Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. And as we do every Tuesday at noon,
here we speak with Andrew Dunn. He is the publisher,
purveyor and writer, owner, founder, et cetera of long Leaf
Politics longleafpol dot com. He's also a contributing columnist at
The Charlotte Observer. Andrew, hope you had a great Christmas, sir.
Speaker 2: I did. I hope you did as well.
Speaker 3: I was sick, I actually know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got whatever that crud flu that's going around that
they had to close down some hospitals over I got
that over the break.
Speaker 3: But other than that, I'm fine. I'm fine. So you
got any plans for New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2: I'm going to bed early. I can't stay up that
late anymore.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say you got kids now, so that
a whole different holiday celebration I think goes on when
you get kids for New Year's But all right, well,
I don't have anything on your your longlea politics website
to talk about or a column at the Observer, but
I did see yesterday afternoon the anticipated audit of the
North Carolina Education Lottery came out from the North Carolina
Office of the State Auditor. It released a financial statement
audit of the lottery and revealed a significant decrease in
net revenue designated for public education, which, like, okay, I
might understand you saw a decline in revenue because of
all of the online you know, gaming and gambling.
Speaker 3: Apps and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: I could see where that might have eaten into the
lottery revenue.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: The overall increase in lottery revenue would seem to undermine that.
So there's a net revenue decline, but an overall revenue increase.
And as I understand it, the amount of money that's
been going to education has decreased in the same time period.
So I'm a bit confused. Have you read through this
audit yet? It's pretty lengthy? Actually, have you have you
had a chance to Oh my gosh, you are a want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. And I just had a column on
the subject published this morning over at the News and
Observer and the Charlotte Observer, so god, I'll have to
go and check it out. But basically, what's going on
here is North Carolina's lottery had a record year six
point six billion dollars in sales. That's out one billion
dollars more than last year. But the actual the percentage
of that going to education hit a record low, and
actually the raw dollar figures going to education actually decreased
even though it brought in a billion more dollars. And
you know, the first thing that I thought was, oh, well,
somebody's on the take here, you know, somebody is getting rich,
you know, at the lottery commission. But that's actually doesn't
seem to be the case. The overhead has more or
less stayed the same. But what's happening here is the
lottery introduced something called digital instance. It's kind of like
a digital scratch off ticket, you know, so there's there's
no scratching, you just press the button and see if
you won. And that has become almost half of the
lottery's revenue now is these these digital instants and they
pay out a higher percentage of prizes, and so that
means there's just less money that goes to education when
when everybody is playing the digital instance.
Speaker 1: Hmm okay, So as a business model, not sure that
was the best move to go with. I mean, I
understand if you're trying to move people from the printed
cards over to a digital product, because you know, theoretically
you'd be lower cost. I would assume, right, because you're
not printing as many of the scratch offs, or maybe
you still are, I don't know, but if you're paying
out a higher percentage and that's leading to a decline
in the revenue, Like, was that unintended? Did they not
understand that that would happen? Is there any indication that
there was any thought paid to that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny that you say you talk about the
business model there, because I mean, this really illustrates what
the lottery's business model really is. I mean, they're just
trying to drive sales and get as many people gambling
as much as possible. I don't think the Lottery Commission
really cares at all how much money is actually going
to education. You know, the lottery Commission is thrilled with this.
I mean they're touting their record sales and kind of
trying to sweep the you know, the less money to
education under the rug. And that's why I'm particularly glad
that State Auditor Dave Bollock was very upfront and pointing
that out. I mean, it's a great business model if
your goal is to just maximize sales and maximize gambling.
You know, there is no commission to the gas stations,
there's no printing cost of the tickets. It's all going
to and it drives a lot more revenue and a
lot more sales. But it's really clear that the lottery
has completely lost its way. If it ever, if you
ever bought the argument that it was about education, this
these numbers really make it clear that that's not what
the lottery is about.
Speaker 1: Now, Andrew, it says it right there in their name,
the North Carolina Education Lottery.
