Message To Governor: Open Texas Up! With Judge Mark Keough
Fresh off a viral video on Facebook, Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough joins today's Liberty Report with a clear message to Texas political leaders from local mayors all the way to the Governor's office: the measures taken to fight coronavirus in Texas have not made one bit of difference. Masks or no masks, lockdowns or no lockdowns, the survival rate for those infected with the coronavirus is more than 99 percent. It is time to open Texas up completely. 100 percent! Also, Judge Keough explains why Governor Abbott's "mask mandate" is no such thing.
Here's a link to the Judge's original video: https://www.facebook.com/countyjudgekeough/videos/359148498789388/
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host, Daniel.
Good to see you.
How are you this morning, Dr. Paul?
Doing well.
We have a special guest today.
We don't have to work as hard.
We make our guests work real hard.
And we have a very interesting guest.
And guess what?
He agrees with us on a lot of stuff, you know.
Matter of fact, it's a judge from County Judge from Montgomery County.
Montgomery County is north of Houston.
It's practically a neighbor here.
And I heard him give a little talk on a video.
I was really impressed with his energy and his positions, of course.
And top of his interest right now is what's going on with lockdown.
He's had some experience.
He's been in the state legislature twice, two terms, and now he's been the judge since the beginning of last year.
And I think that his position on this is just great.
So, Mark, I want to welcome you to the program.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Paul.
It's so great to be here.
And what a privilege it is to talk to your audience today.
Wonderful.
And I might let the audience know also that he's been in business for 20 years or so.
And then he got out of that.
And then he served two terms in the state legislature.
And also he's a minister and he has the key old ministries that he's still very much involved in.
So he has a very unique and interesting background.
But Mark, I want to start off with sort of a general question because it comes up all the time and there's a little bit of confusion.
And I wouldn't claim I know all the answers to this.
And that is there's always this assumption of authority.
People are being told what to do and when to do and how to do it.
They don't seem to ask enough questions, but we try to ask the question and the people in our viewership, they're concerned about where does this come from?
Is there a law?
The government didn't sign this.
So I want to know in general, how does this come about?
Is there any authority or does it vary?
Are any of these executive orders legal?
As far as I'm concerned, they're all immoral.
And so tell us a little bit how you see this authority being accepted so readily.
Well, you know, the state legislatures and the state legislature of Texas has granted to the governor broad authority as it relates to emergency situations.
Now, understand that that authority has to do with the ability of resources for ingress and egress.
It is able to put a cap on occupancy, but it expands to a number of different areas that in the event of an emergency, somebody has to make quick decisions.
And to have to go to a board or a legislative board or whatever can be very painful when the waters are rising, the houses are falling, trees are blowing, and you got to have an emergency order and you've got to have it right now.
So the Texas legislature has taken that into account.
Now, does that give a person in authority the ability to steal a person's constitutional rights that we would say are granted to us by God as opposed by government?
Our ability to have life, liberty, and to pursue happiness.
And which really that happiness is to pursue an environment that is conducive to the growth of myself, my family, my home, and the things that are important to me.
And so there's some question about that and how far we have gone in some of these things, especially as it relates to what we wear, when we can go places, when not, what are the conditions of, you know, that sort of thing.
So the governor does have broad ability.
He does pass that down periodically to county judges.
And the county judges in the counties of Texas is a chief administrating officer.
And especially in the larger counties where there are 220,000 people or more, ours is about 617 to 620.
So my job is primarily administrative in charge of Homeland Security, emergency management, that sort of thing, overseeing the budget, but it's not judicial in nature.
But anyway, yes, he does have broad latitude in a number of areas.
So that's kind of how we've got there.
And it was, it wasn't intended at the time of a pandemic, but obviously it's worked into that.
But, you know, for a lot of us and a lot of our viewers, we've come to the conclusion that, especially in some cities, you know, you take New York and these different places in Detroit and Minneapolis, they've really overstepped their bounds.
And it can't possibly be that it was inferred by the legislative bodies and that people signed this into law to have so much power.
