to monitor what they're reading. After this, I have to that. Blah blah blah. But they'll gladly drop a couple thousand dollars to take their kids to Disneyland, which was built on stories. That was Walt Disney's whole thing was stories, bringing stories to families. You know, you could argue, you know, he screwed up all the Grimm's fairy tales and made them all very pleasant and friendly, but, you know, that's all but that's that's also what's going to sell, what are people looking for. He you know, you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. Grim's fairy tales are all quite grim, to be honest. Yes. Yeah. You know what? I I actually have thought of hiring some people to create some video games based on some of the grim fairy tale stories.
That's a great idea. And and trying to to adventure type on some of them, maybe a mixture with some adventures, some platforming, or, you know, combat action like the big bad wolf and the pigs keeping them from the houses. You know? Whatever. But and then it's, you know, hey. This is from a story. Here's a story. Maybe have part of the story interwoven
[00:42:40] Unknown:
with the video game action to introduce these to kids. You know, Aesop fables. You know, we could do little video games based on those short little Aesop stories. Oh, that would be awesome. Those some of those stories and I I remember reading those things as a kid. I used to have this an incredible book collection, and and and over the my parents got rid of them when when I when I got when I became an adult and moved out and on my own, had all that stuff in my parents' garage, and they needed space. And so without thinking, they just said, oh, he doesn't want these anymore, I got it. My dad did that to my Star Wars stuff. We'll stop right there. Yeah. That that hurts. That hurts. It still does. But, but but this collection that I had was all of those stories, the grim fairy tales, Aesop's fable, all the unedited, you know Oh, yeah. You know, the full story, unabridged, stories. And I had I had a copy of, I had a hardback copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula that was it was when was it pub it was published in the early early nineteen hundreds.
[00:43:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I think 1890 when it first came out. Oh, no. Yeah. The original book
[00:43:45] Unknown:
story, but the copy that I had was printed in the early nineteen hundreds, like 1925, 1930, somewhere around there. Wow. And it was my great grandfather's copy. And I had that. I I had so many book. They were just amazing, amazing books. I I I miss stories like that. You know? And I and a lot of those a lot of those books too. A lot of those stories, like you said, the Aesop's fables, the Grimm's fairy tales, all that stuff would make great video games. Yeah. Yeah. And they're they're public domain.
[00:44:13] Unknown:
You know? Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's true. They are. So it's just go for it, man. Do it. Star Wars IP. Yeah. Well, that how much time in the day is there? Because there's a lot of time writing. Well, sure. If you if you really have your heart for it, you'll find time. Yeah. You know what? I I've been really thinking of it. I've got a couple other things I've I've been trying to get finished. I may try and nothing elaborate. I'm not talking about the hundred hour game. You know? This is a simple little game is what I'm trying to look for. So it may still come about. It's still a project on the back burner. No. My my son talking about games like that, like story games, my my son
[00:44:50] Unknown:
sat down one one time. I bought him Call of Duty, the, like, one of the early early versions of it. He was a kid, like, a little kid. And it worried me, to be quite honest with you, that he was so proficient in executing these plans in this game. And I was like, well, either he's gonna grow up to be a mercenary or or or or a marine sniper or or or a hitman.
[00:45:15] Unknown:
And and now they they hire all these top level kids to do the drums, because they need precision control. So, yeah, the video game plan really did come about for some. As many kids get hired for that as become professional ballplayers, I think. You know? So
[00:45:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I I get you. So so where do where do you think opportunities for young storytellers will open up, in the next decade? Oh, well, I I don't think video games are going away.
[00:45:40] Unknown:
We've got plenty of those. And a lot of people are like, books are dead because of AI, but I think that's actually going to help if you're a good storyteller because people are going to want authentic human written stories. And and it's even I see it even now. So there are still going to be people buying books, still buying those stories. But we've got, you know, YouTube, the videos. So many of these kids do these videos that are just quick five seconds. But, you know, I we're going to hit a point where people are overabundanced of that and done with it. And story is the next thing. But the big push in business is your business, training, your business message through story.
And that's a different way of telling a story, but they want someone that's good at getting their message across through a story format. So there's a lot of these still out there. It just like anything, technology keeps changing. It it keeps changing the opportunities and what's available. Is some of the old stuff you know, can I you mentioned, you know, stoker? You know? Can I, sit down on a typewriter and type up a manuscript and a publisher prints it and, you know, it's the only book that comes out that week? No. As we were talking, 5,000 books probably got published on Amazon.
So it keeps changing, and you just gotta keep up with it and keep looking for what's available. And the kids that are, you know, in fourth, fifth grade now, by the time they're older and changing the world, there's gonna be different opportunities even then. So it it it's hard to predict what's going to happen, especially because it changes every second week nowadays. Yeah. That's true. What do you think about AI, though? I mean,
[00:47:27] Unknown:
the the temptation to use AI to do these things.
[00:47:31] Unknown:
No. God. Heck no. I've seen some stories written by AI, and, you know, I've played around with it a little bit. They they suck. They're horrible. There's it just it it reads badly. They're not well written stories.
[00:47:48] Unknown:
Well, there's no emotion behind it.
[00:47:50] Unknown:
And it doesn't connect well, and there there's just a lot of problems with them. Now will that change and get better? I'm sure it probably will. So there you go. We're going to need people to write stories for our AI robot servitors that are roaming around. You know, everything's changing. AI is a tough thing right now because there's a lot of misinformation, and there's a lot of people with opinions that really aren't don't understand why they have that opinion. And I've always been a tech guy, so it's difficult for me to say, oh, tech sucks in any form. Let's get rid of it. But the problem is people are still arguing whether we need AI or not. It it we're done past the argument. That's kinda like saying, should we go back to horse and carriage or our car is going to work for us? There's no argument anymore. We've got cars. We don't have blacksmiths, so we're stuck with them.
AI is here. People are using it, and I think they're using it in ways most people don't realize. So the argument shouldn't we should adjust our focus instead of so much should or shouldn't, more on how can we use it, how can we use it in a way that doesn't hurt other people and is the best benefit to all of us. You know, I'm all for if if I write stories that people really love and they wanna use my stories to train AI in some authored LLM, but when somebody goes to say, hey. Create a story like this, and then they check off the authors they want, like Spotify. If I get some money for that, go ahead. You know? It's not gonna change my stories. That's not here yet. That's where it kinda needs to go. Yes. Should authors get paid? Should artists get paid if their stuff is used to train? Absolutely.
But here's my example, and I know some people have frowned on me about this. I know there's probably people out there wanting to hit me with a baseball bat for this. But my book covers were drawn by an artist up in Cleveland by the name of Tom Zoller. He was involved with the my little ponies reboot, like, ten years ago. That's how people might know him. And they're wonderful covers. I love them, but they cost me a couple $100, which is still really cheap compared to some book covers I've heard from people. But along with these stories, I wrote some some short stories that I offer for free to get people into the world that go along with it. They're not big enough stories on their own. You know? They go with it. You know? I use it for marketing. I give them away on my website for free. I don't make money off of those, but I wanna drop you all my series.
Well, honestly, I don't have the money to give Tom another thousand, $2,000 for these short story covers. And then I'm not gonna make any money off it because that money then would take away from anything I make off of my books. You know, it it it it's my real life situation. I'm not James Patterson, then I can just throw the money wherever I want. Yeah. Well, I've used AI to create the covers for those short stories because it didn't cost me anything, and those stories are free anyway. I did not have it do it in the style of Tom, not trying to steal his style. There's a different style for those short stories. Now if suddenly, you know, Warner wants to make my books movies and everybody's buying my books, I'll probably get them redone with a real human doing the, covers, probably Tom so it's all consistent.
So, you know, it it can be a rough thing, but my argument is, let's say there's somebody out there that has a great kid's book story idea. Wonderful idea for a kid's book. That's the book needed by certain kids, but they can't get it out there because they can't afford to pay somebody to draw all the pictures in the book. Well, by saying they can't use AI to make the art, you're denying them the opportunity to get their book out. You're denying them the opportunity to make money because they can't afford to pay somebody else for the pictures. That you know what?
That's hard for me to say, well, they shouldn't and because it'll rip off artists. They wouldn't be able to pay them anyway, but now their book can get out for those kids that said, oh my gosh. That's the book for me. And I know somebody wants would is probably gonna wanna get in my face for that type of thinking and attitude and, all that. But, you know, that's the situation, in some people's cases. We could get stories we may not have gotten, picture books that we may not have gotten because somebody can use AI to make those pictures instead of having to pay thousands of dollars.
[00:52:26] Unknown:
Right. Well, when I was thinking about AI also is the the ease of of of access to AI generated material stifling the creativity of a young mind coming from this. You know, that that's kinda what, what I was I was wondering about.
[00:52:46] Unknown:
That that's a concern. I mean, we already got kids just watching YouTube for six hours every night. You know, if they and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's good. It's something that parents have to be active in their kids. Not don't just say teachers and blame it all on teachers. Parents have to be the ones active in their kids' lives,
[00:53:07] Unknown:
to be agree with you a 100%. I agree with you a 100%. You you you know, you're the parent. You need to be involved in their life. You need to be involved in everything that they're doing. I mean, I mean, that's how I was raised. You know? My my parents my parents That's called raising your child. Yeah. I I mean, my parents were very involved in every little thing I was doing. They knew exactly where I was going, what I was doing.
[00:53:31] Unknown:
But not being a hover parent. No. Exactly. Yeah. You got a d, well, I'm gonna go yell at the teacher. You know, you you got in trouble because you were picking on a kid, well, I'm gonna go down that school and talk to them. Oh, no. No. Not What were you doing? Wow. Not so I'm not condoning that, but that's just how it was. Oh, yeah. And that's how I was. I mean, my my dad I I was terrified. If I if I got a if I got a bad grade,
[00:53:54] Unknown:
my dad didn't say blame the teacher. He was like, well, what are you not doing that you couldn't get a better grade? Yeah. Exactly. And he would make me think about that. By by asking the question that way, what are you not doing
[00:54:07] Unknown:
that you could've got that you could've gotten a better grade? Because what are you really sending your kids out into the world when they're adults, if you ran and blamed everybody else for any of their problems growing up? They that that's you need to they need to fail. They need to face things. Mhmm. I had that one as a scout leader. I couple arguments with other parents and leaders because we did certain things, and they got upset. Well, they don't know how to do that. They'll fail blah blah. Okay. Good. They'll fail. You know how much they're going to learn from failing? Trust me. Absolutely. It's the best thing. It it was a difficult thing sometimes because some people don't get it in today's world, which blows my mind. But
[00:54:45] Unknown:
And and but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I agree with you. It it's you know, people don't really understand. And and I can't stand I I and I'm gonna aggravate some people when I say this, but I cannot stand when I hear adults and parents blaming everybody else in the world around their child, you know, for the mistakes that their child makes. You know, we all make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's gonna have a failure. You you you take that and you use that as a learning experience, a teaching moment. You could tell them, well, this is what you did and this is the result of what you did. What are you gonna do that's different to not get that same result? You know, it it you have to be involved in your kid's life. I cannot I I I never understood that. When my kids were were young, you know, you know, my my, my wife and I at the time, you know, we both had to work full time jobs.
It was hard. Easy excuse to say, well, you know, I I have to work. We both have to work. We can't you can't afford this. But you know what? You made time to to to be there with the kids. You made the time, you know? So what? Your day off is Saturday, and the kids had this, this, this, this, this, and you just wanted to sit around and and and relax all hey, you know what? Your kids are more important than that. You take your kids. You go do what you gotta do do with your kids. You raise your children. Don't Yep. Leave them to somebody else to raise. Because then you're gonna complain, well, my kids weren't raised the right way. Well, who raised them?
[00:56:09] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:56:11] Unknown:
So, yeah, it's we can go on and on about that stuff. We could. That's yeah. That's a whole parent teaching discussion there. Yes, sir. So let's see. So we had a pretty this this conversation was great. I I love this, and I love your energy on this thing, and I love your excitement about what you're doing, and it's it's refreshing to see. So so what's the takeaway for the audience out of this whole conversation that we've had?
[00:56:34] Unknown:
One, get your kids interested in using their imagination. And, you know, instead of buying them five video games for Christmas, buy Lego. Instead of buying a Lego set, buy those buckets of just plain Lego, and sit down on the damn floor and build some stuff with them. You know, that's that's the other thing. If you don't have Lego, Lego are expensive, that's fine. Go look at Dollar General. Do you know how many craft items and stuff they have there? Mhmm. You could create so many thing. I I created I have a box that I still have some old board games I created when I was, like, eight years old. They all suck. They're horrible. But I I made, like, 10 different board games to play for me and my cousins. You know, kids need to do that. Encourage them to do that. Encourage them to create. Encourage them to read. Let them read whatever. Talk to a monitor and see what they're reading. It's everybody I was reading Stephen King when I was eight and nine years old. That was some of the early stuff I got. I was reading Hardy Boy in kindergarten when most kids were still working on the the Val characters.
So I was a very early reader. I read just my mother my mother got me a Stephen King box set when I was eight years old for Christmas. I don't even know if she knew what it was, but it was very popular. Then she got me Lord of the Rings the year after that. So, you know, it my kids read whatever they wanted, and they both turned out as well as I did. So, arguably, that, you know, some people could say that wasn't really great, but I think they did fine. So, you know, that's it. Get your kids doing things. Go to libraries because libraries have so many cool activities they do that get kids excited about it. I do a workshop talking about story structure, beginning, middle, end with kids. I tell them, hey. I'm supposed to have a story idea to my editor tomorrow, but I'd I've been playing video games, and I didn't get anything done. Can you guys help me? Oh, yeah. Kids love helping adults.
Here, I need ideas for a story. And as they're doing it, I'm like, okay. That sounds like this beginning of the story. Don't you think? Beginning is where we do this, and I mix in the teaching with it. But I got kids jumping out of their seats wanting to tell me ideas. And they're, like, hungry for it because they don't get that very often, and they they want I went back the following year to that same school. I had kids running up to me. Look. I made a book. And they they folded over paper, and they wrote in it and drew pictures and put cardboard on it and glued it together and stuff. We need more of that. You know? Romper Room is where I got a lot of that. We need Romper Room to come back. I remember Romper Room. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:59:08] Unknown:
We had some great things growing up. Right? We're not I don't think we're too far away from each other in in age. No. No. Probably not. How old are your kids? My son is 26. My daughter's 30.
[00:59:17] Unknown:
Yep. Exactly. Yep.
[00:59:19] Unknown:
Wow. I can't believe I just said that. My daughter's gonna be 30. Scary, Holy cow. Yeah.
[00:59:24] Unknown:
I remember when you were 30, you were probably just about having kids.
[00:59:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Actually, let's see. I got married. When did I get married? I got married. I was 23 when I got married. And I, my daughter came in came along in 1996. So that was so there's three years after. So yeah. Yeah. It's been Yeah.
[00:59:44] Unknown:
Yeah. Scary. So you're so just think of,
[00:59:49] Unknown:
could be a grandparent soon. Well, I am. I have three times. Oh, okay. Well, great. Congrats. Yeah. Thank you. My my daughter, I she's she's amazing. My daughter my son too. I mean, I'm incredibly proud of myself. My son my son was diagnosed very young with, with Asperger's.
[01:00:04] Unknown:
And,
[01:00:05] Unknown:
My stepson has that. So so he struggled, you know, socially awkward, that type of thing. Honestly, if if you met him, you would you wouldn't even know. You know? You know? It's just that's so so so so slight, so subtle. But, but he did struggle. He struggled with his reading, his math skills. He struggled all that stuff, and I'm incredibly proud of him. He's he's really made a career for himself. He work he works for a for a big chain place and, you know, he's in the management training program for that. I'm incredibly proud of what he's doing. My daughter, three kids. She graduated, a couple years ago with her with her MBA from Columbia with honors while she was pregnant with baby number two and working full time, you know, her husband working full time. You know, it it's I'm incredibly proud of them, you know, and I just cannot believe Good. That I have three grandkids, and I have
[01:00:56] Unknown:
So get some Lego, Joe. Get on the floor. So I just don't get to see them very often. That's the problem because they're open they're open. Let me shoot this out. So this book is coming. The oddest questers is loosely based on my family, my kids, and my stepkids. It's an a sibling investigative group. My one stepson has Asperger's, and he's in the book. And I tried to write him like he is and like the family is with him because people who don't have anybody with that in their family, they wanna tiptoe, and they want a special treatment. And they make them feel bad because they're getting treated different. They know they're getting treated different. They don't want that. They don't want it because it it points it out, and they hate that. My my stepson hates when people are treating him different because of his problem. You know? So the family knows how he thinks differently, and we talk to him in a way that makes sense for him and stuff sometimes.
And I tried to capture that in the book, and it is so difficult because I'm afraid that somebody's gonna jump on me and say, well, that's mistreatment. That's this. And I tried to address those issues in the book while still making it a fun adventure book. You know? Well, I wanna get a copy of that when it's available, so I'll make sure I'll get in touch with you. And,
[01:02:12] Unknown:
alright. So who is somebody that you respect right now, and what are they doing that inspires you?
[01:02:18] Unknown:
Well, I I mentioned Stephen King. I've always loved his books. I admire what I I was going to name my my pseudonym was gonna be Stephen Ace because an ace beats a king. But, I may do that later. But some of the like, you know, people jumping on him because he said some things, and then, you know, his books got burnt and banned, and he's the most banned author. And he's like, you know what? Go ahead. He tells kids, if they wanna ban me, that's the books you should read. Right. And I like that attitude. You know? That's good. Yeah.
[01:02:51] Unknown:
That's awesome. Alright. So where can the audience go to get more information about you, your work, and everything you're doing? Everything's on my website. Sa-schneider.com.
[01:02:59] Unknown:
That's sa-schneider, s c h n e I d e r. It's right there under me, and then .com. And everything's there, links to all my other social media. I do videos, for teachers and resources along with the hunter updates on Instagram and YouTube. So I I've got a lot of things going on, a lot of sticks in the fire burning.
[01:03:23] Unknown:
Alright. Outstanding. And all of your information that I have available is gonna be in the show notes so people can be able to click the link in the show notes, and it'll take them right to your website and all the information about you. So that is fantastic. Steven, thank you so much for being here tonight. I really do appreciate it. Our next few guests are waiting in the wings. So we're gonna That's good. Take a quick bathroom break, and then we'll come back and get to, to, Daphne and Nate. But, Steven, again, thank you so much for being here here tonight. This was great. I I I really love what you're doing, and I can Thank you. Please keep going with it. This is fantastic work. Thank you. Yeah. This was a great show. It was fun talking to you. It went too fast. Well, anytime you wanna come back, you just just let me know, and we'll get you. Once the next couple books come out, maybe we'll talk because they'll they'll be interesting to talk about. Alright. Outstanding. Looking forward to it. Great. Alright. Thank you. Steven Steven Schneider, folks. Make sure you check him out. Check his website out. All his information is gonna be available to you in the show notes right, down below there. Alright. So, like I said, I'm gonna take a quick break here, maybe two minutes. Just gonna run to the little boys' room. And, when we come back, we'll get to, Daphne Armour and, Nate Smith of the Texas Nationalist Movement, and we're gonna talk about some really, really interesting things. Like I said, I got my my Txit mug. We're ready to go. Alright. So we'll be back right after this. Don't forget oh, don't forget. This is a live show weeknight, 7PM central time. Check us out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live show, 7PM central time. Hit that like button. Follow us.
And, yeah, make sure you hit the like button too because, you know, that does help the algorithm, helps us get found. So please check it out. Alright. So, folks, Joe Russo. We'll be right back. You just stay with us. Alrighty. Hey, folks. We're back. First hour is in the books. Second hour about to get started here. And, we're gonna have two very, very special guests. Nate Smith and Daphne Armour from Texas Nationalist Movement. Great organization. Been part of the Texas Nationalist Movement for some time. Been following them even longer.
It's very interesting. We'll talk about that momentarily. Folks, just wanna remind you also to please check out the show on rumble,rumble.com/joeroos. You can also check us out on, YouTube at Joe Roux and, of course, x Fakebook, all those great places to, to check us out. Also, all the audio is available to you on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, all those places, and also across all the modern podcast two point o platform. So check them out. Alright. Everything here has just shut off on me. Let me boot everything back up again. I don't know what happened there. The joys of doing a live show folks. Live shows are always so much fun. So as I've been indicating, our second pair of guests tonight is a dynamic duo, Daphne Armour, Nate Smith with the Texas Nationalist Movement.
Daphne's been part of the T and M for, what, the last eighteen years from what I understand serving as a county coordinator of chief of staff, helping to build one of the largest political advocacy groups in Texas from the ground up. She's an entrepreneur, strategist, and now traveling around Texas with Nate as a speaker for the Texan Arise campaign, which we'll get into. She represents Texas independence with unmatched energy and expertise. And then we have Nate Smith. He's been advocating for Texas independence since 02/2009, serves on the T and M national leadership team. He's trained hundreds of petition circulators, gathered thousands of signatures, even carried message of self determination to international stages.
He's also a singer and songwriter. Are you gonna sing for us tonight?
[01:10:47] Unknown:
I don't know tonight.
[01:10:51] Unknown:
Using his music to celebrate liberty, love, and the lone star spirit with songs like Texan Arise and Leave It Better. Now together, they're leading a new project, Texan Arise, a bold initiative to train and mobilize a thousand volunteers for the twenty twenty six elections. The mission of this campaign is to reshape the Texas legislature to reflect the true will of the people, including the growing demand for a referendum on Texas independence. The Texan Arise campaign is is a call to action for Texans who want to make a difference but may not know how. Daphne, Nate, welcome to the show.
[01:11:23] Unknown:
Thank you. Thank you for having us tonight.
[01:11:25] Unknown:
Hey. No problem. I've been actually looking forward to this. This is, when I was I was talking with our producer, Anonymous Angela, as we call her.
[01:11:33] Unknown:
She
[01:11:34] Unknown:
We know anonymous Angela. Did did did she tell you the story behind anonymous Angela? No. No. She didn't. What it is? Okay. Well, so, when she first started helping me out with the show, I I wanted to give her credits and because I put all the producers of the show, folks who contribute their time to Talent to Treasure. They all get a mention on the show, every show we do, and they're also included in all our show notes. So I told I sent her a message. I said, hey. I need a I need a headshot, and I need a little bio and, you know, all that stuff. And she was like, well, I really don't want, you know, my name. That sounds like Angela. I was like, Well, it's too late. I already told everybody your name. So I said, Alright. Well, we'll just, so we'll just go with anonymous Angela. She doesn't want to be known, so. Anonymous Angela. That's the origin story behind it.
But she's been a great help. And I really do appreciate everything she's doing. Now, I've been actually following the Texas Nationalist movement since 2015, 'sixteen, somewhere around there. And actually, I used to do a show up in New York. I'm from New York originally. I I I did a show up in New York, and, we actually had Daniel on the show. And, it was it was very interesting. So that's that's how I met him and came across him, and it was great. And I've been following for a while. And then I finally made the move, came down here to Texas, and about almost ten years ago now. And I wanted to get involved with the organization. So here I am, and here we are. And it's Are you a Texan now, Joe?
I love Texas. I do. Although I'm told, I'm told I can't be, I can't call myself a Texan because I'm not native born.
[01:13:12] Unknown:
Who told you that? I'm very loud to you. A few people.
[01:13:16] Unknown:
Yes, I a A lot of people that I work with say that too. I mean, you're not a Texan. You can't be a Texan. You're you're a Yankee.
[01:13:22] Unknown:
Look, you just you just tell me you're a Texan and ignore everything else they say after that. That's what the Texan does. Right? Mhmm.
[01:13:29] Unknown:
Exactly. But but the transition from from New York City to Texas is was just it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I guess I I guess I was just so burned out from tech from from New York that I just couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. And, the opportunity came up to come here and I've I've been down here in in Eagle Pass now for ten almost ten years. That's been great. It's been great. And, and and and getting to know the folks with the Texas Nationalist Movement has been incredible also. I mean, everybody's just so just friendly, welcoming, incredibly knowledgeable about the subject matter, passionate about the whole thing.
