WTW149: Dan Patrick Wants to Fail Texas Schools Over Books Rated by Random Volunteers

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.

0:00:11 Clip: Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.

0:00:19 Clip: Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, and everything. Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke, I'm Thomas, that over there is Lydia, how you doing?

0:00:45 Lydia: Feeling pretty good, how are you?

0:00:47 Thomas: Doing well. Thanks for asking.

0:00:51 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, I don't have anything ever to say for these that are like, witty, that and I'm tired of you calling me out for it, and so now I'm just gonna be earnest every single time you ask me how I'm doing, I'm gonna just respond Thoughts? A new direction for our business?

0:01:05 Thomas: Fine, yeah. Usually what, you know, Matt would do is have something based on what you're talking about to say, maybe. We

0:01:13 Lydia: Know, but I just can't, I, listen, I I I'm not as good as Matt. Okay, guys, I do my best. But yeah, this is an area where I know I need to work on. There will be something maybe after you hear this entire episode, you'll circle back and you'll be like, Lydia, you missed an opportunity. You could have said this and I'll be like dang it. You're right. That's probably what's gonna happen.

0:01:32 Thomas: Like to have our episodes have the feel and awkwardness of a performance review.

0:01:38 Lydia: Yep. Welcome to the the show.

0:01:40 Thomas: Circle back.

0:01:41 Lydia: I know.

0:01:42 Thomas: I'll follow up via email. Mail uh are we talking about today nope okay but

0:01:46 Lydia: Today we're going to go over to Texas just virtually. No, yeah, I know normally to take us over to Texas about some stuff that's been going on there. Sort of an interesting time. I was actually holding onto this story because it's going to be coming up in the Texas legislature this coming session. And so I was like, well, maybe we'll wait until they actually hear it in But I think there's a lot of background here that's really, really important that I'd actually prefer that the audience feels armed with before this makes it to hearings and a potential law that is kind of insane. Lieutenant Governor governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, is not happy with how compliance with Senate Bill 13 from last session is being handled. So year, they signed a law in Texas that established several things related to books in schools. First thing that it did was that it gave school boards the final power to approve or reject new library books instead of the librarians, right? So school boards now have that power. It increased the parental rights for folks within districts that now parents can see online library catalogs, that they can track what their children are checking out. And it also restricted access to specific titles. Like it allowed parents to say, I

0:03:13 Thomas: All the fucking work and just time put into nothing it doesn't kids don't even care about books they're not and if they do it's good you know yeah

0:03:16 Lydia: I know taxpayer dollars. It also, yeah, it also created a formal process for how parents can challenge books. And that it basically said that oftentimes challenge books would be taken off shelves while they're under review. So even if they end up not being removed, they will not be available while they are being challenged. And then it also established what would be called called advisory councils. Called SLAC. We'll hear that term, I think, in some of the clips I have. The School Library Advisory Council. And those would be the entities that would manage complaints and of establish the collection rules. Well, Dan Patrick is not happy about how some districts are handling this because he feels that there are still too many many pornographic titles on library shelves available to students.

0:04:09 Thomas: I'm sure that's totally true

0:04:10 Lydia: So now he's saying a later, his priority is going to be going into this next legislative session. He will be encouraging the Texas legislature to a law to more formally penalized school districts that are found to be not in compliance with SB 13. And the way that he's doing it and the material that he's going to be basing this off of, would it surprise you to know that it is not developed by anybody in Texas? It's not developed bei any educators? Theaters uh it is literally there is a list of books that have been identified by parent volunteer groups as being inappropriate for children they have a rating scale um definitions for what they mean by

0:04:45 Thomas: I assume it's yeah jesus christ right by god himself yeah it was like the the woke scale that we use sometimes for the what's that website god I love love it

0:05:06 Lydia: And they're very clear on their website they're like inspired by the MPAA ratings for movies. It's like, okay, all

0:05:11 Thomas: Inspired by yeah inspired by a true story they're

0:05:15 Lydia: We're going to get into all of that. But before we go to the break, I wanted to hear the beginning of this press conference that Dan Patrick led off with, because I think it's going to help us really understand the tenor of what we're gonna be doing.

0:05:25 Thomas: Just the party of fake problems like it really is just let's generate as much fake bullshit as we can so that you don't see how we're screwing you over that's all it is the whole thing it's just fake and then like I think some number of them actually believe it because they've has been happening forever so they've actually grown up in the like culture of the fake problems and then a bunch of them are like true believers in the fake programs but it's so fucking fake oh

0:05:52 Lydia: Yeah, well, and it's funny, too, because like, there actually were impacts, pretty immediate impacts from that law passing. It's just that it wasn't completely across the state of Texas or moving as fast as he necessarily wanted. But for one school district in Texas, they actually closed all of their secondary school libraries entirely. And, you like reduced access to books basically for all the students in all of the schools in that district. Public outcry. Parents were not happy about that either. So they reopened them. And then another district took out 1,500 books already from their school libraries. And they included, okay, they They included pieces by Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, George Bush.

0:06:33 Thomas: They did some porn wow

0:06:35 Lydia: They yeah, they basically said it would be like matters of like political controversy is one of the elements that they are concerned about with SB 13. they are trying to say that that's indecent for, you in high school potentially. So so a school district removed books that I feel like should be available for anybody. Buddy so anyway let's hear it from dan patrick uh how he's coming to this problem

0:06:36 Thomas: I did some porn look uh this problem fuck

0:07:02 Clip: So thank you for coming today. Am not here to my podcast, in fact, I won't even give the name, but what happened on the podcast is the reason I am here, because we look at polling of what people are interested in, you talk to folks, you go to town hall meetings, what they're interested in. And I have been overwhelmed of the response that I received from an interview with Bonnie Wallace, who you're going to meet in a moment.

0:07:15 Thomas: Are you people are not using my promo code we got nearly six reviews on iTunes oh

0:07:33 Lydia: He said I had a podcast that went viral so let's talk about it

0:07:36 Thomas: My god dude oh my god dude

0:07:36 Clip: It. On my podcast, the highest number of views I've ever had were 530,000 to a Dr. Phil interview. That's a lot. I've only been doing this seven weeks. But that's in part because the way podcasts work sometimes, you get someone on who has their own podcast, and they promote to them, and it cross -promotes, and that's kind of sometimes how it works, particularly with people with a famous name. But last week, Bonnie Wallace was my guest. She doesn't have have a podcast. She doesn't have a social media footprint that's large. There was no cross promotion. It was simply organic. And as of this morning, over 625,000 Texans have viewed the content of that podcast.