But then again, you indicate how they get some of this, but it seems to many of us that some of these people at city level, county levels, and all sort of enjoy throwing their weight around.
And all of a sudden, I think there's an epidemic of executive orders, which, if they're maybe technically, they have some authority there that you already mentioned.
And philosophically, it really isn't friendly toward our constitutional rights.
Well, no, that's true.
And I think there are those.
I think you can see it, especially nationally, as you look at some of these cities that are under lockdown.
And these mayors of these cities have just become adamant in making unbelievable threats of jailing and the rest and fining exorbitant fines for people that refuse to wear a mask.
And yet they will openly allow groups to congregate in the name of First Amendment rights for protest.
And I'm all in favor of protesting according to your First Amendment rights.
But you know what?
Political speech is a First Amendment right, too.
And as we think about that, us to be able to say the things that you and I are saying and to challenge these governors and these mayors, it must be done.
I mean, if we don't do it, who's going to do it?
The average person is not going to step up and do it.
And from a constitutional perspective, as a representative of the people in a Republican representative form of government, I represent the people of Montgomery County.
And whether or not I get sideways with people in charge is a non-issue to me.
Now, obviously, it's easier to work with people and get along, and you can catch more flies with honey than you can with salt.
You and I both know this.
But the fact of the matter is that someone must stand up and someone speak because in these cities, there is a power grab that is going on that is like amazing.
Where a mayor thinks that they can sacrifice the safety of the people, for instance, of the city of Austin, by defunding the police department.
Are you kidding me?
Where did she get that authority?
Or he get that authority?
Or who's ever in charge?
She.
But where do they get that authority from?
Forcing the governor to say he's going to pass legislation that's going to have the state police take over over there, which that in itself.
Why should the taxpayers of Montgomery County and other places have to pay for state police to go govern a city that's being mismanaged by its leadership?
Yes, what's it like working in your county as the judge?
I imagine there's a few people there that disagree with you, but how does it work out?
If I walked in and didn't know anything about your county or anything and I just looked around to find out how are they handling it here, would I immediately know, oh, same old stuff to county, same thing?
It looks like I could be arrested if I don't do this.
How has it been sorted out?
Is there a debate going on in your county on what to do to handle?
Really, there's in our county, Dr. Paul, Rhonda, there really is not a debate going on in our county.
Now, there has been some debate about what is enforceable, what is not enforceable, and with our district attorney of how we're going to do this.
But overall, the people are in pretty much lockstep.
We are an extremely conservative county.
If you figure we've got anywhere from 70 to 75 percent registered Republican voters, so but again, there's that as people move in from other areas of the country, we're a high growth area, things will continue to change.
But until that point, man, we hold our ground and we're pretty much in lock sync together.
And I will tell you, in our county government, that our sheriff is on board with all of what we are doing.
Our attorneys, our county attorney, our district attorney, just to our clerks and our budget and our purchasing and Homeland Security emergency management.
Matter of fact, my chief of staff, which I'm so glad that I did, Jason is also my, is really in a co-directorship of our Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
So all of this stuff comes right to my office, so I'm not caught off guard and I see it.
We're on the same page.
As a matter of fact, because of a position that I took on the issue of masks ago, we were getting so many telephone calls because the county judge of Harris County, which is where I will, it's not that we're in conflict with them, but boy, there is a fundamental disagreement, Dr. Paul, in ideology and philosophy and in our political views.
We are at a total different page than most of Harris County.
And that's their government.
And but that being said, we make an effort anywhere we can, especially as roads and that sort of thing to work together.
But Montgomery County is on its game, and I'm very excited to be here.
People are moving here, coming here.
I hear all the time, man, I wish I lived in Montgomery County.
I'll be honest with you.
I would wish that too.
Mark, Daniel has a question for you.
I was just going to say, we've talked a lot about Judge Hidalgo on this show over the past few months.
You can believe that.
You know, Judge, Governor Abbott hinted toward the end of last week that he might make some announcement this week.