And, you know, I I as I always said before that before we came on the show, tonight that, you know, it really does feel like family. You know, I feel like I've known the two of you for my whole life and, you know, and that's because we have a common we have a common, a common bond. Yeah, that's great. And it's that we want to see a a free and independent Texas. And I think that's incredibly important, and I and I'm hoping. And my prayer is that it happens in my lifetime. And if it doesn't happen in my lifetime, I wanna be a part of the effort to get it done even after I'm gone. So I wanna be able to be a part of that. So, I have a couple of quick questions I always like to ask every guest that comes on the show. So, we'll start, we'll start with with Daphne's at ladies first.
What what's something most people don't know about you but should?
[01:14:58] Unknown:
Okay. Do you want that in a personal user, or do you want that in a text and a text answer? Whatever you joke? That could be a trick question.
[01:15:06] Unknown:
Whatever you however you wanna put it out there.
[01:15:09] Unknown:
It's up to you. It's okay. Okay. Everybody should know that I am not married to Daniel or to Nate.
[01:15:17] Unknown:
Are you still in mind now?
[01:15:20] Unknown:
I almost spit out.
[01:15:24] Unknown:
Well, you laugh, but you don't understand how often that we get asked that question. Really? I used to be with Daniel all the time. Mhmm. And, and then because, you know, I travel with Daniel a lot as well. And Daniel's not traveling quite so much now, and Nate and I are on the road coupled together all the time too. And it doesn't matter where we go. Everybody just assumes he's my husband or his wife. I said, no. It's more like a mother child relationship. I just boss him around all the time.
[01:15:51] Unknown:
That's great. So, Nate, what about you? What's something about you most people don't know but should?
[01:15:57] Unknown:
Well, I don't know that they should know it, but I I love adventure. And so, you know, if anybody wants to do anything adventurous anytime you wanna go hiking or scuba diving or something like that, give me give me a call. Let me know. I'm happy to do it. Alright. Well, I'm gonna keep that in mind because there's a couple of things I haven't I have on my bucket list that I wanna get done. So I I need somebody brave enough to do it with me. Awesome. So we'll talk about that another time, though.
[01:16:20] Unknown:
Alright. So since so since with with Nate here, what's your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[01:16:27] Unknown:
At the end of the day oh, man.
[01:16:30] Unknown:
Let's see. What's what's the fair one that I have the most? Honestly, it's water with lime. It's the most Okay. Alright. Common unwinding at the end of the day. Fair enough. Daphne? Well, that depends on where my end of the day is at. Fair enough. Daphne?
[01:16:41] Unknown:
Well, that depends on where my end of the day is at. If it's at home, it's probably water. If I'm out, it's probably tequila.
[01:16:51] Unknown:
Okay. Great. Great. Well, mine mine is, although I'm trying to stay away from it as much as I can right now, because only because it's expensive. I like good bourbons and so I have a I have a very refined palate when it comes to the bourbons. So it has to be something really good. As a matter of fact, I just ordered a bottle of seven year old Paul Sutton. So I'm waiting for that to come I'm waiting for that to get to my my local establishment over here. And, I asked, well, how much how is that gonna set me back? And when she told me, I I was like, oh, okay. So but I'm gonna try to person I'm sorry?
[01:17:35] Unknown:
I said they can get pricey?
[01:17:37] Unknown:
Oh, they can. Yes. They can. And I'm the kind of person that if if I'm asking you to order something for me, and you tell me how much it is after I've asked you to order it, I'm gonna still pay it. Because, you know, I don't want I don't want to put you through all the effort and going around doing that stuff and, you know, not not coming through on it. But, but Daphne, you've been with the Texas Nationals Movement now for twenty years.
[01:17:57] Unknown:
What originally inspired you to get involved? I think it's like eighteen years. I think that's the right one. Nearly twenty years. That's what I have in mind. Nearly twenty. Okay, eighteen's nearly twenty. Yes, ma'am. That sounds like a long time when you say it that way, sir. That's amazing that you started when you were 10. Right? I know. Right? Okay. I'm sorry. What was the rest of the question?
[01:18:18] Unknown:
The number is still swirling in my head. What what what, originally inspired you to get involved? Well,
[01:18:29] Unknown:
I get I honestly, I started off in the tea party in the Glen Beck project, the nine twelve project, if you remember that. That's where I started at. And, met political people. I don't know anything about politics. Wasn't really interested in politics. I was a young mother, but, it's just that time in the country where everything just didn't feel right. And, you know, somebody dragged me the meeting somewhere. And so that's how I got started in politics. But, anyway, when I was there, I met, somebody that lived in my town, and she was like, hey. There's a guy that's gonna talk about, you know, he's from the Texas Nationalist, and he's gonna be speaking in a hotel room. Would you you and Dan, my late husband, would would y'all come with me to see him? And we're like, well, sure. No. We'll go with you to see him. And so we did. We showed up in Beaumont, Texas in a hot hotel room, right off the freeway there, and we sat on the front row.
Imagine that. And Daniel spoke and and my husband was Dan, and we looked at each other and we're like, yeah. This resonates. This makes sense to us. We got up. We walked to the back table where Kara was. We signed up as volunteers right there, and we've never left. That's literally the story of what happened. So, you know, we immediately got went into the organization. And because we were local, you know, we started attending the local meetings, which at that time, Daniel ran. And so that was interesting. Both moved into county coordinator positions. And then from that point on, just moved up the ranks and here we are today.
[01:20:05] Unknown:
18 almost nearly twenty years later. Some days, it seems like that. Some days it doesn't seem like that. Well, you you can blame Angela for that because I think she phrased the question. That's fine. That's fine. I just it just it's hard for me to even fathom that sometimes. I was like, golly, where'd all that time go? Yeah. Yeah. I know. Well, in the in the previous guest, I don't know if you heard what we were talking about, but, you know, I I mentioned I can't believe my daughter is 30 years old this year.
[01:20:28] Unknown:
Mine is too. Mine just turned 30 last month.
[01:20:32] Unknown:
Where did all the time go? It it's just flying right. It's it's crazy. So, Nate, what about you? What, you've been with the organization since 02/2009. What was your motivation to get started?
[01:20:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, it kinda goes with my political thing. I mean I I saw a nine eleven happen and I did not like what happened after nine eleven politically and you know, I've been in the conservative Republican side thinking that, that was gonna shrink government. And, I saw that we grew grew government after that as a result. And so it made me question a lot. And so when, this guy named Ron Paul came along in 02/2008 running for president and started saying all the right things about fiscal responsibility and, you know, noninterference and foreign wars, and that all resonated with me a lot. And so, at that same time, I've been working with Daniel and Kara Miller. They have a, a radio station called Radio Free Texas. I've been involved in the Texas music industry for that long, and so we've been working together. Well, I had no idea that they were involved in the Texas nationalist movement, and so we're working one of their, rowdy float trips together, and Daniel goes, hey. What do you what do you think about this Texas independence thing? And I kinda saw him behind the scenes. They were keeping it separate at the time. And so he's wearing this shirt, and I'm like, I I hadn't really thought about that. I'm like, why wouldn't we just work to save the republic? You know? And he goes, well, let me ask you this. Why do you think Texas isn't good enough to be its own nation again? And I'm like, touche.
[01:21:57] Unknown:
Yeah. That's great. That's it. Yeah. He got me with that one too.
[01:22:02] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I dug in from there and and was quickly sold. I was like, yeah. It'd be nice to some. And then it also didn't take much convincing the that the federal government does not wanna be saved. Oh, no. It doesn't. Not absolutely not. And and the evidence of that is its refusal to to to to shrink itself,
[01:22:19] Unknown:
you know. So it it's just a monstrosity, and that's why I I call it that all the time. And I agree with you. I like, I I I was working for New York City at the time of 09:11. I my, my command was just down the street from the towers. I worked on the pile for about six months and did security details and, you know, all the other stuff that went along with it. And then, you know, to see all the, those draconian, security, legislations and bills and such that come through the Patriot Act, you know, which is just which was nothing of the sort. You know, it it just it left a really bad taste, you know, and, you know, little by little, man, I I I agree with you. I I just I I started looking around and I started thinking back towards, you know, what what would our founding generation be thinking about with this thing? Because you said something very interesting also talking about, you know, not getting involved, like, as the Ron Paul stance.
I wouldn't say it's a non interventionist view, but it's but it's I think it's more not an isolationist view, but it's more of a non interventionist view. Right. That, you know, I agree with our founding generation. I agree with Ron Paul in this, you know, Peace and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none. We should not have military installations all around the world. We should not, I mean, how would we feel if China set up a a military installation in the middle of San Antonio?
[01:23:43] Unknown:
I I don't remember which country it is, but there somebody's working on it right now, and I'm already seeing opposition. It's our yeah. We nobody has it. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Got it. Nobody should have a military base on our soil, and it's like, we have a thousand bases in over a 150 countries around the world. I don't think we have the right to say nobody should have one, but they shouldn't. And we shouldn't have it there. I agree. I agree. And,
[01:24:05] Unknown:
so when it comes to, Texans Arise, tell us about that. How did what sparked that? How did this whole project come about come to life?
[01:24:15] Unknown:
Okay. I guess, Daphne's gonna let me take it. I was checking to see.
[01:24:19] Unknown:
Doesn't matter. Do you want me to moderate and and and say and pick people, like, in school?
[01:24:24] Unknown:
But we bounce off of each other so fast. Most of the time, we know what the other one's thinking, so it's fine. Okay.
[01:24:32] Unknown:
Well, so you did you did reference in my intro that I have a song called Text and Arise. So that that sparked part of the name behind it, obviously. But what this is really about is, you know, we're the Texas nationalist movement. Right? It's probably not a surprise to many people that our one of our key goals is to get and win a referendum on Texas independence. And in order to win that referendum on independence, we need to have a lot of volunteers that know how to win a campaign. Not only that, to get the referendum, we need a legislature that's gonna pass the bill in order to win that. Right? And so they need to win campaigns, the people that support that, and they need volunteers. So, ergo, the Text and Arise program, this step in the process says, we need to start training volunteers to win campaigns right now. And and so we really wanna remove any roadblocks or concerns people have about what it takes to get involved, how you know, this isn't a lifetime project. You don't have to sign up for a full time job or anything else. We wanna make sure that people have a clear understanding of what it takes to get involved in the campaign and that there's a lot of different ways you can help, whether you have a lot of time or little, whether you have a lot of skills or little. We got stuff for you to do.
[01:25:38] Unknown:
So walk us through a typical text and ARISE session. You know, what happens from the moment that people walk in?
[01:25:46] Unknown:
Okay. I'm gonna just take that one. You want me to take that one? Go for it.
[01:25:51] Unknown:
Well, we greet them first, Joe. Well, I hope so. When they come in, no. So, basically, the well, we're trying to get the program cut down to about two hours because there's a lot of information that Nate and I have to deliver, in the program. But, basically, you know, we we're gonna walk them through this, and our whole goal of it is just like Nate just said, is to remove the fear. We want you to understand that it takes everybody has to be a part of this process. People always want change. Right? They and they wanna see things happen, but what we find is that it's only a certain amount of people that will step up and actually go do the work. So, what we do is we actually walk everyone through we we almost or to the point of calling it a civics class now, because we walk them through the whole Texas legislature and hope that they have an understanding about how that works, how the bills work, what we have to do.
Those different things, voting, we spend a whole lot of time talking about the different voting because, you know, in Texas, like, right now, we're voting right now, but what are we voting for? We're voting for 17 amendments that are added. You know, why do we have all these different voting things? But the main thing that we like to stress is, because of the program that we're doing is going into the Texas primaries. And a lot of people do not understand that we have primaries in Texas, and then we also have the general election. But what happens in the primary? That's where you win elections at. And that is what is important. And that is when it's important to know who those candidates are, who's running against who, you know, and you if you've ever worked at a at a polling location, while the primaries are going on, you'd be surprised at the number of people that walk up and go, well, I'm gonna vote for the Republican. I'm here to vote for the Republican. Well, yeah, there's four of them on the ballot. Which one are you gonna vote for? A lot of people don't know. And so what happens is what they'll do is they'll go in there and they'll vote by what they consider name recognition, what they've heard before, or if it's an incumbent or whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean that that incumbent acts like a Republican as we all know or that they have conservative values or whatever values that you wanna go vote for. You know, we're not here to promote, partisanship by any stretch of imagination, but we want you to understand the process. And so we go all the way through that. We talk about, some shenanigans and things that go on in the Texas legislature.
Just things that we feel like that people need to know. And so far, Nate and I have found out that anybody who's attending our training did leave with information that they didn't know and and and were surprised at some of the things that they learned.
[01:28:33] Unknown:
Well, that's interesting. I'd I'd, you you talk about the Texas legislature, and and I laughed when you said it. I I thought New York was a corrupt mess. It probably is. You know, but I I I mean, I don't know if it's I'm paying more attention to it here than I was back home or what, but but I was so, like, just blown away by the lack of of activity of the Texas legislature on on important things. I mean, yeah, they passed a resolution honoring Beyonce. That's that's priority, of course. Right. But but things that really matter to to Texans like property taxes.
You know, I just I just got a property tax hike that, I I have to go get a second job just to pay the taxes.
[01:29:24] Unknown:
You you say And we hear that constantly.
[01:29:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Right.
[01:29:28] Unknown:
So You know, everybody that that should have been one of the main things that they addressed this year. And as you see, they didn't. They barely addressed it. But it wasn't just this year. This has gone on for several sections for several sessions because people have asked for this multiple times because we're I think I think is it aren't we the fourth highest property tax state in the nation now? I read that that stat somewhere, just the other day, and, you know, it made me sad to read that. We know that's not what we want in Texas, and we don't want people, you know, priced out of their homes because they can't play property, especially elderly people so because they can't play pay their property tax. It's ridiculous. But speaking to that, so that is one of the things that we teach you. Well, why didn't that get passed? And so Nate and I will go through the whole thing and break it down about how that legislature works, how you get the bills passed, why they're not getting there, how they stall, how the the top establishment will stall everything out. You know, they don't go to work. They take them on weekends, and then they'll, oh, we we ran out of time. Well, yeah, because you didn't go to work for three months. You were there for two days a week. I don't get to work two days a week. You know?
[01:30:37] Unknown:
I I I remember saying sadistic.
[01:30:39] Unknown:
Really, it is. And that's what and that's why we're saying it has to change, but the only way that we can affect change is by getting a hold of that system and getting new people in there who demand change. You know, luckily, we were able to do that in the last session. We got 10, new reps in there that that were good. They voted most of them all voted well and did the things that we wanted to do, and they were able to make a little bit of change while they were in there. Not as much as we all would have liked to have seen, but that's the only way we it's up to us to clean it up. There's no there is no other answer right now. We cannot let the establishment maintain control of this.
So that's how Texan Arise came about because it's us griping at each other going, how why do we fix this? What do we do?
[01:31:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I I I became more aware of what was going on with the Texas legislature, when I started going to the classes, for the the deputy county coordinator, for here, from Maverick County. And also, Brian Harrison. Mhmm. I I love that man. You know? I think I think he's great. Have you have you guys spoken to him at all? Is he Yeah. Yeah. Is so is he on board with with Texit, or is he because I I I've I've sent him an invitation to come on the show, and I'm gonna ask him about it. But
[01:31:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I'll get him on the show. It'll be great. He he has not signed the pledge yet, and, I I think he has some some reservations and concerns that we haven't been able to address with it yet. So Okay. But he hasn't firmly spoken for or against it. So He he certainly sounds like he's for it. You know, if you if you if you listen to the things he says and you read the things he writes,
[01:32:19] Unknown:
like, he's the one who I he pointed out how the Texas legislature would take these long extended weekends and leave all these items that are still pending and hanging there and that the the the current speaker of the Texas House wouldn't even allow them to bring matters to the floor, for for discussion. It it it it when I saw those videos and I heard the things that he was saying, I I just like, this this can't this is like New York, man. This is and that's scary because I don't want New York here. I don't want California. I I want Texas to be here. Texas. Yeah. Yeah. I want Tulsa to be the leaders right now. And
[01:32:55] Unknown:
The Speaker has tremendous power, and I think Brian Harrison did a a good job. He's he's been on board a lot talking about how that has had an effect, you know, what what role that speaker's played. And a lot of people haven't been aware of it. You know, a lot of the stuff that goes on is backroom deals. Right? Including the election of the speaker has been a backroom deal until this this recent time where I actually got to saw it play out in public of who the Republican caucus chose versus who the house body chose. And, you know, that makes a big difference in all this because Yeah. The power to appoint the committee members ultimately decides what bills ever get hurt on for.
And that's you know? So, yeah, I'd I'd it does seem like he's in line with that too because he's definitely a limited government person. And, you know, overall, as we see, like, we talk about being nonpartisan. Obviously, there's a political majority in Texas that, certainly resonates more with us, but anybody from any party that is for limited government should be resonating with this idea that Texans should cover themselves. So
[01:33:56] Unknown:
Yeah. I just just the the sad thing is though is is for for the for the leadership in the Texas house, they're more I'm trying to think how I'm gonna phrase this. I feel like I feel like they're more concerned about auditioning for a position at the federal level than they are about actually governing the state where their actual where their actual constituents are. You know? And and I see that and I find it really disturbing and it makes me wonder like how it it's it's an uphill battle trying to get all all the things that the T and M is looking to do, into a serious conversation at the steak at the steakhouse. I was gonna say the steakhouse. I'm hungry.
[01:34:46] Unknown:
We voted on steak names this year. That was important.
[01:34:49] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Speaking of steak New York Strip, Jeff. Yeah. Well, hey. Yeah. You can't yeah. That's that's a great cut, man. I got I got a couple of them in the freezer right now. So, but, but it it it concerns me about the future of of Texas independence when I see that the the the people that are getting into office here. Like, it's to me, it's it's like any other elected position, you know. You you you you you campaign on what you want to do and then when you get into that office, all of a sudden all of the little perks and all the little, sways and all the little things that start to pull you away from what exactly does you wanna do. We need people in elected position that that have that, what's the word?
The intestinal fortitude to resist the, all all of the entrapments that all the emoluments that come with elected position. I just feel like it it's so easy to get corrupted up there. I mean, how do we fix that?
[01:35:52] Unknown:
Well, how do we fix it is we elect better people, which is not an easy solution, but that's what Nexstar Rise is about. But you're right. It's it's a big problem. You know, we and we see it play out both on the voter side and on the representative side. But, yeah, the Texas politicians, whether they're in the executive branch or the or the legislative branch, you see this idea that they're playing minor league ball. I mean and part of it's true. Right? I mean, just a few sessions ago, we did a count, and 43% of the bills that were passed were referencing federal spending, federal legislation, federal oversight. So half of the work that they're having to do up there is in response to whatever the federal government does, which is not the way it should be. And and, you know, even as a member state in the union, that's not the way the union was set up.
But even even then, then you have these ambitions to seek federal office as well. And so, again, they're treated like they're they're playing minor league. And when you're having the conversations with them about important legislation, there there are a number of them that are worried about their image and their future and how what impact that will have as they seek federal office. And we see this play out on the voter side as well, where the voters, you know, they spend all their attention watching DC. I mean, there's plenty to watch in the circus there, but they don't pay near as much attention as they should to the state government, which really has such a big impact in our life in a in a place where we can make a lot of changes and should be making the changes. So Yeah. This is a key argument for Texas independence is if you take away the whole level of the federal government, the federal bureaucracy, and let everybody focus on Austin, then then we can get a lot of these problems fixed. Yeah. I agree with you. I I I've always said that that if you really wanna make any kind of change, you have you have to get involved in your local government.
[01:37:29] Unknown:
You know, it's it's easier to control what goes on in your state when you're only worried about your state house, which is only a few 100 miles away rather than 3,000 miles away and so far removed from the constituency that you're representing. I I I don't think well, no. See seeing all of the all the corruption and seeing all the the back end deals and all the backroom deals rather, it's discouraging to a lot of people and people don't really wanna get involved in the political process. What encouragement can we offer people, the average citizen, as to why they should get involved?
[01:38:11] Unknown:
I think that's was played out this time. So there's a lot of a lot of talk about how bad it was. People were upset with the way the the speaker race ultimately went. But as Daphne said, we got we got 10 really solid freshmen in this time, at least. We saw about, 20 people that are limited government conservatives that were helping to, stop bad bills. They were, you know, an overturn point of orders on good bills. So we saw a lot of techniques with that. What what we're seeing is power shift, and that's a that's a huge thing. Right? Because it before this, it just felt like it was impossible. Like, no matter what we do, we stand up with a super majority of people that won't fight the system, that they go in there to get sucked in, and you got one or two fighters. But, no, we're seeing a larger block come through. We're seeing the grassroots more united around this. More and more organizations are going, hey. What can we do to work together to help get these folks in? And, you know, well, ultimately, you need a majority of the house, and we won't even get into the senate, but we'll start with the house. While you do need a majority of that, there's a lot you can do with the powerful minority in there. When you're when you're looking at the conservative side of things of what it takes to advance that kind of legislation. You know? And the and the speaker's a huge one. You know?
It was, I can't remember the exact number of votes. It was about twenty five twenty five votes or something short of of having a different speaker this time. Would it have been a perfect solution? Probably not. But, would we have had a speaker that would have chosen different committee members that would have made different blocks? Yeah. I mean, there's a number of things that happen with them. That that's one of the things we talk about in the workshop is that, you know, seeing a different head of the calendars committee, that's a huge committee right there. You know? Even if you get bills through these other committees, if you don't have calendars, it'll send it to the floor. It doesn't matter how they would have voted. You can Right. Yeah. Get there. And then but even on these other committees, like, whether they call it for a hearing. We had a good bill that got called up and got a hearing and got read. They never took a vote on it. You know? It's like and that's all within the control of the chair of the committee. And so having a a speaker that will appoint more neutral parties as committee chairs, will allow a lot more of us to take take take place and move through. And then you can work on actually whipping the votes that you need in order to get the result that you want in legislation.
[01:40:28] Unknown:
Now you mentioned that you have, you have, what, 10, you said, freshman legislators?
[01:40:34] Unknown:
Yeah. I can't remember the exact number there. 10. We we use the 10 a lot because 10, at legislators have signed the Texas First Pledge. Okay. Yeah. That was something that I know that we didn't touch on that when, you know, the question that Joe had had asked about, like, what what do we do? That is what as the T and M, that's what we did do is create that the Texas First Pledge, and we do have 10 of those signers, currently on there that now serve, in an elected position. And for us, that that is one of the things that we could see would help to remove that blockade of, you know, what's more important, the federal government to you or Texas to you. And so those at least those people that signed that pledge so far have have lived up to that and, you know, because it's just a pledge. But, they, you know, they they have acted and voted in a manner that that would support those things.
And because it again, it's just a mess, and we're we are trying to take steps and do the best that we can do to try to circumvent some of that and to get better people elected and and into those positions. Because ultimately, that's what's gonna help us get that referendum vote. But it's just like Nate said, you know, not only is that who who the speaker position is so important because when they do place or pick who is gonna work on calendars or state affairs or whoever, You know, if you stack them all with all the entrenched people, that's how they may maintain control, and then they only send through the legislature legislation that they want, or you get that top down thing of, well, we're not gonna work on our work. Oh, but, oh, gosh. We gotta go to a special session. Oh, we gotta go to two special sessions or whatever. Well, there's reasons why, and the reasons why all that happens is because that's their way of controlling everything.
[01:42:24] Unknown:
I see. Yeah.