0:07:45 Thomas: My God what is happening what the what is happening I wouldn't have guessed this in my first million guesses what the God press

0:08:23 Clip: That is as extraordinary

0:08:24 Thomas: Conference brought to you by quince dude

0:08:26 Clip: As you can get. That means people read it and shared it around and had other people watch. What was it all about? It's about the dirty, filthy, and vulgar books in our school libraries.

0:08:30 Thomas: What the no one cares wait

0:08:42 Clip: Last session we passed Senate Bill 13 by Angela Paxton that would remove these books.

0:08:50 Clip: These are books that are so disgusting, so filthy, so dirty, so vulgar, so pornographic, that for the ladies here I wouldn't even open it and show you. I wouldn't show my wife. I didn't show the female senators last session. I had the books to hand out.

0:08:56 Thomas: I'm gonna show them all to you right now the

0:08:58 Lydia: No no I

0:09:08 Clip: We passed the bill, but I did it without, you know, if someone wanted to take the book for themselves, and I'm going to give you a copy, everyone here, you can decide not to look at it, or you can. And if you're offended, understand these books are on our library shelves. Many books are in our library shells. In all of our schools. Over 2 ,000

0:09:07 Thomas: Fuck fuck up dude

0:09:08 Lydia: Know yes

0:09:18 Thomas: This is unbelievable yeah

0:09:27 Lydia: There are many books on library shops yeah all right we can stop there yeah this is an official press conference from the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. And he's like, let me tell you about my viral podcast.

0:09:29 Thomas: Good job oh my god this is that is wow he leads off with like so my podcast even

0:09:30 Clip: Titles of filthy, dirty, vulgar books.

0:09:46 Lydia: Let me tell You about the episode that went viral.

0:09:48 Thomas: The fucking lieutenant governors are getting you to listen to their fucking podcasts god

0:09:53 Lydia: Well, he's a white man. So yeah.

0:09:55 Thomas: Yeah he's like yeah someone just gave it to me I don't even know how it works fuck

0:09:59 Lydia: So anyway, I will leave it there. Before we get into all like this, we haven't gotten to the break. But folks, there's a lot more.

0:10:03 Thomas: We haven't even gotten to the break yet it's already so much goodness holy

0:10:08 Lydia: More. There's a lot more to get into where this came from.

0:10:08 Thomas: Shit man not in a million years would I have guessed that that's how that was going to start oh my god I can't wait to listen to his podcast no I'm just kidding uh yeah we all better take a break patreon.com/wherethereswoke okay support the show if you want to support us supporting supporting texas lieutenant governor dan patrick's podcast we need that money to go to his patreon because you know I think he leaves the good stuff behind the paywall you know the really the really good stuff so yeah yeah oh boy this is insane I don't know how this is the world we live in uh uh yeah patreon.com/wherethereswoke and skip the ads thanks so much for supporting and we'll get right back to whatever the fuck this is after this break I mean yeah it's so good like it's so in demand I would be I I would I we'd be fools not to uh

0:10:37 Lydia: Every public official, right? Yeah. We are going to play bits of his podcast because you know, we could we not? Right? You know? But do I want to just say from the outset that it's not really really about I mean we are going to talk about the books that are on the shelves in the library that he has a problem with because there's are a few things on there that are absolutely insane that have been included in this list we're going to talking about the list how it was developed in quotes um developed it uh who's behind the spread of this list but was also like a really notable thing that that came out of this the thing that made the news I think primarily for this specifically surprise surprise it was not his podcast episode it's about something hilarious about one of the books that's on the list yeah but what I want to talk about is this is a conversation about a potential law that he wants to pursue where the state would be attaching like financial consequences on school districts based off of a rating system that was not developed by educators, librarians, anybody in Texas. It's just random parents from other states and their own personal religious Christian nationalist crusade. And that's really what's going on here. To definitely talk about all the bits and pieces surrounding it. But before we get into the entirety of the list, the list in quotes, because actually a lot of people have have not been talking about the full list. I'll include a link in the show notes for that for folks. So you guys can see the entire list. Sometimes it'll just be like certain titles that a lot of news articles are talking about. This is a evolving kind of started back in August, I want to say, when he had, as he said, Bonnie Wallace on his podcast.

0:11:42 Thomas: It wasn't like his interviewing skills or the bonnie wallace well

0:12:52 Lydia: The bonnie wallace and we get into his his podcast and yes the bonnie wallace the bonny

0:12:57 Thomas: That's a good get we've been trying to get the bonny wallace for a long time their

0:12:58 Lydia: Wallace I know I I want to just briefly introduce what he's talking about in terms of these consequences um this also deserves to be broken down uh in full he said that the way that the bill would work that he wants to pursue is that a school district they have um state accountability grades if find that any one of the books on this list is in a school library in that district the district will drop a full letter grade in their state accountability rating this

0:13:32 Thomas: Moms are gonna be pissed and the school will have to get Get its parents' school to sign the report card.

0:13:34 Lydia: Is important though this is super important well so so let's hear a couple moments from the press conference when the reporters ask him specifically what he's looking to do here I

0:13:47 Thomas: What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah.

0:13:49 Clip: Start. Ladies first.

0:13:51 Thomas: Off. God.

0:13:55 Clip: Yes. Are you saying with this that you're at the legislature's opinion school boards take when they remove these books? Yeah, I'm saying to you that we passed a law to remove filthy, dirty, and vulgar books from our schools. I have a responsibility as lieutenant governor, the senators have a responsibility, the house members have a responsibility to be sure that we are not undermining the family unit. These are books that parents and grandparents would never want their children to read. Again, 90% there may be some parents who say, oh it's fine, well they can buy the books on their own, you know, at a bookstore or go to the public library. But we're in charge here of school funding. It is the biggest part of of our state budget.

0:14:54 Clip: I had Mike Marath in an interview the other day, and we spend $90 billion a year on public education. We have a responsibility to be sure that what we are using those tax dollars for is what they would expect us to use it for.