Speaker 3: It says it right there. Education. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think that's ever been the case. But you know, at
the beginning in two thousand and five when it was passed,
the law said that thirty five percent of revenue had
to go to education. But even before the first lottery
tickets were even sold. They changed that. They came back
in two thousand and seven and changed it from a
requirement to a guideline.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a.
Speaker 2: Hard floor, and then they said, to the extent practicable,
make it thirty five percent. And I think it's pretty
clear that that is not even not even a guideline anymore.
That's just completely out the window. I mean, sixteen percent
is just ridiculous. I spent a little time going through
other states and collecting data on what percentage of other
state lottery revenue is going to education or whatever that
they're designating it for, and North Carolina is way at
the bottom of the list. I mean, twenty five percent
seems to be a fairly standard percentage these days. I
mean it's a far cry from thirty five percent, but
I mean, at sixteen percent, it's just an embarrassing. It's
an embarrassment.
Speaker 1: Were you because you used to be a reporter, right, yeah? Yeah,
So were you in North Carolina doing reporter work when
the lottery got passed?
Speaker 2: Well, I was still in high school. I was around,
but didn't have my professional hat on.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm showing my age then, So I remember
when this thing was passed literally in the dead of night,
by a single vote, and it was passed because there
were a couple of Republicans I think one was out
for surgery, one was out of the country. They called
in a special session in order to ram this thing
through under the leadership of the federally indicted Speaker of
the House, Jim Black, And that's how we ended up
getting this lottery passed because the Republicans were against it. Now,
they were not in the majority at the time. The
Democrats control the House, and Mike Easley, the governor at
the time, very much wanted this and it was sold
to everybody as a way to supplement not supplant, not supplant.
They're not going to replace the education funding in the
General Assembly budget. This is just in addition too. That's
the way this whole thing got sold. And now fast
forward what twenty five years or so, and it is, yeah,
like you said, sixteen percent of the revenue going to
public school going to public schools sixteen percent in twenty
twenty five, and that's just been continuously dropping. According to
the story WSOCTV based on this audit twenty twenty four,
it was at twenty percent. The year before that, in
twenty twenty three, it was at twenty three percent.
Speaker 3: So it just keeps.
Speaker 1: Going down, and it is exactly as the critics predicted
that it would play out. This is what we said
was going to happen. But they said they had to
do it, not just for the children, but also because
all of the other states around us we we're doing lotteries,
and so we had to do it in order to
keep those dollars in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: So does that argument still hold up?
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, But to me, it's really a
matter of you know, what are we trying to do here?
You know, if we go to the original premise that
we wanted to supplement education funding, then we should be
optimizing the lottery to maximize education funding, and that's clearly
not where we're at today. You know, for the first
time in about ten years, the amount of money going
to education decreased. We haven't seen a decrease in raw
dollars going to education since twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, So clearly,
you know, the people in charge of the lottery business
are not optimizing for money going to education. And you
know that you mentioned the vote in the Senate. I mean,
that's one of my favorite stories in North Carolina political history.
It was it didn't have the votes to pass. You know,
one Republican was in the hospital, one Republican was on
his honeymoon, and so they ended up getting it to
a deadlock in then Lieutenant Governor Bev Purdue cast a
tie breaking vote to get this into law, and then
Mike easily swiftly signed it. So, I mean, this is
the lottery itself is a democratic problem. But I don't
want to let Republicans off the hook completely here, because
you know, North Carolina has been leaning a lot further
into gambling in the last few years under Republican legislative leadership.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Also, I was astounded to learn in this story that
this is the first comprehensive performance audit of the lottery
since two thousand and eight, which seems, I don't know,
not optimal.
Speaker 3: It seems like, no, it's not optimal.