And we were hoping for something positive, especially when you look at some of the great work done by people like Alex Rodriguez on Twitter.
He's tracking the day-on-day deaths in Texas.
And he just put up the September 8th information.
People Are Moving Here00:03:48
He said day of death fatalities at 61%.
That's down 57.9% week on week from earlier in August.
You're seeing a very steep curve in decline of death.
Yet, when Governor Abbott took the microphone, all he announced was he's going to yet again extend the state of emergency.
Now, when you gave your great talk on Facebook, and we will link to it in our description, you sent a very strong message to the governor.
It was very loud and it was very clear.
Do you want to amplify that, and are you disappointed in the lack of announcement this week?
Well, you know, it's hard to say what the governor is going to do because he's not going to telegraph that to you.
If he doesn't come flat out and say it, he's not going to hint to it.
He either says it or he doesn't.
That's my experience with Governor Abbott.
So I'm not sure what's coming down the road.
I was expecting something Tuesday, Wednesday, but still have not heard anything today, yesterday, or whatever.
But you know, as it relates to the issue of deaths and as it relates to the issue of the mortality rate, you know, I too have been watching that.
And one of the major thrusts of the video that I put out was it doesn't make any difference what we do.
Yes.
If people have it in any number, the survival rate, the recovery rate is the same.
Let me give you an example.
I came out in, let's see, it was April 17th of this year, and I canceled my order that I had come out with on March 27th.
Understand, at the end of March, I was listening to my health district.
They were telling me we were going to have 100,000 cases of COVID at the end of April.
We also talked, I met with one group that threw the number around a possible 20% loss of life if we didn't move quickly.
So I'm looking at all this stuff and I go, okay.
And so the president comes out with his mandate, then the governor, well, of course, I came out with an actual stay-at-home order, but within just that day almost, the governor came out with his.
So we have these orders in place, and I began to watch.
And the things that I watched first were what are the active cases, and of those active cases, how many are in the hospital and how many have been sent to the house.
Well, it came out to be about 10% to the hospital and 10% to the house.
It's dropped in the hospital since.
For instance, today you have over 14, as of yesterday's numbers, you have over 1,400 people who have been diagnosed with the COVID-19.
And they have tested and they're tested positive.
Would you believe me if I told you that the amount of people from Montgomery County in the hospital is 22?
So you've got 22 people in the hospital.
You've got 1,400 plus people total.
So what does that mean about where's everybody else?
They've gone to the house.
How sick are they?
Now, they can be miserable.
They can be sick.
They could have gone home with oxygen machines.
I get all that stuff.
But they're not ready to die.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be sent home.
And then you look at the rate of death.
And it hasn't changed.
When I came out with my order at the end of, or when I closed my order back in April, on April 17th, I went back and I looked at the death rate.
And it was basically 1%.
The recovery was 99%, give or take, three-tenths margin of error either way.
99% Recovery Rate00:12:39
And do you know what it was today?
It was 98.7, right at 99%.
Again, whether we open, whether we close, whether we partially open, whether we wear masks, whether we don't wear masks, if you have it, you've been tested positive, there's a 99% chance of recovery.
So the one shutting everything down and keeping it shut down.
Right.
Mark, when you did your little video, you talked a lot about the downside, the difficulties people have and the economic conditions.
And you were very clear, you know, that it's lockdown.
It was totally unnecessary.
Have you seen the conditions in your county?
Have you been able to escape it?
Can you compare your county to some other counties?
Sure.
You know, one of the issues that we forget about is that in the most modern version of the Hippocratic Oath, part of the doctor's responsibility is to make sure that it's not just the patients, but those people associated with the patients, as well as, I mean, there's about nine points in there that include the community, family members, and all the rest.
And it's like we've forgotten about all that.
And one of the main principles in the Hippocratic Oath, Doctor, you know this, is that you listen to other professionals in your field, and they listen to you as part of your pledge.
Well, what about the psychological community?
Because I'm going to tell you right now, the psychological community, the amount of depression, the amount of despair, the amount of suicide, which includes attempted suicide, all of these things are up.