0:15:05 Thomas: On public education. It's the dumbest fucking bullshit

0:15:13 Clip: They do not expect us to do this.

0:15:13 Thomas: Anyone's ever heard of.

0:15:15 Clip: And again, some of these titles have already been taken out of our prisons are not allowed. That's how bad they are. And we're not banning books.

0:15:22 Thomas: Well, they're kids' books, aren't they? Oh.

0:15:26 Clip: We're saying they should not be in our schools.

0:15:24 Lydia: All right pause there for a second so her question

0:15:29 Clip: Next question.

0:15:29 Thomas: We're not banning books we're just not allowing them yeah

0:15:33 Lydia: Exactly he says this a lot we're not banning books you is you can still go get it from a store this is yeah yeah exactly um I I just want to reiterate here I know know it was a little hard to hear her question they don't have the reporters mic'd up um her question was is law that you're talking about pursuing is it going to supersede the law the law just took effect last year is it going to superseded that process where school boards have the authority to look at the books right we established those slacks those advisory councils that I talked about um the pre -show and is a process for determining whether books are appropriate or not are you saying that this is superseding that he doesn't even really address that at all he's just like I have a list of dirty books and that's the list we're going to use is essentially what he's getting at through all of this stuff okay well but what's the least who's on the list who made the list and also like if there was always a list then why why do we have these advisory councils as a matter of law law that you guys signed into law just last year, just last year. It just feels

0:15:38 Thomas: We know idiot now

0:16:39 Lydia: So haphazard.

0:16:39 Thomas: Those councils like more of this bullshit or was that an attempt to get this under control so

0:16:44 Lydia: Depends on the district. So that's of the, I okay things is that the school district, you the thought was it would reflect the community, right, represent kind of thing. But what they're not happy about is that there are districts, there are school districts in Texas that are not Christian Christian conservative crazies. They even that they're liberal. It's just that they are more focused on, you now, like what's reasonable for children and for education and what are books that like really shouldn't be on shelves. Like actually have that conversation if there is a title that we're concerned about. You know, they're much more meticulous about it rather than like that there's a character that's gay and saying that that should not be on the shelf like they are upset that that's is not what is happening across the entire state um that there's actually diversity of opinion and thought

0:17:32 Thomas: So who passed that and for what purpose did they pass it to try to stop these maniacs or was it like everyone needs more local control of the the bullshit censorship okay

0:17:42 Lydia: Dan patrick was on board he thought this was a way to get the bad books out of the schools right and so he was 100% in support of 13 there was a competing potential law that um have been even more extreme but he said it was unconstitutional and he was like and I talked to so and so and you know just said we can't put forward something that's going to be easily knocked down as unconstitutional and so that's why we all went behind you know angela's bill sb 13 yada yada so like he was for it he helped campaign for it it was one of his priorities yeah yeah yep uh and then just one more clip from him talking about this accountability law, I guess, is it what is.

0:18:10 Thomas: Throwing angela under the bus huh fucking angela yeah

0:18:21 Clip: You were next. If this was the one book on the shelf, you bet you. You bet you it would.

0:18:38 Clip: If I could show this to the cameras, the audience would be shocked. I'm not going to do that. You can look at it. You can report it. And I'll ask asked you the question, if this one book was on the shelf and your child, I don't know if you have children or not, if your child got a hold of this book, would you want that school to get an A? I don't think so.

0:19:01 Lydia: So the book that he keeps... Yeah, you bet you. And again, that was to my point earlier, where literally the district receives the state accountability ratings um and his position is if one school within the school district has one of these books from this list that random people created then I'm going to drop them a full letter grade um their accountability ratings and and well we're going to get into why that matters because it actually is super super important um

0:19:02 Thomas: Bet you and give him detention oh so it's not as dumb as it sounds ah

0:19:33 Lydia: It's not as dumb as it's like it's It's honestly really aggressive. The book that he keeps holding up as like the, know, the premier example of like filth and garbage is called Let's Talk About It, The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships and Being a Human. And it's a graphic novel style of book.

0:19:50 Thomas: It's graphic see it's right there you're you admit it yeah

0:19:53 Lydia: And it is sex education handbook for teenagers. This is not something that would be available to kindergartners, right? I mean, like this is something that probably reasonable where it's age appropriate. The target age for this book is 14 and older. It talks about anatomy, body image issues, being comfortable with physical differences. It talks about sexuality and gender, which are bad words, according to Republicans. And so talking about different identities and how you might express yourself and your gender and your relationship with sex. It talks About consent, and not just with sexual like relationship with another person, but also like in friendship and dating, figuring out what your boundaries are and how to communicate those boundaries. Boundaries yeah and I mean there are things like like uses honest language right um think it is something where if you if you are an abstinence only mindset and you think that like kids are not thinking about these things or experiencing these things and then you also have these um against people who are different than you know cis hetero uh people people then these are going to be like red flags for you all over the place I guess um to hold this up as like the worst of the worst you

0:20:36 Thomas: Who's the bottom yeah

0:21:12 Lydia: Know book um is just is remarkable

0:21:13 Thomas: You can't even he's like he's he's afraid of it like he can't even so

0:21:16 Lydia: He is he's like I can't I'm not even gonna open it I'm Not Even Gonna Read Anything From This I don't want any of the women in this room to be exposed to this filth yada yada um oh

0:21:18 Thomas: Funny I daren't I darent yeah god the stupid patronizing fucking oh I know the ladies ladies on the ladies and the thing like Like, dude, God, I can't believe anyone puts up with this. I really can't.

0:21:39 Lydia: I know So I did have that same question. OK, what does this rating matter? My first thought was like, oh, is it tied directly to funding, right? Is that what he's threatening here is money?

0:21:49 Thomas: The schools don't get to play Nintendo if they get too many Cs. So that's pretty important.