Speaker 2: And the Lottery they do have external audits that do
the financial statements and you can read them online, but
this is the first time that somebody outside of the
Lottery Commission has really been taking a look at the
numbers and I think it's clear. You know, I was
going back to see, you know last time that money
to education actually dropped with twenty sixteen twenty seventeen. I mean,
there was no news coverage of that whatsoever. It just
was completely swept under the rug. And so I think
that's one of the benefits of having Dave Bollock take
a look at this and put out a press release
and make sure people see what's going on, because if
you leave the Lottery Commission to their own devices, they're
going to just brush all that aside.
Speaker 1: And try to get as you said, try to get
more people gambling, because that's their mission is to get.
Speaker 3: People in back gaping. Yeah, Andrew, thank you, sir. I
appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: As always, Folks can look them up at long leafpol
dot com. Subscribe to the substack newsletter there, and you
can read his work in the Charlotte Observer in the
Raleigh News and Observer as well.
Speaker 3: Andrew, thanks so much. Be new year to you, Thank you,
Take care.
Speaker 1: All right, Holiday football has arrived right with Draft Kings
sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL, the
Unexpected can turn game day into payday and don't forget
Draft Kings as you're back with early exit. Pretty neat
function here. If your player goes down in the first half,
you still get paid in cash. Download the Draft Kings
sportsbook app and use the code PETE. That's code pete.
New customers can bet five bucks and get two hundred
dollars in bonus bets if your bet wins instantly. In
partnership with Draft Kings, the Crown is yours. Gambling problem
call one eight hundred gambler In New York call eight
seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and
why to four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut,
help is available for problem gambling.
Speaker 3: Call eight eight.
Speaker 1: Eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit
CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill,
casino and resort Kansas. Pass through of per wager tax
may apply in Illinois twenty one plus age and eligibility
varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bet must
win to receive bonus bets, which expire in seven days.
Minimum mods required. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources,
see DKNG dot co. Slash audio limited time offer from
the text line bill says, the North Carolina education lotteries,
digital instant games equal poker machines. That's a pretty good analogy.
I'm old enough to remember when video poker was a
massive problem in York County, because I believe North Carolina
had them banned, and then they opened up a whole
bunch of these video poker parlors all along the border
in South Carolina. And at the time I was, I
guess at that point, I had just graduated out of
Winthrop University and was, you know, working various jobs and
then and so, like I worked at a bar.
Speaker 3: It is no longer open.
Speaker 1: I believe it used to be called the Silver Dollar Saloon.
I mean we booked bands, we had uh, you know,
pool tables, and we had a couple of video poker machines,
and I watched a lot of people throw a lot
of money into the video poker and then you know,
they were at all of the gas stations, and then
you would have these little shops that opened up and
they just would be packed with video poker machines, and
then they started getting robbed at, like people storming the
doors with long guns and such, and you know, holding
people hostage, emptying out the safes and stuff, taking all
the money. It became a real problem, and South Carolina
eventually banned the video poker. Except if you are like
the Catawba Indian nation, they had their bingo hall and
they were trying to get video poker and stuff. There
is like down on the PD River they put a
bunch of poker machines on like a on a riverboat
that never moved off the dock, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But this was a this was a really big.
Speaker 1: Problem for many years, and they finally got video poker
outlawed in uh, in South Carolina. So that's what this does.
It does kind of sound like that this digital instant
poker machine or a digital instant.
Speaker 3: Game, I should say. And then uh.
Speaker 1: D Stewart says, uh, don't forget that the winnings are
then taxed again by the state.
Speaker 3: What that amount is?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, no, that's a that's a good point too, right.
Speaker 3: So the money that.
Speaker 1: You win off of the lottery supposed to go for
you know, the the proceeds supposed to go to education,
but that number has declined even though they pulled in
record revenue.
Speaker 3: The number the the the money that they.
Speaker 1: Transfer over for education dropped, and as Andrew dungeas said,
the last time that happened was almost ten years ago.
And then after you win, if you win, then the
state takes a cut of those winnings as well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's a that's a problem, I think now.