Divorces are up.
Conflict in families is up.
Child abuse, verbally, emotionally, physically, is up.
My goodness.
And then we send a child to school and we make them wear a mask and 104 degrees.
The kid's six years old, like I mentioned in my video, and then is sent home because he threw up and they can't come back to school until he tests negative for COVID.
Are you kidding me?
I mean, what has happened to the concept of the whole community as opposed to just putting the medical community in charge to become the policymakers?
And then we listen to elected officials in a representative government hide behind the medical people.
I can't tell you how many times Governor Abbott has come up and says, I've listened to the very best physicians, the very best epidemiologists, professionals in our field.
And I can appreciate that.
And we all love our doctors.
I do, my dentist, all these guys.
We love them all.
But you know what?
They're not elected by the people.
The governor of Texas is elected by the people.
And governor needs to stop hiding behind this stuff and needs to step up and look at what is best for the people.
And you cannot tell me that an economic failing community is a healthy community.
You cannot have emotional health in any community without economic ability to sustain it.
How in the world can a single mom who loses her job, doesn't have the money to put gas in her car, has got two kids at the house, how is that healthy and can't get them to school and can't get them food?
This is what we're dealing with.
It's actually happened all over the country, the state of Texas.
Now, if we had a 50% rate, people were dying in the street, we'd have a little bit different conversation.
If you do have a 99% recovery rate, and if that's the case, then we need to move on, Governor Abbott.
We need to open up Texas now.
Right now.
We can't afford to wait any longer.
And we still haven't heard this week, and we thought we were going to hear something.
So maybe you could come out with something this afternoon or even the rest of this week.
I hope so.
We'll cross our fingers.
That's a positive.
The other point, Judge, is that doctors are not God.
They do make mistakes.
Sometimes they have to revise.
Through history, you have dialogue, you have differing opinions.
This idea that there's one doctor that you listen to and he is almighty and knows everything, it's just not the case.
But you know, it's interesting.
I mentioned Alex Rodriguez before.
Does a lot of work on Texas on Twitter.
It's a good account to follow.
He just put up a chart of southern states, and this is seven-day positive cases for COVID.
And it's Texas plus four other southern states.
Those states did not close back down in June, and Texas did close its bars back down in June.
And actually, the states that did not close down have a steeper downward curve than Texas, which sort of wavers and then goes down.
So that really amplifies your point, which is there really has been no difference.
Nothing has been gained by shutting down bars and casinos and masks.
The other thing that's so interesting, I'm sure you've noticed this, is the seemingly arbitrariness of the whole thing.
You can have 25% capacity.
Well, why not 26?
Why not only 24?
You put your mask on when you walk in the door of a restaurant.
If your table happens to be three feet away, you sit down and take it off.
And somehow the virus is not going to get you once you sit down and take it off.
It's very depressing to see people accept these things that are just absolutely illogical as somehow being making sense.
I mean, I'm sure you feel the same frustration.
We deal with this all the time.
I mean, non-stop.
And in some of these places, you know, you know what, really, the bottom line to that is this.
In the governor's order, he has said, if you don't wear a mask, you'll get a warning first.
You're caught a second time, you get a $250 fine.
Now, this is in the same paragraphs that he said that somebody cannot be arrested or detained for violation of these orders.
And my question to the governor is: well, if that's the case, then how in the world are we going to give a warning or a fine?
Your order is unenforceable.
And, governor, you know it.
You have represented the state of Texas legally before the Supreme Court of the United States.
And you're telling me you made that kind of a mistake unintentionally?
I don't think so.
You're playing both sides of the fence.
That's a good point.
And also, if you read the fine print of the order itself, he only mandates a mask when social distancing is not possible.
But people have misinterpreted that as being a mask mandate.
If you read it carefully, it's not a mandate at all.
Let me tell you why that is.
That's because the governor says one thing on the television, and he communicates one thing verbally.
If anybody isn't going and checking his orders and reading the documents, man, you're going to see the difference.