0:21:56 Lydia: There's no specific like direct way where your accountability rating drops and then you lose X dollars, right? There's actually nothing specifically that has like a direct link there. But, there is a money link. It's just more indirect. Funds school districts in the same way that I think California funds school districts. It is primarily through average daily attendance, right? It doesn't matter necessarily. Like the broad scheme of things is not that students are meeting certain metrics or anything like that. It's that students aren't getting education. They are there to learn. And so that's really what's driving, for better or for worse, that's what's really driving a large percentage of the Texas education budget for various school districts. Families do look at district accountability ratings to determine whether or not that school district is good or bad, right? If a school district has been deemed by the state as failing, I think a family that has the opportunity to kind of pick and choose where they want to send their kids to is they might consider moving to be in a different district. They might consider private school. They Might consider charter school, right. So those are dollars then leaving that school District because of the reflection of their accountability rating to students. The one that's most important long term is actually the second piece, where in Texas Education Code Chapter 39A, there is an escalating sanctions process or ladder for schools that have repeated bad grades on this accountability rating. If you get a D or an F as as a school district, it's considered an unacceptable rating. If rating, it opens you up to conservatorship as a School District. Might mean, okay, if you have a conservator, now if you a conservater in place or a management team has been assigned, and that's been happening for a couple of years, the State Education Commissioner then can step in and appoint a board of managers to replace the entire school board, even though they're elected positions. So

0:24:10 Lydia: If this happens year over year and things are not going well for that school district, in a perfect world, this is indicative of, yeah, we have some major management issues here. The school board for whatever reason, something is happening here and And the school board is not doing right by its students. And the state should get involved. In an ideal world, I could see where, OK, maybe that makes sense. But in Texas, this is clearly being weaponized, right?

0:24:10 Thomas: That seems nuts. Yeah, this is like a Britney Spears conservatorship.

0:24:42 Lydia: Yeah. So it's not just the school district as a whole. Like the schools individually, if they have problems with an individual school within in the district and if they've racked up enough you know bad ratings on certain metrics that feeds into the school district's overall rating their accountability rating and there is no discretion either in this law saying like the commissioner will look into it right the commissioner won't investigate and see what's going on here and if things need to be addressed in different ways it says they must order either the appointment of a board of managers to take over the whole district or close the entire campus. Shut down the school.

0:25:29 Thomas: Because of this one, let's talk about sex book. Oh, wow. So dramatic.

0:25:35 Lydia: And is something that's actually happened. And for this reason not for books but Independent School District is kind of being taken over by the state and as of this year that was was back in 2023. And then as of this year, there are two middle schools in Austin Independent School District. Another one that just needs one more F, and they're going to be in that group too. And they're gonna hit that five -year threshold of bad grades that then leads to a state takeover, basically. So Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, his approach here is not just like everybody Everybody starts with an A. We're starting from square one. It stacks on top of what's already been happening. So if a district is already at a C or a D because, you know, they had academic performance on various state testing that's not looking good or something like that, they could, because of a single book at a single school, could could then get knocked down to a D or an F immediately. Immediately and then it's counts the exact same as the previous structure under the same statute with the same kind of consequences with the same potential state takeover right

0:25:40 Thomas: For this reason? Oh, okay. I, for one, I'm glad we have the dumbest possible people in charge of the education in this particular state. Well done everybody.

0:26:51 Lydia: And just as an aside he says on his podcast something that I had said you know is not I

0:26:56 Thomas: Man. Do you don't even need to say I've heard it. I'm so wild about this podcast. Who hasn't heard it?

0:27:00 Lydia: Know it went went viral everybody's heard of it you re -listen it's a favorite

0:27:02 Thomas: Can quote the entire thing actually. Yeah. Yeah, it has a lot of repeat value.

0:27:08 Lydia: Yeah uh he he says on his podcast you know I'm gonna hit them where that where it hurts in the purse you know you want people to change you hit them Where It Hurts and you know we're gonna go after their funding and and I said you can't specifically do that but that Yeah.

0:27:20 Thomas: Were on the podcast. Oh, you didn't. Oh,

0:27:24 Lydia: I said that on this podcast. Yeah. But say that, you know, specifically that you can't actually take money away directly because of this, but he recognizes his power here and he does know what talks and he's going to find ways to make it happen. And so there are some some pretty significant downstream consequences. Should this happen, we might be looking at not potential, just state takeover and appointed, you conservative crazies at whatever school district your kids might be a part of because of, again, a single book at a single campus because a librarian maybe missed it or something like that, or because it's also not a big deal and we're going to go through some of the books and you're going be incensed why some of these these things are on the list

0:28:11 Thomas: All of it is because it's not a big deal. I don't know what are the the legitimate examples you're even talking about

0:28:16 Lydia: I don't know I'm trying to give benefit of the doubt you know exactly I would say yeah I would Say like okay if it's like a you know the six -year -old shelves at the library and it's you Runner and so it's Like things that they're not not even going to be able to read.

0:28:19 Thomas: Does dallas the book novel version they don't read it yeah it's like

0:28:35 Lydia: I know, I know. Oh, okay. Why don't we talk some more about list that is being used for this? I've been talking around the list. I've been talking about the potential consequences. Let's get into the list and the folks that are behind the list, um, Patrick. We've been taking a look at the list for a while. We've talked about him a lot. He actually has nothing to do with the list at all, except it was sent to him by bonnie wallace um but he yeah but he is the lieutenant governor of texas again the one that actually has like the legislative power everybody else is going to be basically a nobody um

0:28:36 Thomas: B bonnie wallace well what

0:29:08 Lydia: In terms of power he's a presiding officer of the state senate is the way that that it works in texans so he identifies like what are the bills that are my top priorities or the administration's top priorities.

0:29:08 Thomas: Does the lieutenant governor do oh so he's like the speaker of the house

0:29:21 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah and so like he really focuses in on like these are the 40 I care about this session so that's what we're going to spend our time talking about and trying to pass. He does have legitimate power here.