Speaker 1: According to the WSOC report, North Carolina Education Lottery officials
said that it and others in the US experienced a
decrease in revenue in fiscal year twenty five from the
Powerball and Mega Millions multi.
Speaker 3: State draw games.
Speaker 1: And when I was reading through some of the audit report,
it chrucked that up to the fact that they're weren't
as many you know, billion dollar jackpots in twenty twenty
five for these two games, these you know, interstate national games.
Speaker 3: And so when you.
Speaker 1: Don't have the massive, uh you know, potential to win
a billion dollars or whatever it is, uh, then you
get fewer players Like I myself, I don't ever buy
a lottery ticket, you know, unless it's worthwhile with you know,
a billion dollars, I mean, because who would want to
win half a billion? Like, what's the point, you know,
why would I even bother? And well, here's the other
thing too, Like I don't even go into the because
you like, you have to pay for the lottery tickets.
I think you have to pay with cash or with
a debit card. Right, you can't use a credit card
because you could see how that would be problematic for
people who have a gambling addiction, right they would they
would get credit cards and just max out the credit
cards on all of the gambling. Right, So you got
to use cash, and I don't ever carry cash. Just
a heads up to all of you would be muggers
out there. Okay, I don't carry cash, and I don't
ever really go into the convenience stores, the gas stations,
you know.
Speaker 3: I pay at the pump and all of that.
Speaker 1: After I you know, grab the the scanner, you know,
and I shake the thing around to make sure that
no one's scamming me. So be aware of that scammers.
Like I checked to make sure that no one's stealing
my card at.
Speaker 3: The at the pump.
Speaker 1: So I don't ever really go in. So I did
years ago. I went over and I set up online
on their website, and so you can go in there
and like buy these these tickets for you know, the
billion dollar jackpots, I never hear anybody winning off of
the online buys. You know, you always hear like somebody
pulled over at a gas station and they won this
big lottery, you know, winning whatever. You never hear, Oh yeah,
somebody bought their ticket online. Does anybody win online? I'm
not saying they don't. Maybe maybe we get an audit
of that. How about that? I'd like to hear an
audit of that. You know, stories are powerful. They help
us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect
us to the people of our past while transcending generations.
They help us process the meaning of life, and our
stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories
with Creative Video. Started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill,
North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this
valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality
produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and
dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of
the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be
ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your
loved ones, videos for rehearsal dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays,
or just your family stories all told through images. That's
what your photos and videos are. They are your life
told through the eyes of everyone around you and all
who came before you, and they will tell others to
come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. You've
heard of the the Seinfeld holiday Festivus, right and the
airing of grievances and right, well for the kids, you
probably haven't seen the episode, but that's where it comes from.
Speaker 3: This idea of Festivus, this made up holiday that was.
Speaker 1: It George's dad, one of the characters, George Costanza.
Speaker 3: Or Art Van Delay, depending on the need.
Speaker 1: But George Costanza's dad created this Christmas holiday called Festivus
and created all these different you know things around it,
and one of them was the traditional airing of grievances.
And Senator Ran Paul has been using this Festivus airing
of grievances for years and every year he puts out
a report his annual Festivus tradition of wasteful federal spending.
Every year he puts out this report and he highlights
some of the most egregious you know grants and funding
programs and services and such that are in the federal budget.
So this year his report totals one point six trillion dollars.
One point six trillion. Now one point two trillion of
that is interest payments on the national debt. That's what
we're paying for, just the interest on the debt that
we have accumulated, he said. Last Festivus, we clamored over
the national debt, reaching over an astronomical thirty six trillion dollars,
which I'm kind of surprised the debt is thirty six trillion,
or was thirty six trillion, and one point two trillion
is the interest I thought it be more. We're getting
a good rate. But in one short year, the career
politicians and bureaucrats in Washington have managed to reach nearly
forty trillion dollars in debt without so much as a
second thought. When asked who's to blame for our crushing
level of debt, the answer is everyone. And by the way,
I will add to this, it's not just the politicians.