[01:42:25] Unknown:
That's those are some of the things that we need to break, within this whole process, and that is by electing, you know, people that don't like what they see going on up there. And like like I said, it's not
[01:42:40] Unknown:
a it's not a huge jump from where we're at. Why why we saw this, you know, there's really probably about 30 representatives overall that took these more limited government type positions. Most of the time, it was only 20 acting at a time. There's about ten ten, 13 ish that are really consistent with it all the time and then another group that was there when you needed them sometimes and and would swap out. So you're going like, well, that's that's a long way from a 76 majority in a house. But like I said, you know, the speaker race was kind of an example. You don't have to get that close. I mean, 56 voted for Republican caucus choice, which was David Cook, and that's 20 short of a of a win for him. So if you look into that, you're like, well, there's really getting 20 more people in there could've changed the speaker to a different direction. So it's not like you gotta make this huge jump. Like, well, we have to get 50 more, you know, switched out. Another 10, another 20 will make huge progress. And so that's why we we say there's there's hope. You know? That can be done. And that's and we've got a a lot of good candidates that are running right now. Look. Can can you talk about some of the some of the legislators,
[01:43:43] Unknown:
that are working that are really working hard for Texas? You know, like, what kind of support do they need? What could we do?
[01:43:51] Unknown:
So, you know, volunteer for their campaign, for the one you know, some of them don't have challengers in the primary. Right. In in which case, you know, they still need support for their campaigns and ways you can deliver, but what they really need is other people that will be in office, that will help them continue the work they're doing. And so I know a a lot of them, if they're not worried about their their primary challenge, and and most of them aren't worried about their general challenge either. 96% of house races essentially are settled in the primaries. So Mhmm. Yeah. There's not not very many races that are are contested. That's 96% have less than a, a five point margin of, or rather, only 4% have less than a 5% margin in the general license. So most of those are are, you know, not close.
Not that you can't turn them from one seat to the other, but that's why we say the primaries are the focus. So, anyway, the the representatives that don't have, any significant challenges in the primaries, we have an opportunity to go help the ones that do, and make sure that they get preelected, and as well as making sure that these new challengers that are coming up that can replace replace ones out that have voted against this, you know, the ones that, consistently voted for big government policies, big government spending, that that take this more federal level approach. They're the ones that need to be removed from office.
[01:45:14] Unknown:
Alright. And I think another one of the things just to add on to that is people just you know, again, part of what we're doing, not only just training for the volunteers to not be, you know, the fear factor of working in campaigns and what that looks like, but get to know your representatives. Go talk to them. Call them on the phone. Set an appointment. Go visit them in their district if they're not in session or in their office if they're at session. No. They want to hear from constituents. You know? Talk to them. Talk to them about Texas independence. Ask them where they stand. Look them in the eye. Don't be afraid of them. They work for us. And I think that that has gotten so shifted with not only in our Texas level, but even at the federal level that they seem to forget that sometimes.
And they need to be reminded all the time that they work for us. They are supposed to be voting the will of their district, not not with their personal choice is. But if they don't hear from their district, if they don't hear from their constituents, then they're gonna do what they wanna do. So Yeah. That that would be the main thing. Just just remove the fear. They're just people. And most of them are happy to see you and talk to you. Not all of them, but most of them are. I guess it would have I guess it would,
[01:46:26] Unknown:
it would be, you know, it would exactly wanna talk to them about. And it but you're right. You have to talk to your elected representatives because that's what they are. They are representatives. They're representatives of the district and of the people of the district. And they do forget that because there's so much money that gets funneled into them through lobby groups, especially at the federal level. I'm I'm not I'm I'm sure there's I'm sure there's some of it here at the local level as well, but I'm not to the I'm sure not to the the extent of the federal level. But, you know, they end up working for the lobby groups more than they work for, the people that actually put them in that position.
And then a lot of times you see these politicians, they talk down to the people that that put them in that position. They berate them. They insult them. They call them all kinds of names. It's it's it's it's absolutely ridiculous. They do need and and that's and that's because they're so far removed. That's I'm talking about the federal level. Because they're so far removed from their home, their their their constituency, that they can get away with it. You know, if if everything was concentrated in the state itself and they had to answer to you every single day, they saw you all the time, it would be a very, very different story.
[01:47:40] Unknown:
A very, very different story. The pressure would feel so much different I'm sure. On them and that, you know, they know that they would have to do what the constituents want. But they would feel the pressure because people feel like they could get to them easier and stuff. Right now, you and I, we can't affect anything in Washington, DC. It's not gonna happen. They don't care. I mean, John Cornyn is a perfect example of that. You know, he's been a state senator forever. I don't even know how many years at this point, and he doesn't vote the way that people want him to vote. He doesn't do any of that. No. And that and that's another reason why I believe there needs to be term limits for,
[01:48:15] Unknown:
for every elected position that to to be in the senate for twenty years or to be in congress for thirty years is absolutely ridiculous. You know?
[01:48:29] Unknown:
I look And they go in with nothing, and they all come out millionaires. Imagine how that happens. Yeah. Yeah. A $175,000
[01:48:36] Unknown:
a year. What do they make at the state level? Just out of curiosity.
[01:48:39] Unknown:
I think it's about $7,200 a year. That's what I thought about it. They get a per diem and and, and and and a a small stipend. But, you know, in Texas, we we want people to be representatives. We have the biannual legislature. They only meet once every two years for a short period, excluding special sessions. And we don't pay them anything, which is, you you know, it has its ups and its downs. The the idea behind that is great that it's like, this isn't your job. You you have another job. You provide value to society in another way, and you're being a public servant. The downside of that is that only people that are kinda self employed or or lawyers tend to be the ones that have the the resources to be able to go do that because it is a lot more than just the time they spend in session. They spend a lot of time outside of session too. And so, you know, there might be something worth relooking at.
It shouldn't be a wealthy job like congress is. Right. Yeah. Making sure that they have a little more resources to to cover the basic needs would be good because you would like to see an an everyday citizen be able to say, hey, look, you know, I wanna step up and run for office even though I won't be making as much money as a school teacher. But, you know, I still I can provide a true public service and and, and still be able to maintain a job that's, you know, not a high paying job. So Yeah. No. No. I know that, you know,
[01:49:56] Unknown:
at the founding of our country, it wasn't intended for for congress to be living in the seat of general government all year long and having to have a home, especially in Washington DC and then a home in their district and all that stuff. It it they were only supposed to go when they were called into session, but just like the way Texas does it. You're called into session, you go, you you take care of your business, you go back home, you go back to your farm, you go back to your ranch, you go back to whatever it is that you do on your normal day, and then, you know, when you when you're needed to come into session, you go, that's that's the way it was supposed to be and that's the way it should be. You know, I I somebody once said that, you know, the the the actions of the federal government should not impact the average American's life in any way, shape, or form. Right.
And it's quite the opposite. You know, like, one of the examples I always use is, you know, why is it necessary for the federal government to regulate how much water is in my toilet?
[01:50:52] Unknown:
I use that one all the time or tell me what kind of light bulb I have to install. Yeah. And one of the things that what what you say that's you know, whenever I'm the speaker or I have to talk about text independence, I tell them, you you know, because a lot of people don't wanna be involved in you know, well, why do you do politics or y'all don't wanna be in government or whatever? And it's like, I didn't choose politics. It chose me. Nobody chooses politics. You don't wanna go do this stuff, but you need to understand that the the laws and regulations that they come up with are running and ruining your life on a daily basis. People don't understand.
Like, with all the federal laws and rules and regulations we have right now, you were committing a federal crime at some point in your day, and you don't even know. It. Every day. Yep. Every day. All day. And you have no clue that that you're that you're doing that. You know? And there's no way that any of us can know it. There's too many of them. We we we don't know, and it's it's just out of hand. But, you know, that's I get frustrated when people, you know, or don't don't they they wanna see change, but they don't wanna get involved. And, you know, I think that's one of the things that we really just wanna stress is, like, guys, this is up to you. And, you know, think about it. And, you know, when we go into rooms, it's typically people our age or older that are sitting in the room. Sometimes it's younger, not very often. But in the same respect, I constantly tell them a lot of this stuff happened on our watch. This is our responsibility to go fix because what are we leaving our children and our grandchildren? A freaking mess.
And, you know, they don't deserve that. They didn't ask for that. But imagine the taxes and taxation and things that we live under right now. What is that gonna look like in twenty years from now if it keeps going the way that it's going? They're gonna be complete slaves. We almost are to the federal government. They're gonna have any money left.
[01:52:44] Unknown:
Yeah. And and it's a great point you bring up too. Whenever the somebody from the administration look. I I appreciate what the president's done, you know, with closing the border at that. He did a great job with that. I if I was to give him a school grade, I'd give him an a minus overall. I mean, there are some there are there are some missteps. It it happens. You know? Nobody's perfect. But I I'm really getting tired of of seeing somebody from the administration getting up to that podium and saying, hey. Food prices are down. Energy costs are down. This is down. Where? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Where? Not at my house. Is it where it I don't know about your house. It's down compared to where it would have been if they didn't do anything. Well, yeah. I mean, you you can make that argument too that, you know, it could be a lot worse. You know, it could be a lot more money. So we got it under control at least. Yeah. Okay. Fine. But It's not the same as now. Exactly. It's it's it's still getting very hard. I went to H E B last weekend. I bought seven items, and I paid almost $80.
[01:53:43] Unknown:
Yes. You know? I mean Yes. I I I can I I went to H E B, I think, Saturday morning or whatever, and I got out of there for about $80 too? I was like, oh, wow. That just been a $100 because usually it's a $100 or more, and I don't have anything. Like you said, you bought seven or eight items. So I don't know where the food prices are down, but they're not down at my HEB. That's This is the spending reduction thing, you know, where they talk about
[01:54:07] Unknown:
how, you know, oh, well, we're saving money because we were gonna spend this much, and now we're only gonna spend this much more. You know? And it's like, well, you you say you saved me billions of dollars, but it's still an increase. It's an increase in the taxes, an increase in the spending, and they do the same thing. So And an independent Texas
[01:54:25] Unknown:
would, how would how do I say it? An an independent Texas would separate us from that monstrosity and not having to be so dependent on everything being set up at the federal level and having that that whole ridiculous system trickle down into into the state itself and caused everybody's life miserable here, it it would that's the one of the reasons why I wanted to get involved with the TNM. You know, I I believe in limited government. You know? I'm not an anarchist. I mean, I've been called, since I've come out as a it sounds sounds terrible to say it like that. Right? I've come out as a as a secessionist. You know? Oh my god.
[01:55:12] Unknown:
Oh, we we know we understand that word. Yeah.
[01:55:15] Unknown:
I know. You're a traitor. You're this. You're that. I mean, look. I don't want an intrusive government in my life. I don't wanna pay all these taxes and see all the money that they're taking out of my paycheck
[01:55:27] Unknown:
and being sent into things that I would never contribute to. Right. I would never wanna be involved with. And things I do wanna be involved with. I don't wanna make other people pay for that. Like, if it's something that I think is good, I'll give my money to it. Right. Exactly.
[01:55:41] Unknown:
You know, and and, honestly, I the only I read a book not too long ago called Rethinking the American Union for the twenty first Century. And after I bought the book, I went to go get another copy of it and it's gone. Like, you can't find it anywhere anymore. So I have I have one copy and, it's a great book. It's a series of essays and, it it's it talks about the impossibility of the of running a country the size of this union from one central place trying to cookie cutter policy. California is not Texas, obviously. Thank God. You know, Wyoming is not New York. You know, you can't you can't have that one cookie cutter policy that that would to govern 300,000,000 people or plus. 300 plus.
It's impossible. And the the whole point of the book was is that that at some point, this country is gonna have to break up. And they're gonna there's going to be there's going to be, you know, and and another dirty word we're gonna use, confederacies, of states coming together to do the things that they were originally meant to do. Commerce and mutual protection. And that's it. There shouldn't be, you know, no every state would be the independent country that it is. That's what a state means. State equals country. State. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so this this country that we have, this this American Union that we have is not one nation.
When you say one nation, you're talking about no borders, no no no state identities, no state sovereignty. You're talking one centralized thing and you they slip it in and all of these comments, all these commentaries, all these politicians, they slip you know, the greatest nation on the Earth. We're not a nation.
[01:57:42] Unknown:
We are a union of states. Say that they should have named it the States United instead of The United States so that people would remember that your state is a nation state, and it is a member of a union. But it's not one great union, like, exactly what you're saying. That's not how it was ever supposed to have have worked. Right. And that's why I call it the American Union, like the European Union. You know, It's the American Union.
[01:58:08] Unknown:
As a matter of fact, if you if you look at some of the original founding documents, whenever they were referenced The United States, it's never capital u. It's it's lowercase u, United States Of America, United Countries Of America.
[01:58:23] Unknown:
It it this this thing has and it's not a left and right issue. Right. They have some different perception of that because they think, oh, state is like this political subdivision of the nation. And, you know, it's kinda like a county is to a state. They think the state is to what they deem as a nation in the country, The United States. And it's like, no. No. State was synonymous with nation at the time of the constitution. That's a capital s. We, you know, The United States, the the colonies, or whatever, seceded from the state of Great Britain. That's how it was written because that's what that meant. And so, yeah, unfortunately, it's been downplayed. It's been co opted, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
[01:59:02] Unknown:
And, so the whole point of this book is talking about how the, how the country will eventually break up into these smaller confederacies. Again, I know it's a dirty word. You're not supposed to use that word for anything. But, you know, it's a confederacy where you you have these agreements. So Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, whatever, they might have a certain set of agreements, but they are independent states. There is no central government. There's no general government like our founders called it. Each state was on their own, but they only they only came together for trade and defense. That's it. And that's
[01:59:35] Unknown:
what I think of the Yeah. I would argue you're you're not even gonna need the Confederacy. So, I mean, right now, there's lots of mutual defense agreements that are out there that any any individual state could choose to sign on or not sign on to as well as multilateral trade agreements that they could easily sign on to. And so, you know, you pick and choose what makes sense for your state, whether or not maybe you want mutual defense with all this group of people and maybe you want trades with these people. And so you don't even have to match, but I don't I don't even think there's a need for these, for the for the Confederacy's involvement anymore, especially based on those two factors. Right. Well, I'm only using the word because they use it in the book. So Yes. Yeah. You know? You know? Yeah. And I understand exactly what you're saying, and I agree with this. Shared government. They can have a mutual defense agreement and a and a and a trade agreement with somebody without sharing any other forms of government. You know? Exactly. You the European Union obviously started off as an economic union and, boy, did it degrade from that? I mean, a lot some people knew that going in And quickly. But it became far more than what the original intention was. About, we're just gonna share some economic benefits together. No. No. You you ended up with a governance from Brussels. So Unelected?
[02:00:39] Unknown:
Yes. Unelected. And that's what believe it or not, it I mean, we have a an elected government, a representative government, supposedly. But really, are they in charge of anything? I don't think so. There there are the lobbies are pull pull the strings. The lobbies are actually running the country. The lobbies are the one telling your elected representative, no. You're gonna vote this way or we're not gonna fund you for your campaign, your your reelection bid. We're not gonna do and they bow to it and they kowtow to it and they they suck it all up and then, you're you're just nobody, you know, because you're not but your your $20 contribution to my campaign is nothing compared to the 20,000,000 I just got got from x y z company.
Right. You know? And and and that's that all has to change. And and and you bring the
[02:01:27] Unknown:
You can have a few people to stand up against that. The lobbyists don't need all of them. They just need a majority. Yeah. You know? Exactly.
[02:01:33] Unknown:
And, you know, and that's that's the whole point of of separating from that federal beast. You bring everything closer to home. Those representatives are here. They're they're accessible to you, and, you know, and they'll they'll be more concerned about meeting their obligations to the constituency. You're not gonna get that with the federal system anymore. And listen, Texas can stand by itself. Texas doesn't need anybody else. Texas and and the points that I I usually make when I talk about this is, look, you know, first of all, we're not part of the national grid. Alright? We have our own power support we have our own power grid. We don't have to be connected to anybody else.
Texas leaves the union right now. It's it's it's automatically becomes what? The eighth largest economy in the world? Maybe seventh. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it it it changes, you know, from time to time. It changes. Exactly. Right. The top economy. And it depends on who's doing the study. Right. Yeah. But still, the point of it is, it's one of the top world economies. Yes. Absolutely. Because
[02:02:32] Unknown:
I saw ten years ago where I made a statement about that when we were twelfth at the time. So we're already up to eight. I mean, it's Well, the new study shows in 2032,
[02:02:41] Unknown:
we should move to number five position.
[02:02:43] Unknown:
Wow. Yeah. Certainly, it's not enough economy. And unless we have Our economy is fine.
[02:02:50] Unknown:
We have the infrastructure to do it. We have our our new, stock star new stock exchange.
[02:02:56] Unknown:
Yep. Right?
[02:02:58] Unknown:
You have, governor Abbott has been going around making the, the the world tours. You know? I know it's mostly symbolic at this point, but laying groundwork for future agreements.
[02:03:08] Unknown:
But it's interesting that he's doing that.
[02:03:11] Unknown:
That is. We're the only state with foreign trade offices, you know, directly. Like, we have one in Mexico City, and I want in hang on. I'm gonna get this wrong. Taiwan, Thailand. One of those two One of the t's. Thailand, I think.
[02:03:23] Unknown:
Yeah. One of the tealands.
[02:03:25] Unknown:
Yeah. So, you know, we we're the only state that actually has foreign offices. And so, you know, that's we've we've
[02:03:34] Unknown:
we've advanced on every front, like you said. You know? We do. And we we we're number one in oil oil and gas. Hello? We're number one in beef and cattle. We're numb we have more deepwater ports than anyone else. We're number one in power and solar. I mean, we have it all. We are our country. Number one. We just gotta separate.
[02:03:54] Unknown:
More we export more than number two and number three combined, which is New York and California. Yeah. I mean, that's it's absolutely incredible. No. I don't know why anybody doubts that we can stand on our own or, well, Mexico will invade. Man, how much are they gonna borrow from this morning to do that?
[02:04:12] Unknown:
And and and look. Look. Even even when the time comes and and Texas does separate, it would be in the best interest of the rest of the American Union to be supportive of an independent Texas because Mexico might invade. You know?
[02:04:32] Unknown:
They're gonna need something that Texas has. I can guarantee you. Oh, sure. You know, we have a lot of good trading partners. You know, it'll be, difficult for people to accept at first, but I I think it's something that will come out stronger. And, you know, I mean, there's we hear concerns about that sort of thing all the time, but one of the you know, talk about inefficiency, like, in government. We replicate. There's 440 federal departments and agencies. I think they they can have trouble counting themselves. Mhmm. But Texas replicates nearly every department and function of the federal government in some way. You know? And so it's you're that means you're paying for government twice right now. Right. Not only do we overpay between a 103 to a 160,000,000,000, which I know compared to the feds, that sounds like a small amount of money. But in the Texas budget, that's a lot of money. Yeah. That is a lot of money. But we also use that money to pay for redundant departments. So there's even more savings that are positioned on the table when we don't have to pay for all that. So Yeah. Just think of how much
[02:05:23] Unknown:
Texas can do with that money that they funnel off to the federal system. It could be very, very easily used here, and infrastructure here could be greatly improved. Cost And left in the pockets of Texans. The main thing. I was gonna say the quality more money and quality of life for for for quality of life would be to be improved. Absolutely. You know, there there's there's more positives than negatives for Texas independence. And I I believe in it. Like I said at the start of of of our segment here that, you know, I hope it happens in my lifetime. I want it to happen in my lifetime. I would love to be a part of it that way. But if it's not meant to happen in my lifetime, well, I'm gonna do everything I can to help it along the way. This this way, it does happen at some point. And so that's why I get involved, and that's why I wanna be more involved with with the organization.
That's that's why, you know, I I try to talk about the T and M as much as I can on the course of the show. And, you know, it's it's it's it's it's really important. It's really important. And and Texas, you know, is not alone in this either. Texas is not the only state that has, an independence, movement within it. I mean, New Hampshire, I think, has the oldest one. I think Vermont has
[02:06:34] Unknown:
one. Has the oldest, and New Hampshire, I believe, is what it is. California. And California is making moves right now too. Y'all should keep your eyes on California. Well, that's good. You know? You're more system than us, but they they are they they are making some moves right now. Hawaii has one. Now we have a Flexit in Florida, and, Louisiana has one. Oklahoma has one. I mean, there there are multiple states. At one time, there were 32 active. I don't know what the real count is anymore. That was a few years ago. But, you know, it's a global trend. Like, it's it's it's we we it's not something it's foreign to us Or when I say us, I'm speaking us as in the nation of United States, but, because I think that we are so closed off to some of the things that happened across the globe.
But this is a global trend. People want self determination. They want independence. They don't want to live under somebody's constant rule where, you know, you constantly feel like a slave. But you have no say in it. Yeah. You you have no say in and, you know, this this has gone on for decades years and years and hundreds of years. You look at Scotland. You know? I mean Yeah. So for people to think that we couldn't do it in Texan, when when could you tell a Texan they couldn't do something and they do it? I mean, you know, we we do have that spirit about us whether we like it or not.
[02:08:01] Unknown:
Oh, another great quite like it. But Another good example is playing out right now is Alberta up in Canada. Yes. Alberta. And Alberta, if you don't know anything about them, they're basically like Canadian Texans. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. And and sorry if I insulted by calling them Canadian these days. But, you know, I mean, it's it's oil and gas driven economy. It's it's that rugged individualism. You know? There's so many parallels between our cultures, between Texans and Albertans. But they're seeing the same thing. Like, you know, just blanked on the name of the Canadian capital. But, you know, they're they're finding the same things with their federal government where it's taken lots of money from them. It's not giving a lot back to them. It's very disaligned with their values. They're concerned with a lot of this globalist agendas that's being forced on. Them. You know, and they're they're really finding that, hey. We're not we're not a match. Like, the things the policies that you think you want are not the policies that we want here. And so, I think they're getting really close to having a referendum. They've got a petition that they can circulate there to force that on the ballot. They haven't launched it yet, last I checked, but they're getting pretty close, and I'm really gonna push this issue. And, you know, what didn't hurt, honestly, was the joke about Canada becoming the fifty first state.
A lot of people think whatever you want about that. I I consider it a a joke, but, you know, an interesting joke. But for for Alberta, you know, it it really got a lot of conversation going. I'm like, hey. Well, hey. What if people did wanna do something different? What if they did wanna change their relationship with their government? And so, you know, I hope that they choose independence. I won't tell them what to do, but if if I were in Alberta, I'd be just voting for independence, obviously. And if they do, I think it's gonna create a tremendous example, that a lot of other people will go, oh, wait. This is this is possible. This is something that you can do. Countries can leave. You know what I mean?
The Brexit's been the most recent, like, well known example, and a lot of people have a hard time of putting Great Britain in context as a state of the European Union. Well, I I see the parallels perfectly. If you watch the Brexit movie, they leave a lot and go like, but, yep. Brussels is DC. You know? Yep. But a lot of people still have hope trouble wrapping their head head around that. But if you see something like Alberta, leave Canada, then I think it'll it'll be an even closer parallel for people to understand, and they'll go, oh, yeah. That makes sense. Maybe we should determine whether my state should be. So And where where is the, the TNM on getting this, referendum through? Alright. So what it takes is a bill passed through the legislature.
It is a simple majority, in both chambers, and then the government has to our governor has to not veto it. But that's what it takes. And so we've had the bill filed, twice in 2021 to 2023. And we did not have it filed this last time, but we gotta make sure that we have, you know, 76 in the house and a majority in the senate in order to get this through. And so that's that's a major step. We've been making steady progress and growing towards it. And so having 10 representatives that have that are in office that have signed the pledge, saying that they would support they they didn't say necessarily they would vote in favor of Texas when we asked them how they vote in the polls. We're asking do they support Texans having a vote on this, and they've made it very clear that they would support that as well as upholding the results of that vote.
We've had over a 190 different total candidates sign the pledge, which is wonderful, and and a lot of those are office holders or the current, commissioner of agriculture for us as a Texas First Pledge signer. Lots of people in local government, whether justice of the peace or some county commissioners or or even a holding party position. So we've got a lot, but that's that's growing and that's really the best tool that we have to to measure, what we need. We we're not gonna need 76 pledge hunters in the house in order to know we've got a majority of support. But if we get closer to 30 to 40 of those, then you'll you'll know that we we'll probably have the votes that we need. So Alright.
[02:11:59] Unknown:
Well, for, for for Texans or or as Daniel likes to use, Texians. I like that, actually. I do. I like Texians. For for so for Texas listening right now, and that that they wanna get involved but don't know where to start, what's the one thing that you would tell them to do today?