0:29:21 Thomas: Equivalent oh wow huh yeah

0:29:33 Lydia: Wallace, she is not a Texas official. She in Texas so she has some connection there but she's the legislative liaison for a group called recover america and she is someone who basically travels around all of texas she's been to all I guess I think these might be the the total number of school districts 164 school boards um go off about this she often goes up to the mic and reads these books aloud trying to cause a scene um it's like um the john oliver thing when the

0:29:32 Thomas: God my word yeah kennedy

0:30:06 Lydia: Senator kennedy uh kind of yeah yeah exactly and and does the exact same thing um got kicked out of a school board meeting she's had her mic turned off she said as like retaliatory because of just trying to uh the very same books that remain on the shelves you know he's like I'm being punished for just saying the things that are on the libraries that any kid could get oh

0:30:07 Thomas: He's taking his bit you should sue her man I bet there are some people there's some I'll say it gentlemen online who's like this is their particular kink is hearing old church ladies read dirty books and they are probably doing well right now they're just like god this is the best time what a time to be alive oh

0:30:34 Lydia: There's a kink for everything yeah yeah yeah um but I want you to hear from her about what why this is her mission it's the same press conference she was standing next to dan patrick the entire time

0:30:46 Thomas: I can't wait for this why don't give away the milk when you buy the cat don't get cow for free what am I thinking he needs to get her on his patron only is what I'm trying to say why

0:31:02 Clip: This is our problem. Listen, I m not here to shock you.

0:31:05 Thomas: And just so you know she looks exactly like you would think she would look so does dan patrick they both are are the exact thing that they are just just to settle everyone's mind oh

0:31:09 Lydia: Love

0:31:15 Clip: I m here because God has given me the perfect, clear vision that I m supposed to. If any of you Christians in here Ephesians 511 says have nothing to do with the evil deeds of darkness but expose them so I need to expose the darkness so that schools can remove it and

0:31:21 Thomas: That's lucky yeah that

0:31:24 Lydia: Our state government making decisions based off of that all

0:31:35 Thomas: Makes sense that all sounds right yeah yeah

0:31:37 Lydia: Boy and then uh if you skip ahead to 2603 um chimes in specifically to talk about um more thoughts she has about profane and indecent and sb 13 the existing law verbs

0:31:52 Clip: I yes so I wanted to say that Senate bill 13 specifically says that if a if a book has content that is profane or indecent those two verbs those two words were taken from the FCC FCC. So think about

0:32:04 Thomas: It sounds like you need to read more books uh if you're calling those verbs oh boy yikes jesus

0:32:10 Lydia: Yep keep

0:32:13 Clip: It this way. The FCC monitors network television and radio for anything that is profane or indecent. So you cannot, I guarantee you, you can't read any of the books that we're talking about. You could not read them on network television. You cannot read them on radio. Why are we corrupting the minds of our children? I

0:32:34 Lydia: Boy yeah so this lady uh as I said legislative liaison for a group called recover america recover amerika was um by rick scarborough who was um for a time considered like the leader of the christian right um was quoted uh know in a previous documentary saying I'm not a republican I'm not a democrat I'm a christocrat my allegiance is to jesus christ um america is at war with the devil um people should be voting biblically uh know obviously against same -sex marriage he says that with same - sex marriage it's a sign that america's moving closer to hell and that um same -sex marriage was you I guess the the denial of same - sex marriage was found to be be unconstitutional. He said that he would be willing to be burned to death in order to oppose gay rights.

0:32:58 Thomas: Christ okay

0:33:21 Lydia: And when it was legalized by the Supreme Court in Obergefell, yeah, yeah. It says the media reported that Scarborough had not set himself on fire.

0:33:21 Thomas: Can we make that happen or Or did anyone take him up on that? Damn.

0:33:31 Lydia: He believes that AIDS is God's judgment and that we should be filing class action lawsuits against gay people because of,

0:33:38 Thomas: That's interesting. So if we cure AIDS or if we have really good medicine for it, I guess that makes us like better than God, right? We're probably, huh, nice. So science literally is beating God. Is that what you're saying?

0:33:52 Lydia: That that people should be filing class action lawsuits against gay people for, quote, subjecting people to becoming AIDS sufferers.

0:33:57 Thomas: Too fucking fabulous. Oh.

0:33:59 Lydia: Yeah. No, no. Because like the non -gay people have gotten AIDS and it's because of homosexuals. And so we should be filling lawsuits against them. He's crazy. Recover America wasn't started to be like, let's go look at the books at all of the schools. Schools um purpose is actually from their website we believe pastors carry a moral authority our culture urgently needs we're a non-denominational ministry christian taking the message of jesus christ into the public square convinced the bible speaks to every area of life including the civil one and how do they achieve this purpose they say um through local engagement protecting our children uh obviously was added because of bonnie wallace's crusade with books um conferences and training just basically like uh to train pastors and faith leaders and

0:34:45 Thomas: Would you like to learn how to be the awful, most annoying fucking asshole in your community? Have we got the training for you with our simple program.

0:34:53 Lydia: So just like this incredibly like nationalist agenda that then host on their website it's web link is harmful books And ratedbooks.org. And this is the actual thing that's like doing the work, right?

0:35:04 Thomas: Harmful books this is rated books no sorry my

0:35:15 Lydia: Rated Books was started by Brooke Stevens out of Utah because she had concerns over books that she was finding in the school library. And she wanted to just show the principal a few of the books and that that would fix the problem. But then after they were challenged, they were retained. And so she felt that the only way to get what she was actually looking for was through legislation. So she created this website to basically put together, I to say data because it's not, but to put together I guess a resource reference material to help get legislation passed in Utah back in 2022 because wanted proof that these books contained obscene content and there was evidence that they were actually in the schools and you weren't just naming random books that you found on Amazon. Ratedbooks.org is run through, I know there's a lot of things going on here, but it's run through just a side note, a 501c4 based out of North Carolina. So I'm talking about a lot different states right now, right? Is a the thing that's happening in Texas, using a list developed by somebody in Utah, which is supported by a 501c4 out of North Carolina called the Pavement Education Project. This And is a parent volunteer group, basically, that just they all get together and they just try and find books that they think are bad.

0:36:18 Thomas: The shittiest ones

0:36:39 Lydia: Yep, that's all they do. That's all They do.

0:36:39 Thomas: Get a fucking life wow

0:36:42 Lydia: Now their website, this is very quick side note. This is so petty, but I have to. They have a language drop down on the Pavement Education Project website. And I was like, okay, between English and Spanish. I was like, you know, okay. Good for them. Let me check it out. I click Spanish. Nothing changes. It's all still in English. And, I was, like, these freaking idiots.

0:37:02 Lydia: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that would be, I it's a prank because otherwise they're just idiots. But, like.

0:37:01 Thomas: It's like a prank uh I hope they're

0:37:08 Lydia: Yeah. Well, are they evil or prank?