It's not just the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Okay,
it's not just the elected officials. It's not even just
the bureaucrats, the Federal Reserve people like, yes, they are
all part of it, but it's not just them.
Speaker 3: It's everyone.
Speaker 1: It's all of us, everybody that keeps voting these people
into office, and everybody that keeps demanding that something has
to be done, that government needs to do something, that
we need another program, more money needs to go there, whatever,
and nobody ever wants to talk about the cuts. It's
usually one of the uh, the questions that I get
crickets in response to whenever I ask people running for office,
particularly Republicans, and I asked them, you say, you want
to you know, cut spending. Where do you want to cut?
What do you want to cut? And usually it's something like, well,
we're going to take a look at some things and
there's waste, fraud and abuse or whatever whatever. But there's
never specifics because as soon as you start listing to
specific cuts, now you have constituencies that are attached to
those programs and services, like the Somalians, and they won't
vote for you, and they're not going to want their
ox to get gourd. This year, he says, Congress voted
to raise the debt ceiling by five trillion dollars, the
most we have ever had now. His report also cites
numerous examples of bizarre experiments and training programs that we're funding.
For example, the National Institutes of Health spent five million
dollars to give dogs cocaine, which seems like a waste.
I think they get the zoomies already. I don't know
why you need to give them cocaine. I don't know
why that's Like, how is that legal? Like on two fronts?
Number one? How did you procure the coke?
Speaker 3: Right? Like?
Speaker 1: That seems to me to be a bit of a problem,
Like how are you getting the cocaine into this government facility?
Speaker 3: How is that?
Speaker 1: Oh? Oh, okay, guys, I think I figured out what
Hunter Biden's been up too recently. Efforts too soon, too soon,
So we're feeding dogs coke.
Speaker 3: Also thirteen, I mean.
Speaker 1: Think about five million dollars, five million dollars to give
dogs cocaine. I feel like we can do that a
lot cheaper, you know, although I guess you want to
make sure that it's it's cut pure, because nowadays, you know,
I wouldn't trust anything out there on the streets because
of the pentomylonoll So maybe that's.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's why.
Speaker 1: Also, the nih spent almost fourteen million dollars on those
beagle experiments. Remember those people who may not be aware
of this, These were the experiments pioneered by former NIAID
or NIAD director Anthony Saint Fauci, right where they would
put beagles into a like a it almost looks like
an iron lung, you know, remember those things or have
you heard of those things where it's like the body
is well, except it's like reverse. The head is put
into like a container and then it's like it's sealed
at the neck or the body is out on the
stretcher or whatever, so that's out exposed, but the head
is inside this containment unit and then they they they
kill the dogs using like sand fleas or something. Yeah,
it's barbaric, not to be confused with doctor Barrick, also
part of the whole ni H system. But anyway, like,
uh yeah, this was this was the pioneering work done
by Anthony Fauci's n I H or n I A D.
So apparently we're still funding that crap. I don't know
if they're I don't know if they're given the beagles
the cocaine. I don't know if it's the same dogs.
I'm not sure. But how how have the Republicans not
shut the valve off on that thing?
Speaker 3: What? What?
Speaker 1: What possible science could you be gaining from that? Like, yeah,
we're torture, unless, of course it's some experiment on the
humans that are conducting the experiments and they're like psychopathy.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: The Department of Health and Human Services has spotlighted several
times in Ran Paul's Festivus Report. James Lynch writing about
it at the National Review, HHS spent one and a
half million dollars to combat drug use in Latin X
communities through influencer marketing campaigns. So we're paying YouTubers and
TikTokers and instagrammers to tell people drugs bad, but to
do it in Spanish. I guess that's the idea. Also,
one point nine million dollars on a mobile phone intervention
meant to help reduce obesity among Latino families in the
Los Angeles area.
Speaker 3: So just LA.