[02:12:18] Unknown:
Well, if you haven't gone to our website at c and m dot may yet and pledged your support, that's a good place to go. There's a lot of resources on there, that will, get if you're unsure about some of these aspects of text ed, I mean, hopefully, we've covered a good job of it tonight. But if you got some questions still, we we got tons of q and a on there. So, you know, if you're going like, what happens to my Social Security? Believe it or not, that's the most common question. That answer is there. Yeah. So go find that. But if you're already sold and you wanna get involved, and let's say you're already maybe a supporter or you signed up for the email list, the next thing we need you to do is is volunteer. And, like, right now, I think the most important thing is get involved in one of these campaigns for the primary.
If you don't, you know, you can you can say you don't have a a representative that that you need. Let's say you've got a representative that they're they're just the farthest thing from it, and they got no challenger. Right? And so you're going like, well, how do I help? Well, guess what? A, you can help another representative if you're looking at the house. B, you've got statewide candidates like Don Huffines and, for comptroller or James Matlock for, I can't help you. Was it railroad commissioner down there? Railroad commissioner. Yep. And so we've got some statewide candidates that you can help with, but I highly encourage if you've got another representative near you to go go work in those. The legislature every every position is important, but the legislature is kind of our our our primary focus right now. So
[02:13:39] Unknown:
Alright. And I just wanna remind folks too that if you go to my website, joeroos.com/tandm, I have a whole page set up there. It's been there since we started the website. All the QR codes up there so you can register your support, you can donate, you can become a member. All of that is up on my website, plus links to the T and M website. So you should go over there and check it out. If you want to go through my site and go to tandm.me. It's right there up on the screen and, and get more information about this. This is this is a very important conversation that needs to be had, not just for Texas, but every state in the union should have some type of a conversation about this to to evaluate our relationship with the existing government. Our founding documents stated clearly that it is our rights as citizens in this country to to, to alter or abolish the government once it becomes out of control tyrannical. I know I'm paraphrasing it, of course.
[02:14:40] Unknown:
It's okay.
[02:14:42] Unknown:
But it's it's within our rights to do that. It's our obligation.
[02:14:46] Unknown:
Section one, section two of the Texas constitution is where we get that right. And that's exactly what it does say. And it's also the federal constitution.
[02:14:54] Unknown:
It's our our obligation, I would say. Not even just a right. It's an obligation for us to be the watchdogs for our government and alter it and change it. Abolish it is what the constitution says, so don't crucify me for using the word. But it's our obligation to do that. We have to be the watchdogs of our government. Otherwise, what you're seeing developing here in in these states united is, is only gonna get worse. It's gonna get more oppressive. It's gonna get more restrictive and, to the point where where especially if they if they bring about this, this, central bank digital currency they wanna do. You know? Right? Look at this conversation right here, right now, would get us debanked. You know?
These things are very real. They're they're not conspiracy theories. They're conspiracy facts. These things are in the works. It's coming. And the only way you're gonna preserve that is by getting involved in in in movements like the TNM, whether it's in Texas or it's in your own state, wherever you're listening or watching. You need to get involved in these things because sooner or later, you're gonna need it. Sooner or later, it's gonna become a necessity and you're not gonna have the structure in place to do it. So get involved, get involved now. It's extremely important. You know, we laugh, we joke about a lot of stuff but I can't tell you enough how important this is.
Get in touch with your state. Get in touch with the movement in your state. Start a movement in your state. Yeah. And that's what you gotta do. And that's my 2¢ on on the closing matter. Alright. Is there anything that we, we haven't covered that you guys wanna talk about?
[02:16:42] Unknown:
We don't have time for that. No.
[02:16:45] Unknown:
Well, you know, Joe, we can stay here for about four or five hours talking about this. You know what? I have no problem. Tonight, no. Because my my my dog is growling at the door here. He's hungry. But we we can definitely schedule it again, get on, and we could do just to pick a day that there's no other guests.
[02:17:01] Unknown:
This way we can have the full length of time. We can even go longer. So Yeah. Because, you know, we we have lots of things to talk about. We don't ever run out of things to talk about. I have no problem with that. It's a deep it's a deep subject and, you know, there's so many moving parts to this right now, but as Nate was saying earlier, I think just for the closing thing is, you know, check out the website. You know, check out we we will be posting, the next events or the next workshops in eight and nine will be at. We don't have all the information for that yet, but we are in the process of that and should have it very quickly. It's posted on the t and m website under the events.
And please come out and see us. Please come get some civic training. Please come learn how your Texas government works. Let us explain it to you. Ask us a barrage of questions because I'm sure that we can answer between he and I. We can answer the questions we've done this long enough. But get involved. That's that's just the key thing. If, you know, you you can't shake your fist at the TV or the you know, read the newspaper and just get upset, you have to get involved. It takes people willing to finally go, I've had enough. What, you know, what can I do? Because it's the smallest things, and that's one of the things about what we want people to understand on that volunteering for campaigns and stuff. A lot of that stuff you could do from your couch. It doesn't mean you gotta show up at a office somewhere or go block walking every day or anything like that. There's multiple things that we will teach you, how you can be effective in people's campaign. And the fact of the matter is you could work on two or three different campaigns doing maybe one specific thing. Maybe you have special skills or maybe you have, resources that you can, donate to campaigns, and you would be surprised. But we take you through all that. We make you do a skills assessment test to teach you about resources and how to use those. And, you know, if we're gonna ask these people to run for office so that they can represent us and we feel like that would be somebody that would be a true representative for us, then it's up up to us to help them get into office.
And they really need it. You know? The it it's short on funding. They're always short on funding. We know that for a fact. But most of the time, they're short on volunteers too, and it takes multiple voices to amplify their message and get their message out. And so that's really what we wanna do because that that is the way that we get to that Texas house and get that changed. There there's no other way to do it. So that would be our last call is just come see us. Come see me and A on the road wherever we end up in Texas, and, hopefully, we could teach you something.
[02:19:32] Unknown:
Outstanding. Outstanding. Alright, folks. Well, thank you so much. Don't forget, folks. Head over to tandm.me, or you can go to my website, joeroos.com/tandm. You can get all this information and, and and sign up. Get involved. Do something. Yes. Don't just sit in your hands. Alright? This is your state. This is your home. This is your country. Do something about it. Yes. Alright. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. This was great. And, let's let's get together again very soon and we'll, we'll we'll do a a full, like, I don't care. We could do a marathon if you want. Alright? Alright. Thanks for having us, Sonja. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. God bless you. Have a great night. You too. Alright. So, folks, Daphne Armour, Nate Smith of the Texas Nationalist Movement. I hope you guys enjoyed that. That was really informative. I appreciated them taking the time out to do that tonight. I know they are incredibly busy. They have a ton of things going on that they have to work on. And for them to do this for us tonight was great. So I appreciate that.
Alright, folks. Let's see. Let's, let's wrap this thing up. I'm looking at my my my feed looks horrible right now. I look like a blob. Signal degradation. Wonderful. Alright. Well, let's see. Folks, don't forget. Head over to the website, joeroos.com, joeroos.com. Sign up for our programming announcement email list. Alright? It's free. It doesn't cost you nothing. And you also get to, you you get you get information on the upcoming shows, guests, and all that stuff. Sign up for it. Alright? Like I said, free, don't cost you nothing. We're not gonna sell, share, give out your information to anybody. It all stays locked and secured.
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Get involved in actual production of the show. Alright. Now you could also, if you wanna help us out with cryptos, you can do that too. Ethereum, Tether, Bitcoin, Texacoin, all of that stuff is on our our support page, all our wallet information, so you can check it all out, once you get over there. Also, just to remind you that we do have a GoFundMe set up for this, this escrow shortage that I'm coming up with. So if you're able and have the means to do it, if you'd like to make a contribution to it, please send it on over. We really appreciate that. Just scan the QR code that's up there on your screen, and, I think the link is on the website. If not, I'll I'll double check. Alright. Also, I wanna say thank you to the folks that are, watching us tonight on Rumble. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch tonight. Thank you for the folks on on YouTube and Twitch and X and Facebook and all those places that are watching. Thank you so much for that. Also, to the folks that are listening live on the modern podcast apps, thank you for tuning into that. And, don't forget, the show will be available to you. Download, on the audio platforms immediately after the show.
And, same thing with the video. We'll get it all set up for you as soon as the show comes to the end. Alright. If you wanna check out some of the modern podcast apps that I talk about all the time, just head over to modernpodcastapps.com or podcastindex.org, and try out some of these new modern podcast apps. They are fantastic. You're gonna love them. Alright. I think, I think I've spoken enough. Charlie is barking at the door here. He wants to eat. So with that said, folks, thank you again so much for for being with us tonight. Check out the website, joeroos.com. Thank you to our guests for being here tonight. Great show tonight. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Folks, listen. Let's make Texas independent again. Go podcasting.
Keep a steady stride and keep talking. God bless you and good night. One.
My fans, I have arrived. Me too.
[00:01:00] Unknown:
They look so cheery.
[00:01:05] Unknown:
Cheering. Asylum studios deep in the bowels of Southwest Texas, it's the Joe Ruge Show, the show where we talk about anything and everything, where nothing is sacred, nothing is watered down, and nothing is PC. Alrighty. Hey, folks. This is Joe Roos, and it is great to be with you once again as we open up this show and transmit to you live from the asylum studios, from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and we are gonna do the very best that we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we can muster without all the bluster.
Hey, folks. Welcome to the Joe Ruse show. Well, it is Monday, Monday, October the twentieth two thousand and twenty five at nineteen zero one hours. We actually started on time. Can you believe that? That's pretty wild. Right? I think so. Hey, guys. I hope you had a great weekend. If you weren't able to catch the shows over the weekend, that's alright. They're still up there for you to check out. Also, the audio stream is available to you on Rumble. I'm sorry, Rumble. On, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Goodpods, you name it, we're on it. Check it out. Wanna check out the video? That you'll find on Rumble. That you'll find on YouTube. That you'll also find on Twitch, x, Fakebook, all of those great places. So make sure you head over there and check those things out. And, you know, if you can, if you're if you're watching or you're listening, if you can leave a comment, leave a rating, a review, whatever it is. Some, you know, some platforms let you leave, like, a star review, something like that. Do it. Let me know what you think. Really curious to to get some feedback from the folks. You know, are you are you happy with what content we're putting out?
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Alright. Well, we have a packed show here for you tonight. We have, actually three guests lined up here. We're gonna be starting off tonight on our first hour with, Steven Schneider, and, then we'll be going over to Nate Smith and Daphne Armour from from the Texas Nationalist Movement. That's gonna be a great conversation. Looking forward to it. As you know, I'm a member of Texas, a member of the Texas Nationalist Movement. I have my Texit mug here ready to go, and, so we'll be talking to them in just a little bit. But waiting in the wings, I see him sitting there in the in the little waiting room. We have Steven a Schneider. Steven, welcome to the Joe Russo. It's great to have you here with us. Hey, Joe. How are you doing? Good to see you. Thank you for coming. Now now now, Steve, you are, you're a a middle grade fantasy author. You've made a mission to inspire creative creativity and kids through stories, video games, and music.
You actually have a wolf. Yes. By the name of Hunter.
[00:11:22] Unknown:
Full name's Hunter Moon Moon.
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Hunter Moon? Moon Moon. Yeah. Moon Moon. Okay. So, without any further ado, I gotta ask you. A wolf?
[00:11:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, he's a rescue. Okay. My my ex wife actually rescued him. He was born with missing some bones in his forepaw, on his right leg, so they were go put him down. And he had been kept in captivity and abused a bit. It wasn't a real good situation. And the they rescued him, but they were go euthanize him. And she saw him and and said, nope. I want him. So we ended up with a wolf. He is 75% Sarlouse wolf, and the other 25%, we're not really sure. There was no real records of them, so the vet had to kinda do DNA test and guess and all that. Wow. But he's a he's a good happy boy. He's he's, you know, even with the bad paw, he gets running around and jumping around, and he's a big happy, he acts like a little puppy sometimes. But
[00:12:24] Unknown:
I didn't know you could rescue wolves.
[00:12:26] Unknown:
Well, the the they not there are wolf sanctuaries. I know there's one, close to me here, and they they will rescue hybrid wolves sometimes, but they try and stick with the purebred natural wolves that maybe get caught in hunter's trap, or somebody captured them as a pup and tried to raise them and realized, oh, this was a bad idea. They don't take hybrids as often. There are some that do, but they're they're all full, and they don't have tons of money. So there's, like, there you know, he's got a bad paw. He's only partly wolf. We're go pass, unfortunately. So he was gonna be put down, and, you know, now we have him. And he's a he's a good boy. He's fun.
He's a real he's a right now, he's getting his winter coat in, so he's all fluff. Oh, nice.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
My, my I I I don't have a wolf. I have I have two French bulldogs, and they are shedding like any like, you couldn't I can't believe how much these these two are shedding this year.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
I don't know if they're shedding that much ever. Right. The good thing is he's an outside animal, so a lot of his furs out there, he hates to be brushed, but he gets these big clumps, and we have to try and cut them out and brush them out. He hates it. I mean, even even though, you know, he's family and he loves us and all that, we pull his skin a little bit. He'll snap at us. And it it sometimes can get a little scary when he growls and bares his teeth, and you see the wolf come out. You know? Well, I could imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Respect for the wild animal there. That that would definitely give us pause for sure. No no not pause. Yeah.
[00:13:56] Unknown:
Right. Well, usually, when I usually, when we have guests on the show, I you know, usually, the first question that I ask is, you know, what's something most people don't know about you but should? But I guess having a wolf would satisfy that question. Yeah. Yeah. The the most people are coming to know that about me because I I use them a lot. Because I found out I I took some author pictures with him. I'm like, oh, you know, that'd be a nice picture,
[00:14:17] Unknown:
me hugging a wolf. You know? And people start start looking at the picture and asking me questions, and I'm like, well, lots of people are interested. So I started giving updates and more pictures, and I have a little wolf here that I put on my table for kids if they wanna get one,
[00:14:31] Unknown:
because they all are like, oh my gosh. It's Hunter, and they love it. You know? But I what I do is I tell people that in truth, you know, quiet. Hunter tells me all the stories, but because he can't hold a pencil, I have to write them down, and I just take all the credit for it. That's awesome. I like that. That's great. I was actually looking over your website earlier today, and, I I love the work that you're doing. I think I think it's great, and I kind of wish that, you know, something like what you're doing was available to me when I was a kid because I used to write a lot of short stories and things like that, you know, in school. And, it was it was my well, like, you told me, I'm gonna tell you a secret.
I I used to do that just to get out of doing certain assignments in the classroom. I would I would That's crazy. No kid has ever done anything like that. I know. Terrible. Right? That's I'm I'm a horrible role model out in this terrible absolutely terrible. Hey. So what's your go to beverage to help you unwind?
[00:15:24] Unknown:
You know what? Me and my daughter, when it was cold mostly, we would make ultimate hot cocoa. And that's I I'm not a huge, like, alcohol drinker. Actually, funny I say that. I've got a few Jack Daniels, but I'll do that around the kids, just occasionally.
[00:15:41] Unknown:
I'm Jack Daniels. Drink that before you came on?
[00:15:44] Unknown:
Earlier tonight. It's just one. I mean, those those things are basically Kool Aid. Well, I was just asking because if I have to, I I have a I have a bottle of bourbon out there. I can go pour myself a drink, and we can, you know Yeah. No. I drink I drink that one. But, no, I don't drink a whole lot. So me and my daughter would make, ultimate hot cocoa, and that's, you know, what I still make, especially in the winter as it gets cold, which it's finally doing. Alright. So what what is ultimate hot cocoa? So it we we use regular hot cocoa with milk, warmed up milk in the hot cocoa, but then we put in, some cinnamon and a drop of vanilla, and we get cinnamon sticks and or, peppermint sticks and mix it up with. Cool. And then, of course, some whipped cream on the top. Not marshmallows. Whipped cream. Well, that sounds great. I gotta try that. Yeah. A little bit. You're gonna have to send me you're gonna have to send me some some directions on this one. I'm gonna try this thing out. That sounds pretty good. I like that. And better yet, we we have big Star Wars mugs. We have Yoda and Darth Vader that were, like, really big mugs that we use. Who's who? Depends on who how we feel for the day. We switch back and forth. Alright. So so you embrace both the light and the dark? Yeah. Exact yeah. So So it came from me and my wife, this one townhouse we had. First time we ever had a dishwasher.
And we to get used to it, we we kept forgetting to take things in and out. So we got a Darth Vader and a Yoda magnet. Darth Vader was on there, they're dirty and need clean. If Yoda is on there, they're clean and somebody better pull them out. Oh, that's a great idea. I like that. That's fun. Yeah. That's pretty neat. So, so so I like I I I said earlier, that, you know, I I love what you're doing with with, with the kids and and and the storytelling and and the writing.
[00:17:22] Unknown:
Again, I wish I I wish I had something like that. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I probably still would have been writing today, through that. Now you write fantasy for middle grade, middle grade readers, and, that's really that's really kind of a special age, really, at at that because that's when your imagination just takes off, man. It just runs wild. What what what drew you to that audience?
[00:17:46] Unknown:
I I haven't really matured past it myself. So my my kids it's a quote from doctor who, but they they always called me the intergalactic 12 year old, because I was all you know, I was a scout leader, girl scout, and a boy scout leader, and the kids loved me. We had fun, doing things. My girl scouts, I took them out tracking in the snow. Got a couple stories about that. But, like, one year, we spent some time building a dollhouse because we thought the book's requirements sucked. You know? And I I had so much fun doing the dollhouse. And as always, building Lego, getting on the floor, and, you know, I remember GI Joe and My Little Pony and Star Wars all mixed together in big epic stories going on. So I I never got past that thinking and stuff. And I I see a lot of adults lose it, and they don't know how to do that anymore.
But I think part of it is now the kids aren't getting as much a chance to explore their imagination and live in fantasy worlds. So it it when I started to write, like anybody, oh, I'm gonna write the best novel ever, and everybody's gonna love it. And it's gonna be so good. And I'm writing, and I'm like, and I can't get anything that sounds good. And this sucks. And I was working with a author friend of mine who lives up in Cleveland. And he's talking to me, and he's he's finally like, dude, why are you trying to write an adult thriller? I'm like, well, I don't know. What should I try and write? I don't know. He's like, because everything you do, your life revolves around kids. Try and write a a kid's book. Oh, that's a good idea.
And it it's it flowed. It came out so much better. It worked so much better. And, you know, it just I had to discover that and realize it. And since then, I've realized my life really has revolved around working with kids, helping kids, doing things with kids, playing Legos with kids, and all sorts of things. So that's where it came from. Because I see in the school, teachers, I I admire and love, but they're stuck following certain curriculum. They have to do certain things. And I'm not trained as an academic teacher education anything. Okay. So I'm thinking a little differently outside the box and focusing more on the imagination and the storytelling.
And, you know, I I can help kids write. I can help kids use their imagination. I'm not as concerned if they put the comma in the right place or if that word is spelled a 100 we can fix the words. We can fix the grammar. That's what schools do well. So I work on the other stuff.
[00:20:20] Unknown:
Well, that's great, man. I I like I said, you got you you do great work, and I was, like, looking at your website. I would encourage folks to go to your website and check it out. Thank you. Because, I I got a chance to read some of the, some of the blurbs from your books. And, I mean, really well done. And I I really do appreciate it. And again, I I wish I had a resource like this when I was growing up because I probably still would have been writing today. Now now video games are, you know, video video game storytelling. Most adults think of video games as just entertainment, but you don't. You you look at them as storytelling engines.
Yes. How do you how do you help kids, understand that connection?
[00:20:58] Unknown:
Well, that one's not that hard. When you get a kid and tell the kids like, hey. I can show you how to make a video game, and they need people that can tell stories. So let me tell you about you know, kids wanna do video games. I've I've found, a software called Bloxels, which gives you a board and colored little blocks. And you put the blocks in, then you use an app to take a picture of it, and it turns it into a video game just like that. Really? And I started teaching some classes at the local rec center and stuff for younger kids and started to find out that older kids were coming in. And, occasionally, an adult would come in. And I'm always with the adults. I'm like, you know, this is not using, like, a game engine to create Assassin's Creed or anything. They're like, that's fine. I'm interested, but I don't know how to get into it. I'm like, this is just a taste of it. And they love it because it is so simple. They're not worried about screwing up. They're not trying to remember what combinations there are. They're just putting down colored blocks, taking a picture, and then playing a game.
And and once and I I've done classes with kids. I did it at a STEM school, one of the STEM schools in the area. And these are some really bright kids that work with tech all day long. Mhmm. And I'm, like, trying to get through the first ten minutes of explaining things, and I get kids going, hey. I just created this level, and I got to the top part, but I'm stuck. I think I broke and they found a bug in the first ten minutes before I was even done talking. And I I got inducted with the company. They're like, oh, yeah. That was a bug. We'll get that fixed. So, you know, it was a great experience because the kids just glom onto it and explode without having much instruction.
But what's really great is then I tell the parents, it's like, look. If would you rather have them making video games or playing video games? Because if we look back, like, a hundred twenty years ago, the film industry was just getting started. And if you said, I wanna be a screenwriter and go to Hollywood and write, movies or, you know, write stories for movies, people would be like, you're crazy. That's never gonna go anywhere. And now look at it. If somebody said, hey. I'm going to Hollywood to be a film writer. Oh, right. You that's awesome. You know, people love it. Yeah. Exactly. That's where video games are evolving to. The the storytelling their narrative designer is new. They actually didn't have a dedicated person doing story up until, like, the last ten or fifteen years in most studios. So there's still a lot of growth and opportunity as a storyteller in video games.
[00:23:20] Unknown:
So can you explain how, video game storytelling works and how it differs from traditional, book or storytelling?
[00:23:28] Unknown:
So that's the the I'm sure you've played some video game. Yeah. So you have an idea of how it works with you make the choices as most of the time of what you want. It's it's like a choose your own adventure, book, which is one of the things I use for training, doing choose your own adventure. Like Dungeons and Dragons where you you present to the player something, and they tell you what they're doing. That's kinda how video games work. So those are things I use in teaching kids to lead up to video games. What makes a video game story different is it's more than just the background, nowadays. You you have story within the levels. Look. Think of Space Invaders.
Aliens are invading Earth. You have a base, and you have to shoot them and kill them. End of story. That's that's the entire story of the game. Exactly. But then you look at, like I mentioned, like Assassin's Creed, and it's got multiple games with this interwoven storyline. And within the level, there are things you do that interact with the story or Skyrim. Not only did Skyrim have a great story of its own with lots of DLC, but it had lots of little books that told the history that you could gather throughout it. So for story a lot of times, story in video games, they come in afterwards.
That's not as true with something like Skyrim. They have to have that right away. Or the new Diablo four. I was talking to the guy that helped write some of the story for Diablo four. And they're there at the beginning, and they're coming up with the background to get you set up to start. Because in a book, you have your beginning. You have your setup. You have where it introduces the character. It introduces the world and then the conflict. Whereas a video game starts at the conflict and takes you on from there pretty much. Right. Yeah. So the store the the narrative designer has to help coordinate between the level designers and the game engine designers and all that for the for the story of the character, which means Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games.
Okay? Yeah. It'd be great game level designer if he pulled out a bazooka and was just shooting people like Rambo, but that's not fitting the character. That doesn't fit our story. It doesn't fit that. So you get that type of thing. The game Cuphead. I don't know if you ever played that. Really challenging vintage, old style video game. It's a screen that you shoot a guy or you're jumping over things, and it's very, very, very difficult. But they did the story at the last minute, and I I interviewed the guy that helped do the story. And it was more a matter of making a story fit what they were trying to do. So there's it's still a growing, changing thing that they're they're doing.