0:37:08 Thomas: Idiots because otherwise it's a prank yeah

0:37:10 Lydia: I don't know. What I prefer. They're both terrible outcomes. I'm not going to get into North Carolina, but there's actually been some good things happening in North Carolina that have been upsetting the pavement education project with regard to books and schools. So just know that there's some fights happening across the country in the other way. Just as we step into the list, I've told you about the players involved. The only Texas people involved are Dan Patrick as the lieutenant governor and Bonnie Wallace, who works for a group, like literally just trying to spread. Yeah, I know. Needs no introduction.

0:37:43 Thomas: The bonnie wallace I know I know oh yeah you gotta tell the listeners sorry okay

0:37:49 Lydia: And that's it. And everybody else is just parent volunteers from other states that have decided that it is their own personal crusade to go and check out books from libraries and get upset about the word gay.

0:38:07 Lydia: I'm going to send you the list of books so you can kind of look at it with me.

0:38:12 Thomas: But better not just be a bunch of books recover

0:38:15 Lydia: You'll notice there's a title and I think they say it's like like over 2100 books, I've seen some references to like 2198. I've seen like some other numbers, too. But it's pretty consistently everybody's sites that is over 21100 books. Yeah, there's the title of the book, it's an alphabetical order. The author, there's a score, we'll talk about what those scores mean. And then there's notations over on the right, the notation are up at the top about, you know, like what they might mean, these are just like additional notes. So they had said in the press conference that there were actually books that were banned from Texas prisons. Those are noted here, prohibited to Texas prisoners or, you know, submitted to the Department of Corrections in Texas for determination on whether or not it's appropriate. Was really interesting to me because I was like, well, why are we banning books for prisoners? And sometimes

0:38:29 Thomas: Am oh recover america okay okay yeah

0:39:09 Lydia: It would be like if it's like really gratuitous like criminal violent activity and stuff like that.

0:39:09 Thomas: There's a colleen hoover book ah

0:39:14 Lydia: Yes. Oh, there's several Colleen Hoover books. Yeah, there there's other ones to bell hooks is on here.

0:39:16 Thomas: I think there's any book we should ban for prisoners like they're in prison just give them a fucking book who cares it was like how to escape from every prison like I guess that would be like the one

0:39:27 Lydia: I yeah, exactly. How to build bombs and escape prisons um but also felt weird to me um were like john grisham books that like prisoners aren't allowed to read I guess yeah in texas um but there's also a note here that rating it says rb right the the rated books rating, classified by AI. So just kind of asking Claude, hey, if I'm concerned about these, what book should I add to my list?

0:39:36 Thomas: Using only toothbrushes what yeah

0:40:01 Lydia: So that's great.

0:39:55 Thomas: Yeah it's easier than ever to be an asshole oh

0:40:04 Lydia: That's absolutely great. We'll talk a little bit about some of the books on here. There was like um Tony Morrison has some books on here that are being considered inappropriate for kids um things that I'm pretty sure like our kids have read oh there Was one that I was like I remember reading this in high school is like uh book was everywhere it's called the lovely bones that's on here as well you remember that

0:40:26 Thomas: I remember I didn't read it but I remember every fucking girl reading that

0:40:28 Lydia: It was a very like every girl. Yeah, yeah. What do these scores mean? Right? There's, there's there's some that aren't scored yet. But there's otherwise a numerical score, one to five. This is the one where rated books has said, you know, we were inspired by the widely accepted MPA rating system for movies. So there's, a zero to five five explicit content reading skills. Score zero is that it's appropriate for all ages. We won't get into that. Score of one is considered juvenile advisory. Some content may not be appropriate for young children. These that may include some mild violence, like bullying, mild or infrequent profanity, derogatory

0:40:34 Thomas: Nothing okay

0:41:09 Lydia: Terms or slurs.

0:41:10 Thomas: But wouldn't you want them to learn about bullying or yeah

0:41:13 Lydia: I would think think so and the other thing that's frustrating here is like these that like we've talked about on SIO before that I'm sure Jenessa Seymour has a lot of thoughts about too is like like defining mild right exactly does that mean like when does it cross from mild to moderate when does you know how many instances is it number of slurs per page You know, like, do we figure out what that cutoff is? And like, that's how we move it into a rating here. It's so muddy that it doesn't even make any sense. The juvenile advisory, the ones, basically that there's no description or depiction of use of alcohol, smoking, vaping, or huffing. That there's not very many references to death, lying, or stealing, and that there is no instruction on, information about, or discussion on gender identity or sexual orientation. 2 gets you to a youth advisory. Some content may not be appropriate for children under 13. This more explicit gender ideologies, and define explicit and inexplicit and mild and stuff. In another document, I have that available as well, that there's moderate justification of hate, non -sexual nudity, including genitalia, moderate

0:41:53 Thomas: The three little pigs is out non -sexual

0:42:30 Lydia: Drug, yet non -osexual nudity. So it could be like an anatomical picture or something like that um

0:42:31 Thomas: But yeah but why they that's that's not okay but sexual nudity is or

0:42:41 Lydia: Like like would be okay non -sexual nudity if the if the nudity that is part of this book is non -osexual in nature even if it includes genitalia but there's nothing else that would get you to a two a youth advisory rating a three score would be youth restricted under 18 requires guidance of parent or guardian now this is saying that there is um sexual nudity in the book that there's description or depiction of sexual activities not involving penetration cunnilingus fellatio or ejaculation so I basically if book you're reading or wanting to check out or something like that as long as it doesn't include any oral sex or Or like, okay, sorry. Sexual activities not involving penetration, oral sex, no ejaculation. So what are the sexual activities? Just groping? I guess. I don't know.

0:42:53 Thomas: I see yeah don't know you're

0:43:36 Lydia: And you have to be 18 in order to check that book out from your school library without a parent signing off on it. Interesting. There might be like references to self -harm or suicide. Side and then adults only is a score of a four graphic or gratuitous violence yada yada yada extreme profanity derogatory terms slurs and this is saying that this is adult content no child under 18 years of age again they're rating books for school libraries so if this book is in a school library, but then they're saying this, like then they are 18, I don't know. I don't really know what they are trying to solve with this. I think what they're trying to say is like this is a rating scale that could carry on with you for life. Because those fours, you know, it's like references or links to BDSM, sex toys, kinks, fetishes.