Speaker 1: So we have a bunch of obese Latinxers in LA,
and so we're going to text message them at a
cost of almost two million dollars to like, hey, stop
eating another LA focused HHS program. And by the way,
see this is why we saw the rise of the
NGOs and this this system that we are now crippled
under the weight of the fraud because government was doing
this kind of crap so much that about fifteen twenty
five years ago, Republicans made this big push to be like,
stop spending this money on these things. Obviously they didn't
do great job of it, because we're still spending this money,
but they're like, we need to, you know, get the
private sector to do this stuff because they can make
the money go.
Speaker 3: Further and further.
Speaker 1: They made it go absolutely all the way to Somalia
in some cases. So now we have both of these systems.
We have both the government programs that are spent money
like this and we have nonprofits that are just taking
a bunch of money and not really doing anything with it, which, honestly,
if I'm comparing the nonprofit model of doing nothing with
it versus like the murdering of the beagles, I'd go
with the nonprofit model. All right, if you're listening to
this show, you know I try to keep up with
all sorts of current events, and I know you do too,
and you've probably heard me say get your news from
multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias,
which is why I've been so impressed with ground News.
It's an app, and it's a website and it combines
news from around the world in one place so you
can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it
out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I
put the link in the podcast description too. I started
using ground News a few months ago and more recently
chose to work with them as an affiliate because it
lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom.
The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored
by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check
dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link
and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use
the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.
Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. Message on the WBT text line from Andy
am I to assume that Doge no longer exists. Yeah,
you haven't heard a whole lot about Doge in a while.
Speaker 3: Have. We's a it's a good point, Andy.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it exists, and I follow
the news pretty closely, but I don't think it exists anymore.
I think, you know, Elon got into his fight with Trump,
and that guy large orbs got attacked in DC, and
then after that, like it just all went away. I
think they did speed up the retirement process for the
federal employees. Remember that then covered the vault of paperwork
inside a mountain, and that only a certain number of
federal employees could retire in any given year because they
literally could not process more than a certain amount of
files per year. And the reason why they couldn't do
that was because the elevator that takes you down into
the crypt of these files, it moves at a certain
rate of speed, and so the elevator could only make
a certain number of trips per day. So yeah, again,
I will say, if we were building GOV code today,
it would not look like what it does right now.
You know, we would have built a different kind of system.
But you know, once you build these things, everything gets
built on top of these older systems, and then they
eventually collapsed because the older systems can no longer support
the you know, the innovations and the population growth and whatever.
So let's see here back to h rand Paul's report
on his list of grievances of federal waste fraud and abuse.
The Los Angeles area focused HHS program a marketing campaign
towards certain I don't know which one, certain LGBT subcultures.
I don't know what that means, nine hundred and thirty
six thousand dollars to inform them about STD testing and treatment.
HHS had another drug oriented project in New York City,
where the agency spent two million dollars to collect spit
and conduct surveys at ed M clubs and festivals. Ed M,
I believe is the electronic dance music or disco music.
I think it's dance music, you know where it like
they play that crazy music and they got the crazy
lights going, and then everybody, you know, takes a bunch
of drugs. And so apparently they went in and took
a bunch of saliva samples from people.
Speaker 3: I don't know why.
Speaker 1: But additionally, HHS gave three point three million dollars to
Northwestern University to create scientific neighborhoods. No idea what that
is but also that would hire space ambassadors. Oh sorry,
safe space ambassadors, because yeah, I would say, if it's
a space ambassador, you would put them under space Force. No,
by the way, do we have any space ambassadors in
space Force? Seems like we should probably have a couple
just in case, you know, just in case we're out
there and we encounter somebody and they're like, take me
to your leader, Like who are they saying that to?