As an example, though, Assassin's Creed, one of the tools they use for that is a tool called Twine, and I use it in some of my teaching. Basically, Twine is a graphic, choose your own adventure creator. It's an app that helps you choose create choose your own adventures, and that is the exact tool they use to create the branching story elements
[00:26:31] Unknown:
in Assassin's Creed. Oh, wow. I don't know that. That that's interesting. And it's funny because you as you're telling the story, you're and you're explaining this, I'm I'm thinking you mentioned, vintage games. You know what popped in my head?
[00:26:45] Unknown:
What? Pong. Pong. Really? Pong? There's no story to Pong.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
No. No. Whatsoever. Pong was great, man. I I I I love that. And then I think probably the first game I ever played that had a storytelling element to it was, Resident Evil, the the original one. I just played that yesterday because it's on sale on Xbox. Man, I haven't played that in, like, forever. I I had it on PlayStation when it when it Oh, yeah. Came out. Well, if you still had it, it's worth quite a bit of money, the original. I wish. I wish. But, yeah, that was a great game too. And I I actually I like the storytelling element. And, I don't know if it really correlates with it, but it it reminds me also a lot of, like, like, I remember when when I was a teenager, we used to before, like, video games really became something big, we used to do a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and things like that. So so I I could I see how there there's, like, a little bit of a connection there. Like, it's the the the the transition from that type of gameplay to storytelling video gameplay. That that's that's pretty it's pretty interesting.
Now do you think technology, especially with video games and and screens, has helped to hurt creativity in kids?
[00:27:56] Unknown:
That's a really tough one, and I I think there's a couple different ways of looking at it. I think more so than the screens, I think our culture and the parents could be actually blamed a little bit more for that because parents aren't encouraging kids to be creative. They aren't encouraging them as much to to draw, to read, to create a cartoon instead of watching a cartoon. Well, if they even really have many cartoons, they have anime and stuff. You know? Yeah. So I I think parents it's too easy for parents just to let a kid stare at the screen whatever they're doing, watching YouTube or just playing a video game. I was always of the type I got my Commodore 64.
You know, I had an Atari. I I was lucky. I got an Atari right when they came out. I had plenty of games on that. Then I had to have my 64. But the best I had tons of games. Believe me. Tons of games on the 64. But the best thing was you could program it. You could learn to program and make your own games. You could do your own and, you know, and I was I've always been the that, creator type. You know, you mentioned D and D. Plenty of campaigns that I create and lead people through. In Fact, my son was in high school. I did one for Star Wars. All his friends came, and we played a Star Wars adventure. And it is great training for that, but I I just was always naturally that way. I I just think kids are not encouraged. It's not looked upon as a, oh my gosh. You can create that, thing as much as it may have been at one time or could be.
There's too many people that, you know, you're right. And I see this at my author tables. I get people that come up all the time and go, you wrote these? Oh, man. That is awesome. Then I get other people that go, oh, you wrote these? Yeah. It doesn't look that interesting. And they walk away. And it's like, really? You know, what have you done in the last week? You know? Right. It's just not as something that people view as important today, unfortunately.
[00:30:02] Unknown:
Yeah. And and that is unfortunate, actually. And that that kinda leads into my next question for you is, you know, and you kinda touched on it already is what what's missing most in today's education and parenting culture?
[00:30:14] Unknown:
I've talked to a lot of teachers about this. I I I I put right on my booth teachers. Big. I wanna get teachers talking to me. I think we worry about spelling and grammar way too early in school. Because when I talk to a lot of authors, they're like, I don't know how to write a book. And they spend all this time writing one book, But what they really do is spend a lot of time at conferences, at, classes, at reading books on how to write books, and they spend all this time. But the problem is until you've written a bunch, a lot of that advice doesn't click. It doesn't really make sense. It's it's known maybe academically, but it it how does it apply to writing? It's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah.
So when I talk to teachers, and I you know, I'm not gonna change the education system myself. I need a little bit more heavyweight behind this. But instead of worrying about spelling lists and grammar in first, second, third, fourth grade, just let the kids tell stories. Let them write stories. Let them draw stories. Let them dictate stories. Walk around talking to themselves, telling stories. Do a campfire, and everybody tells stories. Because if they're telling stories, they're using their imagination and creativity. And believe it or not, other things later in in school will be much easier the more creative their brain can be. But then once they've told these stories and they've written these stories and they see it, when they get spelling lists, it will click better because, oh, you know what? I misspelled that word. Now I know how to spell it. Or, oh, I spell I wrote this word, but now I'm learning how to spell it the next time I did it better. And the grammar, who cares about commas when you have one sentence on the board? It's just so academically disconnected from actual writing.
And if if we I I think if we just had let them tell stories for a couple grades,
[00:32:07] Unknown:
the rest of it would be easier for them later. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea, actually. I like that. That that's good. That's good. Now in in your stories, each one of your stories, you include words to know Yes. Which which highlight words that kids may or may not be familiar with. You you also have discussion questions, and there's also a section, for, where where the kids can write their own their own adventure ideas. Like a fan fiction, I hope. Yeah. Okay. So, tell us more about why you you you include that in in each one of your stories.
[00:32:44] Unknown:
Because I know teachers are burdened. There's a lot of stuff on teachers. I had a friend that just got assigned math teacher because the old guy, was leaving, and she came in. And she's like, I don't have anything for math. And, you know, to get a whole curriculum for a year, was, like, daunting to her. So I wanna help something that you normally do. It's gonna be a challenge. Yes. And she hadn't been a math teacher before, so she didn't have much to draw on. So yeah. Yeah. So I I wanted to make it easier for, teachers. Plus, my other stance is instead of shoving books down kids' throats or stories down their throats that they hate or don't enjoy or mean nothing to them, let them read something they enjoy. You know how many kids, young adults I know that read a lot and started off by reading comic books? RL Stine, who we would all consider very successful writer with a very good series, said, I didn't read books when I was younger. I read comic books. And then someone said, you might enjoy these and pointed me to Ray Bradbury, and it's like a world opened up. It's the same idea as the writing.
You know, if you shove things at them that they hate, they're always going to associate, I hate reading. But if you just let them read anything and they enjoy it, then when they see the when they see Shakespeare, when they see Bradbury and Asimov, when they see any of, you know, Game of Thrones or something when they're later, you know, they they'll enjoy it more because they've had that exposure. And I I think that's the other problem we we need to correct is let kids read whatever.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's great too because I I remember when I was a kid, like I said, you know, I used to, you know, write short stories and stuff. I had a teacher in my in fifth grade who would encourage me to to to read anything I can get my hands on. I was a great reader. I I always was, and I still am. I love to read. I love to sit down with a book and just and just kinda go through it. Sometimes I read them a little too critically. So, and, you know, and and what I like to do is I do surveys. So I'll read I'll I'll skim the book, and then I'll go back later, and I'll actually read more detailed into it and I kinda break it down. And I don't know why I do it that way. I did so I that's my fifth grade teacher taught me that, and it stayed with me all me on my whole life.
But, you know, he wouldn't key in card, like, just like you said, read whatever it is that you're interested in. You know, it doesn't matter what it is. And, he he actually would every every once in a while as a kind of like, like a reward for being a good kid, you know, he would, he'd he'd give me a comic book to read and, you know, or take home or or I was very I was a very big fan of, of the Star Trek books, the novels that would that would come out like the, the alternate not the alternate universe, but the, you know, the back stories and and such. And, yeah. And so he would do that. He, like, he he would if I if I did something really well, if I was struggling, like, I used to struggle with math a lot.
And if I did something successfully, he would get me a book, you know, something that I'd love to read. And so it made me, well, I want I want to get another book, so I'm gonna make sure I do this right. And it it motivated me to do it. And that's exactly what I think what you're saying. Yeah. So it's fantastic to do that. And I that's that's that's, and and I love that you do that. I think that's a fantastic idea. Now, you also, you also teach kids, you teach parents how to turn writing into a lifelong pursuit, even even maybe even a career. I guess, what's the first step that, that for a family, to take that would wanna
[00:36:30] Unknown:
kinda push them along the path for that? Everything we just talked about. The the kids gotta read, and they gotta enjoy reading and, know what they like. And then they just gotta tell stories. Not so I and I I I made this mistake early on at a couple author tables. I had some younger kids. I'm like, oh, do you guys like to write? Meaning, do you like to write stories? Oh, no. I hate that. And I realized I'm I was saying it incorrectly. The when they're in third grade, they may not like to write. It may be a difficult process. But telling stories, they may love telling stories. You ever have that chatterbox such as, oh, go to bed at night or back seat of the car? It's like, how many more miles at grandma's house do we have to list? You know? That was my son.
[00:37:12] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:37:13] Unknown:
My son just likes that. It's driving me crazy. We we took martial arts. In our first year there, they did a Halloween party, and they the the instructor made the mistake. Any kids wanna tell a story, which I thought was great. My son immediately, yeah. I do. And he got up there. He started telling a story. Twenty minutes later, he's still telling that story. The instructor's like, what the hell story is this? How long is it going? I'm like, I don't know. He's making it up as he goes. And he's like, oh. So he goes, alright. Good story. My son stood up, took a bow, and sat down right in the middle of a sentence. You know? But that's the first step that, you know, the kids gotta enjoy telling to enjoy reading, and they gotta enjoy telling stories. You know, when I was in scouts, we used to sit around the campfire and tell stories. That's another, you know, skill that people don't do. They don't sit around even, you know, on their back porch with a small little fire going and tell stories. You know, they may bitch about the day or talk about the sports game, but they don't tell a story.
Christmas time, in Victorian times, Christmas Eve was the time to gather around the hearth and tell ghost stories. That's where Christmas Carol comes from. Yeah. Yeah. And and that was a a tradition that we've lost telling those stories. So, you know, that's the first thing. And do I think every kid is going to read and tell stories and become a James Patterson author? No. That's just not realistic. Any more than every kid, out there swinging a bat right now is going to be on a pro team. It's just not happening. But I argue that if they're creative and learn to tell stories, they have a better chance of making money at it than the kid swinging the baseball bat. So that's, you know, my argument on that.
And and with narrative design in video games, if they know how to tell stories, there's a good chance they could get a good job. And I'm talking, like, Blizzard was looking for narrative designers, with no college experience no college degree. They wanted some experience starting at 94,000. Wow. So, yeah, experience starting at 94,000. Wow. So yeah. The these are wrong business. Exactly. There there are good jobs, out there for that, and you can't argue that the the video game business is too small and going away. It it brought in more money in 2020 than pro football. So the it's here to stay, and it's getting bigger.
And that's just one avenue. Especially especially with with,
[00:39:39] Unknown:
the advances they're making with AI, with the with video games and that the whole interactive, aspect of it, it it's it's I I've tried I've I've I've tried to play one of those AI games once
[00:39:53] Unknown:
with the goggles and all that stuff. Yeah. And I felt like a flipping idiot. So And that's actually we're going to need even more storytellers to help guide the AI and get the basics for the story on that. So it's not like it's going to replace storytelling. It's just maybe changing it again.
[00:40:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And story you know, like like you said, storytelling is a lost art. Yes. And that's that's the that's the sad thing too. Like, I like, you know, you talked about Victorian days, you know, telling stories around the around the the the fireplace at at home, Christmas time. I mean, that's not really that far back. I mean, when I was a kid, my my grandfather used to do that. We would we would all sit around. We didn't have a fireplace, but, you know, we would all sit around in the living room, on on Christmas or any holiday. Really, it didn't make a difference what it was. And my grandfather, my grandfather was an old Sicilian, you know, so he he would come out, he'd he'd bring out he'd bring out the guitar.
Nice. He would sit there and he would sing a couple of songs then tell a story about where that song came from and how it came about and why it was written and who wrote it and what it's really all about, and then he would tie that into another story and said he would just go on and on and on. And some of those are some of the best memories I have, is sitting around talking and and hearing those those stories. And and it's and it's sad. It's it really is sad that it's such a lost art. That people just don't know how to sit and tell the story. And I and I blame the fact that that they're so engaged with what they're seeing on TV. They're they're it just sucks the creativity out of you because it's all right there in front of you. Video games are just a step above watching TV because it's slightly interactive.
[00:41:25] Unknown:
Multiplayer video games, you know, at least you're talking to somebody. But, you know, I I I chuckle sometimes because people are like, oh, you know, oh, that's too much work to do that with my kids. And, you know, oh, I have to monitor what they're reading. After this, I have to that. Blah blah blah. But they'll gladly drop a couple thousand dollars to take their kids to Disneyland, which was built on stories. That was Walt Disney's whole thing was stories, bringing stories to families. You know, you could argue, you know, he screwed up all the Grimm's fairy tales and made them all very pleasant and friendly, but, you know, that's all but that's that's also what's going to sell, what are people looking for. He you know, you can't say he wasn't a good businessman. Grim's fairy tales are all quite grim, to be honest. Yes. Yeah. You know what? I I actually have thought of hiring some people to create some video games based on some of the grim fairy tale stories.
That's a great idea. And and trying to to adventure type on some of them, maybe a mixture with some adventures, some platforming, or, you know, combat action like the big bad wolf and the pigs keeping them from the houses. You know? Whatever. But and then it's, you know, hey. This is from a story. Here's a story. Maybe have part of the story interwoven
[00:42:40] Unknown:
with the video game action to introduce these to kids. You know, Aesop fables. You know, we could do little video games based on those short little Aesop stories. Oh, that would be awesome. Those some of those stories and I I remember reading those things as a kid. I used to have this an incredible book collection, and and and over the my parents got rid of them when when I when I got when I became an adult and moved out and on my own, had all that stuff in my parents' garage, and they needed space. And so without thinking, they just said, oh, he doesn't want these anymore, I got it. My dad did that to my Star Wars stuff. We'll stop right there. Yeah. That that hurts. That hurts. It still does. But, but but this collection that I had was all of those stories, the grim fairy tales, Aesop's fable, all the unedited, you know Oh, yeah. You know, the full story, unabridged, stories. And I had I had a copy of, I had a hardback copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula that was it was when was it pub it was published in the early early nineteen hundreds.
[00:43:41] Unknown:
Yeah. I think 1890 when it first came out. Oh, no. Yeah. The original book
[00:43:45] Unknown:
story, but the copy that I had was printed in the early nineteen hundreds, like 1925, 1930, somewhere around there. Wow. And it was my great grandfather's copy. And I had that. I I had so many book. They were just amazing, amazing books. I I I miss stories like that. You know? And I and a lot of those a lot of those books too. A lot of those stories, like you said, the Aesop's fables, the Grimm's fairy tales, all that stuff would make great video games. Yeah. Yeah. And they're they're public domain.
[00:44:13] Unknown:
You know? Oh, that's right. Yeah. That's true. They are. So it's just go for it, man. Do it. Star Wars IP. Yeah. Well, that how much time in the day is there? Because there's a lot of time writing. Well, sure. If you if you really have your heart for it, you'll find time. Yeah. You know what? I I've been really thinking of it. I've got a couple other things I've I've been trying to get finished. I may try and nothing elaborate. I'm not talking about the hundred hour game. You know? This is a simple little game is what I'm trying to look for. So it may still come about. It's still a project on the back burner. No. My my son talking about games like that, like story games, my my son
[00:44:50] Unknown:
sat down one one time. I bought him Call of Duty, the, like, one of the early early versions of it. He was a kid, like, a little kid. And it worried me, to be quite honest with you, that he was so proficient in executing these plans in this game. And I was like, well, either he's gonna grow up to be a mercenary or or or or a marine sniper or or or a hitman.
[00:45:15] Unknown:
And and now they they hire all these top level kids to do the drums, because they need precision control. So, yeah, the video game plan really did come about for some. As many kids get hired for that as become professional ballplayers, I think. You know? So
[00:45:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I I get you. So so where do where do you think opportunities for young storytellers will open up, in the next decade? Oh, well, I I don't think video games are going away.
[00:45:40] Unknown:
We've got plenty of those. And a lot of people are like, books are dead because of AI, but I think that's actually going to help if you're a good storyteller because people are going to want authentic human written stories. And and it's even I see it even now. So there are still going to be people buying books, still buying those stories. But we've got, you know, YouTube, the videos. So many of these kids do these videos that are just quick five seconds. But, you know, I we're going to hit a point where people are overabundanced of that and done with it. And story is the next thing. But the big push in business is your business, training, your business message through story.
And that's a different way of telling a story, but they want someone that's good at getting their message across through a story format. So there's a lot of these still out there. It just like anything, technology keeps changing. It it keeps changing the opportunities and what's available. Is some of the old stuff you know, can I you mentioned, you know, stoker? You know? Can I, sit down on a typewriter and type up a manuscript and a publisher prints it and, you know, it's the only book that comes out that week? No. As we were talking, 5,000 books probably got published on Amazon.
So it keeps changing, and you just gotta keep up with it and keep looking for what's available. And the kids that are, you know, in fourth, fifth grade now, by the time they're older and changing the world, there's gonna be different opportunities even then. So it it it's hard to predict what's going to happen, especially because it changes every second week nowadays. Yeah. That's true. What do you think about AI, though? I mean,
[00:47:27] Unknown:
the the temptation to use AI to do these things.
[00:47:31] Unknown:
No. God. Heck no. I've seen some stories written by AI, and, you know, I've played around with it a little bit. They they suck. They're horrible. There's it just it it reads badly. They're not well written stories.
[00:47:48] Unknown:
Well, there's no emotion behind it.
[00:47:50] Unknown:
And it doesn't connect well, and there there's just a lot of problems with them. Now will that change and get better? I'm sure it probably will. So there you go. We're going to need people to write stories for our AI robot servitors that are roaming around. You know, everything's changing. AI is a tough thing right now because there's a lot of misinformation, and there's a lot of people with opinions that really aren't don't understand why they have that opinion. And I've always been a tech guy, so it's difficult for me to say, oh, tech sucks in any form. Let's get rid of it. But the problem is people are still arguing whether we need AI or not. It it we're done past the argument. That's kinda like saying, should we go back to horse and carriage or our car is going to work for us? There's no argument anymore. We've got cars. We don't have blacksmiths, so we're stuck with them.
AI is here. People are using it, and I think they're using it in ways most people don't realize. So the argument shouldn't we should adjust our focus instead of so much should or shouldn't, more on how can we use it, how can we use it in a way that doesn't hurt other people and is the best benefit to all of us. You know, I'm all for if if I write stories that people really love and they wanna use my stories to train AI in some authored LLM, but when somebody goes to say, hey. Create a story like this, and then they check off the authors they want, like Spotify. If I get some money for that, go ahead. You know? It's not gonna change my stories. That's not here yet. That's where it kinda needs to go. Yes. Should authors get paid? Should artists get paid if their stuff is used to train? Absolutely.
But here's my example, and I know some people have frowned on me about this. I know there's probably people out there wanting to hit me with a baseball bat for this. But my book covers were drawn by an artist up in Cleveland by the name of Tom Zoller. He was involved with the my little ponies reboot, like, ten years ago. That's how people might know him. And they're wonderful covers. I love them, but they cost me a couple $100, which is still really cheap compared to some book covers I've heard from people. But along with these stories, I wrote some some short stories that I offer for free to get people into the world that go along with it. They're not big enough stories on their own. You know? They go with it. You know? I use it for marketing. I give them away on my website for free. I don't make money off of those, but I wanna drop you all my series.
Well, honestly, I don't have the money to give Tom another thousand, $2,000 for these short story covers. And then I'm not gonna make any money off it because that money then would take away from anything I make off of my books. You know, it it it it's my real life situation. I'm not James Patterson, then I can just throw the money wherever I want. Yeah. Well, I've used AI to create the covers for those short stories because it didn't cost me anything, and those stories are free anyway. I did not have it do it in the style of Tom, not trying to steal his style. There's a different style for those short stories. Now if suddenly, you know, Warner wants to make my books movies and everybody's buying my books, I'll probably get them redone with a real human doing the, covers, probably Tom so it's all consistent.
So, you know, it it can be a rough thing, but my argument is, let's say there's somebody out there that has a great kid's book story idea. Wonderful idea for a kid's book. That's the book needed by certain kids, but they can't get it out there because they can't afford to pay somebody to draw all the pictures in the book. Well, by saying they can't use AI to make the art, you're denying them the opportunity to get their book out. You're denying them the opportunity to make money because they can't afford to pay somebody else for the pictures. That you know what?
That's hard for me to say, well, they shouldn't and because it'll rip off artists. They wouldn't be able to pay them anyway, but now their book can get out for those kids that said, oh my gosh. That's the book for me. And I know somebody wants would is probably gonna wanna get in my face for that type of thinking and attitude and, all that. But, you know, that's the situation, in some people's cases. We could get stories we may not have gotten, picture books that we may not have gotten because somebody can use AI to make those pictures instead of having to pay thousands of dollars.
[00:52:26] Unknown:
Right. Well, when I was thinking about AI also is the the ease of of of access to AI generated material stifling the creativity of a young mind coming from this. You know, that that's kinda what, what I was I was wondering about.
[00:52:46] Unknown:
That that's a concern. I mean, we already got kids just watching YouTube for six hours every night. You know, if they and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's good. It's something that parents have to be active in their kids. Not don't just say teachers and blame it all on teachers. Parents have to be the ones active in their kids' lives,
[00:53:07] Unknown:
to be agree with you a 100%. I agree with you a 100%. You you you know, you're the parent. You need to be involved in their life. You need to be involved in everything that they're doing. I mean, I mean, that's how I was raised. You know? My my parents my parents That's called raising your child. Yeah. I I mean, my parents were very involved in every little thing I was doing. They knew exactly where I was going, what I was doing.
[00:53:31] Unknown:
But not being a hover parent. No. Exactly. Yeah. You got a d, well, I'm gonna go yell at the teacher. You know, you you got in trouble because you were picking on a kid, well, I'm gonna go down that school and talk to them. Oh, no. No. Not What were you doing? Wow. Not so I'm not condoning that, but that's just how it was. Oh, yeah. And that's how I was. I mean, my my dad I I was terrified. If I if I got a if I got a bad grade,
[00:53:54] Unknown:
my dad didn't say blame the teacher. He was like, well, what are you not doing that you couldn't get a better grade? Yeah. Exactly. And he would make me think about that. By by asking the question that way, what are you not doing
[00:54:07] Unknown:
that you could've got that you could've gotten a better grade? Because what are you really sending your kids out into the world when they're adults, if you ran and blamed everybody else for any of their problems growing up? They that that's you need to they need to fail. They need to face things. Mhmm. I had that one as a scout leader. I couple arguments with other parents and leaders because we did certain things, and they got upset. Well, they don't know how to do that. They'll fail blah blah. Okay. Good. They'll fail. You know how much they're going to learn from failing? Trust me. Absolutely. It's the best thing. It it was a difficult thing sometimes because some people don't get it in today's world, which blows my mind. But
[00:54:45] Unknown:
And and but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I agree with you. It it's you know, people don't really understand. And and I can't stand I I and I'm gonna aggravate some people when I say this, but I cannot stand when I hear adults and parents blaming everybody else in the world around their child, you know, for the mistakes that their child makes. You know, we all make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's gonna have a failure. You you you take that and you use that as a learning experience, a teaching moment. You could tell them, well, this is what you did and this is the result of what you did. What are you gonna do that's different to not get that same result? You know, it it you have to be involved in your kid's life. I cannot I I I never understood that. When my kids were were young, you know, you know, my my, my wife and I at the time, you know, we both had to work full time jobs.
It was hard. Easy excuse to say, well, you know, I I have to work. We both have to work. We can't you can't afford this. But you know what? You made time to to to be there with the kids. You made the time, you know? So what? Your day off is Saturday, and the kids had this, this, this, this, this, and you just wanted to sit around and and and relax all hey, you know what? Your kids are more important than that. You take your kids. You go do what you gotta do do with your kids. You raise your children. Don't Yep. Leave them to somebody else to raise. Because then you're gonna complain, well, my kids weren't raised the right way. Well, who raised them?
[00:56:09] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:56:11] Unknown:
So, yeah, it's we can go on and on about that stuff. We could. That's yeah. That's a whole parent teaching discussion there. Yes, sir. So let's see. So we had a pretty this this conversation was great. I I love this, and I love your energy on this thing, and I love your excitement about what you're doing, and it's it's refreshing to see. So so what's the takeaway for the audience out of this whole conversation that we've had?