0:43:55 Thomas: Just yada yada sex yeah they just wanted to be be able to say like this one was so bad that you know well

0:44:34 Lydia: And number five, if you score five for your book, the label for this is deviant content.

0:44:38 Thomas: Done yeah they just want to be able to say that it's that it'S not that they're using it for adults it's like this is so bad you gotta be 30 well

0:44:47 Lydia: Yeah, so content such as animal cruelty, cannibalism. So animal cruelty. Okay, well, what about Kristi Noem's book where she shot her puppy? Be.

0:44:55 Thomas: Or what about a book where the villain is mean to animals is that okay once

0:45:02 Lydia: Profanity, derogatory terms, slurs, excessive graphic detailed descriptions of sex acts. So all the romantic stuff, all of our smut that we love, that we Love all my hockey smut is going to be a deviant content. Yeah. Exactly. Descriptions or depictions of BDSM bondage, discipline, dominance, and submission. I assault, sadomasochistic abuse, etc. I want to say that this element of, and I think I mentioned it as I was like going through the scores, there's a of different terms there where they're saying explicit whatever, inexplicit whatever. And the way that those things are defined, because they're very helpful, they're putting this together for us too, for explicit sexuality or gender ideology, it's descriptive references to one sexuality or gender identity. Okay, fine. That's clear. They give us an example. Jake thinks he is bisexual because he gets equally as excited by thoughts of having sex with Jane as with John. Or John takes hormones to transition his body to a female. Male. So they would consider that explicit sexuality, gender ideology, and then that would feed into how the book is rated on that zero to five scale. Inexplicit sexuality. Nondescript references to one's sexual identity. For example, Jake and Bob are gay and married to each other. Or John was born a boy

0:45:04 Thomas: Again the big bad wolf I mean the three little pigs is out like for so many reasons yeah that we fifth graders readers love slow down

0:46:27 Lydia: But feels like a girl. By books position, a reason that a book may not be appropriate for a a is just that sentence jake and bob are gay and married to each other it's not explicit like it's it's know nothing no one's getting hurt it's just that there's a gay married couple mentioned in a sentence that's the other thing How granular are we getting here? We talked about how granular it would be for the consequences, the downstream impacts of this. It just could be one, literally one campus, one librarian left one book at one campus in that school district. And now that turns into an entire letter grade. Is it just the single sentence here that then makes this book, quote, inappropriate for kids? We go back to the list and go to page 15 and there's something in the middle I wonder if it'll jump out at you

0:46:50 Thomas: The lord oh have to know books uh let's see um

0:47:28 Lydia: Well there's a very very very famous go a little bit down a little down a lot of a dumb

0:47:29 Thomas: My heart is a chainsaw my friend dommer uh -huh uh -uh nate and the great and the sticky case oh what's sticky about it what I want to know nevertheless we persisted oh yeah uh the new girl let's see nick and charlie nick and night night 19 months not what

0:47:51 Lydia: Said it you said a very famous holocaust memoir by they are saying Knight scores a three on this. And so this is youth restricted for their own rating. If you are under 18, your parent has to agree that you are allowed to check this book out. Was something that when people noticed that night was on this list they were like oh my god okay spread you know across the media and stuff that they're like this is filthy dirty pornographic uh the thought is is well it depicts violence I know

0:47:54 Thomas: I night ellie elie wiesel yeah well that thing's hot as fuck the holocaust was yeah there's a little bit of violence in that it's

0:48:35 Lydia: Yeah so dan patrick was asked about this and uh basically kind of doubled down a bit um he says you know well night it's a it's all spelled out he says in senate bill 13 13 um go read the bill that is now law but it doesn't because senate bill 13 is sexual obscenity indecency profanity night doesn't meet any of those things then he kind of triples down and he's like well if night were made into a movie it would likely be rated r okay and then bonnie wallace is asked about this do you stand by the rating of a three for night and she says says, do I stand behind my three? I do because of the flagrant anti-Semitism that's in the country today. That makes no sense. That means absolutely no sense, though one that they like to reference like the passage in the book is that, you know, there's graphic violence, the machine gunning of babies is what he says. But if you really, really cared about rising anti-Semitism, then I think think it's important that we sit with like what actually happened like a literal memoir

0:49:43 Thomas: Can't

0:49:43 Lydia: Yeah

0:49:43 Thomas: Put that in a category of any of this like it's just do question you can ask is are you banning people from learning about the holocast or not that's the only relevant question if you put it into like oh well but is there sex x it's like that's not that's nothing like what are you talking about yeah

0:50:00 Lydia: -uh um started to change their tune when jewish press outlets started reporting on this because they were obviously pissed they were like excuse me you're gonna ban this book um they patrick said that you know it's really important that texas students learn about about the holocaust including from this book um and that and that local communities will get to decide you know how they go about doing that the other interesting thing too is that dan patrick will say you know based off of this list um could you know if it were made into a movie be rated r we shouldn't be letting kids read this. But simultaneously, what happened in Texas, just this summer, June 26, 2026, still a Republican -controlled Texas legislature, their state board of education voted to require Knight as assigned reading in the eighth grade. So they don't have a problem with students reading this. That's middle school, right? Right. So effective 2030, all eighth graders are supposed to be reading night. But that's on this list of books that should be banned and pulled off the shelf immediately or school districts are going to start losing letter grades. So you can't do both things. Right. You can't

0:50:18 Thomas: Matter how smutty it is oh

0:51:11 Lydia: Meet both.

0:51:12 Thomas: They can oh yes they can yeah

0:51:13 Lydia: They haven't taken it off the list. It's still on the list is, you know, like this is a book that should Be banned.

0:51:19 Thomas: You can if you don't care about anything facts hypocrisy logic

0:51:25 Lydia: Crazy I I could not believe that I like yeah I've like poked around this list and stuff to like see what else is on here night has obviously gotten a lot of attention um it's you know just very clearly well we know how this list was created it was just created either through ai part of it it's noted noted on the list specifically when books were added because of AI and parent volunteers. There is something that bothers a person, potentially a single person in a different state who has their own, you know, misgivings and stuff. They might not even be parents. We don't even know. We don'T even know who these people are, right?