It probably would be a good idea to have an
ambassador just kind of floating around the Earth. So if
some ship arrives, then like we hello, I am the
ambassador to space. It's a pretty large jurisdiction. But no,
this is a safe space ambassador. So I guess they
only would be an ambassador in the safe spaces in
the scientific neighborhoods. Not sure why the whole neighborhood wouldn't
be a safe space, but definitely worth a three million
dollars Along with forming committees with the purpose of dismantling
systemic racism. Is that because if you build a scientific community,
there wouldn't be enough women in.
Speaker 3: I kid, I kid.
Speaker 1: Women could do science too. I'm not saying they can't,
but men are overrepresented in I'm not trying to get
into that whole argument. I'm just saying a major HHS
expense that previously drew scrutiny twenty two point six billion
spent on welfare and other expenses for illegal immigrants during
the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: So we've moved.
Speaker 1: Past the the You know, there's a cycle that occurs
here where it's you know, first you deny that the
thing is happening, and then you admit, okay, fine, it's happening,
but it's just a little it's not a lot, it
doesn't influence elections or anything. It's it's just a little bit.
And then it moves on to okay, it's happening, and
here's why that's a good thing. That's usually the cycle. Now,
there are some there are like a little stops along
the way. There could be like, Okay, yes it's happening,
but you know, a pox upon you for noticing that
it's happening, right, or before you get to the point
where you say, okay, it's happening, but only a little bit,
you may say something like you're racist if you are
accusing these people of doing this thing, or you're racist
for thinking that this thing is happening, right, So you
get those types of arguments between the first and second phase.
So there is a new phase. By the way, let's
see here this is from uh I believe his name
is Josh Geron Gerstein, who is a I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3: He is a senior.
Speaker 1: Legal affairs reporter at Politico Legal Affairs. Keep that in mind,
that's what this guy specializes in as a reporter legal affairs.
And he's commenting on the Somali fraud story and he
says at some point the amateur effort to knock on
doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand your ground laws,
So like that would be another stop in that in
that cycle of like you know, after okay, fine, it's happening,
but it's only a little bit, then it would be like, okay,
it's happening and it's a good thing, and then you
could maybe throw in there and if you if you
ask about it, then you should be you know, shot.
So I think maybe that's another way point that we're
adding here.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: By the way, a stand your ground law would not
apply if you were to go up and knock on
a daycare center's door. That that's not stand your ground.
There's no threats being communicated or anything. You're not you're
not trying to, you know, threaten people with bodily harm
or anything. So there's no stand your ground law. I
feel they need to point this out to the senior
legal affairs reporter at Politico. He may be thinking of
the castle doctrine right where if somebody is in your
home you can use force against them, But that wouldn't
apply either, because you are a public business, you know,
and me knocking on the door of a public business
does not give business owner the right to shoot me
through the door. Okay, so that doesn't even apply either.
Speaker 3: So he's just completely wrong on both of those counts.
Speaker 1: Anyway, back to their report, seven and a half billion
dollars of congressional funding allocated for the Biden Administration's ev
charger network the electric vehicle charger network, So seven and
a half billion dollars built sixty eight charging stations. That
is quite the bang for the buck, right there. Seven
point five billion for sixty eight charging stations. Over at
the National Science Foundation, fourteen million dollars went to have
monkeys play a video game inspired by the prices right
game show. Not sure why we need monkeys playing a
video game, but sounds like a decent game. I'm gonna
do it like the price is right. So two point
four million on programs that promote bugs as food for
human consumption. But we're not trying to make you eat bugs, everybody.
We're just funding a campaign to convince you to eat bugs.
The Pentagon spend seventy seven million every year actually on
a dolphin training program. Not sure what the training entails.
I wonder if they have different do they have different
metrics for the female dolphins and the male dolphin.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: The DoD is also funding two point eight million dollars
of grants for implanting a borded fetal tissue into humanized
mice for some reason.
Speaker 3: Don't know why. Don't know how to humanize a mouse.
Speaker 1: Actually, I don't want to know how one would go
about humanizing a mouse.
Speaker 3: It sounds horrific. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
So if you'd like, please support them too and tell
them you heard it here. You can also become a
patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.