[00:56:34] Unknown:
One, get your kids interested in using their imagination. And, you know, instead of buying them five video games for Christmas, buy Lego. Instead of buying a Lego set, buy those buckets of just plain Lego, and sit down on the damn floor and build some stuff with them. You know, that's that's the other thing. If you don't have Lego, Lego are expensive, that's fine. Go look at Dollar General. Do you know how many craft items and stuff they have there? Mhmm. You could create so many thing. I I created I have a box that I still have some old board games I created when I was, like, eight years old. They all suck. They're horrible. But I I made, like, 10 different board games to play for me and my cousins. You know, kids need to do that. Encourage them to do that. Encourage them to create. Encourage them to read. Let them read whatever. Talk to a monitor and see what they're reading. It's everybody I was reading Stephen King when I was eight and nine years old. That was some of the early stuff I got. I was reading Hardy Boy in kindergarten when most kids were still working on the the Val characters.
So I was a very early reader. I read just my mother my mother got me a Stephen King box set when I was eight years old for Christmas. I don't even know if she knew what it was, but it was very popular. Then she got me Lord of the Rings the year after that. So, you know, it my kids read whatever they wanted, and they both turned out as well as I did. So, arguably, that, you know, some people could say that wasn't really great, but I think they did fine. So, you know, that's it. Get your kids doing things. Go to libraries because libraries have so many cool activities they do that get kids excited about it. I do a workshop talking about story structure, beginning, middle, end with kids. I tell them, hey. I'm supposed to have a story idea to my editor tomorrow, but I'd I've been playing video games, and I didn't get anything done. Can you guys help me? Oh, yeah. Kids love helping adults.
Here, I need ideas for a story. And as they're doing it, I'm like, okay. That sounds like this beginning of the story. Don't you think? Beginning is where we do this, and I mix in the teaching with it. But I got kids jumping out of their seats wanting to tell me ideas. And they're, like, hungry for it because they don't get that very often, and they they want I went back the following year to that same school. I had kids running up to me. Look. I made a book. And they they folded over paper, and they wrote in it and drew pictures and put cardboard on it and glued it together and stuff. We need more of that. You know? Romper Room is where I got a lot of that. We need Romper Room to come back. I remember Romper Room. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:59:08] Unknown:
We had some great things growing up. Right? We're not I don't think we're too far away from each other in in age. No. No. Probably not. How old are your kids? My son is 26. My daughter's 30.
[00:59:17] Unknown:
Yep. Exactly. Yep.
[00:59:19] Unknown:
Wow. I can't believe I just said that. My daughter's gonna be 30. Scary, Holy cow. Yeah.
[00:59:24] Unknown:
I remember when you were 30, you were probably just about having kids.
[00:59:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Actually, let's see. I got married. When did I get married? I got married. I was 23 when I got married. And I, my daughter came in came along in 1996. So that was so there's three years after. So yeah. Yeah. It's been Yeah.
[00:59:44] Unknown:
Yeah. Scary. So you're so just think of,
[00:59:49] Unknown:
could be a grandparent soon. Well, I am. I have three times. Oh, okay. Well, great. Congrats. Yeah. Thank you. My my daughter, I she's she's amazing. My daughter my son too. I mean, I'm incredibly proud of myself. My son my son was diagnosed very young with, with Asperger's.
[01:00:04] Unknown:
And,
[01:00:05] Unknown:
My stepson has that. So so he struggled, you know, socially awkward, that type of thing. Honestly, if if you met him, you would you wouldn't even know. You know? You know? It's just that's so so so so slight, so subtle. But, but he did struggle. He struggled with his reading, his math skills. He struggled all that stuff, and I'm incredibly proud of him. He's he's really made a career for himself. He work he works for a for a big chain place and, you know, he's in the management training program for that. I'm incredibly proud of what he's doing. My daughter, three kids. She graduated, a couple years ago with her with her MBA from Columbia with honors while she was pregnant with baby number two and working full time, you know, her husband working full time. You know, it it's I'm incredibly proud of them, you know, and I just cannot believe Good. That I have three grandkids, and I have
[01:00:56] Unknown:
So get some Lego, Joe. Get on the floor. So I just don't get to see them very often. That's the problem because they're open they're open. Let me shoot this out. So this book is coming. The oddest questers is loosely based on my family, my kids, and my stepkids. It's an a sibling investigative group. My one stepson has Asperger's, and he's in the book. And I tried to write him like he is and like the family is with him because people who don't have anybody with that in their family, they wanna tiptoe, and they want a special treatment. And they make them feel bad because they're getting treated different. They know they're getting treated different. They don't want that. They don't want it because it it points it out, and they hate that. My my stepson hates when people are treating him different because of his problem. You know? So the family knows how he thinks differently, and we talk to him in a way that makes sense for him and stuff sometimes.
And I tried to capture that in the book, and it is so difficult because I'm afraid that somebody's gonna jump on me and say, well, that's mistreatment. That's this. And I tried to address those issues in the book while still making it a fun adventure book. You know? Well, I wanna get a copy of that when it's available, so I'll make sure I'll get in touch with you. And,
[01:02:12] Unknown:
alright. So who is somebody that you respect right now, and what are they doing that inspires you?
[01:02:18] Unknown:
Well, I I mentioned Stephen King. I've always loved his books. I admire what I I was going to name my my pseudonym was gonna be Stephen Ace because an ace beats a king. But, I may do that later. But some of the like, you know, people jumping on him because he said some things, and then, you know, his books got burnt and banned, and he's the most banned author. And he's like, you know what? Go ahead. He tells kids, if they wanna ban me, that's the books you should read. Right. And I like that attitude. You know? That's good. Yeah.
[01:02:51] Unknown:
That's awesome. Alright. So where can the audience go to get more information about you, your work, and everything you're doing? Everything's on my website. Sa-schneider.com.
[01:02:59] Unknown:
That's sa-schneider, s c h n e I d e r. It's right there under me, and then .com. And everything's there, links to all my other social media. I do videos, for teachers and resources along with the hunter updates on Instagram and YouTube. So I I've got a lot of things going on, a lot of sticks in the fire burning.
[01:03:23] Unknown:
Alright. Outstanding. And all of your information that I have available is gonna be in the show notes so people can be able to click the link in the show notes, and it'll take them right to your website and all the information about you. So that is fantastic. Steven, thank you so much for being here tonight. I really do appreciate it. Our next few guests are waiting in the wings. So we're gonna That's good. Take a quick bathroom break, and then we'll come back and get to, to, Daphne and Nate. But, Steven, again, thank you so much for being here here tonight. This was great. I I I really love what you're doing, and I can Thank you. Please keep going with it. This is fantastic work. Thank you. Yeah. This was a great show. It was fun talking to you. It went too fast. Well, anytime you wanna come back, you just just let me know, and we'll get you. Once the next couple books come out, maybe we'll talk because they'll they'll be interesting to talk about. Alright. Outstanding. Looking forward to it. Great. Alright. Thank you. Steven Steven Schneider, folks. Make sure you check him out. Check his website out. All his information is gonna be available to you in the show notes right, down below there. Alright. So, like I said, I'm gonna take a quick break here, maybe two minutes. Just gonna run to the little boys' room. And, when we come back, we'll get to, Daphne Armour and, Nate Smith of the Texas Nationalist Movement, and we're gonna talk about some really, really interesting things. Like I said, I got my my Txit mug. We're ready to go. Alright. So we'll be back right after this. Don't forget oh, don't forget. This is a live show weeknight, 7PM central time. Check us out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live show, 7PM central time. Hit that like button. Follow us.
And, yeah, make sure you hit the like button too because, you know, that does help the algorithm, helps us get found. So please check it out. Alright. So, folks, Joe Russo. We'll be right back. You just stay with us. Alrighty. Hey, folks. We're back. First hour is in the books. Second hour about to get started here. And, we're gonna have two very, very special guests. Nate Smith and Daphne Armour from Texas Nationalist Movement. Great organization. Been part of the Texas Nationalist Movement for some time. Been following them even longer.
It's very interesting. We'll talk about that momentarily. Folks, just wanna remind you also to please check out the show on rumble,rumble.com/joeroos. You can also check us out on, YouTube at Joe Roux and, of course, x Fakebook, all those great places to, to check us out. Also, all the audio is available to you on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, all those places, and also across all the modern podcast two point o platform. So check them out. Alright. Everything here has just shut off on me. Let me boot everything back up again. I don't know what happened there. The joys of doing a live show folks. Live shows are always so much fun. So as I've been indicating, our second pair of guests tonight is a dynamic duo, Daphne Armour, Nate Smith with the Texas Nationalist Movement.
Daphne's been part of the T and M for, what, the last eighteen years from what I understand serving as a county coordinator of chief of staff, helping to build one of the largest political advocacy groups in Texas from the ground up. She's an entrepreneur, strategist, and now traveling around Texas with Nate as a speaker for the Texan Arise campaign, which we'll get into. She represents Texas independence with unmatched energy and expertise. And then we have Nate Smith. He's been advocating for Texas independence since 02/2009, serves on the T and M national leadership team. He's trained hundreds of petition circulators, gathered thousands of signatures, even carried message of self determination to international stages.
He's also a singer and songwriter. Are you gonna sing for us tonight?
[01:10:47] Unknown:
I don't know tonight.
[01:10:51] Unknown:
Using his music to celebrate liberty, love, and the lone star spirit with songs like Texan Arise and Leave It Better. Now together, they're leading a new project, Texan Arise, a bold initiative to train and mobilize a thousand volunteers for the twenty twenty six elections. The mission of this campaign is to reshape the Texas legislature to reflect the true will of the people, including the growing demand for a referendum on Texas independence. The Texan Arise campaign is is a call to action for Texans who want to make a difference but may not know how. Daphne, Nate, welcome to the show.
[01:11:23] Unknown:
Thank you. Thank you for having us tonight.
[01:11:25] Unknown:
Hey. No problem. I've been actually looking forward to this. This is, when I was I was talking with our producer, Anonymous Angela, as we call her.
[01:11:33] Unknown:
She
[01:11:34] Unknown:
We know anonymous Angela. Did did did she tell you the story behind anonymous Angela? No. No. She didn't. What it is? Okay. Well, so, when she first started helping me out with the show, I I wanted to give her credits and because I put all the producers of the show, folks who contribute their time to Talent to Treasure. They all get a mention on the show, every show we do, and they're also included in all our show notes. So I told I sent her a message. I said, hey. I need a I need a headshot, and I need a little bio and, you know, all that stuff. And she was like, well, I really don't want, you know, my name. That sounds like Angela. I was like, Well, it's too late. I already told everybody your name. So I said, Alright. Well, we'll just, so we'll just go with anonymous Angela. She doesn't want to be known, so. Anonymous Angela. That's the origin story behind it.
But she's been a great help. And I really do appreciate everything she's doing. Now, I've been actually following the Texas Nationalist movement since 2015, 'sixteen, somewhere around there. And actually, I used to do a show up in New York. I'm from New York originally. I I I did a show up in New York, and, we actually had Daniel on the show. And, it was it was very interesting. So that's that's how I met him and came across him, and it was great. And I've been following for a while. And then I finally made the move, came down here to Texas, and about almost ten years ago now. And I wanted to get involved with the organization. So here I am, and here we are. And it's Are you a Texan now, Joe?
I love Texas. I do. Although I'm told, I'm told I can't be, I can't call myself a Texan because I'm not native born.
[01:13:12] Unknown:
Who told you that? I'm very loud to you. A few people.
[01:13:16] Unknown:
Yes, I a A lot of people that I work with say that too. I mean, you're not a Texan. You can't be a Texan. You're you're a Yankee.
[01:13:22] Unknown:
Look, you just you just tell me you're a Texan and ignore everything else they say after that. That's what the Texan does. Right? Mhmm.
[01:13:29] Unknown:
Exactly. But but the transition from from New York City to Texas is was just it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I guess I I guess I was just so burned out from tech from from New York that I just couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. And, the opportunity came up to come here and I've I've been down here in in Eagle Pass now for ten almost ten years. That's been great. It's been great. And, and and and getting to know the folks with the Texas Nationalist Movement has been incredible also. I mean, everybody's just so just friendly, welcoming, incredibly knowledgeable about the subject matter, passionate about the whole thing.
And, you know, I I as I always said before that before we came on the show, tonight that, you know, it really does feel like family. You know, I feel like I've known the two of you for my whole life and, you know, and that's because we have a common we have a common, a common bond. Yeah, that's great. And it's that we want to see a a free and independent Texas. And I think that's incredibly important, and I and I'm hoping. And my prayer is that it happens in my lifetime. And if it doesn't happen in my lifetime, I wanna be a part of the effort to get it done even after I'm gone. So I wanna be able to be a part of that. So, I have a couple of quick questions I always like to ask every guest that comes on the show. So, we'll start, we'll start with with Daphne's at ladies first.
What what's something most people don't know about you but should?
[01:14:58] Unknown:
Okay. Do you want that in a personal user, or do you want that in a text and a text answer? Whatever you joke? That could be a trick question.
[01:15:06] Unknown:
Whatever you however you wanna put it out there.
[01:15:09] Unknown:
It's up to you. It's okay. Okay. Everybody should know that I am not married to Daniel or to Nate.
[01:15:17] Unknown:
Are you still in mind now?
[01:15:20] Unknown:
I almost spit out.
[01:15:24] Unknown:
Well, you laugh, but you don't understand how often that we get asked that question. Really? I used to be with Daniel all the time. Mhmm. And, and then because, you know, I travel with Daniel a lot as well. And Daniel's not traveling quite so much now, and Nate and I are on the road coupled together all the time too. And it doesn't matter where we go. Everybody just assumes he's my husband or his wife. I said, no. It's more like a mother child relationship. I just boss him around all the time.
[01:15:51] Unknown:
That's great. So, Nate, what about you? What's something about you most people don't know but should?
[01:15:57] Unknown:
Well, I don't know that they should know it, but I I love adventure. And so, you know, if anybody wants to do anything adventurous anytime you wanna go hiking or scuba diving or something like that, give me give me a call. Let me know. I'm happy to do it. Alright. Well, I'm gonna keep that in mind because there's a couple of things I haven't I have on my bucket list that I wanna get done. So I I need somebody brave enough to do it with me. Awesome. So we'll talk about that another time, though.
[01:16:20] Unknown:
Alright. So since so since with with Nate here, what's your go to beverage to help you unwind at the end of the day?
[01:16:27] Unknown:
At the end of the day oh, man.
[01:16:30] Unknown:
Let's see. What's what's the fair one that I have the most? Honestly, it's water with lime. It's the most Okay. Alright. Common unwinding at the end of the day. Fair enough. Daphne? Well, that depends on where my end of the day is at. Fair enough. Daphne?
[01:16:41] Unknown:
Well, that depends on where my end of the day is at. If it's at home, it's probably water. If I'm out, it's probably tequila.
[01:16:51] Unknown:
Okay. Great. Great. Well, mine mine is, although I'm trying to stay away from it as much as I can right now, because only because it's expensive. I like good bourbons and so I have a I have a very refined palate when it comes to the bourbons. So it has to be something really good. As a matter of fact, I just ordered a bottle of seven year old Paul Sutton. So I'm waiting for that to come I'm waiting for that to get to my my local establishment over here. And, I asked, well, how much how is that gonna set me back? And when she told me, I I was like, oh, okay. So but I'm gonna try to person I'm sorry?
[01:17:35] Unknown:
I said they can get pricey?
[01:17:37] Unknown:
Oh, they can. Yes. They can. And I'm the kind of person that if if I'm asking you to order something for me, and you tell me how much it is after I've asked you to order it, I'm gonna still pay it. Because, you know, I don't want I don't want to put you through all the effort and going around doing that stuff and, you know, not not coming through on it. But, but Daphne, you've been with the Texas Nationals Movement now for twenty years.
[01:17:57] Unknown:
What originally inspired you to get involved? I think it's like eighteen years. I think that's the right one. Nearly twenty years. That's what I have in mind. Nearly twenty. Okay, eighteen's nearly twenty. Yes, ma'am. That sounds like a long time when you say it that way, sir. That's amazing that you started when you were 10. Right? I know. Right? Okay. I'm sorry. What was the rest of the question?
[01:18:18] Unknown:
The number is still swirling in my head. What what what, originally inspired you to get involved? Well,
[01:18:29] Unknown:
I get I honestly, I started off in the tea party in the Glen Beck project, the nine twelve project, if you remember that. That's where I started at. And, met political people. I don't know anything about politics. Wasn't really interested in politics. I was a young mother, but, it's just that time in the country where everything just didn't feel right. And, you know, somebody dragged me the meeting somewhere. And so that's how I got started in politics. But, anyway, when I was there, I met, somebody that lived in my town, and she was like, hey. There's a guy that's gonna talk about, you know, he's from the Texas Nationalist, and he's gonna be speaking in a hotel room. Would you you and Dan, my late husband, would would y'all come with me to see him? And we're like, well, sure. No. We'll go with you to see him. And so we did. We showed up in Beaumont, Texas in a hot hotel room, right off the freeway there, and we sat on the front row.
Imagine that. And Daniel spoke and and my husband was Dan, and we looked at each other and we're like, yeah. This resonates. This makes sense to us. We got up. We walked to the back table where Kara was. We signed up as volunteers right there, and we've never left. That's literally the story of what happened. So, you know, we immediately got went into the organization. And because we were local, you know, we started attending the local meetings, which at that time, Daniel ran. And so that was interesting. Both moved into county coordinator positions. And then from that point on, just moved up the ranks and here we are today.
[01:20:05] Unknown:
18 almost nearly twenty years later. Some days, it seems like that. Some days it doesn't seem like that. Well, you you can blame Angela for that because I think she phrased the question. That's fine. That's fine. I just it just it's hard for me to even fathom that sometimes. I was like, golly, where'd all that time go? Yeah. Yeah. I know. Well, in the in the previous guest, I don't know if you heard what we were talking about, but, you know, I I mentioned I can't believe my daughter is 30 years old this year.
[01:20:28] Unknown:
Mine is too. Mine just turned 30 last month.
[01:20:32] Unknown:
Where did all the time go? It it's just flying right. It's it's crazy. So, Nate, what about you? What, you've been with the organization since 02/2009. What was your motivation to get started?
[01:20:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, it kinda goes with my political thing. I mean I I saw a nine eleven happen and I did not like what happened after nine eleven politically and you know, I've been in the conservative Republican side thinking that, that was gonna shrink government. And, I saw that we grew grew government after that as a result. And so it made me question a lot. And so when, this guy named Ron Paul came along in 02/2008 running for president and started saying all the right things about fiscal responsibility and, you know, noninterference and foreign wars, and that all resonated with me a lot. And so, at that same time, I've been working with Daniel and Kara Miller. They have a, a radio station called Radio Free Texas. I've been involved in the Texas music industry for that long, and so we've been working together. Well, I had no idea that they were involved in the Texas nationalist movement, and so we're working one of their, rowdy float trips together, and Daniel goes, hey. What do you what do you think about this Texas independence thing? And I kinda saw him behind the scenes. They were keeping it separate at the time. And so he's wearing this shirt, and I'm like, I I hadn't really thought about that. I'm like, why wouldn't we just work to save the republic? You know? And he goes, well, let me ask you this. Why do you think Texas isn't good enough to be its own nation again? And I'm like, touche.
[01:21:57] Unknown:
Yeah. That's great. That's it. Yeah. He got me with that one too.
[01:22:02] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I dug in from there and and was quickly sold. I was like, yeah. It'd be nice to some. And then it also didn't take much convincing the that the federal government does not wanna be saved. Oh, no. It doesn't. Not absolutely not. And and the evidence of that is its refusal to to to to shrink itself,
[01:22:19] Unknown:
you know. So it it's just a monstrosity, and that's why I I call it that all the time. And I agree with you. I like, I I I was working for New York City at the time of 09:11. I my, my command was just down the street from the towers. I worked on the pile for about six months and did security details and, you know, all the other stuff that went along with it. And then, you know, to see all the, those draconian, security, legislations and bills and such that come through the Patriot Act, you know, which is just which was nothing of the sort. You know, it it just it left a really bad taste, you know, and, you know, little by little, man, I I I agree with you. I I just I I started looking around and I started thinking back towards, you know, what what would our founding generation be thinking about with this thing? Because you said something very interesting also talking about, you know, not getting involved, like, as the Ron Paul stance.
I wouldn't say it's a non interventionist view, but it's but it's I think it's more not an isolationist view, but it's more of a non interventionist view. Right. That, you know, I agree with our founding generation. I agree with Ron Paul in this, you know, Peace and commerce with all, entangling alliances with none. We should not have military installations all around the world. We should not, I mean, how would we feel if China set up a a military installation in the middle of San Antonio?
[01:23:43] Unknown:
I I don't remember which country it is, but there somebody's working on it right now, and I'm already seeing opposition. It's our yeah. We nobody has it. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Got it. Nobody should have a military base on our soil, and it's like, we have a thousand bases in over a 150 countries around the world. I don't think we have the right to say nobody should have one, but they shouldn't. And we shouldn't have it there. I agree. I agree. And,
[01:24:05] Unknown:
so when it comes to, Texans Arise, tell us about that. How did what sparked that? How did this whole project come about come to life?
[01:24:15] Unknown:
Okay. I guess, Daphne's gonna let me take it. I was checking to see.
[01:24:19] Unknown:
Doesn't matter. Do you want me to moderate and and and say and pick people, like, in school?
[01:24:24] Unknown:
But we bounce off of each other so fast. Most of the time, we know what the other one's thinking, so it's fine. Okay.
[01:24:32] Unknown:
Well, so you did you did reference in my intro that I have a song called Text and Arise. So that that sparked part of the name behind it, obviously. But what this is really about is, you know, we're the Texas nationalist movement. Right? It's probably not a surprise to many people that our one of our key goals is to get and win a referendum on Texas independence. And in order to win that referendum on independence, we need to have a lot of volunteers that know how to win a campaign. Not only that, to get the referendum, we need a legislature that's gonna pass the bill in order to win that. Right? And so they need to win campaigns, the people that support that, and they need volunteers. So, ergo, the Text and Arise program, this step in the process says, we need to start training volunteers to win campaigns right now. And and so we really wanna remove any roadblocks or concerns people have about what it takes to get involved, how you know, this isn't a lifetime project. You don't have to sign up for a full time job or anything else. We wanna make sure that people have a clear understanding of what it takes to get involved in the campaign and that there's a lot of different ways you can help, whether you have a lot of time or little, whether you have a lot of skills or little. We got stuff for you to do.
[01:25:38] Unknown:
So walk us through a typical text and ARISE session. You know, what happens from the moment that people walk in?
[01:25:46] Unknown:
Okay. I'm gonna just take that one. You want me to take that one? Go for it.
[01:25:51] Unknown:
Well, we greet them first, Joe. Well, I hope so. When they come in, no. So, basically, the well, we're trying to get the program cut down to about two hours because there's a lot of information that Nate and I have to deliver, in the program. But, basically, you know, we we're gonna walk them through this, and our whole goal of it is just like Nate just said, is to remove the fear. We want you to understand that it takes everybody has to be a part of this process. People always want change. Right? They and they wanna see things happen, but what we find is that it's only a certain amount of people that will step up and actually go do the work. So, what we do is we actually walk everyone through we we almost or to the point of calling it a civics class now, because we walk them through the whole Texas legislature and hope that they have an understanding about how that works, how the bills work, what we have to do.