You know, in legalese, if you say should, people should do something, that is different than shall or may.
When I was writing bills, the difference between shall and may were huge.
All he throws in should.
The average guy reads that as we have to do this.
No, it doesn't say that at all.
And we argued about that as it relates to opening and closing of hair salons.
But the way these orders are written are not clear.
Now, there's some things, obviously, that are.
But you know what has taken place, and it's pretty amazing, is that since it can't be enforced, and most law enforcement agencies in Texas are not enforcing this because it's not enforceable.
You can't arrest or detain.
You can't give a fine and you can't write a ticket.
So who's doing the work for you?
The business owners.
Yeah.
The business community, the entrepreneurs, determining who can come in and who can't come in based upon masks.
Now, I think they have the right to do that if they want to do that.
But please, I can't, don't show me another sign that this is mandated by the state.
That's ridiculous.
It's not mandated by the state.
So, from that perspective, you know, the governor has taken advantage of a difficult situation, and the business owners are the ones who are really paying the price.
You know, when you're going to win, telling you to and not to.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
A lot of people we talk to, and I'm sure you've come across them, are very frustrated about this whole thing about what to do, and they feel so helpless.
One of the things that makes people feel helpless is the discomfort they have, even if they have the technical thing on their side.
They're not mandating that I don't wear this mask, but you know, do you want to stand out and people stare at you and all this?
So, there's this political pressure that is just horrendous.
What has been your advice for the frustrated people on how do they act out correctly and get the attention?
Do they demonstrate?
You know, there were some homeschoolers down here in this county that this is a couple months ago when I guess the first run go around, they were comfortable by saying, you don't have any moral right to do what we're doing.
And they went to the park and they stood up to them very politely, and they went through a process and actually made a very good point about it.
Do you give advice for people to do that?
And how far can you go?
And what is the best way to get their attention to get your message out?
Governor, open up Texas.
I think that the message that we're conveying just needs to keep going out.
You know, you asked me the other day as we talked to Dr. Paul about the response on Facebook and whatnot.
You know, we've had, up to date since that time, we've had over, we've reached over almost a million people.
And that does not include the news agencies that pick us up, put us on their Facebook, and it goes out from there.
We don't have any idea.
The shares and the likes, I mean, it's unbelievable.
So the response is there.
I also know that people are calling the governor's office, a local grassroots organization.
One of the people in charge there put a note out to do that, to call the governor's office, and there's nobody there answering.
There's nobody picking up, and it's impossible to get through.
But messages like what I did, I do believe will have an impact.
And here in Montgomery County, let me tell you what I did as it related to the masks.
Harris County, Judge Hidalgo called me on the phone, told me ahead of time that she was going to come out with a mask order.
And I said, Judge, why do you want to do that?
And to her defense, she has a heart for people.
And she said, look, I just want to open business up as soon as I can.
And we've got to stop the spread.
I said, Judge, here's the problem.
I says, you can't enforce a mask law for Harris County, a county of third largest county in the country, 4.5 million people.
Judge, how are you going to enforce that?
I said, well, she said, well, you know, I don't know, but I just have to do it.
Okay.
The next day she did it.
We got so many calls here.
People are asking us, is Montgomery County under a mask ordinance?
I had to cut a video.
If you go back and look on my Facebook, it'll tell you what I have to say about the masks.
And Dr. Paul, we have looked into it.
Our county attorneys have looked into it, and I've checked it.
I checked this stuff out before I come out with it.
And our county attorney's office told me that they can't find anything in laws of Texas or the statutes or anything that exists where we as a county, as individuals, as people, whatever, are required in any form or fashion to wear anything on our face by law.
Mark, that's great.
Mark, I think this is a good reason.
We're not required to do this.
We have to close your message right there.
Right.
But we are going to close, but that is a very good point to end on.
It was very clear what you said.
You can't find the statute that said if you don't do that, you deserve 10 days in jail.
So, I want to thank you, Mark, very much for joining us today.
And hopefully, we get a lot of people to watch your program.