0:52:07 Lydia: They are adding books to the list that then Dan Patrick, who has real legislative power, is saying this is the list. OK, why is that the list? Well, because SB 13, we're supposed to be taking everything profane off the shelves. Well, SB 13 specifically outlined how books would be identified as being problematic. Why are you not allowing that process to take place? It's just it's ridiculous what's happening in Texas. And could get worse. It really, really, really could get get worse and so I wanted to make sure that we spent time talking about that today

0:52:06 Thomas: Yeah

0:52:45 Lydia: I don't even think we got to hear from the I promised the podcast we didn't get to the podcast maybe we'll go out with a little clip from them let

0:52:54 Thomas: You gotta give me my fix I can't lieutenant diane oh wow he stole that yeah

0:52:56 Lydia: I gotta I gotta one

0:53:02 Clip: And what is their answer? They never have an answer. They usually dragged me out or cut my mic or I want to come back to that I have another book here do animals fall in love now this looks like a book that and this is for three to six year olds or four to seven year old three to seven this would if you walk by the library you wouldn't think much of it by the cover but when you look at the content and it go rated books org you can put in that title do Do animals fall in love? And then I've never seen three deer making love at the same time. It doesn't

0:53:05 Thomas: I bet they never have an answer yeah mm -hmm and but fucking in it if

0:53:39 Clip: Happen in nature because I will tell you why. Nature is just built on the laws of nature. But only the human mind is perverted.

0:53:39 Thomas: To max what what what the fuck

0:53:41 Lydia: Doesn't happen in nature.

0:53:48 Clip: And that's what they're trying to do to our children. They're trying normalize group sex and showing that animals do it. There's also a lion, two lion there with a pride flag and the penis sizes of 80 different animals. So parents,

0:53:48 Thomas: Are you talking she's Christ yeah I better they do it's a pride of lions yeah that's yeah animals don't have penis sizes they're unmeasurable I

0:54:09 Lydia: I know. I know it's it's it's all illustrations, right? It's not just that that happens in the book. I actually watched a sex educator talk about this book. And she was like, super excited about it. Because she was like, what's beautiful about it is, you there's illustrations of different vulvas across the animal kingdom and different penises across the animal Kingdom. And honestly, like it probably might help you feel like if you feel your body's a little different or something like, like potentially less embarrassed or

0:54:34 Thomas: Don't know yeah he'll be like oh I look like the monkey that's great yeah

0:54:37 Lydia: Like the you know ducks have corkscrew penises and you know

0:54:40 Thomas: If you have a corkscrew penis this will make you feel way better we're

0:54:45 Lydia: Yeah but it's it talks about how mating happens like the different rituals that other animals participate in it's not just like cartoon pictures of animals having sex and it's also not really like graphic like you looking at pictures from it right now and it looks exactly how you see it in zoos how you see it like you know when dogs hump something like that's exactly what it looks like it's just an animal approaching another animal from behind

0:55:12 Thomas: An animal loves an animal very much oh that's so funny god there's three deer it doesn't happen in nature okay the most insane people in charge of what your kid is reading yeah she's nuts of

0:55:19 Lydia: Yeah yeah and it's crazy and yeah I is absolutely insane. More evidence in this as well. Let me get us one more little clip before we go out.

0:55:38 Clip: All hands are needed on death. This is a spiritual battle for the minds of our children. What are we going to do about it? Nothing or something? Something. And when you talk about a spiritual battle, I said in my convention speech a few weeks ago, and this podcast is up forever, so it may be a few years ago when someone watches it or next year, but when I spoke at the most recent convention, I Said this is we are no longer in a battle of Republicans and Democrats. We've long passed that. Yes, sir. It's a battle of darkness and light. Correct. And there's, you know, just lay it out on the table. There are people in this country who hate God, who, as you said earlier, they want to break up the family. They want to change the structure. They're often funded and promoted and supported by leftist, communist, socialist, Marxist organizations.

0:56:01 Thomas: Man I can't stand him wait what what ah that's the part I never get yeah

0:56:30 Clip: And people say, well, no, they don't really. Folks, if you haven't looked around what's going on around you that's visible, what's invisible is what is even more dangerous. And they're so sure of themselves that they can put these books in and think that we won't stand up and fight. And so you've got an America today, and you can almost see it by the numbers, about half want to kick God out and the other half want to pray to God. And that's what our Religious Liberty Commission was about, that the president appointed me the chair of. And someone said, well, Dan, you know, typical Republican, you're bringing in, typical conservative, you're bringing religion into politics. Let me tell you something. Thing.

0:57:12 Clip: We as elected officials and voters or Republicans, and there are many conservative Bible -believing Democrats who would join us on this and not want it either, but we don't have to check our faith at the door when we walk into the Capitol. And secondly, in this particular Senate race with Ken Paxton, James Salarico, James Alarico is the one who is bringing God and the the bible into the argument that's right he's he's posing himself as the moderate pastor and and I've said many times I don't know what book he's reading uh it's not a bible I've ever seen he's twisted

0:57:24 Lydia: He needs an editor.

0:57:30 Thomas: I mean you should you should though what oh

0:57:55 Clip: The words of god and you know the one sin that the bible says god will not forgive is mocking god at

0:57:57 Lydia: There we go.

0:57:55 Thomas: It's because the actual one it's three deers fucking people are insane man

0:58:04 Lydia: Yeah, all lots of amens like throughout the podcast. He would say something should be like, Amen.

0:58:12 Thomas: It's these people's jobs is so easy we have such a harder job you know we could just say the dumbest shit mm-hmm amen yeah mm

0:58:16 Lydia: I know. And then zero editing on the back end. So and then you just push it out to the world and then and then it goes viral. And dann you get to have press conferences about this is obviously what the people want, because I've never had so many views on my podcast before. Cool, Dan.

0:58:33 Thomas: That's what I want my government officials to be doing like and subscribe if you'd like this fucking policy

0:58:38 Lydia: Poor Texas. Mm hmm. Well, it's not law yet. But yeah, keep an eye out for how this might make its way through Texas. And we might need to be pulling together to see what we can do to stop it from happening.

0:58:51 Thomas: Well these people are the worst amen to that sister the fucking lieutenant governors are getting you to listen to their fucking podcasts god