Those different things, voting, we spend a whole lot of time talking about the different voting because, you know, in Texas, like, right now, we're voting right now, but what are we voting for? We're voting for 17 amendments that are added. You know, why do we have all these different voting things? But the main thing that we like to stress is, because of the program that we're doing is going into the Texas primaries. And a lot of people do not understand that we have primaries in Texas, and then we also have the general election. But what happens in the primary? That's where you win elections at. And that is what is important. And that is when it's important to know who those candidates are, who's running against who, you know, and you if you've ever worked at a at a polling location, while the primaries are going on, you'd be surprised at the number of people that walk up and go, well, I'm gonna vote for the Republican. I'm here to vote for the Republican. Well, yeah, there's four of them on the ballot. Which one are you gonna vote for? A lot of people don't know. And so what happens is what they'll do is they'll go in there and they'll vote by what they consider name recognition, what they've heard before, or if it's an incumbent or whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean that that incumbent acts like a Republican as we all know or that they have conservative values or whatever values that you wanna go vote for. You know, we're not here to promote, partisanship by any stretch of imagination, but we want you to understand the process. And so we go all the way through that. We talk about, some shenanigans and things that go on in the Texas legislature.
Just things that we feel like that people need to know. And so far, Nate and I have found out that anybody who's attending our training did leave with information that they didn't know and and and were surprised at some of the things that they learned.
[01:28:33] Unknown:
Well, that's interesting. I'd I'd, you you talk about the Texas legislature, and and I laughed when you said it. I I thought New York was a corrupt mess. It probably is. You know, but I I I mean, I don't know if it's I'm paying more attention to it here than I was back home or what, but but I was so, like, just blown away by the lack of of activity of the Texas legislature on on important things. I mean, yeah, they passed a resolution honoring Beyonce. That's that's priority, of course. Right. But but things that really matter to to Texans like property taxes.
You know, I just I just got a property tax hike that, I I have to go get a second job just to pay the taxes.
[01:29:24] Unknown:
You you say And we hear that constantly.
[01:29:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Right.
[01:29:28] Unknown:
So You know, everybody that that should have been one of the main things that they addressed this year. And as you see, they didn't. They barely addressed it. But it wasn't just this year. This has gone on for several sections for several sessions because people have asked for this multiple times because we're I think I think is it aren't we the fourth highest property tax state in the nation now? I read that that stat somewhere, just the other day, and, you know, it made me sad to read that. We know that's not what we want in Texas, and we don't want people, you know, priced out of their homes because they can't play property, especially elderly people so because they can't play pay their property tax. It's ridiculous. But speaking to that, so that is one of the things that we teach you. Well, why didn't that get passed? And so Nate and I will go through the whole thing and break it down about how that legislature works, how you get the bills passed, why they're not getting there, how they stall, how the the top establishment will stall everything out. You know, they don't go to work. They take them on weekends, and then they'll, oh, we we ran out of time. Well, yeah, because you didn't go to work for three months. You were there for two days a week. I don't get to work two days a week. You know?
[01:30:37] Unknown:
I I I remember saying sadistic.
[01:30:39] Unknown:
Really, it is. And that's what and that's why we're saying it has to change, but the only way that we can affect change is by getting a hold of that system and getting new people in there who demand change. You know, luckily, we were able to do that in the last session. We got 10, new reps in there that that were good. They voted most of them all voted well and did the things that we wanted to do, and they were able to make a little bit of change while they were in there. Not as much as we all would have liked to have seen, but that's the only way we it's up to us to clean it up. There's no there is no other answer right now. We cannot let the establishment maintain control of this.
So that's how Texan Arise came about because it's us griping at each other going, how why do we fix this? What do we do?
[01:31:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I I I became more aware of what was going on with the Texas legislature, when I started going to the classes, for the the deputy county coordinator, for here, from Maverick County. And also, Brian Harrison. Mhmm. I I love that man. You know? I think I think he's great. Have you have you guys spoken to him at all? Is he Yeah. Yeah. Is so is he on board with with Texit, or is he because I I I've I've sent him an invitation to come on the show, and I'm gonna ask him about it. But
[01:31:58] Unknown:
Yeah. I'll get him on the show. It'll be great. He he has not signed the pledge yet, and, I I think he has some some reservations and concerns that we haven't been able to address with it yet. So Okay. But he hasn't firmly spoken for or against it. So He he certainly sounds like he's for it. You know, if you if you if you listen to the things he says and you read the things he writes,
[01:32:19] Unknown:
like, he's the one who I he pointed out how the Texas legislature would take these long extended weekends and leave all these items that are still pending and hanging there and that the the the current speaker of the Texas House wouldn't even allow them to bring matters to the floor, for for discussion. It it it it when I saw those videos and I heard the things that he was saying, I I just like, this this can't this is like New York, man. This is and that's scary because I don't want New York here. I don't want California. I I want Texas to be here. Texas. Yeah. Yeah. I want Tulsa to be the leaders right now. And
[01:32:55] Unknown:
The Speaker has tremendous power, and I think Brian Harrison did a a good job. He's he's been on board a lot talking about how that has had an effect, you know, what what role that speaker's played. And a lot of people haven't been aware of it. You know, a lot of the stuff that goes on is backroom deals. Right? Including the election of the speaker has been a backroom deal until this this recent time where I actually got to saw it play out in public of who the Republican caucus chose versus who the house body chose. And, you know, that makes a big difference in all this because Yeah. The power to appoint the committee members ultimately decides what bills ever get hurt on for.
And that's you know? So, yeah, I'd I'd it does seem like he's in line with that too because he's definitely a limited government person. And, you know, overall, as we see, like, we talk about being nonpartisan. Obviously, there's a political majority in Texas that, certainly resonates more with us, but anybody from any party that is for limited government should be resonating with this idea that Texans should cover themselves. So
[01:33:56] Unknown:
Yeah. I just just the the sad thing is though is is for for the for the leadership in the Texas house, they're more I'm trying to think how I'm gonna phrase this. I feel like I feel like they're more concerned about auditioning for a position at the federal level than they are about actually governing the state where their actual where their actual constituents are. You know? And and I see that and I find it really disturbing and it makes me wonder like how it it's it's an uphill battle trying to get all all the things that the T and M is looking to do, into a serious conversation at the steak at the steakhouse. I was gonna say the steakhouse. I'm hungry.
[01:34:46] Unknown:
We voted on steak names this year. That was important.
[01:34:49] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Speaking of steak New York Strip, Jeff. Yeah. Well, hey. Yeah. You can't yeah. That's that's a great cut, man. I got I got a couple of them in the freezer right now. So, but, but it it it concerns me about the future of of Texas independence when I see that the the the people that are getting into office here. Like, it's to me, it's it's like any other elected position, you know. You you you you you campaign on what you want to do and then when you get into that office, all of a sudden all of the little perks and all the little, sways and all the little things that start to pull you away from what exactly does you wanna do. We need people in elected position that that have that, what's the word?
The intestinal fortitude to resist the, all all of the entrapments that all the emoluments that come with elected position. I just feel like it it's so easy to get corrupted up there. I mean, how do we fix that?
[01:35:52] Unknown:
Well, how do we fix it is we elect better people, which is not an easy solution, but that's what Nexstar Rise is about. But you're right. It's it's a big problem. You know, we and we see it play out both on the voter side and on the representative side. But, yeah, the Texas politicians, whether they're in the executive branch or the or the legislative branch, you see this idea that they're playing minor league ball. I mean and part of it's true. Right? I mean, just a few sessions ago, we did a count, and 43% of the bills that were passed were referencing federal spending, federal legislation, federal oversight. So half of the work that they're having to do up there is in response to whatever the federal government does, which is not the way it should be. And and, you know, even as a member state in the union, that's not the way the union was set up.
But even even then, then you have these ambitions to seek federal office as well. And so, again, they're treated like they're they're playing minor league. And when you're having the conversations with them about important legislation, there there are a number of them that are worried about their image and their future and how what impact that will have as they seek federal office. And we see this play out on the voter side as well, where the voters, you know, they spend all their attention watching DC. I mean, there's plenty to watch in the circus there, but they don't pay near as much attention as they should to the state government, which really has such a big impact in our life in a in a place where we can make a lot of changes and should be making the changes. So Yeah. This is a key argument for Texas independence is if you take away the whole level of the federal government, the federal bureaucracy, and let everybody focus on Austin, then then we can get a lot of these problems fixed. Yeah. I agree with you. I I I've always said that that if you really wanna make any kind of change, you have you have to get involved in your local government.
[01:37:29] Unknown:
You know, it's it's easier to control what goes on in your state when you're only worried about your state house, which is only a few 100 miles away rather than 3,000 miles away and so far removed from the constituency that you're representing. I I I don't think well, no. See seeing all of the all the corruption and seeing all the the back end deals and all the backroom deals rather, it's discouraging to a lot of people and people don't really wanna get involved in the political process. What encouragement can we offer people, the average citizen, as to why they should get involved?
[01:38:11] Unknown:
I think that's was played out this time. So there's a lot of a lot of talk about how bad it was. People were upset with the way the the speaker race ultimately went. But as Daphne said, we got we got 10 really solid freshmen in this time, at least. We saw about, 20 people that are limited government conservatives that were helping to, stop bad bills. They were, you know, an overturn point of orders on good bills. So we saw a lot of techniques with that. What what we're seeing is power shift, and that's a that's a huge thing. Right? Because it before this, it just felt like it was impossible. Like, no matter what we do, we stand up with a super majority of people that won't fight the system, that they go in there to get sucked in, and you got one or two fighters. But, no, we're seeing a larger block come through. We're seeing the grassroots more united around this. More and more organizations are going, hey. What can we do to work together to help get these folks in? And, you know, well, ultimately, you need a majority of the house, and we won't even get into the senate, but we'll start with the house. While you do need a majority of that, there's a lot you can do with the powerful minority in there. When you're when you're looking at the conservative side of things of what it takes to advance that kind of legislation. You know? And the and the speaker's a huge one. You know?
It was, I can't remember the exact number of votes. It was about twenty five twenty five votes or something short of of having a different speaker this time. Would it have been a perfect solution? Probably not. But, would we have had a speaker that would have chosen different committee members that would have made different blocks? Yeah. I mean, there's a number of things that happen with them. That that's one of the things we talk about in the workshop is that, you know, seeing a different head of the calendars committee, that's a huge committee right there. You know? Even if you get bills through these other committees, if you don't have calendars, it'll send it to the floor. It doesn't matter how they would have voted. You can Right. Yeah. Get there. And then but even on these other committees, like, whether they call it for a hearing. We had a good bill that got called up and got a hearing and got read. They never took a vote on it. You know? It's like and that's all within the control of the chair of the committee. And so having a a speaker that will appoint more neutral parties as committee chairs, will allow a lot more of us to take take take place and move through. And then you can work on actually whipping the votes that you need in order to get the result that you want in legislation.
[01:40:28] Unknown:
Now you mentioned that you have, you have, what, 10, you said, freshman legislators?
[01:40:34] Unknown:
Yeah. I can't remember the exact number there. 10. We we use the 10 a lot because 10, at legislators have signed the Texas First Pledge. Okay. Yeah. That was something that I know that we didn't touch on that when, you know, the question that Joe had had asked about, like, what what do we do? That is what as the T and M, that's what we did do is create that the Texas First Pledge, and we do have 10 of those signers, currently on there that now serve, in an elected position. And for us, that that is one of the things that we could see would help to remove that blockade of, you know, what's more important, the federal government to you or Texas to you. And so those at least those people that signed that pledge so far have have lived up to that and, you know, because it's just a pledge. But, they, you know, they they have acted and voted in a manner that that would support those things.
And because it again, it's just a mess, and we're we are trying to take steps and do the best that we can do to try to circumvent some of that and to get better people elected and and into those positions. Because ultimately, that's what's gonna help us get that referendum vote. But it's just like Nate said, you know, not only is that who who the speaker position is so important because when they do place or pick who is gonna work on calendars or state affairs or whoever, You know, if you stack them all with all the entrenched people, that's how they may maintain control, and then they only send through the legislature legislation that they want, or you get that top down thing of, well, we're not gonna work on our work. Oh, but, oh, gosh. We gotta go to a special session. Oh, we gotta go to two special sessions or whatever. Well, there's reasons why, and the reasons why all that happens is because that's their way of controlling everything.
[01:42:24] Unknown:
I see. Yeah.
[01:42:25] Unknown:
That's those are some of the things that we need to break, within this whole process, and that is by electing, you know, people that don't like what they see going on up there. And like like I said, it's not
[01:42:40] Unknown:
a it's not a huge jump from where we're at. Why why we saw this, you know, there's really probably about 30 representatives overall that took these more limited government type positions. Most of the time, it was only 20 acting at a time. There's about ten ten, 13 ish that are really consistent with it all the time and then another group that was there when you needed them sometimes and and would swap out. So you're going like, well, that's that's a long way from a 76 majority in a house. But like I said, you know, the speaker race was kind of an example. You don't have to get that close. I mean, 56 voted for Republican caucus choice, which was David Cook, and that's 20 short of a of a win for him. So if you look into that, you're like, well, there's really getting 20 more people in there could've changed the speaker to a different direction. So it's not like you gotta make this huge jump. Like, well, we have to get 50 more, you know, switched out. Another 10, another 20 will make huge progress. And so that's why we we say there's there's hope. You know? That can be done. And that's and we've got a a lot of good candidates that are running right now. Look. Can can you talk about some of the some of the legislators,
[01:43:43] Unknown:
that are working that are really working hard for Texas? You know, like, what kind of support do they need? What could we do?
[01:43:51] Unknown:
So, you know, volunteer for their campaign, for the one you know, some of them don't have challengers in the primary. Right. In in which case, you know, they still need support for their campaigns and ways you can deliver, but what they really need is other people that will be in office, that will help them continue the work they're doing. And so I know a a lot of them, if they're not worried about their their primary challenge, and and most of them aren't worried about their general challenge either. 96% of house races essentially are settled in the primaries. So Mhmm. Yeah. There's not not very many races that are are contested. That's 96% have less than a, a five point margin of, or rather, only 4% have less than a 5% margin in the general license. So most of those are are, you know, not close.
Not that you can't turn them from one seat to the other, but that's why we say the primaries are the focus. So, anyway, the the representatives that don't have, any significant challenges in the primaries, we have an opportunity to go help the ones that do, and make sure that they get preelected, and as well as making sure that these new challengers that are coming up that can replace replace ones out that have voted against this, you know, the ones that, consistently voted for big government policies, big government spending, that that take this more federal level approach. They're the ones that need to be removed from office.
[01:45:14] Unknown:
Alright. And I think another one of the things just to add on to that is people just you know, again, part of what we're doing, not only just training for the volunteers to not be, you know, the fear factor of working in campaigns and what that looks like, but get to know your representatives. Go talk to them. Call them on the phone. Set an appointment. Go visit them in their district if they're not in session or in their office if they're at session. No. They want to hear from constituents. You know? Talk to them. Talk to them about Texas independence. Ask them where they stand. Look them in the eye. Don't be afraid of them. They work for us. And I think that that has gotten so shifted with not only in our Texas level, but even at the federal level that they seem to forget that sometimes.
And they need to be reminded all the time that they work for us. They are supposed to be voting the will of their district, not not with their personal choice is. But if they don't hear from their district, if they don't hear from their constituents, then they're gonna do what they wanna do. So Yeah. That that would be the main thing. Just just remove the fear. They're just people. And most of them are happy to see you and talk to you. Not all of them, but most of them are. I guess it would have I guess it would,
[01:46:26] Unknown:
it would be, you know, it would exactly wanna talk to them about. And it but you're right. You have to talk to your elected representatives because that's what they are. They are representatives. They're representatives of the district and of the people of the district. And they do forget that because there's so much money that gets funneled into them through lobby groups, especially at the federal level. I'm I'm not I'm I'm sure there's I'm sure there's some of it here at the local level as well, but I'm not to the I'm sure not to the the extent of the federal level. But, you know, they end up working for the lobby groups more than they work for, the people that actually put them in that position.
And then a lot of times you see these politicians, they talk down to the people that that put them in that position. They berate them. They insult them. They call them all kinds of names. It's it's it's it's absolutely ridiculous. They do need and and that's and that's because they're so far removed. That's I'm talking about the federal level. Because they're so far removed from their home, their their their constituency, that they can get away with it. You know, if if everything was concentrated in the state itself and they had to answer to you every single day, they saw you all the time, it would be a very, very different story.
[01:47:40] Unknown:
A very, very different story. The pressure would feel so much different I'm sure. On them and that, you know, they know that they would have to do what the constituents want. But they would feel the pressure because people feel like they could get to them easier and stuff. Right now, you and I, we can't affect anything in Washington, DC. It's not gonna happen. They don't care. I mean, John Cornyn is a perfect example of that. You know, he's been a state senator forever. I don't even know how many years at this point, and he doesn't vote the way that people want him to vote. He doesn't do any of that. No. And that and that's another reason why I believe there needs to be term limits for,
[01:48:15] Unknown:
for every elected position that to to be in the senate for twenty years or to be in congress for thirty years is absolutely ridiculous. You know?
[01:48:29] Unknown:
I look And they go in with nothing, and they all come out millionaires. Imagine how that happens. Yeah. Yeah. A $175,000
[01:48:36] Unknown:
a year. What do they make at the state level? Just out of curiosity.
[01:48:39] Unknown:
I think it's about $7,200 a year. That's what I thought about it. They get a per diem and and, and and and a a small stipend. But, you know, in Texas, we we want people to be representatives. We have the biannual legislature. They only meet once every two years for a short period, excluding special sessions. And we don't pay them anything, which is, you you know, it has its ups and its downs. The the idea behind that is great that it's like, this isn't your job. You you have another job. You provide value to society in another way, and you're being a public servant. The downside of that is that only people that are kinda self employed or or lawyers tend to be the ones that have the the resources to be able to go do that because it is a lot more than just the time they spend in session. They spend a lot of time outside of session too. And so, you know, there might be something worth relooking at.
It shouldn't be a wealthy job like congress is. Right. Yeah. Making sure that they have a little more resources to to cover the basic needs would be good because you would like to see an an everyday citizen be able to say, hey, look, you know, I wanna step up and run for office even though I won't be making as much money as a school teacher. But, you know, I still I can provide a true public service and and, and still be able to maintain a job that's, you know, not a high paying job. So Yeah. No. No. I know that, you know,
[01:49:56] Unknown:
at the founding of our country, it wasn't intended for for congress to be living in the seat of general government all year long and having to have a home, especially in Washington DC and then a home in their district and all that stuff. It it they were only supposed to go when they were called into session, but just like the way Texas does it. You're called into session, you go, you you take care of your business, you go back home, you go back to your farm, you go back to your ranch, you go back to whatever it is that you do on your normal day, and then, you know, when you when you're needed to come into session, you go, that's that's the way it was supposed to be and that's the way it should be. You know, I I somebody once said that, you know, the the the actions of the federal government should not impact the average American's life in any way, shape, or form. Right.
And it's quite the opposite. You know, like, one of the examples I always use is, you know, why is it necessary for the federal government to regulate how much water is in my toilet?
[01:50:52] Unknown:
I use that one all the time or tell me what kind of light bulb I have to install. Yeah. And one of the things that what what you say that's you know, whenever I'm the speaker or I have to talk about text independence, I tell them, you you know, because a lot of people don't wanna be involved in you know, well, why do you do politics or y'all don't wanna be in government or whatever? And it's like, I didn't choose politics. It chose me. Nobody chooses politics. You don't wanna go do this stuff, but you need to understand that the the laws and regulations that they come up with are running and ruining your life on a daily basis. People don't understand.
Like, with all the federal laws and rules and regulations we have right now, you were committing a federal crime at some point in your day, and you don't even know. It. Every day. Yep. Every day. All day. And you have no clue that that you're that you're doing that. You know? And there's no way that any of us can know it. There's too many of them. We we we don't know, and it's it's just out of hand. But, you know, that's I get frustrated when people, you know, or don't don't they they wanna see change, but they don't wanna get involved. And, you know, I think that's one of the things that we really just wanna stress is, like, guys, this is up to you. And, you know, think about it. And, you know, when we go into rooms, it's typically people our age or older that are sitting in the room. Sometimes it's younger, not very often. But in the same respect, I constantly tell them a lot of this stuff happened on our watch. This is our responsibility to go fix because what are we leaving our children and our grandchildren? A freaking mess.
And, you know, they don't deserve that. They didn't ask for that. But imagine the taxes and taxation and things that we live under right now. What is that gonna look like in twenty years from now if it keeps going the way that it's going? They're gonna be complete slaves. We almost are to the federal government. They're gonna have any money left.
[01:52:44] Unknown:
Yeah. And and it's a great point you bring up too. Whenever the somebody from the administration look. I I appreciate what the president's done, you know, with closing the border at that. He did a great job with that. I if I was to give him a school grade, I'd give him an a minus overall. I mean, there are some there are there are some missteps. It it happens. You know? Nobody's perfect. But I I'm really getting tired of of seeing somebody from the administration getting up to that podium and saying, hey. Food prices are down. Energy costs are down. This is down. Where? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Where? Not at my house. Is it where it I don't know about your house. It's down compared to where it would have been if they didn't do anything. Well, yeah. I mean, you you can make that argument too that, you know, it could be a lot worse. You know, it could be a lot more money. So we got it under control at least. Yeah. Okay. Fine. But It's not the same as now. Exactly. It's it's it's still getting very hard. I went to H E B last weekend. I bought seven items, and I paid almost $80.
[01:53:43] Unknown:
Yes. You know? I mean Yes. I I I can I I went to H E B, I think, Saturday morning or whatever, and I got out of there for about $80 too? I was like, oh, wow. That just been a $100 because usually it's a $100 or more, and I don't have anything. Like you said, you bought seven or eight items. So I don't know where the food prices are down, but they're not down at my HEB. That's This is the spending reduction thing, you know, where they talk about
[01:54:07] Unknown:
how, you know, oh, well, we're saving money because we were gonna spend this much, and now we're only gonna spend this much more. You know? And it's like, well, you you say you saved me billions of dollars, but it's still an increase. It's an increase in the taxes, an increase in the spending, and they do the same thing. So And an independent Texas
[01:54:25] Unknown:
would, how would how do I say it? An an independent Texas would separate us from that monstrosity and not having to be so dependent on everything being set up at the federal level and having that that whole ridiculous system trickle down into into the state itself and caused everybody's life miserable here, it it would that's the one of the reasons why I wanted to get involved with the TNM. You know, I I believe in limited government. You know? I'm not an anarchist. I mean, I've been called, since I've come out as a it sounds sounds terrible to say it like that. Right? I've come out as a as a secessionist. You know? Oh my god.
[01:55:12] Unknown:
Oh, we we know we understand that word. Yeah.
[01:55:15] Unknown:
I know. You're a traitor. You're this. You're that. I mean, look. I don't want an intrusive government in my life. I don't wanna pay all these taxes and see all the money that they're taking out of my paycheck
[01:55:27] Unknown:
and being sent into things that I would never contribute to. Right. I would never wanna be involved with. And things I do wanna be involved with. I don't wanna make other people pay for that. Like, if it's something that I think is good, I'll give my money to it. Right. Exactly.
[01:55:41] Unknown:
You know, and and, honestly, I the only I read a book not too long ago called Rethinking the American Union for the twenty first Century. And after I bought the book, I went to go get another copy of it and it's gone. Like, you can't find it anywhere anymore. So I have I have one copy and, it's a great book. It's a series of essays and, it it's it talks about the impossibility of the of running a country the size of this union from one central place trying to cookie cutter policy. California is not Texas, obviously. Thank God. You know, Wyoming is not New York. You know, you can't you can't have that one cookie cutter policy that that would to govern 300,000,000 people or plus. 300 plus.
It's impossible. And the the whole point of the book was is that that at some point, this country is gonna have to break up. And they're gonna there's going to be there's going to be, you know, and and another dirty word we're gonna use, confederacies, of states coming together to do the things that they were originally meant to do. Commerce and mutual protection. And that's it. There shouldn't be, you know, no every state would be the independent country that it is. That's what a state means. State equals country. State. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so this this country that we have, this this American Union that we have is not one nation.
When you say one nation, you're talking about no borders, no no no state identities, no state sovereignty. You're talking one centralized thing and you they slip it in and all of these comments, all these commentaries, all these politicians, they slip you know, the greatest nation on the Earth. We're not a nation.
[01:57:42] Unknown:
We are a union of states. Say that they should have named it the States United instead of The United States so that people would remember that your state is a nation state, and it is a member of a union. But it's not one great union, like, exactly what you're saying. That's not how it was ever supposed to have have worked. Right. And that's why I call it the American Union, like the European Union. You know, It's the American Union.
[01:58:08] Unknown:
As a matter of fact, if you if you look at some of the original founding documents, whenever they were referenced The United States, it's never capital u. It's it's lowercase u, United States Of America, United Countries Of America.
[01:58:23] Unknown:
It it this this thing has and it's not a left and right issue. Right. They have some different perception of that because they think, oh, state is like this political subdivision of the nation. And, you know, it's kinda like a county is to a state. They think the state is to what they deem as a nation in the country, The United States. And it's like, no. No. State was synonymous with nation at the time of the constitution. That's a capital s. We, you know, The United States, the the colonies, or whatever, seceded from the state of Great Britain. That's how it was written because that's what that meant. And so, yeah, unfortunately, it's been downplayed. It's been co opted, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
[01:59:02] Unknown:
And, so the whole point of this book is talking about how the, how the country will eventually break up into these smaller confederacies. Again, I know it's a dirty word. You're not supposed to use that word for anything. But, you know, it's a confederacy where you you have these agreements. So Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, whatever, they might have a certain set of agreements, but they are independent states. There is no central government. There's no general government like our founders called it. Each state was on their own, but they only they only came together for trade and defense. That's it. And that's
[01:59:35] Unknown:
what I think of the Yeah. I would argue you're you're not even gonna need the Confederacy. So, I mean, right now, there's lots of mutual defense agreements that are out there that any any individual state could choose to sign on or not sign on to as well as multilateral trade agreements that they could easily sign on to. And so, you know, you pick and choose what makes sense for your state, whether or not maybe you want mutual defense with all this group of people and maybe you want trades with these people. And so you don't even have to match, but I don't I don't even think there's a need for these, for the for the Confederacy's involvement anymore, especially based on those two factors. Right. Well, I'm only using the word because they use it in the book. So Yes. Yeah. You know? You know? Yeah. And I understand exactly what you're saying, and I agree with this. Shared government. They can have a mutual defense agreement and a and a and a trade agreement with somebody without sharing any other forms of government. You know? Exactly. You the European Union obviously started off as an economic union and, boy, did it degrade from that? I mean, a lot some people knew that going in And quickly. But it became far more than what the original intention was. About, we're just gonna share some economic benefits together. No. No. You you ended up with a governance from Brussels. So Unelected?
[02:00:39] Unknown:
Yes. Unelected. And that's what believe it or not, it I mean, we have a an elected government, a representative government, supposedly. But really, are they in charge of anything? I don't think so. There there are the lobbies are pull pull the strings. The lobbies are actually running the country. The lobbies are the one telling your elected representative, no. You're gonna vote this way or we're not gonna fund you for your campaign, your your reelection bid. We're not gonna do and they bow to it and they kowtow to it and they they suck it all up and then, you're you're just nobody, you know, because you're not but your your $20 contribution to my campaign is nothing compared to the 20,000,000 I just got got from x y z company.
Right. You know? And and and that's that all has to change. And and and you bring the
[02:01:27] Unknown:
You can have a few people to stand up against that. The lobbyists don't need all of them. They just need a majority. Yeah. You know? Exactly.
[02:01:33] Unknown:
And, you know, and that's that's the whole point of of separating from that federal beast. You bring everything closer to home. Those representatives are here. They're they're accessible to you, and, you know, and they'll they'll be more concerned about meeting their obligations to the constituency. You're not gonna get that with the federal system anymore. And listen, Texas can stand by itself. Texas doesn't need anybody else. Texas and and the points that I I usually make when I talk about this is, look, you know, first of all, we're not part of the national grid. Alright? We have our own power support we have our own power grid. We don't have to be connected to anybody else.
Texas leaves the union right now. It's it's it's automatically becomes what? The eighth largest economy in the world? Maybe seventh. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it it it changes, you know, from time to time. It changes. Exactly. Right. The top economy. And it depends on who's doing the study. Right. Yeah. But still, the point of it is, it's one of the top world economies. Yes. Absolutely. Because
[02:02:32] Unknown:
I saw ten years ago where I made a statement about that when we were twelfth at the time. So we're already up to eight. I mean, it's Well, the new study shows in 2032,
[02:02:41] Unknown:
we should move to number five position.
[02:02:43] Unknown:
Wow. Yeah. Certainly, it's not enough economy. And unless we have Our economy is fine.
[02:02:50] Unknown:
We have the infrastructure to do it. We have our our new, stock star new stock exchange.
[02:02:56] Unknown:
Yep. Right?
[02:02:58] Unknown:
You have, governor Abbott has been going around making the, the the world tours. You know? I know it's mostly symbolic at this point, but laying groundwork for future agreements.
[02:03:08] Unknown:
But it's interesting that he's doing that.
[02:03:11] Unknown:
That is. We're the only state with foreign trade offices, you know, directly. Like, we have one in Mexico City, and I want in hang on. I'm gonna get this wrong. Taiwan, Thailand. One of those two One of the t's. Thailand, I think.
[02:03:23] Unknown:
Yeah. One of the tealands.
[02:03:25] Unknown:
Yeah. So, you know, we we're the only state that actually has foreign offices. And so, you know, that's we've we've
[02:03:34] Unknown:
we've advanced on every front, like you said. You know? We do. And we we we're number one in oil oil and gas. Hello? We're number one in beef and cattle. We're numb we have more deepwater ports than anyone else. We're number one in power and solar. I mean, we have it all. We are our country. Number one. We just gotta separate.
[02:03:54] Unknown:
More we export more than number two and number three combined, which is New York and California. Yeah. I mean, that's it's absolutely incredible. No. I don't know why anybody doubts that we can stand on our own or, well, Mexico will invade. Man, how much are they gonna borrow from this morning to do that?
[02:04:12] Unknown:
And and and look. Look. Even even when the time comes and and Texas does separate, it would be in the best interest of the rest of the American Union to be supportive of an independent Texas because Mexico might invade. You know?
[02:04:32] Unknown:
They're gonna need something that Texas has. I can guarantee you. Oh, sure. You know, we have a lot of good trading partners. You know, it'll be, difficult for people to accept at first, but I I think it's something that will come out stronger. And, you know, I mean, there's we hear concerns about that sort of thing all the time, but one of the you know, talk about inefficiency, like, in government. We replicate. There's 440 federal departments and agencies. I think they they can have trouble counting themselves. Mhmm. But Texas replicates nearly every department and function of the federal government in some way. You know? And so it's you're that means you're paying for government twice right now. Right. Not only do we overpay between a 103 to a 160,000,000,000, which I know compared to the feds, that sounds like a small amount of money. But in the Texas budget, that's a lot of money. Yeah. That is a lot of money. But we also use that money to pay for redundant departments. So there's even more savings that are positioned on the table when we don't have to pay for all that. So Yeah. Just think of how much
[02:05:23] Unknown:
Texas can do with that money that they funnel off to the federal system. It could be very, very easily used here, and infrastructure here could be greatly improved. Cost And left in the pockets of Texans. The main thing. I was gonna say the quality more money and quality of life for for for quality of life would be to be improved. Absolutely. You know, there there's there's more positives than negatives for Texas independence. And I I believe in it. Like I said at the start of of of our segment here that, you know, I hope it happens in my lifetime. I want it to happen in my lifetime. I would love to be a part of it that way. But if it's not meant to happen in my lifetime, well, I'm gonna do everything I can to help it along the way. This this way, it does happen at some point. And so that's why I get involved, and that's why I wanna be more involved with with the organization.
That's that's why, you know, I I try to talk about the T and M as much as I can on the course of the show. And, you know, it's it's it's it's it's really important. It's really important. And and Texas, you know, is not alone in this either. Texas is not the only state that has, an independence, movement within it. I mean, New Hampshire, I think, has the oldest one. I think Vermont has
[02:06:34] Unknown:
one. Has the oldest, and New Hampshire, I believe, is what it is. California. And California is making moves right now too. Y'all should keep your eyes on California. Well, that's good. You know? You're more system than us, but they they are they they are making some moves right now. Hawaii has one. Now we have a Flexit in Florida, and, Louisiana has one. Oklahoma has one. I mean, there there are multiple states. At one time, there were 32 active. I don't know what the real count is anymore. That was a few years ago. But, you know, it's a global trend. Like, it's it's it's we we it's not something it's foreign to us Or when I say us, I'm speaking us as in the nation of United States, but, because I think that we are so closed off to some of the things that happened across the globe.
But this is a global trend. People want self determination. They want independence. They don't want to live under somebody's constant rule where, you know, you constantly feel like a slave. But you have no say in it. Yeah. You you have no say in and, you know, this this has gone on for decades years and years and hundreds of years. You look at Scotland. You know? I mean Yeah. So for people to think that we couldn't do it in Texan, when when could you tell a Texan they couldn't do something and they do it? I mean, you know, we we do have that spirit about us whether we like it or not.
[02:08:01] Unknown:
Oh, another great quite like it. But Another good example is playing out right now is Alberta up in Canada. Yes. Alberta. And Alberta, if you don't know anything about them, they're basically like Canadian Texans. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. And and sorry if I insulted by calling them Canadian these days. But, you know, I mean, it's it's oil and gas driven economy. It's it's that rugged individualism. You know? There's so many parallels between our cultures, between Texans and Albertans. But they're seeing the same thing. Like, you know, just blanked on the name of the Canadian capital. But, you know, they're they're finding the same things with their federal government where it's taken lots of money from them. It's not giving a lot back to them. It's very disaligned with their values. They're concerned with a lot of this globalist agendas that's being forced on. Them. You know, and they're they're really finding that, hey. We're not we're not a match. Like, the things the policies that you think you want are not the policies that we want here. And so, I think they're getting really close to having a referendum. They've got a petition that they can circulate there to force that on the ballot. They haven't launched it yet, last I checked, but they're getting pretty close, and I'm really gonna push this issue. And, you know, what didn't hurt, honestly, was the joke about Canada becoming the fifty first state.
A lot of people think whatever you want about that. I I consider it a a joke, but, you know, an interesting joke. But for for Alberta, you know, it it really got a lot of conversation going. I'm like, hey. Well, hey. What if people did wanna do something different? What if they did wanna change their relationship with their government? And so, you know, I hope that they choose independence. I won't tell them what to do, but if if I were in Alberta, I'd be just voting for independence, obviously. And if they do, I think it's gonna create a tremendous example, that a lot of other people will go, oh, wait. This is this is possible. This is something that you can do. Countries can leave. You know what I mean?
The Brexit's been the most recent, like, well known example, and a lot of people have a hard time of putting Great Britain in context as a state of the European Union. Well, I I see the parallels perfectly. If you watch the Brexit movie, they leave a lot and go like, but, yep. Brussels is DC. You know? Yep. But a lot of people still have hope trouble wrapping their head head around that. But if you see something like Alberta, leave Canada, then I think it'll it'll be an even closer parallel for people to understand, and they'll go, oh, yeah. That makes sense. Maybe we should determine whether my state should be. So And where where is the, the TNM on getting this, referendum through? Alright. So what it takes is a bill passed through the legislature.
It is a simple majority, in both chambers, and then the government has to our governor has to not veto it. But that's what it takes. And so we've had the bill filed, twice in 2021 to 2023. And we did not have it filed this last time, but we gotta make sure that we have, you know, 76 in the house and a majority in the senate in order to get this through. And so that's that's a major step. We've been making steady progress and growing towards it. And so having 10 representatives that have that are in office that have signed the pledge, saying that they would support they they didn't say necessarily they would vote in favor of Texas when we asked them how they vote in the polls. We're asking do they support Texans having a vote on this, and they've made it very clear that they would support that as well as upholding the results of that vote.
We've had over a 190 different total candidates sign the pledge, which is wonderful, and and a lot of those are office holders or the current, commissioner of agriculture for us as a Texas First Pledge signer. Lots of people in local government, whether justice of the peace or some county commissioners or or even a holding party position. So we've got a lot, but that's that's growing and that's really the best tool that we have to to measure, what we need. We we're not gonna need 76 pledge hunters in the house in order to know we've got a majority of support. But if we get closer to 30 to 40 of those, then you'll you'll know that we we'll probably have the votes that we need. So Alright.
[02:11:59] Unknown:
Well, for, for for Texans or or as Daniel likes to use, Texians. I like that, actually. I do. I like Texians. For for so for Texas listening right now, and that that they wanna get involved but don't know where to start, what's the one thing that you would tell them to do today?
[02:12:18] Unknown:
Well, if you haven't gone to our website at c and m dot may yet and pledged your support, that's a good place to go. There's a lot of resources on there, that will, get if you're unsure about some of these aspects of text ed, I mean, hopefully, we've covered a good job of it tonight. But if you got some questions still, we we got tons of q and a on there. So, you know, if you're going like, what happens to my Social Security? Believe it or not, that's the most common question. That answer is there. Yeah. So go find that. But if you're already sold and you wanna get involved, and let's say you're already maybe a supporter or you signed up for the email list, the next thing we need you to do is is volunteer. And, like, right now, I think the most important thing is get involved in one of these campaigns for the primary.
If you don't, you know, you can you can say you don't have a a representative that that you need. Let's say you've got a representative that they're they're just the farthest thing from it, and they got no challenger. Right? And so you're going like, well, how do I help? Well, guess what? A, you can help another representative if you're looking at the house. B, you've got statewide candidates like Don Huffines and, for comptroller or James Matlock for, I can't help you. Was it railroad commissioner down there? Railroad commissioner. Yep. And so we've got some statewide candidates that you can help with, but I highly encourage if you've got another representative near you to go go work in those. The legislature every every position is important, but the legislature is kind of our our our primary focus right now. So
[02:13:39] Unknown:
Alright. And I just wanna remind folks too that if you go to my website, joeroos.com/tandm, I have a whole page set up there. It's been there since we started the website. All the QR codes up there so you can register your support, you can donate, you can become a member. All of that is up on my website, plus links to the T and M website. So you should go over there and check it out. If you want to go through my site and go to tandm.me. It's right there up on the screen and, and get more information about this. This is this is a very important conversation that needs to be had, not just for Texas, but every state in the union should have some type of a conversation about this to to evaluate our relationship with the existing government. Our founding documents stated clearly that it is our rights as citizens in this country to to, to alter or abolish the government once it becomes out of control tyrannical. I know I'm paraphrasing it, of course.
[02:14:40] Unknown:
It's okay.
[02:14:42] Unknown:
But it's it's within our rights to do that. It's our obligation.
[02:14:46] Unknown:
Section one, section two of the Texas constitution is where we get that right. And that's exactly what it does say. And it's also the federal constitution.
[02:14:54] Unknown:
It's our our obligation, I would say. Not even just a right. It's an obligation for us to be the watchdogs for our government and alter it and change it. Abolish it is what the constitution says, so don't crucify me for using the word. But it's our obligation to do that. We have to be the watchdogs of our government. Otherwise, what you're seeing developing here in in these states united is, is only gonna get worse. It's gonna get more oppressive. It's gonna get more restrictive and, to the point where where especially if they if they bring about this, this, central bank digital currency they wanna do. You know? Right? Look at this conversation right here, right now, would get us debanked. You know?
These things are very real. They're they're not conspiracy theories. They're conspiracy facts. These things are in the works. It's coming. And the only way you're gonna preserve that is by getting involved in in in movements like the TNM, whether it's in Texas or it's in your own state, wherever you're listening or watching. You need to get involved in these things because sooner or later, you're gonna need it. Sooner or later, it's gonna become a necessity and you're not gonna have the structure in place to do it. So get involved, get involved now. It's extremely important. You know, we laugh, we joke about a lot of stuff but I can't tell you enough how important this is.
Get in touch with your state. Get in touch with the movement in your state. Start a movement in your state. Yeah. And that's what you gotta do. And that's my 2¢ on on the closing matter. Alright. Is there anything that we, we haven't covered that you guys wanna talk about?
[02:16:42] Unknown:
We don't have time for that. No.
[02:16:45] Unknown:
Well, you know, Joe, we can stay here for about four or five hours talking about this. You know what? I have no problem. Tonight, no. Because my my my dog is growling at the door here. He's hungry. But we we can definitely schedule it again, get on, and we could do just to pick a day that there's no other guests.
[02:17:01] Unknown:
This way we can have the full length of time. We can even go longer. So Yeah. Because, you know, we we have lots of things to talk about. We don't ever run out of things to talk about. I have no problem with that. It's a deep it's a deep subject and, you know, there's so many moving parts to this right now, but as Nate was saying earlier, I think just for the closing thing is, you know, check out the website. You know, check out we we will be posting, the next events or the next workshops in eight and nine will be at. We don't have all the information for that yet, but we are in the process of that and should have it very quickly. It's posted on the t and m website under the events.
And please come out and see us. Please come get some civic training. Please come learn how your Texas government works. Let us explain it to you. Ask us a barrage of questions because I'm sure that we can answer between he and I. We can answer the questions we've done this long enough. But get involved. That's that's just the key thing. If, you know, you you can't shake your fist at the TV or the you know, read the newspaper and just get upset, you have to get involved. It takes people willing to finally go, I've had enough. What, you know, what can I do? Because it's the smallest things, and that's one of the things about what we want people to understand on that volunteering for campaigns and stuff. A lot of that stuff you could do from your couch. It doesn't mean you gotta show up at a office somewhere or go block walking every day or anything like that. There's multiple things that we will teach you, how you can be effective in people's campaign. And the fact of the matter is you could work on two or three different campaigns doing maybe one specific thing. Maybe you have special skills or maybe you have, resources that you can, donate to campaigns, and you would be surprised. But we take you through all that. We make you do a skills assessment test to teach you about resources and how to use those. And, you know, if we're gonna ask these people to run for office so that they can represent us and we feel like that would be somebody that would be a true representative for us, then it's up up to us to help them get into office.
And they really need it. You know? The it it's short on funding. They're always short on funding. We know that for a fact. But most of the time, they're short on volunteers too, and it takes multiple voices to amplify their message and get their message out. And so that's really what we wanna do because that that is the way that we get to that Texas house and get that changed. There there's no other way to do it. So that would be our last call is just come see us. Come see me and A on the road wherever we end up in Texas, and, hopefully, we could teach you something.
[02:19:32] Unknown:
Outstanding. Outstanding. Alright, folks. Well, thank you so much. Don't forget, folks. Head over to tandm.me, or you can go to my website, joeroos.com/tandm. You can get all this information and, and and sign up. Get involved. Do something. Yes. Don't just sit in your hands. Alright? This is your state. This is your home. This is your country. Do something about it. Yes. Alright. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. This was great. And, let's let's get together again very soon and we'll, we'll we'll do a a full, like, I don't care. We could do a marathon if you want. Alright? Alright. Thanks for having us, Sonja. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. God bless you. Have a great night. You too. Alright. So, folks, Daphne Armour, Nate Smith of the Texas Nationalist Movement. I hope you guys enjoyed that. That was really informative. I appreciated them taking the time out to do that tonight. I know they are incredibly busy. They have a ton of things going on that they have to work on. And for them to do this for us tonight was great. So I appreciate that.
Alright, folks. Let's see. Let's, let's wrap this thing up. I'm looking at my my my feed looks horrible right now. I look like a blob. Signal degradation. Wonderful. Alright. Well, let's see. Folks, don't forget. Head over to the website, joeroos.com, joeroos.com. Sign up for our programming announcement email list. Alright? It's free. It doesn't cost you nothing. And you also get to, you you get you get information on the upcoming shows, guests, and all that stuff. Sign up for it. Alright? Like I said, free, don't cost you nothing. We're not gonna sell, share, give out your information to anybody. It all stays locked and secured.
And, we're not gonna sell you stuff either. We're not gonna send you a bunch of stuff you're not interested in. All we're gonna send you is information about upcoming shows. Alright? So sign up for it. It's on the website. As soon as you get to the homepage, a little pop up is gonna come there. Just fill it out, sign up for it, and, we look forward to catching up with you there. Also, if you wanna find us on our socials, we're on Twix, so, Truth Social, Minds, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Getter. You name it, we're on it. Find us pretty much all variations of at JoeRuse. Alright. Shout outs to our producing team, executive producer Wayne Rankin, Rosanna Rankin, Carolina Jimenez, Marissa Lee, and the inestenable, anonymous Angela. Thank you so much, guys, for all your contributions to the show. Thank you for your donating your time, your talent, your treasure. Greatly, greatly appreciated. Now if you wanna help us out, you can do that very simply by going to the website, clicking the support button, and, you could do a one time donation in any amount. You can do a recurring donation in any amount. Or if you wanna sign up as a producer, you can get the associate producer for $17.76 a month. A producer is $18.36 a month. Executive producer is $25 a month or more. All of you guys get the same shout out on every show. You get included in all show notes, any emails, anything that we send out. And, as the executive producers of the show, you get to come on to the show with us, and, have a conversation.
Get involved in actual production of the show. Alright. Now you could also, if you wanna help us out with cryptos, you can do that too. Ethereum, Tether, Bitcoin, Texacoin, all of that stuff is on our our support page, all our wallet information, so you can check it all out, once you get over there. Also, just to remind you that we do have a GoFundMe set up for this, this escrow shortage that I'm coming up with. So if you're able and have the means to do it, if you'd like to make a contribution to it, please send it on over. We really appreciate that. Just scan the QR code that's up there on your screen, and, I think the link is on the website. If not, I'll I'll double check. Alright. Also, I wanna say thank you to the folks that are, watching us tonight on Rumble. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch tonight. Thank you for the folks on on YouTube and Twitch and X and Facebook and all those places that are watching. Thank you so much for that. Also, to the folks that are listening live on the modern podcast apps, thank you for tuning into that. And, don't forget, the show will be available to you. Download, on the audio platforms immediately after the show.
And, same thing with the video. We'll get it all set up for you as soon as the show comes to the end. Alright. If you wanna check out some of the modern podcast apps that I talk about all the time, just head over to modernpodcastapps.com or podcastindex.org, and try out some of these new modern podcast apps. They are fantastic. You're gonna love them. Alright. I think, I think I've spoken enough. Charlie is barking at the door here. He wants to eat. So with that said, folks, thank you again so much for for being with us tonight. Check out the website, joeroos.com. Thank you to our guests for being here tonight. Great show tonight. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Folks, listen. Let's make Texas independent again. Go podcasting.
Keep a steady stride and keep talking. God bless you and good night. One.
Opening banter and studio kickoff
Show intro, host welcome, platforms, and housekeeping
Tonights lineup and guest preview
Guest Steven Schneider joins the show
Rescuing Hunter Moon Moon: life with a wolf-hybrid
Author identity, kid engagement, and the intergalactic 12-year-old
Video games as storytelling engines for kids
Game narrative vs. books: design, tools, and examples
DfandD roots, creativity, and techefs impact on imagination
What schools miss: let kids tell stories first
Building books with words to know and classroom supports
Making storytellers at home: campfires, failure, and practice
Storytelling culture, screen time, and classics for games
Simple game projects and time: from Grimm to small builds
Careers in narrative design and the future of games
AI in writing and art: risks, uses, and ethics
Parenting, accountability, and letting kids fail
Grandkids, Aspergerefs, and authentic representation in fiction
Influences, banned books, and where to find Steven
Hour break and schedule notes
Hour two: welcoming Daphne Armour and Nate Smith (TNM)
Getting to know the guests: origins and fun questions
Why they joined the Texas Nationalist Movement
Principles: nonintervention, federal overreach, and state focus
Launching TEXAN ARISE: training volunteers to win campaigns
Inside a TEXAN ARISE workshop: civics, primaries, and process
Texas legislature frustrations: priorities and process stalls
Speaker power, committees, and grassroots leverage
Building a pro-referendum House: pledges and candidates
Talk to your representatives: pressure locally
Citizen-legislators, pay, term limits, and access
Why Texas independence: removing federal layers
Closer to home: efficiency, budgets, and benefits
Global self-determination: other movements and Alberta
Path to a referendum: votes needed and current status
How to help now: pledges, primaries, and volunteering
Final calls to action and upcoming workshops
Show wrap-up, support options, and closing
